NASA’s longest-serving shuttle, Discovery, was transported from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center atop a Boeing 747 just after dawn this morning. After flying a victory lap around the capitol, it landed at Virginia’s Dulles International Airport, from which it will be moved to the Smithsonian Institution on Thursday.
(Photos via National Geographic)
Firefighters douse a smoldering ridge southwest of Denver with slurry. The blaze has already destroyed 16 homes in the area and continues to spread. (via)
What is slurry?
In general, a slurry is a “thick suspension of solids in a liquid”. But, in particular, the slurry used as a fire retardant in this particular photo, according to the US Air Force, is composed of 80-85% water and 10-15% ammonium sulfate. The ammonium sulfate acts as both a gelling agent and red dye, which helps pilots determine areas that have not already been canvased by previous loads.
These long-term fire retardants are more efficient than plain water, as it works in two phases. First the water extinguishes its portion of the fire, but once the water is completely evaporated, the chemical residue that remains prevents vegetation and other materials from igniting again by binding to cellulose, until it is eroded or washed away with rain.
The residue left over has no ill health affects unless it seeps its way into the water supply, so pilots are careful not to spray near waterways. It also causes no damage to buildings and is relatively easy to clean off, due to its dispersion as a mist. Along with its extinguishing properties, this concoction makes a decent fertilizer.
Read more about slurry here.
Deep-sea submarines may seem impenetrable, but in 1967, a peculiar incident enlightened scientists to just how unusual things can get while below the surface.
This particular submersible was the US Navy’s Alvin. Built in 1965, by its retirement, it had survived expeditions to the Titanic, searching for sunken hydrogen bombs, and exploring hydrothermal vents for the first time, but it received a nastly blow along the way from an unlikely predator. According to Gizmodo:
It was after the overhaul, in 1967, when Alvin got attacked by a swordfish at a depth of around 2,000 feet, during dive number 202—somewhere around the Blake Plateau and Cape Charles, in the Bahamas. The pilots heard a big metallic noise, the whole submarine shook, and something penetrated the hull.
It was a dangerous situation, so the crew decided to get quickly back to the surface. When its mothership—105-foot catamaran Lulu—lifted Alvin off the surface, they discovered this huge swordfish stuck in the hull.
While this may seem nearly impossible, its necessary to factor in that these species of fish are so extremely aggressive that they will attack just about everything, even including sharks multiple time their size. This one just managed to both pick out a submarine and pierce it at just the right angle. Bravo! What rewards did it get for its valiant efforts? Well, it was reportedly cooked and eaten by the crew of its intended prey.
We can only hope James Cameron avoids any encounters like these today!
On February 26, 2012, a 17-year-old African-American named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida. The shooter was George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white man. Zimmerman admits killing Martin, but claims he was acting in self-defense. Three weeks after Martin’s death, no arrests have been made and Zimmerman remains free.
Here is what everyone should know about the case:
1. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin’s “suspicious” behavior, which he described as “just walking around looking about.” Zimmerman was in his car when he saw Martin walking on the street. He called the police and said: “There’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about… These a**holes always get away” [Orlando Sentinel]
2. Zimmerman pursued Martin against the explicit instructions of the police dispatcher:
Dispatcher: “Are you following him?”
Zimmerman: “Yeah”
Dispatcher: “OK, we don’t need you to do that.”3. Prior to the release of the 911 tapes, Zimmerman’s father released a statement claiming “[a]t no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin.” [Sun Sentinel]
4. Zimmerman was carrying a a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. [ABC News]
5. Martin weighed 140 pounds. Zimmerman weighs 250 pounds. [Orlando Sentinel; WDBO]
6. Martin’s English teacher described him as “as an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” [Orlando Sentinel]
7. Martin had no criminal record. [New York Times]
8. Zimmerman “was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer. The charges appear to have been dropped.” [Huffington Post]
9. Zimmerman called the police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011. [Miami Harald]
10. According to neighbors, Zimmerman was “fixated on crime and focused on young, black males.” [Miami Herald]
11. Zimmerman “had been the subject of complaints by neighbors in his gated community for aggressive tactics” [Huffington Post]
12. A police officer “corrected” a key witness. “The officer told the witness, a long-time teacher, it was Zimmerman who cried for help, said the witness. ABC News has spoken to the teacher and she confirmed that the officer corrected her when she said she heard the teenager shout for help.” [ABC News]
13. Three witnesses say they heard a boy cry for help before a shot was fired. “Three witnesses contacted by The Miami Herald say they saw or heard the moments before and after the Miami Gardens teenager’s killing. All three said they heard the last howl for help from a despondent boy.” [Miami Herald]
14. The officer in charge of the crime scene also received criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. [New York Times]
The Martin case had been turned over to the Seminole County State Attorney’s Office. Martin’s family has asked for the FBI to investigate.
Are we at risk of losing all of our progress with antibiotics?
According to Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization, a world where our antibiotics fail to heal is inching closer to reality, as bacteria build resistances to antibiotics that could render every antibiotic scientists have painstakingly developed useless. Chan states that it could be “the end of modern medicine as we know it,” making routine operations impossible, canceling out the utility of antibiotics against tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and even simple cuts.
According to Chan:
Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill. Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units. For patients infected with some drug-resistant pathogens, mortality has been shown to increase by around 50 per cent. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it.
Thermographic Photography
Revealing insulation inefficiencies in everyday objects (via)
The antimatter version of the hydrogen atom - antihydrogen - could soon finally give up its secrets.
Scientists expect that antihydrogen will have exactly the same properties as hydrogen; but after 80 years, the test is only just becoming possible.
A report in Nature has shown the first “spectra” of trapped antihydrogen, showing the energy required to change the spins of its positrons.
So how exactly is the Gulf of Mexico after the worst oil spill in human history?
According to the National Geographic:
A spill that started with the tragic loss of life soon wrought major environmental devastation over huge region of the Gulf. Disturbing images appeared daily of oiled wildlife, iridescent surface slicks, overwhelmed cleanup workers, fouled beaches, burning oil fires, and blackened wetlands.The damage from nearly five million barrels of oil was very real, yet many expert predictions missed their marks. Hurricanes didn’t drive enormous quantities of oil ashore, giant dead zones didn’t materialize, and oil didn’t round the tip of Florida to rocket up the East Coast via the Gulf Stream. Fisheries now appear poised to rebound instead of suffering the barren years or decades some feared. And Mother Nature had her own surprises in store, showcasing an ability to fight back against the spill and, later, to bounce back from the damage—at least in the short-term.
However, uncertainty still reigns among those trying to come to grips with the spill’s ultimate legacy. Even the final fate of all that oil is a matter of some debate—though the gooey crude still clings to some shorelines, where it will be visible for years to come.
Scientists and engineers have been fascinated with spider silk’s amazing and unimaginable capabilities, as it is one of the toughest, yet most delicate materials in existence. The latest use has been in a bow of a violin, enabling musicians to play profoundly soft and versatile melodies.
While these images may seem like simply a cute photoset of a bear scratching an itch with a rock, it is actually the first observation of a brown bear using a tool. Volker Deecke, a researcher at University of Cumbria, managed to capture several images of this bear using a barnacle-covered rock back in 2010, in Glacier Bay, Alaska. (via)
![This sea snake pictured above is a newly-discovered species of highly-venomous sea snake found off of the coast of northern Australia. While this in itself wouldn’t be too newsworthy, the fact that it is covered from heat to tail in very spiny scales is quite fascinating. Here’s a close-up:
Very little is known about this creature, now named Hydrophis donaldi, as of yet, and it is likely to remain that way, as according to Bryan Fry, of University of Queensland:
Field observations are impossible, because the water is very murky and filled with lots of very large bull sharks and saltwater crocodiles, in addition to [highly poisonous] box jellyfish. If we tried to dive there, our life expectancy would be measured in minutes. The only question is which animal would kill us. My money is on the bull sharks.
Read More at National Geographic
And thanks to xradicald for showing me this article!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0bwgzc3En1qk01v6o1_500.jpg)
This sea snake pictured above is a newly-discovered species of highly-venomous sea snake found off of the coast of northern Australia. While this in itself wouldn’t be too newsworthy, the fact that it is covered from heat to tail in very spiny scales is quite fascinating. Here’s a close-up:
Very little is known about this creature, now named Hydrophis donaldi, as of yet, and it is likely to remain that way, as according to Bryan Fry, of University of Queensland:
Field observations are impossible, because the water is very murky and filled with lots of very large bull sharks and saltwater crocodiles, in addition to [highly poisonous] box jellyfish. If we tried to dive there, our life expectancy would be measured in minutes. The only question is which animal would kill us. My money is on the bull sharks.
Read More at National Geographic
And thanks to xradicald for showing me this article!
Planet’s Glow May Shine Light on Possible Life
Earthshine is the sunlight that is reflected off Earth and reflected back by the moon, and while it may seem like this is simply just a pretty glow to be seen from other positions of the universe, some astronomers believe the shines of exoplanets could speak wonders about its potential for life.
These glows emitted by planets display imprints of the chemicals present in their atmospheres and the materials on the surface (as plants and rocks do not reflect light similarly). However, with their parent stars’ shines being infinitely brighter, detecting minuscule variations in glow within an exoplanet poses a dilemma.
By using a large telescope to examine our own polarized earthshine, Michael Sterzik and colleagues of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile, were able to distinguish the polarized light of planets from the unpolarized stars filling the sky. Through this team’s testing, they were able to confirm the technique’s accuracy, as their results concluded that Earth had “light signatures of oxygen, ozone and water, as well as an increase in reflected wavelengths characteristic of vegetation.” With even larger telescopes pointed outward, looking for these characteristics among exoplanets should be a viable possibility.
Single Molecule’s Electric Charges Seen in First Image
Researchers at IBM Research Zurich are now enthusiastically sharing the images of the “charge distribution” in a single molecule, displaying the “intricate dance” of electrons.
While scientists have previously been able to measure the charges of subatomic particles of a single atom, it has proven much more trying to capture these charges within a larger molecule. These pioneering images and techniques could very possibly shed light on many “charge-transfer” processes which frequently occur in nature.
This group of researchers has already been known for their accomplishments, as they have measured the charge on single atoms and captured the first image of a single molecule. Yet, for the latest innovation, the team implemented a different technique: Kelvin probe microscopy, a variant of the atomic force microscopy that allowed their first molecular image in 2009.
