Onelargeprawn » Science & Technology

This is Your Body Attacking Cancer

prawn1 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:55:50 +0000

Cambridge University’s Under the Microscope series takes a close-up look at the world through the lens of a microscope. The latest video shot by PhD student Alex Ritter captures the showdown between a dangerous cancer cell and a Cytotoxic T cell, a special type of white blood cell that is one-tenth the width of a human hair. Its mission in life is to destroy virally infected cells. Professor Gillian Griffiths of Cambridge University explains:

Cells of the immune system protect the body against pathogens. If cells in our bodies are infected by viruses, or become cancerous, then killer cells of the immune system identify and destroy the affected cells. Cytotoxic T cells are very precise and efficient killers. They are able to destroy infected or cancerous cells, without destroying healthy cells surrounding them. The Wellcome Trust funded laboratory of Professor Gillian Griffiths, at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, investigates just how this is accomplished. By understanding how this works, we can develop ways to control killer cells. This will allow us to find ways to improve cancer therapies, and ameliorate autoimmune diseases caused when killer cells run amok and attack healthy cells in our bodies.”

The video is filmed at 92 times faster than real time.

See more Under the Microscope videos on YouTube.

[via io9]

The Blue Marble Through the Years

prawn1 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:31:33 +0000

On December 7th in 1972, far far above our heads, Apollo 17 blasted off from the Earth on its way to the Moon. About five hours into the journey, the spaceship was 45,000 kilometres away and at the point where it was facing the Earth, the astronauts onboard took photos of our planet. One of those photos (AS17-148-22727) which showed a fully-illuminated Earth looked like a glass marble to the astronauts, and is famously called The Blue Marble.

NASA has continued The Blue Marble series with similar photos in 2000, 2002, 2007, 2010, and the two most recent images date from just a few days ago. The initial image was captured by the Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP and focussed on North and Central America. Due to popular demand NASA released a second image, this time displaying Africa, Saudi Arabia, and India to the east. Have a look at these two amazing images after the jump.

Western Hemisphere (Flickr)

Eastern Hemisphere (Flickr)

And here are some of the previous Blue Marble images.

2010 (Flickr)

2007 (Flickr)

2002 (Flickr)

2000 (Flickr)

1972 (Wikipedia)

[via Wired]

Symphony of Science: Onward to the Edge!

prawn1 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:33:19 +0000

If you enjoyed John Boswell’s Ode to the Brain, you may like this too. Since 2009, the composer has been creating the Symphony of Science set of videos with the aim of teaching the fundamentals of science through the medium of music.

In Onward to the Edge, the twelfth installment in the series, a trio of auto-tuned scientists wax lyrical about space exploration and the wonders of the solar system.

For more info about the project, visit Symphony of Science.

[via Brain Pickings]

Behold, the Icy Finger of Death!

prawn1 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:10:35 +0000

Cameramen for BBC One’s seven-part nature series Frozen Planet captured an interesting phenomenon in the freezing waters at Little Razorback Island, in Antarctica. Using a rig of time-lapse equipment, the crew filmed what looks like an icy finger of death as it extended from the ice sheet and touched the sear floor, freezing everything around it.

This icicle of death is called a brinicle. Dr Mark Brandon at the Open University explains how such a brinicle is formed:

In winter, the air temperature above the sea ice can be below -20C, whereas the sea water is only about -1.9C. Heat flows from the warmer sea up to the very cold air, forming new ice from the bottom. The salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath.

The result is the brine sinks in a descending plume. But as this extremely cold brine leaves the sea ice, it freezes the relatively fresh seawater it comes in contact with. This forms a fragile tube of ice around the descending plume, which grows into what has been called a brinicle.

See a brinicle forming in this little excerpt from the Frozen Planet series.

It is the first time that the crew has managed to film a brinicle forming. You can read more about how they captured the footage on the BBC website.

[via +Paul Scott]

Conception to Birth, Visualized

prawn1 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:30:39 +0000

Alexander Tsiaras is a whiz at scientific visualization. In his early days, he created lenses for microscopes, most notably for the one that captures the very first images of human eggs in an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) program.

In his presentation from a TED conference in 2010, the scientist talks about how the instruction sets used in creating a human being are so complex that they are beyond our comprehension. It’s mathemagical. He also shows a visualization of the development of the human fetus. See Conception to Birth, Visualized below. Be warned, there are some graphic images of the “expulsion” process.

[via Geeks are Sexy]

Earth From Space, a Time-Lapse Compilation

prawn1 — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:00:17 +0000

Using NASA’s Image Science & Analysis Laboratory as a resource, Vimeo user Michael König compiled footage using photographs taken by the crew on board the International Space Station as the space craft orbited the earth. The video covers the period of August to October, and the shows the flyover over the main continents and a number of aurorae captured over the United States, the south of Australia, and the Indian Ocean.

If you missed all the separate videos (this, that, and the other), here’s a chance to catch König’s compilation that has been refurbished, smoothed, denoised, and deflickered for your viewing pleasure.

[via @paukee]

Inside The Milky Way

prawn1 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 07:30:26 +0000

It’s a city of stars above our heads. The Milky Way is a galaxy that stretches a staggering 600,000 trillion miles from one end to the other. And in this National Geographic TV special, we are taken on a journey through the tumultuous moments in the history of the Milky Way, from the birth of this beautiful spiral galaxy all the way to its eventual death.

One of the images used in the documentary is the 800-million-pixel panorama of the Milky Way created by the Gigagalaxy Zoom project. As grand as the image is, it’s a side-on view of the galaxy that we see and astronomers use all manner of high-tech computer tools to work out what it would like if it were viewed from a bird’s-eye view. Watch part one of Inside the Milky Way below.

Find the other parts after the jump, or you could just buy the blu-ray.

[via Geeks are Sexy]

Auroras as Seen From Space

prawn1 — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:01:26 +0000

Earlier on this month, YouTube user yesterday2221 used 600 still photos from NASA’s Image Science and Analysis Laboratory and created a time-lapse video of the view from the International Space Station (ISS) as it orbits the Earth at night. If you missed that, refresh your memory.

YouTuber user, isoeph, has collected raw data from the same NASA source to create another time-lapse video, this time of the auroras as they would be as seen from the ISS in its low Earth orbit.

[via PetaPixel]

Around the World in 62 Seconds

prawn1 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:00:45 +0000

YouTube user yesterday2221 downloaded raw image data from NASA’s Image Science and Analysis Laboratory and created a time-lapse video that shows a view from the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth at night. The movie, comprising 600 still photos, starts over the Pacific Ocean and flies over cities and stormy weather in North and South America, and ends at daylight near Antarctica.

What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth? Check it out below.

[via Slashdot]

The “Benham’s Top” Illusion: What Colour Do You See?

prawn1 — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:02:21 +0000

Gizmodo posted a rather trippy optical illusion yesterday where the green and the blue in this spiral are actually the same color. As interesting as that is (the explanation is here), one of the commenters submitted another illusion that caught my eye.

The Benham top, created by nineteenth-century British toymaker Charles Benham, is a disc that contains a black-and-white pattern, which when spun gives the illusion of colour. These colours are visible on different parts of the disk, and not everyone see the same colour.

I see red quite clearly. What about you?

The answer to why different people see different colours on Benham’s top is not a concrete one. Hit the jump to read one of the theories.

Different people see different intensities of colors on this spinning disk. Just why people see color here is not fully understood, but the illusion involves color vision cells in your eyes called cones.

There are three types of cones. One is most sensitive to red light, one to green light, and one to blue light. Each type of cone has a different latency time, the time it takes to respond to a color, and a different persistence of response time, the time it keeps responding after the stimulus has been removed. Blue cones, for example, are the slowest to respond (have the longest latency time), and keep responding the longest (have the longest persistence time).

When you gaze at one place on the spinning disk, you are looking at alternating flashes of black and white. When a white flash goes by, all three types of cones respond. But your eyes and brain see the color white only when all three types of cones are responding equally. The fact that some types of cones respond more quickly than others — and that some types of cones keep responding longer than others — leads to an imbalance that partly explains why you see colors.

The colors vary across the disk because at different radial positions on the disk the black arcs have different lengths, so that the flashing rate they produce on the retina is also different.

The explanation of the colors produced by Benham’s disk is more complicated than the simple explanation outlined above. For example, the short black arcs that are on all Benham’s disks must also be thin, or no colors will appear.

[via Gizmodo | Exploratorium]

Google’s New Data Centre is Cool

prawn1 — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 07:15:59 +0000

Internet search giant Google has opened a new, cool data centre in Hamina, Finland. The site used to be a paper mill, but in 2009, Google purchased the 60-year-old pulp factory with a mind to construct a data centre that would significantly reduce its impact on the environment. Data centre servers are usually kept cool by blasting cold air at them, an inefficient process that requires vast amounts of power. Last year Google is reported to have used 2.26 terawatt hours of electricity, the same amount of electricity that would be used by 200,000 average American homes.

At the Hamina data centre, Google has used a renewable resource at the heart of its cooling system — seawater. There was existing seawater intake tunnel underneath the paper mill, and it was repurposed to provide cooling to massive banks of servers. The new water-to-water exchange system pumps in frigid water from the Gulf of Finland through the intake, and it travels through a myriad of pipes in the data centre to cool the components. That water is then piped to another building, where it is mixed with an incoming stream of sea water, so it is cooled before it is returned to the Gulf of Finland.

This new power-efficient data centre cost €200 million to build. Take a quick look into the inner workings.

[via Wall Street Journal]

In the Shadow of Saturn

prawn1 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 07:15:52 +0000

You might not believe it, but this is an actual photograph reported to have been taken back in 2006 as the Cassini space probe sheltered in the shadow of Saturn. It was 2.2 million kilometers away from the gas giant when it took the photograph.

Astronomy Photo of the Day explains the image thus:

The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other.

First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image.

Hit the jump to see the full image.

Click here to see the photo in its full resolution. You can read more about the photo at NASA.

[via +Newlande Van Rooyen]

How a Virus Attacks Your Body

prawn1 — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:40:59 +0000

This educational short narrated by NPR’s science correspondent Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky, shows us how the flu virus gets access to our system (it has a key, LOL) and tricks our own cells into becoming the assembly-line factories that churn out more and more copies of the virus itself.

Bolinsky who created the video says that it is essentially in slow motion, the infection process takes a fraction of a second to occur. Also, they added colour to the different protein and DNA material in the video because at their tiny size they are, for all intents and purposes, colourless.

[via Holy Kaw!]

Oh Look! The Vasculature of a Porcine Heart

prawn1 — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 19:50:40 +0000

Back in 2007, Flickr user Rob Jones took a photo of the wonderfully intricate mess of veins and capillaries in a porcine heart. With its four chambers and four valves, a pig’s heart is similar to a human one and blood flows through it in a similar way to a human’s.

The image show a porcine heart where the blood was replaced with a plastic substance, and when the tissues surrounding the heart was dissolved, all that remained was the detailed vascular system. Have a look at the full image after the jump.

[via Photojojo!]

The Fastest Living Thing on the Planet?

prawn1 — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:10:37 +0000

In an episode of “Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds”, Richard Hammond travels to the English countryside in search of the fastest living thing on the planet. Would it surprise you to know that it lives in piles of horse poop? Be disgusted and/or amazed below.

If you had some concerns about Hammond’s confusion of speed and acceleration, you may want to read Rhett Allain’s article on Wired, where he uses maths to question Hammond’s claims.

[via The Presurfer]

Food as Seen Through an Electron Microscope

prawn1 — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:30:24 +0000

We’re big fans of how the scanning electron microscope can show the smallest of details. If you liked the last set of in-depth SEM images, you may like the works of Caren Alpert.

As a child, Alpert was fascinated with the back-page quiz of “3-2-1 Contact” Magazine, a quiz that tasked the viewer to identify the items in a selection of close-up images. The photographer (and food lover) has always been interested in the smaller details and has been photographing food for over eight years. After seeing an image taken with an SEM, Alpert was inspired to use the scientific equipment to capture images of the foods that we ingest on a regular basis. The magnification is between 45 and 850 times and the resulting images look like alien landscapes, delicious alien landscapes. Her project is entitled Terra Cibus, see some of her images after the jump.

Pineapple leaf (85X maginification)

Cauliflower (850X magnification)

Kiwi seed (320X magnification)

Chocolate cake (320X magnification)

Vitamin C (50X magnification)

Shrimp tail (230X magnification)

Brussel sprout (110X magnification)

Star anise (14X magnification)

Cake sprinkles (65X magnification)

Table salt (45X magnification)

See more of Alpert’s fascinating images on her gallery.

[via Laughing Squid]

Amazing Electron Microscope Images

prawn1 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:15:02 +0000

A photomicrograph (or micrograph) is an image that is taken through a microscope, and we’ve covered a few of those on the blog including Nikon’s “Small World” competition, a traveller’s tale in a strange microscopic world, and an incredibly close-up look at insects. If you missed any of those, click here to see them.

North American scientific instruments company, FEI, is in the business of supplying electron microscopes to a various industries and it is the fantastic images taken by their line of scanning electron microscope (or SEM), that we’ll show you today. According FEI, their SEMs can magnify 20 to 1,000,000 times better a light microscope and can be used in tasks that contain long scientific words such as 3D cellular ultrastructure, macromolecular localization, and 3D tissue imaging. The proof is really in the details. Hit the jump to see some of the FEI’s microscopic images.

Hydrothermal Worm

This cute critter is a marine organism found near hydrothermal vents in the ocean. It has been magnified 525 times.

Platinum Nano-Wire

This is a platinum wire that has been milled to 50 nanometres in diameter. It is to be used a gas sensor.

Human Tooth

Dentin is found in teeth and comprises tiny channels called dentinal tubules. This images shows those tubules.

Biofilm

This images shows a biofilm that has developed on carbon steel after 14 days of immersion in seawater.

Canyon

This is what happens when you cut a semiconductor at a sloping angle.

Silver and Copper

These colourfully geometric objects are silver particles and copper crystals.

Catepillar Mouth

A catepillar’s mouth and sensory organs are shown here.

Sponge Spicule

This is an image of a spicule as found in a South African sponge (the animal, and not the dish-washing implement).

Crystal Ocean

These are copper crystals on a copper surface.

Nanoflowers

These flowers have been obtained through hydrothermal synthesis, a process of growing crystals from aqueous solutions.

See more wonderful images taken by electron microscopes on the FEI website or on Flickr.

[via James Francis on Twitter]

New World Transparent Specimens

prawn1 — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:01:36 +0000

Fisherman and artist Iori Tomita turns the process of preserving animals into an art form. Tomita, who studied ichthyology at university, uses a interesting staining method to bring colour to animal carcasses. This is his process as explained by Wired:

Tomita first removes the scales and skin of fish that have been preserved in formaldehyde. Next he soaks the creatures in a stain that dyes the cartilage blue. Tomita uses a digestive enzyme called trypsin, along with a host of other chemicals, to break down the proteins and muscles, halting the process just at the moment they become transparent but before they lose their form. The bones are then stained with red dye, and the brilliant beast is preserved in a jar of glycerin.

The staining process for each creature can take anywhere from five months to a year to be complete. The results are absolutely striking, have a look at some of the see-through creatures in his New World Transparent Specimens series after the jump.

See more images on Tomita’s website.

[via Trendland]

The Best Vantage Point Ever!

prawn1 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:45:32 +0000

Thanks to the advent of portable high definition camera and high speed Internet, we are now able to see views that only a handful of extremely lucky and highly-trained individuals get to experience.

Dr. Justin Wilkinson from NASA’s astronaut team serves as a tour guide as he takes us on a a special trip around our globe. The seven-minute journey is seen from the lofty perch of space, and is compiled from footage taken by various astronauts over the years. From the distinctive red sand dunes of the Namib Desert to a swirling hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean to the majestic Amazon River, check out What an Astronaut’s Camera Sees below.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

Majestic Night Sky Time-Lapse

prawn1 — Fri, 27 May 2011 09:47:56 +0000

No matter how many times we’ve marvelled at the Photopic Sky Survey panorama or at the numerous time-lapse videos of the night sky, we’re still drawn to the ever-changing heavens above.

Astrophotographers Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado travelled to the Paranal Observatory on a 2,635m-high mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert and took all the images in this most wonderous time-lapse video. Not only does it show the stars, but also the four separate optical telescopes – the Very Large Telescope ( or VLT) – that monitor the movement of the celestial bodies. Have a look at the video below.

According to Wikipedia’s article on adaptive optics, the laser beam you see emanating from one of the telescopes is in a bid to correct the distortions or blurry effects created by atmospheric turbulence.

[via Popular Science]