Marc Kaufman: First Contact

Posted on July 31, 2011 by RichardPrins

Marc Kaufman visits Google’s San Francisco office to present his book “First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth“. This event took place on May 27, 2011, as part of the Authors@Google series.

In his riveting, game-changing book First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth Marc Kaufman, The Washington Post science and space reporter, tells the incredible true story of science’s search for the beginnings of life on Earth and the likelihood of it existing elsewhere in our universe. He has received amazing praise, a sampling is below, and the book is being embraced by the science community from NASA to the Smithsonian and the Natural History Museum.

For decades, researchers assumed that the genesis of life was too delicate a process to exist anywhere other than Earth. But recent discoveries from microbes living in unimaginably inhospitable environments to new extra-solar planets point towards a day when the existence of extraterrestrial life will be confirmed. Kaufman takes readers around the globe, into space, and miles below Earth’s surface to show how the search for life on other planets is changing the way humans think about their own history, what it means to be human, and what, exactly, life is. It is a complicated quest made simple: First Contact is the first book to bring together cutting-edge developments across the many branches of science, from microbiology to geochemistry, physics, and astronomy, that are racing to verify what was once deemed impossible. Kaufman demystifies the rigorous science and advanced technology that is edging ever closer to the most important scientific discovery of our time.

Also see a related SETI Talk and panel discussion which features Kaufman, as well as Jill Tarter, Seth Shostak and Frank Drake:

Finally, you can check out Kaufman’s website.

Drew Berry: Astonishing Molecular Machines

Posted on July 6, 2011 by RichardPrins

Via ABC/TEDx:

Molecules are really, really tiny … so small no-one can show them to you. That’s where Drew Berry comes in. He’s what’s known as a “biomedical animator”. His job is to build scientifically-accurate and aesthetically-rich computer graphics which reveal the microscopic world inside our bodies.

Berry brings a rigorous scientific approach to each project, immersing himself in relevant research to ensure current data are accurately represented. His animated renderings of key concepts such as cell death, tumour growth and DNA packaging show molecular shape, scale, behaviour, and spatio-temporal dynamics in action.

Berry’s animations, made to enlighten both scientists and the scientifically curious, have been exhibited at prestige venues like the Guggenheim and MOMA in New York and have won him an award for being a ‘Genius’. His illuminating TEDx Sydney show-and-tell includes wild graphics of DNA moving through the body and malaria infiltrating a baby’s vital organs after a mosquito bite.

Drew Berry trained as a cell biologist and microscopist, and has worked as a biomedical animator since 1995, most recently at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. Drew received his BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Melbourne. His animations have appeared in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Royal Institute of Great Britain, and the University of Geneva. In 2010, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Carl Zimmer: A Planet of Viruses / Viral Time

Posted on June 21, 2011 by RichardPrins

Via Fora.tv / Long Now Foundation / The Loom, a great lecture by Carl Zimmer on the ubiquity and (evolutionary) speed of microbes and viruses:

The frontier of biology these days is the genetics and ecology of bacteria, and the frontier of THAT is what’s being learned about viruses. “The science of virology is still in its early, wild days,” writes Carl Zimmer. “Scientists are discovering viruses faster than they can make sense of them.”

The Earth’s atmosphere is determined in large part by ocean bacteria; every day viruses kill half of them. Every year in the oceans, viruses transfer a trillion trillion genes between host organisms. They evolve faster than anything else, and they are a major engine of the evolution of the rest of life. Our own bodies are made up of 10 trillion human cells, 100 trillion bacteria, and 4 trillion very busy viruses. Some of them kill us. Many of them help us. Some of them are us. Viral time is ancient and blindingly fast.

Science journalist Carl Zimmer’s new book, A Planet of Viruses, is the best introduction to the subject. His previous books include Parasite Rex and Microcosm.

The first ten minutes below. Switch to fora.tv afterwards to see the rest.

The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schön

Posted on June 17, 2011 by RichardPrins

A BBC documentary from the Horizon series:

Imagine a world where disease could be eradicated by an injection of tiny robots the size of molecules. That is the hope offered by nanotechnology – the science of microscopically small machines. But others fear nanotechnology could lead to a non-biological cancer – where swarms of tiny nanobots come together and literally devour human flesh.

Sounds like science fiction? It certainly did until a brilliant young scientist called Hendrik Schön seemed to bring it a step closer.

Schön’s great breakthrough was to make a computer transistor out of a single organic molecule. It was an achievement of almost incalculable brilliance. Some speculated this technology could spell the end of the entire silicon chip industry.

Crucially, Schön’s transistor was organic. Suddenly, this seemed to be the first step towards true nanotechnology, where minute computers could grow as living cells.

Scientists speculated about how these tiny machines could be used to target diseases with astonishing precision. Others wondered – could the military use them as a new weapon? Others, including Prince Charles, were terrified. If these machines can grow by themselves, how do we stop them from growing?

“The amazing thing about Hendrik was that everything he touched seemed to work.”
~ Professor Paul McEeun, Cornell University

What happened next would destroy reputations and shatter lives – because there was more to Hendrik Schön’s discovery than anyone knew.

Related links: Bell Labs research report
Is scientific fraud committed by only a few “bad apples”? (Physics World Blog)
Physics and Pixie Dust (American Scientist book review)
Jan Hendrik Schön: World Class Physics Fraud Gets Last Laugh – A Whole Book About Himself (Science 2.0)

Peter Nowak: Sex, Bombs and Burgers

Posted on June 16, 2011 by RichardPrins

ABC: What forces are driving the rapid technological developments that continue to shape our world? According to author Peter Nowak it is a very unholy trinity; the war, porn and fast food industries. In this talk at Gleebooks, Nowak brands the internet as “military made, porn perfected” and explains his thesis and looking at how these industries drive technological change.

Canadian writer Peter Nowak is the author of “Sex, Bombs and Burgers” which was published in 2010. He is a senior science and technology reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s online news division.

Peter Blasina is also known as “The Gadget Guy” and he regularly reports on technology online and on Australian television and radio including the Channel 7 program ‘Sunrise’

42 mins 28 secs, also on Fora.tv.

EteRNA

Posted on January 14, 2011 by RichardPrins

EteRNA, developed by Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University is a Flash-based folding game, like Fold It, that enlists users to fold RNA for optimized versions, which can then be tested in the lab. Citizen science!

You can participate by signing up directly at the site or linking through facebook (and setting your profile on the EteRNA site).

The game comes with a tutorial to get you familiar with the building blocks of RNA and how to manipulate them to get the desired folding shape. After the tutorial one can try to solve a number of increasingly difficult puzzles.

Scores are kept and displayed in a leaderboard. The game auto-saves the progress on the latest puzzle you might have been working on.

For more expert knowledge on how to solve the puzzles, a number of strategy guides can be found through the community which help in solving and further optimizing the RNA folds.

Scoring 10,000 points or more, by solving the tutorials and a bunch of the challenges, gives you access to the RNA Lab where a real version of some version of RNA can be designed and proposed, which after voting, will then be tested in the real lab.

You can get an idea of what it looks like through an embedded version, as below:

For more detailed info on how the folding of RNA is used, see their information page.

Some media links:
RNA Game Lets Players Help Find a Biological Prize (NY Times)
Online game helps predict how RNA folds (New Scientist)
New video game makes game players Stanford professor’s virtual lab assistants (Stanford)

And finally a short video from Carnegie Mellon that explains EteRNA:

The Quest for a Living World: Exoplanets panel discussion

Posted on July 9, 2010 by RichardPrins

Via Bad Astronomy (88m 29s):

As the flyer above shows, The Quest for a Living World was a panel discussion of astronomers searching for planets orbiting other stars, with the hope of eventually finding earth-like planets. They talked about the technology being used to look for planets, how the science is progressing, and how they look for signs of life.

On a related note: A new way to find Earths (Astrobiology Magazine)

Science Shorts 20100613

Posted on June 13, 2010 by RichardPrins

Scientists track electrons in molecules (PhysOrg)
Physicists in Europe have successfully glimpsed the motion of electrons in molecules. The results are a major boon for the research world. Knowing how electrons move within molecules will facilitate observations and fuel our understanding of chemical reactions.

New study indicates an ancient ocean may have covered one-third of Mars (PhysOrg) >
A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, according to a new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists.

In North Atlantic, researchers find a sea of garbage (PhysOrg)
The North Atlantic Ocean is looking more like a rubbish bin, with plastic and polystyrene flotsom spreading far and wide, according to four French explorers just back from eight months at sea.

LOFAR: World’s biggest radiotelescope launched in Netherlands (PhysOrg)
Scientists in the Netherlands unveiled the largest radiotelescope in the world on Saturday, saying it was capable of detecting faint signals from almost as far back as the Big Bang.

Sunburnt plants ‘myth’ is debunked (Telegraph UK)
A long held belief among gardeners that watering plants in the heat of the midday sun can damage the leaves has been proved false following research by scientists.

Xenophilious

Richard Prins' collection of pseudorandom perceptions

Category Archives: Chemistry