laughingsquid:

Anonymous in Polish Parliament

It’s about time these people in power start making a statement

An artists rendition, depicting a time in space where a galaxies core begins to take shape.

(via socialuprooting)

1. Occupy
2. Join an action
3. Reach out to community leaders
4. March with us
5. Call your elected representatives
6. Help develop the Occupy platform
7. Write your local newspaper
8. Engage critics in debate
9. Plan an action
10. Attend a GA
11. Read the Constitution
12. Start an action for online Occupiers (vote in…

jtotheizzoe:

Even newer doubts cast on faster-than-light neutrinos experiment

Yep, even newer than last weeks supporting evidence!

Physicists are poking holes in this ship just as fast as the OPERA team can plug them! Despite last week’s new evidence in support of the faster-than-light (FTL) neutrino observations, a team of competing physicists claim new controversy.

The Icarus team, who share the CERN lab that made the original findings, claim that if a neutrino moved faster than light in this experiment, it would have spewed out a ton of energy in the form of electrons and positrons.

This is because when something moves faster than light in a medium like air or water (as opposed to a vacuum, like all the “theoretical” speeds assume), it energizes its medium … which you’d be able to detect. It’s related to Cherenkov radiation, which is why nuclear reactors glow blue when they are submerged in water. It works like this:

Fission -> Release of Beta Particles -> Faster Than Light Speed In Water -> Water Molecules Energized -> Blue Light Released

The Icarus team saw no such energy release from the OPERA experiment (which did not fly through a vacuum) and claims it must be an observational error.

Is Icarus flying too close to the Sun? Or is this a valid error? Time will tell.

For now, though, the plot thickens, and this guy has promised to eat his boxer shorts on live TV if OPERA holds up.

(via The Guardian, image via Fermilab)

(via jtotheizzoe)

jtotheizzoe:

Atomic-Scale Structure Shows a Weak Spot in Ebola Virus

Move over, Dustin Hoffman … Scripps Research and U.S. Army scientists have used the atomic structure of a protein that the Ebola virus uses to infect animal cells to figure out a neutralizing strategy.

The colored “blob” in the picture above is part of the outer coat of the ebola virus that it uses to get inside cells and wreak havoc. By latching a particular antibody (in gold) onto that protein and figuring out exactly where it grabs hold, they may have found a way to cripple its infection strategy. Now, if they can manufacture the antibody on a large scale, it could be used to neutralize the virus in emergencies.

So, at least in the near future, you and your loved ones may be safe from organ liquefying painful Ebolarama.

(via Scripps.edu)

(via jtotheizzoe)

cwnl:

Humpback Whales May Be Migratory Astronomers

An eight-year project that tracked humpback whale migrations by satellite shows the huge mammals follow uncannily straight paths for weeks at a time.

The results suggest a single migratory mechanism isn’t responsible. Instead, humpbacks may use a combination of the sun’s position, Earth’s magnetism and even star maps to guide their 10,000-mile journeys.

“Humpback whales are going across some of most turbulent waters in the world, yet they keep going straight,” said environmental scientist Travis Horton of the University of Canterbury, whose team will publish their findings April 20 in Biology Letters. “They’re orienting with something outside of themselves, not something internal.”

Read More

(via ikenbot)

jtotheizzoe:

On Jupiter’s Moon Europa: Oceans, Lakes - and Even Life?

More on the latest studies of Europa’s vast lakes of subterranean, icy water, and how new research at my university (UT-Austin) tells us that some of them might be within reach of surface exploration. From Time:

For a scientific paper, the study just published online by Nature starts out more like a bit of poetry — or maybe it’s more like a romance novel. “Europa,” it begins, “the innermost icy satellite of Jupiter, has a tortured, young surface.” That just about sums it up, though. Europa was discovered by Galileo almost exactly 400 years, ago, when he first pointed his primitive telescope at the night sky. But it wasn’t until the Galileo space probe arrived in the 1990s for close-up surveillance that astronomers began to understand its true nature — a rocky core surrounded by a world-spanning ocean scores of miles deep, and topped with a thick coating of cracked, gnarled ice.

That being the case, and liquid water being considered an essential element for life, scientists quickly realized that Europa could harbor its own, homegrown biology — in principle, anyway.

(via TIME, image via UT Austin/Dead Pixel FX)

(via jtotheizzoe)