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Capturing an asteroid
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According to scientists at The Keck Institute for Space Studies in California, NASA is seriously considering capturing an asteroid to put in a high orbit around the moon. If the idea is implemented, we could be looking at a manned mission to "capture" an asteroid in the 2020s. This idea is thought to tie in with the Obama administration's enthusiasm for sending a manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid. If NASA were able to capture an object and lock it into an orbit around the moon, it could be safely used as a practise mission without the need for astronauts to move beyond the range of a rescue mission. ...
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11885 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
H2O2 vapor used to kill superbugs in hospital
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Infection control experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have found that a combination of robot-like devices that disperse hydrogen peroxide vapor into the air and then detoxify the disinfecting chemical are highly effective at killing and preventing the spread of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria. Of special note, researchers say, was that enhanced cleaning with the vapor reduced by 80 percent a patient's chances of becoming colonized by a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat bacterium, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). ...
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11464 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Do fish ever get thirsty?
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A student in my class once asked, do fish ever get thirsty? I was 15 at the time, and I remember my science teacher struggling to answer the question. Here's the best possible answer I can give you -- it all depends whether the fish is a saltwater fish or a freshwater fish. Click the image for more details Notice how the fresh water fish actually obtains H 2O via the food it consumes, not through drinking. Whereas the saltwater fish actually drinks the water can hence has highly concentrated urine. ...
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11179 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
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9748 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Why do we get wrinkly fingers and toes when we leave our digits in water for too long?
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This question has puzzled scientists for a long time.Scientists think that they have the answer to why the skin on human fingers and toes shrivels up like an old prune when we soak in the bath. Laboratory tests confirmed a theory that wrinkly fingers improve our grip on wet or submerged objects, working to channel away the water like the rain treads in car tyres. People often assume that wrinkling is the result of water passing into the outer layer of the skin and making it swell up. But researchers have known since the 1930s that the effect does not occur when there is nerve damage in the fingers. This points to the change being an involuntary reaction by the body's autonomic nervous system — the system that also controls breathing, heart ...
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7292 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
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6872 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
The LifeStraw
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The LifeStraw removes nearly 100% of waterborne bacteria and can filter up to 1000 L of water. Throughout the world, an estimated 884 million people still do not have access to clean sources of water. According to the LifeStraw manufacturers, the device contains no chemicals or batteries and makes it possible to drink safely from any river, lake or puddle. ...
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7090 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Urodid moth cocoon
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Check out this amazing image of am urodid moth cocoon. According to entomologist and Amazon explorer Phil Torres, It has a really beautiful woven lattice structure that hangs about a foot below a leaf on a thin silk string. This is an unusual structure because the pupa, resting inside the cocoon, seems fairly exposed to the elements. The hanging likely helps to prevent predation from ants, and the bright orange color may serve as an aposematic signal to predators to prevent it from getting eaten. The tube part at the bottom is the 'escape hatch' from which it eventually will exit as an adult moth. There is not a lot of research that has been done on the evolutionary origin structure - this is one of the many mysteries of the Amazon you can c ...
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10250 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
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5968 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
How Japanese kids learn to multiply in primary school
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The lines over the circles are colour coded. Notice the single red line and 3 blue lines representing 13 groups together while the single green and 2 black lines take their own group. Simply draw your first group of lines in one direction then your second group of lines going over the first, count the groups of intersections and there\'s your answer.
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7556 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
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5758 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
What happens to spiders when they are on drugs?
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In 1995 a group of NASA scientists repeated and refined some earlier tests on the effect that various drugs have on the web building abilities of the common garden spider. They tested the the effect of caffeine, benzedrine, marijuana and chloral hydrate and as you can see the results were pretty extreme!
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6004 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Yellow Pages -- a waste of resources
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The Yellow Pages use no virgin paper in the production of their directories, but to produce and deliver 540 million a year requires immense amounts of water and uses immense amounts of energy and fuel. If you need the Yellow Pages, keep it! But if you are among the 70% polled who say they never even open them, opt out. It is just a waste not to.
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5341 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Sun ballet
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Sometimes, the Sun itself seems to dance. On just this past New Years Eve, for example, NASAs Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence erupting from the Suns surface. The dramatic explosion was captured in ultraviolet light in the above time lapse video covering four hours. Of particular interest is the tangled magnetic field that directs a type of solar ballet for the hot plasma as it falls back to the Sun. The scale of the disintegrating prominence is huge -- the entire Earth would easily fit under the flowing curtain of hot gas. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection expelling hot gas into the Solar System. The energy mechanism that creates a ...
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5167 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Meet the goliath frog
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Meet the goliath frog! This beast is the largest extant anuran on Earth. They can grow up to 33 cm (13 inches) from snout to vent, and can weigh up to 3.2 kg. They have a fairly small habitat range, mainly in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea and sadly their numbers are dwindling due to habitat destruction. They are also hunted for both consumption and for the pet trade.
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8854 |
duddy |
11 years ago |