Heart Regeneration

Scientists are pretty sure that deep inside the moon, there’s water

While Earth’s surface cracks and spouts fire, the moon’s surface, for as long as we’ve known it, has been quiet. 

The youngest sign of volcanic activity scientists have found on the moon’s surface is 18 million years old.

But the traces of that long-ago volcanic activity could help scientists crack an enduring mystery: How much water is on the moon?

A study published Monday in Nature Geoscience suggests it may be more than we thought. Read more (7/24/17)

follow @the-future-now​

Scientists bring ‘nonsensical’ quantum physics into the real world for the first time

By freezing a drum just large enough to be seen by the naked eye to close to absolute zero, researchers were able to see glimpses of quantum effects normally confined to the world of atoms

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the atomically small, things can be in two places at once, merely looking at a particle can alter a twin on the other side of the universe apparently instantaneously, and theoretical cats can be both alive and dead.

Certainty is also somehow replaced by chance, an idea that once moved a somewhat vexed Albert Einstein to famously say: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

Such strange, almost magical effects have always been confined to the world of photons and atoms – until now.

In the journal Nature, scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Colorado reported the first “glimpses” of quantum effects, as they are known, happening on a scale just large enough to be seen by the human eye.

It is a breakthrough that could have significant implications for attempts to create quantum computers that are many millions of times faster than the current machines.

One of the researchers, Dr John Teufel, told the Independent: “I think we’re in an extremely exciting time where this technology we have available gives us access to things people have been talking about as thought experiments for decades.

“Just now what’s exciting is we can go into the laboratory and actually witness these quantum effects.”

Continue Reading.

Building blocks of memories seen in brains for the first time

Observations of hundreds of neurons in mice suggest that we may divide our memories of where we’ve been into small chunks of experience

At last, we’ve seen what might be the primary building blocks of memories lighting up in the brains of mice.

We have cells in our brains – and so do rodents – that keep track of our location and the distances we’ve travelled. These neurons are also known to fire in sequence when a rat is resting, as if the animal is mentally retracing its path – a process that probably helps memories form, says Rosa Cossart at the Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France.

But without a way of mapping the activity of a large number of these individual neurons, the pattern that these replaying neurons form in the brain has been unclear. Researchers have suspected for decades that the cells might fire together in small groups, but nobody could really look at them, says Cossart.

To get a look, Cossart and her team added a fluorescent protein to the neurons of four mice. This protein fluoresces the most when calcium ions flood into a cell – a sign that a neuron is actively firing. The team used this fluorescence to map neuron activity much more widely than previous techniques, using implanted electrodes, have been able to do.

Observing the activity of more than 1000 neurons per mouse, the team watched what happened when mice walked on a treadmill or stood still.

As expected, when the mice were running, the neurons that trace how far the animal has travelled fired in a sequential pattern, keeping track.

These same cells also lit up while the mice were resting, but in a strange pattern. As they reflected on their memories, the neurons fired in the same sequence as they had when the animals were running, but much faster. And rather than firing in turn individually, they fired together in sequential blocks that corresponded to particular fragments of a mouse’s run.

“We’ve been able to image the individual building-blocks of memory,” Cossart says, each one reflecting a chunk of the original episode that the mouse experienced.

Continue Reading.

Dive deep into Episode 05 of #ShelfLife to discover the various technologies that have helped humans map the sky around us for eons. 

From sundials to mega-powered modern telescopes, tools for stargazing allow us to understand the universe—and our place within it. Season 2 begins on November 1. 

Organic Chemistry, Part 2/6

Reaction Mechanisms: Electrophilic addition to double bonds, SN2, SN1, E1, E2, and the decision tree

Next week: EAS, NAS, pericyclic reactions, Claisen rearrangements, and radical reactions!

Part 1

Dancing Flames - Aluminium’s reactivity 

aluminium’s protective oxide layer can make it difficult to see its true reactivity in the context of metals reacting with aqueous solutions. (Do not try to recreate experiment without the presence of a trained professional)

Procedure:

Dissolve copper(II) chloride in the hydrochloric acid and set the solution aside. Take a piece of aluminium foil approximately the width of the base of the conical flask and approximately 20 cm long. Roll it loosely just enough to be able to fit through the neck of the flask – use a splint or spatula to gently push it home so it lies on its side on the base of the flask. Have a source of ignition nearby with some splints. Pour the solution inside the flask and swirl the flask gently to get the reaction going. 

After a few seconds, the mixture will begin to react vigorously and produce hydrogen gas. Hold the lit splint by the opening of the flask and the gas will ignite. If you have timed it right, the flame will sink back into the flask and dance inside above the reaction with an eerie green color from the copper.

Reaction:

2Al(s) + 3CuCl2(aq) → 2AlCl3(aq) + 3Cu(s)

2Al(s) + 6HCl(aq) → 2AlCl3(aq) + 3H2(g)

The primary objective here is to show how reactive aluminium is. The aluminium oxide layer protects the metal beneath from further reaction with air, water or acid. But chloride ions can ligate aluminium ions at the metal–oxide interface and break down the protective layer, allowing the reaction to proceed. -rsc

Giffed by: rudescience  From: This video

A required read from Michael Oman-Reagan.

This is all true. This all happened in Canada, and its very likely it will happen in the USA under Trump and be worse than Harper’s crackdown on Science ever was.

Links cited in this twitter essay:

The Big Chill: “Scientists Can’t Do the Job They Were Hired to Do”

More than 1000 Jobs Lost, Climate Program Hit Hard in Coming Environment Canada Cuts

Harper Government Trashes Another Federal Science Library

Federal scientists closely monitored during polar conference

Science Silenced: US Scientist Caught in Canadian Muzzle Climate-change scientists feel ‘muzzled’ by Ottawa: Documents

The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment

http://ourrighttoknow.ca/

http://write2know.ca/

https://evidencefordemocracy.ca

Breaking News:

The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2018 has been awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics”.

Donna Strickland is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 55 years.

Nobel Laureate Arthur Ashkin has been awarded the #NobelPrize in Physics “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.”

Nobel Laureates Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland have been awarded the #NobelPrize in Physics “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.”

Article here with more information about their work:

Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland win Nobel physics prize

If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

Carl Sagan (from Contact)