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Science

Cassini Mission to End in Fiery Plunge Into Saturn

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Saturn/Titan

Of the 173 known moons orbiting the eight major planets of our solar system, only one ― Saturn’s Titan ― has an atmosphere, lakes and streams. And that’s not all. There’s also speculation that Titan ― half the size of Earth ― could harbor life forms or be a possible future home for Earthlings. The provocative moon was even featured in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan, which tells the story of a millionaire on a quest for the ultimate meaning of existence. To study this remarkable moon, NASA launched its Cassini spacecraft in 1997. After maneuvering through … Read more

SCIENCE: Ghost Shark With Retractable Head Penis Filmed

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ghost shark

Researchers filming off the coast of California captured a wondrous creature on video for the first time: the mysterious and elusive chimaera, or ‘ghost shark’. The Guardian reports: The team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Center had sent a remote operated vehicle down to depths of 2,000 metres (6,700ft) when the creature appeared on their screens. Also known as chimaeras, the creatures are related to sharks and rays. But unlike their namesakes, ghost sharks have tooth plates instead of teeth and open channels on their heads and faces that give them the appearance of having been stitched together like … Read more

News: Dinosaur Tail Found Trapped in Amber

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Dinosaur Tail

The tail of a 99-million year old dinosaur has been found entombed in amber, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists. Xing Lida, a Chinese paleontologist found the specimen, the size of a dried apricot, at an amber market in northern Myanmar near the Chinese border. The remarkable piece was destined to end up as a curiosity or piece of jewelry, with Burmese traders believing a plant fragment was trapped inside. “I realized that the content was a vertebrate, probably theropod, rather than any plant,” Xing told CNN. By Katie Hunt – Full Story at CNN

New Discoveries Day

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New Discoveries Day

Hey all, Welcome to New Discoveries Day – a day once a month (usually on the last day of the month) when we discuss recent discoveries that fascinate us and that could spawn plot bunnies (or plot squirrels or plot mongeese – your plot animal of choice). So chime in and let us know about any new discoveries you ran across in the last month – links are always appreciated. Thanks to Freddy MacKay for the great idea! –Scott Come Join the Chat!

U=(N/T)M*G: MDMA

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Yeah, I wrote those ridiculous letters for this post, knowing full well what they mean. And yes, I also know that knee-jerk reaction I had when I first read those letters in conjunction to anything having to do with medicine. For those that don’t know, MDMA is more commonly known as Ecstasy. I personally know of it’s short, sordid history as a party drug because my sister and a couple of my friends. I especially remember a party out in the desert of my junior year where I babysat a boy not much older than me while he was rolling. … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Mnemonic

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As if the ancient Greeks couldn’t have been more awesome, I stumbled on a little factoid that was the inspiration for this post. They invented the Mind Palace. If you’ve ever read the books or seen the numerous shows and movies, this is the vaunted “mind trick”that the great detective Sherlock Holmes uses, among quite a few others both real and fictional. In reality, the Mind Palace is just one variation of mind trap in a dozen under the heading method of loci, as part of a bunch of kinds of mnemonic devices. And it works, though some types of … Read more

News: Are We Overdue for An Extinction Level Event?

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Earth

Humans are woefully unprepared for a surprise asteroid or comet, a Nasa scientist warned on Monday, at a presentation with nuclear scientists into how humans might deflect cosmic dangers hurtling toward Earth. “The biggest problem, basically, is there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment,” said Dr Joseph Nuth, a researcher with Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Speaking at the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union, Nuth noted that large and potentially dangerous asteroids and comets are extremely rare, compared to the small objects that occasionally explode in Earth’s sky or strike its … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Water Bear

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Don’t let the picture of that weirdly adorable little microbe that accompanies this article fool you. That badass is the Tardigrade. And it’s tough as nails. Sent to space unprotected and survived, it’s so hardcore. So superheroic that it survived all five mass extinctions. I bow down in awe to this, the toughest sumbitch on this planet. Like some weird love child of Colossus and Wolverine, this extremophile beastie earns its awesome status because it can dry out into a hard husk, called a tun, and it has wild regenerative properties. Some species are bisexual and some are asexual too. … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Sour GRAPES

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Well, I found something I didn’t know could even happen. Last June, that’s June 2015 for those that read this post past 2016, Earth was smashed by a pretty damned big geomagnetic storm. Massive, really. Big enough to temporarily force a crack in our magnetosphere. That’s scary impressive. And scary. It’s no secret that the Sun interacts with our little backwater mudball in more ways than heat and light and orbit. Solar storms, coronal mass ejections and sunspots are just a few of the trade offs we contend with due to our little Goldilocks spot in the system. A year … Read more

New Drug Makes HIV Self Destruct

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HIV Virus

Scientists have claimed they have created a ‘breakthrough’ drug that can make HIV cells ‘self-destruct’ without harming the body. The drug, which was added to test tubes containing the blood of 10 HIV patients, was found to decrease the viral load by 97%. Abraham Loyter and Assaf Friedler at Hebrew University said they used a peptide in the drug that could case several copies of the virus’ DNA to enter the infected cell, causing the cell to self-destruct. By Joe Morgan – Full Story at Gay Star News