We could say that we’re posting this video because this was done for a noble, scientific mission. Which it was; a fire on a space station is dangerous in ways we can’t even begin to imagine, because fire in space burns at a lower temperature and behaves far, far differently, and more dangerously, in the absence of gravity (for example, no gravity, nothing keeping the oxygen close to the ground).

We could say that we’re posting this video because it shows the beauty of physics and chemistry. Which it does.

But realistically, we’re posting this video of scientists on the International Space Station aerosolizing some fuel and sticking a match in it to see what happens because that’s pretty much exactly what we would do if we were in zero gravity.

Video under the jump

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Zebras have, not to put too fine a point on it, been annoying biologists for years, because they can’t figure out the stripes. They make no sense. They do serve a social function, or so biologists believe, but they agree that came later. They didn’t confuse predators, they don’t offer camouflage, what the heck are they for?

Insect defense!

A team in Budapest painted trays with different black and white patterns, inspired by research showing tsetse flies attack striped animals the least. They covered them in salad oil to trap flies, and unleashed the nipping little insects.

The trays with stripes most closely resembling a zebra’s attracted the least flies. Why? The stripes are confusing to the horseflies, making it hard for them to land, and also disrupt polarized light, which is how horseflies tend to navigate.

Finally, a mystery of biology solved. Now if only science could determine why that awful movie “Racing Stripes” got made.

image via Shutterstock

So yeah, 3D printers — maybe this will shatter my science-nerd cred, but I didn’t even know these things existed until fairly recently. What can I say? Printers are a weird mental blind spot for me — I can still barely figure out how to get my inkjet to work.

Anyways, we reported a couple months back that scientists at Washington State University were looking into the possibility of creating replacement bones using 3D printers. Well, turns out some guys in the Netherlands beat them to the punch. The news has only become public recently, but back in June 2011, Dutch doctors performed the first transplant using a bone created with a 3D printer.

The Dutch doctors created a new jawbone for a lady who had to have hers removed due to a bone infection. The operation was a rousing success, with the patient being able to talk only hours after the operation, and swallow and eat by the next day.

Apparently bones are just the beginning too. The next big step will be finding a way to 3D print our organs and other squishier parts, so start designing your custom printed dream wiener now guys.

via BBC News

Sounds legit.

For the past eight years, Andreas Mershin has worked on isolating photosystem-I (PS-I) molecules from plants to use in solar panels. The PS-I is a protein complex which carries out photosynthesis. They’ve been isolating PS-I, stabilizing it with expensive chemicals and complex lab equipment, and putting a layer of the resultant goo on glass, which is even cooler to do to your windows than lining them with aluminum foil. The biggest drawback to their earlier methods, besides the high expense, was that the panels were so weak they would only produce a current when hit with a high-powered laser. Oh man, I need more panels to produce enough electricity to run this high-powered laser.

Now Mershin and his team at MIT (along with Barry Bruce from the University of Tennessee) have accomplished the hardest part: greatly reducing the expense and complexity of isolating the PS-I while raising the efficiency enough to produce a small current in regular light. The downside is that the newest design has an efficiency of only 0.1% while most modern solar panels have 15% to 18% efficiency. The upside is that the materials involved are not rare, not toxic, and not expensive, unlike some conventional solar panel components. They’ve replaced the expensive chemicals and lab equipment with an easy-to-use readymade “stabilizing powder”.

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You may have heard that NASA and the ESA were going to collaborate on ExoMars, a joint mission to get another rover on Mars as well as a permanent orbiting satellite. It’s an inspiring story of human achievement and collaboration…and NASA budget cuts are apparently about to flush the whole thing down the crapper.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but NASA, even as it’s taken a beating from two successive administrations, is still a pretty amazing agency with a lot of research and instrumentation know-how. Their departure from the project would be a disaster in multiple ways, not least being the possible cancellation of the project.

ExoMars isn’t dead yet: the ESA may be capable of collaborating with the Russians, although we’re not sure we’d trust the Russian space program with all that much.

Still, just look at how disappointed Kuato is, NASA. The little guy is heartbroken.

[ via BBC ]

image courtesy Lionsgate

We don’t think about seagrass that often. It sits on the ocean floor, it waves, it’s green, whoop-de-doo.

But apparently, a species of seagrass might be the oldest organism on Earth, and it might also be the key to keeping us cloned and sporty for all time.

Posidonia oceanica, to use its scientific name, reproduces both sexually and asexually. In other words, it clones itself sometimes. This allows it to both diversify genetically and preserve copies of previous iterations of the species. The problem is this: over time, at least in theory, cloned copies collect “errors”, slight mutations in the genetic code that ultimately render the organism a mutated, hideous shell of itself. You know, like Shatner’s first five or six hairpieces.

Posidonia? No errors. In fact, scientists are positing that its clonal spread (read: spamming copies of itself) allows it to avoid these errors and even possibly survive indefinitely: currently they think it can live for tens of thousands of years. This has incredible applications in other sciences, since error-proof cloning is the first step towards, say, humanity becoming immortal. Or even just making sure you transfer your hard drive properly, by imitating its clonal spread and copying the genotype (meaning your porn folder) precisely.

Thanks, seagrass!

[ via the grassy types at the BBC ]

image courtesy BBC