Woods (by Akos Major)
Rewritable digital data stored in live DNA
“It took us three years and 750 tries to make it work, but we finally did it,” says Jerome Bonnet, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, who worked with graduate student Pakpoom Subsoontorn and assistant professor Drew Endy to reapply natural enzymes adapted from bacteria to flip specific sequences of DNA back and forth at will.
In practical terms, they have devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit—a “bit” in data parlance. “Essentially, if the DNA section points in one direction, it’s a zero. If it points the other way, it’s a one,”
Full Story: Futurity
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(Reblogged from jtotheizzoe)
We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.
PUMA’s Mar Mostro ghosting along in light winds and a glassy sea.
New York, Long Island, the Hamptons, Westhampton Beach, Beach Erosion Fence, USAPhotographic Print
nice and all, until you’re the one digging the same things out of the sand a few miles east in preparation for the summer
As promised, here are the full resolution images of the posters I created for my squadron. Download option is available for each photo.
Enjoy!
https://picasaweb.google.com/JoeyBarone/AstronomySpacePosters
NASA’s Bold ‘Plan X’ Changed Spaceflight History
On May 21, 1965, NASA released the Gemini 4 press kit. It opened with the standard mission description, in this case for a four-day orbital flight that would send commander Jim McDivitt and pilot Ed White around the Earth 62 times to evaluate “the effects of extended spaceflight on crew performance and physical condition.”
Then there was an intriguing page that hinted at something bigger: “No decision has been made whether in the Gemini 4 mission the crew will engage in extravehicular activity… A decision to undertake the extravehicular test can be made as late as the day before the launch.” The possibility of an EVA on Gemini 4 came as a surprise not only the American people that day, but to many within NASA as well.
Image: On June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first NASA astronaut to carry out an EVA. Credit: NASA
Astronaut Illustrations By Justin Mezzell/ On Tumblr
“There are no roads that lead home, only new dawns waiting to be seen.”
‘Beams’ from space that could power cities: First tests on solar satellites offer hope of green energy
Researchers at Stratchclyde University have already tested equipment in space, a first step for solar panels to collect energy and transfer it back to earth through microwaves or lasers.
The researchers aim to produce a ‘swarm’ of satellites that could one day power whole cities.
Full Story: Mailonline
Hiding out in the aft corner of Mar Mostro.
Looking like a bright star streaking up into a black sky, a rocket took off before dawn today from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying an unmanned capsule filled with food, clothes, and other supplies for astronauts on the international space station.
But this robotic cargo ship doesn’t belong to NASA. Instead, it’s owned by a company called SpaceX, which made history by launching the first ever private spacecraft on a mission to the station.
SpaceX has a $1.6 billion cargo-delivery contract with NASA, which is turning routine flights to the station over to industry so that the veteran space agency can start to focus on more ambitious exploration efforts. (NPR)
Photo: Historic @SpaceX #DragonLaunch to ISS. @NASA on Twitpic
Neil deGrasse Tyson - “When I think of science, I think of a truly human activity”
I’ll also suggest this more in-depth look at Dr. Tyson’s monologue from Maria Popova. My addition:
Our desire for answers and our ability to experiment extend far beyond the realm of the laboratory, although science is the example we can most easily distill. Especially easy for people like me, because I eat, sleep and breathe science prettymuch. But if we begin to look at how a child interacts with their world, completely wide open to both the question and the answer, immune to prejudices of observation and interpretation, we begin to see that what we may applaud as the “beauty of science” and the “power of technology” and the “fruits of dedicated research” are really just an extension of what makes us human.
“Every child is a scientist.”
And a sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea, at 13800’
