You Matter! =)

Quilted DINO made by Astronaut Karen Nyberb for her son on the International Space Station.  9.22.13 @AstroKarenN http://on.fb.me/15FpaED

#HappyThanksgiving #STEMists #TrulyGrateful https://www.instagram.com/p/B5bwL_OBepA/?igshid=88ihtv5wun3s

Count down to launch! 3...2...1...Einstein in a Box will launch its website October 1st, 2013! Introducing our "Lunar Launch Box!" Children 8+ will be assigned very important missions as "Rocket Engineers." Experience all the wonders, beauty, and adventure as Einstein in a Box launches to the Moon, the International Space Station, and beyond. The universe is waiting for YOU so lets start discovering! www.EinsteinInABox.com

Superheroes are STEMists

Smart scientists make great superheroes! Who are some of your favorite superheroes?

NASA - Spot The Station Over Your Backyard. Sign up for email or text message notices hours before the station flies overhead. As the third brightest object in the sky the space station is easy to see if you know when to look up. http://1.usa.gov/19a04DX

What are the Phases of the Moon? http://bit.ly/19lpzT3

Reposted from @nasa - A trail of night lights ✨ ✨ ✨ This image compiles over 400 time-lapse photos taken by @astro_christina from the International Space Station (@ISS), as the station traveled from Namibia toward the Red Sea on July 5, 2019.⁣ ⁣ Here, stationary features like cities appear as pale yellow-white dotted streaks; many of the thinner dotted lines with darker orange hues are seasonal fires burning. Northward, you can see bright white lightning flashes from thunderstorms and above the horizon, a faint green-yellow tracing of the upper atmosphere known as airglow.⁣ ⁣ Image Credit: NASA⁣ Caption: Andrea Meado, Jacobs Technology⁣ ⁣ #startrails #stars #space #airglow #timelapse #nasa⁣ https://www.instagram.com/p/B4BCP1DB-9c/?igshid=104gfz87tm1pw

A hypothesized mechanism for the origin of life, an event called abiogenesis.  In this version, called RNA world, small molecules called nucleotides formed in the waters of the early Earth during the Hadean Eon, and polymerized on the surface of clay minerals.  These simple chains of RNA could replicate themselves in solution, but only slowly and inaccurately.  An RNA molecule developed which would fold into a structure that catalyzed RNA polymerization; a ribozyme.  The first ribozymes would replicate their sister strands, and produce copies of themselves and other RNA molecules. 

     In the same environment, long chains of carbon molecules called phospholipids were formed.  These molecules have two parts, the tail, which is hydrophobic, and the head, which is hydrophillic.  Because of these properties phospholipids will stick together and form micelles and vesicles in water.  Vesicles can absorb RNA nucleotides, concentrating them and creating a space where they can replicate, mutate and evolve.  At some point a ribozyme became enclosed within a vesicle, starting a chain reaction that evolved into the multitude of biological forms that we see today.

   Because this event occurred more than 3.8 billion years ago, theories about how and where it happened are highly speculative.  Possible environments for abiogensis include hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, hyper saline bubbles of water trapped in ice, radioactive lakes or lagoons on earths surface, and even in space or on another planet, brought to earth through a panspermia event.  We have very little molecular evidence of the first cells, but ribozymes and catalytic RNA molecules are embedded in the DNA replication machinery of all life.  Because evidence of this event has almost certainly been lost to time, the true mechanisms of the origin of life may remain a mystery to science.

50% OFF "Moon Dance" Single Box! CODE: FULLMOON Give your STEM Friends a groovy heads up: 1.) ❤ this post 2.) TAG a #STEMist. 3.) SHARE this post and some groovy #STEM! Go to "Single Boxes" on our website, click the "Moon Dance" groovy box then use code: FULLMOON at checkout. Hands-on Next Generation Science Standards, project-based learning. #STEMists do the "E" in STEM! Fellow STEMists who want to become optical engineers can be on their way to doing research and investigations through the engineering design process found in monthly-themed Groovy Lab in a Box.  Explore Earth’s moon, gravity, mass vs. weight, moon phases, tides, light, telescopes and much, much, more. Check out "Moon Dance" for more groovy fun for STEMists! Engineering Design Challenge:  You are an optical engineer, using only the materials from your Groovy Lab in a Box, can you design and build a two lens telescope which can expand and contract while you make observations of the night sky? #optics #NASA #science #technology #engineering #math #education #convex #GroovyLabInABox #FutureScientist #homeschooling #groovy #opticalengineer #FutureEngineer #STEMEd #moonphases #homeschooling #gravity #galileo #refractingtelescope #concave #homeschoolscience #GroovyLab #telescope #telescopes #STEMEducation #STEMEdu #instascience

Scientists have started to study how dogs take emotional cues from human voices. According to the head researcher: "We’d put an experienced dog up in the scanner, and he’d be up there sitting still. Then we’d bring into the room a less experienced dog. And he’d get so jealous! He just wanted to be on the scanner bed like the other dog. It became the place of happiness."

Photos Courtesy of Borbala Ferenczy and Eniko Kubinyi

Diagram adapted from “Voice-Sensitive Regions in the Dog and Human Brain Are Revealed by Comparative fMRI" by Attila Andics et al.