Latest Posts by ritasakano - Page 9
Mitosis vs meiosis comparison? There’s a GIF for that. (⌐■_■)
Be sure to check out all our science GIFs here for your studyblrs, teacher websites, presentations, or general amusement! Just please keep our name on there and don’t sell them! :D
Don’t Be Alarmed; Be Careful
I’ve seen a few headlines covering this story in a very sensationalist way. Though the shock factor may get more hits, I feel that that’s irresponsible. Panic can cause people to act irrationally. So before you make a snap judgement from the map, please read the rest of the article. One of the ways we can hope to minimise the casualties is if people are careful and informed.
When autoimmune deficiency (AIDS) reached the public eye in the 1980s, very little was known about it, and what information there was wasn’t always easily available. Much of the information was spread by public hysteria through word of mouth and misguided sensationalist media. You could be forgiven for thinking that it was an unstoppable bioweapon; some people did and still do. It was believed you could contract the virus simply through close contact with another person.
Unfortunately, we’re seeing the emergence of a disease which fits the profile of what the public thought AIDS could be in the 1980s. A recent document published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates around 75 million deaths worldwide by 2050 due to two emerging strains of tuberculosis (TB). These are known as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). Tuberculosis certainly doesn’t have the same level of exposure and public awareness that HIV/AIDS does, yet TB kills the second largest number of people worldwide, second to HIV/AIDS. On top of this, it is also the greatest killer of people with HIV/AIDS through secondary infection, killing a quarter of those who contract HIV.
Tuberculosis is spread by coughs and sneezing, as the bacteria are suspended in mucous and saliva droplets. This can then transfer onto objects and surfaces where it can survive for hours. Though the projections are estimated to affect mostly developing countries, we must remember that humans can and will travel, so this disease will easily be spread.
For so long, TB has gone mostly ignored, apart from in the UK where the British government has ordered small badger culls since 2013 to prevent the spread of bovine TB. Until this year, the US government was only concerned with prevention in its own citizens, the Obama administration has now released a 3-5 year plan to fund research and aid to tackle these drug-resistant strains in the developing world as of September 2015. With the UK currently undergoing proposals within both the House of Commons and the House of Lords on how to proceed, hopefully other wealthy nations will follow suit to try and eradicate this pathogen before we see too many more casualties.
So remember: Sneeze into the crook of your elbow, wash your hands, and try not to spread coughs and sneezes. By being publicly conscious, we can do our part.
-Will
A public information booklet can be found here: http://media.wix.com/ugd/309c93_f0731d24f4754cd4a0ac0d6f6e67a526.pdf
A fact sheet here: http://www.who.int/tb/challenges/mdr/mdr_tb_factsheet.pdf
And a paper here: https://idsa.confex.com/idsa/2015/webprogram/Paper50670.html
BAYAH: O GENOCÍDIO ESQUECIDO – A REVOLTA DOS HEREROS E NAMA NA NAMÍBIA
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎?, outubro ou novembro de 1760 – 18 de abril de 1849) foi um artista japonês, pintor de estilo ukiyo-e e gravurista do período Edo. Em sua época, era um dos principais especialistas em pintura chinesa do Japão.[1] Nascido em Edo (atual Tóquio), Hokusai é melhor conhecido como autor da série de xilogravuras Trinta e seis vistas do monte Fuji (富嶽三十六景, Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei?, c. 1831) que inclui sua pintura icônica e internacionalmente conhecida, A Grande Onda de Kanagawa, criada durante a década de 1820.
Katsushika Hokusai
Bom domingo!!
Muito bom!!
Resist the road-rage on the protein super highway.
Be sure to check out all our science GIFs here for your studyblrs, teacher websites, presentations, or mind-numbing entertainment! Just please keep our name on there and don’t sell them! :D
葛飾 北斎 Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849) Fuji at Aoyama (Aoyama no Fuji): Detatched page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 3, circa 1835-1847
O que será que os nossos olhos não enxergam?
NASA’s Fleet of Planet-hunters and World-explorers
Around every star there could be at least one planet, so we’re bound to find one that is rocky, like Earth, and possibly suitable for life. While we’re not quite to the point where we can zoom up and take clear snapshots of the thousands of distant worlds we’ve found outside our solar system, there are ways we can figure out what exoplanets light years away are made of, and if they have signs of basic building blocks for life. Here are a few current and upcoming missions helping us explore new worlds:
Kepler
Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope searched for planets by looking for telltale dips in a star’s brightness caused by crossing, or transiting, planets. It has confirmed more than 1,000 planets; of these, fewer than 20 are Earth-size (therefore possibly rocky) and in the habitable zone – the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. Astronomers using Kepler data found the first Earth-sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star.
In May 2013, a second pointing wheel on the spacecraft broke, making it not stable enough to continue its original mission. But clever engineers and scientists got to work, and in May 2014, Kepler took on a new job as the K2 mission. K2 continues the search for other worlds but has introduced new opportunities to observe star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae.
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
Revving up for launch around 2017-2018, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will find new planets the same way Kepler does, but right in the stellar backyard of our solar system while covering 400 times the sky area. It plans to monitor 200,000 bright, nearby stars for planets, with a focus on finding Earth and Super-Earth-sized planets.
Once we’ve narrowed down the best targets for follow-up, astronomers can figure out what these planets are made of, and what’s in the atmosphere. One of the ways to look into the atmosphere is through spectroscopy.
As a planet passes between us and its star, a small amount of starlight is absorbed by the gas in the planet’s atmosphere. This leaves telltale chemical “fingerprints” in the star’s light that astronomers can use to discover the chemical composition of the atmosphere, such as methane, carbon dioxide, or water vapor.
James Webb Space Telescope
Launching in 2018, NASA’s most powerful telescope to date, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will not only be able to search for planets orbiting distant stars, its near-infrared multi-object spectrograph will split infrared light into its different colors- spectrum- providing scientists with information about an physical properties about an exoplanet’s atmosphere, including temperature, mass, and chemical composition.
Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope is better than ever after 25 years of science, and has found evidence for atmospheres bleeding off exoplanets very close to their stars, and even provided thermal maps of exoplanet atmospheres. Hubble holds the record for finding the farthest exoplanets discovered to date, located 26,000 light-years away in the hub of our Milky Way galaxy.
Chandra X-ray Observatory
Chandra X-ray Observatory can detect exoplanets passing in front of their parent stars. X-ray observations can also help give clues on an exoplanet’s atmosphere and magnetic fields. It has observed an exoplanet that made its star act much older than it actually is.
Spitzer Space Telescope
Spitzer Space Telescope has been unveiling hidden cosmic objects with its dust-piercing infrared vision for more than 12 years. It helped pioneer the study of atmospheres and weather on large, gaseous exoplanets. Spitzer can help narrow down the sizes of exoplanets, and recently confirmed the closest known rocky planet to Earth.
SOFIA
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an airplane mounted with an infrared telescope that can fly above more than 99 percent of Earth’s atmospheric water vapor. Unlike most space observatories, SOFIA can be routinely upgraded and repaired. It can look at planetary-forming systems and has recently observed its first exoplanet transit.
What’s Coming Next?
Analyzing the chemical makeup of Earth-sized, rocky planets with thin atmospheres is a big challenge, since smaller planets are incredibly faint compared to their stars. One solution is to block the light of the planets’ glaring stars so that we can directly see the reflected light of the planets. Telescope instruments called coronagraphs use masks to block the starlight while letting the planet’s light pass through. Another possible tool is a large, flower-shaped structure known as the starshade. This structure would fly in tandem with a space telescope to block the light of a star before it enters the telescope.
All images (except SOFIA) are artist illustrations.
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This is your brain experiencing a concussion
It may look like this model brain is made of Jell-O, but it’s the same consistency as a real brain.
As Dr. Christopher Giza from UCLA demonstrates, the brain is made of soft tissue and floats in fluid inside of the skull. When the skull moves quickly, the brain can jostle around a lot, which can lead to neurological symptoms.
“Most concussions are recoverable,” Giza said.
But concussions can be difficult to identify and some people suffer more serious symptoms, particularly after multiple concussions.
Lab studies have shown a “window of vulnerability” after a first concussion, Giza said. Concussed athletes are three to six times more likely to get another concussion. If they rush back to play, their reflexes, reaction time and thinking may be slower, putting them at risk of a second concussion and longer recovery period.
Six things parents and athletes need to know about concussions.
The benefits of a bilingual brain
It’s obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier — like traveling or watching movies without subtitles. But there are other advantages to having a bilingual brain. While bilingualism won’t necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged. So even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language as a child, it’s never too late to make a linguistic leap! After all, a little brain exercise can go a long way.
What does it really mean to know a language? Language ability is typically measured in two active parts (speaking and writing), and two passive parts (listening and reading). While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions. And depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be classified into three general types.
A compound bilingual develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts. If you learned two languages from the time you were very young, chances are you are a compound bilingual. A coordinate bilingual works with two sets of concepts, for example, someone who speaks one language at home and another in school or with friends. Finally, a subordinate bilingual is someone who learns a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.
Did you know a multilingual brain actually has more grey matter than a monolingual brain?
Source: TED-ED
Educator: Mia Nacamulli Animator: Lisa LaBracio
Japan series
(by Monica Barengo)
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A set of Japanese iron armor, Kofun period, 5th century AD.
Currently on display at the Tokyo National Museum.
Um olhar apenas.
Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934) 竹久夢二
illustration from a poetry book Shamisen Leaves 三味線草、1915
Meu canto
Noren - Tedomari Tsubame Niigata ken
Kiyoshi Saitō 斎藤 清 (1907 - 1997) Child in Aizu, c.1947
Silk leaf
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/07/25/movie-silk-leaf-first-man-made-synthetic-biological-leaf-space-travel/