LIFTOFF!

Thermal Processes with Ideal Gas

Happy #Darwin Day!

Synthetic membranes created to mimic properties of living cells

Living cells continually remodel their membranes to change their physical characteristics, a process that can affect the behavior of other biomolecules in the cell membrane.

Biochemists at the University of California San Diego have developed artificial cell membranes that grow and remodel themselves in a manner similar to that of living mammalian cells.

The achievement, detailed in a paper published in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows the successful design last year in the same laboratory of artificial, or synthetic, cell membranes capable of sustaining continual growth. The two developments now bring the researchers closer to mimicking all of the properties of living mammalian cell membranes with synthetic components.

That’s important because synthetic membranes that accurately mimic the behavior of living mammalian cell membranes could be used by biomedical researchers to develop more effective drugs that target membrane proteins and better understand the chemical changes that occur in dysfunctional membranes during disease.

“While artificial membranes have been used to model the properties of native membranes, previous methods have not been able to mimic lipid membrane remodeling,” said Neal Devaraj, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego who headed the research team for both studies. “In our latest study, we show that reversible chemical reactions can be harnessed to achieve spontaneous remodeling of lipids in synthetic membranes.”

Continue Reading.

Saturn in different wavelengths.

1) Ultraviolet

2) Infrared

3) Infrared

4) X-Ray and Optical

5) Optical

What’s Up for July 2016?

What’s Up for July? Use Saturn as your guide to a tour of the summer Milky Way.

Saturn continues to dazzle this month. Its wide rings and golden color provide a nice contrast to nearby Mars and Antares. Below Saturn lies the constellation Scorpius, which really does look like a scorpion! 

Through binoculars or telescopes you’ll be able to spot two pretty star clusters: a compact (or globular) cluster, M-4, and an open cluster, M-7. M-7 is known as Ptolemy’s cluster. It was observed and cataloged by Greek-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy in the first century.

Climbing north, you’ll be able to spot the teapot shape which forms part of the constellation Sagittarius. The center of the Milky Way is easy to see. It looks like bright steam rising from the teapot’s spout. 

With difficulty, a good star chart and a medium-sized telescope you can locate faint Pluto in the “teaspoon” adjacent to the teapot.

A binocular tour of this center core of the Milky Way reveals many beautiful summer sky objects. We first encounter the Eagle Nebula, M-16. Part of this nebula is featured in the famous and beautiful “Pillars of Creation” images taken by our Hubble Space Telescope.

You’ll have to stay up later to see the northern Milky Way constellations, which are better placed for viewing later in the summer and fall. Cygnus the swan features the prettiest supernova remnant in the entire sky, the Veil Nebula. It’s too big to fit in one eyepiece view, but luckily there are three sections of it. 

Look between Aquila and Cygnus to find three tiny constellations: Delphinus the dolphin, Vulpecula the fox and Lyra the lyre (or harp). M-57, the Ring Nebula, is the remains from a shell of ionized gas expelled by a red giant star into the surrounding interstellar medium. It’s pretty, too! Look in Vulpecula for the Dumbbell, another planetary nebula.

We’ll end our summer tour with Lacerta the lizard and Draco the Dragon. Lacerta is home to a star with an extrasolar planet in its orbit, and Draco, facing away from the center of our Milky Way, is a treasure trove of distant galaxies to catch in your telescope.

Watch the full What’s Up for July 2016 video HERE.

You can catch up on current missions and space telescopes studying our Milky Way and beyond at www.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

A ferrofluid clock #sciphy4all #science #physics #ferrofluid #clock

Jumping on Earth vs jumping on the Moon

#sciphy4all #science #physics #jumping #gravity #earth #moon

#sciphy4all #science #physics #photon #black #hole #blackhole #joke

- Excuse me. For the fractal geometry? - At the end of the corridor.