What’s Up For September 2018?

What Science is Launching to Space?

The tenth SpaceX cargo resupply mission launched to the International Space Station on Feb. 18, and is carrying science ranging from protein crystal growth studies to Earth science payloads. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights heading to the orbiting laboratory.

The CASIS PCG 5 investigation will crystallize a human monoclonal antibody, developed by Merck Research Labs, that is currently undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of immunological disease. Results from this investigation have the potential to improve the way monoclonal antibody treatments are administered on Earth.

Without proteins, the human body would be unable to repair, regulate or protect itself. Crystallizing proteins provides better views of their structure, which helps scientists to better understand how they function. Often times, proteins crystallized in microgravity are of higher quality than those crystallized on Earth. LMM Biophysics 1 explores that phenomena by examining the movement of single protein molecules in microgravity. Once scientists understand how these proteins function, they can be used to design new drugs that interact with the protein in specific ways and fight disease.

Much like LMM Biophysics 1, LMM Biophysics 3 aims to use crystallography to examine molecules that are too small to be seen under a microscope, in order to best predict what types of drugs will interact best with certain kinds of proteins. LMM Biophysics 3 will look specifically into which types of crystals thrive and benefit from growth in microgravity, where Earth’s gravity won’t interfere with their formation. Currently, the success rate is poor for crystals grown even in the best of laboratories. High quality, space-grown crystals could improve research for a wide range of diseases, as well as microgravity-related problems such as radiation damage, bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Nanobiosym Predictive Pathogen Mutation Study (Nanobiosym Genes) will analyze two strains of bacterial mutations aboard the station, providing data that may be helpful in refining models of drug resistance and support the development of better medicines to counteract the resistant strains.

During the Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation, crew members will observe cell growth and morphological characteristics in microgravity and analyze gene expression profiles of cells grown on the station. This information will provide insight into how human cancers start and spread, which aids in the development of prevention and treatment plans. Results from this investigation could lead to the treatment of disease and injury in space, as well as provide a way to improve stem cell production for human therapy on Earth.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor will measure the amount, rate and energy of lightning as it strikes around the world. Understanding the processes that cause lightning and the connections between lightning and subsequent severe weather events is a key to improving weather predictions and saving life and property. 

From the vantage of the station, the LIS instrument will sample lightning over a wider geographical area than any previous sensor.

Future robotic spacecraft will need advanced autopilot systems to help them safely navigate and rendezvous with other objects, as they will be operating thousands of miles from Earth. 

The Raven (STP-H5 Raven) studies a real-time spacecraft navigation system that provides the eyes and intelligence to see a target and steer toward it safely. Research from Raven can be applied toward unmanned vehicles both on Earth and in space, including potential use for systems in NASA’s future human deep space exploration.

SAGE III will measure stratospheric ozone, aerosols, and other trace gases by locking onto the sun or moon and scanning a thin profile of Earth’s atmosphere.

These measurements will allow national and international leaders to make informed policy decisions regarding the protection and preservation of Earth’s ozone layer. Ozone in the atmosphere protects Earth’s inhabitants, including humans, plants and animals, from harmful radiation from the sun, which can cause long-term problems such as cataracts, cancer and reduced crop yield.

Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect (Rodent Research-4) a U.S. National Laboratory investigation sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, studies what prevents other vertebrates such as rodents and humans from re-growing lost bone and tissue, and how microgravity conditions impact the process. 

Results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind a human’s inability to grow a lost limb at the wound site, and could lead to new treatment options for the more than 30% of the patient.

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8 Dimensions of Quantum Physics

Great document

Quantum physics

30,000 year old flower revived.

Scientists have resurrected a flower from plant tissues found frozen in Siberian permafrost, thought to be 30,000-32,000 years old. The new Silene stenophylla is healthy and fertile, and producing viable seeds.

The experiment has excited many because it proves that material trapped in the permafrost is recoverable and usable - scientists have been working to recover other species of plant and animal life from the same area, such as the woolly mammoth.

Making a dragon:

This is actually a very complicated question @milesrev, and I will answer it to the best of my abilities so bear with me, this is going to be a long one. First things first we would have to select a variety of dragon that we wished to create, and that alone is easier said than done, after that we have to decide what traits does it need to really be a dragon? To deal with the first question, I’ll be using the following handy guide to cover my bases.

Now the basic question of how do we make a dragon, there are two methods I could see, either make it from absolute scratch (nearly imposible) or we could edit already existing animals (could actually be done) and after I go through the “basic builds” I’ll cover some special features.

European dragon: There is only one group of extant animals that has even a vaugely similar body structure, the genus Draco, such as Draco volans (below)

Now, it should be mentioned that Draco volans is two things, small, and a glider, not a flyer, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the way it stays. If you further elongated the gliding ribs, pulled the first four ribs down so they covered more of the organs, and gave the gliding ribs some more muscle attachments, you could get it to fly under its own power. Beyond a few other adjustments you can make later, this is as close as I can think of to getting a european dragon look.

Fae dragon: Alright, this one is pretty easy. If you want a lizard-y dragon, make a miniature of the European dragon. If you want insectoid wings, then its an insect, or other arthropod, and that doesnt have to mean that your dragon is any less cool.

Drake: I’d say the best combination for this would be to take something like Varanus albigularis ionidesi: black throated monitor (below)

give it a neck similar to Varanus glauerti: the Kimberly rock monitor (below)

and change it’s shoulders and hips to be more like those of a big cat’s.

Hydra: I’m sorry Dave, I cannot do that. You see, while multiheaded animals do occasionally exist, its almost always the results of a conjoined twin, and these rarely survive.

Kirin/qilin: Alright, so this one is a bit different, as this one is mammal based. So, based on the mythological description of the Qilin (which I am, for the sake of my own sanity, going to be considering separate from the chinese unicorn), the Qilin is a kind, benevolent creature with a horse like body, antlers/horns, and carp-like scales, and usually shown with sharp teeth. So, for my Qilin, I’ll pick an herbivore as a base, as it is always shown to have some type of hornlike growth, we know it is not a sexually selected characteristic, we also need an herbivore with fangs, and, since it is a mammal, the scales are probably hair. First off, base animal, I’m going to pick the Budorcas taxicolor: the Takin (below), an animal you may not have heard of.

This stocky critter is actually a close relative to goats, but I think it’s a good fit as it has a similar body shape to sculptures of Qilin, and boasts impressive agility, and horns are present in both sexes. Now, the horns obviously need to be a little different, and the best match I could find is in Antilocapra americana: the pronghorn (below)

alright, I bet you’re thinking, “surely they can’t find a fanged herbivore to throw in the mix”. Well that’s where you’re wrong kiddo! meet Hydropotes inermis: the water deer (below)

Tadaa! A deer with fangs. One last trait, scales. Guess what, I’ve got an answer for that too, Smutsia gigantea: the giant pangolin (below)

and that covers all the basics for building a Qilin.

Lung dragon: For the body I’ll use the species Eumecia anchietae: the western serpentiforme skink for the base, as it has a good shape for this. (see below)

to get it airborne, I’d say use a combination of Chrysopelea paradisi: the paradise tree snake (below)

and most likely Ptychozoon kuhli: the flying gecko (below).

The paradise tree snake has the ability to splay out its ribs, which allows it to parachute through the air, but we need the genes for the flying geckos tail flaps as well other wise the body won’t have enough lift to even parachute, adding in additional flaps, such as from the flying gecko, and a verticle undulation could (theoretically mind you) provide enough lift to get airborne. 

Lindwurm type A: Believe it or not there already is an animal with a similar build, Bipes biporus; the Mexican worm lizard (below)

sure, it’s not a perfect match, but if you made it bigger, and gave it a longer neck, you’d be pretty dang close.

Lindwurm type B: This one isn’t shown in the above diagram, but here’s a picture of what I’m talking about.

Now, while you could make something like this, in no way would it make any sense or provide any benefits, so I’m not even going to bother working on it.

Salamander: Okay, so usually the mythical one is six legged, sometimes it has more, so it’s either an insect, or it’s like a centipede, and that’s really about it, you can’t make it fire proof unfortunately.

Wyrm: Alright, this one’s easy, you get yourself a snake, pretty much any snake (I’d use something like Ophiophagus hannah: the king cobra as it has a nice rearing posture in my opinion) and you make it really big. Tadaaaaaa.

Basilisk: Alright, Basilisk, king of serpents (from the greek basiliskos meaning little king). What are the traits? It needs to be a big snake, have nasty long range venom, and have a mitre (think pope hat) like crest (which is what the beast was named for, allegedly) Naja mossambica: the mosambic spitting cobra fulfills the long range venom requirement. For the funny head crest, I’d say Chamaeleo calyptras: the veiled chameleon (below) is a good fit.

As for size, I’ll leave that up to the creators discretion.

Sea serpent type A: Alright, so there already exist extant, legitimate sea serpents, known as Oarfish, but I’m designing a reptile one anyway. For the base, I’ll use my favorite sea snake, Hydrophis platurus: the yellow belllied sea snake (below)

to make our buddy actually kind of scary, let’s scale it up to Python reticulatus reticulatus: the mainland reticulated python (below) size, at roughly 10 meters (33 feet was the record)

to give it an aquatic edge up, lets give it Erpeton tentaculatum: the tentacled snake (below) sensory organs 

which would give our sea serpent something like a lateral line. Now, sea serpents actually need to drink fresh water, but other marine reptiles don’t, so lets give it salt excretion glands, like sea turtles have.

Sea serpent type B: Anyone who has seen jurassic world is familiar with the look of this one, as it’s built like the “classic” mosasaur, as in something like this

interestingly, a very close relative of mosasaurs exists today, the monitor lizards! Perhaps the most similar of extant monitors would be (in my opinion) Varanus salvator: the Asian water monitor (below)

which already lives a semi-aquatic life style, for fins, I would probably pick those of Carettochelys insculpta: the pignosed turtle (below)

and then, obviously salt excretion glands so it can actually live at sea.

Sea serpent type C: The final type of sea serpent is going to be Loch Ness monster style. So, how do we build a “plesiosaur”? Well, I would actually use a turtle to build it, several turtles infact, to start with, an almost perfect base, Dermochelys coriacea: the leatherback sea turtle (below)

there are a few key features making this the best base, it is completely marine, it has probably the most hydrodynamic design of all extant marine reptiles, they can inhabit cold waters (ranging into Alaska), they can reach 2.2 meters (7 feet long!), they can dive to over 1,000 meters (3,000 feet), they can dive for up to 70 minutes, and can reach speeds of up to 35 Km/hr (22 mph). Now, there are two main issues, first, obviously it doesn’t have a long neck, and second, it feeds exclusively on soft bodied prey (weak jaws). For both of those issues I would use genes from Chelodina longicollis: the Easter snake necked turtle, which has a neck that can be 60% of it’s total body length (below) 

Quetzalcoatl: Alright, big feathery snake without wings. So, this time we’ll start with our reticulated python as the base, so we’ve got a 10 meter snake, given the original mythology, we’d probably want it’s feathers to be of Pharomachrus mocinno: the resplendant quetzal (below)

or we could take a page from Atheris hispida: the spiny bush viper (below)

and finally, for flight, a more advanced form of the same mechanism as the Paradise tree snake.

Amphithere: Alright, time for the difficult one. So, obviously, we’d be using Bipes bisporus as a base again, and for the feathers, you can use whatever you want, but you’ll also need the splayed rib genes from the paradise tree snake, and to change the front legs to wings, which I’d recomend using those of Chauna torquata: the southern screamer (below)

because, as you see, they’ve got claws, so it might help the animal clamber around.

Wyvern type A: So type A are going to be wyverns that walk on all fours, so for this, you can really pick just about any lizard you want as a base. Unfortunately, pteradactyls are extinct (at least, as far as I’m aware), and no other animal uses it wings as legs, right? Wrong. there are exactly three known to science, particularly Desmodus rotundus: the vampire bat (below)

also, they’re positioned similarly enough to reptile limbs that I really don’t think it would be much of an issue.

Wyvern type B: Alright, so, if the previous walked on all fours, this one has to be bipedal. For this one, we have to use a bird as the base (no extant solely bipedal reptiles) and because just why not, let use the terrifying Casuarius casuarius: the southern cassowary (below)

it’s only the third largest extant bird species. Slap a nice big lizard tail on it, give it bat wings, and exchange the feathers for scales, and you’ve got a monster.

Cockatrice: Get a chicken, give it a lizard tail and bat wings and you’re done.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

SIZE: Go big or go home right? For your trait selecting pleasure of big creatures, we have the common ostrich at almost 3 meters (9 feet) tall and about the same weight as two adult human, the komodo dragon as the largest terrestrial reptile at 3 meter (ten feet) long, and the saltwater crocodile at 6.3 meters (almost 21 feet) in length.

ARMOR: Some options for natural body armor include arapaima scales, alligator gar scales, crocodile osteoderms (bones in the skin), the fused armored girdles of the armadillo lizard, and the spines of the thorny devil lizard.

FIRE BREATH: Fire breath is a complicated one, and I don’t have any exacts here for people on how to make it. Theoretically, something that could spray like a spitting cobra, and can produce terpenoids such as those found in pine trees or alcohols like bacteria the ones bacteria produce, and then generate a spark of some kind, which is the hard part… I think, perhaps an electric one (think electric eel, 860 watts at 1 ampere for 2 milliseconds), channeled through electrically conductive teeth to produce an arc, like an arc lighter, or a taser, there would have to be a line of some type of iron sulfide, like the minerals of a scaley foot gastropod’s shell, to act as a conductor as bone doesn’t conduct electricity well.

Ancient fossil turtle had no shell

Scientists have found new evidence confirming that turtles once lived without shells.

Scientists have found new evidence confirming that turtles once lived without shells.

The almost-complete fossil dates back 228 million years and is bigger than a double bed.

It was discovered in the Guizhou province of south west China

Dr Nicholas Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, said: “It looked like a turtle but then lacked everything of the shell underneath and also the one on top.”

“It has the scaffolding in place for the shell to go on to but it doesn’t have the shell.”

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Do you ever think about how sperm don’t work right at body temperature and that’s why males have external testicles? Design-wise that is such a huge risk to take. Your most important organ is swinging free outside your body, vulnerable to injury or attack. All because one (1) type of cell, your fucking gametes for christ’s sake, cannot function at the normal body temperature of the organism they belong to. What the fuck. I never want to hear a man try and say females are biologically inferior ever again.

Synthetic Cells Move On Their Own

What look like animated illustrations that could easily spring from a child’s imagination are actually newly unveiled artificial cells under a microscope.

Biophysicists at Germany’s Technical University of Munich along with an international team developed simple self-propelled biomachines in a quest to create cell models that display biomechanical functions.

The researchers say their work represents the first time a movable cytoskeleton membrane has been fabricated.

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Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics 7th Edition pdf - Web Education

Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics 7th Edition pdf : Pages 528 By Fawwaz T. Ulaby and Umberto Ravaioli Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics is intended for use in one- or two-semester courses in electromagnetics. It also serves as a reference for engineers. Widely acclaimed both in the U.S. and abroad, this authoritative text bridges the gap between circuits...

Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics 7th Edition

Great book by Fawwaz T. Ulaby and Umberto Ravaioli

Jupiter's 'Baffling' Magnetic Field Is Unlike Any Other

Jupiter is strange for a number of reasons. It’s the biggest planet in our Solar System, of course. It harbors perhaps the most intense radiation environments. And, according to a new study, it has a magnetic field unlike that of any other known planet.

NASA’s Juno orbiter, a basketball court-sized spacecraft, is observing the gas giant as it circles the planet at varying distances. Scientists recently mapped Jupiter’s magnetic field at four depths, and noticed a strange hemispheric dichotomy: The northern hemisphere’s magnetic field was nothing like the southern hemisphere’s.

“It’s a baffling puzzle,” the study’s first author, Harvard Ph.D student Kimberly Moore, told Gizmodo. “Why is it so complicated in the northern hemisphere but so simple in the southern hemisphere?”

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