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The Times they are acclaimin’

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Literaturecharles baxter, fiction writer, fictional characters, gryphon

Fiction writer Charles Baxter talks about writing and life

Miss Ferenczi, a substitute teacher, begins a stint by ditching a boring lesson on traditional Egyptian irrigation methods and winging it. (more…)

Yale’s New Microscope Brings Atoms’ Identities into Focus

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Education, Scienceatom scale materials, atomic level resolution, atomic resolution, atoms and molecules, carbon nanotubes, chemical composition, crystals, electron beams, electron energy, energy, gayatri keskar, lisa pfefferle, microscope, nanometers, nanoscience and quantum engineering, osirus chemistem model, paul fleury, quantum computing, semiconductors, state of the art microscope, steve girvin, sustainability research, tem, transmission electron microscope, width of a human hair, x ray detector, yinqe, yinqe laboratory

Yale’s acquisition of a powerful new transmission electron microscope (TEM) is expected to transform researchers’ ability to examine and manipulate atom-scale materials and devices on campus.

The approximately $2 million, state-of-the-art microscope offers atomic resolution for both physical structure and chemical composition, as well as significantly faster processing times than other devices on campus. It is the first unit of this specific TEM model acquired for university laboratory use. (more…)

NASA’s Kepler Mission Finds Three Smallest Exoplanets

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Sciencecalifornia institute of technology, caltech, doug hudgins, exoplanets, Galaxy, hawaii, john johnson, jupiter, keck observatory, kepler, kepler 22b, kepler mission, koi 961, mauna kea, milky way galaxy, NASA, palomar observatory, phil muirhead, planet hunters, planetary systems, radius of earth, red dwarfs, san diego, size of mars, smallest planets

PASADENA, Calif. – Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun. The planets orbit a single star, called KOI-961, and are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the radius of Earth. The smallest is about the size of Mars.

All three planets are thought to be rocky like Earth but orbit close to their star, making them too hot to be in the habitable zone, which is the region where liquid water could exist. Of the more than 700 planets confirmed to orbit other stars, called exoplanets, only a handful are known to be rocky. (more…)

New Information on the Waste-Disposal Units of Living Cells

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Sciencecellular process, cellular proteins, living cells, proteasome process, subnanometer scale, waste disposal

Berkeley Researchers Provide Detailed Look at Proteasome’s Regulatory Particle

Important new information on one of the most critical protein machines in living cells has been reported by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The researchers have provided the most detailed look ever at the “regulatory particle” used by the protein machines known as proteasomes to identify and degrade proteins that have been marked for destruction. The activities controlled by this regulatory particle are critical to the quality control of cellular proteins, as well as a broad range of vital biochemical processes, including transcription, DNA repair and the immune defense system. (more…)

Sewing the Inner, Creative Mind

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Culture, Environmentcreative mind, perfectionist, reformed perfectionist, sewing machine, solar power

UA alumnus Paul Nosa travels with his solar powered sewing machine, stitching patches of the thoughts people choose to share with him

Paul Nosa is a perfectionist – well, a reformed perfectionist. (more…)

Research Focuses on Youth, Chronic Illness and Employment

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Economy, Healthchronic illness, employment, good health, juvenile arthritis, spinal disorders, young adults

PhD candidate explores their interconnection

Like any 28 year old, Arif Jetha, a fourth-year PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, is worrying about his future. Once he completes his PhD, should he remain at home with his parents and pursue post-doctoral work or move on to full-time employment and begin establishing his career? (more…)

Timely Ends: Telomere Length in Early Life Predicts Lifespan

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Scienceblood cells, britt heidinger, cells, chromosomes, conditions, DNA, dna protection, environmental factors, exeter, function, genetic code, jon blount, lifespan, malfunction, plastic caps, predictor of longevity, telomere cap, telomere lengths, telomeres, universities of glasgow, zebra finches

New research by a team from the Universities of Glasgow and Exeter shows that a good indicator of how long individuals will live can be obtained from early in life using the length of specialised pieces of DNA called telomeres.

Telomeres occur at the ends of the chromosomes, which contain our genetic code.

They function a bit like the plastic caps at the end of shoelaces by marking the chromosome ends and protecting them from various process that gradually cause the ends to be worn away. This method of DNA protection is the same for most animals and plants, including humans, and the eventual loss of the telomere cap is known to cause cells to malfunction. This study is the first in which telomere length has been measured repeatedly from early in life of an individual and then for the rest of their natural lives. The results show that telomere length in early life is strongly predictive of lifespan. (more…)

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Science21st century, age of reptiles, ancient plant structure, carbon cycle, carboniferous period, cocktail party, dinosaurs, earth, ecology, evolution, excalibur movie, fieldwork, fossil record, giant fungus, harvard university, history of life, ice age, jung eun lee, kevin boyce, knowledge, la brea tar pits, lloyd degrane, los angeles, macroevolution, mammal fossils, michael foote, million years ago, mural, pair of calipers, paleontology, plant fossils, prehistoric life, scanning electron microscope, school, soil moisture, terrestrial ecosystems, vascular plants

For a short time in grade school, Kevin Boyce lived within two blocks of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, a place where ice age mammal fossils had been discovered. Above his bed hung a poster of the Yale Peabody Museum’s famous Age of Reptiles mural. But it wasn’t a boyhood fascination with prehistoric life that influenced his interest in paleontology, but rather the medieval literary world of Chaucer that Boyce discovered in college.

“I didn’t think twice about fossils between the ages of 7 and 20,” said Boyce, associate professor in geophysical sciences. Even during his undergraduate studies in literature and biology at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1990s, the deep history of life on Earth was far from his mind. (more…)

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