Tavola periodica

"E' in tale visione che l'EuChems (European Chemical Society) ha accolto la proposta di un ricercatore italiano, Nicola Armaroli, di creare la prima "Tavola Periodica dell'Abbondanza". "

https://www.interris.it/curiosita/ecco-la-tavola-periodica-dell-abbondanza

Campi Flegrei

Supervulcani: l'evoluzione (pericolosa) dei Campi Flegrei
https://www.focus.it/scienza/scienze/supervulcani-campi-flegrei-a-rischio-eruzione

"I Campi Flegrei sono un'area della Campania situata a ovest di Napoli e dell'omonimo golfo, nota fin dall'antichità per la sua "vivace" attività vulcanica, caratterizzata da diverse, violente eruzioni da circa 60.000 anni fa in poi - accompagnate da una lunga serie di episodi considerati "minori" in qualche caso così violenti da coprire di tufo gran parte dell'odierna Campania."

L'area flegrea è un supervulcano, inserito tra i dieci vulcani più pericolosi del Pianeta.

Mi ricordo bene la visita alla solfatara, posto molto pericoloso.

Mars Rover Named in Honor of Scientist Rosalind Franklin

European Mars Rover Named for Crystal Scientist Rosalind Franklin
By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | February 7, 2019 02:20pm ET
 
The European Space Agency (ESA) has named its next Mars rover, due to touch down on the Red Planet in March 2021, in honor of British scientist Rosalind Franklin, whose research was crucial to scientists' determining the structure of DNA.

https://www.space.com/43259-exomars-rover-named-for-rosalind-franklin.html

"James Watson and Francis Crick used her research without permission and with little credit when publishing their model of the structure of DNA in 1953. In Watson's book "The Double Helix," which shaped the narrative around the discovery of the structure of DNA for decades, he painted a vituperative picture of Franklin, whom he referred to as "Rosy." She died in 1958 at age 37, and her work went mostly unacknowledged until the 1990s."

Deep Space Beacon

Pulsed gamma rays from the Vela pulsar from photons detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope. The Vela pulsar is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays in the sky. The bluer colour in the latter part of the pulse indicates the presence of gamma rays with energies exceeding a billion electron volts (1 GeV). For comparison, visible light has energies between two and three electron volts. Red indicates gamma rays with energies less than 300 million electron volts (MeV); green, gamma rays between 300 MeV and 1 GeV; and blue shows gamma rays greater than 1 GeV. The image frame is 30 degrees across. The background, which shows diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Milky Way, is about 15 times brighter here than it actually is.
Source Goddard Space Flight Center
Author Roger Romani (Stanford University) (Lead), Lucas Guillemot (CENBG), Francis Reddy (SPSYS)

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

 Brookhaven National Laboratory:  A scanning electron microscope captured this from the bottom of a trench carved by reactive ion etching. 

Physics of archaeology

"Physics is breaking new ground in the field of archaeology and human evolution.
So much so that in just a few years the gains in archaeology now equal the gains made from the past 100 years of using traditional methods, explains nuclear physicist and University of Wollongong visiting Professor Claudio Tuniz. Dr Tuniz, who began his career in the United States using physics to analyse moon rocks and meteorites, has spent almost two decades examining how advanced scientific technology in nuclear physics and X-rays can tell us more about palaeoanthropology and human evolution. ..."
more at
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1333188/hi-tech-discoveries-archaeology-transformed/?cs=12

Cooking ... the brain

"Brains demand exceptional amounts of energy," says Ed Yong at Discover Magazine — energy that raw food simply can't provide. That's where cooking comes in.
Writes Yong:
Our ancestors overcame this constraint when they learned how to cook. Cooked food offers more calories than raw food, and is easier to chew and digest. These early chefs could gain more energy from the same amount of eating time. That, in turn, fueled more neurons and larger brains.

Read the interesting article The Week
http://theweek.com/article/index/235334/cooking-the-secret-to-the-evolution-of-the-human-brain

Cupriavidus metallidurans

"The ability to create gold from base materials has eluded alchemists since the Middle Ages, but two U.S. university professors have found a way to produce small amounts of gold using metal-loving bacteria to make the magic. ... the two professors at Michigan State University found that a certain type of metal-loving bacteria can transform high amounts of the toxic chemical compound gold chloride from a liquid into solid 24-karat gold. " Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University and Adam Brown, associate professor of electronic art and intermedia at Michigan State, found that the bacteria, Cupriavidus metallidurans, can withstand concentrations of gold chloride 25 times higher than previously reported by scientists.
More at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kitconews/2012/10/05/focus-microbial-alchemy-produces-gold-from-toxic-chemical/

Crean memoria de cristal capaz de guardar datos por millones de años

Crean memoria de cristal capaz de guardar datos por millones de años
(ConNuestroPeru) "La información se podrá leer con la ayuda de un microscopio óptico. La empresa japonesa Hitachi ha presentado un prototipo de almacenamiento digital de información consistente en pequeñas láminas de cristal de cuarzo capaces de guardar datos durante millones de años."

Is it forming a new tectonic plate?

(CBS News) "A new study suggests that two recent earthquakes may indicate a literal seismic shift in our understanding of tectonic plate movements. Massive earthquakes under the Indian Ocean that took place last spring are the largest of their kind ever recorded. The 8.7 magnitude quake, followed by a 8.2 magnitude aftershock, could signal the formation of a new plate boundary under the Earth."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57521633/earthquakes-suggest-new-tectonic-plate-is-forming/

Body talks

Forbes writes on "10 Body Language Tics That Could Cost You The Interview -- And The Job" ...
In everyday life these habits are no big deal, he says. But in an interview setting they can become a distraction, taking the hiring manager’s focus off of your talents and onto your… bad hair day. ...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/09/26/10-body-language-tics-that-could-cost-you-the-interview-and-the-job/

Suricata suricatta

Suricata suricatta :  A group of Meerkats at Auckland Zoo, New Zealand.

Date 27 June 2009, Source originally posted to Flickr as Meerkats
Author Ashleigh Thompson

 Dear Author (Ashleigh Thompson), Thank you for this beautiful picture! 

The world's first seismometer was Chinese

Who was the inventor of the first siesmometer?
 Zhang Heng. He was  (AD 78–139) a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman. He lived under the Han Dynasty (AD 25–220) of China. He was a  Chief Astronomer, Prefect of the Majors for Official Carriages, and then Palace Attendant at the imperial court.  He invented the world's first water-powered armillary sphere,  improved the inflow water clock by adding another tank and invented the world's first seismometer, which discerned the cardinal direction of an earthquake 500 km away. He improved previous Chinese calculations of the formula for pi. In addition to documenting about 2,500 stars in his extensive star catalogue. Some modern scholars have also compared his work in astronomy to that of Ptolemy (AD 86–161). (Adapted from Wiki)

 A replica of an ancient Chinese Siesmograph  (25-220 CE). Picture taken in July 2004  at Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland California.

"In 132 CE, after several serious earthquakes in China, astronomer Zhang Heng invented this instrument to warn people of the next one. When the ground shook, it moved a pendulum inside the jug. The pendulum pushed a lever that opened one dragon's mouth. A ball rolled out and into the toad's mouth below, sounding an alarm. The open dragon mouth pointed in the direction of the earthquake, notifying the Emperor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EastHanSeismograph.JPG

Every breath you take, Every move you make

"Engineers have designed a device that harvests energy from the reverberation of heartbeats through the chest and converts it to electricity to run a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator.
According to a statement, these medical machines — developed at Michigan University — send electrical signals to the heart to keep it beating in a healthy rhythm.
By taking the place of the batteries that power them today, the new energy harvester could save patients from repeated surgeries."

Read more:

Energy caught from heartbeats could power implanted devices | News | The Engineer

Chimeras

"The world's first monkeys to be created from the embryos of several individuals have been born at a US research centre. Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Centre produced the animals, known as chimeras, by sticking together between three and six rhesus monkey embryos in the early stages of their development....The first chimeric animals were created by researchers in the 1960s, when experiments with mouse embryos showed they could combine to form a single mouse of normal size. Since then, scientists have created chimeric versions of rats, rabbits, sheep and cattle."
More http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/05/chimera-monkeys-combining-several-embryos

Noah's problems

Quite interesting paper, published in Econometrica, Vol. 66, No. 6 (November, 1998}, 1279-1298.
The tile is: THE NOAH’S ARK PROBLEM, by MARTIN L. WEITZMAN
Abstract: This paper is about the economic theory of biodiversity preservation. A cost-effectiveness methodology is constructed, which results in a particular formula that can be used as a criterion to rank projects. The ranking criterion is sufficiently operational to be useful in suggesting what to look at when determining actual conservation priorities among endangered species. At the same time, the formula is firmly rooted in a mathematically rigorous optimization framework, so that its theoretical underpinnings are clear. The underlying model, called the “Noah‘s Ark Problem,” is intended to be a kind of canonical form that  hones down to its analytical essence the problem of best preserving diversity under a limited budget constraint.
Keywords: Biodiversity, endangered species, diversity theory
The author writes
"There are several motivations for this paper. Essentially, I am trying to introduce an analytical framework that represents a useful way of thinking about the economics of diversity through the medium of an abstract mathematical model. The “Noah’s Ark Problem” is a parable intended to be a kind of canonical form of the simplest possible way of representing how best to preserve biodiversity under a limited budget constraint. Throughout the paper, emphasis is laid upon simplicity of structure, in order to get at the analytical essence of
the problem."
Noah's-ark-problem-pdf

Bee rescue

Stingless bee rescue,   by Wendy Pyper
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/05/08/2045526.htm#artBookmarks
"Of the 1600 species of wild bees native to Australia, about 14 species are stingless. As stingless bees are harmless to humans, they have become an increasingly attractive addition to the suburban backyard or verandah.
Most stingless bee keepers are not after honey. Rather, they enjoy the sense of conserving a native species whose original habitat is being increasingly cleared and developed. In return, the bees pollinate crops, garden flowers and bushland during their search for nectar and pollen."

Stingless bees

Ci sono api e api...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingless_bee

¿Un Futuro Sin Abejas?

s"Misteriosamente, las abejas mueren o se extravían y no pueden volver a su reducto, por lo que sus poblaciones se diezman inexplicablemente. Si ellas desaparecieran, alimentar a los 7 mil millones de habitantes de la Tierra, será muy difícil."
Especial Abejas: ¿Un Futuro Sin Abejas?

Cocoons

"...a new finding of ancient wasp cocoons hidden inside the fossilized egg of a titanosaur sauropod.
The research, published July 15 in the journal Palaeontology, suggests the ancient wasps played an important role in certain food webs during the Age of Dinosaurs. The clutch of five eggs ... belonging to a titanosaur (among the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth), was discovered in 1989 in the Patagonia region of Argentina; only recently did scientists discover that one of the broken eggs contained tiny sausage-shaped structures. The size and shape of the structures, which are about an inch long and 0.3 inches wide (2-3 cm by 1 cm), most closely matched cocoons made by some species of modern wasp ...".
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/15/scitech/main20079883.shtml