Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life

A team of biologists and chemists is close to bringing non-living matter to life.

A lab led by a Harvard Medical School molecular biologist is building simple cell models that can almost be called life. The protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe. The replication isn't wholly autonomous, so it's not quite artificial life yet, but it is as close as anyone has ever come to turning chemicals into biological organisms.

The below video shows a protocell forming from fatty acids:



Original article here.

Red-wing Blackbirds Riding on Red-tailed Hawk?

The pictures below were taken by a photographer in Minnesota. They show Red-Winged Blackbirds hitching a ride on the back of a Red-Tailed Hawk. He claims this is not terribly uncommon, as red-winged blackbirds are extremely protective of their nests. They will dive-bomb humans, and he claims it is reasonable that they were harass a hawk. The birds apparently only stay for a matter of seconds.

So are the pictures real or Photoshopped? You decide:

Water Bears can Survive in Space

Space is extremely cold (near absolute zero) and it is a vacuum with no oxygen, plus the additional threat of lethal radiation from stars. It is considered the most hostile of environments, where unprotected humans would last for a fraction of a second.

But new research shows that some animals - "water bears", properly known as tardigrades - can survive exposure to the open-space vacuum, cold, and radiation just fine.

This is the first time that any animal has been tested for survival under open-space conditions. Tardigrades are tiny invertebrate animals from 0.1 to 1.5mm in size that can be easily found on wet lichens and mosses. Because their homes often fall dry, tardigrades are very resistant to drying out and can resurrect after years of dryness. Along with this amazing survival trick comes extreme resistance to heat, cold and radiation —so tardigrades seemed like an ideal animal to test in space.

The dried-up tardigrades were aboard a spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency in September 2007 and were exposed to open space conditions in a low Earth orbit of around 168 miles altitude. After their safe return to Earth, it turned out that while most of them survived exposure to vacuum and cosmic rays alone, some had even survived the exposure to the deadly levels of solar UV radiation, which are more than 1000 times higher than on the surface of the Earth. Even more so, the survivors could reproduce fine after their space trip.

Below are a pair of videos with water bears in action:





Original article here.

Growing Organs through Cell Regeneration

The video below is of a news segment highlighting cell regeneration and the future of growing organs from the body's own cells.

Tree-Climbing Goats

In Morocco, goats have become adept at climbing Argan trees in search of food, which is otherwise sparse in the region.









(articles: 1, 2)

World's tiniest snake found in Barbados

A U.S. scientist has discovered the world's tiniest species of snake in the easternmost Caribbean island of Barbados, with full-grown adults typically stretching less than 4 inches. The snake, which is so small it can curl up on a U.S. quarter, is the smallest of the roughly 3,100 known snake species.

Rare Australian Snubfin Dolphin filmed

A camera crew has filmed a rare breed of dolphin that has only been known to scientists for three years near Broome, Western Australia.

The recent discovery of the Australian snubfin dolphin has led scientists to search the Australian coastline for the elusive animals.

According to the research team, the sighting is the best yet as the dolphins were playful and poked their heads above water. Scientists were also able to record underwater sounds the dolphins made while communicating.

Solar Power Breakthrough

MIT researchers announced that they have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is too expensive and inefficient. Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, the scientists have developed a process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced. Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

Insects use trapped oxygen to breathe underwater

Hundreds of insect species spend much of their time underwater, where food may be more plentiful. MIT mathematicians have now figured out exactly how those insects breathe underwater.

By virtue of their rough, water-repellent coat, when submerged these insects trap a thin layer of air on their bodies. These bubbles not only serve as a finite oxygen store, but also allow the insects to absorb oxygen from the surrounding water. The insects use this bubble as a kind of external lung.

Thanks to those air bubbles, insects can stay below the surface indefinitely and dive as deep as about 100 feet. Some species, such as Neoplea striola, which are native to New England, hibernate underwater all winter long.

The air bubble's stability is maintained by hairs on the insects' abdomen, which help repel water from the surface. The hairs, along with a waxy surface coating, prevent water from flooding the spiracles--tiny breathing holes on the abdomen.

The spacing of these hairs is critically important: The closer together the hairs, the greater the mechanical stability and the more pressure the bubble can withstand before collapsing. However, mechanical stability comes at a cost. If the hairs are too close together, there is not enough surface area through which to breathe.

Living Fossils

This gallery features many creatures alive today that exist today more or less unevolved from the forms they had hundreds of millions of years ago. Some of the creatures they discuss include the following:

Horseshoe Crab:


Lamprey:


Nautilus:


Okapi:


Platypus: