The Hubble Telescope just celebrated its 23rd Anniversary of being in Space! Check out some of it’s most incredible shots and learn more, here - http://bit.ly/ZTHuG1
(via scienceyoucanlove)
Source: discovery
Glass Beach, Northern California
From 1950 to 1967, residents of Fort Bragg, California chose to dispose of their waste by hurling it off the cliffs above a beach. No object was too toxic or too large such as household appliances, automobiles, and all matter of trash were tossed into the crashing waves below, eventually earning it the name The Dumps. Then in 1967, city leaders closed and reclaimed the beach. Various cleanup programs were undertaken.
Over the next several decades, the pounding waves cleaned the beach by breaking down everything but glass turning the sand into a sparkling, multicolored bed of smooth glass stones. The California Department of Parks and Recreation purchased the land and incorporated it into MacKerricher State Park in 2002.
(via discoverynews)
Source: Los Angeles Times
Study: Cannabis Compound Might Have Use As An HIV Drug
The chemical compound in cannabis, THC, appears to be able to damage and weaken the most common strain of the HIV virus.
Before you light up a spliff, though, this is only a preliminary result reached under laboratory conditions, and further research will be needed.
THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — it’s the chemical that gets the user stoned. Synthetic versions of it have been developed for research purposes, and it’s this that was used to attack the HIV-1 virus, which represents the vast majority (more than 90 percent) of all HIV types.The way it works is by interaction with the cannabinoid type-2 (CB2) receptor in white blood cells, specifically the macrophages. Macrophages are one of many types of white blood cell in humans. While the main cells, the lymphocytes, do the bulk of the work in fighting infection by tracking down and destroying germs with antibodies, macrophages form a kind of backup part of the immune system — attracted to damaged cells, they surround and engulf them while also alerting lymphocytes of new dangers.
Macrophages have an unpleasant weakness, though, in that they are one of the first types of cells to be infected by HIV when it enters the body. The virus can live inside macrophages for days, weeks or months, travelling around the body, infecting other cells and acting as an extremely effective pollinator of HIV.
Stopping the HIV virus from infecting macrophages is one method researchers are investigating, as it would dramatically curtail the speed at which the infection progresses and would give time for other antiretrovirals to help keep it at bay, or even remove it.
The CB2 receptor in macrophages is stimulated normally when THC enters the bloodstream, so nothing unusual there. However, it appears that macrophages that have their CB2 receptor stimulated are stronger when it comes to fighting and weakening the HIV-1 virus.
This was discovered when the research team from the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia infected macrophages with the HIV-1 virus, before then exposing cell cultures to one of three types of synthetic THC that specifically target the CB2 receptor. Comparing these cell cultures after seven days against a control group revealed a clear decrease in the rate of HIV-1 infection. Effectively, the macrophages had become stronger at keeping the HIV-1 virus out.
Pathologist Yuri Persidsky from Temple University, one of the study’s authors, said: “The synthetic compounds we used in our study may show promise in helping the body fight HIV-1 infection. As compounds like these are improved further and made widely available, we will continue to explore their potential to fight other viral diseases that are notoriously difficult to treat.”
An added benefit of targeting only the CB2 receptor is that its only affect is to stimulate the macrophages — the psychoactive component of THC is experienced when the CB1 receptor gets targeted. Synthetic THC compounds can be produced to only target the CB2 receptor in this way. THC has also been shown in studies not to suppress the immune systems of those who take it, meaning that the findings could provide hints at a future drug that, in combination with other methods, could be used for suppressing the HIV-1 virus.
The study has been published in The Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
image: image: An example of a mouse macrophage reaching out to absorb to particles (possibly pathogens)magnaram/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
(via polymath4ever)
Source: wired.co.uk
Neurons growing in a cell culture
These time lapse animations use phase contrast microscopy to show neural stem cells in a nutrient medium for 4 hours. They reveal the dynamic growth and recycling of dendrites and synapses as neurons establish relationships with each other. The social behavior of these cells creates the incredible properties of the mind and brain.
Credit: University of Victoria Medical Sciences
Your brain is doing this RIGHT NOW. Re-wiring as you remember something or learn something, constantly changing.
(via scienceyoucanlove)
Source: infinity-imagined
Shadia and Raja Alem: The Black Arch
2011.
STAINLESS STEEL, CAST IRON, FABRIC AND STONE WITH PROJECTED PHOTOGRAPHS AND SOUND INSTALLATION 700 × 20 × 350 CM.
PAVILION OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AT THE 54TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION – LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
The Galapagos - just far enough apart to give Darwin something to think about.
Bio-light…light fixture that runs on bacteria.
An international team has discovered an exotic double object that consists of a tiny, but unusually heavy neutron star that spins 25 times each second, orbited every two and a half hours by a white dwarf star. The neutron star is a pulsar that is giving off radio waves that can be picked up on Earth by radio telescopes. Although this unusual pair is very interesting in its own right it is also a unique laboratory for testing the limits of physical theories.
This pulsar is named PSR J0348+0432 and is the remains of a supernova explosion. It is twice as heavy as the Sun, but just 20 kilometres across. The gravity at its surface is more than 300 billion times stronger than that on Earth and at its centre every sugar-cubed-sized volume has more than one billion tonnes of matter squeezed into it. Its companion white dwarf star is only slightly less exotic; it is the glowing remains of a much lighter star that has lost its atmosphere and is slowly cooling.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime created by the presence of mass and energy, has withstood all tests since it was first published almost a century ago. But it cannot be the final explanation and must ultimately break down.
(via smoot)
Source: ecocides
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