Jump to content

Science Thread


Nigel

Recommended Posts

 

BBC, Girls who never age

 

 

 

Richard Walker has been trying to conquer ageing since he was a 26-year-old free-loving hippie. It was the 1960s, an era marked by youth: Vietnam War protests, psychedelic drugs, sexual revolutions. The young Walker relished the culture of exultation, of joie de vivre, and yet was also acutely aware of its passing. He was haunted by the knowledge that ageing would eventually steal away his vitality – that with each passing day his body was slightly less robust, slightly more decayed. One evening he went for a drive in his convertible and vowed that by his 40th birthday, he would find a cure for ageing.

 

98866.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

What, no talk of us landing a probe on a comet some 310 million miles away after a 10 year journey?

Let's hope they can get the harpoons to fire and make the thing stick.

 

It's in the cheer you up thread, and it stuck. Well done to them

 

It didn't stick.

 

But it has now.

 

:thumb:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Once again it's not energy companies making the breakthroughs. This time it's Andre Geim and the researchers at Manchester University.

 

 A recently discovered form of carbon graphite – the material in pencil lead – has turned out to have a completely unexpected property which could revolutionise the development of green energy and electric cars... The breakthrough raises the prospect of extracting hydrogen fuel from air and burning it as a carbon-free source of energy in a fuel cell to produce electricity and water with no damaging waste products.ghf

 

Clicky

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Fat 'breathed out' of body via lungs, say scientists By Michelle Roberts Health editor, BBC News online

_79756875_f0054802-man_resting_on_spin_m

Fat can be breathed out as well as burned off as you lose weight, biochemists who have studied metabolism at a microscopic level say.

But they warn that people still need to huff and puff with exercise to keep slim - hyperventilating on its own will not do the trick.

The Australian team traced the route of fat out of the body as atoms.

Their findings are published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal.

Continue reading the main storyStart Quote

These results show that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss”

The study authors

When fat is broken down to its constituent parts, a couple of things happen.

Chemical bonds are broken, a process which releases heat and fuel to power muscles.

But the atoms - the stuff fat is made of - remain, and much of these leave the body via the lungs as carbon dioxide, say the scientists.

Fat storage and metabolism
_79772944_f0062275-human_fat_cells,_artwFat cells are used by the body as an energy store

Fat from food is stored in the body in cells called adipocytes. It is stored as a compound called triglyceride.

Triglyceride consists of three kinds of atoms; carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and this means that when it is broken down around a fifth of it forms water (H2O) and four-fifths becomes carbon dioxide (CO2).

The water formed may be excreted in the urine, faeces, sweat, breath, tears, or other bodily fluids and is readily replenished by drinking water.

But the exhaled carbon (in CO2) can only be replaced by eating food or consuming beverages such as fruit juice.

Eat less, move more

The study authors, Ruben Meerman and Andrew Brown from The University of New South Wales, said: "None of this biochemistry is new, but for unknown reasons it seems nobody has thought of performing these calculations before.

_79772942_c0173600-carbon_dioxide_molecuCarbon dioxide is the main 'atomic' waste product when fat is metabolised

"These results show that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss."

They estimate that an average person loses at least 200g of carbon every day and roughly a third of that occurs as we sleep.

Replacing one hour of rest with moderate intensity exercise, such as jogging, removes an additional 40g of carbon from the body, raising the total by about a fifth to 240g.

So to keep weight off you need to balance what you eat against what you burn off and exhale.

"Losing weight requires unlocking the carbon stored in fat cells, thus reinforcing that often-heard refrain of 'eat less, move more,'" say the researchers.

Duane Mellor of the British Dietetics Association likened fat metabolism to burning petrol in a car - it makes heat and drives movement, but also creates and releases waste.

"The atoms left after breaking down fat for energy are like the exhaust fumes," he said.

Dr Tom Barber, associate professor of Endocrinology at Warwick University, said the work was interesting and novel, and busted the misperception that fat is simply burned off as energy - something that even many doctors think.

"But it does not change the health message that we need to do exercise to keep fat off," he said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Spacecraft Data Suggest Saturn Moon's Ocean May Harbor Hydrothermal Activity

 


 

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first clear evidence that Saturn’s moon Enceladus exhibits signs of present-day hydrothermal activity which may resemble that seen in the deep oceans on Earth. The implications of such activity on a world other than our planet open up unprecedented scientific possibilities.

 

“These findings add to the possibility that Enceladus, which contains a subsurface ocean and displays remarkable geologic activity, could contain environments suitable for living organisms,” said John Grunsfeld astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The locations in our solar system where extreme environments occur in which life might exist may bring us closer to answering the question: are we alone in the Universe.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

NASA TV

 

Upcoming Event: LDSD Mars Landing Technology Flight Test

June 8, 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET, 1700 UTC)

Watch live as our Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator takes to the skies over Kauai, Hawaii, in its second flight test. Via cameras aboard the test vehicle, media and public can watch live on NASA TV and http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL2as the rocket-propelled craft attains velocity four times the speed of sound, inflates and deploys the world's largest parachute. This technology may someday help land humans on Mars.

 

I'm streaming it now!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stupidly, ridiculously, laughably, mind-blowing (imo).

Enlightening and very interesting and then he lets it down by saying that the 'big goals' [sic] is to eradicate disease &c..

What do we do when disease is eradicated?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Stupidly, ridiculously, laughably, mind-blowing (imo).

Enlightening and very interesting and then he lets it down by saying that the 'big goals' [sic] is to eradicate disease &c..

What do we do when disease is eradicated?

 

 

Get high and watch TV?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Stupidly, ridiculously, laughably, mind-blowing (imo).

Enlightening and very interesting and then he lets it down by saying that the 'big goals' [sic] is to eradicate disease &c..

What do we do when disease is eradicated?

 

 

Get high and watch TV?

 

 

sort out the Villa back four

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
×
×
  • Create New...
Â