Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Archive for category Science

Science Trio

Jan 12

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

I saw three interesting science stories today, and amazingly, they had nothing to do with intestinal bacteria!

First up is the launch of Deep Impact, which isn’t a movie but a satellite designed to rendezvous with the comet Temple1 and launch an “impactor” spacecraft designed to use kinetic energy to blow a big hole in the comet, allowing the mothership to take pictures and analyze the material ejected during the impact. That way we’ll know what comets are really made of — dirty snowballs, or something else below the surface. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t take $250,000 to report this, but I used to work on the Delta program in my long lost youth. The fireworks are scheduled for, when else, the Fourth of July

Hopefully, Greenpeace etc. won’t protest this major destruction of comet habitat in the name of science.

Secondly, it isn’t a story about a large wooden badger, but a giant dinosaur eating badger. Yes, you heard me right, fossils have been discovered in China of large badger like mammals that ate dinosaurs — they found the fossilized dino in the belly of the fossil badger. In the words of one of the scientists, it was a “short-legged but powerful animal with fearsome teeth.” Perhaps he meant big pointy teeth. I mean, the finding does competely overturn the view of mamals from that time as being small cuddly cuties that wouldn’t hurt a fly (if there were any).

And lastly, Scientists now believe that the Universe isn’t made of string, but is a giant flat bell. OK, I’m inflating things abit. Alright, enough cosmological humor.  Scientists have confirmed that the early Universe rang with sound and the sound waves influenced the structure – galaxies etc. – of the universe. The good news is that the Universe is flat but wavy; the bad news is that the expansion of the universe isn’t stopping; what began with a bang won’t end at all.

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Sandstorm Over Baghdad

Nov 17

Posted by Carl Drews in Science | No Comments

I got an ‘A’ on my student paper, so it must have been halfway decent. You can read all about the dust storm that hit Iraq last year during Operation Iraqi Freedom at:

Sandstorm Over Baghdad: The Dust Storm that Stalled the Coalition Invasion of Iraq

Now that I’ve posted my report on the web, I can’t understand why it looks to be less work than it really was! The paper is mostly about meteorology, but there are lots of pretty weather pictures and some satellite views of the Persian Gulf region.

And you might learn something new. Did you know that the Marines used captured AK-47s during the storm, since M16 rifles are more vulnerable to grit? I didn’t.

In Other News …

Nov 10

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

Yes, it’s time to hear about my favorite topic — intestinal bacteria. This time, it’s a downside. The little critters may be responsible for obesity

Friendly bacteria in your gut could determine whether you pack on fat or stay lean, according to new research from Washington University. A team of researchers led by Fredrik Backhed, Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon and Dr. Clay F. Semenkovich at Washington University discovered that bacteria, which are a normal part of the intestine, help unlock a gate that allows fat to enter cells for storage.

The researchers raised some mice in a germ-free environment. Those animals had no bacteria in their intestines and had little body fat. Mice that grew up in a conventional environment with bacteria in their intestines had 50 percent more body fat than the germ-free mice did, even though the mice ate the same amount of food.

The researchers then transplanted bacteria from the conventionally reared mice into previously germ-free mice. The animals ate no more than before, but dramatically packed on fat, increasing their body fat content 60 percent in two weeks, Gordon said. 

I’m not overweight; I’m over colonized by gut microbes. 

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Thar She Blows!!!

Oct 5

Posted by Carl Drews in Science | No Comments

What are you doing reading this blog when you could be watching Mt. St. Helens erupt from the comfort of your desk??!!! Check out the Mt. St. Helens VolcanoCam:

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

There was a pretty good-sized puff this morning! A big plume of steam and ash belched out of the crater and sailed up higher than the camera’s view. Pretty cool.

Look, I know that we’re in the midst of a hard-fought presidential campaign, al-Qaeda terrorists are trying to kill us all, Iraq is not yet a functioning country, construction workers just cut down a bunch of beautiful locust trees outside my new office, and I can’t seem to get Swing icons to draw in color. We’ve got problems, no doubt about it.

But when I can sit here at my desk, write Java code to implement my new OutlineView, and watch a volcano erupt in real-time – it’s good to be alive!

Man’s Best Friend

Sep 28

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | 4 Comments

I’m a dog lover. There will be no cat blogging on this blog. Now I have even more reason to prefer dogs – they can smell bladder cancer in human urine. If this works out in a real diagnostic setting (and so far the reliability is too low), it’s easy to imagine what comes next. 

On a related note, a co-worker is on a dog search and rescue team. She was out practicing with her group at a plane crash site when one of the dogs, trained as a cadaver dog, started turning up body parts. They called the sheriff’s department, and by the time they arrived, they had a sizable amount of human remains and plane parts. I don’t know about you, but I spend my weekends in less important but more enjoyable pursuits.

Unhealthy Suburbs?

Sep 28

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

Is urban sprawl really responsible for bad health? Count me among the skeptics, despite the RAND study that says it does.

Virgin Galactic

Sep 27

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

I have to laud Richard Branson for taking space flight to the next level – private flights. I wish him success. But I have to laugh at the name – Virgin Galactic, no, not the Virgin part, the Galactic part. Truth in advertising would have the new firm called Virgin Sub-Orbital, but I guess that doesn’t have the same ring to it as Galactic. 

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Missouri – Predicted Weather

Sep 23

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

Local scientists using a regional climate model predict that the western midwest won’t warm as much as the rest of the world:

“The so-called “hole” in global warming will stretch for hundreds of miles and include Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma, Saint Louis University officials said. The findings are published in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

The modeling showed that warming in the United States will be stronger in winter than summer and stronger at night than during the day,” said Zaitao Pan, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Saint Louis University. “But we found what looked to us like a ‘hole’ in the daytime warming in summer, which was a surprise.”

Good, because I couldn’t take it if the high temperature got any higher during the summer, and I’m a native. Having the nights and winters warmer I can handle. The news isn’t all good though:

Ray Arritt, agronomy professor at Iowa State, said to expect more rainfall and wetter soil in the future. As a result, more of the sun’s energy will go into evaporating water than heating the air, he said.

Oh great, we’ll have higher humidity. The plants will love it, but I’ll be wilting.

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One Of My Favorites

Sep 17

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

I’ve been busy (forecast – no clearing in the busyness for a long time), so thankfully Carl has provided a good substantial post below. I’m going to have to go with one of my favorite topics: intestinal bacteria. They have a good side, and a bad side, and the latest is bad — intestinal bacteria cause Crohn’s disease, an unpleasant ailment. Here’s hoping that knowing what strain causes it will lead to a cure.

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Eat More Berries

Aug 27

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Science | No Comments

Add another color to the palate of what’s good for you. Blue, as in blue berries, helps lower triglycerides and the bad cholesterol while increasing the good cholesterol. But only a few strains of blueberries have the right chemical — pterostilbene (a name only a scientist could love). I wonder how blueberries smothered in tomato paste tastes.