Students at Northwestern University have developed a method for producing spider silk on an industrial scale. They hope to use the process to break into the bullet proof vest market since the web is stronger and lighter than Kevlar.
via laboratoryequipment:
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/silk-better-kevlar
A Boy And His Atom, Single Molecules Serve as Pixels in The World’s Smallest Animation
Unreal!
Cool images of various duplex arrangements: DNA (A, B and Z) and A-RNA.
There has been misinformation and negative publicity about high-profile chemicals, resulting in public anxiety and calls to overhaul existing laws. We agree that it is past time to reform our chemical control law, but scare stories don’t serve the cause.
To liken the Toxic Substances Control Act to statutes that regulate pesticides, drugs and food additives would be misguided and economically foolish. If chemicals were treated as such, many everyday products would no longer be available.
Most chemicals can be and are used safely; however, any could cause harm if not used properly. This is why the Environmental Protection Agency does not typically ban chemicals outright; rather, it restricts use based on exposure.
The E.P.A. doesn’t require upfront data on new chemicals; the agency uses precautionary models to generate worst-case scenarios. It also looks at similar substances for comparison.
More chemicals are detected via biomonitoring — measuring chemicals in human tissues. Technology allows us to determine concentrations at parts per trillion. This detection does not equate to harm, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regularly notes.
BILL ALLMONDWashington, April 23, 2013
The writer is vice president for government and public relations at the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates.
“Are you worried about running Broad Street?” The question pulled me out of a week long stupor. I had seen responses to last week’s tragedy on social media, but I couldn’t formulate one myself. I could not express how the whole thing affected me.
I spent last Monday afternoon on my computer watching video and looking at stills, so much blood. I checked in with my friends to make sure they were ok physically, emotionally. The only response from one friend sitting in a bar near the finish line when the bomb ignited was, “Jesus Christ.” Emotionally shaken, but, thankfully, physically ok.
This is the first catastrophe of late that we let our kids in on in realtime. My ten year old watches the news every morning before school. We were on our way to take his younger brother to piano lessons last Wednesday when he told us that he had seen on the news that the Boston bombers were planning on attacking The Broad Street Run.
The stifled emotion leaked out as anger which I am sure was evident to my son when I responded, “I think you misunderstood them, honey. At this point they could only be speculating.” But he insisted. God damn sensationalism of the local media, what a horrible way to try to get in on the action, I thought.
I was mad that my children would now have a reflex of anxiety when I went off to participate in what had previously been an innocuous race. I was furious that I would forever be afraid. “Yeah, I’m worried,” was my answer when my friend asked me about Broad Street on Thursday morning. “It makes me really nervous.”
The Broad Street Run is where I fell in love with the city of Philadelphia. I have lived 20 miles north of the city for ten years and I worked in North Philly, at Temple University, for five before I ran Broad Street for the first time. Since I worked in the city I thought I knew Philadelphia (I spent more time there than any of my neighbors). But it wasn’t until I went from North Philly, through Center City, past South Philly to the Navel Yard, ten miles, on foot, that I realized this is an awesome city.
If you count the pre-race wait, much of your Broad Street Run race time is spent in North Philadelphia. Search North Philly on Wikipedia and you learn of the prosperous industrial history of this area of the city and its development as a working-class neighborhood. But the entry also states, “In past decades, North Philadelphia was hit hard by economic decline.” And it goes on to say that “unfettered poverty has earned North Philadelphia a reputation as a slum.”
In the early morning hours, of the first Sunday of May, North Philadelphia - which according to the 2010 census is solidly above 50% Non-Hispanic Blacks - gets decidedly, um, paler. Tens of thousands of white, middle-class runners pour out of the Olney Subway Station like albino ants from a disrupted mound. When you look around at the population of runners you can be confident that any other time of day, any other day of the year, these people don’t get within five miles of Olney Station. It does not seem to matter to the residents of North Philly. As the race begins a swarm of people converge on one point; the ants march toward the starting line.
As the crowd spreads, as runners find a comfortable stride, residents sitting on their front stoop provide inspiration. A teenage boy in baggy athletic shorts, next to a heavyset man, with a graying beard, scream, “Great Job!” and “Way to Go!” A choir in pale-yellow robes with gold stoles, fans out behind a priest on the steps of Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church – a sprawling Gothic complex that takes up half a city block. He bellows exultations into a microphone while the choir claps and sings. A man in a Sixers jersey calls out with a joyful, booming voice, “You made it two miles. Keep Going! Keep Going!” A mile further a thin woman with a head full of bouncing, pink rollers screams, “You are doing it, girl! You are doing it!” to female runners.
It continues like this for miles, ten miles. Spectators are vital in a distance run. They give participants something to focus on other than physical discomfort. They humor and motivate, they entertain.
For me the hardest part about last week was knowing that the people I count on during a race were the ones who suffered. The people who get out of bed and stand for hours, cheering on stranger after stranger, waiting for a glimpse of a loved one and the opportunity to say, “I’m so proud of you.”
“Red Socks for Broad Street,” read the subject line of an email I received on Friday from a member of my runner club. This is how we will acknowledge the horror of last week here in Philadelphia. I asked her to get me a pair.
Am I worried? Yeah, I am worried. But I will don my red socks and I will run. If I stay home terrorism had its intended effect and I refuse to let that happen. I hope all the spectators of The Broad Street Run, who mean so much to this runner, feel the same.
According to this report last Friday by Ian Urbina at The New York Times, two bills are being drafted in congress that would revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act which has not been altered since 1970.
“Scientific Method of Madness” via Flocabulary.com
I am crying laughing at this!
Sulphur Hexafloride = fun times.
NPH; “PUT THE LOTION IN THE BASKET”
WHOA!!!
Me: So the Academy of Natural Sciences has a summer camp called Sea Monsters. Do you want to go?
7 yr old: I wonder if they will have an audio system with a recording of the Bloop.
Me: What? What is the Bloop?
7 yr old: It is a mysterious underwater creature that no one has ever seen.
Me: (turning to my 10 yr old) Have you ever heard of this?
10 yr old: Bloop.
Once again, this seems to be a real thing. A scientist named Christopher Fox who studies under water sounds for NOAA originally thought the Bloop might be due to a not yet discovered sea creature. Because, as explained in New Scientist, ”its signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts.” But acoustic scientists have since realized that the sound most likely emanates for Icequakes, as they are far louder than anything a whale has ever produced. According to the NOAA Vents Program website:
The broad spectrum sounds recorded in the summer of 1997 are consistent with icequakes generated by large icebergs as they crack and fracture. NOAA hydrophones deployed in the Scotia Sea detected numerous icequakes with spectrograms very similar to “Bloop”.
Here is the sound of the bloop. I have no idea where my kid gets this stuff.
