Scientists Capture First Images of Molecules Before and After Reaction

Every chemist's dream -- to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts -- has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley.

Using a state-of-the-art atomic force microscope, the scientists have taken the first atom-by-atom pictures, including images of the chemical bonds between atoms, clearly depicting how a molecule's structure changed during a reaction. Until now, scientists have only been able to infer this type of information from spectroscopic analysis.

The ability to image molecular reactions in this way will help not only chemistry students as they study chemical structures and reactions, but will also show chemists for the first time the products of their reactions and help them fine-tune the reactions to get the products they want. Fischer, along with collaborator Michael Crommie, a UC Berkeley professor of physics, captured these images with the goal of building new graphene nanostructures, a hot area of research today for materials scientists because of their potential application in next-generation computers.

via ScienceDaily

Brain overload explains lack of memories during childhood

It is hard to understand why we don’t remember anything that happened before age 3. Even some momentous event in a toddler’s life has not left behind a wisp of memories.

Scientist call this phenomenon “infantile amnesia”. Now a new study, which was presented Friday at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, finds that “infantile amnesia” may be due to the rapid growth of nerve cells in the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for filing new experiences into long-term memory.

Normally youngsters do seem to remember important events for a short time after they occur, they lose these memories as time goes by.

Scientists have guessed that the hippocampus had something to do with the puzzle, says Dr. Eric Kandel, Kavli professor and director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University and senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. But nobody really knew the mechanism of what happens in a toddler’s brain.

They did experiment to test the theory and found that it seemed like a case of overload that cause the phenomenon. The hippocampus has two jobs: to make a sort of tape recording of each event and then to file that tape recording away in long-term storage, with flags that allow the person to retrieve it. With all the energy spent making new neurons, the filing never gets done.

Ancient Plants Reawaken: Plants Exposed by Retreating Glaciers Regrowing After Centuries Entombed Under Ice

La Farge, a researcher in the Faculty of Science, and director and curator of the Cryptogamic Herbarium at the University of Alberta, has overturned a long-held assumption that all of the plant remains exposed by retreating polar glaciers are dead. Previously, any new growth of plants close to the glacier margin was considered the result of rapid colonization by modern plants surrounding the glacier.

Using radiocarbon dating, La Farge and her co-authors confirmed that the plants, which ranged from 400 to 600 years old, were entombed during the Little Ice Age that happened between 1550 and 1850. In the field, La Farge noticed that the subglacial populations were not only intact, but also in pristine condition -- with some suggesting regrowth.

In the lab, La Farge and her master's student Krista Williams selected 24 subglacial samples for culture experiments. Seven of these samples produced 11 cultures that successfully regenerated four species from the original parent material.

La Farge says the regrowth of these Little Ice Age bryophytes (such as mosses and liverworts) expands our understanding of glacier ecosystems as biological reservoirs that are becoming increasingly important with global ice retreat. "We know that bryophytes can remain dormant for many years (for example, in deserts) and then are reactivated, but nobody expected them to rejuvenate after nearly 400 years beneath a glacier.

"These simple, efficient plants, which have been around for more than 400 million years, have evolved a unique biology for optimal resilience," she adds. "Any bryophyte cell can reprogram itself to initiate the development of an entire new plant. This is equivalent to stem cells in faunal systems."

La Farge says the finding amplifies the critical role of bryophytes in polar environments and has implications for all permafrost regions of the globe.

"Bryophytes are extremophiles that can thrive where other plants don't, hence they play a vital role in the establishment, colonization and maintenance of polar ecosystems. This discovery emphasizes the importance of research that helps us understand the natural world, given how little we still know about polar ecosystems -- with applied spinoffs for understanding reclamation that we may never have anticipated."

via ScienceDaily

Painting through the power of thought enabled by scientists

Heide Pfützner, a former teacher from Leipzig, Germany, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Motor Neurone Disease, yet she has managed to produce a series of the paintings with the aid of a new brain controlled computer.

She has been trained to master the device that uses brain waves to take control of a palette of colours, shapes and brushes to produce digital artworks.

Building on decades of knowledge about the meaning of the tiny electrical impulses created by the brain during thought, scientists have been able to create a computer programme which translates thoughts into electronic images.

The system works by detecting changes in the pattern of the user’s brain waves to allow them to select options in software and to move a cursor around a screen in front of them.

The current technology uses a cap with electrodes embedded in it. These detect tiny changes in the electricity coming from the user’s brain that occur as they think.

By concentrating on one of a series of options – such as a tool to draw a circle or a line, to select a colour and to alter its transparency – the software can detect what the user would like to do.

This works as each option flashes in turn and the user must count each time the option they want to select flashes.

The mother-of-four has tested the brain painting device to create a collection of abstract colourful shapes and patterns, which she now sells online. In July she is due to exhibit her work in Easdale, near Oban.

Why the Internet Sucks You in Like a Black Hole

"Checking Facebook should only take a minute."

Those are the famous last words of countless people every day, right before getting sucked into several hours of watching cat videos, commenting on Instagrammed sushi lunches, and Googling to find out what ever happened to Dolph Lundgren.

If that sounds like you, don't feel bad: That behavior is natural, given how the Internet is structured, experts say.

People are wired to compulsively seek unpredictable payoffs like those doled out on the Web. And the Internet's omnipresence and lack of boundaries encourage people to lose track of time, making it hard to exercise the willpower to turn it off. "The Internet is not addictive in the same way as pharmacological substances are," said Tom Stafford, a cognitive scientist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. "But it's compulsive; it's compelling; it's distracting."

For those who want to loosen the viselike grip of the Web on their lives, a few simple techniques may do the trick.

Web-blocking tools that limit surfing time can help people regain control over their time. Another method is to plan ahead, committing to work for 20 minutes, or until a certain task is complete, and then allowing five minutes of Web surfing, Stafford said.

"Technology is all about eroding structure," Stafford told LiveScience. "But actually, psychologically, we need more structure, and those things are in tension."

via LiveScience

The youngest patient to benefit from experimental treatment

A 2-year-old girl born in South Korea without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.

She has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul where doctors told her parents it is no hope and she was expected to die.

The stem cells derived from Hannah's bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were cultivated in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was transplanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.

Early signs indicate the windpipe is working but she was still relying on on a ventilator. But doctors believe she will eventually be able to live at home and lead a normal life.

Only about one in 50,000 children worldwide are born in defect of the windpipe . The stem-cell technique has been used to make other body parts besides windpipes and holds promise for treating other birth defects and childhood diseases, her doctors said.

The speed of light may be not constant

Scientists propose that the speed of light is not constant, compared to the textbook saying, the speed of light is constant. They conclude this from understanding of the nature of the vaccum of space.

The speed of light is not a conception of velocity but also is linked to the strength of the electromagnetic force. A varying light speed would effect the strengths of molecular bonds and the density of nuclear mater itself. And a varying speed of light could mean that the measuring of the size of the universe might be not proper.

So the definition of the speed of light is more important to fields such as cosmology and astronomy, which assume a stable velocity for light over time.

Two papers, published in the European Physics Journal D recently, try to explain the implications in the perceptive of the quantum properties of space itself. Though they both propose somewhat different mechanisms, they base it on the idea that the speed of light might change as one alters assumptions about how elementary particles interact with radiation. They both consider that space is not empty, but a great big soup of virtual particles that come into and out of existence in tiny fractions of a second.

However some scientists are a little skeptical about the idea. A particle physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, said he was he wasn't confident about the mathematical techniques used, and that it seemed in both cases the scientists weren't applying the mathematical tools in the way that most would.