Friday, 2 May 2014
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
The 11 Most Beautiful Mathematical Equations
Mathematical equations aren't just useful — many are quite beautiful. And many scientists admit they are often fond of particular formulas not just for their function, but for their form, and the simple, poetic truths they contain.
Tardigrades – Meet the polyextremophile!
What's a extremophile?
"Extremophiles" are microorganisms with the ability to thrive in extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents.
Since they live in “extreme environments” (under high pressure and temperature), they can tell us under which range of conditions life is possible.
...But a polyextremophile?
Some extremophiles are adapted simultaneously to multiple stresses and conditions, they are known as polyextremophiles.
So what is a Tardigrade?
They are the microscopic water bears that defy all odds. They’re small and cute, and while indeed these creatures are completely harmless, make no mistake – these are some tough ‘gummy bears’. Called tardigrades or water bears, these eight-legged invertebrates have evolved to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. Rightfully so, they’ve been classed by scientists as extremophiles – creatures that are stubborn enough to keep on living even in the most retched environments like the arctic,deserts, hydrothermal vents or other hellish places.
In all, there are some 400 species of tardigrades identified so far, with the biggest one measuring a little over one millimeter, but most of them are really tiny. In fact, a more accurate description would be to call thempolyextremophile since they can withstand extreme temperatures (both scorching hot and numbing cold), radiation, desiccation and…. vacuum of space. Here's a previous post about Tardigrade shared by this page (First animal to survive in space)
"Extremophiles" are microorganisms with the ability to thrive in extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents.
Since they live in “extreme environments” (under high pressure and temperature), they can tell us under which range of conditions life is possible.
...But a polyextremophile?
Some extremophiles are adapted simultaneously to multiple stresses and conditions, they are known as polyextremophiles.
So what is a Tardigrade?
They are the microscopic water bears that defy all odds. They’re small and cute, and while indeed these creatures are completely harmless, make no mistake – these are some tough ‘gummy bears’. Called tardigrades or water bears, these eight-legged invertebrates have evolved to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. Rightfully so, they’ve been classed by scientists as extremophiles – creatures that are stubborn enough to keep on living even in the most retched environments like the arctic,deserts, hydrothermal vents or other hellish places.
In all, there are some 400 species of tardigrades identified so far, with the biggest one measuring a little over one millimeter, but most of them are really tiny. In fact, a more accurate description would be to call thempolyextremophile since they can withstand extreme temperatures (both scorching hot and numbing cold), radiation, desiccation and…. vacuum of space. Here's a previous post about Tardigrade shared by this page (First animal to survive in space)
Buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala)
This is pretty much the perfect camouflage. The Buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) avoids predators by disguising itself as a broken stick when at rest.
WiTrack: MIT's 3D motion-tracking tech can see you through walls, no camera needed
Even if you hide behind a wall, MIT's 3D motion-tracking tech can still see you. It can even tell if you've "fallen and can't get up." Sure the tech sounds invasive, but the team's WiTrack (as it's been dubbed) device is actually less intrusive than Microsoft's Kinect -- there's no camera watching your every move. Nor is there any wearable tech involved. Instead, the setup relies solely on a wireless network and your body's ability to bounce back those radio waves.
STOP smoking...It kills
Why you should never smoke
Smoking causes more than four in five cases of lung cancer. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers, and is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK. The good news is that most of these deaths are preventable, by giving up smoking in time.
Smoking also increases the risk of over a dozen other cancers including cancers of the mouth, larynx (voice box), pharynx (upper throat), nose and sinuses, oesophagus (food pipe), liver, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder, cervix and bowel, as well as one type of ovarian cancer and some types of leukaemia. There is also some evidence that smoking could increase the risk of breast cancer.
How does smoking cause cancer?
Tobacco smoke contains more than 70 different cancer-causing substances. When you inhale smoke, these chemicals enter your lungs and spread around the rest of your body.
Scientists have shown that these chemicals can damage DNA and change important genes. This causes cancer by making your cells grow and multiply out of control.
Researchers discovered that the production of a protein called FANCD2 is slowed when lung cells are exposed to cigarette smoke. Low levels of FANCD2 leads to DNA damage, triggering cancer. Cigarette smoke curbs the production of 'caretaker' proteins, like FANCD2, which normally prevent cancer by fixing damages in DNA and causing faulty cells to commit suicide.
Why is smoking addictive?
Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco smoke that causes smokers to continue to smoke. Addicted smokers need enough nicotine over a day to ‘feel normal’ – to satisfy cravings or control their mood. How much nicotine a smoker needs determines how much smoke they are likely to inhale, no matter what type of cigarette they smoke.
What does cigarette smoke contain?
The most damaging components of tobacco smoke are:
Tar – this is the collective term for the various particles suspended in tobacco smoke. The particles contain chemicals, including several cancer-causing substances (carcinogens). Tar is sticky and brown, and stains teeth, fingernails and lung tissue. Tar contains the carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene
Carbon monoxide – this odourless gas is fatal in large doses because it takes the place of oxygen in the blood. Each red blood cell contains a protein called haemoglobin that transports oxygen molecules around the body. However, carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin better than oxygen. This means that less oxygen reaches the brain, heart, muscles and other organs
Hydrogen cyanide – the lungs contain tiny hairs (cilia) that help to clean the lungs by moving foreign substances out. Hydrogen cyanide stops this lung clearance system from working properly, which means the poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke can build up inside the lungs. Other chemicals in smoke that damage the lungs include hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides, organic acids, phenols and oxidising agents
Free radicals – these highly reactive chemicals can damage the heart muscles and blood vessels. They react with cholesterol, leading to the build-up of fatty material on artery walls. Their actions lead to heart disease, stroke and blood vessel disease
Metals – tobacco smoke contains dangerous metals including arsenic, cadmium and lead. Several of these metals are carcinogenic
Radioactive compounds – tobacco smoke contains radioactive compounds that are known to be carcinogenic.
I know someone who smoked 'til old age and stayed healthy. Why didn't they get cancer?
Smoking causes cancer. But this doesn't mean that all smokers will definitely get cancer or that all non-smokers won't. It means that smoking greatly increases the risk of this disease. Smokers are, on average, much more likely to get cancer than non-smokers.
In a similar way, we can say that eating sugary foods is a cause of tooth decay. This doesn't mean that all children who eat sugary foods will end up with decayed teeth. It means that, on average, children who eat lots of sugary foods are more likely to develop tooth decay than those who avoid such foods.
The fact is that half of all smokers eventually die from cancer, or other smoking-related illnesses. And a quarter of smokers die in middle age, between 35 and 69.
Quit smoking, it will only help you!
Smoking causes more than four in five cases of lung cancer. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers, and is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK. The good news is that most of these deaths are preventable, by giving up smoking in time.
Smoking also increases the risk of over a dozen other cancers including cancers of the mouth, larynx (voice box), pharynx (upper throat), nose and sinuses, oesophagus (food pipe), liver, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder, cervix and bowel, as well as one type of ovarian cancer and some types of leukaemia. There is also some evidence that smoking could increase the risk of breast cancer.
How does smoking cause cancer?
Tobacco smoke contains more than 70 different cancer-causing substances. When you inhale smoke, these chemicals enter your lungs and spread around the rest of your body.
Scientists have shown that these chemicals can damage DNA and change important genes. This causes cancer by making your cells grow and multiply out of control.
Researchers discovered that the production of a protein called FANCD2 is slowed when lung cells are exposed to cigarette smoke. Low levels of FANCD2 leads to DNA damage, triggering cancer. Cigarette smoke curbs the production of 'caretaker' proteins, like FANCD2, which normally prevent cancer by fixing damages in DNA and causing faulty cells to commit suicide.
Why is smoking addictive?
Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco smoke that causes smokers to continue to smoke. Addicted smokers need enough nicotine over a day to ‘feel normal’ – to satisfy cravings or control their mood. How much nicotine a smoker needs determines how much smoke they are likely to inhale, no matter what type of cigarette they smoke.
What does cigarette smoke contain?
The most damaging components of tobacco smoke are:
Tar – this is the collective term for the various particles suspended in tobacco smoke. The particles contain chemicals, including several cancer-causing substances (carcinogens). Tar is sticky and brown, and stains teeth, fingernails and lung tissue. Tar contains the carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene
Carbon monoxide – this odourless gas is fatal in large doses because it takes the place of oxygen in the blood. Each red blood cell contains a protein called haemoglobin that transports oxygen molecules around the body. However, carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin better than oxygen. This means that less oxygen reaches the brain, heart, muscles and other organs
Hydrogen cyanide – the lungs contain tiny hairs (cilia) that help to clean the lungs by moving foreign substances out. Hydrogen cyanide stops this lung clearance system from working properly, which means the poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke can build up inside the lungs. Other chemicals in smoke that damage the lungs include hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides, organic acids, phenols and oxidising agents
Free radicals – these highly reactive chemicals can damage the heart muscles and blood vessels. They react with cholesterol, leading to the build-up of fatty material on artery walls. Their actions lead to heart disease, stroke and blood vessel disease
Metals – tobacco smoke contains dangerous metals including arsenic, cadmium and lead. Several of these metals are carcinogenic
Radioactive compounds – tobacco smoke contains radioactive compounds that are known to be carcinogenic.
I know someone who smoked 'til old age and stayed healthy. Why didn't they get cancer?
Smoking causes cancer. But this doesn't mean that all smokers will definitely get cancer or that all non-smokers won't. It means that smoking greatly increases the risk of this disease. Smokers are, on average, much more likely to get cancer than non-smokers.
In a similar way, we can say that eating sugary foods is a cause of tooth decay. This doesn't mean that all children who eat sugary foods will end up with decayed teeth. It means that, on average, children who eat lots of sugary foods are more likely to develop tooth decay than those who avoid such foods.
The fact is that half of all smokers eventually die from cancer, or other smoking-related illnesses. And a quarter of smokers die in middle age, between 35 and 69.
Quit smoking, it will only help you!
No humans needed
If we’ve learned anything from post-apocalyptic movies it’s that computers eventually become self-aware and try to eliminate humans.
BYU engineer Dah-Jye Lee isn’t interested in that development, but he has managed to eliminate the need for humans in the field of object recognition. Lee has created an algorithm that can accurately identify objects in images or video sequences without human calibration.
Lee likens the idea to teaching a child the difference between dogs and cats. Instead of trying to explain the difference, we show children images of the animals and they learn on their own to distinguish the two. Lee’s object recognition does the same thing: Instead of telling the computer what to look at to distinguish between two objects, they simply feed it a set of images and it learns on its own.
Lee and his students fed their object recognition program four image datasets from CalTech (motorbikes, faces, airplanes and cars) and found 100 percent accurate recognition on every dataset. The other published well-performing object recognition systems scored in the 95-98% range.
The team has also tested their algorithm on a dataset of fish images from BYU’s biology department that included photos of four species: Yellowstone cutthroat, cottid, speckled dace and whitefish. The algorithm was able to distinguish between the species with 99.4% accuracy.
Lee believes that it could spot invasive species and manufacturing defects without requiring constant human oversight.
Let's just hope it doesn't decide that we're the invasive species.
BYU engineer Dah-Jye Lee isn’t interested in that development, but he has managed to eliminate the need for humans in the field of object recognition. Lee has created an algorithm that can accurately identify objects in images or video sequences without human calibration.
Lee likens the idea to teaching a child the difference between dogs and cats. Instead of trying to explain the difference, we show children images of the animals and they learn on their own to distinguish the two. Lee’s object recognition does the same thing: Instead of telling the computer what to look at to distinguish between two objects, they simply feed it a set of images and it learns on its own.
Lee and his students fed their object recognition program four image datasets from CalTech (motorbikes, faces, airplanes and cars) and found 100 percent accurate recognition on every dataset. The other published well-performing object recognition systems scored in the 95-98% range.
The team has also tested their algorithm on a dataset of fish images from BYU’s biology department that included photos of four species: Yellowstone cutthroat, cottid, speckled dace and whitefish. The algorithm was able to distinguish between the species with 99.4% accuracy.
Lee believes that it could spot invasive species and manufacturing defects without requiring constant human oversight.
Let's just hope it doesn't decide that we're the invasive species.
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