formerly a microbiology blog, this will now be a science blog, in which I post science only material. enjoy! p.s. I no longer teach microbiology, so I'm all out of original content, but reblogs will be plenty!
Salvinorin A, a chemical extracted from the Salvia divinorum plant. Salvinorin A is a kappa opioid and D2 receptor agonist but unlike other hallucinogens such as DMT and psilocybin it doesn’t contain a nitrogen atom. Hallucination last from minutes to hours.
(via scientificthought)
In honor of Darwin Day today, it’s always a good time to remember that even Charles Darwin had days when he hated everybody and felt like a big idiot stupidhead:
“But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.– I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything so farewell & in a sweet frame of mind,
I am ever yours
C. Darwin”
(via Brain Pickings)
happy darwin day!
(via scientificthought)
this my friends is the final product of a mitochondrial prep from a large fungal pad. the two layers you see are interphase layers, sandwiched in between three sucrose cushions; 70%, 53% and 44% sucrose. the liquid mass is resuspended in the 70%, and the other two are layered gently atop that, then the tube is centrifuged at a very high speed for two hours (what is known as differential sucrose gradient centrifugation). that results in this product. isolation of mitochondria is merely the preamble to my research. once that’s complete, i lyse the mitochondria, and then purify ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs) from it, which contain the plasmids and polymerase that I study specifically.
The word base has been around virtually unchanged since Ancient Greece as the word basis to denote a step or pedestal. Use of the word base as a chemical term to describe the chemical reactions of acids with other materials dates from 1754 and the French chemist Guillaume-Francois Rouelle. As the science of chemistry grew, the word base was refined to mean a susbstance that can accept hydrogen ions (protons) or donate electrons. Today there are several different definitions of the word, all corresponding to accepting protons or donating electrons. Lithium Hydroxide (pictured above) is a typical strong base with a wide variety of uses: for respirator systems in spacecraft, as a battery electrolyte, in ceramics and some cements. Image courtesy ccoil under CC 3.0 license.
(via realfakescientist)
This is a scanning electron micrograph (STEM), coloured by Steve Gscheissner, of a lung cancer cell dividing. The two daughter cells remain temporarily joined at the cytoplasmic bridge.
(via scientificthought)
I am psyched on these illustrations by Nicholas Beales! Coming from a microbiology and immunology background, I absolutely approved!
(via scientificthought)
Belief is for ghost stories and R. Kelly songs about flying.
We go for testable hypotheses followed by careful observation, data collection and refinement of said hypothesis based on our current level of ignorance/knowledge on the subject at hand around these here parts. It’s perfectly fine to believe in things, it just doesn’t belong in a conversation about evolution.
Now let’s talk about that grammar and use of two different fonts …
(Image source unknown)
word! truth truth truth!
Researchers Create World’s First Reactor-Scale Fusion Machine
ITER, the world’s first reactor-scale fusion machine, will have a plasma volume more than 10 times that of the next largest tokamak, JET. Plasma disruptions that can occur in a tokamak when the plasma becomes unstable can potentially damage plasma-facing surfaces of the machine. To lessen the impact of high energy plasma disruptions, US ITER is engaged in a global research effort to develop disruption mitigation strategies.
US ITER, managed by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will continue working closely with global partners on the ITER disruption mitigation system, as the 2016 deadline for design of the system rapidly approaches. To continue moving R&D forward, an early conceptual design review was supported by US ITER in November.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/researchers-create-world%E2%80%99s-first-reactor-scale-fusion-machine
