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Extraterrestrial Metal Found On Earth!

For the first time ever, extraterrestrial plutonium was discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean! Hundreds of atoms of the radioactive substance, embedded in rock, were excavated by a Japanese oil exploration company, about a mile down on the ocean floor. This led to some fascinating insights by scientific researchers who examined the samples. Let’s take a look at how elements are formed, how they get to the Earth, and the “out-of-the world” research and its findings. How Elements Are Made Believe it or not, just moments after the big bang only three light elements were born - hydrogen,...

A Rare Bird Photographed

When Jamie Hill saw a photograph of a peculiar-looking cardinal, he first thought that it had lost pigmentation (skin color) in some of its feathers. One-half of the bird was the customary bright red color you would see on Christmas cards. But the other half was a muted taupe brown. Hill was a retired ornithologist (expert on birds) and this particular bird caught his attention. He rushed with this camera to snap photos of the bird himself. That's when Hill realized that he had captured something very rare, and far more extraordinary. The bird was half male and half female! Gynandromorph: A...

Copy-Pasting The Genome: Part 1

Genetic engineering has now become incredibly advanced. It has the potential of changing the entire structure of humanity. An important form of genetic engineering is called genetic cloning. Genetic cloning, specifically, is the process by which genes are replicated and extracted from an original strand of DNA. SCNT, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, is a technique for creating a viable embryo using a donor nucleus from a somatic cell (all cells in the body, excluding gametes) and an enucleated oocyte (egg cell). The Success Of Dolly Cloning can be useful for creating organs and tissues that...

The Pale Blue Dot Turns Thirty!

On February 14th this year, space enthusiasts celebrated the 30th anniversary of a very special photograph -- a speck of dust caught in a beam of light. This "Pale Blue Dot" is a photo of Earth taken from a distance of 3.7 billion miles) by NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe as it headed out of our solar system. Our Earth takes up a mere one-tenth of a pixel; the rest of the picture is layered beams of scattered light against the empty darkness of space. It is a reminder of how isolated we are in the universe — but also how, in this isolated space of existence, those of us on planet Earth are all...

Hurray For Rechargeable Batteries!

Have you ever wondered how the electronics you use every day are powered so effectively? On October 9, three researchers received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their groundbreaking invention, the lithium-ion battery. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough, and Akira Yoshino spent decades overcoming obstacles to perfect the technology we take for granted. The three will split the prize of about $900,000 for their work of using chemistry to develop a battery with so many applications. How Lithium-Ion Batteries Work Every battery has three parts: an anode (negative electrode), a cathode (...

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