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A noble cause and a chance to help

Folding@Home is a software application that can be installed in your pc and allows the research about the protein folding, according to a faster way. The idea is quite simple, many computers working together with one purpose: contribute to the advance of knowledge and all its benefits. What makes the protein folding process so important? Which are the results obtained until now?


More information at: Folding@Home

Folding@Home: download

Posted by Immuniselectrun at 19:10

Earth's magnetic field - Breaches in our solar defenses


A thick layer of solar particles were found inside Earth’s magnetic field, what suggests there are huge breaches in our planet solar defenses.

During the next period of solar high activity, which start in 2012, Earth will experience some of the worst solar storms seen in decades.

Solar winds (charged particles from the sun) – help to create auroras but can trigger storms that can interfere with satellite’s power sources, endanger spacewalkers and even show power grids on Earth.

"The sequence we're expecting … is just right to put particles in and energize them to create the biggest geomagnetic storms, the brightest auroras, the biggest disturbances in Earth's radiation belts," said David Sibeck, a space-weather expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland

The sun has an 11-cycle of activity. The solar winds also carry magnetic field lines toward Earth whose direction change during the cycle.

When the sun’s magnetic field lines point south, solar winds carry southward-pointing field lines: auroras are brighter and space-weather hazards increase.

"So it's reasonable to think that during periods when the sun's magnetic field lines point south, that's when the most particles get into Earth's magnetosphere."

Marit Øieroset (a TEMIS (satellite) scientist) said that in fact, more solar particles (20 times more) get through Earth’s magnetic shield when the field lines are aligned than when they are opposed.

Actually, Earth is passing through a period called solar minimum, solar winds are carrying northward-pointing field lines, which is building up a layer of solar particles in magnetosphere. During the next solar cycle, the winds are expecting to carry southward-pointing field lines, which, connecting with the magnetosphere, will provide extra charge to any plasma inside the shield.

National geographic – get more information

Posted by Immuniselectrun at 08:39

How turtles and salmons find their way back home?


The study of movement is central to understanding: where animals and plants live, how they evolve and diverge, and why they become extinct.


Predict how organisms will respond to a global climate change and prevent the spread of pests and diseases are examples in which theories about movement can help.


Turtles and salmons, as juveniles, leave their “motherhood” with an incredible wanderlust, swimming hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles away. At some point, they return to their natal area with the purpose of breeding, perpetuating the specie.









How they do this?

Well, according to Kenneth Lohmann (marine scientist at the University of California) and colleagues, each coastal area has a unique magnetic signature and turtles/salmons, when they begin life, basically they learn, or imprint, on the magnetic field that marks their home area. "They retain this information. And years later, when it is time for them to return, they are able to exploit this information in navigating back to their home area." Kenneth Lohmann said. Once the animals reach their coastal areas, other senses such as vision or smell may guide them the rest of the way.

"Every animal moves around and if we don't know the fate of these animals during movement, and how movement contributes to selection, then I think we are pretty much lost," Martin Wikelski said.

National Geographic - news

Posted by Immuniselectrun at 14:07

Hall of fame

Louis Pasteur

Birthday date: 27th December, 1822

The truth is surprising: as young, Louis Pasteur was a lazy student. His teachers never thought he was quite clever, as ahead he would show.

He studied physics and chemistry in Paris and chemistry was even the discipline in which we got a lower grade. Despite of that, later, He became a wise teacher and was one of the bigger scientists of ever, a genius of science. Only through one huge thirst of knowledge and an inexhaustible will of work the immortality was conquered and the death was defeated.

Facing all the expectations, the success arrived much early. With twenty six years he discovered the secret of crystals and a few time later he realized that the air we breathe it’s full of very small beings, He called them the invisible giants. Perhaps Pasteur already knew that these beings, apparently armless, were responsible for much part of the diseases shown in living beings. For sure he knew that the microorganisms used to enter in our organism with the purpose of unleash diseases. It was not easy to prove such theory in a time when all scientists thought that microorganisms were fruit of our own organism and not from outside. He wouldn’t give up anyway, He even bottled air to prove it, under the laugh of his colleagues , of course they didn’t even guess that what he was doing would become indispensable to his theory: none living being, including microorganisms, can appear in the world without descend from at least other of the same specie. In the course of his experiences, Pasteur could show up that microorganisms live in the air and reproduce themselves, entering in our body when they “feel” we are weakened and is the best shot to take. This was a very important discovery but his greatest feat, vaccine, would take more time to be created.

Before it, he helped the French farmers, solving a big problem: the quick sourness of wine. He observed microscopically the wine and found some kind of very short vegetation, called yeasts. Therefore, the yeasts were spoiling the wine, making it vinegary. Pasteur understood that wasn’t possible to take out those little creatures, they had to be killed and the only possible way: heat them up. The problem lied in the fact that the wine couldn’t heat up to high temperatures because it would change its quality. Persistent, Pasteur made a lot of experiences and found the solution: it was only necessary rise the wine’s temperature about sixty degrees centigrade to kill the microorganisms. These experiences gave rise to a much known process called pasteurization.

Pasteur was, undoubtedly, a chemistry genius and started to be called to solve the riddles that more nobody could. There was even a time when he was asked to find the origin of a plague which was killing thousands of silkworms. Pasteur, after some research, figured out that the butterfly was transmitting to her own eggs the disease and hence died so many of them. It was necessary to exterminate all larvae, butterflies and eggs which weren’t healthy. He had saved the French Industry of Silk and now, he’s stories of success were told not only in France but also abroad.

Modest, simple and not vain, Pasteur used to say that he only worked to help mankind. But, the fact of two of his sons have died with typhoid fever explain the dedication to Medicine and to studies about diseases caused by microorganisms.

Carbuncle was one of the first diseases studied by Pasteur. In that time, were dying many animals, mostly sheep due this disease. He discovered the responsible microorganism and made an experience: vaccinated twenty five sheep with the germ which caused the disease and left other twenty five sheep for vaccinate. Then he infected them all with the microorganism which made they feel sick. Happened that all vaccinated sheep survived and the others died. This was the first success of vaccination. However, he refused money to patent the medicine.

He wondered if would be worthwhile try to apply the same principles in the cure of human diseases. About 1880 Pasteur started to study the rage disease (affect animals, especially dogs, and normally is transmitted to humans by a nibble). Firstly, he discovered the rage virus. Then he used its “good” part to create an antidote and transformed it into a vaccine. Later, He started to inoculate it in the dogs but he didn’t have the courage to do the same in humans, until when on 6th July, 1885, a woman knocked on his door. She was carrying a boy with nine years old that was bitten by a dog fourteen times. The mother begged him to heal her son but the scientist didn’t want to experiment the serum in the kid named Joseph Meister because so far he never had used the vaccine in humans. However, once there was no other solution, eventually the kid would die with or without the inoculation, he applied the first of twelve anti-rage vaccines. During many weeks, the scientist and boy’s family feared the worst but in the end, Joseph Meister survived. From that time, people that had been bitten by raged dogs started to go to his laboratory asking for help. They came from different places of France and even from abroad although doctors didn’t recognize the worthwhile of Pasteur, what’s unthinkable, even because before his investigations, the only medicine available against rage was a spike in hot coal to burn the dog’s bite.

The vaccines were a huge triumph to medicine. Without them it’s difficult even think in survival.

Pasteur Institute:

The success of anti-rage vaccine was so enormous that the French Academy of Sciences decided to build one Institution dedicated only to laboratorial investigation. The Pasteur Institute was established in 1888 and is nowadays one of the most known centers of scientific investigation.

Curiosity – The HIV virus was isolated for the first time in these laboratories. This Institution without profitable ends was presided by Louis Pasteur until his death (28th September, 1895) and has a team of scientists that globally has eight Nobel Prizes in Medicine.

Microscope:

Nobody knows for sure who created it. Generally, its invention is attributed to Hans Janssen, Dutch glasses manufacturer, and his son Zacarias, in the year of 1590. However, will have been the Dutch Anton van Leeuwenhoek, that lived between 1632 and 1723, who made the first microscopic observations. He was a textile trader that used to mount lends. It was precisely through curved glasses that he mounted in a rudimental microscope that he saw little creatures which were walking along the drops of rain, vinegar and saliva. He was not a scientist but woke up the interest of scientific community. The first microscope had only one lend and so it couldn´t amplify very much.