Lofty Matters

Not quite as exciting as a new Samsung product, but have you ever wondered exactly how bubbles pop?

Researchers have stumbled upon a universal behavior in how bubbles pop.

A force acting on a bubble causes the film to fold in on itself. This traps a pocket of air in the shape of a donut. Next, surface tension breaks this donut of air into a circle of smaller bubbles. The small bubbles no longer form a circular cap and they reintegrate into the liquid. This stops the popping action.

I wonder if they even have document scanning software up there…

Since WISE began scanning the entire sky in infrared light on January 14, the space telescope has sent back over a quarter of a million infrared images.

The mission is expected to find many comets, including some that ride in orbits that take them close to Earth’s orbit around the sun. WISE will unlock some of the mystery about comets about how our solar system came to exist.

I wonder if Outer banks foreclosures are as rare as these babies…

Scientists have discovered an amazing preservation of fossilized remains of spiders in China. These remains date back to the middle Jurassic period (approximately 165 millions years ago). Spider fossils from this period are rare because the soft spider bodies don’t preserve well.

Wherever bees land, they always manage to touch down without crashing or tumbling. Scientists have finally figured out how they maneuver themselves onto all sorts of surfaces to land.

The bees’ technique depends mostly on eyesight. Engineers seek to design a new generation of automated aircraft that would make perfectly gentle landings, even in outer space.

When bees approach an object, they steadily slow down to a stop by adjusting their speed as the size of their target steadily looks larger. No matter how flat or steep the surface (even pond pumps, I’d imagine), bees slow to a hover at about half an inch away from wherever they’re going to land. This indicates that the insects are somehow using their eyes to measure that specific distance.

The bees make contact with their antennae first, by pointing them almost perpendicular to the landing area. Then the bees move their front legs up and finish with a flip-like maneuver to get their rear legs onto the landing surface.

It’s a graceful and acrobatic motion that would be perfect to aircraft design.

No, it’s not muscle milk or muscle milk reviews…but this is cool nonetheless.

A Minnesota-based organization sent 364 gallons of donor breast milk to infants in need in South Africa. The shipment consisted of 46,634 ounces of pasteurized donated breast milk, enough milk to feed 75 babies for 1 month. The shipment will be divided between two milk banks in South Africa.

International Breast Milk Project is an international organization that operates to provide donor milk to infants in dire need.

Imagine the possibilities here…if coral can do this what might we be able to invent for new arthritis treatments.

A study provides the first evidence that coral reefs can recover from the effects of climate change and begin thriving again. Coral reefs located in marine reserves can recover from the impacts of global warming. Increases in ocean surface water temperatures create stress on coral reefs the create mass bleaching.

A monkey in Japan flosses its teeth with its hair. Nope…humans aren’t the only ones who clean their teeth and create tools to accomplish the job.

The flosser is a free-ranging, middle-aged, female Japanese macaque. The monkey has devised three different ways of flossing her teeth. Too bad she doesn’t have access to Baldwin hardware…wonder what she’d do with that!

The monkey is a mid-ranking monkey so she spends a lot of her day grooming others. Researchers observed her rolling small stones in her hand, attempting to remove a spine stuck in her palm. It’s possible she is a particularly innovative monkey.

Looking for diet supplements to get you ready for summer? I happened upon this tidbit today so wanted to share.

Curcumin is the major polyphenol present in turmeric. This ingredient appears to reduce weight gain in mice and also suppresses the growth of fat tissue in mice. Researchers have been studying mice by feeding them high fat diets and then supplementing their diet with curcumin.

Weight gain happens because of the growth and expansion of fat tissue. This won’t occur unless new blood vessels form (angiogenesis). Curcumin appears to suppress angiogenic activity in the fat tissues of these mice in the study. Researchers do not yet know whether these results can be replicated in humans.

Turmeric is known for flavoring curry.

Allison is a green sea turtle with only one flipper. Swimming in circles due to her flipper status is tough, though. Researchers have outfitted her with a black neoprene suit that sports a carbon-fiber dorsal fin on the back to enable her to glide gracefully in the water. The fin acts like a rudder and gives her stability. The turtle can change direction by varying the strokes of her only natural flipper.

Allison arrived at the rescue center in 2005 and was given a slim chance of survival. She recovered from her injuries and became a well-loved turtle. The staff decided to try to find a way to help her.

Turtles that are found having only one flipper are usually euthanized because they would struggle to reach the surface for air. Turtles with two flippers can be adopted by zoos and turtles with three flippers can be returned to the wild.

A team of scientists spent months trying to develop a prosthetic flipper but there was not enough of a stump remaining to use a prosthetic flipper. Instead, the scientists tailored a suit with a fin that would also allow for Allison’s expected growth. Many trips to the nearest Circuit City, perhaps? Allison will never return to the sea, but this will make her an “ambassador” for an endangered species.

A new study how walruses sleep has revealed that they are some of the world’s most unusual sleepers. They seem to be able to sleep anywhere but at the same time they can also stay awake continuously if they want to.

They can sleep in various odd positions in the ocean. They can sleep while floating on the surface, while lying on the bottom, while leaning, and while standing.

Sleep researchers are reconsidering many beleifs about the regulation and function of sleep in general. Walruses are unusual because they live both on land and water…which may explain their unusual sleeping behaviors.

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