Category: science

Just read a great article on wired.com about Microarrays (silicon chips that light up to reveal which genes are active in a DNA sequence). These chips produce huge volumes of information that scientists have found extremely difficult to process and interpret. Enter the helping hand of s/w company Salk Institute. Top code chairman, Jack Hughes, is a paraplegic who also works as director of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation researching cures for ameliorating spinal cord damage. Top coder is making a search tool in the form of the Gene Chip Data Interface available to all researchers in this field This should enable scientists to better understand the genetic effects of spinal chord damage in particular and microarray data in general.

Would be very old indeed if a recent article in Scientific American is to be believed. It appears that proof has been found that Chinese villagers brewed alcoholic beverages more than 9000 years ago. A technique known as mass spectrometry was used by researchers at the Pennsylvanian Museum of Archaelogy to detect tartaric acid (a bi-product of grape fermentation) on shards of pottery that dated from around 7000 BC. The tests revealed that:

“13 of the 16 remnants came from containers that had held the same liquid, a “mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and a fruit”

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While I’m at it here’s a informative extract from that well known organisation The Amercian Society for Mass Spectrometry.

“Mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical technique that is used to identify unknown compounds, to quantify known compounds, and to elucidate the structure and chemical properties of molecules. Detection of compounds can be accomplished with very minute quantities (as little as 10-12g, 10-15 moles for a compound of mass 1000 Daltons). This means that compounds can be identified at very low concentrations (one part in 1012) in chemically complex mixtures. Mass spectrometry provides valuable information to a wide range of professionals: physicians, astonomers, and biologists, to name a few.”

So that explains that then! Actually it’s a very interesting website and I recommend people to take a look.

Ever wondered what it would be like to pilot one NASA’s Apollo missions. Well thanks to Ron Monsen and his team you can find out using the eagle lander 3d flight simulator

Eagle Lander 3D (EL3D) is an authentic simulation of the Apollo lunar landings and includes accurate renditions of scenery, flight dynamics and the lunar module. EL3D has developed from a freeware first generation Apollo 11 simulator to one that will recreate every Apollo landing mission. Currently EL3D includes Apollo 11,12, 15, a LM racing course and an orbital module. Other missions will easily ‘plug-in’.
EL3D is designed to realistically render the physics and dynamics of the lunar module as well as the terrain of the lunar surface. EL3D uses the latest in graphical 3D technology to provide high resolution renditions of the LM, it’s instruments, and the lunar surface in the region of the current landing site. All primary flight instruments work like the originals with many operating control panel switches too. The Apollo Guidance Computer has been modeled and works just like the original including the famous 1201 Alarm Code on Apollo 11!

This project really is a labour of love and it’s one of the best flight-sim’s (and a bit more) that I’ve ever experienced..
As Ron says, if you have any recommendations for changes then just get on the forum and make them… “Try that with Microsoft”