Dang, That's Cool!

Beautiful fall colors! But where do they come from, and why are they coating the ground?

Hello! I haven’t done one of these long posts in a little while, so I thought I would remedy that. If you’re one of those people who seem to be suddenly coming to visit this site in great numbers, welcome! I’m glad to have you. Anyway, let’s get on with it.

I wanted to discuss the changes going on all around for those of us living in temperate deciduous forests like the kind in the northeastern United States. Every year, billions and billions of trees shed their leaves to prepare for winter. The precursor to this amputation is the emergence of beautiful and vivid fall leaf color.  But what accounts for this color, and why do trees shed their leaves in the first place? In this exciting two-part series, we’ll answer both questions! First, why do some trees lose their leaves in the fall? Read the rest of this entry »

Cool news. A fellow who works on public outreach for the Hubble program has consented to my asking him a few questions. If any of you fine people out there have any questions YOU want answered, just put them in a comment after this post or send me an email at dangthatscool@gmail.com. Ask about Hubble, the new Webb telescope, whatever.

-Neil

This spectacular image of a jet of gas and dust in the constellation Carina was just released by the Hubble team.

Is it Christmas already? Hubble has recovered from a May 2009 service mission and its attendant scientists have released new data and images. Go check it out on the Hubble website, here. Read the rest of this entry »

This pitcher plant, Nepenthes muluensis, is closely related to the newly discovered species. Note the slippery lip and the deep cavity.

This is pretty cool. Researchers on an expedition to the Philippines’ Mt. Victoria have discovered a type of pitcher plant that specializes in rats. The pitcher plant is an awesome organism that lures prey with the promise of sweet smelling nectar. Once the victim climbs up on the lip of the plant, a waxy coating on the plant’s surface causes it to slip into the pitcher, where it drowns. Slowly, digestive enzymes or symbiotic creatures digest the captured animal, breaking it down into its constituent parts. These nutrients are then absorbed by the lining of the pitcher and used by the plant. This newly discovered organism, named Nepenthes attenboroughii after the wonderful David Attenborough, can be seen in a video on the Sun’s website here. Click the link for hot plant-on-rat action.

A plant that consumes rats. Awesome… Just imagine what other fantastic organisms remain to be discovered!

-Neil

P.S. I tried to think of a way to work this joke in but I couldn’t, so here it is. “I guess in this case, curiosity killed the rat!” Ha ha ha ha ha! I hope you treasure this joke… and may it fill you with gleeful laughter long into the night.

It's Mars!! Picture taken by the wonderful Hubble Space Telescope.

Wonderful new pictures of the Martian surface have been released! Taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that is currently orbiting Mars (really?), doing reconnaissance (no way!), the pictures total over a thousand in number and show a huge variety of geological features on the red planet.

You know, we live in an amazing time. We have a machine, orbiting another planet (also known as “that red speck you see in the sky at night sometimes,” to humans of earlier times), taking photographs of its surface and transmitting them through space back to the planet of its origins, where its makers decode its transmissions and turn them into images which they can stare at and point at all night long. We sent that machine there with a monstrously huge rocket engine, and we got it to go just exactly where we wanted it to, even though our planet is moving at 107,000 km/h around the sun and Mars is traveling 86,700 km/h. That’s not to mention the orbiter’s target is 55,000,000km away from Earth at its closest approach and an astounding 400,000,000km away at its furthest. Seriously. Everyone needs to appreciate the insane technological and scientific accomplishment that this represents. Humans are truly spectacular creatures, despite all our shortcomings.

Anyway, enough of me waxing poetic. Go look at those cool pictures of another planet!!

-Neil

A few red blood cells imaged under a microscope. Red blood cells are an example of non-nucleated cells, meaning cells which lack a nucleus. Because of this feature, red blood cells cannot reproduce themselves. Luckily your body produces about two million per second, so this isn't a problem.

Cell biology is an extremely fascinating field! The amount of detail and the exquisite organization of the cell is mind-blowing. When I read about cell biology I sometimes throw my hands in the air and start shouting the word “What!” and flail my arms around and grab my head. Seriously. It’s unbelievable stuff. And I have some cool resources for you to help you get as excited about cell biology as I am. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a diagram of the pentacene molecule which researchers in Zurich imaged. Each corner of each hexagon represents a carbon atom, and the lines represent bonds. The double lines represent double bonds. Not present on this diagram are the hydrogen atoms bond to the periphery.

IBM researchers in Zurich, Switzerland have for the first time imaged a molecule, bonds and all. We live in a time when the gates of wonder are being wrenched open by human ingenuity! Check out the BBC News article here for the stunning image. Thanks go out to the inimitable Sam Tung for bringing this to my attention!