NASA HST Image: Whirlpool Galaxy in infra-red

This NASA image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a dramatic view of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy.

Seen in near-infrared light, most of the starlight has been removed, revealing the Whirlpool's skeletal dust stSpiral Galaxy M51ructure.

This new image is the sharpest view of the dense dust in M51

ESO Image: Orion Nebula

This picture provided by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) shows an image of the Orion Nebula captured using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.

The nebula offers astronomers a close-up view of a massive star-forming region to help advance our understanding of stellar birth and evolution

Paramecium video games | Science | guardian.co.uk

Paramecia are single-celled animals shaped like a grain of rice. They are covered with a short fuzz, known as cilia, which rapidly beat like millions of oars on a boat. Paramecia move very quickly and are common inhabitants of pondwater, aggressively preying on anything that fits into their mouth, such as bacteria and other small cells. Besides being an interesting classroom introduction to the microscopic world, paramecia are also helping people learn more about universal biological processes.

In a clever juxtaposition of biology and technology, Stanford physcist, Ingmar Riedel-Kruse and his team are creating paramecia-based versions of classic video games that you can play by controlling the movements of these organisms. One such game, PAC-mecium, is a paramecia-based version of the classic video game, Pacman. In this game, players cause the rapidly-moving organisms to change directions by changing the polarity of an electrical field in a fluid chamber filled with paramecia.

The movements of the paramecia are recorded by a camera in real-time and those images are superimposed onto a game board by the computer. In this game, the player's goals are to control paramecia movements so they "eat" virtual yeast cells whilst avoiding being eaten themselves by Pacman-like fish. A microprocessor tracks the movement of the organisms to keep score. The video describes this and several other video games.

NASA Cassini Image: Saturn Storm

Late last year, a new, remarkably bright storm erupted in Saturn's northern hemisphere.

Amateur astronomers first spotted it in early December, with the ringed gas giant rising in planet Earth's predawn sky.

Orbiting Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft was able to record this close-up of the complex disturbance from a distance of 1.8 million kilometers on December 24th.

Over time, the storm has evolved, spreading substantially in longitude, and now stretches far around the planet.

Saturn's thin rings are also seen slicing across this space-based view, casting broad shadows on the planet's southern hemisphere.

Study suggests new treatment for H1N1

Convalescent plasma therapy — using plasma from patients who have recovered from an infection to treat those with the same infection — has been used to treat multiple diseases. However, the efficacy of this treatment in patients with severe 2009 H1N1 influenza is unknown. A study published in the February 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that convalescent plasma may reduce the death rate in patients severely ill with this type of influenza. (Please see below for a link to the embargoed study online.)

From September 2009 through June 2010, patients from a hospital cluster in Hong Kong with severe 2009 H1N1 infection requiring intensive care were recruited for the study. Of the 93 patients in the study, 20 received the plasma treatment. Prior patients who had recovered from H1N1 infection provided the convalescent plasma for the study. The 73 members of the study who declined the treatment were the study controls.

Mortality in the treatment group was 20 percent, compared to 55 percent in the non-treatment group. The viral load in the treatment group also decreased at a higher rate than in the control group. None of the patients developed adverse events from the treatment.

“One of the benefits of convalescent plasma treatment in patients with severe influenza A infection is that it does not suffer from the problem of drug resistance,” said study author Kowk-Yung Yuen, MD, of the University of Hong Kong in China. “Additionally, it would remain effective until the virus has changed significantly enough to affect immunity. This form of treatment may be useful in future novel viral infections.”

NOTE: The study is available online. “Convalescent Plasma Treatment Reduced Mortality in Patients With Severe Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Virus Infection”
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/cid/ciq106.pdf

Aerogels: The lightest stuff gets lighter

Known as “the lightest material on the planet,” aerogels consist mostly of air. But the services this stuff could potentially provide are substantial.

Their low thermal and acoustic conductivity makes them superb heat and noise insulators. They’re very absorbent, perfect for an oil spill or umm, kitty litter. And depending on their construction, they can specifically filter certain toxins or pollution particles.

Unfortunately, their construction doesn’t come easy, especially when made out of carbon nanotubes (silica, metal oxides, or other carbon-based materials typically comprise aerogels). But a team of scientists is reporting they’ve fabricated a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) aerogel.
Published in ACS Nano, the study describes this new “frozen smoke” as the lightest of its kind, with a density of just four milligrams per cubic centimeter.

The chemists, from University of Central Florida, removed the moisture from a wet gel of dispersed carbon nanotubes, leaving a material with honeycomb structures with varying degrees of porosity. The below image shows the pristine multi-walled carbon nanotubes at each step of the fabrication process.

The MWCNT aerogel has a large surface area and conducts electricity very well but not heat, so its use in electronics is far-reaching. After testing the aerogel’s compressibility, the chemists also discovered it is highly squishable (video) and recovers quickly.

This sensitivity to pressure and its porosity make the material a good candidate for sensing chemical vapors and changes in pressure. So if you tend to think, heft connotes value, you may be wrong in the case of areogels.

Volvo 660-Pound Auto Battery Crash Test

What happens when a 660-pound electric car battery hits an offset wall while traveling at 40 mph?

Without a conventional engine under the hood, and with 660 pounds of extra weight in the back and center, Volvo engineers had to rethink the way they designed the C30 Electric.

They had to add some extra reinforcement to the front end crumple zones. Which they did, before crash testing the car:

"The test produced exactly the results we expected," Jan Ivarsson, Volvo safety senior manager, said in a statement. "The C30 Electric offers the very same high safety level as a C30 with a combustion engine. The front deformed and distributed the crash energy as we expected. Both the batteries and the cables that are part of the electric system remained entirely intact after the collision."

The successful test doesn't mean Volvo is going to jump on the EV bandwagon immediately. Other car manufacturers e.g. Chevy and Nissan, have their Volt and Leaf respectively, heading into consumer hands relatively soon, but Volvo's plans for a demo fleet of it's C30, will be delayed until later in 2011.