April in science!
So what happened besides the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the oil spill, and the return of the deadly virulent fungus from Vancouver Island?
Element 117 was created, 8 years after the heavier 118. It took a year to scrape up 22 mg of Bk in Oak Ridge and 5 months of bombarding it with Ca in Dubna to generate 6 atoms. The cool thing is that it confirms that neutron-rich superheavy elements are more stable, and Island of Stability may not be stuff of fiction after all.
Speaking of fiction, some guys showed off their ability to solve the inverse problem of electromagnetism by designing, fabricating, and characterizing a 3D invisibility-cloaking device (no, it’s not big enough for a human.. yet?).
Another stuff of fiction turning real: a self-healing organic molecular monolayer was made that worked like a massively parallel computer, solving a variety of computational tasks. This is kinda exciting.
In astronomy, the origin of zodiacal light, long taught to be dust from colliding asteroids, was shown to have come from disintegrating comets instead (much to rejoicing of Bill Napier).
Also, water and organic molecules are not just present, but *prevalent* on the surface of one asteroid, 24 Thermis.
Oh, and LRO found the first Soviet Moon rover, Lunokhod-1, with perfectly functioning reflector, to everybody’s surprise.
After those physics news, chemistry looks dull with its aromatic carbon-lead compound and triple bond between boron and oxygen (or maybe I didn’t have the time to read more journals)
Biology had more cool news, though, the first multicellular organism was found that lives entirely without oxygen. They have hydrogenosomes instead of mitochondria. (oh, hey, it is on wikipedia already)
Also the first animal to produce carotenoids was found, a red aphid, which picked up necessary genes from some fungus a long time ago.
Speaking of picking up genes, blood-sucking parasites exchange DNA (namely, transposons) with mammals. One bug, triatomine, has DNA of opossums and monkeys, and another of another bunch of mammals. Talk about lateral gene transfer!
Wasn’t even so much bizarre in biology news.. maybe those caterpillars that talk with their butts, or these male spiders, who are usually eaten by their partners after mating, but when
one realizes he’s mating his own sister, he pulls out before finishing.
Crossposted from LiveJournal