Plant-parasitic Root Knot Nematode, Meloidogyne

The root knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita is a plant parasitic nematode that lives in roots of tomato plant (and other plants). It sucks water and nutrients out of the roots before the tomatoes can use them. They live in the soil, enter the root tip and set up camp. The females become very small round balls with a tiny head. They cannot escape once they are in this form in the root. They lay eggs in the soil, which hatch into juveniles that find roots to make their home.

Ngala Bruno M.

God in bread?

During the Middle-Ages, poor people got ill by eating brown bread. Most of them suffered from hallucinations, gangrene or even died. The reason for this disease was the mould Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) that infected cereals which where used in brown bread. In those times, ill people went to a monastery where they hoped to find God’s mercy. In the monastery the priests only ate white bread and due to the absence of the mould people got better which strengthened their believe in God.
Through history, eating brown bread wasn’t always healthier than eating white bread.

Matthias Moens

Quantum Comb

Quantum physics is probably one of the most notorious subjects in science due to its hard mathematical nature and the absence of practical examples clearly governed by its laws.
One of the main ideas in quantum physics is the concept of quanta, these are small packages of energy which cannot be further divided and can therefore be seen as building blocks by which matter can be described.
At the university of Boston, a “multi molecular-comb” (see figure) has been developed which starts to rollover, back and forth, from its left side to its right when exposed to extreme temperature (-110°C) and a high energy electrical field (1,5 GHz).
Remarkably, the comb rolls over without actually rolling! So the comb basically goes from point A to point B without occupying the space in between.
Can you envision yourself moving from one place to another without really moving?
Beam me up scotty!

Pieter Janssens

Inevitable suicide.

During his studies on Caernorhabditis elegans, Sulston observed that some cells die during the larval development, from 1090 somatic cells in the larval stage to 959 in the adult hermaphrodite. This phenomenon is called Apoptosis in which the cell nucleus becomes condensed, the cell itself shrivels and the shrunken corps is rapidly engulfed and digested by neighboring cells. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a highly regulated process that allows a cell to self-degrade in order for the body to eliminate unwanted or dysfunctional cells. Normal cell deaths are thought to be “suicides” in which the cell activates a death programme and kills itself, which is very essential in generating an individual with the right cell types in the right numbers and places as evidenced by loss of tail by the tadpoles during frog metamorphosis and shaping of human limbs where cells in the hands die creating the gaps between the fingers and toes. Unlike necrosis, where the cell dies by swelling and bursting its content in the area, which causes an inflammatory response, apoptosis is a very clean and controlled process where the content of the cell is kept strictly within the cell membrane as it is degraded. Programmed cell death is a regular feature of normal animal development and is probably the fate of a substantial fraction of cells produced in most animals including me and you.

How to catch a criminal?

Glass fragments, often found at crime scenes, can be used as physical evidence to prove contact between the suspect and the victim.
Although glass cannot be distinguished by the observation of appearance, discrimination is possible by knowledge of elemental composition.
Amounts of trace elements are not controlled during the manufacturing process, so each type of glass has a unique elemental composition.
The work of a chemist consists of finding a technique which can determine the exact amount of the different trace elements present in the fragments.
Most of the techniques used cannot analyse solid materials, so the challenge is to find a good way to dissolve all types of glass.
Unfortunately, until today no universal technique has been found to do so for all types of glass.

Goudesone Frauke

TECHNOLOGY IN SPORTS

During the last years, the world of sports has been changing with the use of new technology applied to help the referees to take right decisions and minimize the mistakes in the development of different disciplines.
The use of cameras around the court of basketball in a country like the United States and the availability of instant video-replays help the referee to take a good decision knowing if a player are shooting within the time or not. The new technology is not being only used in basketball, it has been developed in others sports like cricket and tennis where the use of the Hawk-Eye technology helps to the referee to know if the ball goes out or it is in. But What is the Hawk-Eye? And How does it work? Are questions unknown for some people. It is a computer and television camera system linked (six or more cameras) which are around the court and traces the ball´s trajectory and sends it to a virtual-reality machine, so the referee and players can watch in a big screen of television if the decision is right or not.
Another sport loved for a big amount of people around the world in which are using new technology is the soccer in which the use of the Hawk-Eye technology in the United Kingdom by the introduction of goal-line sensors give a definitive decision when the ball crossed the line and there is a goal; however a new aim in soccer is the developing of a “Smart ball” which has a computer chip and with the help of a network of receivers around the field designed the precise position of the ball allowing to know exactly when it has passed the goal line.

The Aurorae

Scientific books say that an Aurora is produced when an ejection of solar mass collides with the North and South poles of the Earth’s magnetosphere, producing a diffuse but predominantly light projected in the Earth’s ionosphere.

In easy language we can say that the Sun spits particles continuously (some of them charged: protons and electrons) that are denomined Solar Wind, but sometimes there are significant eruptions that complement the wind. These eruptions have the main function of annoy: charged particles travelling at high speed (300-1000 km/s) bathing our expensive satellites… it can not be good for them. Actually it is the main problem they have; fortunatelly we and our beloved computers are under the comfortable atmosphere.

Back to the Aurorae, these particles traveling into the space feel a strong attraction towards the Earth, from the poles. When these particles come into the atmosphere some of them crash with some atoms and molecules (mainly oxigen and nitrogen), exciting them so fast that they emit a faint light before to came back their original state.

By Rodrigo Calvo Sein-Echaluce.