March 2016 – Page 3 – Little Bits of Science

100 Foot Asteroid Flew by Earth Monday Night

In what may or may not have been a close fly-by, asteroid TX68 flew by earth somewhere between 15,000 miles and 3,000,000 miles away on Monday night. First discovered Oct. 6th, 2013, the asteroid flew by then with little data collected. This made the determination of how close the current fly-by would be rather difficult, thus the broad range of distance from Earth. Scientists hope to have a better understanding of the asteroid’s path in space by the next time it comes around.

“There is no concern whatsoever regarding this asteroid — unless you were interested in seeing it with a telescope,” Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS, assured worried Earthlings in February.

NASA has not yet determined how close TX68 came to Earth, but Rob Landis, a program officer at NASA headquarters, said if the night sky was clear in the west and over Hawaii, NASA should be able to “nail down the orbit.”

Stem Cells in Premature Babies’ Urine

A potential new source has been found for stem cells.

Stem cells are the cellular putty from which all tissues in our body are made. They can be hard to come by though. Embryos provide a great source of stem cells that can change into a whole manner of tissues, but they involve the destruction of an embryo.

As noted in the New Scientist article, scientists have been able to find other sources of stem cells at later stages of development, but this may be a better source than any previously found.

Anxiety and Differences in Perceptions

The following study looked important to me, as I suffer from a general anxiety disorder:

In a study of anxiety sufferers, scientists have learned that people with anxiety likely perceive the world differently. By a series of tests involving sound and financial gaming, scientists examined the perceptions and reactions of people with and without generalized anxiety. There findings suggest that those with anxiety are less able to differentiate between new stimuli than those without. Verbosely (with reference notes removed here):

Recent studies have suggested that overgeneralization can underlie anxiety disorders. In this account, following formation of association between a stimulus and an aversive outcome, stimuli that are only somewhat similar to the original stimulus would still elicit increased anxiety in affected individuals. In an unsafe environment full of complex stimuli where the original stimulus is still dangerous, this is an extreme but rational strategy.

In practical terms, what happened was sounds were played, and a certain sound resulted in increased financial standings in a fictionalized economy. A different sound resulted in decreased financial standings. A third sound was standing neutral, with no increase or decrease associated. Later, outside the game, similar sounds were used, and those with anxiety had greater reactions to the sounds similar to those which were used within the game.

New Zealander Nigel Latta Blows Stuff Up

For a little more fun in science, we head to New Zealand, where Nigel Latta blows stuff up. The Science Learning Hub provides links to TV New Zealand, where, with a little proxy magic, you can watch this science aficionado do exactly what the title says he will.

Latta confesses, in pre-show publicity, a love for science and a fascination for many of the big questions it poses. He has two science degrees – a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and a Master of Science in Marine Science – and in this new series, he provides a fun and engaging gateway into the sciences.

EDIT: In case you can’t find a proxy to support viewing the NZTV videos, here’s a YouTube video showing a sample of Nigel’s work:

Budget Problems Could Lead to Berkeley College of Chemistry Shutdown

While emphasizing there are no firm plans in place yet, there is talk at Berkeley of shutting down the College of Chemistry in order to help with budget problems the school is facing. berkeley chemistry photo There is also a petition by the student body to not do this.

The College of Chemistry was established in 1872. In the 20th century, researchers in the college at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discovered nine elements now on the periodic table. Today, the college is known as a pioneer in traditional and emerging fields of chemistry.

By Thursday evening, Melville’s petition, which addresses Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, had gained more than 1,800 signatures — more than the College of Chemistry’s undergraduate population.

Photo by martinhfp

The James Webb Space Telescope

This is a massive scientific undertaking. Here’s hoping the lessons learned from the Hubble launch aren’t repeated for this telescope. The telescope will travel a million miles after launch, making repairs significantly more difficult (née impossible). james webb photo Even after it arrives at its destination, the telescope will have to unfold and cool over another month before it is operational and we will know that it will work as expected.

If you want to keep an eye on the Webb, check out NASA’s live camera view of work as it proceeds on the telescope.

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Learning Tabletop Object Manipulation by Imitation

In what is sure to be a contributing factor in the robot uprising, scientists are attempting to teach robots how to manipulate objects by helping them imitate object manipulation performed by others:

Given external observations of demonstrations on object manipulations, we believe that two underlying problems to address in learning by imitation is 1) segment a given demonstration into skills that can be individually learned and reused, and 2) formulate the correct RL (Reinforcement Learning) problem that only considers the relevant aspects of each skill so that the policy for each skill can be effectively learned. Previous works made certain progress in this direction, but none has taken private information into account.

robotic arm photo

Photo by Dan Ruscoe

Peanut Allergy Prevention Persists Even After a Year of Avoidance

In what is surely good news in regards to peanut allergies, we’re learning that early exposure to peanuts can help prevent later allergic reactions, and this protection persists even after a year of avoiding peanuts. peanut photo

The LEAP-On study was an extension of the ITN’s landmark LEAP Study (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy), which demonstrated that regular peanut consumption begun in early infancy and continued until age 5 reduced the rate of peanut allergy in at-risk infants by 80% compared to non-peanut-consumers. LEAP was the first large, well-controlled study to conclusively show the benefits of early peanut consumption in this population, changing previous notions about peanut allergy prevention.

Photo by EuroMagic

Lider Mapping Oregon’s Williamette River

In the “Science makes art” category of life, we have this mapping of Oregon’s Williamette River as created from Lidar mapping:

This lidar-derived digital elevation model of the Willamette River displays a 50-foot elevation range, from low elevations (displayed in white) fading to higher elevations (displayed in dark blue). This visually replaces the relatively flat landscape of the valley floor with vivid historical channels, showing the dynamic movements the river has made in recent millennia. This segment of the Willamette River flows past Albany near the bottom of the image northward to the communities of Monmouth and Independence at the top. Near the center, the Luckiamute River flows into the Willamette from the left, and the Santiam River flows in from the right. Lidar imagery by Daniel E. Coe.

Full information on this can be found on The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) web site.

Isopropyl Alcohol Nasal Inhalation for Nausea

I’m rather interested in this trial on Isopropyl Alcohol Nasal Inhalation for Nausea in the emergency department:

Of 84 recruited patients, 80 (95.2%) completed the study. Thirty-seven (46.3%) received nasally inhaled isopropyl alcohol and 43 (53.8%) received nasally inhaled normal saline solution. At 10 minutes postintervention, median nausea verbal numeric response scale score was 3 in the isopropyl alcohol arm versus 6 in the placebo arm, for an effect size of 3 (95% confidence interval 2 to 4).

nausea photo

Photo by Evil Erin