Krypton Located Orbiting Rao

Posted on December 4, 2012 by madamescientist

Krypton Located Orbiting Rao

What can be more awesome than Science superhero Neil deGrasse Tyson teaming up with Superman to find Krypton, just in time to watch it explode, while it orbits around a red dwarf star named…Rao? That’s the plot of the new DC Comics Action Comic #14. Turns out that Superman has been hanging around the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, hoping to catch the dying throes of his home planet Krypton. The light from the planet is only just reaching earth, as it is 27 light years away. The baby Superman, of course, made use of a handy worm hole and got here instantly.

DeGrasse Tyson, who cameos in the comic, finds just the right star to fit the bill: LHS 2520 is located in the constellation Corvus — 27.1 light-years from Earth. With a highly turbulent surface, it is but a dim bulb, much cooler and smaller than the sun. Our hero Tyson comes to the rescue..putting multiple telescopes to work together to form an interferometer — a super-powerful device that, in the comic, is so big that it “turn[s] the entire Earth into one coherent telescope.” Superman has the sadz, but as Tyson admits, “It was a huggable moment.”

NPR Interview: http://goo.gl/O94Ei

Bad Astronomer blog: http://goo.gl/n81Lm

#ScienceEveryday   when it’s not #ScienceSunday  .

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The Guilty Baker: Orange-Cranberry Mini Muffins

Posted on December 1, 2012 by madamescientist

The Guilty Baker: Orange-Cranberry Mini Muffins

✿ Procrastination inspires industrious bouts of housecleaning, and guilt brings out the baker in me.  I had been flying solo all week, while my husband basked in Florida on some pretext of simulating NASA satellite software (why couldn’t the tests be run in good old Maryland?). By Thursday, I had run ragged with the stress of haranguing my 14 year old out the door and into the school bus by 6:22 am. Dinner degenerated into nachos and guacamole.

✿ Sharp pangs of guilt (or was it hunger?) gnawed at my maternal conscience as I dawdled over my morning coffee.  When I came across  claudia lamascolo ‘s recipe for orange muffins, I decided to face that burden head on. By 8:30 am, a dozen of these little delights were bagged and bound for the lab, while the house smelled of sugar and spice and all things nice. Welcome back, honey. Yes, I’ve been baking and slaving in the kitchen all week. 😉

✿ The tang of orange zest and cranberries was a delicious counter to the sweetness, with bits of pecan surprise in every other bite. The edges were a bit tough, so I think I will try those frilly paper muffin liners next time. Do you like the cross-stitched napkin? I embroidered the set when I was a pigtailed school girl. My mother saved them for me all these years.  Now that I’ve established my Martha Stewart creds, I hope we can keep that junk food dinner between us, okay?

Recipe: https://madamescientist.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/the-guilty-baker-orange-cranberry-mini-muffins/

Posted in Rajini Rao | 86 Comments

The Guilty Baker: Orange-Cranberry Mini Muffins

Posted on December 1, 2012 by madamescientist

Mini Muffins for a Bite Sized Breakfast

Just as procrastination inspires industrious bouts of housecleaning, guilt brings out the baker in me. I had been flying solo all week, while my husband basked in Florida on some pretext of simulating NASA satellite software (why couldn’t the tests be run in good old Maryland?). By Thursday, I had run ragged with the stress of haranguing my 14 year old out the door and into the school bus by 6:22 am. Dinner degenerated into nachos and guacamole.

So it was that by the next morning, sharp pangs of guilt (or was it hunger?) gnawed at my maternal conscience as I dawdled over my morning coffee. When I came across a speedy recipe for orange muffins, I decided to face that burden head on. By 8:30 am, a dozen of these little delights were bagged and bound for the lab, while the house smelled of sugar and spice and all things nice. Welcome back, honey. Yes, I’ve been baking and slaving in the kitchen all week.

  • Preheat the oven to 400 F and bring two eggs and half a cup of milk to room temperature. Line muffin cups with those frilly paper liners. They make a moister product. I didn’t have any, so I used my usual non-stick muffin pan.
  • Zest two oranges using a microplane grater, taking care to avoid the bitter white pith.

Orange Zest

Orange Zest

  • Add the dry ingredients to the orange zest:

2 cups white flour

0.5 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

0.5 tsp salt

  • My variation has a handful of dried cranberries and chopped pecans (the original   recipe called for chocolate chips). Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients..

Mix the dry ingredients..

  • Whisk together wet ingredients:

2 eggs

0.5 cup orange juice

0.5 cup milk

0.25 cup canola (vegetable) oil

Whisk together the milk, OJ, eggs and oil.

Whisk together the milk, OJ, eggs and oil.

  •  Pour the wet into the dry. Mix together with sparing movements. If you overdo it, you’ll have tough muffins.

Blend together, but don't overmix..

Blend together, but don’t overmix..

  • Fill the batter into the muffin tins. Oops, I ran out of batter before filling them all.

Baking is not an exact science, even if they say it is. Anyway, they also say that good cooks make lousy bakers. I say, the proof is in the muffin. Oh, for fun, I sprinkled some sugar on top of each batter filled cup. 

Baking is not an exact science :)

Baking is not an exact science 🙂

  • Bake for 20 min, checking a few minutes before to see if a knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Not quite FoodTV, but you get the idea...

Not quite FoodTV, but you get the idea…

The tang of orange zest and cranberries was a delicious counter to the sweetness, with bits of pecan surprise in every other bite. The edges were a bit tough, so I think I will try the muffin liners next time.

Mini muffins...just out of the oven.

Mini muffins…just out of the oven.

Do you like the cross-stitched napkin? I embroidered the set when I was a pigtailed school girl. My mother saved them for me all these years.  Now that I’ve established my Martha Stewart creds, I hope we can keep that junk food dinner between us, okay?

Showing off my cross-stitchery skills.

Showing off my cross-stitchery skills.

Posted in Baking, Family Life, FOOD, Humor | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Chemis-Tea

Posted on November 29, 2012 by madamescientist

Chemis-Tea

• The Science of Tea: For 4,700 years, this infusion from the tender leaves of Camellia sinensis has been delivering a cupful of healthy antioxidants and good cheer. Did you know that tea is the most widely consumed beverage, after water? To celebrate the birthday of Siromi Samarasinghe , who has a PhD in tea chemistry, here is some chemis-tea.

•  Caffeine : Did you know that weight for weight, dry tea has more caffeine than coffee? But because more coffee is used per cup than tea, brewed tea has significantly less caffeine (~90 mg/250 ml).

• L-Theanine: A rare amino acid (γ-glutamylethylamide), found almost exclusively in tea, it has a calming effect on the brain. Theanine suppresses the stimulation by caffeine of brain excitability, reduces blood pressure and protects against neuronal cell death.  It is a structural analog of glutamine, which is a byproduct of glutamate, the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Theanine inhibits the transport of glutamine and dampens neurotransmission.

• Catechins: Up to 30% of dry weight in tea, catechins are a type of antioxidant also found in chocolate and wine (Mmm..). Catechins are classified as flavonoids and have been shown to reduce the risk of stroke and cancer.

There are many other antioxidants and polyphenols found in tea. Tea is best drunk in company, but if you are alone, you can still have a tea party:

I had a little tea party

This afternoon at three.

‘Twas very small-

Three guest in all-

Just I, myself and me.

Myself ate all the sandwiches,

While I drank up the tea;

‘Twas also I who ate the pie

And passed the cake to me.

-Jessica Nelson North

Image: http://goo.gl/fRk6V

#happybirthdaysiromi #ScienceEveryday  

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An Evolutionary Marvel

Posted on November 28, 2012 by madamescientist

An Evolutionary Marvel

• Although birthday girl Kimberly Chapman will think of Hugh Jackman,  I must reluctantly clarify that the title refers to the Y chromosome. Yes, that stump of chromosomal appendage endowed with the SRY gene (http://goo.gl/829he). So why the change of heart?

• Alpha Male: Because the Y chromosome carries much less variation than any other chromosome, it was theorized that only a few alpha males (one male for every four females) passed on their genes. This would mean that men have fewer ancestors than women. How does one test this theory?

• Not so skewed: Scientists looked at genetic variations in eight African and eight European men. Then they ran computer simulations with various models of skewed ratios of reproducing males to females over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. The best fit of data was four females to three males. So why the limited variation in Y chromosome DNA?

• No junk in this trunk: The models showed that evolution weeded out the variation, reducing much of the Y chromosome to highly repetitive strings of letters. One possibility is that this is a clever way of making repairs and preventing the Y from becoming lost altogether. Time will tell.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57548588/y-chromosome-an-evolutionary-marvel/

#HappyBirthdayKim   #ScienceEveryday  

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Beauty is Skin Deep

Posted on November 27, 2012 by madamescientist

Beauty is Skin Deep

◐ What is the largest organ in your body? Not your brain, heart or ..would you have guessed skin? Weighing in at ~3.5 kg, with an area of 2 square meters, your skin accounts for 16% of body weight. About 11 miles of blood vessels and 45 miles of nerves travel through the dermis! 

◐ Love the Skin You’re In: Of your 300 million skin cells, roughly 40,000 are shed every minute. This adds up to ~4 kg/year. The good news is that if you don’t like the skin you’re in, you’ll have a new one in 4 weeks. 

◐ Don’t be Squamish: Skin is layered on as polygonal cells tightly connected into a sheet, known as squamous epithelium. The left image shows the typical cobblestone pattern, with nuclei in blue. 

◐ Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Mammals have a lot of hair, up to 100,000  follicles on our head. The right image is a section through skin showing hair emerging from follicles in the dermis. The dark blue bulge at the base of the follicle is filled with stem cells. 

Images: http://www.cell.com/cell_picture_show-skin

#ScienceEveryday  

Posted in Rajini Rao | Tagged | 77 Comments

How Can I Go On?

Posted on November 25, 2012 by madamescientist

How Can I Go On?

I’ve been melancholy all day and just could not bring myself to share this. Thank you, Suzanne Roberts! ♥

#freddiemercury

Originally shared by Suzanne Roberts

For Rajini Rao 

We still love him, 21 years on…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CjUvbSjyPY
Posted in Rajini Rao | Tagged | 31 Comments

Menu for Mars

Posted on November 22, 2012 by madamescientist

Menu for Mars

• Thanksgiving Meal, celebrated 80 million miles from Earth presents a challenge worthy of any chef. Little wonder that NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project, working with Lockheed Martin, has already begun working on the menu for a manned mission to the Red Planet sometime in the 2030’s.

• Veggie Loaf No turkey, sorry! Martian food has to have a shelf life of 5 years, and meat products cannot be stabilized that long with current food technology. I hope the astronauts like soy. Oils or granules of concentrated flavors will be encased in tiny beads and coated with a substance that dissolves on contact with saliva. Yum .

• Pinto Bean Pie “Like a pecan pie without the pecans,” says a NASA senior research scientist. Because the pie may taste 30 percent less sweet in space, astronauts on board International Space Station will do taste tests on the five flavors (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami).

 • Recipe NASA’s recipe for Space Cornbread Dressing: http://www.space.com/6173-nasa-recipe-space-cornbread-dressing.html

• Video  Watch Commander Kevin Ford aboard the International Space Station show off today’s Thanksgiving meal (dehydrated candied yam with marshmallow cream…  mmmm!): http://www.space.com/18569-thanksgiving-feast-in-space-the-menu-video.html

• Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/st_thanksgivingonmars/

#scienceeveryday #thanksgiving2012  

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Optic Chiasm: X Marks the Spot:

Posted on November 20, 2012 by madamescientist

Optic Chiasm: X Marks the Spot:

• Emerging from the retina of your eye, the axons (colored red in the left image)  come together at the blind spot, where about 1 million of them exit the eye to form the optic nerve. The blind spot has no visual cells, but you don’t notice it because when both eyes are open, they compensate for each other. To “see” your blind spot, follow the instructions on this link : http://goo.gl/HKB2s

•  At the bottom of the brain, the optic nerves cross over in the chiasma (from the Greek χιάζω ‘to mark with an X’, after the Greek letter ‘Χ’, chi). Because we have binocular vision, signals from part of one eye cross over to the opposite side of the brain while the rest is deciphered by the same side. This means that each half of the brain receives visual signals from both eyes. The chiasma of the mouse brain (right image) shows nearly complete crossing over because rodents have poor binocular vision.

Image: http://www.cell.com/cell_picture_show-vision

#scienceeveryday  

Posted in Rajini Rao | Tagged | 13 Comments

Pods With Pareidolia

Posted on November 18, 2012 by madamescientist

Pods With Pareidolia

• If you’ve ever seen a face on a piece of toast, or an animal in the clouds, you’ve experienced pareidolia (from the Greek para for other and eidos for shape). Carl Sagan proposed that this is a survival technique:  humans are hardwired to instantly recognize faces or familiar objects from seemingly random patterns. Less credible, was the claim by Japanese paleontologist Chonosuke Okamura that fossils from the Silurian period were in fact tiny humans, dinosaurs and other animals. He was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for his imagination.

• Does this collection of seed pods trigger a playful pareidolia?

More reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

#sciencesunday  

Posted in Rajini Rao | Tagged | 81 Comments