Wednesday, July 11, 2007

May be we'll have real mammoths someday

In Yamal, Russia (Ямал, Россия), in May, this year, the reindeer herder Yurii Hudii (Юрий Худий) discovered the best preserved specimen of mammoth. The carcass is of a 6 months old female, who died about 10 000 years ago. Soon it'll be send to Jikei University, for an exam. This will recover the hope for the recreation of live mammoths. The proposed technology is, when the scientists have the reconstructed DNA of the mammoth, to have it implanted of ovum of an elephant without its own DNA (cleaned ovum).

Source: BBC News, Membrana (Russian)

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Dangerous scorpions

According to some sources the Black Fat Tail Scorpion is the most venomous scorpion, with highest LD-50 (median lethal dose) about 0.16 - 0.5 mg/kg lethal dose. It has probably highest ratio of stings to fatalities in humans.

Number two is the Deathstalker, often cited (Wikipedia) as world's most venomous or deadliest, that mean that he is may be the actual champion.

Also here are some more interesting species as the Black Spitting Thicktail Scorpion which is highly venomous too and can spry its venom up to 1 m. The Mozambique Hissing Scorpion can hiss. The Yellow Fattail Scorpion despite of a little bit lower toxicity compared with the two species on the pictures, causes far more deaths every year, because it is far more common. The Honduran Yellow-Brown Scorpion is the fastest species of scorpion.

However there are different interpretations of what means "the most venomous", because the test animals are mice and the humans may have other LD-50 for some of the toxin. Here we can see examples of the LD-50 in different animals for the same toxin.

Sources: Centralpets, Singnet, Wikipedia

Monday, July 09, 2007

Human 2.0

In this article from Discover Magazine we can read about successful genetic engineering experiment about creating super strong muscles in mice. The mice can run 25% longer and cover 45% more distance then ordinary mouse without training, only with genetic interference. If that works with humans we can imagine how the people will be athletes without training and these who train will be far more stronger and faster then today's athletes. Is this the gene doping?

Source: Discover Magazine

Saturday, July 07, 2007

How bright is a Supernova

Supernova 1994D in Galaxy NGC 4526. The distance is about 55 million light-years. Compare the luminosity of the galaxy core and the supernova. Only a supernova can radiate energy like billions stars.

Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org

Friday, July 06, 2007

Giant Hornets

The Asian Giant Hornet is one of the most fearsome insects ever. It is the largest hornet in the world and the most venomous insect per sting.


When the Giant Hornets attacks honey bee's hive only 30 hornets will kill all 30,000 bees in 3 hours.
Source: AFPMB

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Hubble ultra deep field

This picture is from Hubble. We can see variety of galaxies and stars. It is the deepest image of the universe in visible light. It's really amazing. See here for more information.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Real flying saucer

Amazing project for commercially sold flying saucer for as little as 90,000$. Its called M200G Neuera, M200G Volantor or M200X (not really clear which one is on the video)

Update: Seems the project failed, however it helped move all of us an inch closer to the personal flying vehicles.

Source: Moller, Wikipedia

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Minihorse

There really are miniature horses (often called mini horses). The name of the brown one is Thumbelina. She holds the title for the world's smallest horse in the Guinness Book of Records with her 17 inches. The minihorses are true horses, but bred to be very small.

Sources:World's Smallest Horse

Intelligent Design

I'm European man and for me is very strange how many people around the world support the idea about the so called intelligent design. On first place there are a lot of non-senses in the arguments against the theories of the evolution. For example recently I argued about the "converting one species in another". The arguments were full nonsense and ignorance about what is scientific method, what is the theory of evolution, what is species and what biologist discovered the last 100 years. So there are a lot of currently emerging new species and lot of transitional species. Most correct is to say that all existing species are transitional, this is the essence of the evolution theory. To make the situation more clear, on first place it will be good to read what is a  ring species and what is a species. As well I'll join in the so called "google bomb" that will help the objective skeptic mind to find more correct option, because there is too much aggressive propaganda from the creationists and the scientist very rarely are interested in obvious nonsense arguments and debates with them. Everybody is welcome to post this link to one good article in Scientific American named "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense".

Source: Scientific American

Colored chickens

This is not photoshop work but true coloured chickens for Easter. This is made with dyes injected in the eggs, before incubation. And they said that it is not harmful for them, so the result are very cute and surrealistic chickens. However, the colours fade for a couple of weeks after the chicks are hatched.

Colored chickens - Image courtesy http://news.bbc.co.uk
Colored chickens from Bangalore, India - Image courtesy www.popular-india.com


Sources: BBC
, Popular India