Stuff & Things

[Sabre52]

Yep. I used to raise various types of bush berries and a moth from the same family, the Raspberry Cane Borer, used to give me fits. Very destructive group of moths that damages many types of fruit trees and vines.....Mel

[bushmanbilly]

The science world is freaking out over this 25-year-old's answer to antibiotic resistance
Could this be the end of superbugs?
FIONA MACDONALD 26 SEP 2016
A 25-year-old student has just come up with a way to fight drug-resistant superbugs without antibiotics.

The new approach has so far only been tested in the lab and on mice, but it could offer a potential solution to antibiotic resistance, which is now getting so bad that the United Nations recently declared it a "fundamental threat" to global health.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill around 700,000 people each year, but a recent study suggests that number could rise to around 10 million by 2050.

In addition to common hospital superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), scientists are now also concerned that gonorrhoea is about to become resistant to all remaining drugs.

But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.

"We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways," Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. "One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself."

The research has been published in Nature Microbiology, and according to Smith, it's already being hailed by scientists in the field as "a breakthrough that could change the face of modern medicine".

Before we get too carried away, it's still very early days. So far, Lam has only tested her star-shaped polymers on six strains of drug-resistant bacteria in the lab, and on one superbug in live mice.

But in all experiments, they've been able to kill their targeted bacteria - and generation after generation don't seem to develop resistance to the polymers.

The polymers - which they call SNAPPs, or structurally nanoengineered antimicrobial peptide polymers - work by directly attacking, penetrating, and then destabilising the cell membrane of bacteria.

Unlike antibiotics, which 'poison' bacteria, and can also affect healthy cells in the area, the SNAPPs that Lam has designed are so large that they don't seem to affect healthy cells at all.

"With this polymerised peptide we are talking the difference in scale between a mouse and an elephant," Lam's supervisor, Greg Qiao, told Marcus Strom from the Sydney Morning Herald. "The large peptide molecules can't enter the [healthy] cells."

You can see the SNAPPs (green) surrounding and ripping apart bacterial cells below:
www.sciencealert.com/the-science-world-s-freaking-out-over-this-25-year-old-s-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance
While the results are positive so far, it's too early to get excited about what this could mean for humans, says Cyrille Boyer from the University of New South Wales in Australia, who wasn't involved in the research.

"The main advantage seems to be they can kill bacteria more effectively and selectively [than other peptides]" Boyer told Strom, before adding that the team is a long way off clinical applications.

But what's awesome about the new project is that, while other teams are looking for new antibiotics, Lam has found a completely different approach. And it could make all the different in the coming 'post-antibiotic world'.

That's what she's hoping, anyway.

"For a time, I had to come in at 4am in the morning to look after my mice and my cells," she told The Telegraph. "I wanted to be involved in some kind of research that would help solve problems ... I really hope that the polymers we are trying to develop here could eventually be a solution."

[1dave]

Billiard ball
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Cue ball)
"Cue ball" redirects here. For the video game, see Jimmy White's 2: Cueball. For things called "Q-ball", see Q-ball (disambiguation).
Cue balls from (left to right):

Russian pool and kaisa—68 mm (2 11⁄16 in)
Carom—61.5 mm (2 7⁄16 in)
American-style pool—57.15 mm (2 1⁄4 in)
British-style pool (largish) —56 mm (2 3⁄16 in)
Snooker—52.5 mm (2 1⁄15 in)
Scaled-down pool—51 mm (2 in) for portable miniature tables

Not shown: half-scale children's miniature pool—approximately 28.5 mm (1 1⁄8 in).

A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient and resilience are important to accuracy.

Contents

1 History
2 Types
2.1 Carom billiards
2.2 International pool
2.3 British-style pool (blackball)
2.4 Snooker
2.5 Other games
2.6 Training balls
2.7 Novelty balls
3 In popular culture
4 References
4.1 Patents

History

Early balls were made of various materials, including wood and clay (the latter remaining in use well into the 20th century). Although affordable ox-bone balls were in common use in Europe,[1] elephant ivory was favored since at least 1627 until the early 20th century;[2]:17 the earliest known written reference to ivory billiard balls is in the 1588 inventory of the Duke of Norfolk.[3] By the mid-19th century, elephants were being slaughtered for their ivory at an alarming rate, just to keep up with the demand for high-end billiard balls – no more than eight balls could be made from a single elephant's tusks.[citation needed] The billiard industry realized that the supply of elephants (their primary source of ivory) was endangered,[citation needed] as well as dangerous to obtain (the latter an issue of notable public concern at the turn of the 19th century).[2]:17 Inventors were challenged to come up with an alternative material that could be manufactured, with a US$10,000 prize being offered by a New York supplier,[2]:17 Phelan and Collender.[citation needed] (This would be worth approximately $177,775 in 2016[4].)

Although not the first artificial substance to be used for the balls (e.g. Sorel cement, invented in 1867, was marketed as an artificial ivory), John Wesley Hyatt invented a composition material in 1869 called nitrocellulose for billiard balls (US patent 50359, the first American patent for billiard balls). It is unclear if the cash prize was ever awarded, and there is no evidence suggesting he did in fact win it.[2]:17[5] By 1870 it was commercially branded Celluloid, the first industrial plastic. Unfortunately, the nature of celluloid made it volatile in production, occasionally exploding, which ultimately made this early plastic impractical.[2]:17 Urban legend has it that celluloid billiard balls themselves would occasionally explode during rough play, but no reliable sources have been found that can substantiate this.

Subsequently, to avoid the problem of celluloid instability, the industry experimented with various other synthetic materials for billiard balls such as Bakelite, Crystallite and other plastic compounds.

The exacting requirements of the billiard ball are met today with balls cast from plastic materials that are strongly resistant to cracking and chipping. Currently Saluc, under the brand names Aramith[6] and Brunswick Centennial,[7] manufactures phenolic resin balls. Other plastics and resins such as polyester (under various trade names) and clear acrylic are also used, by competing companies such as Elephant Balls Ltd.[8] and Frenzy Sports.[9]

Ivory balls remained in use in artistic billiards competition until the late 20th century.[2]:17

[Garage Rocker]

Sept 27, 2016 22:03:21 GMT -5 bushmanbilly said:

The science world is freaking out over this 25-year-old's answer to antibiotic resistance
Could this be the end of superbugs?
FIONA MACDONALD 26 SEP 2016
A 25-year-old student has just come up with a way to fight drug-resistant superbugs without antibiotics.

The new approach has so far only been tested in the lab and on mice, but it could offer a potential solution to antibiotic resistance, which is now getting so bad that the United Nations recently declared it a "fundamental threat" to global health.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill around 700,000 people each year, but a recent study suggests that number could rise to around 10 million by 2050.

In addition to common hospital superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), scientists are now also concerned that gonorrhoea is about to become resistant to all remaining drugs.

But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.

"We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways," Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. "One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself."

The research has been published in Nature Microbiology, and according to Smith, it's already being hailed by scientists in the field as "a breakthrough that could change the face of modern medicine".

Before we get too carried away, it's still very early days. So far, Lam has only tested her star-shaped polymers on six strains of drug-resistant bacteria in the lab, and on one superbug in live mice.

But in all experiments, they've been able to kill their targeted bacteria - and generation after generation don't seem to develop resistance to the polymers.

The polymers - which they call SNAPPs, or structurally nanoengineered antimicrobial peptide polymers - work by directly attacking, penetrating, and then destabilising the cell membrane of bacteria.

Unlike antibiotics, which 'poison' bacteria, and can also affect healthy cells in the area, the SNAPPs that Lam has designed are so large that they don't seem to affect healthy cells at all.

"With this polymerised peptide we are talking the difference in scale between a mouse and an elephant," Lam's supervisor, Greg Qiao, told Marcus Strom from the Sydney Morning Herald. "The large peptide molecules can't enter the [healthy] cells."

You can see the SNAPPs (green) surrounding and ripping apart bacterial cells below:
www.sciencealert.com/the-science-world-s-freaking-out-over-this-25-year-old-s-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance
While the results are positive so far, it's too early to get excited about what this could mean for humans, says Cyrille Boyer from the University of New South Wales in Australia, who wasn't involved in the research.

"The main advantage seems to be they can kill bacteria more effectively and selectively [than other peptides]" Boyer told Strom, before adding that the team is a long way off clinical applications.

But what's awesome about the new project is that, while other teams are looking for new antibiotics, Lam has found a completely different approach. And it could make all the different in the coming 'post-antibiotic world'.

That's what she's hoping, anyway.

"For a time, I had to come in at 4am in the morning to look after my mice and my cells," she told The Telegraph. "I wanted to be involved in some kind of research that would help solve problems ... I really hope that the polymers we are trying to develop here could eventually be a solution."

Much needed breakthrough. Hopefully it's the real deal.

[1dave]

Chaos in the zodiac: Some Virgos are Leos now

There has been a disturbance in the astrological forces.

What you think you know about the zodiac may be a lie. The sign you think you were born under is different, to hear astrology wonks tell it. The dates for the western zodiac calendar have compressed and shifted later by a few weeks: If you were a Virgo born before mid-September, so the story goes, you are a Leo (now Aug. 10 to Sept. 16). Congratulations!

There is a thirteenth sign, too — Ophiuchus. People born between Nov. 29 and Dec. 17 are Ophiuchuses. (Your new talents include architecture and snake-bearing.) With all of the chaos in the heavens, one might think that a retrograde Mercury is to blame.

But there is no rogue planet at fault. Just an informative blog post aimed at children.

In January, NASA wrote a brief history of how the western zodiac came to be. The zodiac is grounded in history more than science. In short, the Babylonians created the zodiac as we know it about 3,000 years ago. Imagine a laser beam that shoots from Earth, through the noon sun and into constellations of stars beyond. (These constellations are patterns that the Babylonians decided looked like animals or people.) The dates of the zodiac calendar follow this laser line as it sweeps from constellation to neighboring constellation, a bit like the hand of a clock.

The calendar did not translate to the stars perfectly. The ancient astrologers only had 12 months to work with, but the sun passed through 13 large Babylonian constellations. So they deleted one. Although the city of Babylon collapsed under the weight of being conquered repeatedly, this lean, Ophiuchus-less zodiac endured.

Its imperfections did, too. The ancient Babylonians knew enough to track the sun’s path through the sky, but they were unaware that their reference point on Earth was unstable. Unlike a globe, the planet does not spin perfectly about its axis — there is no stake through molten core pinning the north pole in place.

[Chinese New Year: The year of the ram, or sheep, or goat, or something like that]

In fact, Earth’s north pole has progressed eastward since 2000, at a rate of about 7 inches a year. By geologic standards it is a dramatic lean. Recent scientific studies indicate that climate change is rearranging the planet’s watery bulk, pulling Earth to the side. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently implicated droughts in Eurasia, in India and around the Caspian Sea. But much of the change is due to lost ice. “Greenland is the lion’s share of the mass loss,” University of Texas at Austin researcher John Ries told Scientific American in April. “That’s what’s causing the pole to change its nature.”

[1dave]

Sept 28, 2016 13:33:12 GMT -5 1dave said:

Chaos in the zodiac: Some Virgos are Leos now

BTW, who told the constellations what they are supposed to do?

[1dave]

How Flies Land on the Ceiling

March 7, 2011 Daven Hiskey

Today I found out how flies land on the ceiling.

A popular notion of how they accomplished this used to be that the flies would do a half barrel roll sideways just before landing on the ceiling and then let their momentum carry them the rest of the way up. This was shown to be incorrect when, in 1958, Natural History Magazine took and published photos of flies landing on the ceiling.

What is actually happening here is that as the fly approaches the ceiling, flying normally, it extends its forelegs above its head and grabs the ceiling with its front feet. It then uses its momentum to swing the rest of its body up until all its legs are firmly attached to the ceiling.

At this point, you might be asking how they manage to hold on to the ceiling with gravity pulling them down. Scientists used to think that the little hairs on the fly’s feet allowed them to grip tiny cracks in surfaces they walked on. However, in 2006, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany discovered that the substance secreted by the hairs on a fly’s feet is actually a very sticky glue compound. This glue is strong enough to hold the fly’s weight as it walks upside down or up the wall.

[1dave]

How to Kill an Alien

Most Aliens can be killed, with only one weapon. Some aliens though take a lot of weapons to kill them.

Fir- st there's the basic alien.The basic alien of course are the hive catchers.These aliens are the ones who go and get the hosts.These aliens can usally be killed with a basic short controlled pusle fire rifle blast.

The seco- nd kind of alien is the cacooners.The cacooners cacoon the host.These aliens are very weak these aliens can be killed with a pistol.Next is the face hugger.They are the weakest but there very sneaky.A simple pistol or a little bit of fire, can kill them easy.

The next alien is the guard alien the guard aliens are a little strong er.About 50 or so pulse fire shots will kill them or m ost of the time get close to killing them.Shoot them with two grenades.Or about 5 oz of fuel and there dead.

The next alien (i dont know their name) is the aliens that can crawl on the roofs.I call them crawly aliens. These aliens can be killed with about 150 pulse fire shots. Pulse fire shots arent very effective.1 grenade should kill them matter of fact its a little much. Some flame about 3 1/2 oz can fry em to a crisp.

The next alien is the dog alien.These aliens are very hard to kill these aliens are extremly fast.Faster than any known aliens.Even faster than the face huggers.These aliens are hard to hit with any weapon.Thats why you have to get lucky. With a pulse fire rifle you can try to hit them but its likely you'll miss them. A grenade would kill them but you'd surely miss. Grenades don't go fast enough. The best way to kill them is to trap them in a corner and flame em.This is very effective if done right.

The next alien is the queen.The queen is extremly hard to kill.It takes along time.First burn her eggs,so she wil l get off her pipey thing.Then use a pulse fire rifle. Unload about 5 to 8 clips.(there are 150 shots in a clip).Then unload a crapload of gernades in her and run the whole time.Also if you have one use a smartgun.The smart gun is also good for the dog alien.Because it spreads so well.While killing the queen dont forget to reload. In alien 2 or aliens.Ripley blasted the alien out of the ship and into space.This works but its harder than it looks.

So thats the best way to kill an alien.

[1dave]

Another way to Remove Splinters

According to a roughly 100-year-old ad from Gallaher's Cigarettes, which was a part of their "How-To" series of collectible stiffening cards for cigarette packages from the 1910s, all you need to do is:

"Fill a wide mouthed bottle with hot water nearly to the brim, and press affected part of hand tightly against mouth of bottle. The suction will pull down the flesh, and steam will soon draw out the splinter."

Though it might sound too odd to work, this suction method does two things: the hot water steams open the skin's pores, and the bottle creates a vacuum with which to suck the offending splinter out.

When you apply very hot water to an area that is lower in temperature, the bottle itself creates a vacuum as the water cools. As the temperature of the liquid drops, and the skin remains at a newly raised temperature, making it easier to quickly pull upon something like a splinter.

If the splinter isn't embedded all of the way, using matches in the bottle instead of water could also work, which is similar to how some cupping therapy methods are used to help treat pain, muscle knots, swelling, etc. And if it can suck an egg down into a bottle, it could probably suck a splinter out of your skin, too. Just be careful: don't keep the bottle on for too long.

[1dave]

Spray painting smaller items and need something to lift them up to keep them from sticking to whatever is below them?

Try JACKS.

[bushmanbilly]

[1dave]

Sept 30, 2016 0:20:47 GMT -5 bushmanbilly said:

YEP!

[1dave]

Need an Eye patch for your car?



This Will Keep You From Stubbing Your Toes!

[bushmanbilly]

[1dave]

Chaos

Following the long-lived qualitative-dynamics tradition of explaining behavior in complex systems via the architecture of their attractors and basins, we investigate the patterns of switching between distinct trajectories in a network of synchronized oscillators. Our system, consisting of nonlinear amplitude-phase oscillators arranged in a ring topology with reactive nearest-neighbor coupling, is simple and connects directly to experimental realizations. We seek to understand how the multiple stable synchronized states connect to each other in state space by applying Gaussian white noise to each of the oscillators' phases. To do this, we first analytically identify a set of locally stable limit cycles at any given coupling strength. For each of these attracting states, we analyze the effect of weak noise via the covariance matrix of deviations around those attractors. We then explore the noise-induced attractor switching behavior via numerical investigations. For a ring of three oscillators, we find that an attractor-switching event is always accompanied by the crossing of two adjacent oscillators' phases. For larger numbers of oscillators, we find that the distribution of times required to stochastically leave a given state falls off exponentially, and we build an attractor switching network out of the destination states as a coarse-grained description of the high-dimensional attractor-basin architecture.

A double rod pendulum animation showing chaotic behavior. Starting the pendulum from a slightly different initial condition would result in a completely different trajectory. The double rod pendulum is one of the simplest dynamical systems that has chaotic solutions.

[1dave]

Almost Human . . .




Well, not really.

[1dave]

TRANSFORMERS

Butterfly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Suborder: Rhopalocera
Subgroups

Superfamily Hedyloidea:
Hedylidae
Superfamily Hesperioidea:
Hesperiidae
Superfamily Papilionoidea:
Papilionidae
Pieridae
Nymphalidae
Lycaenidae
Riodinidae

Butterflies are insects in the clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, along with two smaller groups, the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). Butterfly fossils date to the Palaeocene, about 56 million years ago.

So they came into being shortly after the dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago.

How do they change from segmented worms to . . . ?

Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their whole life cycle.

Metamorphosis

Peacock Butterfly (Inachis io): The peacock butterfly caterpillar is covered with long spines to keep predators away. The underside of the adult peacock butterfly is camouflage brown to blend in with its surroundings when its wings are folded closed. When threatened, it opens its wings to reveal bright eye-shaped spots and makes a rustling noise by rubbing them together. It's thought this might scare off predators or, more likely, draw any attacks away from the main body.

8 more pages:





I like the mustache!

[1dave]

Sprites Above Matthew

r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-
r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-

[rockjunquie]

Oct 3, 2016 10:20:00 GMT -5 1dave said:

Sprites Above Matthew

r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-
r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-

Thanks for sharing that- very cool!

[1dave]

Oct 3, 2016 10:28:02 GMT -5 rockjunquie said:

Oct 3, 2016 10:20:00 GMT -5 1dave said:

Sprites Above Matthew

r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-
r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A2KIo.CqdvJXc3kAGAIsnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByZ2N0cmxpBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMg--/RV=2/RE=1475536683/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fvideo%2fads-aol-emmys-nostalgia%2frare-phenomenon-spotted-above-matthew%2fvp-BBwVHoQ/RK=0/RS=lzgHFEuMfi1BkZAopixwfQn3LcY-

Thanks for sharing that- very cool!

I should have placed a photo in it.