http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120509123900.htm
Look at that please. I won't start without you, I promise.
You're done? Good, I can begin. I think the idea of an artificial leaf is pretty interesting. I suppose you just drop it in a jar of water in the sun (Note: A jar of water in sunlight, not inside of the star. That would be insane. And you would be dead before you reached it anyway.). After that, it bubbles hydrogen and you can harvest that with other machines. Sounds a bit complicated to me, but that's science for you. I also would like to make the point that every time I re-read this, the less it sounds like a leaf and the more it sounds like a sort of metal seaweed. But for today (I should say tonight) I thought I would talk about the aesthetic uses of this technology besides the practical uses. I think it would be cool to see this in some sort of eco-friendly/modern business office lobby. You could walk in, and see a bunch of (robot?) fish swimming around a shimmering metal seaweed bed. Or you could see the same thing but with a tree and birds, although this would be odd considering it would be underwater. Also, if the birds weren't robots, they wouldn't add much to the scene. Maybe you could have ivy vines on the outside too, but I'm thinking this would be hard to implement. Anyway I would enjoy seeing your ideas on this topic as much as mine, and please don't limit them to artificial leaves! Now that I think of it, I'd rather like a solar umbrella...
YOUTUBE- I made a youtube video. It's rather boring and is only on dwarf fortress, but I'll do one on happy wheels later. Check it out- my channel name is NerdOctopus. It has its moments, so be gentle. Comment below if you want me to send out a shout-out for you!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Dungeons and Dragons and Ice-cells and Naruto
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348007/description/Life_found_deep_below_Antarctic_ice
^ make some sweet copy pasta and read dat link. Or don't. I'm not a cop.
Basically, this article talks about some microbes that have been isolated from the rest of the world for one hundred thousand years. I know what you may be saying, 'But how is that possible? Couldn't the microbes have gotten elsewhere or been contaminated with foreign microbes?'. Well, if you are saying such things, then you didn't read the article. That's fine, don't beat yourself up, I'll explain. But if you read the article already you can skip to the next paragraph, where I type more stuff about my opinion and such. I know, it's a wonder how this blog stays so fresh. Anyway, the microbes are isolated this way because they're trapped in a lake. But this, as you could have guessed, is no ordinary lake. It's a lake that sits 800 meters below the ground. BUT this isn't ordinary ground either. It's solid ice. WAIT- this ice isn't normal either. It's some of the ice that makes up Antarctica. So its a pretty special lake. Which make the microbes pretty special too, considering they have evolved completely separate from the rest of the world. Let this idea mull around in your head for a while, then continue to the next paragraph when you are done having your mind blown. Or not. I'm not sure how fascinating you find microbes anyway.
Onto my opinion and important science stuff we could do with this. Obviously, this doesn't sound too exciting on the exterior. I apologize. I mean, it could be worse, you could be looking at John Nownes' blog right now. Here's a link to one of his absolutely riveting articles: http://johnnownes.blogspot.com/2013/01/nbc-new-york-recently-published-story.html
If the page tries to redirect you while its loading, reload, wait till the page pops up then quickly click the 'stop loading' button. I don't know why it's so messed up for me, I guess it's just blogger giving me a second chance before reading John's blog. By the way, if you don't know who John is, you are very lucky. But I digress. In fact, I do it a lot, maybe because I enjoy the fanciness of that phrase and typing it out. Anyway, yes this sounds boring. But I think it could have very unique and important scientific opportunities for us, especially in a medicinal view. But unfortunately, I think of some of the more unfortunate possibilities in the form of biological warfare. If these microbes haven't been jamming with the rest of earth for 100,000 years at the least, then we could be in trouble. If any of them prove to be parasitic or infectious, we could face forced pandemics of the greatest scale. Humans would have absolutely no immunities to them, we would be sitting ducks. Actual ducks would be at risk too, I assume. But hopefully the new knowledge we gain from these tiny shut-ins will be used for good. What do you think about the possibility of scientific breakthroughs with these organisms, or the development of a weapon? Post your comments and don't forget to subscribe!
FUN STUFF:
So, you managed to make it all the way to the bottom of the bottomless blog, eh? You've got guts. Unless, of course, you just skipped to here. Which is respectable too. But try reading the first half of paragraph number 2, I ripped on John Nownes a lot, it was pretty funny. In fact, I feel really good about this blog. Anyway, I have been looking into Dungeons and Dragons a lot more but I think I'll need more dedicated players. If you have any kind of interest in D&D, I strongly recommend taking a look at it, but be warned: it does require the purchase of quite a few materials. Or you could just play with me and I could supply you. In any case, talk to me if you become curious and want to know more about the game. I have also started watching this show you probably have heard of, Naruto. It's a TV adaptation of one of Japan's most popular mangas, which is just a Japanese word for a kind of comic book. I wanted to get into it when it first came out, but I only got bits and pieces of it and then I started viewing it as 'uncool' for some reason. I was so young then. But now I'm getting into it and its pretty rad. If you want to watch some episodes free, there is an English subtitled version on narutoget.com. Talk to me if you start watching it. Or if you don't.
I'm pretty lonely.
^ make some sweet copy pasta and read dat link. Or don't. I'm not a cop.
Basically, this article talks about some microbes that have been isolated from the rest of the world for one hundred thousand years. I know what you may be saying, 'But how is that possible? Couldn't the microbes have gotten elsewhere or been contaminated with foreign microbes?'. Well, if you are saying such things, then you didn't read the article. That's fine, don't beat yourself up, I'll explain. But if you read the article already you can skip to the next paragraph, where I type more stuff about my opinion and such. I know, it's a wonder how this blog stays so fresh. Anyway, the microbes are isolated this way because they're trapped in a lake. But this, as you could have guessed, is no ordinary lake. It's a lake that sits 800 meters below the ground. BUT this isn't ordinary ground either. It's solid ice. WAIT- this ice isn't normal either. It's some of the ice that makes up Antarctica. So its a pretty special lake. Which make the microbes pretty special too, considering they have evolved completely separate from the rest of the world. Let this idea mull around in your head for a while, then continue to the next paragraph when you are done having your mind blown. Or not. I'm not sure how fascinating you find microbes anyway.
Onto my opinion and important science stuff we could do with this. Obviously, this doesn't sound too exciting on the exterior. I apologize. I mean, it could be worse, you could be looking at John Nownes' blog right now. Here's a link to one of his absolutely riveting articles: http://johnnownes.blogspot.com/2013/01/nbc-new-york-recently-published-story.html
If the page tries to redirect you while its loading, reload, wait till the page pops up then quickly click the 'stop loading' button. I don't know why it's so messed up for me, I guess it's just blogger giving me a second chance before reading John's blog. By the way, if you don't know who John is, you are very lucky. But I digress. In fact, I do it a lot, maybe because I enjoy the fanciness of that phrase and typing it out. Anyway, yes this sounds boring. But I think it could have very unique and important scientific opportunities for us, especially in a medicinal view. But unfortunately, I think of some of the more unfortunate possibilities in the form of biological warfare. If these microbes haven't been jamming with the rest of earth for 100,000 years at the least, then we could be in trouble. If any of them prove to be parasitic or infectious, we could face forced pandemics of the greatest scale. Humans would have absolutely no immunities to them, we would be sitting ducks. Actual ducks would be at risk too, I assume. But hopefully the new knowledge we gain from these tiny shut-ins will be used for good. What do you think about the possibility of scientific breakthroughs with these organisms, or the development of a weapon? Post your comments and don't forget to subscribe!
FUN STUFF:
So, you managed to make it all the way to the bottom of the bottomless blog, eh? You've got guts. Unless, of course, you just skipped to here. Which is respectable too. But try reading the first half of paragraph number 2, I ripped on John Nownes a lot, it was pretty funny. In fact, I feel really good about this blog. Anyway, I have been looking into Dungeons and Dragons a lot more but I think I'll need more dedicated players. If you have any kind of interest in D&D, I strongly recommend taking a look at it, but be warned: it does require the purchase of quite a few materials. Or you could just play with me and I could supply you. In any case, talk to me if you become curious and want to know more about the game. I have also started watching this show you probably have heard of, Naruto. It's a TV adaptation of one of Japan's most popular mangas, which is just a Japanese word for a kind of comic book. I wanted to get into it when it first came out, but I only got bits and pieces of it and then I started viewing it as 'uncool' for some reason. I was so young then. But now I'm getting into it and its pretty rad. If you want to watch some episodes free, there is an English subtitled version on narutoget.com. Talk to me if you start watching it. Or if you don't.
I'm pretty lonely.
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