China Lands Probe on the Moon

On Saturday December 14, 2013 China successfully landed a probe on the moon, this being the only probe in four decades to be sent to the moon. This sets the stage for the later goal of getting a Chinese astronaut on the moon. The unmanned lander named Chang'e 3 landed successfully after a 12-minute landing sequence, the probe then released a lunar rover named 玉兔 or Jade Rabbit. This made China the third country to land a probe on the moon, third of course to the US and Soviet Union, the last probe was sent by the Soviet Union in 1976. "It's still a significant technological challenge to land on another world," said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry. "Especially somewhere like the moon, which doesn't have an atmosphere so you can't use parachutes or anything like that. You have to use rocket motors for the descent and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don't end up in a crater on top of a large rock." China takes a large source of pride in their space program, and the landing is to be expected to mark the latest step in an ambitious space program which is seen as a symbol of China's rising global stature and technological advancement. China was third in another category, they were the third country to send an astronaut into space and later plan on opening a space station around the year 2020 in which they will send an astronaut to them moon from.

The rover comes equipped with solar panels that opened up once the probe landed on the once lava filled planes. It sent back its first batch of over 60 pictures and will send back a high definition panoramic photo of the moon within a couple of days. "The rover’s original landing site was situated within the basin of the 250-mile-wide Sinus Iridium, or Bay of Rainbows, a large flat crater visible in the upper-left area of the full moon as seen from Earth. But the Chinese space agency decided to land the rover one orbit early, a bit to the east over Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Rains. This unexplored region offers the potential for discovery of interesting geological features, clear driving for the rover, and grand views of steep crater walls." The landing of this rover will hopefully spark some competition again and maybe we will see some amazing achievements in the future.

Chameleons

Chameleons are a very cool but misunderstand, most people think that chameleons change color to camouflage in their surroundings but that is incorrect. Rather, they change color as a response to mood, temperature, health, communication, and light. Another large misconception is that all chameleons have the ability to change color, some only have limited abilities when it comes to color changing, for example many types of chameleons can only turn basic colors like green, brown, or gray. Other chameleons however hold the ability to change their colors dramatically. All chameleons primarily feed on insects by launching their long tongues from their mouths to capture prey (this is probably one of the coolest ways to eat and I'm jealous). This extreme color changing ability and the awesome tongue make chameleons one of the coolest animals out there. So how does a chameleon change its color? Under its skin, there are layers of colored cells controlled by nerves and hormones, the skin color changes depending on which color cells are expanded or contracted. Different species of chameleons show different colors for different emotions, usually the array of colors dictates what the colors mean to the chameleons.  Chameleons also have very interesting eyeballs that can rotate to give a chameleon full view of its surroundings. "Perhaps the strangest of animal eyes belong to the chameleon. They are mounted in twin conical turrets and can move independently of each other, giving the chameleon the ability to see all round itself when seeking prey, and binocular vision in front when it is preparing to strike with its long, sticky tongue." (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:127) Chameleons eyes are unique and are another factor that makes me jealous of their superior abilities.

Random Chameleon Facts: 

• Almost half of the world’s chameleon species live on the island of Madagascar, with 59 different species existing nowhere outside of the island. There are approximately 160 species of chameleon. They range from Africa to southern Europe, and across south Asia to Sri Lanka. They have also been introduced into the United States in places such as Hawaii, California and Florida.
• Chameleons vary greatly in size and body structure, with maximum total length varying from 15 millimeters (0.6 in) in male Brookesia micra (one of the world’s smallest reptiles) to 68.5 centimeters (30 in) in the male Furcifer oustaleti. 
• Chameleons can't hear much. Like snakes, chameleons do not have an outer or middle ear so there is neither an ear opening nor an eardrum. However, chameleons are not deaf. They can detect sound frequencies in the range of 200-600 Hz.

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/11/ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-chameleons/

3D Virtual Birth Simulator

The University of East Anglia created a 3D virtual birth simulator, the simulator was created to help guide doctors and midwives through the birthing procedure of a birth with complications or unusual turns of events. The main goal is to create a "patient specific" program that will allow doctors and midwives to get an accurate representation of what might happen during the birth. The program allows the user to set the mothers body size, the baby's body size, along with the baby's location in the womb, the baby's head, torso size, and shape of the pelvis. UEA developed the program with hopes of improving the quality of the birthing procedure. A really neat feature of the program is that is uses ultrasound data to recreate a 3D model of the baby's skull as well as creating a 3D model of the mother's pelvis. This allows the doctors to look for complications such as a baby's shoulder getting stuck on the mother’s pelvis during birth. According to the official university release, "Programmers are also taking into account the force from the mother pushing during labor and are even modeling a 'virtual' midwife's hands which can interact with the baby's head." The hopes are that this program will be used to predict when a caesarean section will be needed to be performed.


This interested me first and foremost with the hopes that it will one day leak, giving me the ability to play around with it. I could make a baby with a humongous head that crushes the pelvis of the mother, I could make a mother with a huge pelvis give birth to a mouse-sized baby, and the possibilities are endless. Looking past this for the entertainment factor, it's actually really amazing and cool. The ability to simulate a birth to almost perfect representation is uncanny. Technology has gone a long way, when I first saw this article I thought that I would just be a simulator that allowed you to adjust sliders changing the size of the baby and possibly the size of the mother's pelvis, I thought it would also implement a very basics physics engine. However the fact that the program uses ultrasound data to create an almost exact replica of the baby and the mother's pelvis is mind-numbing, it's also insane how the program allows a virtual set of hands to be modeled that are able to actively interact with the baby and the mothers pelvis.

When you are typing away at your computer, you don’t know what your fingers are really doing.

A new neuroscience study found that when typing most people are not thinking about where the keys are on the keyboard and actually have trouble visually recreating the key layout on a keyboard. I'm doing the same exact thing right now, I'm not really thinking about what I'm doing, I'm just moving my fingers and words are appearing on my computer monitor.

The researchers said "The fact that the typists did so poorly at identifying the position of specific keys didn't come as a surprise. For more than a century, scientists have recognized the existence of automatism: the ability to perform actions without conscious thought or intention. Automatic behaviors of this type are surprisingly common, ranging from tying shoelaces to making coffee to factory assembly-line work to riding a bicycle and driving a car. So scientists had assumed that typing also fell into this category, but had not tested it." The researchers were however stunned that typing did not follow the normal suit of first being a conscious task then becoming a unconscious process over time. I think that it's a pretty cool discovery about something that most of us do daily. It made me realize I would probably struggle to recreate a keyboard if I had to. Researchers found that typists never  memorized the key locations, even when they were first learning to type. The researchers then give a very reasonable explanation, "the lack of explicit knowledge of the keyboard may be due to the fact that computers and keyboards have become so ubiquitous that students learn how to use them in an informal, trial-and-error fashion when they are very young." The researchers stated that since we are so connected with technology we can learn to use a keyboard without ever learning key locations. 

Burmese Python

Burmese Pythons are snakes with dark-colored skin, that average about 12 feet in length but the largest python found was 18 feet and 10 inches in length. Burmese pythons natural habitats are located in Southern- and Southeast Asia, including Eastern India, Nepal, western Bhutan, southeastern Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, northern continental Malaysia, far southern China Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi,Yunnan, Hong Kong, southern Sulawesi, Bali, Sumbawa, and in Indonesia on Java. However now it has become an invasive species in the US because of pet owners just abandoning their Burmese pythons after they either grew too large or they grew tired of them, another possibility is the destruction of breeding centers from hurricanes. The snakes thrived in the Everglades easily eating anything that they could get their mouths around including ALLIGATORpeople.

A new study about Burmese pythons looks into their genetics to look for an answer to their unique genes that separate them from other vertebrates. Their ability to expand their organs and heighten their metabolism in order to digest a meal much larger than themselves fueled this study. The researchers said that the python and cobra best represented the extreme genetic evolution that snakes went through, their differences despite being very similar species signifies that snakes are a very unique animal that always yields amazement.  In addition to changes to individual genes and their expression, researchers also found that the extreme characteristics in snakes could also be linked to duplication or losses in families of genes. This study may even have the possibility to shed light onto how genetics evolve in humans. Who knows maybe one day we will turn into snake like creatures. Nevertheless snakes are awesome animals that can amaze you with their competitive eating like abilities. 

Some Random Facts About Burmese Pythons in Florida:

•  National Park has been the site of suspected releases of these exotic pets. The National Park Service reported the removal of 311 Burmese pythons from the Everglades in 2008.
• Approximately 112,000 of these Asian snakes have been imported into the United States as a total since 1990.
• Other pythons have been captured in Big Cypress National Preserve and Collier Seminole State Park, north of the Everglades; areas around Miami to the northeast; Key Largo to the southeast and other lands, both public and private, throughout the region.
• A non-venomous constrictor, the Burmese python preys on native Florida species of mammals, birds and reptiles, as well as nonnative species including black rats. They have eaten Key Largo woodrats, a federally endangered species.
• There is a low risk of a human attack. Documented human attacks by pythons in the United States involve the snake's owner or immediate family.
• Pythons lay eggs, unlike boa constrictors. A female Burmese python may lay 50-100 eggs and will wrap its body around the clutch to keep it warm and to defend the eggs against predators. The female python can raise its temperature by rhythmically twitching muscles, which generates heat and helps incubate the eggs. This incubation process may last two to three months. Once the eggs are hatched, young pythons are on their own to survive.

Pythons are awesome, I hope you enjoyed this.  

Facts from  http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/faqs/fast-facts/