BREAKING THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

The Second Law of Thermodynamics RAPED!!!

The Second Law of Thermodynamics says, roughly, that you cannot get something from nothing. Since there is no free energy, for example, you cannot create a perpetual motion machine, despite some attempts at least curious have already been tested.

Another aspect of that law is the fact that energy always try to counteract. If you have a pot with hot water and pour over it a little cold water, you end up with a warm liquid. If you want to cool or heat the water, you will need an external power source.

James Maxwell and his mental exercise

In 1867 James Maxwell developed un of the most important experiments in Physics’ history: Suppose you have a container of warm water. The water molecules that have become agitated at different speeds, and the “hottest” move quickly, while the “cold” are moving slowly. Nevertheless, the average temperature of water is warm.

Then Maxwell suggested to split this container into two halves, leaving only a tiny door, the size of a molecule of water, open between them. Build the door so fast the molecules are attracted to her and to accumulate in one half of the container and, where a slow molecule get close to the door, just past the other side.

Thus, after some time, the door would have ordered molecules in the fast and slow, ie, the warm water have become hot and cold water without the use of an extra source of energy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics ends up being apparently raped.

Breaking the Second Law in practice

The Maxwell’s idea is interesting, but is merely a mental exercise. However, in 2010, scientists showed that it is possible to make a piece of plastic move with the random motion of air molecules, with a door similar to that proposed by Maxwell in his exercise.

The piece of plastic is placed on top of a small ladder and suddenly begins to be pushed up. Whenever he does this, one electric door is closed below it. The energy used on this port is isolated from the rest of the system to make sure it does not interfere in the experiment. Over time, the plastic arrives at the top of the ladder without external energy has been applied to it.

THE AMAZING GENETIC NATURE OF THE SEA ANEMONE

Sea anemones genomic landscape show strikingly similar to human genome , but also hold regulatory mechanisms similar to those of plants. Thus it has been shown in a detailed genetic analysis.

The team Ulrich Technau , evolutionary and development at the University of Vienna in Austria biologist has discovered that sea anemones show genomic landscape with a complexity of regulatory elements similar to that of the fruit fly and many other animals . This suggests that this principle of gene regulation has no less than 600 million years and goes back to the common ancestor of humans , flies and sea anemones. Furthermore, sea anemones are more like plants and insects to vertebrates in the regulation of gene expression through short regulatory RNAs called microRNAs .

While genes are , in a sense, the words of the language of genetics , certain regulatory elements would constitute the grammar. These regulatory elements are correlated with certain biochemical epigenetic modifications of histone proteins that make up reels like structures in which DNA is wound , forming chromatin .

With the help of a sophisticated molecular technique, the research team has managed to identify regulatory elements of that type checking for this purpose the complete genome of the sea anemone, and compare data sets with regulatory elements and configurations in most organisms complex. 

Since it seems that this principle of complex gene regulation was already present, as has been said, 600 million years ago when the common ancestor of living humans, flies and sea anemones, it is clear that the regulatory principle is very important for life, as well as to have been maintained by evolution over such a long period of time.

Higgs Boson

In 1964,  British physicist Peter Higgs thought about a really tiny particle than provides mass to matter, and suggested the possibility of the Higgs field, that is part of the whole Universe. This theory was impossible to prove in the 60's, because big particle accelerators were needed for this.

More than four decades later, in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Switzerland, the physicist observed in a proton collision what was (with a certain percentage of proximately 99%) the boson they were looking for.

But, why is important the Higgs Boson?
Physicists are not sure, but Higgs Boson could complete the Particle Physics Standard Model, which would allow then scientist to come nearer to the understanding of the quantum Universe.
Peter Higgs and François Englert were given the Physics Nobel Prize, which is a type of reward for the work of these physicist during decades of doubts.

Bacterial spores offer a new source of renewable energy

With mighty bursts of rehydration, bacterial spores offer a new source of renewable energy.

Bacillus spores quickly shrivel in dry times and bloat with a blast of humidity. The transitions, which take about half a second, pack a powerful punch that biophysicist Ozgur Sahin at Columbia University realized could translate to usable energy. By smearing spores onto a flat piece of rubber about the length of a human hand, Sahin and his colleagues developed a spore-powered generator. In arid conditions, parched spores pull the rubber into a curve, while wafts of wet air plump up spores and spring it flat again.

The team linked the rubber to an electromagnetic generator, so that every flex produced an electric current. Since the spores tote such a high energy potential, more than 1,000 times that of mammalian muscle.

Elementary Particles

What is our Universe made of?

In the V Century b.C., there was a philosopher called Democritus. He had an idea of what everything around us is made of, creating the word "atom", that in Greek means "indivisible, with no parts". This idea inspired a new way of thinking: the atomism.

But, what is an atom?

It's clear we don´t use correctly the word "atom", because in our lenguage and when we use it in chemistry and in physics, it's made of three main parts: electrons, a nucleus and empty space. The elementary particles are the real atoms, but they're still a mystery. We don´t know its structure (we don't even know if they have one, they can be mathematical points!) and how many are there. But we know some things about it. The figure below shows the three generations of matter: electron, muon and t-lepton, with the quarks, neutrinos and bosons.

                                      

Types of Elementary Particles

There are two kind of particles: Fermions and Bosons-

   
 -Fermions: The "bricks" that make the matter. There are divided in leptons (like electrons) and quarks             (up, down, charm... three quarks make a proton or a neutron (depends on the type of quark).).

 -Bosons: They are responsible for the forces between the particles. The lattest discover in particle                   physics is the "Higgs Boson", that gives mass to the matter.

This is all about a general introduction to elementary particles, we will later upload a new article about the Higgs Boson, that has become really famous thanks to the experiments made in the CERN's LHC in 

Geneva, Switzerland.

Those strange things called FRACTALS

First of all, WHAT THE HELL IS A FRACTAL?

 A fractal is a never ending pattern that repeats itself at different scales. That's why some people call them self-similarity objets. Fractals are extremely complex. However, they are extremely simple to make.
They are made by repeating a simple process again and again. Actually, you have may seen many fractals, although you don't realise it.

Fractals can be find st anywhere. plants, animals, skies, oceans, galaxies, ect.

NATURAL FRACTALS: BRANCHES:

Fractals are found all over nature, spanning a huge range of scales. 

We find the same patterns again and again, from the tiny branching of our blood vessels and neurons to the branching of trees, lightning bolts, and river networks. 

NATURAL FRACTALS: SPIRALS:

The spiral is another extremely common fractal in nature, found over a huge range of scales.

Biological spirals are found in the plant and animaL kingdome, whereas, non-living spirals are found in the turbulent swirling of fluids and in the pattern of star formation in galaxies. 

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GEOMETRIC FRACTALS

Geometric fractals can be made by repeating a simple process. For instance, The Sierpinski Triangle is made by repeatedly removing the middle triangle from the prior generation. The number of colored triangles increases by a factor of 3 each step, 1,3,9,27,81,243,729, etc.

  The Koch Curve is made by repeatedly replacing each segment of a generator

shape with a smaller copy of the generator. At each step, or iteration, the total length 

of the curve gets longer, eventually approaching infinity. Much like a coastline, the 

length of the curve increases the more closely you measure it.

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ALGEBRAIC FRACTALS

We can also create fractals by repeatedly calculating a simple equation over and over. Because the equations must be calculated thousands or millions of times, we need computers to explore them.
The Mandelbrot Set was discovered in 1980, shortly after the invention of the personal computer.

1-  It starts by plugging a value for the variable ‘C’ into the simple equation below. Each complex number is actually a point in a 2-
dimensional plane. The equation gives an answer, ‘Znew’ .






2- Then we plug this back into the equation, as ‘Zold’ and calculate it again.


Generally, when you square a number, it gets bigger, and then if you square the answer, it gets bigger still. Eventually, it goes to infinity. This is the fate of most starting values of ‘C’. However, some values of ‘C’ do not get bigger, but instead get smaller, or alternate between a set of fixed values.
These are the points inside the Mandelbrot Set, all the values of ‘C’ cause the equation to go to infinity, and the colors are proportional to the speed at which they expand.

There are many and many types of algebraic fractals, depending on what kind of equation you choose.

To see more, click here