the-science-llama:

13 Must See Stargazing Events for 2013

— Listed In Chronological Order 

1) January 21 — Very Close Moon/Jupiter Conjunction

A waxing gibbous moon (78% illuminated) will pass within less than a degree to the south of Jupiter high in the evening sky. Your closed fist held out at arms length covers 10 degrees. These two wont get that close again until 2026.

2) February 2-23 — Best Evening View of Mercury

The planet Mercury will be far enough away from the glare of the Sun to be visible in the Western sky after sunset. It will be at its brightest on the 16th and dim quickly afterwards. On the 8th it will skim by the much dimmer planet Mars by about 0.4 degrees.

3) March 10-24 — Comet PANSTARRS at its best

First discovered in 2011, this comet should be coming back around for about 2 weeks. It will be visible low in the northwest sky after sunset. Here are some sources predicting what the comets may look like in the sky; 1, 2

4) April 25 — Partial Lunar Eclipse

A very minor, partial lunar eclipse (not visible in North America) where only about 2 percent of the moon’s diameter will be inside the dark shadow of the Earth.

5) May 9 — Annular Eclipse of the Sun (“Ring of Fire” Eclipse)

It will be visible in Northern Australia and parts of Papua New Guinea but mostly within the Pacific Ocean. See all the solar eclipse paths for 2001-2020 here.

6) May 24-30 — Dance of the Planets

Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will seemingly dance between each other in the twilight sky just after sunset as they will change their positions from one evening to the next. Venus will be the brightest of all, six times brighter than Jupiter. Look towards the west just above the Sun after it sets to see the three planets grouped together.

7) June 23 — Biggest Full Moon of 2013

It will be the biggest full moon because the moon will be the closest to the Earth (Perigee) at this time (11:32 UT) making it a ‘SuperMoon’. The tides will be affected as well creating exceptionally high and low tides for the next few days. More cool facts about the Moon.

8) August 12 — Perseid Meteor Shower

One of the best and most reliable meteor showers of the year producing ~90 meteors per hour provided the sky is dark. The meteor shower is expected to peak the night of August 11-12, however, you will be able to see a good amount of meteors even in late July. This year (for the peak) the moon won’t be in the way as much as it will set during the evening, leaving the rest of the night dark. Here is a useful dark-sky finder tool to find the best place to watch where you live.

9) October 18 — Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon

Visible mostly in Asia, Europe and Africa, at this time 76% of the moon will be covered by the penumbral shadow of the Earth.

10) November 3 — Hybrid Eclipse of the Sun

A Hybrid Eclipse meaning, along its path, the eclipse will turn from Annular to Total and in this case most of the path will appear to be Total as there will be a slight ring of sunlight visible near the beginning of the track. This one will begin in the Atlantic (near the East Coast of the U.S.) and travel through Africa. See the path here. The greatest eclipse (with 100 seconds of totality) will appear in Liberia, near the West Coast of Africa.

11) Mid-November through December — Comet ISON

The second comet this year, ISON, could potentially be visible in broad daylight as it reaches its closest point to the Sun. It will reach that point on November 28 and it is close enough to the Sun to be categorized as a ‘Sungrazer’. Afterwards it will travel towards Earth (passing by within 40 million miles) a month later. Hopefully it will survive and become brighter than Panstarrs.

12) All of December — Dazzling Venus

The brightest planet of them all will shine a few hours after sundown in the Southwestern sky and for about 1.5 hours approaching New Years Eve. Around December 5th, a crescent moon will pass above the planet and the next night Venus will be at its brightest and wont be again until 2021.

13) December 13-14 — Geminid Meteor Shower

This is another great (if not the best) annual meteor shower. This year put on a show at about 120 meteors per hour and in 2013 it won’t be much different so expect another fantastic show. However, the moon - as it is a few days before full phase - will be in the way for most of the night obscuring some of the fainter meteors. You might have to stay up in the early morning hours (4am) to catch the all the meteors it has to offer. If you missed 2012’s Geminid Meteor Shower, here are some great photo-sets; 1, 2, 3

— Notes
*The gif is of a total solar eclipse, made from this video
* Find a dark sky to watch the meteor showers with this tool
* Estimate your locations meteor shower rate with the Fluxtimator

pineneedlecollective:

Yesterday in my lab session at university, we extracted our own DNA (for sequencing, to see how things like forensic analysis and paternity/maternity tests work). But while extracting DNA sounds super sciencey and complicated (and impressive - when I was telling my friends about how I was extracting and sequencing DNA this week their reaction was always to go “wow! Awesome!”), it is actually something that you can do yourself with a blender, salt, pineapple juice and alcohol.

1. Figure out what you want to use as a source of DNA. You can get your DNA from anything living - but you might want to use fruit,  vegetables or parts of a plant for this experiment, because you’ll need to blend up the cells and so using animals would be just a little bit  unethical(okay, so I said above that I extracted my own DNA, and I did do this without chopping myself up, but this is a little bit harder - we took cheek swabs and then had to centrifuge everything for about a million hours, so if you don’t have your own bench-top centrifuge, then use strawberries or something instead).

2. Blend it up so it becomes a paste (blend on high for 15 seconds). This breaks open (lyses) many of the cells. Also add a pinch of salt.

3. Add detergent. This will lyse the cells further and also break open the cell’s nucleus, which is where the DNA lives.

4. This step is not necessary if you just want to extract and look at DNA, and not do any further measurements with it (like spectrophotometry). But if you have it available, add some pineapple juice to your mixture. Pineapple juice contains an enzyme called bromelain that eats proteins. You need to add this to remove proteins from your solution - because cells are also full of proteins, and when you break open your cell, a whole bunch of proteins will come flowing out. And if you remove the proteins, the stuff you extract will be more “pure” DNA.

5. Add vodka/rubbing alcohol/anything with a high ethanol content. Carefully add the alcohol to the top of your mix. DNA does not dissolve in alcohol, so if you add enough it will “precipitate” out of the solution. Stringy white shapes should appear in your solution. This is strands of DNA! (Yes, you can see it!) You can then put a straw or skewer into the solution, twirl it and pull it out. The DNA you have extracted will look a lot like mucous or snot ;)

And that’s how you extract DNA at home! You don’t even need any fancy lab equipment. Pretty easy, huh?

(Image credit)

GUYS. Come on. We are living in the future.

This is an actual plug-in hybrid car that is street-legal and features retractable wings and propellers.

SERIOUSLY.

http://news.discovery.com/autos/future-of-transportation/terrafugia-plans-new-hybrid-130509.htm