Science – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Quantum leap for mass as science redefines the kilogramme

Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in science

Nov 12
2018

Sealed in a vault beneath a duke’s former pleasure palace among the sycamore-streaked forests west of Paris sits an object the size of an apple that determines the weight of the world.

Forged against a backdrop of scientific and political upheaval following the French Revolution, a single, small cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy has laid largely undisturbed for nearly 130 years as the world’s benchmark for what, precisely, is a kilogramme.

The international prototype of the kilogramme, or “Le Grand K” as it is tenderly known, is one of science’s most hallowed relics, an analogue against which all other weights are compared and a totem of the metric system that accompanied the epoch of liberty, equality and fraternity.

How science fared in the midterm elections

Posted by Derick Lee in biotech/medical, engineering, government, science

Nov 8
2018

This year, more candidates with degrees in science, medicine and engineering ran for Congress than ever before. Of the nearly two-dozen new candidates in this crop, at least seven won seats in the House of Representatives.

This year, scientists, doctors and engineers ran for office like never before. Here’s how they did.

Science at 17,500 Miles Per Hour

Posted by Michael Lance in science, space

Nov 4
2018

The International Space Station is your orbiting laboratory, and the science being conducted there will help us push farther into deep space, while providing benefits back on Earth. Microgravity unlocks new worlds of discovery. Dive into what we’re learning: 🔬🚀.

“Alien Invasion” −99% of the Microbes Inside the Human Body are Unknown to Science

Posted by Genevieve Klien in biotech/medical, genetics, science

Nov 4
2018

“There was something else, too – something weirder. Of all the non-human DNA fragments the team gathered, 99 percent of them failed to match anything in existing genetic databases the researchers examined. We found a whole new class of human-infecting ones that are closer to the animal class than to the previously known human ones, so quite divergent on the evolutionary scale.”

A landmark Stanford 2017 study indicates that more than 99 percent of the microbes inside us are unknown to science. The survey of DNA fragments circulating in the blood suggests the microbes living within us are vastly more diverse than previously known. In fact, 99 percent of that DNA has never been seen before.

A new survey of DNA fragments circulating in human blood suggests our bodies contain vastly more diverse microbes than anyone previously understood. What’s more, the overwhelming majority of those microbes have never been seen before, let alone classified and named, Stanford researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.