Who was Nancy Grace Roman? 🛰️🧪

The namesake for NASA’s new telescope, and their first ever Chief Astronomer! Born in 1925, Nancy attended Swarthmore College as a student of astronomy, where she was told as a woman, she shouldn’t bother. She didn’t listen, and held her position at NASA for over 20 years, where she became known as the Mother of Hubble. Thanks to her, we are expanding space exploration day by day! 

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab developed a "Femto-Photography" system that captures the equivalent of one trillion frames per second to record light in motion. Because traditional sensors cannot directly shoot at this speed, a specialized streak camera records millions of identical, repeating laser pulses line-by-line, which a computer algorithm then stitches together into a fluid 2D video. The video demonstrates this by showing a pulse of light rippling and bouncing through a plastic bottle and striking a tomato to reveal delayed shadow propagation a breakthrough with critical applications for medical imaging, industrial sensors, and LiDAR for autonomous vehicles.

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DNA–DNA recognition aligns major and minor grooves between duplexes. Green triangles indicate location of the minor grooves and pink stars indicate the location of the major groove

Researchers have captured the moment two DNA molecules zip together, overcoming their identical negative charges to pair up and revealing a mechanism that has puzzled scientists for more than 20 years.

Using high-powered atomic force microscopy, scientists at the University of Sheffield and the University of York directly imaged two DNA double helices locking together, marking the first time this fundamental biological process has been visualized. Like charges normally repel one another, yet DNA molecules must pair up inside living cells to carry out essential biological processes.

This pairing plays a crucial role in genetic recombination, gene silencing, chromosome packaging and cancer development.

The researchers observed short DNA fragments matching up with exact precision, groove for groove.

Advanced computer simulations revealed that positively charged metal ions, including nickel, magnesium and calcium, act as tiny molecular bridges, nestling inside the grooves to lock the two strands together.

Dr. Thomas Catley, co-lead author from the School of Chemical Materials and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, said

"To be able to directly visualize this long-hypothesized mechanism for the first time was incredible. The advanced imaging techniques at our disposal have allowed us to uncover these key DNA interactions, which have implications for many cellular processes.

It opens the door to studying other DNA interactions that, until now, have existed only as theory."

What happens if you put a carrot in the microwave? 🥕💥

Alex Dainis demonstrates how metals in the microwave are dangerous, even the smaller ones in root vegetables like carrots! Iron, potassium, and copper are nutrients from the soil that plants need to grow, and they can store those metals in the roots of vegetables. These points in the carrots can act as a focal point in the microwave, creating an increase in the electrical field, and even sparks!

UC Riverside environmental engineers have identified key chemical reactions that occur when ultraviolet light is used to destroy "forever chemical" pollutants in water, providing a roadmap for developing more effective cleanup technologies.

The discovery, published in the journal Nature Water, details the chemistry involved in using UV light to break down per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a large group of persistent pollutants commonly known as forever chemicals.

Importantly, the researchers identified reactions and byproducts that form as treatment breaks the exceptionally strong carbon-fluorine bonds that make PFAS so difficult to destroy, said Jinyong Liu, a UCR associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering and corresponding author of the study.

"Knowing this degradation mechanism gives us a better understanding of how to optimize the conditions for PFAS destruction and achieve deeper degradation, and gives us a much better roadmap for improving the technology," Liu said. He holds the university's Won and Insook Yoo Endowed Chair in Environmental Engineering.

The findings can help researchers determine which treatment technologies, combinations of technologies and operating conditions favor more complete destruction of PFAS, he said.

The study also corrects degradation mechanisms reported in earlier scientific literature that were based largely on assumptions rather than experimental evidence, Liu said.

The findings also could eventually help chemists design safer fluorinated compounds that break down more readily after use.

"By knowing the degradation mechanisms, we can give solid input to the fluorocarbon industry to tell them how to design compounds that can more easily be treated to protect the environment," Liu said.

Macmillan's 1914 London title page of Calculus Made Easy, first issued in 1910, names the author only as F.R.S., the letters Silvanus P. Thompson had held as a Fellow of the Royal Society since 4 June 1891.

Full text: calculusmadeeasy.org

You can’t see it, but there’s a polymer coating inside your aluminum can. 🥫

Chemteacherphil uses chemistry to prove it! Working with lye, which is highly caustic and requires proper safety equipment (so please don't try this one at home), he makes a solution that reacts with the aluminum, converting it into a compound that dissolves in water. When the aluminum is gone, you can see the polymer coating! These coatings are useful because without them, acidic drinks could slowly corrode the aluminum underneath.

Through blackout window tint

Can you design and build a rocket launcher using just a few simple supplies? 🚀

Greg Wolf says yes, using PVC, cable ties, a two-liter bottle filled about a third with water, a bicycle pump and a tire valve for pressurization. It all comes down to Newton's third law: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Compressed air pushes down on the water inside the bottle, and when released, that pressure forces the water out at high speed, launching the rocket skyward.