The Athenaeum- Under new management

In First Successful Human Trial, Nanotech Robots Deploy Cancer-Fighting RNA

 "Specially constructed molecules could potentially block the expression of genes critical to the reproduction of viruses and the spread of cancer. But until now, doctors had been unable to direct those molecules to the right cellular nuclei. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology solved this problem by placing the RNA molecules in a specialized polymer robot with a chemical sensor. When the environment of a cancerous cell triggered the chemical sensor, the robot releases the RNA."  Science

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Is this really as good as it looks?  pl 

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/nanotech-robots-deploy-cancer-fighting-rna

Our Own Private Star

By John Minnerath

Our Sun is the reason for our existence. It provides us with light and warmth, that combined with the unique make up of Planet Earth, gives us our home.

The Sun makes up 98% of the Solar Systems total mass. It’s 109 times as wide as Earth and 333,000 times heavier. A gigantic nuclear furnace, it consumes 7,000,000 tons of itself per second. At its surface, the Photosphere, the temperature is 10,000°F and at the core about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.   About a million Earths could fit inside its immense size.

For all that, the Sun is a pretty mediocre star. It’s been burning for about 5 billion years and should continue doing so for another 5 billion.

Here is a full disk Hydrogen alpha image of the Sun courtesy NASA

The Sun is a fascinating object to observe and photograph. Recent advances in technology allow amateur astronomers like myself to now see and image it in Hydrogen alpha light as well as so-called White Light which is the normal visual spectrum. White Light solar photography is fairly simple and inexpensive to do. My Hydrogen alpha telescope is the very small but affordable Coronado PST with an aperture of 1 ½ inches.

The following are photos taken from my own small observatory, using the equipment in the photograph below. 

 

The few first images are in White Light, which can only show Sun Spots, Faculae, and sometimes surface granulation.

AR 11045  A recent large Sunspot group.

AR11035 

AR11040 

Hydrogen alpha requires a special filter allowing only light at 6562.8 angstroms to pass through. This is the light of the Solar Chromosphere.  At this wave length of light such features as prominences along the Solar limb can be seen. Filaments which are prominences seen from above. Plage areas are active regions on the Solar surface. Solar flares, and other details not visible in our normal visual spectrum can be seen and photographed in Hydrogen alpha light.

In some of the photos to follow I’ve placed a scale sized Earth to help appreciate the size involved.

Photographing in Hydrogen alpha to show prominences on the limb and surface features generally requires taking an image of the prominence and one of the surface, and then combining the 2 into a single image.  I sometimes do this and other times get enough of a prominence to show in a single image.

The following are mostly surface features.

I hope you all have enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoy taking them.

Stay warm under old Sol.