Stars create complex organic molecules

Complex organic molecules like those on which life is based exist throughout the universe and can be made naturally by stars, European Space Agency data has revealed.
Professor Sun Kwok and Dr Yong Zhang of the University of Hong Kong say they've found compounds so complex that their chemical structures resemble those of coal and petroleum.
The find suggests that complex organic compounds can be synthesized in space without the presence of life forms.
"Our work has shown that stars have no problem making complex organic compounds under near-vacuum conditions," says Kwok. "Theoretically, this is impossible, but observationally we can see it happening."
The researchers were investigating a set of infrared emissions detected in stars, interstellar space and galaxies, and known as Unidentified Infrared Emission features.
These signatures were believed to have come from simple organic molecules made of carbon and hydrogen atoms, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules.
But, using the Infrared Space Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, Kwok and Zhang discovered that the spectra have features that can't be explained by PAH molecules.
Instead, they say, the substances generating these infrared emissions have chemical structures that are much more complex.
Analysis of the spectra of star dust formed in novae shows that stars are making these complex organic compounds in a matter of weeks, and then ejecting it into the general interstellar space.
Interestingly, this organic star dust is similar in structure to the complex organic compounds found in meteorites, and could form their source. Thus, it's possible that life on Earth developed from this organic star dust

Battered asteroid Lutetia revealed as ancient baby planet that never fully formed

A battered, pockmarked object floating in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has been revealed as an ancient fledging planet, formed when Earth was in its infancy.
The European Space Agency’s comet-hunting probe Rosetta flew past the asteroid Lutetia last year and studied it with thermal and spectroscopic sensors.
What it discovered is that Lutetia is no ordinary asteroid – but actually a primitive ‘mini-world’ that used to be round and may even have tried to grow a metal heart like a fully formed planet.

For the crater good: Lutetia has been revealed as a fledgling planet containing huge amounts of iron that was around when Earth was born

Astronomers believe that Lutetia should really be described as a planetesimal, a body formed from clumps of cosmic grains.

These have the potential to grow into planets, because once they reach around 3,000 feet in width they develop gravity that can attract other masses.
Asteroids, on the other hand, are formed from collisions between planets and other asteroids.
Rosetta flew past Lutetia on 10 July 2010 at a speed of nine miles a second and came within 1,969 miles of it.

Heavenly body: The ESA's Rosetta probe analysed Lutetia with thermal and spectroscopic sensors to reveal that it is no ordinary floating rock

At the time, the 80-mile-long asteroid was the largest encountered by a spacecraft.
Images from Rosetta’s instruments reveal that parts of Lutetia’s surface are around 3.6billion years old.
Other parts are young by astronomical standards, at 50 to 80million years old.
Astronomers estimate the age of airless planets, moons, and asteroids by counting craters.
Each bowl-shaped depression on the surface is made by an impact. The older the surface, the more impacts it will have accumulated.

Exploration: An artist's rendition shows the Rosetta orbiter, top, and lander, which it uses to reach the surface of comets

Some parts of Lutetia are heavily cratered, implying that it is very old.
On the other hand, the youngest areas of Lutetia are landslides, probably triggered by the vibrations from particularly jarring nearby impacts.
Debris resulting from these many impacts now lies across the surface as a 3,000ft-thick layer of pulverised rock.
There are also boulders strewn across the surface: some are 1,300-feet across, or about half the size of Ayers Rock, in Australia.
Some impacts must have been so large that they broke off whole chunks of Lutetia, gradually sculpting it into the battered wreck we see today.
‘We don’t think Lutetia was born looking like this,’ says Holger Sierks, Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Lindau, Germany. ‘It was probably round when it formed.’
Rosetta also let scientists investigate beneath the asteroid’s surface.
It appears that Lutetia tried to grow an iron core like a bona-fide planet when it formed.

Ready for take-off: Rosetta was launched on board the Ariane-5 launcher from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, in 2004

During the encounter, Lutetia’s weak gravity tugged on Rosetta. The slight change in Rosetta’s path was reflected in radio signals received back at Earth, indicating a mass of 1.7 million billion tons.
This was a surprise.
‘The mass was lower than expected. Ground-based observations had suggested much higher values,’ says Martin Pätzold, Universität zu Köln, Germany, leader of the radio science team.
Nevertheless, when combined with its volume, Lutetia still turns out to have one of the highest densities of any known asteroid: 3400 kg per cubic meter.
The density implies that Lutetia contains significant quantities of iron, but not necessarily in a fully formed core.
To form an iron core, Lutetia would have had to melt as a result of heat released by radioactive isotopes in its rocks. The dense iron would then sink to the centre and the rocky material would float to the top.
However, Lutetia’s spectrometer indicates that the body’s surface composition remains entirely primordial, displaying none of the rocky material expected to form during such a molten phase.
The only explanation appears to be that Lutetia was subjected to some internal heating early in its history but did not melt completely and so did not end up with a well-defined iron core.
These results, all gathered during just a short flyby, make Lutetia a unique asteroid and an invaluable postcard from the past, at a time when Earth was forming.
‘We picked a most important member of the asteroid belt,’ said Rita Schulz, ESA’s Rosetta Project Scientist. ‘All the asteroids encountered so far were different from each other, but Lutetia is the only one in which both primordial and differentiation features have been found.
‘These unexpected results clearly show that there is still much more to investigate before we understand the belt fully.’
Having now left Lutetia far behind, Rosetta is in hibernation and en route to its 2014 rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Space science

The term space science may mean:

• The study of issues specifically related to space travel and space exploration, including space medicine.
• Science performed in outer space 
• The study of everything in outer space;this is sometimes called astronomy, but more recently astronomy can also be regarded as a division of broader space science, which has grown to include other related fields.

This article describes the third meaning, space science describing all of the various science fields that are concerned with the study of the Universe, generally also meaning "excluding the Earth" and "outside of the Earth's atmosphere".

Divisions of space science

One proposed timeline of the origin of space, from physical cosmology.

By subject

• Stellar astronomy - the study of stars
  • Solar astronomy - the study of our Sun
• Planetary science - the study of planets, especially those other than Earth
• Galactic astronomy - the study of our Milky Way Galaxy
• Extragalactic astronomy - the study of the larger universe beyond the Milky Way
• Physical cosmology - the study of the origin, large-scale structure, and space-time relationships of the universe

Interdisciplinary fields

A simulated-color map of the surface of Venus as measured by synthetic aperture radar on the Magellan probe.

The Helix Nebula, NGC7293.

Comet Tempel 1 67 seconds after colliding with the Deep Impact probe.

• Astrobiology
• Astrochemistry or Cosmochemistry
• Astrophysics - the intersection of physics and space science, the study of the physics of extraterrestrial objects and interstitial spaces
  • Space plasma physics
  • Orbital mechanics or astrodynamics, which also has applications to spacecraft
• Planetary science - overlaps with Earth science
  • Planetary geology
• Micro-g environment research
• Forensic astronomy
• Space archaeology - the study of human artifacts in outer space
• Archaeoastronomy - the history of human understanding of the universe
• Astronautics is the science and engineering of spacefaring and spaceflight, a subset of Aerospace engineering (which includes atmospheric flight)
  • Aerospace engineering
  • Control engineering
  • Orbital mechanics
  • Spacecraft design for launch vehicles and satellites
  • Space environment - study of conditions that affect the operation of spacecraft
  • Spacecraft propulsion
  • Space food
  • Space logistics
  • Space medicine

By approach

• Observational astronomy - Observatories on the ground as well as space observatories take measurements of celestial entities and phenomena
  • Astrometry - stuies the position and movements of celestial objects
  • Amateur astronomy
• Theoretical astronomy - mathematical modelling of celestial entities and phenomena

Related activities

• Space exploration - includes scientific investigations through manned spaceflight and space probes
• Space colonization
• Commercialization of space
  • Space manufacturing
  • Space tourism
• Space warfare
  • Alien invasion
• Asteroid-impact avoidance
• Space law
• Remote sensing
• Planetarium - A synthetic observatory, used for education and presentations

Science, engineering and technology

The distinction between science, engineering and technology is not always clear. Science is the reasoned investigation or study of phenomena, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method.Technologies are not usually exclusively products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as utility, usability and safety.
Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.
Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.
The exact relations between science and technology in particular have been debated by scientists, historians, and policymakers in the late 20th century, in part because the debate can inform the funding of basic and applied science. In the immediate wake of World War II, for example, in the United States it was widely considered that technology was simply "applied science" and that to fund basic science was to reap technological results in due time. An articulation of this philosophy could be found explicitly in Vannevar Bush's treatise on postwar science policy, Science—The Endless Frontier: "New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature... This essential new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research." In the late-1960s, however, this view came under direct attack, leading towards initiatives to fund science for specific tasks (initiatives resisted by the scientific community). The issue remains contentious—though most analysts resist the model that technology simply is a result of scientific research.

The Science Breakthroughs that 2011 May Bring

From discovering the so-called God particle and confirming the existence of an Earth-like exoplanet to understanding more about the brain and even defining a fourth domain of life, the science possibilities for 2011 are awe-inspiring.

Here's a look at some of what may come to bear in this year.

The Higgs boson – a particle so important to science that it's been dubbed "the God particle" – may come out of hiding in 2011.

This fundamental particle, thought to give mass to all particles, has been theorized since 1964 but never detected.

"If nature is kind to us, we will find it next year," said particle physicist Christoph Rembser, of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, where the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, went online in September 2008. With the atom smasher up and running, Rembser said physicists have everything they need to detect and measure the particle. 

Offering an X Prize for brain breakthroughs

A $10 million prize to spur the creation of innovative neurotechnologies for the human brain could debut as soon as next year. The first possible challenge might be a Neuroeducation X Prize that seeks to dissect learning in the brain and eventually give a boost to the brains of students, or a Paralysis X Prize that promotes recovery of body functions in spinal cord-injured patients. Future X Prizes could even tackle far-out ideas such as virtual telepathy, allowing humans to effortlessly interface with computers using only their brains, and smaller X Challenge rewards could drive innovation for brain issues such as Alzheimer's disease.

The effort is backed by the X Prize Foundation, which successfully spurred on the first private spaceflight with the Ansari X Prize and has also launched the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for teams racing to land a robot on the moon. Similarly, the $10 million Progressive Auto X Prize recently awarded money to the most fuel-efficient vehicles from among more than 100 competitors.

Now the X Prize Foundation hopes the lure of big rewards can attract more private money and talent to the effort of untangling the serious brain puzzles faced by modern-day researchers.

Securing a satellite for free Internet access

Kosta Grammatis doesn't see the Internet as a luxury as a human right for the billions of people who still lack access to one of the most powerful tools of the 21st century. That's why he launched a bid to buy a satellite and move it to a new orbit where it can provide free Internet access for one or more developing countries. His nonprofit organization, called A Human Right, is looking for $150,000 in donations through the online site buythissatellite.org so it can put together a business plan.

The target acquisition is the Terrestar-1 satellite, which is owned by a company that filed for bankruptcy protection in October. Grammatis hopes eventually to persuade a generous big spender such as Google or Richard Branson to back his bid for Terrestar-1, and then to re-park the satellite above a region with poor Internet access – perhaps above Papua New Guinea or even Africa.

To keep the operation funded, Grammatis envisions leasing out high-speed bandwidth to telecommunications companies, even while providing free Internet connections at lower speeds. If a serious project backer can be found, look for a possible move on this plan in 2011.

Declaring a fourth domain of life

In October, researchers announced the discovery of the world's second giant virus, dubbed CroV. This virus, which infects single-cell marine creatures, is considered enormous due to the size of its genome – approximately 730,000 base pairs, or genetic building blocks, more than double the size of the largest known "normal" virus. Mimivirus, the king of giant viruses so far, has 1.2 million base pairs.

More giant viruses are likely on their way to being found. Mimivirus and CroV are only distant relatives of each other, suggesting that others exist, according to Matthias Fischer who described CroV for his doctoral dissertation at the University of British Columbia. Gunnar Bratbak, of the University of Bergen in Norway, confirmed that his lab has isolated and is studying additional giant viruses.

Viruses, which rely on the machinery of infected cells to reproduce and so aren't considered "alive," are not included in the three domains of life: eukaryotes, prokaryotes and the most ancient, archaea. However, the surprising contents of these giant viruses' genomes endow them with features similar to cells and allow them to play a more active role in replicating themselves. 

Research published Dec. 2 in the journal PLoS ONE reconstructs evolutionary relationships between the three domains and viruses, arguing that viruses are entitled to a domain for themselves. Viruses and all other organisms share a common set of genes involved in DNA processing, according to the researchers at Université de la Méditerranée in France.

Bratbak does not believe viruses are "alive" but that they are an important part of life and evolution, and excluding them from the domains is tricky, he told LiveScience in an e-mail.

"Viruses are not only a 'process' that aid evolution by shuffling genes around, but they are also evolving and obeying the same laws of evolution as the other domains," Bratbak wrote. "Thus the more we learn, the harder it gets to define 'domain' without including viruses among them. I am not sure we are there yet."

Confirming an Earth-like planet beyond the solar system

Plenty of claims have been made about finding what may be an Earth-like exoplanet – one that's rocky, about Earth’s size and orbiting its star within the habitable zone (where it's not too hot or too cold to sustain life as we know it).

"As regards 'definitively and positively identifying' a truly earth-like planet outside of our solar system, that all depends on what one means by definitively and positively," astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told LiveScience in an e-mail.

"I would argue (and indeed have argued) that we have already done this, with the announced detection of GJ 581g," said Vogt, who led the team that found the planet.

Gliese 581g, one of six worlds orbiting a star in the constellation Libra, was announced as the first Earth-like planet where life might exist. While Vogt stands by the discovery, some science groups question the finding. For instance, a group of astronomers, led by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, performed a follow-up investigation in an attempt to confirm the existence of Gliese 581g and said they were unable to.

Even with Mayor's team and Vogt's team trying to confirm Gliese 581g, "it may take another season or two to really know, so I expect we won't see any possible confirmation (or refutation) for another year or two," Vogt said. "In the meantime, we are hard at work not only gathering more data on this system, but on others that may
yield similar potentially habitable planets."

The Kepler mission, which launched in spring 2009 and whose goal is to search for Earth-like worlds, hasn't been under way long enough to confirm habitable Earth-like exoplanets, Vogt said. Even so, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager said she expects Kepler will making some amazing exoplanet discoveries in 2011, though likely not a truly Earth-like planet.

"To find a true Earth twin, we need to be able to find and characterize Earths orbiting true solar twins," Seager told LiveScience. "This isn't possible until we have the money to invest in a 'Terrestrial Planet Finder,' a direct imaging space telescope, one that is capable of blocking out the starlight to search for a planet that is 10 billion times fainter than its host star. I hope this year brings some breakthroughs in technology in this regard."

Gregory Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Samuel Arbesman, a computational biologist at Harvard Medical School, are more optimistic, and specific, though they are not referring to an "Earth twin," but instead a planet similar to Earth where there's a possibility of life.

"In the past decades, the number of known extrasolar planets has ballooned into the hundreds, and with it the expectation that the discovery of the first Earth-like extrasolar planet is not far off," they write in an online research article published on arXiv.org. Using statistical analyses based on past exoplanet discoveries, "we predict the discovery of the first Earth-like planet to be announced in the first half of 2011, with the likeliest date being early May 2011," they wrote.

More details on how they came to the conclusion can be found at Arbesman's blog.

Understanding what your genes do for you

The studies linking genes to behavior come fast and furious these days: Scientists have found a gene for impulsivity, for promiscuity, even for liberalism. And that's just in the last few months.

Of course, all these findings come with a huge disclaimer: Genes aren't destiny. A single gene won't make you prone to violence or sex, nor will it force you to vote for Barack Obama. On its own, the presence of one of these "behavior" gene variants tells you precisely nothing about the person carrying it.

So what's the point? It’s a growing understanding of the complex interactions between our genes and the environment, researchers say. New genome sequencing techniques allow researchers to cast wider and deeper nets in the search for genetic links to behavior. Close study can reveal how early-life experiences or exposure to certain situations can influence those genes. Even your parents' experiences could make a difference in how your genes are expressed.

It's the beginning of a new era, said David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, who authored the study on the genetics of impulsivity.

"To generate a million nucleotides of DNA sequence costs about 25 cents, which is just an astounding number," Goldman told LiveScience. "What else in life is that cheap?"

Don't expect a simple breakthrough in 2011 – it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to discover THE depression gene or THE schizophrenia gene. But psychiatry researchers say they're gradually piecing together the gene-environment puzzle, and new clues could arise any day.

"We really might identify new genes and new proteins that are involved in depression that we never thought to look at before," said Srijan Sen, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan. "That's happening a little bit in schizophrenia and autism… In that way, I think revolutionary things could happen."

Dining on genetically modified salmon

A transgenic salmon that grows to meal size in half the time of ordinary salmon is poised to become the first genetically modified animal approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for consumption. But despite a series of recent FDA panels finding that it does not pose any new threat to human health, the AquaBounty Technologies fish still faces criticism from experts and the threat of lawsuits from consumer organizations.

The panel hearings found the AquaBounty salmon to be safe, based on studies that some critics have argued involved too few fish; the FDA has not indicated whether it will require additional studies before ruling on the panels’ recommendation. The environmental risks of the transgenic salmon escaping their indoor facilities and mingling with wild salmon were also considered minimal.

Some economists have argued that the FDA also needs to consider how the AquaBounty salmon could encourage an expansion of the aquaculture industry that raises farm-bred fish. That move could make salmon cheaper and allow for a healthier diet among consumers on the plus side, but also may drain the numbers of wild fish required to feed the growing numbers of farm salmon.

Either way, the salmon will not represent the first genetically modified food to enter human diets if it gets FDA approval in 2011 – just look at the ingredients of your next package of corn chips.

Learning the cultures of Earth’s other creatures

Evidence of culture – learned behavior characteristics of a particular group – among animals is mounting, and research is continuing to add nuance to our understanding of how animals learn from one another and how animal culture, like human culture, evolves. 

Within the next year, Diana Reiss of Hunter College in New York City, and collaborator Ofer Tchernichovski at the City College of New York plan to embark on research that could show, among other things, how dolphins learn new whistles – the sounds by which they communicate – and how they incorporate them into their own social interactions.

A new experimental system the two scientists are developing will allow a social group of dolphins at the National Aquarium in Baltimore to interact with a touch screen projected onto the wall of the tank, while identifying the whistles the animals make, in near-real time.

When asked if findings from animal culture mean humans are not unique in that regard, Tchernichovski balked, calling it a "trick question."

"The more interesting science is the science using animal models to understand ourselves and to understand animals and to see [if] there is a continuum between them," he told LiveScience.

Finding the causes of animal-disease epidemics

In recent years, colony collapse disorder has emptied out honeybee colonies in North America and Europe, and chytrid fungal infections are blamed for amphibian deaths and declining populations on several continents. Most recently, white-nose syndrome has been decimating hibernating bats as it radiates outward from a cave near Albany, N.Y., where it was first seen February 2006.

Scientists are piecing together the causes for these animal plagues, though many questions remain. In October, researchers reported in the journal PLoS ONE that a viral-fungal tag team was likely behind colony collapse, becoming more lethal when the virus and fungus infected the same bee together.

As for the skin infection causing amphibian deaths, a study published in the journal Science in 2009 proposed that the infectious disease, chytridimycosis, interferes with electrolyte transport over the skin, causing cardiac arrest and death. Separately, researchers have suggested that the fungus responsible was transported around the globe by the trade in African frogs, which were used in pregnancy tests during the first part of the 20th century.

The fungus behind white-nose syndrome may use a similar mechanism to kill bats, according to a study published in November in the journal BMC Biology. "In the next few years, it's plausible we will be able to establish exactly how the fungus is killing the bats, and that knowledge may certainly help us come up with the most effective management options," said Paul Cryan, a study researcher and bat ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Top 10 scientific discoveries in 2010

The year of 2010 is full of excitement as the world has witnessed many technological wonders and scientific breakthroughs.Below are the top 10 scientific discoveries of the year.
Top 1: Creation of first self-replicating synthetic life

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has called for enhanced federal oversight in the emerging field of synthetic biology, which involves the design and construction of laboratory-made biological parts.

In May, researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, genomic-focused basic research organization, reported the successful construction of a first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell. They copied and modified an entire genome of a small bacterial cell, inserted it into a living cell of another species, and by doing so created a new, synthetic organism.

"This is the first self-replicating species that we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer," U.S. scientist Craig Venter who led the team said. "It also is the first species to have its own website encoded in its genetic code."
Scientists hope to patent the organism called Mycoplasma laboratorium and engineer it to manufacture cheap biofuels, medicines and other useful compounds.
However, critics argue the move will stifle future science relying on an artificial microbes. U.S. President Obama has asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to study the implications of synthetic biology after proponent, however, no federal regulations has been issued yet.
Top 2: Scientists found life built with toxic chemical

transmission electron micrograph of the bacterium strain GFAJ-1+As/-P GFAJ-1 shows internal vacuole-like structures in an undated photograph released by NASA, the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science on December 2, 2010. A strange, salty lake in California has yielded the equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers reported on Thursday. The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said.

An astrobiology research has found the first known microorganism able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic, which has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.
This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.
Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.
Top 3: Antimatter made & trapped in lab for the first time

In Dan Brown's Angels & Demons book, scientists have solved one of the most complicated scientific problems: the capture and storage of antimatter. In the real life, capturing atomic antimatter is yet to be achieved.

Antimatter Have you read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons book or watched the movie, in which symbologist Robert Langdon tries to stop a legendary secret society Illuminati from destroying Vatican City with the newly discovered power of antimatter stored in a canister?
According to the book, antimatter is an extremely dangerous substance with immense destructive potential, which is unleashed upon contact with any form of normal matter, and is comparable to a small nuclear weapon. In the story, scientists have solved one of the most complicated scientific problems: the capture and storage of antimatter.
Now the story is coming true in real life as researchers at CERN's Geneva labs have recently managed to trap a sizeable amount of antihydrogenhave managed to trap a sizeable amount of antihydrogen.
The development opens the path to new ways of making detailed measurements of antihydrogen. This will in turn allow scientists to compare matter and antimatter, which remains one of the biggest mysteries of science.
Top 4: Scientists Solve Mystery Of Mass In Variable Stars
 
Astronomers have found the first double star in which a pulsating variable and another star pass in front of one another, solving a a decades-old mystery in the process.
"By using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, along with other telescopes, we have measured the mass of a Cepheid with an accuracy far greater than any earlier estimates," said Grzegorz Pietrzyski, of the Universidad de Concepción in Chile and the Warsaw University Observatory in Poland. "This new result allows us to immediately see which of the two competing theories predicting the masses of Cepheids is correct."
Top 5: Astronomers Discover 'Rosetta Stone' For T-dwarf Stars

An international team of astronomers has discovered a unique star system comprised of a very cool, methane-rich dwarf star and a white dwarf star in orbit around each other, the the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said on November 22.
The system, which is the first of its type to be found, is a "Rosetta Stone" for such dwarf stars and gives scientists a way of finding the mass and age of the methane dwarf, known as a T-dwarf star.
Top 6: Mysterious Giant bubbles discovered in Milky Way

Scientists have discovered two massive gamma-ray emitting bubbles in the center of Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers say the bubbles, which may be millions of years old, span more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus.
Scientists are now conducting more analyses to better understand the nature those bubbles, which appear to have well-defined edges and emit high energy gamma-ray fog not seen elsewhere in the Milky Way.
Scientists believe that the bubbles could have been formed as a result of gas outflows from a burst of star formation, perhaps the one that produced many massive star clusters in the Milky Way's center several million years ago.
Top 7: Possible Ice Volcanoes Spotted On Moon Of Saturn
 
Scientists have found possible ice volcanoes on Saturn's moon Titan, similar to those on Earth that spew molten rock.
Topography and surface composition data from NASA's Cassini Spacecraft have enabled scientists to make the best case yet for an Earth-like volcanic landform that erupts with ice instead of lava.
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere. Titan is also the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.
Top 8:  Wobble May Keep Water Liquid On Moon Of Saturn

The surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus averages a very cold -198 degrees Celsius, which is enough to keep nitrogen liquid. So there shouldn't be any liquid water.
But that view changed when in 2005 the Cassini spacecraft got a picture of a plume of water rising from the surface. Recently scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have theorized that Enceladus rotates unevenly, giving rise to tidal forces that create heat, which keeps the water below the surface liquid.
Astronomers discover another Earth-like planet outside solar system.
Astronomers have discovered a habitable rocky planet in another solar system for the first time that could be another Earth-like discovery with basic and essential conditions needed to support extraterrestrial life after a decade long hunt ending human race's cosmic loneliness.
They said life does not necessarily exist on the planet but that the basic conditions are present to allow it to begin and keep it going. According to them, the planet is large enough to have the gravitational force to hold an atmosphere surrounding it and data tell scientists that any water on the new planet will be in liquid form.
However, scientists say there is no evidence that Gliese 581G holds oxygenated landscapes of green and blue that would support microbes, dinosaurs or some alien-looking pre-human. For life, there must be water, and there's no proof of that as yet.
Top 9: Planetary collisons in double star-systems leave no room for life to emerge

Since double star-systems make planets collide, any chances of life emerging on these planets is impossible, says a NASA report.
"This is real-life science fiction," said Jeremy Drake of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass said in news release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Our data tells us that planets in these systems might not be so lucky -- collisions could be common. It's theoretically possible that habitable planets could exist around these types of stars, so if there happened to be any life there, it could be doomed."
Top 10: Super-volcano erupts in outer galaxy, similar to Icelandic volcano on Earth

A galactic super-volcano is erupting in massive galaxy M87 and blasting gas outwards, and NASA scientists view that the huge volcano in M87 is very similar to the recent Icelandic volcano that caused heavy air traffic disruptions across Europe.
According to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, M87 is relatively close to the Earth at a distance of about 50 million light years and lies at the center of the Virgo cluster, which contains thousands of galaxies.
Signs of life on Titan?
An analysis of data from NASA's Cassini probe shows depletions of certain chemicals on the surface. Back in 2005, Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA, said one line of evidence for life would be unusual depletions of acetylene, ethane and hydrogen at the surface.
While the findings aren't conclusive, some suggest the hydrogen and acetylene could be disappearing because they are being used by methane-based life in the same way life on Earth uses oxygen and other chemicals.

Food technology

Food technology, or food tech for short is the application of food science to the selection, preservation, processing, packaging, distribution, and use of safe, nutritious, and wholesome food.
Food scientists and food technologists study the physical, microbiological, and chemical makeup of food. Depending on their area of specialization, food scientists may develop ways to process, preserve, package, or store food, according to industry and government specifications and regulations. Consumers seldom think of the vast array of foods and the research and development that has resulted in the means to deliver tasty, nutritious, safe, and convenient foods.

Early history of food technology

Research in the field now known as food technology has been conducted for decades. Nicolas Appert’s development in 1810 of the canning process was a decisive event. The process wasn’t called canning then and Appert did not really know the principle on which his process worked, but canning has had a major impact on food preservation techniques.


Louis Pasteur's research on the spoilage of wine and his description of how to avoid spoilage in 1864 was an early attempt to put food technology on a scientific basis. Besides research into wine spoilage, Pasteur did research on the production of alcohol, vinegar, wines and beer, and the souring of milk. He developed pasteurization—the process of heating milk and milk products to destroy food spoilage and disease-producing organisms. In his research into food technology, Pasteur became the pioneer into bacteriology and of modern preventive medicine.


By the 1940s to 1950s, the original four departments that had taught the subject under different names in the US (including those at the University of Massachusetts and the University of California) had been retitled "food science", "food science and technology", or a similar variant.

Food packaging

Food packaging is packaging for food. It requires protection, tampering resistance, and special physical, chemical, or biological needs. It also shows the product that is labeled to show any nutrition information on the food being consumed.

Functions of food packaging

Packaging has several objectives

    Physical protection - The food enclosed in the package may require protection from, among other things, shock, vibration, compression, temperature, etc.
    Barrier protection - A barrier from oxygen, water vapor, dust, etc., is often required. Permeation is a critical factor in design. Some packages contain desiccants or Oxygen absorbers to help extend shelf life. Modified atmospheres or controlled atmospheres are also maintained in some food packages. Keeping the contents clean, fresh, and safe for the intended shelf life is a primary function.
    Containment or agglomeration - Small items are typically grouped together in one package for reasons of efficiency. powders, and granular materials need containment.
    Information transmission - Packages and labels communicate how to use, transport, recycle, or dispose of the package or product. Some types of information are required by governments.
    Marketing - The packaging and labels can be used by marketers to encourage potential buyers to purchase the product. Package design has been an important and constantly evolving phenomenon for several decades. Marketing communications and graphic design are applied to the surface of the package and (in many cases) the point of sale display.
    Security - Packaging can play an important role in reducing the security risks of shipment. Packages can be made with improved tamper resistance to deter tampering and also can have tamper-evident features to help indicate tampering. Packages can be engineered to help reduce the risks of package pilferage: Some package constructions are more resistant to pilferage and some have pilfer indicating seals. Packages may include authentication seals to help indicate that the package and contents are not counterfeit. Packages also can include anti-theft devices, such as dye-packs, RFID tags, or electronic article surveillance tags, that can be activated or detected by devices at exit points and require specialized tools to deactivate. Using packaging in this way is a means of retail loss prevention.
    Convenience - Packages can have features which add convenience in distribution, handling, stacking, display, sale, opening, reclosing, use, and reuse.
    Portion control - Single serving packaging has a precise amount of contents to control usage. Bulk commodities (such as salt) can be divided into packages that are a more suitable size for individual households. It also aids the control of inventory: selling sealed one-liter-bottles of milk, rather than having people bring their own bottles to fill themselves.

 

Food chemistry

Food chemistry is the study of chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of foods. The biological substances include such items as meat, poultry, lettuce, beer, and milk as examples. It is similar to biochemistry in its main components such as carbohydrates, lipids, and protein, but it also includes areas such as water, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, food additives, flavors, and colors. This discipline also encompasses how products change under certain food processing techniques and ways either to enhance or to prevent them from happening. An example of enhancing a process would be to encourage fermentation of dairy products with microorganisms that convert lactose to lactic acid; an example of preventing a process would be stopping the browning on the surface of freshly cut Red Delicious apples using lemon juice or other acidulated water.

Food engineering

Food engineering is a multidisciplinary field of applied physical sciences which combines science, microbiology, and engineering education for food and related industries. Food engineering includes, but is not limited to, the application of agricultural engineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering principles to food materials. Food engineers provide the technological knowledge transfer essential to the cost-effective production and commercialization of food products and services.
Food engineering is a very wide field of activities. Prospective major employers for food engineers include companies involved in food processing, food machinery, packaging, ingredient manufacturing, instrumentation, and control. Firms that design and build food processing plants, consulting firms, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and health-care firms also hire food engineers. Among its domain of knowledge and action are:

• research and development of new foods, biological and pharmaceutical products
• development and operation of manufacturing, packaging and distributing systems for drug/food products
• design and installation of food/biological/pharmaceutical production processes
• design and operation of environmentally responsible waste treatment systems
• marketing and technical support for manufacturing plants.

Topics in food engineering

In the development of food engineering, one of the many challenges is to employ modern tools and knowledge, such as computational materials science and nanotechnology, to develop new products and processes. Simultaneously, improving quality, safety, and security remain critical issues in food engineering study. New packaging materials and techniques are being developed to provide more protection to foods, and novel preservation technologies are emerging. Additionally, process control and automation regularly appear among the top priorities identified in food engineering. Advanced monitoring and control systems are developed to facilitate automation and flexible food manufacturing. Furthermore, energy saving and minimization of environmental problems continue to be important food engineering issues, and significant progress is being made in waste management, efficient utilization of energy, and reduction of effluents and emissions in food production.
Typical topics include:

• Advances in classical unit operations in engineering applied to food manufacturing
• Progresses in the transport and storage of liquid and solid foods
• Developments in heating, chilling and freezing of foods
• Advanced mass transfer in foods
• New chemical and biochemical aspects of food engineering and the use of kinetic analysis
• New techniques in dehydration, thermal processing, non-thermal processing, extrusion, liquid food concentration, membrane processes and applications of membranes in food processing
• Shelf-life, electronic indicators in inventory management, and sustainable technologies in food processing
• Modern packaging, cleaning, and sanitation technologies

Food preservation

Food preservation is the process of treating and handling food to stop or slow down spoilage (loss of quality, edibility or nutritional value) and thus allow for longer storage.
Preservation usually involves preventing the growth of bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and other micro-organisms (although some methods work by introducing benign bacteria, or fungi to the food), as well as retarding the oxidation of fats which cause rancidity. Food preservation can also include processes which inhibit visual deterioration that can occur during food preparation; such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut.
Many processes designed to preserve food will involve a number of food preservation methods. Preserving fruit, by turning it into jam, for example, involves boiling (to reduce the fruit’s moisture content and to kill bacteria, yeasts, etc.), sugaring (to prevent their re-growth) and sealing within an airtight jar (to prevent recontamination). There are many traditional methods of preserving food that limit the energy inputs and reduce carbon footprint.
Maintaining or creating nutritional value, texture and flavour is an important aspect of food preservation, although, historically, some methods drastically altered the character of the food being preserved. In many cases these changes have now come to be seen as desirable qualities – cheese, yoghurt and pickled onions being common examples.

Preservation processes

Preservation processes include

• Heating to kill or denature micro-organisms (e.g., boiling)
• Oxidation (e.g., use of sulfur dioxide)
• Ozonation (e.g., use of ozone [O3] or ozonated water to kill undesired microbes)
• Toxic inhibition (e.g., smoking, use of carbon dioxide, vinegar, alcohol etc.)
• Dehydration (drying)
• Osmotic inhibition (e.g., use of syrups)
• Low temperature inactivation (e.g., freezing)
• Ultra high water pressure (e.g. a type of “cold” pasteurization; intense water pressure kills microbes which cause food deterioration and affect food safety)

Food microbiology

Food microbiology is the study of the microorganisms that inhabit, create, or contaminate food. Of major importance is the study of microorganisms causing food spoilage. "Good" bacteria, however, such as probiotics, are becoming increasingly important in food science. In addition, microorganisms are essential for the production of foods such as cheese, yogurt, other fermented foods, bread, beer and wine.

Food safety

Food safety is a major focus of food microbiology. Pathogenic bacteria, viruses and toxins produced by microorganisms are all possible contaminants of food. However, microorganisms and their products can also be used to combat these pathogenic microbes. Probiotic bacteria, including those that produce bacteriocins, can kill and inhibit pathogens. Alternatively, purified bacteriocins such as nisin can be added directly to food products. Finally, bacteriophages, viruses that only infect bacteria, can be used to kill bacterial pathogens. Thorough preparation of food, including proper cooking, eliminates most bacteria and viruses. However, toxins produced by contaminants may not be heat-labile, and some are not eliminated by cooking. ...

Fermentation

Fermentation is one way microorganisms can change a food. Yeast, especially Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is used to leaven bread, brew beer and make wine. Certain bacteria, including lactic acid bacteria, are used to make yogurt, cheese, hot sauce, pickles, fermented sausages and dishes such as kimchi. A common effect of these fermentations is that the food product is less hospitable to other microorganisms, including pathogens and spoilage-causing microorganisms, thus extending the food's shelf-life.
Food fermentations are ancient technologies that harness microorganisms and their enzymes to improve the human diet. Fermented foods keep better, have enhanced flavours, textures and aromas, and may also possess certain health benefits, including superior digestibility. For vegetarians, fermented foods serve as palatable, protein-rich meat substitutes.
Some cheese varieties also require molds to ripen and develop their characteristic flavors.
Asian cuisines rely on a large repertoire of fermented foods. In particular, Aspergillus oryzae and A. sojae, sometimes called koji molds, are employed in many ways. Their hydrolytic enzymes suit them for growth on starch and other carbohydrate-rich substrates. In the koji process, fungal enzymes perform the same function as the malting enzymes used in the beer fermentations of western cultures. The koji molds release amylases that break down rice starch, which in turn can be fermented to make rice wine. Fermented rice beverages have numerous local variations and names, depending on country and region. Rice wine is called shaoshing in parts of China, sake in Japan, takj or yakju in Korea, as well as by many other names across Asia. The koji molds are also effective in a variety of legume fermentations, of which miso and soy sauce are best known. Miso is a mixture of soybeans and cereals usually used to flavour soups. Soy sauce is a flavourful, salty liquid sauce made from soybeans that have been fermented by koji molds, yeasts, as well as several halophilic bacteria. Other names for soy sauce include jiangyou (China), makjang and kanjang (Korea), toyo (Philippines) and siiu (Thailand)^.

Probiotics

Probiotics are living organisms that, when consumed, have beneficial health benefits outside their inherent nutritional effects. There is a growing body of evidence for the role of probiotics in gastrointestinal infections, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease
Lactobacillus species are used for the production of yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, pickles, beer, wine, cider, kimchi, chocolate and other fermented foods, as well as animal feeds such as silage. In recent years, much interest has been shown in the use of lactobacilli as probiotic organisms and their potential for disease prevention in humans and animals.
Bifidobacteria are considered as important probiotics, and are used in the food industry to relieve and treat many intestinal disorders. Bifidobacteria exert a range of beneficial health effects, including the regulation of intestinal microbial homeostasis, the inhibition of pathogens and harmful bacteria that colonize and/or infect the gut mucosa, the modulation of local and systemic immune responses, the repression of procarcinogenic enzymatic activities within the microbiota, the production of vitamins, and the bioconversion of a number of dietary compounds into bioactive molecules.

Food safety

Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. Food can transmit disease from person to person as well as serve as a growth medium for bacteria that can cause food poisoning. Debates on genetic food safety include such issues as impact of genetically modified food on health of further generations and genetic pollution of environment, which can destroy natural biological diversity. In developed countries there are intricate standards for food preparation, whereas in lesser developed countries the main issue is simply the availability of adequate safe water, which is usually a critical item. In theory food poisoning is 100% preventable.

Key principles

Five key principles

The five key principles of food hygiene, according to WHO, are:

1. Prevent contaminating food with pathogens spreading from people, pets, and pests.
2. Separate raw and cooked foods to prevent contaminating the cooked foods.
3. Cook foods for the appropriate length of time and at the appropriate temperature to kill pathogens.
4. Store food at the proper temperature.
5. Use safe water and raw materials

ISO 22000

ISO 22000 is a standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization dealing with food safety. This is a general derivative of ISO 9000. ISO 22000 standard: The ISO 22000 international standard specifies the requirements for a food safety management system that involves interactive communication, system management, prerequisite programs, HACCP principles.

Incidence

A 2003 World Health Organization (WHO) report concluded that about 40% of reported food poisoning outbreaks in the WHO European Region occur in private homes. According to the WHO and CDC, in the USA alone, annually, there are 76 million cases of foodborne illness leading to 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths.

Food science

Food science is a study concerned with all technical aspects of foods, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption, an ideology commonly referred to as "from field to fork". It is considered one of the life sciences and is usually considered distinct from the field of nutrition.

What is technology ?

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes from Greek τεχνολογία (technología); from τέχνη (téchnē), meaning "art, skill, craft", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of-". The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology.

Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistorical discovery of the ability to control fire increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. However, not all technology has been used for peaceful purposes; the development of weapons of ever-increasing destructive power has progressed throughout history, from clubs to nuclear weapons.

Technology has affected society and its surroundings in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the Earth and its environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.

Philosophical debates have arisen over the present and future use of technology in society, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world, opining that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. Indeed, until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was restricted only to human beings, but recent scientific studies indicate that other primates and certain dolphin communities have developed simple tools and learned to pass their knowledge to other generations.

How science changed our world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oH6apmb6sY

 A good video to get the exact view over science and tech how it changed and also changed our world...............

Sahara fish discovery enforces Out-of-Africa theory

Fish may have once swum across the Sahara, a finding that could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa, researchers said. The cradle of humanity lies south of the Sahara, which begs the question as to how our species made its way past it. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, and would seem a major barrier for any humans striving to migrate off the continent.
Scientists have often focused on the Nile Valley as the corridor by which humans left Africa. However, considerable research efforts have failed to uncover evidence for its consistent use by people leaving the continent, and precisely how watery it has been over time is controversial.
Now it turns out the Sahara might not have been quite as impassable as once thought — not only for humanity, but for fish as well.
"Fish appeared to have swam across the Sahara during its last wet phase sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago," researcher Nick Drake, a geographer at King's College London, told LiveScience. "The Sahara is not a barrier to the migrations of animals and people. Thus it is possible — likely? —that early modern humans did so, and this could explain how we got out of Africa."
Using satellite imagery and digital maps of the landscape, the researchers found the Sahara was once covered by a dense network of rivers, lakes and inland deltas. This large waterway channeled water and animals into and across the Sahara during wet, "green" times.
In their analysis, Drake and his colleagues found evidence that many creatures, including aquatic ones, dispersed across the Sahara recently. For example, 25 North African animal species have populations both north and south of the Sahara with small refuges within the desert, including catfish (Clarias gariepinus), tilapia (Tilapia zillii), jewel cichlid fish (Hemichromis letourneuxi) and freshwater snails such as the red-rimmed melania (Melanoides tuberculata). Indeed, more animals may have once crossed over the Sahara than over the Nile corridor, the researchers said — only nine animal species that occupy the Nile corridor today are also found both north and south of the Sahara.
If fish could have crossed the Sahara, it is hard to imagine that humans didn't. Analysis of African languages and artifacts suggest that ancient waterways recently affected how humans occupied the Sahara. For instance, speakers of Nilo-Saharan languages once lived across central and southern Sahara, and may have once hunted aquatic creatures with barbed bone points and fish hooks. In addition, ancient lake sediments suggest the Sahara was green roughly 125,000 years ago, back when anatomically modern humans might have begun migrating out of Africa.
Future work could focus on when species got across the Sahara — genetic analysis of fish could help pinpoint such times in fish, Drake said. However, further research into the past of the Sahara could prove difficult and even dangerous, he noted. Some of the Saharan countries the researchers would like to visit in order to analyze the genetics of fish populations or date the ages of ancient shorelines "are deemed to be too dangerous to visit due to terrorist activity or civil war," Drake said.
The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 27 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present

1     Isaac Newton     the Newtonian Revolution     Anglican (rejected Trinitarianism, i.e., Athanasianism;
                                                                              believed in the Arianism of the Primitive Church)
2     Albert Einstein     Twentieth-Century Science     Jewish
3     Neils Bohr           the Atom     Jewish Lutheran
4     Charles Darwin     Evolution     Anglican (nominal); Unitarian
5     Louis Pasteur        the Germ Theory of Disease     Catholic
6     Sigmund Freud      Psychology of the Unconscious     Jewish; Atheist; Freudian psychoanalysis (Freudianism)
7     Galileo Galilei         the New Science     Catholic
8     Antoine Laurent Lavoisier      the Revolution in Chemistry     Catholic
9     Johannes Kepler     Motion of the Planets     Lutheran
10     Nicolaus Copernicus     the Heliocentric Universe     Catholic (priest)
11     Michael Faraday     the Classical Field Theory     Sandemanian
12     James Clerk Maxwell     the Electromagnetic Field     Presbyterian; Anglican; Baptist
13     Claude Bernard     the Founding of Modern Physiology    
14     Franz Boas     Modern Anthropology     Jewish
15     Werner Heisenberg     Quantum Theory     Lutheran
16     Linus Pauling     Twentieth-Century Chemistry     Lutheran
17     Rudolf Virchow     the Cell Doctrine    
18     Erwin Schrodinger     Wave Mechanics     Catholic
19     Ernest Rutherford     the Structure of the Atom    
20     Paul Dirac     Quantum Electrodynamics    
21     Andreas Vesalius     the New Anatomy     Catholic
22     Tycho Brahe     the New Astronomy     Lutheran
23     Comte de Buffon     l'Histoire Naturelle    
24     Ludwig Boltzmann     Thermodynamics    
25     Max Planck     the Quanta     Protestant
26     Marie Curie     Radioactivity     Catholic (lapsed)
27     William Herschel     the Discovery of the Heavens     Jewish
28     Charles Lyell     Modern Geology    
29     Pierre Simon de Laplace     Newtonian Mechanics     atheist
30     Edwin Hubble     the Modern Telescope    
31     Joseph J. Thomson     the Discovery of the Electron    
32     Max Born     Quantum Mechanics     Jewish Lutheran
33     Francis Crick     Molecular Biology     atheist
34     Enrico Fermi     Atomic Physics     Catholic
35     Leonard Euler     Eighteenth-Century Mathematics     Calvinist
36     Justus Liebig     Nineteenth-Century Chemistry    
37     Arthur Eddington     Modern Astronomy     Quaker
38     William Harvey     Circulation of the Blood     Anglican (nominal)
39     Marcello Malpighi     Microscopic Anatomy     Catholic
40     Christiaan Huygens     the Wave Theory of Light     Calvinist
41     Carl Gauss (Karl Friedrich Gauss)     Mathematical Genius     Lutheran
42     Albrecht von Haller     Eighteenth-Century Medicine    
43     August Kekule     Chemical Structure    
44     Robert Koch     Bacteriology    
45     Murray Gell-Mann     the Eightfold Way     Jewish
46     Emil Fischer     Organic Chemistry    
47     Dmitri Mendeleev     the Periodic Table of Elements    
48     Sheldon Glashow     the Discovery of Charm     Jewish
49     James Watson     the Structure of DNA     atheist
50     John Bardeen     Superconductivity    
51     John von Neumann     the Modern Computer     Jewish Catholic
52     Richard Feynman     Quantum Electrodynamics     Jewish
53     Alfred Wegener     Continental Drift    
54     Stephen Hawking     Quantum Cosmology     atheist
55     Anton van Leeuwenhoek     the Simple Microscope     Dutch Reformed
56     Max von Laue     X-ray Crystallography    
57     Gustav Kirchhoff     Spectroscopy    
58     Hans Bethe     the Energy of the Sun     Jewish
59     Euclid     the Foundations of Mathematics     Platonism / Greek philosophy
60     Gregor Mendel     the Laws of Inheritance     Catholic (Augustinian monk)
61     Heike Kamerlingh Onnes     Superconductivity    
62     Thomas Hunt Morgan     the Chromosomal Theory of Heredity    
63     Hermann von Helmholtz     the Rise of German Science    
64     Paul Ehrlich     Chemotherapy     Jewish
65     Ernst Mayr     Evolutionary Theory     atheist
66     Charles Sherrington     Neurophysiology    
67     Theodosius Dobzhansky     the Modern Synthesis     Russian Orthodox
68     Max Delbruck     the Bacteriophage    
69     Jean Baptiste Lamarck     the Foundations of Biology    
70     William Bayliss     Modern Physiology    
71     Noam Chomsky     Twentieth-Century Linguistics     Jewish atheist
72     Frederick Sanger     the Genetic Code    
73     Lucretius     Scientific Thinking     Epicurean; atheist
74     John Dalton     the Theory of the Atom     Quaker
75     Louis Victor de Broglie     Wave/Particle Duality    
76     Carl Linnaeus     the Binomial Nomenclature     Christianity
77     Jean Piaget     Child Development    
78     George Gaylord Simpson     the Tempo of Evolution    
79     Claude Levi-Strauss     Structural Anthropology     Jewish
80     Lynn Margulis     Symbiosis Theory     Jewish
81     Karl Landsteiner     the Blood Groups     Jewish
82     Konrad Lorenz     Ethology    
83     Edward O. Wilson     Sociobiology    
84     Frederick Gowland Hopkins     Vitamins    
85     Gertrude Belle Elion     Pharmacology    
86     Hans Selye     the Stress Concept    
87     J. Robert Oppenheimer     the Atomic Era     Jewish
88     Edward Teller     the Bomb     Jewish
89     Willard Libby     Radioactive Dating    
90     Ernst Haeckel     the Biogenetic Principle    
91     Jonas Salk     Vaccination     Jewish
92     Emil Kraepelin     Twentieth-Century Psychiatry    
93     Trofim Lysenko     Soviet Genetics     Russian Orthodox; Communist
94     Francis Galton     Eugenics    
95     Alfred Binet     the I.Q. Test    
96     Alfred Kinsey     Human Sexuality     atheist
97     Alexander Fleming     Penicillin     Catholic
98     B. F. Skinner     Behaviorism     atheist
99     Wilhelm Wundt     the Founding of Psychology     atheist
100     Archimedes     the Beginning of Science     Greek philosophy