ikua

[Science Magazine @ScienceMagazine]

Exclusive: “The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race.” So wrote James Watson in The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, his controversial account of how he and Francis Crick deciphered the structure of DNA in 1953.

The image, now known as photograph 51, showed an elegant, symmetrical pattern of spots formed by x-rays diffracted from strands of DNA—the fingerprint of the molecule's helical structure.

Rosalind Franklin, an x-ray crystallographer, had produced the image in the spring of 1952. But Watson's 1968 book, amid other slights and sexist language directed at Franklin, implied the flash of insight was his alone.

Popular accounts still routinely suggest Franklin missed the significance of the photo. She never had a chance to challenge Watson's dismissive narrative; she died of cancer in 1958, a decade before his memoir was released and became a bestseller.

But a new analysis of her notes on another x-ray image, which she made just days earlier using the same DNA sample, offers a firm rebuttal.

Learn more: https://t.co/GelhBz9Sb5 @NewsfromScience

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

Perseverance has set a new off-world record! 🏅

On Oct. 11, the rover's odometer hit 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers), eclipsing the distance record set by NASA's Opportunity rover. 1/2

[Sabine Hossenfelder @skdh]

Physicists often argue that faster than light travel would also allow backwards in time travel and then lead to inconsistencies ('grandfather paradox'). However, these are two different things. You can very well have faster than light travel if you have an arrow of time that distinguishes 'forward' from 'backward' in time. Our universe does have an arrow of time. We're not sure why or exactly how it works, but it arguably exists. Hence, it is wrong to conclude that faster than light travel necessarily leads to causal paradoxa.

[Sabine Hossenfelder @skdh]

Alas, if quantum mechanics is not fundamental -- which I don't think it is -- then the speed of light limit also is not fundamental. I wish there was more research on this.

[Sabine Hossenfelder @skdh]

I am optimistic that we will one day make contact to extraterrestrials because I don't think that the speed of light is a fundamental limit. Here I explain why and I have a brief summary below.

[Sabine Hossenfelder @skdh]

Astrophysicists have a new, and slightly terrifying, explanation for the Fermi paradox, or the question of why we have found no evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

[World Athletics @WorldAthletics]

We’re going to need a few days to recover from this one… 😮‍💨

2 men under 2 hours. 3 men breaking the world record.

We have officially entered the new era of marathon running 🫳🎤

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

This is how Morse Code works

[ikua @ikua]

https://t.co/h93nx3khzJ

[Dr Kirsten Banks @AstroKirsten]

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission just found DNA building blocks on asteroid Bennu. 🧬☄️

✔️ 14 amino acids
✔️ All 5 DNA nucleobases
✔️ Signs of ancient seawater

Life’s ingredients were in space before Earth even existed. So… how rare is life, really? 👀

[ikua @ikua]

https://t.co/9vkwGy3EiX

[NASA Solar System @NASASolarSystem]

Life as we know it begins with the smallest of ingredients: amino acids and nucleobases, the essential building blocks of life. But where do these molecules come from and how do they form? Here's what you need to know about the building blocks of life. https://t.co/PeQCCKOEBc

[NASA Goddard @NASAGoddard]

The Bennu samples contain amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — including 14 of the 20 that life uses to create proteins here on Earth. In addition, the samples contain all five of the nucleobases that encode genetic information in DNA and RNA.
https://t.co/HUbrXpHCFM

[Astro Alexandra 🪐 Space Communicator @astro_alexandra]

BREAKING SPACE NEWS: Scientists have analyzed samples from the OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu and discovered amino acids, nucleotide bases, minerals from salt water, and more. #nasa #astronomy #space #solarsystem #science #news

[NASA Goddard @NASAGoddard]

In 2023, we brought a sample of an asteroid called Bennu to Earth, part of a plan to study remnants of our early solar system. These grains of rock have shown that the building blocks of life and the conditions for making them existed on Bennu's parent body 4.5 billion years ago.

[Jasmine 🌌🔭 @astro_jaz]

ANALYSIS OF ASTEROID BENNU SAMPLES SUGGEST THAT THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM HAD WIDESPREAD CONDITIONS FOR LIFE, INCREASING THE CHANCES THAT LIFE COULD HAVE FORMED ON OTHER PLANETS AND MOONS!!!!

THIS IS AMAZINGGGGG 🤩

[ARCHIVED - Dr. Nicky Fox @NASAScienceAA]

Scientists have discovered that asteroid Bennu came from a world that had both the conditions and building blocks of life. 🌟 Samples of the asteroid collected by the #OSIRISREx spacecraft in 2020 had brines and carbon-based molecules!

More: https://t.co/thlSt2fFTe

[ikua @ikua]

@LaikipiaRanches 1M

[ikua @ikua]

https://t.co/At4015DPTV