A To Z Challenge: Xenobiology And XNA

Xenobiology, also known as astrobiology and exobiology, is the study of alien life, including how life may have originated on Earth. It encompasses physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and biology. Technically, xenobiology has nothing to study other than Earth itself--planets are continually being discovered, but they're very far away. However, research into the history of development of life on this planet has begun to yield possibilities for how it may have formed on others.

A new development in the field of xenobiology is XNA. DNA is the fundamental building block of life on Earth, so messing with it is obviously an idea with some risks involved. XNA, a synthetic material that stands for xeno nucleic acids, could be an interesting solution toward designing new life and preventing damage to existing DNA. It can store information the same way DNA can, and has the potential for being the basis of new life--but if two organisms, one with DNA and the other XNA, interacted, they could come into contact without affecting the other's genetic material, acting as a so-called "genetic firewall".

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Sources:
http://www.xenology.info/Papers/Xenobiology.htm
http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/space_1/space_sciences/2574862/xenobiology_exobiology/
http://education-portal.com/articles/Xenobiology_Education_Requirements_and_Career_Information.html
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/exobiology/about/
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/
http://www.universetoday.com/46851/exobiology/
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.php
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9941-instant-expert-astrobiology.html
http://scienceblogs.com/oscillator/2010/04/07/xenobiology/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909387/
http://io9.com/5903221/meet-xna-the-first-synthetic-dna-that-evolves-like-the-real-thing

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Would you be comfortable with synthetic organisms existing alongside natural ones? Do you think humanity will ever come into contact with alien life?


-----The Golden Eagle

A To Z Challenge: Mineralogy And Missions To Mars

Jarosite on quartz.
Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

Mineralogy is what it sounds like: The study of minerals, such as their physical properties, distribution, and identification. A mineral is a naturally occurring crystal of a chemical compound or an element that has a set (unchanging and predictable) chemical composition.

Last August, mineralogy expanded to a new planet--Mars. The Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, also known as CheMin, onboard the Curiosity Rover, has already detected several different minerals including jarosite, a mineral formed when water evaporates. CheMin works by drilling a hole in a rock in question, collecting the dust produced by the drilling, and firing a beam of X-rays through the dust. X-rays cause specific atoms to either absorb or emit light--these patterns indicate exactly which elements are present in the sample.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mineralogy
http://webmineral.com/Mineral_Definition.shtml
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/spectrometers/chemin/

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If you could send a machine like CheMin anywhere in the Solar System, what would you choose to explore? 


-----The Golden Eagle

A To Z Challenge: Japan Could Put A "J" On The Periodic Table Of Elements

You may have noticed from the title that I haven't named a specific field of study, unlike previous posts. That's because, unfortunately, there are exactly zero branches of physical science (my theme's center) beginning with the letter "j". So this time I bring you a recent scientific discovery only: The synthesis of the new element ununtrium 113 by Japanese scientists.

Ununtrium, element 113 on the periodic table, is a solid at room temperature and can only exist by its being synthesized; it is not a natural element. It was first created by a group of Russians and Americans in 2004, along with element 115, but the results needed to be verified before it could be declared that 113 had been created. The Japanese scientists used a different method to create 113, which acted as that verification.

If scientists in Japan decide to name the element they discovered with a word including "j" it would bring the periodic table one letter closer to filling out the alphabet--so far "j" and "q" remain off the chart. The element jodium is the Dutch word for iodine, but officially iodine is denoted by the letter I, not J.

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Sources:
http://www.riken.jp/en/pr/press/2012/20120927/
http://chemistry.about.com/od/elementfaqs/f/What-Letter-Is-Not-Found-In-The-Periodic-Table.htm
http://www.webelements.com/ununtrium/

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Got any favorite elements? Do you think there will ever be a "j" and a "q" on the list of elements?


-----The Golden Eagle

A To Z Challenge: Ichthyology And Invisible Fish

Ichthyology is the study of fish. It is a branch of zoology, which is in turn a branch of biology. Fish are thought to have evolved some 500 million years ago and are typified by having scales, gills, and fins, and being cold-blooded ("cold-blooded" is also known by the scientifically-correct terms ectothermic or poikilothermic).

Before you run away to something that sounds more interesting and less niche than studying fish (there weren't a whole lot of scientific fields beginning with "i" that I could dig up) give me a moment to get to the invisibility.

The pirate perch, or Aphredoderus sayanus, has been found to be capable of making itself functionally invisible to its prey, probably through a chemical means know as chemical crypsis. The experiment demonstrating the fish's abilities went along these lines: Frogs and beetles that don't lay their eggs around predators they recognize were placed in the vicinity of pirate perch. Instead of not laying eggs and avoiding the perch as they normally would, they acted as though the fish were not present at all. Scientists aren't absolutely sure it's chemical crypsis pirate perch are using to disguise themselves, but if it is, they would be the only known species to camouflage themselves that way.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ichthyology
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/zoology
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1516418/ectotherm
http://www.briancoad.com/main.asp?page=fishdictionary.htm
http://www.arkive.org/fish/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130329085941.htm
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/weird-crafty-fish-can-make-itself-invisible-and-we-dont-know-how
http://www.fishbase.org/FishOnLine/English/index.htm

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Have any favorite fish species (either to eat or to look at)? Do you or did you ever own any aquatic animals?


-----The Golden Eagle

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Inorganic Chemistry

An inorganic compound. Public domain image. SOURCE.

Inorganic chemistry is a branch of chemistry that studies inorganic compounds.

The usual definition of an inorganic compound is that it does not contain carbon. Since there are exceptions to that rule (such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide), some define an inorganic compound as one that contains neither carbon and hydrogen. However, this is not to say there isn't overlap between organic and inorganic chemistry; for example, chemical bonding is the same in both fields, and catalysts can be organic or inorganic.

Inorganic chemicals react with each other in four major ways: through combination reactions (two or more reactants form one product), decomposition reactions (a compound breaks down into two or more elements), single displacement reactions (an atom or ion replaces the atom of another element), and double displacement reactions (also called metathesis reactions; this is when elements from two different compounds replace each other to form new compounds).

Inorganic nitrogen dioxide. Public domain image. SOURCE.

This field has applications in materials science, paints, medicine, farming, surfactants, and fuel. There are also several branches of inorganic chemistry, including physical chemistry (which uses principles from thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, and kinetics), bioinorganic chemistry (study of compounds with metal-carbon bonds in biological systems), and geochemistry (study of chemicals on Earth and other planets). Geochemistry is, in turn, a field that has even more branches like isotope geochemistry, cosmochemistry, and biogeochemistry (study of naturally-occurring chemical, biological, physical, and geological processes).

Notable Chemist:

Paula Diaconescu

Paula Diaconescu obtained a B.S. from the University of Bucharest, Romania, and a Ph.D. in 2003 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, where she worked on uranium complexes. She is currently part of the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.

Her research focuses on small molecule activation, organic synthesis, and the formation of polymers.

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Sources:
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch10/carbon.php#inorg
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa072103a.htm
http://www.chemistry.co.nz/inorganic_chemistry.htm
http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/inorganic-chemistry.html
http://copper.chem.ucla.edu/pldgroup/index.htm
http://faculty.chemistry.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=235751
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inorganic+chemistry
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inorganic+compound
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-biogeochemistry.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-inorganic-chemistry.htm

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Do you think that if humans ever encountered life not based on carbon, the definition of "organic" would change?


-----The Golden Eagle