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: Volcanology And Volcanoes Building Up Steam

Volcanology, also known as vulcanology (though it has nothing to do with Spock), is a branch of geology that studies volcanoes in addition to associated phenomena such as material expelled during an eruption and the plate tectonics that creates volcanoes. The field also includes geodesy, geophysics, and geochemistry.

Recently, scientists have reevaluated their model of the Yellowstone caldera (also called a supervolcano or megavolcano), estimating that there is 50% more magma beneath the surface than previously thought and that the magma is contained within a single large chamber. Yellowstone National Park is, technically, a volcano in the process of preparing to explode once again, generating 1,000-3,000 earthquakes a year and displaying thermal activity on the surface--the last time it erupted was 640,000 years ago, though there have been smaller events as geologically recent as 70,000 years ago.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/volcanology
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/632202/volcanology
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Outreach/StudyVolcanoes/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/deadliest-volcanoes.html
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/volcanoqa.htm
http://www.livescience.com/28821-yellowstone-supervolcano-bigger-plume.html

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Are there any volcanoes in your region? Have you ever been to Yellowstone? 


----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-Z Blogging Challenge: Volcanology

Public domain image. SOURCE.

Volcanology, also known as vulcanology, is the study of volcanoes.

The field examines the formation and classification of volcanoes, matter expelled during eruptions (pyroclastic flows, lava, dust, ash, gases), volcanic relations to other geologic events (mountain building, earthquakes), and attempts to predict when volcanoes may erupt. It also involves geophysics, geochemistry, seismology, and geodesy.

Volcanoes form because of rising magma from beneath the surface of Earth, usually close to the edges of tectonic plates. There are three types of volcanic activity: spreading center volcanism (takes place along diverging plates), subduction zone volcanism (takes place where two plates converge) and intraplate volcanism (takes place mid-plate where there are no plate edges).

Volcano types are further classified as cones (steeply sloped with the typical volcano shape), shield volcanoes (shallow sloped), and stratovolcanoes (also known as composite volcanoes; they are shallow at the base, curves sharply upward toward the top). Some major kinds of eruptions include fissure eruptions (eruptions occur along a line), Hawaiian eruptions (relatively calm flows of basalt lava with little volcanic gas), Strombolian eruptions (explosive, noisy eruptions that involve a lot of volcanic gas), Vulcanian eruptions (short series of eruptions that send up a lot of rocks at the onset but become quieter and steadier after some time), Plinian eruptions (generate plumes of ash that travel up to 45 km into the air), and hydrovolcanic eruptions (eruptions that happen in water).

By Ahjartar, CC-BY-SA-3.0. SOURCE.

Notable Volcanologist:

Haraldur Sigurðsson

Haraldur Sigurðsson is a volcanologist and marine geologist. He received a Ph.D. in Petrology/Geochemistry from Durham University and is a current Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. He has studied volcanoes in Iceland, North America, South America, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Italy, and Africa, and has researched underwater volcanoes. He was awarded the Coke Medal by the Geological Society of London for his work. Sigurðsson has also hosted several TV documentaries, including The Riddle of Pompeii, Horizon, Naked Science, and Timewatch.



Video with Haraldur Sigurðsson (embedding was disabled, so I couldn't put it directly in this post):




http://youtu.be/xz99nuPURXA?hd=1

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Sources:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/632202/volcanology
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/society/history/page2983.html
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/
http://www.gso.uri.edu/users/haraldur
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1475311/
http://www.learner.org/interactives/volcanoes/meltrock.html
http://www.plate-tectonics.org/volcanoes/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/cover2.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/volcanology
http://www.tomgidwitz.com/main/explorer.htm
http://www.uri.edu/endeavor/thera/bio-sig.html
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/vwlessons/kinds/kinds.html

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Do you live near any volcanoes?


-----The Golden Eagle