For the first time, scientists have been able to take a direct (X-Ray) picture of a binary star. The stellar pair (pictured using the Chandra telescope) is some 420 light years away from us. The distance between the stars (Mira A and B) is about twice the distance between Pluto and the Sun.
Mira A is a highly evolved red giant star. Mira B is a white dwarf. Mira A is losing gas rapidly from its upper atmosphere via a stellar wind. Mira B exerts a gravitational tug that creates a gaseous bridge between the two stars. Gas from the wind and bridge accumulates in an accretion disk around Mira B and collisions between rapidly moving particles in the disk produce X-rays.

Mira B (left) and A (Courtesy: Chandra)The ability to distinguish between the interacting stars allowed a team of scientists to observe an X-ray outburst from Mira A. An ultraviolet image made by the Hubble Space Telescope was key to identifying the X-ray outburst with the red giant star.
Mira A (or simply, Mira) was named "The Wonderful" star in the seventeenth century because its brightness was observed to wax and wane over a period of about 330 days. In this advanced red giant phase of Mira A's life, its diameter has swollen to about 600 times that of the Sun and it is pulsating, due to increasingly energetic nuclear reactions in its core.
X-ray studies of the Mira star system may also provide better understanding of interactions between other binary star systems consisting of a "normal" star and a collapsed star such as a white dwarf, black hole or a neutron star.

Scientists at Princeton University have managed to coax bacteria to behave like computers, assembling themselves into complex shapes based on instructions stuffed into their genes. This remarkable feat was achieved by a team led by Ron Weiss, and was published in April 28 issue of the journal Nature.
The research can lead to applications in detecting chemicals, nano-assembly, and full-scale biological computing. It might also lead to techniques allowing spontaneous assembly of new organs :).

Heart from Bacteria! (Courtesy: LiveScience)The researchers programmed E. coli bacteria to emit red or green fluorescent light in response to a signal emitted from another set of E. coli. The living cells were commanded to make a heart pattern, for example, around central cells based on communication between the bacteria. Other patterns included a bull's eye, and a flower.
Plasmids are circular double-stranded DNA molecules, normally found in bacteria. The scientists modified the genetic code inside certain plasmids, and inserted them into the genome of the bacteria. The bacteria used these synthetic codes to generate proteins, which directed the bacteria to move in certain ways, depending upon where other bacteria were. The proteins achieved this by detecting signals (in form of other chemicals) from other bacteria.
Real-life applications are, of course, years or decades away. But this work does provide a template on which future research could be based. The possibilities are endless :):).

By studying data from orbiting satellites, ocean buoys, land-based stations, and computer models, scientists from the NASA, Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have concluded that more energy is being absorbed from the Sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth's energy "out of balance" and warming the planet.
The study appears in this week's Science Express. It concludes that this imbalance is (historically) quite large, and will cause an additional warming of 0.6°C by the end of this (21st) century. Although it looks small, even such rise can result in further melting of the ice-caps, thus disrupting some ecosystems, and also flooding some low-lying areas.

Reflected and Emitted radiations (Courtesy: PhysOrg)In the above picture, the lightest areas represent thick clouds, which both reflect radiation from the Sun and block heat rising from the Earth’s surface. This will cause a greenhouse-style warming of the atmosphere, which will then warm the oceans. As the oceans get warmer, more evaporation takes place, which increases the cloud cover, thus causing further warming.
This imbalance, according to the scientists, is an expected consequence of increasing atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black carbon particles (soot). These pollutants block the Earth's radiant heat from escaping into space, increasing absorption of sunlight and trapping heat within the atmosphere.
However, the process is quite slow, and thus it might represent an oppurtunity for us to do something to reverse it. Steps need to be taken to reduce the amount of the above chemicals, and then it might still be possible to turn this around.

Sixty-nine days before it gets up close and personal with a comet, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft successfully photographed its quarry, comet Tempel 1, at a distance of 39.7 million miles.
The image is the first one of a number of such images that will be received from the craft in the next few weeks, and will aid the navigators of the craft to better plot its course, and avoid collisions/encounter with any rogue rocks.

Comet Tempel 1 (Courtesy: NASA)Deep Impact is comprised of two parts, a "flyby" spacecraft and a smaller "impactor." The impactor will be released into the comet’s path for a planned high-speed collision on July 4. The crater produced by the impact could range in size from the width of a large house up to the size of a football stadium and from 2 to 14 stories deep. Ice and dust debris will be ejected from the crater, revealing the material beneath.
The Deep Impact spacecraft has four data collectors to observe the effects of the collision - a camera and infrared spectrometer comprise the High Resolution Instrument, a Medium Resolution Instrument, and a duplicate of that camera on the impactor (called the Impactor Targeting Sensor-ITS) that will record the vehicle’s final moments before it is run over by comet Tempel 1 at a speed of about 23,000 miles per hour.

Humans need almost 8 hours of sleep per day. Some people enjoy sleeping (like me!), but when you think about it, sleeping for a third of your lifetime sounds like a awful waste of time :(. Now scientists at the University of Wisconsin have discovered a possible mutation in a single gene in the fruit-fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) genome, that allows the flies to get 30% less sleep than their normal counterparts!
The finding is important, as it might point to possible mutations in the human genome that might help us control sleep, and also shed light on human sleep needs. This fruit-fly gene has a counterpart in animal (and human) genome; so such a mutation might just be possible in humans too :).

Fruit Fly (Courtesy: University of Guelph)Chiara Cirelli and colleagues discovered that flies with one particular gene variant, dubbed minisleep, needed only 3 or 4 hours’ rest per day, compared to 10 to 12 hours for a normal fly. The most interesting part: the flies, despite all the sleep deprivation, showed no sign of impairment.
They were also able to go without any sleep for much longer periods of time. The minisleep mutation is in a gene called Shaker, which codes for a protein that forms part of an ion channel in nerve cells. The same protein is found in mammals, and might serve the same function as in flies.
If we were able to conquer sleep, it might be helpful in a lot of ways. In particular, it will help those among us who always feel sleepy (including some of the readers here :D:D, you know who you are!), and also help people working odd or late hours, and of course the military might be really interested.

In Biology, a traditional approach to looking at something really small, is to put the specimen on a slide, and peer at it through a microscope. Even though the invention of the microscope (by Anton van Leeuwenhoek) has revolutionized the Biological sciences, the process of watching specimens under a microscope is very cumbersome. Also, a microscope is not easy to carry everywhere, and thus its use has mostly been limited to a laboratory setup. Now, a team of scientists, funded by Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed optical biochips :), that could lead to faster development of new drugs and quicker medical tests.

Red Laser in an optical bio-chip (Courtesy: BBSRC)Biological samples will be place directly on an optical chip (which is no larger than a single cell), equipped with a laser. Special fluorescent chemicals are then used together with these lasers to allow the scientists to analyse the cells or targets within the cells. This technique can be used to analyse cell interior and look for deformities. This also raises the possibility of a micro-laboratory the size of a credit card, which would be able to perform medical diagnostics, improving patient treatment by reducing the number of hospital visits needed for tests.
Perhaps one day, we all will carry credit card sized toolkit in our wallets, which will need only a bit of saliva to analyse our state of health :):).
The research is being carried out at the Wales College of Medicine and involves researchers at Cardiff University, University of Bangor, the Gray Cancer Institute in London and collaboration with the University of Warwick and laboratories in the United States.

Today is Hubble's 15th birthday :):):). The Hubble Space Telescope is an optical telescope, orbiting the Earth at the outer reaches of the atmosphere. Launched in 1990, it is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, who discovered the red-shifts in spectra of distant galaxies, which proved that the universe was indeed expanding. The Hubble is supposed to work till 2009, after which it should be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Spiral galaxy M51 or NGC-5194 (Courtesy: HubbleSite)The Hubble orbits the Earth once every 97 minutes, is 13.2 meters long, and weighs 11,000 kilograms. Over the last 15 years, it has brought us the universe, and has helped push the sciences of astrophysics and cosmology light years ahead. Currently plagued with various problems, including failing gyroscopes (devices that keep the Hubble properly oriented so as to be able to take sharp pictures with long exposure times), Hubble keeps going :).
I still remember the day when the Hubble was launched as part of the payload of the shuttle Discovery. Soon crippled due to a problematic mirror, the Hubble was heroically brought back to good health by a service mission (STS-61) in 1993. Further missions to Hubble in 1997 (STS-82), 1999 (STS-103) and 2002 (STS-109) constantly upgraded the telescope, and kept it in a great running condition :).
However, if nothing is done soon, Hubble is doomed :(. A mission, due to be in February 2005, was scrapped after the Columbia disaster. Limping on failing equipments, Hubble might finally undergo a deorbit, and be crashed in the Pacific Ocean in a fireball. Perhaps a fitting end to a fantastic equipment, that has photographed many a fireballs in space, and has expanded our understanding of the cosmos to new heights as never before.
Happy Birthday, Hubble. I wish you lived longer :(.