My Science School

Researchers have sequenced the complete genomes of hundreds of animals and plants-more than 250 animal species and 50 species of birds alone-and the list continues to grow almost daily.

In addition to the sequencing of the human genome, which was completed in 2003, scientists involved in the Human Genome Project sequenced the genomes of a number of model organisms that are commonly used as surrogates in studying human biology. These include the rat, puffer fish, fruit fly, sea squirt, roundworm, and the bacterium Escherichia coli. For some organisms NHGRI has sequenced many varieties, providing critical data for understanding genetic variation.

DNA sequencing centers supported by NHGRI also have sequenced genomes of the chicken, dog, honey bee, gorilla, chimpanzee, sea urchin, fungi and many other organisms.

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Biomimetic refers to human-made processes, substances, devices, or systems that imitate nature.

The art and science of designing and building biomimetic apparatus is also known as biomimicry because they mimic biological systems. The field is of special interest to researchers in nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), the medical industry, and the military.

Living organisms have evolved well-adapted structures and materials over geological time through natural selection. Biomimetics has given rise to new technologies inspired by biological solutions at macro and nanoscales. Humans have looked at nature for answers to problems throughout our existence. Nature has solved engineering problems such as self-healing abilities, environmental exposure tolerance and resistance, hydrophobicity, self-assembly, and harnessing solar energy.

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Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature.

It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad range of methodologies from various disciplines, such as biotechnology, genetic engineering, molecular biology, molecular engineering, systems biology, membrane science, biophysics, chemical and biological engineering, electrical and computer engineering, control engineering and evolutionary biology.

Due to more powerful genetic engineering capabilities and decreased DNA synthesis and sequencing costs, the field of synthetic biology is rapidly growing. In 2016, more than 350 companies across 40 countries were actively engaged in synthetic biology applications; all these companies had an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion in the global market.

Studies in synthetic biology can be subdivided into broad classifications according to the approach they take to the problem at hand: standardization of biological parts, biomolecular engineering, genome engineering, metabolic engineering.

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Asteroids, also known as minor planets, are small, rocky bodies that have been left over from the formation of planets about 4.5 billion years ago. Billions of such rocks exist in the solar system, with the majority of them concentrated in a doughnut-shaped main belt of asteroids between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

It has been in our interest to study these minor planets. As remnants from the planet forming process, they can not only be viewed as building blocks of planets, but could also possibly hold clues explaining the evolution of Earth.

Simultaneous discovery

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), later renamed NEAR Shoemaker, was a low-cost mission and the first to be flown under NASA's Discovery programme. Its target was the minor planet 433 Eros, which is approximately 355 million km from Earth, and it intended to gather information about its physical properties and composition, among others.

Eros was discovered by German astronomer Carl Gustav Witt on August 13, 1898, and by French astronomer Auguste Charlois independently on the same day. Breaking with the tradition of the time, it was given a male name Eros - the son of Mercury and Venus. Within weeks from its discovery, it was computed that Eros orbit brought it inside the orbit of Mars, making it the first near Earth asteroid to be discovered.

Mathilde flyby

Launched on February 17, 1996, NEAR was the first spacecraft to rely on solar cells for power for its operations beyond Mars orbit. Even though its primary objective was studying Eros, NEAR performed a 25-minute flyby of the asteroid 253 Mathilde on June 27, 1997.

NEAR's closest approach to Mathilde brought it within 1,200 km of the minor planet. From this distance, it was able to photograph 60% of the asteroid and gather data that indicated that the asteroid is covered with craters and less dense than previously believed.

Using a gravity assist during an Earth flyby encounter, NEAR headed next towards Eros. An aborted engine, however, meant that the spacecraft had to be stabilised and the initial planned trajectory to Eros had to be sidelined.

The backup trajectory that was then used put NEAR on a far longer path towards Eros. This meant that rather than entering orbit around Eros in January 1999, NEAR had to be content for the time being with a flyby of Eros on December 23, 1998. It turned out to be useful though as NEAR was able to observe 60% of the minor planet and discover that the asteroid was smaller than what was expected.

A love affair

Orbital insertion, however, wasn't yet out of the question and several efforts, including more course corrections, were under way to make another attempt in the following years. On February 14, 2000 - Valentine's Day-NEAR finally entered into orbit around Eros, an asteroid named after the god of love in Greek mythology. NEAR thus became the first human-made object to orbit any minor planet.

A month after entering into orbit, on March 14, 2000, NEAR was renamed NEAR Shoemaker by NASA in honour of planetary scientist and geologist Eugene Shoemaker. Shoemaker, who had died in an accident in 1997, was a pioneer in studying asteroid impacts.

Orbiter turns lander

In the months that followed. NEAR was able to orbit Eros many times and its operational orbit kept changing, allowing it to get closer to the asteroid than what was previously thought possible. Even though it was built as an orbiter, it went on to survive a landing on February 12. 2001, making it the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid

NEAR kept sending invaluable data until its last contact on February 28, 2001, when it succumbed to the extreme cold conditions on the surface of Eros. A further attempt by NASA to contact NEAR in December 2002 failed.

The photographs and information returned by NEAR Shoemaker not only helped map more than 70% of the minor planet's surface and provide data about its interior, but also showed that Eros had no magnetic field. Having relayed about 10 times more data than initially planned, including 1,60,000 images, NEAR's mission proved to be a tremendous success.

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Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library is a children's novel by author Chris Grabenstein. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for Middle Grade novels for 111 weeks between 2013 and 2016, peaking at #8 in hardback and #2 in paperback.

Grabenstein has stated that the book contains a secret puzzle that readers can decode. To solve it, he offers some advice given by Mr. Lemoncello in the book: "Forget the Industrial Revolution, my first idea might be your best solution."

Kyle is a game fan—board games, word games, and especially video games! Kyle’s hero, the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello, is the genius behind the design of the town’s new public library, which contains not only books, but an IMAX theater, an electronic learning center, instructional holograms, interactive dioramas and electromagnetic hover ladders that float patrons up to the books they want.

Lucky Kyle wins a spot as one of the first twelve kids invited to a gala, overnight library lock-in filled with of fun and games. But the next morning, when the lock-in is supposed to be over, the doors remain locked. Kyle and the others must follow book-related clues and unravel all sorts of secret puzzles to find the hidden escape route if they want to win Mr. Lemoncello’s most fabulous prize ever.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library is more than a rib-tickling novel full of humor and suspense. It’s a game in itself, in which readers can have fun solving clues and answering riddles while learning how to navigate the Dewey Decimal system. Eagle-eyed kids—not to mention their parents, teachers, and librarians—can also hunt for the names of authors and classic books sprinkled throughout the fast-moving story.

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Markus Zusak was born in 1975 in Sydney, Australia, the youngest of four children of immigrant German and Austrian parents. Neither parent could read or write English when they first arrived in Australia, but they wanted their children to master the language and strongly encouraged them to read and communicate in English from an early age. Zusak began writing fiction at age 16 and pursued a degree in teaching. Before becoming a professional author, Zusak worked briefly as a house painter, a janitor and a high school English teacher.

The Book Thief followed in 2006 and was met with even more critical and popular success. A sympathetically drawn Death narrates the story of orphan Liesel Meminger, who finds friendship and a new family in a small town in Germany during World War II. She also discovers the power of words and books as Hitler’s Nazi agenda threatens to destroy everything she has come to love. Zusak chose the subject matter in part to share the stories his parents told him about growing up in Austria and Germany during the war. The Book Thief was published as a novel for adults in Australia and as a young adult novel in the United States, but Zusak doesn’t draw such distinctions. “What I wanted to do… was write someone’s favorite book,” rather than write for a specific audience, Zusak revealed in an interview. Author John Green reviewed the book in the New York Times, hailing it as “[b]rilliant” and “achingly sad,” and said of the heroine, “[t]he hope we see in Liesel is unassailable, the kind you can hang on to in the midst of poverty and war and violence.”

Zusak received many awards for The Book Thief, including the Michael L. Printz Honor and the Kathleen Mitchell Award (Australia). It was named a Best Book by the School Library Journal and the Young Adult Library Services Association, and was the Editors’ Choice in the Kirkus Review and Booklist. Zusak lives in Sydney, Australia and continues to write fiction.

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Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.

The book was an immediate success. The English dramatist John Gay remarked "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." In 2015, Robert McCrum released his selection list of 100 best novels of all time in which Gulliver's Travels is listed as "a satirical masterpiece".

It is uncertain exactly when Swift started writing Gulliver's Travels. (Much of the writing was done at Loughry Manor in Cookstown, County Tyrone, whilst Swift stayed there.) Some sources[which?] suggest as early as 1713 when Swift, Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and others formed the Scriblerus Club with the aim of satirising popular literary genres. According to these accounts, Swift was charged with writing the memoirs of the club's imaginary author, Martinus Scriblerus, and also with satirising the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is known from Swift's correspondence that the composition proper began in 1720 with the mirror-themed Parts I and II written first, Part IV next in 1723 and Part III written in 1724; but amendments were made even while Swift was writing Drapier's Letters. By August 1725 the book was complete; and as Gulliver's Travels was a transparently anti-Whig satire, it is likely that Swift had the manuscript copied so that his handwriting could not be used as evidence if a prosecution should arise, as had happened in the case of some of his Irish pamphlets (the Drapier's Letters). In March 1726 Swift travelled to London to have his work published; the manuscript was secretly delivered to the publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to speed production and avoid piracy. Motte, recognising a best-seller but fearing prosecution, cut or altered the worst offending passages (such as the descriptions of the court contests in Lilliput and the rebellion of Lindalino), added some material in defence of Queen Anne to Part II, and published it. The first edition was released in two volumes on 28 October 1726, priced at 8s. 6d.

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Where the Wild Things Are, illustrated children’s book by American writer and artist Maurice Sendak, published in 1963. The work was considered groundbreaking for its honest treatment of children’s emotions, especially anger, and it won the 1964 Caldecott Medal.

This story of 338 words focuses on a young boy named Max who, after dressing in his wolf costume, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to bed without his supper. Max's bedroom undergoes a mysterious transformation into a jungle environment, and he winds up sailing to an island inhabited by frightening beasts, the Wild Things. After successfully intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things and enjoys a playful romp with his subjects. However, he starts to feel lonely and decides to return home, to the Wild Things' dismay. Upon returning to his bedroom, Max discovers a hot supper waiting for him.

Sendak won the annual Caldecott Medal from the children's librarians in 1964, recognizing Wild Things as the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, not for the first time.

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How to Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) is an American media franchise from DreamWorks Animation and loosely based on the eponymous series of children's books by British author Cressida Cowell. It consists of three feature films: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). 

The franchise follows the adventures of a young Viking named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (voiced by Jay Baruchel), son of Stoick the Vast, leader of the Viking island of Berk. Although initially dismissed as a clumsy and underweight misfit, he soon becomes renowned as a courageous expert in dragons, beginning with Toothless (Randy Thom), a member of the rare Night Fury breed as his flying mount and his closest companion. Together with his friends, he manages the village's allied dragon population in defense of his home as leader of a flying corps of dragon riders. Upon becoming leaders of their kind, Hiccup and Toothless are forced to make choices that will truly ensure peace between people and dragons. Dean DeBlois, the director of the trilogy, described its story as "Hiccup's coming of age," taking a span of five years between the first and second film, and a year between the second and third film.

The film series has been highly acclaimed, with each film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, in addition to the first film's nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

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Charlotte's Web is a book of children's literature by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur (such as "Some Pig") in her web in order to persuade the farmer to let him live.

Charlotte's Web was adapted into an animated feature by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973. Paramount released a direct-to-video sequel, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, in the U.S. in 2003 (Universal released the film internationally). A live-action film version of E. B. White's original story was released in 2006. A video game based on this adaptation was also released in 2006.

Did you know that there really was a spider named 'Charlotte' who inspired E.B. White to write the story? He bought a farm in Maine, where he lived for many years and raised all kinds of animals. The spider lived in his barn and he used to spend hours just watching her, the way that Fern watched the animals in Charlotte's Web. Wilbur, the pig, was also inspired by a pig that E.B. White was raising on his farm. The barn in which Avery and Fern swing on the rope swing is also real and is still standing—and the rope swing is still there! E.B. White wrote Charlotte's Web because he loved animals and enjoyed life on his farm.

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A Wrinkle in Time, novel for young adults by Madeleine L’Engle, published in 1962. It won a Newbery Medal in 1963. Combining theology, fantasy, and science, it is the story of travel through space and time to battle a cosmic evil. With their neighbour Calvin O’Keefe, young Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace embark on a cosmic journey to find their lost father, a scientist studying time travel. Assisted by three eccentric women—Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which—the children travel to the planet Camazotz, where they encounter a repressed society controlled by IT, a disembodied brain that represents evil. Among the themes of the work are the dangers of unthinking conformity and scientific irresponsibility and the saving power of love. 

Upon completion in 1960, the novel was rejected by at least 26 publishers, because it was, in L'Engle's words, "too different," and "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was really difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adults' book, anyhow?"

In "A Special Message from Madeleine L'Engle" on the Random House website, L'Engle offers another possible reason for the rejections: "A Wrinkle in Time had a female protagonist in a science fiction book," which at the time was uncommon. After trying "forty-odd" publishers (L'Engle later said "twenty-six rejections"), L'Engle's agent returned the manuscript to her. Then at Christmas, L'Engle threw a tea party for her mother. One of the guests happened to know John C. Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and he insisted that L'Engle should meet with him. Although the publisher did not, at the time, publish a line of children's books, Farrar met L'Engle, liked the novel, and ultimately published it under the Ariel imprint.

The book was reissued by Square Fish in trade and mass market paperback formats in May 2007, along with the rest of the Time Quintet. This new edition includes a previously unpublished interview with L'Engle as well as a transcription of her Newbery Medal acceptance speech.

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The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in children's literature.

The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature of Tolkien's geography. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict.

The publisher was encouraged by the book's critical and financial success and, therefore, requested a sequel. As Tolkien's work progressed on its successor, The Lord of the Rings, he made retrospective accommodations for it in The Hobbit. These few but significant changes were integrated into the second edition. Further editions followed with minor emendations, including those reflecting Tolkien's changing concept of the world into which Bilbo stumbled.

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Yes, Edison did have something to do with cement as well! In fact, he held 49 patents related to cement. They included the equipment to process cement, waterproofing cement paint, and a single-pour mould for concrete. He had imagined a concrete-age for the future, with houses, furniture, pianos and refrigerators made of concrete!

Edison’s interest in cement started on noticing how much sand waste was produced by his ore milling company. This fine sand was sold to cement manufacturers for making concrete. In 1899, Edison founded the Edison Portland Cement Company, in Stewartsville, New Jersey. It had the longest rotating kilns in the world, almost twice as long as the usual cement kilns. Edison licensed other manufacturers to use the kilns. This helped the others to improve their production, but affected the profits of his own company.

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When it came to cement and concrete, Edison was looking at the larger picture. What he wanted was to create a cost-effective method to build working class homes; his innovative idea was to build a house in a single pour of concrete. Edison patented his system to mass-produce concrete houses in 1917.

This idea was not a great success, mostly because it was difficult to produce the reusable metal moulds which were required to make those houses. However, Edison was able to build some of these homes in New Jersey.

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There were many attempts to make the telegraph more efficient, and Thomas Alva Edison’s quadruplex telegraph was the most famous among them.

Edison had been trying for many years to find a method to send two messages simultaneously over a single wire. Western Union adopted the duplex system developed by Joseph Stearns, which could send two messages in opposite directions, in 1872. William Orton, president of the company then asked Edison to invent other methods, too. Edison combined the duplex with the diplex system which sent two messages in the same direction, thus making it possible to send four messages simultaneously - two in each direction.

The quadruplex telegraph lost its importance later, with the coming of multiplex telegraphy that made it possible to send eight or more simultaneous transmissions, and the teletype machines.

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