Art By Sergii Golotovskiy on Artstation. 

that body move (cr. fancam: x)

The As, Gs, Cs and Ts of the Space Station: First In-Space Microbe Identification

Being able to identify microbes in real-time aboard the International Space Station, without having to send them back to Earth for identification first, would be totally amazing for the world of microbiology and space exploration.

The Genes in Space 3 team turned that possibility into a reality this year, when it completed the first-ever sample-to-sequence process entirely aboard the space station.

The ability to identify microbes in space could aid in the ability to diagnose and treat astronauts in real time, as well as assisting in the identification of life on other planets. It could also benefit other experiments aboard the space station.

HELPFUL SCIENCE HINT: Identifying microbes involves isolating the DNA of samples, and then amplifying – or making lots and lots (and LOTS) of copies - of that DNA that can then be sequenced, or identified.  

As part of regular monitoring, petri plates were touched to various surfaces of the space station. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson transferred cells from growing bacterial colonies on those plates into miniature test tubes, something that had never been done before in space (first OMG moment!).

Once the cells were successfully collected, it was time to isolate the DNA and prepare it for sequencing, enabling the identification of the unknown organisms – another first for space microbiology.

Enter Hurricane Harvey. *thunder booms*

“We started hearing the reports of Hurricane Harvey the week in between Peggy performing the first part of collecting the sample and gearing up for the actual sequencing,” said Sarah Wallace, the project’s primary investigator.

When our Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston became inaccessible due hurricane conditions, Marshall Space Flight Center’s Payload Operations Integration Center in Huntsville, Alabama worked to connect Wallace to Whitson using Wallace’s personal cell phone.

With a hurricane wreaking havoc outside, Wallace and Whitson set out to make history.

The data were downlinked to the team in Houston for analysis and identification.

“Once we actually got the data on the ground we were able to turn it around and start analyzing it,” said Aaron Burton, the project’s co-investigator. “You get all these squiggle plots and you have to turn that into As, Gs, Cs and Ts.”

Those As, Gs, Cs and Ts are more than just a nerdy alphabet – they are Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine – the four bases that make up each strand of DNA and can tell you what organism the strand of DNA came from. 

“Right away, we saw one microorganism pop up, and then a second one, and they were things that we find all the time on the space station,” said Wallace. “The validation of these results would be when we got the sample back to test on Earth.”

Soon after, the samples returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz spacecraft, along with Whitson.

With the samples now in the team’s JSC lab, tests were completed in ground labs to confirm the findings from the space station. They ran the tests again and again, and then once more, to confirm accuracy. Each time, the results were exactly the same on the ground as in orbit. (second OMG moment!)

“We did it. Everything worked perfectly,” said Sarah Stahl, microbiologist.

This capability could change future space exploration.

“As a microbiologist,” said Wallace, “My goal is really so that when we go and we move beyond ISS and we’re headed towards Mars or the moon or wherever we are headed to, we have a process that the crew can have that great understanding of the environment, based on molecular technology.”

For more information, follow @ISS_Research. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

reblog this to end lives

"Covens of October" MARKHYUCK FANTASY AU

Prologue

Two rival families have long lived in the Bokor Forest, in the mysterious and boring town of Solumville: the Lumen and the Tenebris.

For hundreds of years, their ancestors have lived in an environment of rivalry, distrust and hatred, thanks to their different ways of obtaining magic.

On one side, the Tenebris family, a thousand-year-old family of witches and warlocks who obtain their powers thanks to their devotion to Satan and other evil forces. The first generations used to dedicate themselves to the dark arts, although today they continue to obtain their powers from it, they no longer use it in the same way as before. And although they do not dedicate themselves to doing evil, witches and warlocks (especially of this family) have always had a bad reputation in the Hidden World due to how their first ancestors obtained their powers and they have always been judged and discriminated against, making them be resentful and disgusted towards the rest of the Hidden community.

On the other side, the Lumen family of talented wizards and sorcerers. Wizards and sorcerers had always been respected and admired in the community, as they were considered the purest beings in the Hidden World. Born from the flashes of the brightest light hundreds of years ago, they have always been in a place of privilege, except for the Lumen. Some years ago, when her children were still very young, a scandal broke out when it was discovered that Evanora Lumen's father had married a witch. Everyone in the Hidden World believed that Evanora was half witch and half sorcerer, a hybrid, an abomination. But after several investigations this could not be proven and the Lumen family has had a bad reputation ever since.

Both families reside in the Bokor forest where, despite everything, they remain faithful to the most important rule of their community: to keep the Hidden World for what it is; a hidden and secret world. Community anonymity is and has always been the most important law to keep all magical creatures in the rest of the human world safe, and any attempt to violate this law was severely punished, even with death.

But there were certain people who believed that any creature that is out of the ordinary was a threat to the world, that they should be destroyed: the Venandis.

The Venandis were a group of hunters of magical creatures that chased anyone in the community, captured them, and almost always killed them. Multiple times they tried to take this world out of anonymity until the leader of the Venandis, Gamiro Salante, died in an attack years ago and since then it is believed that, without their leader, the group of hunters disbanded as they were never seen again, until recently.

Now the Lumen and Tenebris, who are not only natural rivals but also have years of family secrets and hatred, must put aside their differences to make way for teamwork (and perhaps love) in order to save their families and the Hidden World of a threat that stalks them all equally.

story by me - badlem_ on twt & ig / BLUNTPINK on wattpad

translated from Spanish to English by citysdelight on twt / redshenv on ig

soon to be uploaded on ao3

this low angle tho

180905 – 1, 2, 3

YOUR NAME ‘君の名は。’ 2016, dir. Makoto Shinkai

Details, version II : Dancing Fairies, 1866, by August Malmström. Can you hear them whisper?

the most me

“If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burn you.”