priszape - Tumblr blog

[priszape]

Situated in the Pakistani mountains, bordering the Taliban-controlled region of Afghanistan, is a most unusual tribe of white, European-looking people known as the Kalash. Many of the Kalash have blond hair and blue eyes, an appearance which stands in stark contrast to their darker-skinned neighbors.Not only do the Kalash differ in physical appearance, they have a vastly different culture from the Muslims who surround them. They are polytheistic, have a unique folklore, lots of annual festivals involving lots of dancing, produce wine (which is forbidden in Muslim culture), wear brightly colored clothing, and give much more freedom to women. 

No one knows for sure how this light-skinned tribe came to exist in remote Pakistan, but the Kalash claim they are long-lost descendants of Alexander the Great’s army. DNA evidence shows they had an infusion of European blood during the time of Alexander’s conquests, so it’s possible their tales are correct. Throughout the years, surrounding Muslims have persecuted the Kalash and forced many to convert to Islam. Today, there are only about 4,000–6,000 Kalash left, who subsist largely on pastoral farming.

[priszape]

The Cutting Edge: Confirmation of Elements 113, 115, 117, and 118

On December 30, 2015, IUPAC officially verified the existence of the transactinide elements ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium, and ununoctium (Z = 113, 115, 117, 118). Confirmation of the discoveries of these elements completes period 7 of the periodic table; the most recent official confirmations were of flerovium and livermorium (Z = 114, 116) in 2012.

Credit for the discovery of ununtrium (Uut, Z = 113) has been given to the Superheavy Element Production Team at RIKEN (Japan), headed by Kosuke Morita (森田 浩介). This marks the first time that a Japanese team has been credited with the discovery of a new element. Their first results were published in 2004; an earlier report by a joint Russian-American team was not deemed conclusive enough to be considered a true “discovery”.

The discovery of elements ununpentium (Uup, Z = 115) and ununseptium (Uus, Z = 117) has been credited to a three-way collaboration between scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Moscow Oblast, Russia), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California, USA), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA). In addition, JINR and Livermore National Lab scientists are also credited with discovering ununoctium (Uuo, Z = 118). Synthesis of the element occurred at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, led by Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian (Юрий Цолакович Оганесян).

As per the official guidelines outlined by the IUPAC, the discoverers of these elements now have the right to choose a permanent name and two-letter chemical symbol for that element. RIKEN has considered a variety of names for element 113, including japonium (Jp) and rikenium (Rk); names for 115, 117, and 118 have yet to be suggested, although moscovium has been proposed in the past.

References: (1) IUPAC Press Release (2) Morita et al. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 2004, 73, 2593-2596. (3) Oganessian et al. Phys. Rev. C 2004, 69, 021601. (4) Oganessian et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2010, 104, 142502. (5) Oganessian et al. Phys. Rev. C 2006, 74, 044602.

[priszape]

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015, Part 1: Tomas Lindahl and Base Excision Repair

On October 7th, the Nobel Committee announced its decision to award this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three biochemists, Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar, for their contributions to our understanding of how damaged DNA is repaired. Today, we’ll be looking more closely at Tomas Lindahl (Francis Crick Institute) and his discovery of base excision repair.

Tomas Lindahl was born in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden in 1938. He earned his Ph.D from the Karolinska Institutet in 1967, and later his MD in 1970. Lindahl’s early work showed that DNA was prone to hydrolysis under cellular conditions, and coined the term “DNA decay” to describe its inherent instability. His research has led to the discovery of many enzymes involved in the repair of damaged DNA; one of the most notable of these is the discovery of base excision repair and the enzyme uracil-DNA glycosylase.

One mode of DNA decay is the spontaneous deamination of cytosine to produce uracil, as shown below.

This poses a problem for the fidelity of DNA replication—uracil is unable to base pair with guanine, and will pair with adenine instead during replication, causing a mutation. Lindahl reasoned that in order to prevent mutations from deamination events, an enzyme to detect and remove uracil from DNA must be present. In 1974, he discovered an enzyme, uracil-DNA glycosylase, that hydrolyzes off the uracil and leaves behind an abasic site. Lindahl later determined the other enzymes required to repair this abasic site, and in 1994 was able to reconstitute the entire repair pathway using purified enzymes from E. coli.

Uracil-DNA glycosylase recognizes deamination events by scanning the DNA for any uracil present. Once uracil is detected, the enzyme binds to the DNA double helix in a way that forces the uracil to rotate out from the center (a mechanism known as “base flipping”), then catalyzes hydrolysis of the glycosidic bond. The protein structure above (PDB 4SKN) shows the enzyme-DNA complex following hydrolysis, with free base uracil bound and the abasic site still flipped out of the helix.

References: (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomas_Lindahl (2) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/ (3) The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 - Popular Information / Advanced Information (4) Lindahl, T. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1974, 71 (9), 3649-3653. (5) Slupphaug, G.; Mol, C. D.; Kavli, B.; Arvai, A. S.; Krokan, H. E.; Tainer, J. A. Nature 1996, 384, 87-92.

[priszape]

I was talking to my dad earlier about getting a job as a software developer, then he said it is a great choice, but then he got serious by saying, “It is a whole lot better than making anime, anime is a useless thing, we won’t need it in the future. No one is into those.” That got me really upset, I love anime a lot and I wanna tell him that there are thousands, no, millions of people who love anime, so I decided that if this post gets more than 1,000,000 notes, I will prove him wrong.

[priszape]

[priszape]

yeah, maybe i will ask you. i have some relatives there so i will probably visit them and stuff as well. :) well, it's very cold in the winters, here where i live it often goes down to -20 degrees. it's colder if you go further north in the country tho. the summers are okay, not too hot. could've been warmer haha!

That sound great! I guess  I shouldn´t go in the winter :) -20 degrees that seems extremely  cold, here where I live the minimum temperature goes to 13 or 15 grades and the maximun temperature is normally 36 grades, but last weekend we were 41 grades, its so hot

[priszape]

Did you know that “Dammit I’m Mad” spelled backwards is “Dammit I’m Mad” Your mind = Blown.

Chattiest (via chattiest)

[priszape]

Love, experience and intelligence

Our psychological state allows us to see only what we want/need/feel to see at a particular time. What are the first three words that you see?

[priszape]

frozen by Nimby on pixiv

[priszape]

I love her

[priszape]

This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me

Blink-182, Going away to college

[priszape]

Él es el tipico amigo que podría ser el novio perfecto...

Priszape

[priszape]

We are just, misguided ghosts Traveling endlessly...

Misguided ghosts, paramore

[priszape]

Truth never set me free

Careful, paramore

[priszape]

People throw rocks at things that shine.

Ours, Taylor Swift

[priszape]

Tenemos una perspectiva propia de la realidad