A, C, G, T…X, Y?

“While all possible combinations of G, T, C, and A are already in use — AAG for example, creates an amino acid called lysine, and TAA signifies the end of a code of DNA — new letters exponentially increase the number of possible codons and give researchers the ability to recode the genetic framework without needing to rewrite or erase what life has already created. Codons like XYA or TGX, for example, could be programmed to build new types of amino acids, which could configure new proteins.”

In an impressive breakthrough, biologists successfully expand the genetic alphabet of a living organism from four to six, opening up all kinds of possibilities for everything from pharmaceuticals to new life. “‘This is a very major accomplishment in our efforts to inch towards a synthetic biology,’ says Steven Benner, a synthetic biologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution who was not involved in the study. ‘Many in the broader community thought that Floyd’s result would be impossible to achieve.'”

I Can See Your House From Here.

“The High Definition Earth Viewing experiment consists of four cameras strapped to the ISS’s hull and are all pointed toward the Earth. Occasional blackouts when switching between cameras can occur and the dark side of the Earth is, well, dark, but you still get some pretty stunning views.”

Who knows what will happen in 2020 — for now, the scientists (if not the politicians) are saying that “the relationship between NASA and Roscosmos is good, it is healthy.” In any event, NASA has set up a 24-hour live-feed from the ISS. Hopefully, it will help keep things in perspective down here.

Are You Sarah Con…Wait, Never Mind.

“The new algorithm condenses each face it ‘sees’ into a small image to position the eyes, nose, and corners of the mouth in consistent locations. Then, it further divides the image into small, overlapping squares and mathematically charts each square’s unique characteristics, allowing it to compare two images…The GaussianFace algorithm emerged from the test a champion, beating humans’ 97.35 percent average performance.”

Per Discover, computers can now identify faces better than humans can. “The algorithm could someday be used in myriad applications including security, image retrieval, and biometric credentials for our computers and mobile devices.” Among other things.

Of Mice and Men.

“‘People have not paid attention to this in the entire history of scientific research of animals,’ says Jeffrey Mogil, a pain researcher at McGill University and lead author of the study. ‘I think that it may have confounded, to whatever degree, some very large subset of existing research.'”

Sorry, Lenny: A new study finds a potentially problematic issue for decades of research: Mice are scared of men (or males of any species). ‘If you’re doing a liver cell study, the cells came from a rat that was sacrificed either by a man or a woman,’ Mogil says. As a result, ‘its stress levels would be in very different states.’ This, he says, could have an effect on the functioning of the liver cell in that later experiment.”

Flat Circle? Try Quantum Entanglement.

“‘In classical physics, we were struggling,’ said Sandu Popescu, a professor of physics at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom…”The tendency of coffee — and everything else — to reach equilibrium is ‘very intuitive,’ said Nicolas Brunner, a quantum physicist at the University of Geneva. ‘But when it comes to explaining why it happens, this is the first time it has been derived on firm grounds by considering a microscopic theory.'”

Once dismissed as a crank 30 years ago — this apparently happens to theorists of time often — an MIT professor finds his quantum theory of time gaining adherents. “Energy disperses and objects equilibrate…because of the way elementary particles become intertwined when they interact — a strange effect called ‘quantum entanglement.’…’What’s really going on is things are becoming more correlated with each other,’ Lloyd recalls realizing. ‘The arrow of time is an arrow of increasing correlations.'”

Our Distant Cousin.

“‘We know of just one planet where life exists — Earth. When we search for life outside our solar system we focus on finding planets with characteristics that mimic that of Earth,’ said Elisa Quintana, research scientist at the SETI Institute…’Finding a habitable zone planet comparable to Earth in size is a major step forward.'”

New planets have been discovered at a pretty decent clip of late. But, in a milestone, NASA’s Kepler Telescope finds in Kepler 186f, 500 light years away, “the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the ‘habitable zone’ — the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet.” (“Earth-size” being the key word here — Kepler has previously found larger planets in the habitable zone.) To put it all down and start again, from the top to the bottom and then…

Update: Interesting speculation: Does Kepler 186f bode ill for our future? “This apparent absence of thriving extraterrestrial civilizations suggests that at least one of the steps from humble planet to interstellar civilization is exceedingly unlikely. The absence could be caused because either intelligent life is extremely rare or intelligent life has a tendency to go extinct.”

Stretch Marks from the Dawn of Time.

“Primordial gravitational waves remain one of the outstanding untested hypotheses of inflation, the most popular model that explains the incredible uniformity of the CMB. According to inflationary theory, the Universe expanded very rapidly in the first fraction of a second, filling the cosmos with gravitational ripples. While inflation so far seems to explain a lot about the Universe, we have no direct evidence for it.”

Until now? With help from the South Pole’s BICEP2 observatory, astrophysicists announce they have detected the first possible direct evidence of cosmic inflation after the Big Bang, in the form of “distortions in the cosmic microwave background light…Those distortions take the form of twisting of the light’s polarization created by gravitational disturbances from inflation.” “‘This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar,’ said co-leader Clem Pryke.”

Update: 5 Sigma, R of 0.2. WHAT? Also another good explanation here: “Punchline: other than finding life on other planets or directly detecting dark matter, I can’t think of any other plausible near-term astrophysical discovery more important than this one for improving our understanding of the universe.”

Update 2: “The problem: the signal predicted by inflation is something called polarization, a sort of twisting of electromagnetic radiation. And while it can come from inflation-triggered gravity waves, microwaves from the early universe are altered en route to earthly telescopes, and if you don’t allow for the alteration, you can mistake local dust for a signal from billions of years ago.” Wait a tic: Princeton scientists cast doubt on the discovery.

Almost Feeding Time.

“‘It’s a bit like the moment before a penalty shot in soccer,’ said astrophysicist Stefan Gillessen…Everyone knows a shot is about to be taken, but nobody knows outcome will be. ‘This is the most tense moment when one player is trying to shoot against someone on the other side’…No matter the outcome, ‘it will be absolutely stunning to see the physics at work.'”

With an array of telescopes, astronomers are watching a gas cloud waft dangerously close to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy “this month” (Of course, it already happened ages ago, and we’re just now being apprised of it.)

“The gas cloud…could either continue on its current orbit and slingshot around the black hole or it could run into surrounding gas and dust, which will make it lose speed and start sliding down toward the black hole. The first scenario could give scientists insight into the evolution of galaxies and better understand the history of our Milky Way’s own black hole. In the second case, they might get to watch the black hole consume a sizable dinner.” Say hi to Maximillian for me.

The Oceans Below.

“The discovery indicates that more water can be found throughout the transition zone — the portion of the Earth’s mantle where the diamond originated. One percent might not seem like a lot but, according to Pearson, ‘when you realize how much ringwoodite there is, the transition zone could hold as much water as all the Earth’s oceans put together.'”

They dug too greedily and too deep…In a small Brazilian diamond, scientists find some potential evidence of vast reservoirs of water deep below the Earth’s surface (otherwise known as R’lyeh, where dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.) The Abyss pic above notwithstanding, “geologist Hans Keppler told Agence France-Presse that scientists should be cautious in concluding so much from such a small sample, and adds that it is likely the water is trapped in molecular form in certain rocks.” (Via High/LowIndustrial.)

The Fault in Our Stars.

“As the Sun follows the swirling motion of the Galaxy’s arms, circling around the galactic center, it also moves up and down, periodically crossing the plane that cuts the Galaxy into a top and a bottom half like the two bread slices in a sandwich. The authors suggest that as the Sun oscillates up and down, it crosses a denser layer of dark matter — like the ham in the middle — causing a gravitational push and pull that disturbs comets in the Oort cloud.”

By way of Dangerous Meta, did Dark Matter kill the dinosaurs? Extremely speculative here, but food for thought. “The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which launched last year, will map the gravitational field of the Galaxy and could rule out or confirm the presence of this darker disk.”