Science News

The classic model of human evolution and genetics has been the Serial Founder model. This assumes that as humans expanded, they did so through a series of smaller founding populations, leading to train of bottlenecks and reduced genetic diversity as humans spread from Africa. This model has profound implications for human genetics, suggesting that many alleles are involved in local adaptation to selective pressure. Two of the most brilliant human geneticists of today, Joseph Pickrell and David Reich have challenged this model and written an excellent review recently that is available freely on Biorxriv. They demonstrate using the most recent genetic evidence, that th…

This subject is personally quite interesting to me, I keep or have kept many marine aquariums over the years and Sea Anemones are one of my passions. I had one for several years that was a meter across. I was one of the first people to explore the importance of photosynthesis in regards to Sea Anemones in the marine aquarium hobby, I used a 1000 watt metal halide light to grow that anemone to a meter across. The fact that they are half plant is surprising but their ancient roots are not. They can be extremely beautiful creatures and their interactions with symbiotic fishes, shrimps, and crabs is extremely interesting... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20…

This year is the 100 years after the birth of agronomist and plant geneticist Norman Borlaug, one of the greatest humanitarians in human history. Norman Borlaug helped initiate the Green Revolution, developing dwarf varieties of high-yielding wheat which have been estimated to have saved 1 billion lives throughout the developing world from death by starvation and malnutrition. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. He was an amazing and humble man. I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly twice before he died and he was an immense inspiration for the professional I have route taken. This man is a true hero and its a shame that his name is not better k…

Does this innovation spell the end of a big segment of the construction industry? Another robot can lay bricks. There will still be a need for electricians, plumbers, glaziers, etc. to do some work, but I'd expect even those jobs will be done by robots soon. How long until a house is made like a printed circuit board, traces of metal and plastic for electronics, plumbing, and air conditioning all done by machine. Fixtures for the electrical, plumbing and air conditioning just plug into the wall with color codes and plug shapes making it impossible to make a mistake; finishing tasks anyone can do. Vehicles that drive themselves will put taxi drivers out of work, and pe…

See also: phys.org This is good news for the ocean, because so much of the worlds fisheries are untouched and because these fish avoid nets.

For all you flying buffs, here is a tech toy to put on your wish list, at the moment a bit expensive for most of us. This flight demonstrates that personal pleasure flying can be green, except for battery technology that typically uses environmentally unfriendly chemicals. However, work on ultracapacitors and greener batteries should eventually green electricity storage too. See also: http://www.solar-flight.com/ http://www.solarimpulse.com/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/tech/innovation/russia-us-space-program-ukraine/ I think this isn't just about the current issue. Over the decades, human conflict has gotten in the way of scientific progress so much that if humans had not gotten into such conflicts we may have achieved greater success and maybe we could have become more progressed than now. However, one could argue the difference between scientific and social progress.

After reading a post on Facebook from IFLS about the new paper microscope, FoldScope, I must say that I'm impressed! I want one!!!

It appears the first animals may have had more influence on the oxy levels in the ocean than once thought. By removing organic particles from the ocean, sponges and other filter feeders removed a drain on the oxygen in the ocean allowing oxygen levels to rise and allow for more complex animals to evolve. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140309150540.htm

Emphasis mine. This news means switch to a vegan diet. Information I've been studying indicates there is more bad news about eating meat than this study indicates. If you really try to switch, don't rush it. If it takes a year or ten years to switch complete, it is better than not switching.

I have log been a bit of a fan boy of the idea that the virus may have a more profound role in the operation of living system and evolution. Many ideas have swirled around the virus and proposed roles in life, the RNA world, and various other hypothesis. This article suggests that giant viruses could have been involved in the addition of nuclei to cells and perhaps a role in the change from the RNA world to our current DNA world. http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/39244/title/Viruses-Reconsidered/

Craig Venter has just announced a new company. Human Longevity Inc. that proposes to sequence 40,000 human genomes a year and scale to 100,000 a year to produce the worlds largest human genotype/phenotype database to address issues of aging related diseases. The scale of proposing this amount of data will be insane. Typical GWAS studies have a few thousand genotyped individuals. With this many whole genome sequences, the ability to do association analysis and fine mapping will be incredible. The real question is how the hell they will analyze so much data.

Has anyone heard the buzz around "Bionic brain?" creating totally realistic A.I. that could pass a Turing test? I personally believe the first country to have this technology will bring the next revolution (i.e. like the Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution etc) Think about it, any desk bound job could potentially be replaced by computer. Thoughts?

I hope Armando Solar-Lezama solves this problem, because it could make a big difference in program development times. However, I don't know if a single person can do it. I think the problem might be better done with a DARPA challenge. There are some problems that can be solved by applying standard scientific formulas, such as F=ma and E=mc2, However, most programming problems depend on the context of things like tax-laws, industry procedures, and corporate environment. Some are static, like F=ma, but some are fluid and change over time, depending on customer preferences, for example. Thus, code needs to be captured in an information base that can be searched quickly, …

Additive 3D printers for plastic, concrete, and common metals, subtractive printers (mills and other cutters) for many materials, and robot assemblers both stationary arms and mobile robots are available. The era in which these machines will be programmed to make themselves is coming soon. Cars and other vehicles can drive themselves, which means earth moving for mining, road building, and site preparation can be done without drivers. A few people will design sites and oversee the machinery, but work that has been done for centuries by labor forces will be displaced by machinery. One really good thing that will occur is people will not need to drive to work, use of o…

This technology needs to be tuned for use in various temperatures, but promises to be very useful.

Found a neat paper about how tawny crazy ants (Nylanderia fulva) are able to take on and displace the aggressive fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). Apparently crazy ants somehow use formic acid that they produce themselves to somehow detoxify the strong venom produced by fire ants. While the crazy ants are now starting to displace the fire ants in the US, the arms race between those two species probably originated in South America where there habitats are overlapping. Article

The article from Nature http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-holes-1.14583 No comment, simply for info.

The earliest star in the Universe belongs to our galaxy. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/researchers-identify-one-of-the-earliest-stars-in-the-universe-0209.html SMSS J031300.36-670839.3. No comment, for info only.

Most of the universe was the right temperature for life to exist about 10 Billion years ago, regardless of whether a planet or moon is in the Goldilocks zone, as long as it is not too close to a star that it remains too hot.

Our quantum reality problem When the deepest theory we have seems to undermine science itself, some kind of collapse looks inevitable by Adrian Kent 6,400 words Read later or Kindle http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/78802-if-i-can-imagine-it-it-is-possible/#entry789486

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/now_we_can_see_if_cat_alive_or_dead_peeking_inside_schrodingers_box-128037 Now We Can See If That Cat Is Alive Or Dead: Peeking Inside Schrodinger's Box Direct measurements consists of two types of measurements performed one after the other, first a "weak" measurement followed by a "strong" measurement. In quantum mechanics the act of measuring a quantum state disturbs it irreversibly, a phenomenon referred to as collapse of the wave-function. The trick lies with the first measurement being so gentle that it only slightly disturbs the system and does not cause the wave-function to collapse. "It is sort of like peeking int…

http://www.livescience.com/42791-supernova-star-explosion-amateur-photos.html?cmpid=514627_20140124_17471054 New supernova in the sky The supernova was first observed Tuesday (Jan. 21) at 7:20 p.m. local time (19:20 UTC) by a group of students led by Steve Fossey at the University College London. "It was a surreal and exciting experience taking images of the unidentified object as Steve ran around the observatory verifying the result," UCL student Guy Pollack said in a statement. The only closer star explosion in the last three decades was Supernova 1987A, which was spotted in February 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy companion of the Milky…

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/scientists-accidentally-capture-ball-lightning-proving-it-to-be-a-true-natural-phenomena-not-an-optical-illusion/story-fn5fsgyc-1226806565419 EDIT: I forgot to include my input on this topic. I think it is quite interesting how science can be seen as constantly improving as sometimes we begin to realize that there is a difference between fact and truth. Truths are always facts, but facts are not always truths.