Science News

See http://time.com/54684/star-trek-kate-mulgrew-the-principle-film/?hpt=hp_t3 for more. Seriously, in this day and age, people still think the Earth is the center of the solar system and the sun orbits us? This is the kind of ridiculous "science" content that moves us backwards, not forwards. According to the article a couple of people involved with the production are now speaking out against it.

In this recent paper from Michael Mann, the recent so-called "global warming slowdown" is shown to be indistinguishable from the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO, previously called the "NAO" or "North Atlantic Oscillation" before its full character had been measured. Dr. Mann's original "Hockey Stick" paper was based on study of the NAO, so this is familiar data territory for him. Mann says, So another denial falls by the wayside, and global warming wins again. Full details are available here and I will be fairly available for questions unless ajb takes up all my available CPU cycles.

This is a measure of the expansion of the universe at high redshifts (z > 2) to unprecedented accuracy: circa 2%. This is using the new Baryon Acoustic Oscillation method pioneered by BOSS, this time with three times as many individual objects measured as previously to get the original high resolution results. The current measurements use over 150,000 quasars, as opposed to the last results which used 48,000 and the original survey results which used only 16,000 quasars. http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2014/04/07/boss-quasars-measure-expansion/ This approach obviously is one of the most effective possible, and it's good to see astronomers sta…

I believe there have already been other climate change refugees, but not recorded as such. For example, some farms have closed in the US, for example in California, due to the drought. So far the numbers are small, but might grow quickly at any time.

It seems that these two physicists just now learned about genetics and decided that they would overturn an entire field with gibberish. Yes genes are means of specifying polypeptides....in addition to how and when they are expressed. What they seem to ignore is that differences in polypeptides, which underly phenotype, are encoded in the DNA and thus inherited by DNA. That is what Natural Selection acts upon. This is a perfect example of the nonsense that can result when people jump into a field new to them and think that they understand it better. The guest blog post makes even less sense.

An incredibly interesting PNAS study outlines the physical evolution of creative thought processes. The study, called "Network Structure and the Dynamics of the Mental Workspace" is at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/13/1311149110 A news story outlining the reactions of members of the neuroscience community is at Bioscience Technology: link removed

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4535/full/ncomms4535.html $32 to read it there. So, to NBC we go! http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/why-do-zebras-have-stripes-mystery-solved-scientists-say-n68836 "Researchers have looked for novel ways to settle the question ever since Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace started the argument in the 1870s." "All four of the hypotheses listed here, a through d, have been proposed. But a couple of years ago, the bug-repellent idea got a boost when researchers built horse mannequins, painted them in a variety of patterns, coated them with sticky stuff, and found that horseflies seemed to avoi…

New study suggest that just 5000 years ago Europeans had darker skins than they do now. Eye color was also found to be significantly changed over 5000 years.. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140310182731.htm?

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.