A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: science

Jan 29 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet

Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet

BBC News:

Dr [Howard] Falcon-Lang, who is based in the department of earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, spotted some drawers in a cabinet marked “unregistered fossil plants”.

“Inside the drawer were hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets,” Dr Falcon-Lang explained.

“This process allows them to be studied under the microscope. Almost the first slide I picked up was labelled ‘C. Darwin Esq’.”

The item turned out to be a piece of fossil wood collected by Darwin during his famous Voyage of the Beagle in 1834. This was the expedition on which he first started to develop his theory of evolution.

Totally crazy, but at the same time, not really that crazy at all. Universities and museums have huge collections of stuff that are often poorly sorted and catalogued, if at all.

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Jan 22 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory

Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory

Brandon Keim, Wired:

In the new study, researchers led by [Michael Travisano of the University of Minnesota] and William Ratcliff grew brewer’s yeast, a common single-celled organism, in flasks of nutrient-rich broth.

Once per day they shook the flasks, removed yeast that most rapidly settled to the bottom, and used it to start new cultures. Free-floating yeast were left behind, while yeast that gathered in heavy, fast-falling clumps survived to reproduce.

Within just a few weeks, individual yeast cells still retained their singular identities, but clumped together easily. At the end of two months, the clumps were a permanent arrangement. Each strain had evolved to be truly multicellular, displaying all the tendencies associated with “higher” forms of life: a division of labor between specialized cells, juvenile and adult life stages, and multicellular offspring.

Really cool result. I hope the findings are replicated soon.

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Jan 12 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Parts of stricken Mars probe Phobos-Grunt may strike Earth

Parts of stricken Mars probe Phobos-Grunt may strike Earth

Ian Sample for The Guardian:

A Russian spacecraft that became stranded in orbit on the way to Mars last year is expected to fall back to Earth next week.

The 13.5 tonne Phobos-Grunt has been circling Earth since November when rocket boosters failed to ignite and send the spaceship on its journey to the Martian moon of Phobos. The spacecraft suffered a computer malfunction after launch and when repeated attempts to contact the rocket failed, the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, had to abandon the mission.

Oh dear.

Risk assessments by the Russian, German and US space agencies have focused on whether the highly toxic fuel, known as unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide (DTO), could contaminate the debris site.

…

According to the agencies’ reports, the spacecraft’s aluminium fuel tanks are likely to rupture and leak at an altitude of about 100km and burn up, perhaps completely, on re-entry. The fuel will either ignite or be dispersed in the atmosphere.

Colin:
Yeah but they “expected” it to go to Mars too.
Colin:
So.
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Jan 12 2012
Mark Twain, probably

The search for a more perfect kilogram

The search for a more perfect kilogram

Jonathon Keats, writing in Wired:

Two different approaches to linking the kilogram to a fundamental constant are in the works, but both have proven far more complicated than in the case of the meter. Borrowing tricks from quantum mechanics and techniques used to manufacture atomic bombs, the competing initiatives are finally on the verge of delivering the kind of precision necessary to displace Le Grand K.

Really great profile of the teams working on the two approaches; highly recommend taking 15 minutes to read all 4,000 words.

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Dec 29 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Grail spacecraft to study moon’s gravity field

Grail spacecraft to study moon’s gravity field

Alicia Chang, the AP:

Over the New Year’s weekend, a pair of spacecraft the size of washing machines are set to enter orbit around it in the latest lunar mission. Their job is to measure the uneven gravity field and determine what lies beneath – straight down to the core.

…

Once in orbit, the spacecraft will spend the next two months flying in formation and chasing one another around the moon until they are about 35 miles above the surface with an average separation of 124 miles. Data collection won’t begin until March.

As the probes circle the moon, regional changes in the lunar gravity field will cause them to speed up or slow down. This in turn will change the distance between them. Radio signals transmitted by the spacecraft will measure the slight distance gaps, allowing researchers to map the underlying gravity field.

It’s not a manned mission, but hey, science still rules.

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Dec 15 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Experiments show rats aren’t selfish, but caring creatures

Experiments show rats aren’t selfish, but caring creatures

The AP:

New experiments show rats demonstrating compassion and helping other rodents. It’s a trait some scientists thought was reserved only for humans and higher primates.

…

In repeated tests, rats freed another trapped rat in their cage, even when yummy chocolate served as a tempting distraction. Twenty-three of the 30 rats opened the trap by pushing in a door. The rats could have gobbled the chocolate before freeing their partners, but often didn’t, choosing to help and share the goodies.

“Basically they told us (freeing another rat) is as important as eating chocolate,” said study author Peggy Mason of the University of Chicago. “That’s a very striking thing.”

In some cases, the rats first took the chocolate chips out of a container, but didn’t eat them, then freed the other rat and shared “almost as if they were serving them chocolate,” Mason said. The research is reported in Thursday’s journal Science.

Rats: pretty cool guys.

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Dec 13 2011
Mark Twain, probably

How a collapsing scientific hypothesis led to a lawsuit and arrest

How a collapsing scientific hypothesis led to a lawsuit and arrest

John Timmer for Ars Technica:

In 2006, scientists announced a provocative finding: a retrovirus called XMRV, closely related to a known virus from mice, was associated with cases of prostate cancer. But other labs, using different sets of patients, found no evidence of a viral infection. Before the controversy could be sorted out, another research group published a 2009 paper containing an even more intriguing claim. XMRV, it said, was associated with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a disorder that some had claimed was purely psychosomatic.

Reaction came quickly. The CFS community, viewing a viral cause as a validation of their malady, embraced the finding. One author of the XMRV/CFS paper, Judy Mikovits, landed a position as research director of a private foundation dedicated to CFS. A company associated with the foundation started offering tests for infections.

Then the story took a strange turn. A long chain of events led not only to the collapse of the XMRV hypothesis, but it landed Mikovits in jail—and brought death threats upon some of the researchers who debunked her ideas.

What follows is a long and fascinating story that shows (1) yes, scientists can falsify data and otherwise act unethically, and (2) despite this, the scientific system still works.

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Dec 03 2011
Mark Twain, probably

As efforts to find AIDS vaccine continue, mouse study shows protection; human studies expected

As efforts to find AIDS vaccine continue, mouse study shows protection; human studies expected

The AP:

As scientists struggle to find a vaccine to prevent infection with the AIDS virus, a study in mice suggests hope for a new approach — one that doctors now want to test in people.

The treated mice in the study appeared to have 100 percent protection against HIV. That doesn’t mean the strategy will work in people. But several experts were impressed.

…

Researchers reported the new results in mice online Wednesday in the journal Nature. They hope to test the approach in people in a couple of years. Another research team reported similar success in monkeys in 2009 and hopes to start human tests even sooner.

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Nov 29 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Stephen Colbert (out of character) conducts an amazing interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson on science, science literacy, science history, and even a little bit of epistemology. So incredibly fantastic — I actually watched the entire hours and a half video. It was that good.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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Oct 13 2011
Mark Twain, probably

The Big Idea: Perennial Grains

The Big Idea: Perennial Grains

Robert Kunzig, National Geographic:

Humans made an unwitting but fateful choice 10,000 years ago as we started cultivating wild plants: We chose annuals. All the grains that feed billions of people today—wheat, rice, corn, and so on—come from annual plants, which sprout from seeds, produce new seeds, and die every year. “The whole world is mostly perennials,” says USDA geneticist Edward Buckler, who studies corn at Cornell University. “So why did we domesticate annuals?” Not because annuals were better, he says, but because Neolithic farmers rapidly made them better—enlarging their seeds, for instance, by replanting the ones from thriving plants, year after year. Perennials didn’t benefit from that kind of selective breeding, because they don’t need to be replanted. Their natural advantage became a handicap. They became the road not taken.

Today an enthusiastic band of scientists has gone back to that fork in the road: They’re trying to breed perennial wheat, rice, and other grains.

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