Weekly Science Headlines

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090826-impossible-planet-wasp-shouldnt-exist.html Want to see an exoplanet fall into a star? We may get to.

Depends.  How many primates are on it?

Well, if anything is possible, than there should be some measurable probability that there are say, several billion primates on that planet, and since our lord Jesus Christ makes the improbable happen, then there are DEFINITELY that many primates on that planet. In fact, I bet we can set up some sort of device to capture their screams as the planet tumbles into the star's corona.

The congressman from AZ votes to approve funding.

[Kai]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090826-impossible-planet-wasp-shouldnt-exist.html Want to see an exoplanet fall into a star? We may get to.

Depends.  How many primates are on it?

Well, if anything is possible, than there should be some measurable probability that there are say, several billion primates on that planet, and since our lord Jesus Christ makes the improbable happen, then there are DEFINITELY that many primates on that planet. In fact, I bet we can set up some sort of device to capture their screams as the planet tumbles into the star's corona.

The congressman from AZ votes to approve funding.

Stellar Microphone: 100 billion dollars

Space Shuttle Flight: 40 billion dollars

Retrofitting the Hubble Telescope: 80 billion dollars

Listening to the Dying Screams of 7 Billion Primates on an Exoplanet Falling into a Star: Priceless.

There are some things money can't by; for everything else there's The National Debt.

[LMNO]

 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090826-impossible-planet-wasp-shouldnt-exist.html Want to see an exoplanet fall into a star? We may get to.

Depends.  How many primates are on it?

Well, if anything is possible, than there should be some measurable probability that there are say, several billion primates on that planet, and since our lord Jesus Christ makes the improbable happen, then there are DEFINITELY that many primates on that planet. In fact, I bet we can set up some sort of device to capture their screams as the planet tumbles into the star's corona.

The congressman from AZ votes to approve funding.

Stellar Microphone: 100 billion dollars

Space Shuttle Flight: 40 billion dollars

Retrofitting the Hubble Telescope: 80 billion dollars

Listening to the Dying Screams of 7 Billion Primates on an Exoplanet Falling into a Star: Priceless.

There are some things money can't by; for everything else there's The National Debt.

BOARD OVER.  KAI WINS.

SHUT IT DOWN.

[Kai]

 

[Iason Ouabache]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090826-impossible-planet-wasp-shouldnt-exist.html Want to see an exoplanet fall into a star? We may get to.

Depends.  How many primates are on it?

Well, if anything is possible, than there should be some measurable probability that there are say, several billion primates on that planet, and since our lord Jesus Christ makes the improbable happen, then there are DEFINITELY that many primates on that planet. In fact, I bet we can set up some sort of device to capture their screams as the planet tumbles into the star's corona.

The congressman from AZ votes to approve funding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mVWN5yy1AY

[Kai]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5944/1058-a Don't know if I talked about this. Complete genome sequencing of any eukaryote, especially arthropods or vertebrates, is exciting because it's been done so little. Bacterial genome sequences abound, but only a few insects have been sequenced, including the silk moth and the honeybee.

[Cain]

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/08/24/after-birth/

Really cool podcast about how babies perceptions after birth differ from our perceptions as we get older.  For example, the lenses in the eyes of newborns have yet to acquired the yellow tint of adults which filters out blue light - so children see a much brighter whiter world.  And why babies tend to be unable to stop staring at interesting things when they're about two months old (its because the control for vision is switching in the brain).

[Kai]

Headlines, The Science

Recent.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1919420,00.html Ice sculptures of children in a Beijing temple leading up to the UN climate summit. Once again it's politics over science. I feel sorry for climatologists.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46784/title/Girls_have_head_start_on_snake_and_spider_fears This reminds me of the verse in Genesis, about the conflict between Eve and the snake.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=obstacle-exit-pedestrian Yes, keeping people from all rushing a bottleneck at once will keep a bottleneck from happening. In other news, chlorophyll is green.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002333.html It's not so much the st Lawrence seaway that was the problem, but rather the canal bypassing niagra falls. Before that, nothing could get in to the upper great lakes from Ontario, which has been connected to the ocean for a long time.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/emghandwriting/ Maybe this sort of thing works for people who have neat homogeneous handwriting and need no immediate visual confirmation while writing. I'm not one of those.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30ash.html?_r=1&ref=science Coal waste from TN in AL. More of that NIMBY shit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8230138.stm Neil DeGrass Tyson was talking about this about a year ago.  I don't know if he meant this particular project though.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/30/MNKG15SUJS.DTL&type=science#ixzz0PlX0mvOO On Iceland's geothermal.

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55949/ A single transcription factor needed now to change an adult stem cell to an embryonic state. In other news, fundamentalists are lost as to what scientific endeavor to attack next.

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/08/27/the-next-major-threat-to-the-ozone-layer-nitrous-oxide/ Fearmongering about the ozone holes. Never mind that since CFC's were banned the holes have been getting smaller. This is just a matter of regulating use rather than fixing damage.

[Kai]

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090902/full/461027a.html The scientific and public reaction to a paper published two years ago on the effect of Bt corn on stream ecosystems shows how political GM crop research is.

I just got this in my google alert for the word "Trichoptera" 2 minutes ago. Thats speed for you.

[fomenter]

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090902/full/461027a.html The scientific and public reaction to a paper published two years ago on the effect of Bt corn on stream ecosystems shows how political GM crop research is.

I just got this in my google alert for the word "Trichoptera" 2 minutes ago. Thats speed for you.

wow... GM do not question!!!!   

[LMNO]

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090902/full/461027a.html The scientific and public reaction to a paper published two years ago on the effect of Bt corn on stream ecosystems shows how political GM crop research is.

I just got this in my google alert for the word "Trichoptera" 2 minutes ago. Thats speed for you.

Ok, from as subjective an impartial stance as I can get....



So, was the experiment flawed, or not? 

[Kai]

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090902/full/461027a.html The scientific and public reaction to a paper published two years ago on the effect of Bt corn on stream ecosystems shows how political GM crop research is.

I just got this in my google alert for the word "Trichoptera" 2 minutes ago. Thats speed for you.

Ok, from as subjective an impartial stance as I can get....



So, was the experiment flawed, or not? 

Same that I got. I'm of the opinion that more research is better than none. I don't know if the experimental design was flawed or not but the way that many crop geneticists treated it was outrageous. I mean, personal attacks? Are we still in the dark ages or something?

For those of you who don't know, Bt stands for the toxin produced by Bacillus thurengiensis. The toxin is a type of botulism that only targets the guts of insects. Geneticists used a plasmid to insert this gene into the plant genome so it produces the toxin. It has by far been the best pesticide ever produced, as it specifically targets insects that feed on the crops and nothing else.

[LMNO]

Ah, so if that plant material gets into a stream, it might result in non-pest insects eating the toxin, and thus affecting the ecology.  Gotcha.

[Kai]

Ah, so if that plant material gets into a stream, it might result in non-pest insects eating the toxin, and thus affecting the ecology.  Gotcha.

In areas where the primary vegetation is Bt corn, it WILL get in the stream. Whether or not the amount of vegetation in the stream will be potent enough to deliver lethal and/or fitness decreasing doses, whether the insects will feed more on the corn than other carbon sources (such as aquatic macrophytes, invertebrates and algae), and whether agricultural runoff (fertilizer) keeps caddisflies from occupying most crop field streams in the first place is unknown still. We know there will be an impact, we just don't know how much.

Theres also the matter of transportation/laboratory mortality versus field mortality.