Messages

[That was my point]

Evolutionary biologists and those scientists that work with the subject of abiogenesis (or biogenesis, its the same field of study, and the two terms seem to be interchangable) work on completly different subject matter. Evolutionary theory does not necessitate the knowlege of where and how life began, and the chemistry of abiogenisis and gene transfer among early organisms may not follow evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis may require knowlege of evolutionary theory but evolutionary theory does not require understanding of abiogenesis, where and how life began. This is something that YECs/IDCs like to convolute because they believe that evolutionary theory is based in things like the Miller experiment, which it isn't. That was my point. You are splitting hairs.

Kai,

Has a BS in Biology, getting an MS in Entomology, D/N/T

PS: Besides, biological evolution takes place in populations of organisms, not a soup of nucleic acids. Please to not be confusing biology with organic chemistry. Thank you.

Oh, and also thank you so much for trying to use "selection". That made my day, because now I can bitch about how people do not understand the theory of natural selection and try to pass of their colloquialisms as biological science.

CHEMICAL SELECTION =/= NATURAL SELECTION

and for GODS SAKE, "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean survival of the "strongest" or "most stable". What it means is the ability of an organism to have ofspring that can reproduce. Fit organisms are those that produce offspring which reproduce themselves. It has nothing to do with how strong or stable (whatever you might mean by that in this context is), but how good they are at spewing out children. if you live for 2 days, fuck, have little clones of yourself, and die, you are by definition more evolutionarily fit than someone who lives for over 100 years and never has kids.

By this definition, I would guess that you are not fit. Nature selected against YUO.

yes i was splitting hairs, i'm sorry if it seemed an attack, it was only meant as clarification.

My point was that the forces that drive evolution are no different from those that drive changes in abiotic systems,
can you please explain to me how selection on chemicals is different from selection on organisms(as carriers of genes)? Its both just probabilities right? the one with the highest probability to continue existing is the fittest and that is true for alleles, molecules, memes and brands of beer.

by chemically most stable i mean most likely to stay in its current form, He_(g) is more stable that H_2(g) in an oxygenated environment because H_2(g) has an tendency to react with oxygen to create water and helium can't even react with oxygen (being a noble gas) thereby the fraction hydrogen-gas wil decrease in oxygenated enviroments. This is no different from the reduction in allele frequency you find in a population of moths.

what do you think of my 'probabilty of continued existence' view on natural selection?

PS. the term natural selection pisses me off, as if unnatural selection can't influence evolution.

Holy shit, YES, we have a live one here and they can take my snark! 

Okay, to your first point, yes, they are different. Why? Because in sexual selection (a subset of natural selection), mate selection is not random. Natural Selection is not a random process. Genetic Drift, however, IS a random process. The greatest controversy in evolutionary biology is which of those two are more important? Most biologists agree that both natural selection and genetic drift occur in some amount, but very few agree as to what proportion each occur. Are there situations where one is irrelevant?

Natural selection, at least when we speak of it including sexual selection, does not deal with probabilities, as I said. Darwins thesis was that individuals with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce because they are A. more fit with the environment (environmental selection) and b. more attractive to a mate (sexual selection), and that these traits are passed on to the offspring and become a larger precentage of the population. This is counting, however, only for traits that are visible and would be considered detrimental or favorable. The other traits, hidden or neutral, will change according to probability. This change is called genetic drift. Like I said above, biologists argue alot about which one is more important in evolutionary change.

Now, compairing that to chemicals is like compairing apples and oranges. The biological process is a combination of random and deterministic elements with billions of variables. The chemical process is relatively simple. You can't compare the two because they are completly dissimilar. The reduction in allele frequency (I'm guessing you are reffering to peppered moth populations) occured because of a thousand different variables coming together at once, habitat selection for the moth, prey selection and availability for the birds, climate and human population effects. Its such a mixture of complex random and deterministic events that comparing it to chemical processes is oversimplfying to the point where it bears no resemblance to the truth. Its too unpredictable.

When you talk about probability of continued existance, I believe you are talking about variables, whereas with evolutionary biology you are talking about alleles within a genepool. Mixed metaphors, different processes, too many variables.

Also, unnatural selection is a bad misspelling, a satyrical meme, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of natural selection.

Is the cricket underage?

No, the wings are full length and you can clearly see the ovipositor.

I didn't clarify in the above that, when I talked about species reproducing, I was referring to sexual reproduction.  I know many species reproduce asexually but, as likely won't be surprising, I find asexual reproduction boring.  It doesn't fit in my reality tunnel, so therefore I pretend it doesn't exist.

When you have asexual reproduction, evolutionary change occurs differently, through either:

1: beneficial mutations

or

2: horizontal gene transfer or some other similar process.

Now, please please go away.

The report hints that this new bacteria may actually be a new species, or at least be moving very strongly in that direction.  That seems very significant.

The scientific concept of species has a great deal of grey area.  As I understand it, generally the concept is that members of different but closely related species may be able to produce offspring, but the offspring will be infertile.  Problem is, that doesn't work, even in some "higher" species.  Parrots, for example, freely mate and produce fertile offspring not only outside their own species, but even outside their own genus.

Evolution is fundamental to a number of sciences, certainly including medicine.  I suppose if you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't take modern-day antibiotics, because those are based on the idea that the old drugs don't work very well because the bacteria have evolved.  I think Gary Trudeau did a Doonesbury strip on that.

The definition of species is not really grey. It only seems grey if you are working from a "can they mate and produce fertile ofspring" definition. The formal definition includes several factors that can provide for speciation:

1. inability to produce fertile ofspring together

2. Separation due to ecological niche (food, space, time, etc partitioning)

3. Separation by environmental factors (such as a desert, an ocean, or other large scale exclutionary device, or by time)

It is not always as simple as "can they make babies?"

Addenum: classification outside the species level is made by inference. It is often wrong if not backed up by genetic comparisons, and is simply a way to show genetic and evolutionary relationships between species, usually by showing groups are monophyletic, having a "single" common ansestor. Good example from my own field, the Genus Ceratopsyche, family Hydropsychidae was poorly separated from the Genus Hydropsyche in the 20th century. Recently, genetic evidence has shown that these two genera are polyphyletic, meaning they stem from several ansestral trees. Taken as a whole, however, they are monophyletic, and so Ceratopsyche will soon be synonymous with Hydropsyche. Monophylogeny from genetic evidence is the /best/ way for establishing evolutionary relationships and classification. Unfortunatly, there is /so much/ work that needs to be done, and its all very complex stuff. In entomology you get a new systematic development that screws with the higher taxonomy of an order every year or so. Talk about trying to keep up with that! New orders splitting off, families being combined from other families, new subfamilies splitting off, genera becoming synonymous and splitting, species being found to be species groups, which turns into more species to formally describe and name.

Lots and lots of work being done.

Now, please go away.

[evolutionary biology is a separate study than biogenesis]

Other items mentioned here (the peppered moth experiment, "missing links") are common strawmen for YECs and IDCs. A reminder that evolutionary biology is a separate study than biogenesis, which is the direction this thread seems to be going. Confusing the two is also a YEC/IDC tactic.

- biogenesis is the creation of life out of an abiotic environment.

- evolution takes place on abiotic molecules.
[The cornerstone of evolution is selection which also takes place on non living substances, example: ozone is selected against stronger then water. This simple form of selection is solely dependent on the stability of the molecule.
example of more advanced abiotic selection: If a certain molecule is capable of changing other molecules into copies of itself(which some molecules have), then it has an evolutionary advantage.]

conclusion: the theory of evolution is crucial to the study of biogenesis.

Apparantly its supposed to be abiogenesis instead of biogenesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Evolutionary biologists and those scientists that work with the subject of abiogenesis (or biogenesis, its the same field of study, and the two terms seem to be interchangable) work on completly different subject matter. Evolutionary theory does not necessitate the knowlege of where and how life began, and the chemistry of abiogenisis and gene transfer among early organisms may not follow evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis may require knowlege of evolutionary theory but evolutionary theory does not require understanding of abiogenesis, where and how life began. This is something that YECs/IDCs like to convolute because they believe that evolutionary theory is based in things like the Miller experiment, which it isn't. That was my point. You are splitting hairs.

Kai,

Has a BS in Biology, getting an MS in Entomology, D/N/T

PS: Besides, biological evolution takes place in populations of organisms, not a soup of nucleic acids. Please to not be confusing biology with organic chemistry. Thank you.

Oh, and also thank you so much for trying to use "selection". That made my day, because now I can bitch about how people do not understand the theory of natural selection and try to pass of their colloquialisms as biological science.

CHEMICAL SELECTION =/= NATURAL SELECTION

and for GODS SAKE, "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean survival of the "strongest" or "most stable". What it means is the ability of an organism to have ofspring that can reproduce. Fit organisms are those that produce offspring which reproduce themselves. It has nothing to do with how strong or stable (whatever you might mean by that in this context is), but how good they are at spewing out children. if you live for 2 days, fuck, have little clones of yourself, and die, you are by definition more evolutionarily fit than someone who lives for over 100 years and never has kids.

By this definition, I would guess that you are not fit. Nature selected against YUO.

August 14, 2008
Probe Gets Close Up to Enceladus

from BBC News Online

The Cassini spacecraft has returned some remarkable new close-up images of the Saturnian moon Enceladus.

They were captured during a flyby on 11 August, with the probe passing above the icy terrain at a distance of just 50km at closest approach. The pictures show previously unseen detail in the so-called tiger stripes that mark the south pole of Enceladus.

These cracks run across a "hot-spot" region that is hurling plumes of ice particles into space. Scientists are intrigued by what might be driving this activity; and some have suggested the mechanisms involved could be sufficient to maintain a mass of liquid water below the moon's surface.

http://snipurl.com/3frdn

How Are Swimmers Smashing So Many Olympic Records?

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

BEIJING—Anyone tuning in to watch swimming for the first time in several years can't help but be a little suspicious this week.

It's one thing to watch Michael Phelps smash world records left and right, but should every world record in swimming be falling like this? Through the first three days of the 2008 Olympics, there have been 10 world records broken in nine events.

... Is it the new Speedo suits? The deeper pool? Does the sport have a drug problem that no one is talking about? All of the above? People within the worldwide swimming community have different answers. But for the most part, athletes and coaches believe it's just the accelerated progression of the sport.

http://snipurl.com/3fpw6

Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace. Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: "win+love+in+Rusia."

Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia's Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests—known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks—that overloaded and effectively shut down Georgian servers.

... As it turns out, the July attack may have been a dress rehearsal for an all-out cyberwar once the shooting started between Georgia and Russia. According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a known cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war.

http://snipurl.com/3fq2u

Neanderthals Didn't Mate With Modern Humans, Study Says

from National Geographic News

Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans likely did not interbreed, according to a new DNA study. The research further suggests that small population numbers helped do in our closest relatives.

Researchers sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome—genetic information passed down from mothers—of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal thighbone found in a cave in Croatia.

The new sequence contains 16,565 DNA bases, or "letters," representing 13 genes, making it the longest stretch of Neanderthal DNA ever examined. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is easier to isolate from ancient bones than conventional or "nuclear" DNA—which is contained in cell nuclei—because there are many mitochondria per cell.

http://snipurl.com/3frcw

How Many Arms Does an Octopus Have?

from the Times (London)

A giant Pacific octopus called Mavis has helped researchers to prove that the one thing everyone knows about the creatures is wrong.

The name octopus is derived from the Ancient Greek for eight feet. Mavis, who lives in a tank at Weymouth Sea Life Centre, actually has six arms and two legs. Researchers who were studying octopuses' behaviour were taken aback to discover that some of the most basic assumptions about them were wrong.

Until now it had been believed that the tentacles were deployed in two equal sets, one set of four for propulsion and the other for manipulation. The research, conducted at 20 centres across Europe, was originally intended to establish whether octopuses favoured one side over the other, as people do, or were multidextrous.

http://snipurl.com/3frkm

Firm Evidence that Earth's Core Is Solid

from Science News

Faint yet distinct ground motions recorded by a large network of seismic instruments in Japan in early 2006 are the strongest, most direct evidence that Earth's inner core is solid.

On February 22, 2006, a magnitude-7 quake rocked Mozambique. The temblor was an unusually large one for southern Africa, but it also was quick for its size: Motions at the epicenter lasted only eight seconds or so, says George Helffrich, a geophysicist at the University of Bristol in England.

While much of the quake's energy spread along the planet's surface, some of it radiated downward, traveled through Earth's core and then returned to the surface in Japan, where more than 700 seismometers picked up the vibes. ... [The] size, shape and timing of some of the vibrations picked up by the Japanese instruments suggest that the waves traveled through the planet's inner core as shear waves, which can travel only through a solid material, says Helffrich.

http://snipurl.com/3frmo

How the Brain Monitors Errors and Learns from Goofs

from Scientific American

... Of course, people make mistakes, both large and small, every day, and monitoring and fixing slipups is a regular part of life. Although people understandably would like to avoid serious errors, most goofs have a good side: they give the brain information about how to improve or fine-tune behavior. In fact, learning from mistakes is likely essential to the survival of our species.

In recent years researchers have identified a region of the brain called the medial frontal cortex that plays a central role in detecting mistakes and responding to them. These frontal neurons become active whenever people or monkeys change their behavior after the kind of negative feedback or diminished reward that results from errors.

Much of our ability to learn from flubs, the latest studies show, stems from the actions of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In fact, genetic variations that affect dopamine signaling may help explain differences between people in the extent to which they learn from past goofs.

http://snipurl.com/3frp8

Physicists Spooked by Faster-Than-Light Information Transfer

from Nature News

Two photons can be connected in a way that seems to defy the very nature of space and time, yet still obeys the laws of quantum mechanics.

Physicists at the University of Geneva achieved the weird result by creating a pair of 'entangled' photons, separating them, then sending them down a fibre optic cable to the Swiss villages of Satigny and Jussy, some 18 kilometres apart.

The researchers found that when each photon reached its destination, it could instantly sense its twin's behaviour without any direct communication. The finding does not violate the laws of quantum mechanics, the theory that physicists use to describe the behaviour of very small systems. Rather, it shows just how quantum mechanics can defy everyday expectation ...

http://snipurl.com/3frs0

Galileo, Reconsidered

from Smithsonian Magazine

... Galileo helped paved the way for classic mechanics and made huge technological and observational leaps in astronomy. Most famously, he championed the Copernican model of the universe, which put the sun at its center and the earth in orbit. The Catholic Church deemed Galileo's 1632 book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" heresy, banned it, forced Galileo to recant his heliocentric views and condemned him to house arrest. He died in his Florence home in 1642.

Historians of science have long debated the exact nature of and motivations for Galileo's trial. War, politics and strange bedfellows obscure science's premier martyrdom story. Many of the documents historians use to try and untangle the mystery are mired in their own prejudices or were written long after the fact, or both.

Now the very first written biography of Galileo has been rediscovered. It offers a rare glimpse into what people thought about the trial only 20 years after Galileo's death and even suggests a tantalizing new explanation for why he was put on trial in the first place.

http://snipurl.com/3frue

U.S. Fuel Tanks May Be Fouling Water

from the Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—The government owns hundreds of underground fuel tanks—many designed for emergencies during the Cold War—that need to be inspected for leaks of hazardous substances that could be making local water undrinkable.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has known since at least the 1990s that tanks under its supervision around the country could be leaking fuel into soil and groundwater, according to interviews and research.

The agency knows of at least 150 underground tanks that need to be inspected for leaks, according to spokeswoman Debbie Wing. FEMA is also trying to determine by September whether an additional 124 tanks are underground or above ground and whether they are leaking. ... There has been no documentation of reported leaks or harm to communities from the FEMA tanks, Wing said, although former agency officials and congressional testimony suggest that the tanks have long been seen as a problem.

http://snipurl.com/3frye

good set of articles today

August 12, 2008
2,500-Year-Old Greek Ship Raised off Sicilian Coast

from National Geographic News

An ancient Greek ship recently raised off the coast of southern Sicily, Italy, is the biggest and best maintained vessel of its kind ever found, archaeologists say.

At a length of nearly 70 feet and a width of 21 feet, the 2,500-year-old craft is the largest recovered ship built in a manner first depicted in Homer's Iliad, which is believed to date back several centuries earlier.

The ship's outer shell was built first, and the inner framework was added later. The wooden planks of the hull were sewn together with ropes, with pitch and resin used as sealant to keep out water. Carlo Beltrame, professor of marine archaeology at the Università Ca' Foscari in Venice, said the boat, found near the town of Gela, is among the most important finds in the Mediterranean Sea.

http://snipurl.com/3fabq

Overweight, but Still Healthy

from the Seattle Times

CHICAGO (Associated Press)—You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart attack waiting to happen. And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy.

A new study suggests a surprising number of overweight people—about half—have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.

The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed. The results also show stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even "less voluptuous" people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher.

http://snipurl.com/3fa98

The Humpback Whale Is Back

from the Times (London)

Forty years ago conservationists feared that humpback whales were being hunted to extinction. Now numbers have returned to such a level that they have been taken off the danger list.

The latest count stands at 40,000 mature individuals, meaning that, for now at least, the humpback is safe from the threat of extinction.

Several other whales, such as the blue whale, the biggest animal on earth, and the sei and southern right whales, are also growing in number after similar scares.

The populations of several smaller species of whales and other cetaceans are still falling, however, and it is feared that some may be close to disappearing, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

http://snipurl.com/3fa6s

Lower Vitamin D, Higher Risk of Death

from USA Today

Low levels of vitamin D may raise a person's risk of premature death, a study by Johns Hopkins researchers shows.

The research follows other recent studies showing low levels of vitamin D are linked to certain cancers, diabetes, and bone and immune system problems, but this is the first research to connect vitamin D deficiency to a higher risk of death, says study author Erin Michos, assistant professor of cardiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

The study appears in this week's Archives of Internal Medicine. Michos and her colleagues analyzed data from a large government observational survey of more than 13,000 people who represented a realistic, diverse swath of U.S. adults ages 20 and up. Participants' vitamin D levels were collected by blood test from 1988 through 1994.

http://snipurl.com/3fa3j

No Room at the Beach

from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

CHATHAM—After the fog lifts, a cloud of short-billed dowitchers, red knots, American oystercatchers and all types of plovers tear and careen off an inlet. They crest on the breeze, settling near the shore.

... This pristine spot where South Beach meets South Monomoy Island is a critical stopover for many shorebird species on their way from the Arctic to their wintering grounds in Central or South America, or even New Zealand. But such relatively untouched coastal land is getting rarer—and so are the oystercatchers, sandpipers, and plovers that depend on it for their feeding grounds.

The populations of nearly all of North America's 55 shorebird species are declining ... in large part because of disturbance to their beachfront habitats. Every flap of their wings to evade beach walkers, all-terrain vehicles, or dogs depletes more of the energy they need for long flights, leading to lower reproductive success and even death, specialists said.

http://snipurl.com/3fa1h

Handle With Care

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Last year, a private company proposed "fertilizing" parts of the ocean with iron, in hopes of encouraging carbon-absorbing blooms of plankton. Meanwhile, researchers elsewhere are talking about injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, launching sun-reflecting mirrors into stationary orbit above the earth or taking other steps to reset the thermostat of a warming planet.

This technology might be useful, even life-saving. But it would inevitably produce environmental effects impossible to predict and impossible to undo. So a growing number of experts say it is time for broad discussion of how and by whom it should be used, or if it should be tried at all.

Similar questions are being raised about nanotechnology, robotics and other powerful emerging technologies. There are even those who suggest humanity should collectively decide to turn away from some new technologies as inherently dangerous.

http://snipurl.com/3f9yz

Researchers Work to Turn Car's Exhaust into Power

from the San Francisco Examiner

WARREN, Mich. (Associated Press)—The stinky, steaming air that escapes from a car's tailpipe could help us use less gas.

Researchers are competing to meet a challenge from the U.S. Department of Energy: Improve fuel economy 10 percent by converting wasted exhaust heat into energy that can help power the vehicle.

General Motors Corp. is close to reaching the goal, as is a BMW AG supplier working with Ohio State University. Their research into thermoelectrics—the science of using temperature differences to create electricity—couldn't come at a better time as high gas prices accelerate efforts to make vehicles as efficient as possible.

http://snipurl.com/3eugi

Gardasil Vaccine Doubts Grow

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Sandra Levy wants to do everything she can to safeguard the health of her 11-year-old daughter—and that, of course, includes cancer prevention. She has had her child inoculated with one shot of Gardasil, the human papilloma virus vaccine that may prevent cervical cancer. But now, she says, she has serious reservations about going ahead with the next two injections of the course.

"It's very confusing, and we really don't know if it's 100% safe," says Levy, of Long Beach. "I'm not against vaccines, but I don't want to do anything that would harm my daughter."

Though most medical organizations strongly advocate using the HPV vaccine, some doctors and parents, like Levy, are asking whether the vaccine's benefits really outweigh its costs. They say they aren't convinced that the expensive shots offer any more protection than preventive measures already available—principally, regular screening via the Pap smear test.

http://snipurl.com/3eqzi

Dachshunds Gene 'Blindness Clue'

from BBC News Online

A genetic mutation in dachshunds could help uncover the roots of some inherited forms of blindness in humans, say scientists.

Cone-rod dystrophies are caused by progressive cell loss in the retina. Dachshunds are particularly prone to similar conditions, and US and Norwegian researchers spotted an altered gene which may play a role.

Writing in the journal Genome Research, they said research on the similar gene in humans might lead to new therapies. Cone-rod dystrophies are relatively rare, and can lead at first to "day-blindness", in which vision in bright light is affected, then to full loss of vision. It can start as early as childhood.

http://snipurl.com/3d2br

The Sprinter's Brain

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

If American sprinters Tyson Gay and Walter Dix reprise their race in the U.S. Olympic trials at the Olympic finals in Beijing, you will see the athletes crouch low over the starting blocks. Gay's right foot will be in the rear position on the blocks; Dix prefers to have his left foot in the rear position.

It might be a little awkward, but someone ought to tap Dix on the shoulder and tell him to consider switching the position of his legs. And not just Dix—every sprinter in the Olympics ought to think about starting with his or her right foot in the rear position.

That's the surprising conclusion of an unusual new piece of research that ties sprinters' speed off the starting blocks with the structure of the human brain.

http://snipurl.com/3eui7

I'll look into it. I use google reader right now but only have a couple of science blogs on there. I've been trying to find good ways to keep track of science news that isn't ridiculously dumbed down for years. Maybe this would work.

great reading! thanks kai!

You're welcome. I'm glad someones reading this thread with all the drama going on.

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/decline/orwell1.htm

Summary: Never use a fancy word when an simple one will do. This is not possible when you need to speak in scientific language with precision, but everywhere else it is useful.

As Vonnegut said, pity the reader.

August 11, 2008
DNA Is Just Anthrax Clue, Not Clincher

from the Philadelphia Inquirer

DNA evidence alone wasn't a smoking gun in the case against Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks, say microbiologists and other experts who have read details of the investigation released last week.

Genetic sleuthing was useful in narrowing the list of suspects, they say, but it wasn't conclusive since DNA from bacteria doesn't often carry a unique genetic fingerprint the way human DNA does.

At first, prosecutors seemed to suggest that forensic DNA had solved the case. ... But at least eight other anthrax samples gathered from researchers in the investigation carried the same genetic signature as Ivins' batch at Fort Detrick, Md., court documents say.

http://snipurl.com/3e3f4

Iron Age Warrior with Roman Links Found in U.K.

from National Geographic News

The grave of an ancient British warrior with tantalizing Roman connections has been unearthed in southern England, archaeologists say.

The 2,000-year-old skeleton of the tribal king or nobleman was found buried with military trappings, including a bronze helmet and an ornate shield both of a style previously unknown in Britain, experts say.

The Iron Age man, who died in his 30s, was discovered in June at the site of a new housing development in North Bersted on England's southeastern coast. "What we've found is of national and international importance," said dig team member Mark Taylor, senior archaeologist at West Sussex County Council.

http://snipurl.com/3e3it

An Asteroid Cop Gets Ready to Patrol

from the Christian Science Monitor

Toronto—A satellite the size of a suitcase may soon protect our planet from a catastrophic collision with an asteroid. Dubbed NEOSSat—for Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite—the Canadian craft will be the world's first space telescope designed to hunt asteroids that threaten to slam into Earth.

Several ground-based telescopes already scan the sky for potential dangers, but they only hunt at night and poor weather obscures their view. By circling pole to pole in a sun-synchronous orbit about 500 miles above Earth, NEOSSat can operate nonstop, twirling hundreds of times a day as it photographs sections of space, says Alan Hildebrand, a planetary scientist at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

NEOSSat's six-inch wide telescope has a sunshade that lets it search close to the sun, where potentially hazardous asteroids are concentrated.

http://snipurl.com/3e3cm

A Tall, Cool Drink of ... Sewage?

from the New York Times Magazine (Registration Required)

... When you flush in Santa Ana [Calif.], the waste makes its way to the sewage-treatment plant nearby in Fountain Valley, then sluices not to the ocean but to a plant that superfilters the liquid until it is cleaner than rainwater.

The "new" water is then pumped 13 miles north and discharged into a small lake, where it percolates into the earth. Local utilities pump water from this aquifer and deliver it to the sinks and showers of 2.3 million customers.

It is now drinking water. If you like the idea, you call it indirect potable reuse. If the idea revolts you, you call it toilet to tap. Opened in January, the Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System is the largest of its type in the world.

http://snipurl.com/3e2uk

Barbadians Slam Discovery, Naming of Tiny Snake

from the San Francisco Examiner

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Associated Press)—A small snake has sparked a big debate in Barbados. Residents of the wealthy Caribbean nation have been heating up blogs and clogging radio airwaves to vent their anger at a U.S. scientist, who earlier this week announced his "discovery" of the world's smallest snake and named it "Leptotyphlops carlae," after his wife Carla.

"If he needs to blow his own trumpet ... well, fine," said 43-year-old Barbadian Charles Atkins. "But my mother, who was a simple housewife, she showed me the snake when I was a child."

One writer to the Barbados Free Press blog took an even tougher tone, questioning how someone could "discover" a snake long known to locals, who called it the thread snake.

http://snipurl.com/3do0z

Perseid Meteor Shower To Peak August 11 and 12

from National Geographic News

Unlike short-lived solar eclipses or unpredictable auroras, meteor showers regularly offer skywatchers a dazzling show. Soon the curtain will rise on one of the best of these showers: the Perseids, so called because the meteors appear to originate in the constellation Perseus.

Slated to peak sometime during the night and early morning of August 11 to 12, the shower offers one of the year's best chances to see a shooting star.

Under perfect conditions, observers can expect to see about 90 to 100 meteors an hour, said Wayne Hally, a self-professed "meteor geek" who writes a newsletter for the North American Meteor Network.

http://snipurl.com/3d29l

Invisibility Cloak 'Step Closer'

from BBC News Online

Scientists in the US say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible.

Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them "disappear."

The materials do not occur naturally but have been created on a nano scale, measured in billionths of a metre. The team says the principles could one day be scaled up to make invisibility cloaks large enough to hide people.

http://snipurl.com/3emkm

Cassini to Search for Source of Saturn Moon's Plumes

from New Scientist

On Monday, the Cassini spacecraft will return to Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, passing within 50 kilometres of its south pole. NASA team members hope the flyby will provide evidence for subsurface liquid water containing the building blocks of life.

Previous encounters revealed huge plumes of ice and water vapour venting from blue-green fault lines, or "tiger stripes", that criss-cross the south pole. The source of these jets, which feed Saturn's rings, is hotly contested.

Gathering data about these features has been slow because only a few instruments can be used fully during each flyby. Early budget cuts to the mission in 1992 limited the ability of its detectors to move independently, so some are often on the wrong side of the spacecraft to be useful.

http://snipurl.com/3e3ly

The Recipe for You

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

In episode 17 of the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (Stardate 41463.9), a silica-based life form called a "microbrain" disparagingly describes humans as "ugly bags of water."

Which is true—at least the part about us being bags of water. Every school kid learns that humans are mostly water, albeit in varying amounts. The average adult is about 60 percent water. Newborns are 78 percent; obese people can be less than 50 percent water, since lean muscle tissue contains much more water (75 percent) than fat (14 percent).

But as basic as water is to the human condition, other things are even more elemental, such as the hydrogen and oxygen that combine to make water. Roughly 99 percent of your body's mass is composed of just six elements: oxygen (65 percent); carbon (18 percent); hydrogen (10 percent); nitrogen (3 percent); calcium (1.5 percent); and phosphorus (1 percent).

http://snipurl.com/3e3qn

Snake's Impact on Guam Appears to Extend to Flora

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

One of the most infamous examples of what can happen when a nonnative species is introduced into a new environment involves the brown tree snake—a voracious, semi-venomous species that in less than 50 years all but destroyed bird life on the northern Pacific island of Guam.

Introduced inadvertently from the South Pacific just after World War II, apparently on a cargo ship, the snake has killed off 10 bird species on the island and is in the process of wiping out the remaining two.

The virtual extermination of Guam's birds has been bemoaned for decades, but new research suggests that the damage to the ecology of the narrow, 30-mile-long island did not stop there. The hundreds of thousands of snakes, researchers say, are now changing the way Guam's forest grows ...

http://snipurl.com/3emnt 

A note about the Thread Snake. My advisor says that this is indication we shouldn't use the word "discover" when what we really mean is formally name and describe, because species may be well known to locals but new to science.

I'll join in. By the end of the week I'll have 24/7 internets again, plenty of time to do this.

I think someone took the BGP account.

huh

assuming you know who it was before (and still is), i really wonder why you're thinking this or whether you're just posting without paying attention

He sounds different. I'm guessing.

Sorry, I don't do pictoral requests.

Its pretty true, actually.