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POPSMonkey see, monkey do... "These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality. De Waal sees human morality as having grown out of primate sociality, but with two extra levels of sophistication. People enforce their society's moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. They also apply a degree of judgment and reason, for which there are no parallels in animals." Natural selection favors organisms that survive and reproduce, by whatever means. And it has provided people, he writes in "Primates and Philosophers," with "a compass for life's choices that takes the interests of the entire community into account, which is the essence of human morality."
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POPSMaking fat disappear; or how to augment? "the study borrows strategies from synthetic biology, a field that has for the most part focused on engineering new functions into bacteria and other lower organisms. The study suggests that the same concepts could be applied to mammals: just as we create bacteria that produce biofuels, we could introduce new abilities into the bodies of humans and other animals." A new path in the road of augmenting the specification of a said specie.
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POPSSynthetic biology gets ethical An interesting and important move. In these days there is a real need to implement ethical thinking together with the technological developments. Only then will the transition to a new era may become smoother.
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POPSPeople Are Better At Lying Online "They also tested a hypothesis originating with Charles Darwin in 1872—that there are certain specific facial actions that cannot be created just because we want them to. As well, facial actions may be involuntarily expressed in the presence of a genuine emotion. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin noted: “A man when moderately angry, or even when enraged, may command the movements of his body, but … those muscles of the face which are least obedient to the will, will sometimes alone betray a slight and passing emotion.” How biased are humans to their physical physiological signals.. why? Is this frail biology anymore real?
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POPSWhat if, the alien, is no more than a human? These same thermodynamic arguments should also hold on Earth-like planets elsewhere in the cosmos. And if that's the case, then ET may not be so alien after all, as Higgs and Pudritz imply with the extraordinary conclusion to their paper: "The combined actions of thermodynamics and subsequent natural selection suggest that the genetic code we observe on the Earth today may have significant features in common with life throughout the cosmos." Now that's a thought....
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POPSWhat are the limits of life? The Chihuahuan Desert: Scientists have found that about half of the organisms at Cuatro Cienegas are most closely related to marine life, even though the oases here have not been in contact with the ocean for tens of millions of years. The Intensive Care Unit: “We keep inventing new antibiotics, but bacteria evolve resistance almost immediately, so we’re constantly playing catch-up,” he says. “How can we make the best use of the antibiotics we’ve got now? We’re using mathematical models to generate hypotheses about how we can shape and alter prescription practice to minimize or delay the evolution of resistance.” “It’s Darwinism at its finest,”
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POPSFive mysteries of the universe The things that look so trivial, and so many times go unnoticed, when one begins to question them, it feels strange and maybe even threatening. Or exciting ?-)
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POPSHow did the zebra get his stripes? And to summarize it: "Astonishingly, the functional significance of pelage coloration in most large charismatic black and white mammals that were new to science 150 years ago still remains a mystery."
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POPSOn the Origin of Species
A must read. "the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world, which inevitably follows from their high geometrical powers of increase, will be treated of. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. This fundamental subject of Natural Selection" "namely, that each species has been independently created - is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable" The first of our six abridged extracts; can't wait for the res
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POPSReverse evolution in real-time These findings provide further insights into the basic understanding of how evolution and diversity are generated and maintained. On the one hand, it provides evidence for evolution happening through changes in the distribution of alleles in a population (so-called standing genetic variation), from generation to generation, rather than the appearance of mutations, from one generation to the next. On the other hand, as Henrique notes, 'It has implications for the definition of biodiversity: some of the 'reversed' flies may be phenotypically identical to the ancestral flies, but they are genetically different. How then do we define biodiversity?' interesting experiments.
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POPSThe blurry line between life, nonlife Twitches of life are showing up where life shouldn't exist. In southern Africa, for example, scientists burrowed 2 miles beneath the earth's surface,discovering bacteria that feed on radioactive rocks. "That's crazier than any science fiction," said Pratt, part of the team that made the 2006 discovery. "This is life that shouldn't be there. Except it is." interesting concept.
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POPSA new hobby- Biohackers interesting story, i find it pointing to the shifting balance of knowledge, from central locations to the periphery. it is A big change. the high level of availability enables an individual somewhere to make a difference.
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POPSRethinking science and religion "But at the same time, we have uncovered profound mysteries - dark matter and dark energy, for example, 95 percent (!) of the cosmic order but of unknown character - and these awaken a tangible sense of humility: We do not know it all. Today, religious people have cause to rejoice. The god of the gaps may be dead, but spiritual life is reinvigorated because God is no longer just the perfunctory explanation for mystery. God is the author of wonder." i think that behind science wonder exists, its parallel in religion is bewilderment.
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POPSBiological clock... Interesting account from a female point of view on how the biological clock is perceived. Is it the most basic of human experience? i am not sure.
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POPSAntarctic peninsula marine life The first comprehensive inventory of sea and land animals around the South Orkney islands off the tip of the Antarctic peninsula has revealed a region rich in biodiversity, with more species than the Galapagos
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POPSSexual strategies Breaking it down to the genes and fertility percentages does create a nice twist sometimes to the world of sex, and being a human. ;-)
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POPS'Supermice' who can resist cancer and age almost half as fast as normal "By simultaneously increasing the amounts of telomerase and the resistance to cancer we are able to delay ageing in mice and also to extend their life span by 40 per cent," said Maria A. Blasco, from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), who carried out the study with colleagues from Valencia University. "These mice get to live for as long as the eldest mice in records of the same kind. "If we were to parallel it to humans, then it would mean reaching 120 years of age and also to start ageing much later in life." Now the question is what will we do in the added time?
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