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POPSFreakiest (Lab) Animals The last one is Humanzee: It reads "Ok, so this one doesn't actually exist." But could have... The one I find most intriguing is The spider/goats: A private biotechnology company in Canada has managed to breed goats whose milk contains spider silk, the same things the eight-legged insects use to make webs and considered one of the strongest fibers occurring in nature. The silk is compatible with the human body and can be used to repair tissues and create replacement ligaments. No word on whether the goats are able to climb buildings or rescue damsels-in-distress. About the smart mice: Scientists managed to implant a few of the little rodents with human brain cells amounting to about one percent of their total grey matter. The same group has plans to produce mice with one hundred percent human brain cells, which they have permission to do unless the mice start exhibiting human traits. What, like banding together to escape?
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POPSMirror-Image Clues to Life's Origins From the source: The meteorites did this by providing building blocks with a slight preponderance of that handedness (known scientifically as chirality) that makes life possible. "We know that all amino acids start mirror-image the same, but in living things they have this handedness," said Ronald Breslow, a Columbia University researcher who published recently on the topic. "This change doesn't happen spontaneously, and we've never been able to reproduce it in the laboratory" under conditions similar to early Earth. "The answer to where it comes from looks increasingly like meteorites," he added, "from extraterrestrial bodies falling to Earth. It's a complex story, but we're beginning to understand it better."
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POPSMass Extinction Event On the Horizon? Mass Extinction Event On the Horizon? Nope, were in it now. Any scientist studying some aspect of the environment will tell you that humans are having a massive impact and that the Earth's ecosystem will not tolerate this forever.
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POPSPterodactyl-inspired Robot To Master Air, Ground And Sea The drones have put us into the world of science fiction. The sole purpose for the development is war. Be it that they may save lives ( the last concern of present govts, if the treatment of troops who served in Iraq is any guide), it would seem easier not to invade countries.
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POPSDon't Stress! Bacterial Cell's 'Crisis Command Center' Revealed If a bacteria cell finds itself in a dangerous situation - for example, if the temperature or saltiness of the bacteria's environment reach dangerous levels which threaten the survival of the bacteria -a warning signal from the cell's surface is transmitted into the cell. Using cutting edge electron microscopy imaging techniques the authors of the new research observed that the stressosomes receive this warning signal, and in response several proteins called RSBT break away from the large stressosome. This breakaway triggers a cascade of signals within the cell which results in over 150 proteins being produced - proteins which enable the cell to adapt, react and survive in its new environment.
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POPSNASA Dispatches Rubber Ducks for Science When a sophisticated science probe failed to return any data about whether pools of melted glacial ice were showing up in the ocean, a NASA researcher turned to a decidedly low-tech solution: a brigade of rubber ducks.
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POPSRFK Jr. on Palin's Big Oil infatuation
Now John McCain has chosen as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a diligent student of Big Oil's crib sheets. She's something of a flat-earther who shares the current administration's contempt for science. Palin has expressed skepticism about evolution (which is like not believing in gravity), putting it on par with "creationism," which posits that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago. She used to insist that human activities have nothing to do with climate change. "I'm not one ... who would attribute it to being man-made," she said in August. After she joined the GOP ticket, she magically reversed herself, to a point. "Man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming," she told Charles Gibson two weeks ago. Meanwhile, Alaska is melting before our eyes; entire villages erode as sea ice vanishes, glaciers are disappearing at a frightening clip, and "dancing forests" caused by disappearing permafrost astonish residents and tourists. Palin had to
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POPSHer Ultimate O Now John McCain has chosen as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a diligent student of Big Oil's crib sheets. She's something of a flat-earther who shares the current administration's contempt for science. Palin has expressed skepticism about evolution (which is like not believing in gravity), putting it on par with "creationism," which posits that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago." She's addicted to it baby; it's her sex; it's her power. Who says it only has to turn the big boys on?
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POPSIgnorance and confidence - all wrapped up Sam Harris expresses my concerns perfectly... but I'd also add that by choosing her, McCain has demonstrated he wants to win far more than he is worried about the future of this country.
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POPSJesus Horses and Sarah Palin Sarah "Speaking in Tongues" Palin explains how she believes that dinosaurs and man lived together. This is precisely why the taboo of not discussing one's religion is wrong. This woman's viewpoint needs to be brought out and examined in the light of day. She holds ideas that have consequences in an increasingly technological world. By her own statements, she clearly doesn't have a clue what's going on.
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POPSThe New Science of Fear: Can It Predict Bravery at 13,500 Feet?
"Mujica-Parodi says:"You're kind of like a rubber band, in that when you go up, you come back down right away. You're conserving your sympathetic dominance for when it's actually needed." These results, Mujica-Parodi says, mirror those of my fMRI session. It's not that I stayed cool when I was plummeting toward earth—"You were in actual danger," she says, so "a strong excitatory response was appropriate"—but that when I wasn't falling I suppressed the fear response and conserved my energy. The upshot: I might do well at keeping calm in the face of lethal danger, as most firemen and policemen do. More important, my results seem to reinforce Mujica-Parodi's theory, which could mean that in the future recruiters for the military and law enforcement will have a way to screen applicants for the most suitable training and job assignments. Our conversation turns back to the sky dive. "Would you go again?" Mujica-Parodi asks. "I think so," I tell her. But not right now. Maybe in a fe
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POPSFirst beam in the LHC (CERN) The end of the world is near...But seriously here is a video of that real smart cripple dude explaining what we hope to discover; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/10/scicern310.xml
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POPSInteractive graphic demonstrations of everything "The Wolfram Demonstrations Project: A free source of interactive visualizations, from elementary education to the frontiers of research." Strong on beautiful interactive science graphics - but see broad list of topics at end of clip - machines, business, life sciences, kids and fun, creative arts
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