Clipmarks | Mohir's 'history' clips

Arsenic-eating bacteria rewrite evolutionary history

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:38:03 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Oremland's team isolated and bred these bacteria in the lab. By growing them with with arsenite as the only possible food source, the researchers showed that the bacteria can indeed thrive.
The results suggest that arsenic photosynthesis evolved at the same time, or even before, "normal" photosynthesis. Oremland says a similar mechanism might once have fuelled life on Mars or on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

A new kind of photosynthesis that uses arsenic instead of water to harvest light promises to rewrite evolutionary history - at least that of arsenic metabolism on Earth.

Some bacteria use arsenate - arsenic with four oxygen atoms attached - as an energy source. It was thought that this form of metabolism didn't get going until long after photosynthesis filled the atmosphere with oxygen about 2.7 billion years ago. When this happened, naturally occurring arsenite would be transformed into arsenate.

But Ronald Oremland and colleagues at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, were puzzled by the great range of arsenic-eating bacteria. If they evolved recently they must have passed the ability to metabolise arsenic to each other by lateral gene transfer, he says.

arsenic metabolism could have evolved much earlier, giving plenty of time for bacteria to diversify. Newly discovered bacteria from oxygen-free hot springs in Mono Lake, California, support this interpretation.

Tags: evolution, bacteria, arsenic

How John Lennon Met Paul McCartney

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:01:39 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

how many times have we PonderedAbout those rare
and improbable moments when a chance encounter

with a stranger marked a turning point in our lives?

when we look back, these first meetings seem magical,
synchronistic; and we are likely to wonder what course
our lives might have taken had we just walked past that

someone

one such life-changing meeting is the subject of the
video below; here, Pete Shotton of The Quarrymen

tells of the time John Lennon first met Paul McCartney

[Video]

Tags: music, history, the beatles

Photo Tampering Throughout History

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:58:48 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: see rest of photos in original page,
linked to my previous post:
Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo
http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/D516F80D-C71B-4B53-BB9C-77EA80B8C919/

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Photography lost its innocence not long after it was born. As early as the 1860s photos were already being manipulated—only a few decades after Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the first photograph in 1826. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images has proliferated. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout photography's over 180-year history.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Circa 1860:
This nearly iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln's head and the body of Southern politician, John Calhoun. Putting the date of this photo into context, note that the first permanent photographic image was created in 1826 and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (later to become Eastman Kodak) was created in 1884.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Circa 1865:

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin, routinely airbrushed his enemies out of images.

Tags: photography, fake, history

Humanity Was Genetically Divided For 100,000 Years

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:01:31 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: the study provides insight into the early demographic history of human populations before they moved out of Africa. “These early human populations were small and isolated from each other for many tens of thousands of years,” says Rosset.
MtDNA, inherited down the maternal line, was used in 1987 to discover the age of the famous “Mitochondrial Eve,” the most recent common female ancestor of everyone alive today. This work has since been extended to show unequivocally that “Mitochondrial Eve” was an African woman who lived sometime during the past 200,000 years.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

The human race was divided into two separate groups within Africa for as much as half of its existence, says a Tel Aviv University mathematician. Climate change, reduction in populations and harsh conditions may have caused and maintained the separation.

“We wanted to look into the ancient history of our species. How did we live throughout most of our existence as a species? Did we live as one — or were we fractured into small groups? Until now, it wasn’t really clear,” says Rosset.

Researchers believe that about 60,000 years ago, modern humans started their epic journeys to populate the world. This time period has been the primary focus of anthropological genetic research. However, relatively little is known about the demographic history of our species over the previous 140,000 years in Africa.

The current study returns the focus to Africa and thereby refines the understanding of early modern Homo sapiens history.

Tags: dna, history, human

What is the worst environmental disaster in history?

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:59:53 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Despite the relatively small amount of oil released, several factors contributed to the spill's severity: timing, location, abundance of wildlife and substandard cleanup efforts. In comparison, one of the largest oil spills in history, the rupture of an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that released 140 million gallons (3.3 million barrels) of oil, caused relatively little damage because it happened in the open sea where currents and winds contained it until it disintegrated.

Clip Source: science.howstuffworks.com

The Number One Environmental Disaster: Exxon Valdez

Ironically, the worst environmental disaster in history was an oil spill that doesn't even rank among the top 50 largest oil spills [source: Lovgren]. Yet the Exxon Valdez oil spill is widely considered to be the most disastrous oil spill in the world in terms of its environmental impact [source: Exxon]. The 11 million gallons (or 257,000 barrels) of oil that eventually escaped from the tanker's hull continue to affect the surrounding area [source: Lovgren]. As soon as the ship hit Bligh Reef, the Alaskan body of water known as Prince William Sound became forever changed.

Exxon Valdez oil tanker left Alaska on March 23, 1989, at 9:12 p.m. carrying more than 53 million gallons (1.26 million barrels) of oil. Just three hours later, after the ship ran into a reef, thousands of gallons of oil coated everything within site. All told, the amount of oil spilled was enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 125 times

Tags: ecology, environment, disasters, oil

Legendary Transhumanists

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:10:39 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.acceleratingfuture.com

Some people have left a major mark on transhumanism during its 18-year history. Who are the most legendary transhumanists?

1) Max More & Natasha Vita-More

2) FM-2030

3) Anders Sandberg

4) Nick Bostrom

5) Marvin Minsky

6) Ray Kurzweil

Tags: transhumanists

Reptile giraffe fossils found

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:56:26 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Museum receives reptile giraffe fossils

Bones of a 230 million-year-old "reptile giraffe" found during digs in the Alps' Besano glacier were presented at Milan's Natural History Museum.

While fossils of the Tanystropheus were found previously, those presented to the museum Thursday were exceptionally well-preserved, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

"These skeletons have allowed us to formulate more precise theories" about the species that lived in northern Italy, said Stefania Nosotti, a researcher at the Natural History Museum.

The fossils belonged to three younger "reptile giraffes," so nicknamed because of their long neck which the animal used to approach its prey unnoticed.

Tanystropheus lived in shallow waters but went ashore. On land, they dined on insects and small reptiles while in waters they would feast on fish and mollusks, the researchers said.

Tags: fossil, giraffe

The Origin of the Game of Monopoly

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:17:17 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

The Origin of the Game of Monopoly

Monopoly is the the world’s best-selling board game;
it is produced in 26 languages and sold in 80
countries

Monopoly has been played by over three quarters of
a billion people; making it the most played commercial
board game in history

the origin of this game is recounted in the video
below

[Video]

the soundtrack of the above video is an excerpt from
a Present At The Creation podcast, produced by
National Public Radio (NPR); it can be heard in full
here

Tags: monopoly, games, history

The creation of the Periodic Table of Elements

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 16:12:34 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: A piece of science history,

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

the Periodic Table of Elements is one the most
well know icons in science

its creation, in 1869, by Russian Chemist
Dmitri Mendeleev was one of science’s greatest
achievements; laying the groundwork for
20th century chemistry and physics

the video below gives a sense of the inspiration,
experimentation and breakthrough experienced by
Mendeleev in 1869

it’s the archetypal story of the scientist on the
brink of a world-changing discovery

[Video]

the above video is a brief excerpt from
Stephen Hawking’s Universe

Tags: chemistry, atoms, periodic table

The Moon and Terrestrial Life

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:09:26 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

The Moon and Terrestrial Life

the narrator of the video below makes this striking
claim, “. . . another of the moon’s gravitation effects on
our planet is directly responsible for nothing less than
the continued survival of terrestrial life itself”

specifically, the gravitational effect of moon keeps
the degree of tilt in the earth’s rotational axis
constant; and this, in turn, stabilizes the climate
patterns upon which terrestrial life depends

[Video]

the above video is an excerpt from the
History Channel’s Universe series,

Tags: earth, moon, life, physics, gravity

Spaghettification

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:37:06 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.ponderabout.com

Spaghettification

spaghettification is a term from astrophysics

it refers to the stretching of an object into a
long, thin, spaghetti-like shape

this stretching would occur if the object were
to enter an extremely strong gravity field,
such as that surrounding a black hole

spaghettification originated from a phrase in
Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time

Hawking wrote that an unlucky astronaut passing
within the event horizon of a black hole would be
“stretched like spaghetti”

the video below describes this phenomenon
in greater detail

[Video]

the above video is a brief excerpt from NOVA’s
The Monster of the Milky Way, it can be seen in full
here

Tags: physics, astrophysics, black holes, gravity

The 25 Most Ridiculous Band Names in Rock History

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:56:13 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.cracked.com

The 25 Most Ridiculous Band Names in Rock History

Here's a scenario: You start a rock band, which you just happen to name after spending several hours huffing paint and drinking bleach. You spend a few years playing small clubs until you're discovered by a major label and start selling a lot of records. And suddenly you realize that the stupid name you thought up when you were huffing all that paint is going to follow you around for the rest of your life.

Here are the 25 bands who, regardless of their own musical quality, have the stupidest names on record.

#25-#23: Stealth Ridiculous

These band names aren't as laugh-out-loud idiotic as some of the others we'll get to—in fact, several of our staff admitted that Porno for Pyros was actually a pretty cool name. They're ridiculous in the sense that the more you think about them, the more they make no sense whatsoever.

Porno for Pyros

Tags: music, funny, rock

Google Earth maps history

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:48:03 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Google Earth maps history

Google added historic map overlays to its free interactive online globe of the world to provide views of how places have changed with time.

Google Earth engineers digitized one of the largest US map collections and integrated the information into its program, which lets users virtually navigate the planet and swoop in for closer looks.

The collection of David Rumsey Historical Maps dated from 1680 to 1892 and included Cassini's Globe of 1790; Africa in 1787, and a map of Asia from 1710.

"It is wonderful to see the cutting edge technology of Google Earth introduce people to the geographic history of our world in a new and innovative way," Rumsey said.

"The cartographers who made these historical maps hundreds of years ago would be amazed and pleased to see their treasures in Google Earth."

Google also added an interactive National Geographic quiz focused on Africa.

"Today, anyone hooked into the Web can explore any place on Earth at the click of a mouse." said National Geographic vice president Terry Garcia.

"Caring begins with seeing."

There have been over 100 million downloads of the Google Earth program to computers since it was launched in June of 2005.

Tags: google earth, maps, history