Clipmarks | balthazarus's 'biology' clips

Monkey see, monkey do...

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:48:48 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "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."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Biologist sees human morality evolving from the sociality of primates

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

all social animals have had to constrain or alter their behavior in various ways for group living to be worthwhile. These constraints, evident in monkeys and even more so in chimpanzees, are part of human inheritance, too, and in his view form the set of behaviors from which human morality has been shaped

Many philosophers find it hard to think of animals as moral beings, and indeed de Waal does not contend that even chimpanzees possess morality. But he argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.

Tags: biology, morality, society

Girl that doesn’t age

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:29:21 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Strange indeed...

Clip Source: www.zmescience.com

Girl that doesn’t age baffles scientists: a 16 year old is an infant

Physiologically speaking, Brooke Greenberg is an infant with the mind of toddler. Only thing is that she turned 16 just this Janary. It’s hard to estimate the parents opinion, especially as I wasn’t able to find almost any constructive data.

“Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience … had not seen anyone who matched up to Brooke,” Pakula said. “She is always a surprise.”

She is not aging, but it seems that her body is developing as independent parts out of sync. If you were to look at photos, she is unchanged, and there’s no indication that she would be in fact getting any older, and as far as everybody knows, if this continues on, she has no reason to die. She also has a sister, but she’s perfectly normal, so there aren’t any hints here to help solve this mystery.

“Why doesn’t she age?” Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. “Is she the fountain of youth?”

named her condition ’syndrome X’

Tags: biology, mystery

New Glimpses of Life’s Puzzling Origins

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:58:09 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Interesting article. It exposes some of the human's desire to overreach the limitations of its knowledge.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

New Glimpses of Life’s Puzzling Origins

Some 3.9 billion years ago, a shift in the orbit of the Sun’s outer planets sent a surge of large comets and asteroids careening into the inner solar system. Their violent impacts gouged out the large craters still visible on the Moon’s face, heated Earth’s surface into molten rock and boiled off its oceans into an incandescent mist.

Yet rocks that formed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, almost as soon as the bombardment had stopped, contain possible evidence of biological processes. If life can arise from inorganic matter so quickly and easily, why is it not abundant in the solar system and beyond? If biology is an inherent property of matter, why have chemists so far been unable to reconstruct life, or anything close to it, in the laboratory?

The origins of life on Earth bristle with puzzle and paradox

Which came first

In the last few years, however, four surprising advances have renewed confidence

explanation for life’s origins will

emerge

Tags: life

Making fat disappear; or how to augment?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:41:07 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "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.

Clip Source: beta.technologyreview.com

Making Fat Disappear

Engineering mice with a fat-burning strategy from bacteria keeps the animals thin.

transplanted a fat-burning pathway used by bacteria and plants into mice.

The genetic alterations enabled the animals to convert fat into carbon dioxide and remain lean while eating the equivalent of a fast-food diet.

a new approach to combating the growing obesity problem in humans

it may point to new strategies for borrowing biological functions from bacteria and other species to improve human health.

enzymes from E. coli bacteria into cultured human cells and found that they increased the metabolism of fats in the cells

The mice exhibited no visible side effects, although more detailed studies are necessary to verify that.

Clip Source: beta.technologyreview.com

important in terms of finding new strategies to target obesity. Previous approaches

focused on stimulating existing natural pathways" for burning fat. The idea of introducing a strategy from another organism that is not present in the body is a novel one

Tags: biology, genetics, obesity, augmentation

Synthetic biology gets ethical

Thu, 14 May 2009 08:59:15 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: 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.

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Synthetic biology gets ethical

UK centre hopes to blend science, policy and outreach in burgeoning field.

A synthetic-biology centre opening today at Imperial College London is hoping to pre-empt public concerns about the field by integrating social scientists into its research team.

The Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation is the first publicly-funded UK centre dedicated to synthetic biology – the science of designing and building biological components that can perform useful functions, such as producing drugs or biofuels. The Engineering and Physical Science Research Council is providing £8 million (US$11 million) in funding for the centre over the next 5 years.

One of the centre's senior staff is sociologist Nikolas Rose

"The usual position of the social scientists it to be right downstream, this is a rare opportunity to work right at the beginning,"

Rose's team will train graduate students and staff to consider the social and ethical implications of their research

A positive step

People Are Better At Lying Online

Mon, 04 May 2009 15:42:41 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "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?

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Why People Are Better At Lying Online Than Telling A Lie Face-to-face

offering up a fib in person might make you provide certain signals that you’re trying to deceive, but lying online avoids the physical cues that can give you away.

“When people are interacting face to face, there is something called the ‘motivational impairment effect,’ where your body will give off some cues as you become more nervous and there’s more at stake with your lie,” says Woodworth. “In a computer-mediated environment, the exact opposite occurs.”

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Lying? The Face Betrays Deceiver's True Emotions, But In Unexpected Ways

The face and its musculature are so complex—so much more complex than anywhere else in our external bodies

unlike body language, you can’t monitor or completely control what’s going on your face

researchers were able to discern rare “microexpressions,” flashes of true emotion that show briefly, from one-fifth to one-25th of a second, on the faces of participants when instructed to deceive

What if, the alien, is no more than a human?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:17:34 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: 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....

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

A new thermodynamic analysis suggests that 10 of life's 20 amino acids must be common throughout the cosmos

One of the great outstanding questions in biology involves the evolution of the genetic code and the fact it relies on 20 amino acids. How did this system evolve and why use 20 amino acids and not some other number?

We know that amino acids are common in our solar system and beyond. Various first experiments to recreate the conditions in the Earth's early atmosphere have produced 10 of the amino acids found in proteins. Curiously, analyses of meteorite samples have found exactly these same 10 amino acids. Various researchers have noted this link but none have explained it.

They have ranked the amino acids found in proteins according to the thermodynamic likelihood of them forming. This turns out to match the observed abundances in meteorites and in early Earth simulations, more or less exactly

Thermodynamic arguments are as valid on Earth as they are in interstellar gas clouds

To expand knowledge, we must first admit ignorance

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:17:24 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: i would expand the last remark to ones life. So many times we are sure, certain that we know; that any question regarding this knowledge based is a priory deemed irrelevant; and even at times dangerous.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

To expand knowledge, we must first admit ignorance

Indeed, in biology the advances in technology have been so fast that we can now answer questions that a decade ago it would not have made sense to ask, because we did not have the tools to approach them. And even if that were not so, most science is paid for on a short-term basis - three to five years, rather than 10 or 20. This makes long-running experiments difficult to plan or to create.

There are certain sorts of data - long-term data being just one example - that are extremely hard to collect

Of all the limits on expanding our knowledge, unexamined, misplaced assumptions are the most insidious. Often, we don't even know that we have them: they are essentially invisible. Discovering them and investigating them takes curiosity, imagination, and the willingness to risk looking ridiculous. And that, perhaps, is one of the hardest tasks in science.

A prehistoric Erection

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:50:25 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Blogs / 80beats

Researchers Say Fish Fossils Reveal the Earliest Known Erection

Prehistoric fish had sexual reproduction figured out 380 million years ago, a new fossil study has confirmed.

the fossil showed a 2-inch-long embryo within the fish’s body cavity, indicating internal fertilization

Researchers originally thought the tiny bones within the fossil were the remains of the fish’s final meal, but they decided to reexamine

All of these facts proved they were embryos, not prey items

did not have any broken or stomach-etched features

same bone structure

examined the pelvis of the male placoderm, they realized the pelvis had a fin not seen on the female fish

used to grip its mate during fertilization, much as sharks do

These fish have an extra large bone that attaches to the pelvic bone,” [Long] said. “It had been overlooked and hadn’t been identified

this seems to be “the beginning of erectile male fertilisation”

Tags: evolution, biology

Depth is sweet, at least in space.

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:25:43 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Like the Milky Way (Candy Bar), the Milky Way (Galaxy) Contains Sugar

The inventory of ingredients for life that have been observed in space is large and growing

Last November an international team of astronomers made perhaps the most significant such discovery to date: They found glycolaldehyde, a type of sugar, in a Milky Way stellar nursery 26,000 light-years away.

Clip Source: www.iop.org

FIRST DETECTION OF GLYCOLALDEHYDE OUTSIDE THE GALACTIC CENTER^*

Glycolaldehyde is the simplest of the monosaccharide sugars and is directly linked to the origin of life.

We report on the detection of glycolaldehyde (CH₂OHCHO)

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Glycolaldehyde is a key component in RNA, which may have driven the development of the first living cells on Earth. According to study author Serena Viti, an astrochemist at University College London, this is the first time that the molecule has been identified in a region of the galaxy that could be hospitable to life.

researchers have observed more than 140 molecules

increasingly complex organic ones

Tags: space, biology

Creatures of the deep

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:32:03 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Creatures of the polar deep (8 pictures)

Sand-fleas such as Hyperoche capucinus, are common predators swimming in polar waters.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

one of the Antartic's ice fish, can withstand temperatures that freeze the blood of all other types of fish

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

common hydromedusae encountered in Antarctic waters

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

krill, Thysanoessa raschii, is found in high densities under sea ice in the Arctic and its marginal seas, where it feeds seasonally on algae associated with the sea ice

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

hunts for zooplankton prey that it will harpoon with a dart attached to the tongue coiled within it. Its yellow stomach reaches out to feed all parts of the body. About 3cm long

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Sand fleas (amphipod crustaceans) under nearshore ice in the Beaufort Sea. Ice-associated amphipods are a major food source for Arctic cod, in turn the main prey for ice seals

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The ghost-like sea-angel

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

International Polar Year 2007-08 to collect data

studying both poles found 235 species living in both polar regions despite being 6,800 miles (11,000km) apart

Tags: polar, biology

What are the limits of life?

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:58:22 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: 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,”

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Six Sites That Are the Galapagos For Modern Darwins

The once-isolated islands of the Galápagos gave Charles Darwin insights into the dynamics of evolution that changed forever the way we think about the world

we can see evidence of animals’ and plants’ adapting to their environment before our eyes

go for fresh inspiration about how life has adapted

25,000 feet under the sea

images of abundant life nearly five miles beneath the surface of the Pacific

Somehow they’ve adapted to the extreme cold and intense pressure

An Abandoned Copper Mine

metal-eating earthworms

devour toxic heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and copper

The Wilds of New Guinea

New Guinea has 7 percent of the world’s biodiversity

The island harbors some of the world’s most unusual organisms, including kangaroos that live in trees and lizards that have green blood

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

The Canadian Arctic

fossil fish, Tiktaalik roseae

a combination of the limbs, skull, neck, and ribs of four-limbed animals and the more primitive jaw, fins, and scales of fish

Tags: biology, evolution

Are human races evolving away from each other?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:02:51 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Very interesting!

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

They Don't Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To

For decades the consensus view—among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists—has been that human evolution is over.

“natural selection has almost become irrelevant” to us, the influential Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould

a team of researchers

find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche.

Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.

Many of these DNA variants are unique to their continent of origin, with provocative implications.

It is likely that human races are evolving away from each other

Some scientists are alarmed by claims of ethnic differences in temperament and intelligence, fearing that they will inflame racial sensitivities.

Yet even skeptics now admit

some human traits,

are evolving

Tags: human, biology, evolution, genetics

Parasitic butterflies dupe hosts with ant music

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:01:45 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Parasitic butterflies dupe hosts with ant music

the infant forms of blue butterflies can belt out a convincing cover version of a tune favoured by red ants - which show their appreciation by protecting and feeding the butterfly larvae.

Maculinea rebeli

though threatened with extinction - impersonate red ants so faithfully that worker ants worship them as if they were queens, caring for the developing caterpillar even at the expense of their own lives.

the caterpillars descend to the forest floor and secrete ant-like chemicals

colony, workers sacrificed their own kin to save the butterfly larvae - much as they would if a queen ant were threatened. "There must be some form of communication by the butterflies that make the ants think they're royal, and at the same time we were pretty damn sure they weren't by chemicals

Using miniature microphones

captured the tunes made by queen and worker ants

Auditory analysis showed similarities in key acoustic features of the ant and butterfly sound

attraction

Tags: biology

Five mysteries of the universe

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:25:06 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: 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 ?-)

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Five mysteries of the universe

there are scientific phenomena that defy explanation

1 The missing universe

Everything in the universe is either mass or energy, but there's not enough of either

96% of the cosmos is missing

"dark energy" and "dark matter"

2 Life

Next time you see a tree, ask yourself why that is alive when your wooden dining table is not.

3 Death

Here's the flip side: in biology, things eventually die, but there's no good explanation for it

switching genes on and off controls ageing, but if our theory is right, those switches shouldn't have survived natural selection

4 Sex

almost everything in biology uses sexual reproduction rather than asexual cloning

sex is a highly inefficient way to reproduce

At the moment, sex only seems to exist to give males some role in life.

5 Free will

Neuroscientists are almost convinced that free will is an illusion.

our brains allow us to think we are controlling our bodies, but our movements begin before we make a conscious decision to move.

Clipmarks | balthazarus's 'biology' clips

Monkey see, monkey do...

Biologist sees human morality evolving from the sociality of primates

Girl that doesn’t age

Girl that doesn’t age baffles scientists: a 16 year old is an infant

New Glimpses of Life’s Puzzling Origins

Making fat disappear; or how to augment?

Synthetic biology gets ethical

Synthetic biology gets ethical

A positive step

People Are Better At Lying Online

Why People Are Better At Lying Online Than Telling A Lie Face-to-face

Lying? The Face Betrays Deceiver's True Emotions, But In Unexpected Ways

What if, the alien, is no more than a human?

To expand knowledge, we must first admit ignorance

To expand knowledge, we must first admit ignorance

A prehistoric Erection

Blogs / 80beats

Researchers Say Fish Fossils Reveal the Earliest Known Erection

Depth is sweet, at least in space.

FIRST DETECTION OF GLYCOLALDEHYDE OUTSIDE THE GALACTIC CENTER*

Creatures of the deep

Creatures of the polar deep (8 pictures)

What are the limits of life?

Are human races evolving away from each other?

Parasitic butterflies dupe hosts with ant music

Parasitic butterflies dupe hosts with ant music

Five mysteries of the universe

Five mysteries of the universe

FIRST DETECTION OF GLYCOLALDEHYDE OUTSIDE THE GALACTIC CENTER^*