Clipmarks | syncopath's Pops

Can Genetic Information Be Controlled By Light?

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:33:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks:

It has been known for many years that the individual bases that code the genetic information contained in DNA show a high degree of photostability, as the energy that they take up from UV radiation is immediately released again. Surprisingly, however, it is found that in DNA, which consists of many bases, those mechanisms are ineffective or only partially effective. It seems that the deactivation of UV-excited DNA molecules must instead occur by some completely different mechanisms specific to DNA, which are not yet understood.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2008) — DNA, the molecule that acts as the carrier of genetic information in all forms of life, is highly resistant against alteration by ultraviolet light, but understanding the mechanism for its photostability presents some puzzling problems. A key aspect is the interaction between the four chemical bases that make up the DNA molecule. Researchers at Kiel University have succeeded in showing that DNA strands differ in their light sensitivity depending on their base sequences.

Tags: dna, genetics, light, photostability, science

Scientists adapt economics theory to trace brain's information flow

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:01:19 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Scientists believed the frontoparietal cortex was influencing the visual cortex, but the brain scanning approach they were using, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can only complete scans about once every two seconds, which was much too slow to catch that influence in action. When researchers applied Granger causality, though, they were able to show conclusively that as volunteers waited for the stimulus to appear, the frontoparietal cortex was influencing the visual cortex, not the reverse.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Scientists have used a technique originally developed for economic study to become the first to overcome a significant challenge in brain research: determining the flow of information from one part of the brain to another.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Florida Atlantic University report the new capability in The Journal of Neuroscience. It will provide important insights into brain organization and function, advancing efforts to help patients recover from brain injuries and mental disorders.

The approach involves comparisons of streams of data known as time series, such as fluctuations in the stock market index and changes in employment levels.

author Steven L. Bressler, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University, suspected the technique might help reveal if one brain area was passing data to or influencing another brain area.

Tags: brain, information flow in the brain

Challenging Dogmatism in Science

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:56:22 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: David Lorimer in coversation with Dr.Rupert Sheldrake and Dr.Peter Fenwick. Made for the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Clip Source: video.google.com

[Video]

Tags: consciousness, science, dogma, sheldrake, fenwick

death by noise

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:38:02 GMT

clipped by: mona

Clip Source: afp.google.com

'Acoustic smog' is major threat to whales, say researchers

Underwater cacophony caused by commercial and military ships has become so intense that it is killing whales, scientists at the World Conservation Congress here say.

Just as air pollution reduces one's field of vision, "noise pollution in the sea reduces the zone in which whales can feed and hampers their ability to communicate

Recent research on a population of some 300 sperm whales living around the Canary Islands provide an unique window onto the problem.

Sperm whales normally migrate, but the squid upon which they feast are so plentiful in these waters that this group has made the region their permanent home

Some forms of noise pollution are so powerful that "a whale can be killed outright by the shock,"

Sonars used by the military and the oil industry can exceed 230 decibels in volume, and can be deadly within a one- or two-kilometer

radius

Eighty-five decibels

can cause permanent damage to the human ear

Sexiest Electric Cars from the Paris Auto Show

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:19:44 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: earth2tech.com

This year’s Paris Auto Show is turning out to be the most electrifying one yet, with car makers from all over the world debuting their electric vehicles. The offerings range from far-flung concept cars to very real production models. Solar roofs are a popular theme and lithium-ion battery packs abound. While it will take years to get the world’s cars off petroleum, electric transportation is imminent and the showing in Paris offers a glimpse of what that will look like.

Venturi - Volage

Renault - Z.E. Concept

Chevrolet - Volt

Daimler & Smart - smart fortwo ed

Nissan - Nuvu

Pininfarina - B0 (B Zero)

China Automobile - Chika

Audi/Volkswagen - VW Up! (Maybe)

Tags: cars, green

GeoEye-1, Google's Satellite Sends First Image

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:43:41 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: In an interview for Wired magazine, GeoEye's vice president of communications and marketing, Mark Brender, explained, “This is the opposite of a spy satellite. Spies don't put info on the Internet and sell imagery. We're an Earth-imaging satellite, and we can sell our imagery to customers around the world who have a need to map and measure and monitor things on the ground. We're commercializing a technology that was once only in the hands of the governments. Just like the internet, just like GPS, just like telecom – all invented by the government. And now we are on the front end of the spear that is commercializing this technology.”

Clip Source: news.softpedia.com

The picture shows a high resolution view of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania

Clip Source: news.softpedia.com

Since its launch, on September 6^th this year, Google's top-notch satellite has constantly been fine-tuned in order to get even more accurate results. The ultra-high definition images that it is able to provide make GeoEye-1 the world's best commercial satellite.

The state-of-the-art device's first public attempt consisted of a top-down accurate view of Pennsylvania's Kutztown University

Google's next satellite, GeoEye-2, will be able to provide 25-centimeter resolution images, but Google will still be restricted to their 50-centimeter limitations. The launch of GeoEye-2 is set for sometime in 2011 or 2012.

Jews Protect Palestinians in Harvest of Hate

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:15:19 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: It is always good to find examples of Godliness and humanity beneath the global hurricane of violent hatred, vicious condemnation, shrill hysteria and poisonous anger.

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

In the shade of the trees where they have been picking olives all morning, in this wadi, south-east of Nablus, a Palestinian farmer, Jamal Otman Koarik, and two of his daughters share a lunch of home-baked bread, zatar, oil, courgettes and salad with three visitors. It's a bucolic scene that could have happened any time in the past century. But what makes it notable in 2008 is that the guests who have been helping Mr Koarik pick the olives are Israeli Jews: a rabbi, an anthropologist and a youth worker, Hellela Siew.

Asked why he and his volunteers make this often risky mission each year, the US-born rabbi says "if we really believe" the Biblical text that all human beings are made in God's image, "we have got to put our money where our mouth is and be here in an active way to defend human rights". And he also cites the "dialogue of the olive groves" in which Israelis and Palestinians who "have to live and die here together" have "no choice but to communicate"

Tags: palestine-israel

American Fascism

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:01:57 GMT

clipped by: darkduskx

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Democracy Now: American Fascists Pt. 1

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

American Fascists, Chris Hedges on The Hour (CBC)

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

American Fascist

[Video]

A "Christian" Cure for Homosexuality

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:20:00 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Bastards.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

"How many of you are in need of some hope here tonight?” A murmur passes through the dark auditorium, pleasing the man with the microphone. Heads nod. “How many of you are at the end of your rope?” he continues. “How many are ready for an encounter with the Lord?” The man on stage, dressed in chinos and a crisp white shirt, is Alan Chambers. The clean-cut, married father of two is the leader of Exodus International, an organisation that believes it can help people to “find freedom from homosexuality through the love of Jesus Christ”.

“Am I in denial?” he asks. “Absolutely. I live a life of denial and I love it. I didn't choose my same-sex feelings but I do choose how I'm going to steward them. Freedom is possible.” At Exodus people are not gay; they “struggle with same-sex attraction” (SSA).

“The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality,” says Chambers, sagely. “It's holiness.”

Tags: heathens

Even When You Sleep, Your Brain Is Awake

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:05:15 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

Sleep in man is divided in two main phases : non-REM sleep, which occupies most of our early sleep night, and REM sleep, during which our dreams prevail. Non-REM sleep is usually considered as a compensatory ‘resting’ state for the brain, following the intense waking brain activity. Indeed, previous brain imaging studies showed that the brain was less active during periods of non-REM sleep as compared to periods of wakefulness.

Although not rejecting this concept, researchers from the Cyclotron Research Centre of the University of Liège in Belgium and from the Department of Neurology of Liege University Hospital demonstrate that, even during its deepest stages (also called ‘slow-wave-sleep’), non-REM sleep should not be viewed as a stage of constant and continuous brain activity decrease, but is also characterized by transient and recurrent activity increases in specific brain areas.

Tags: neuroscience, sleep

World's first flying car, to ship late next year

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:29:29 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: dvice.com

[Video]

Flying cars are all hat, no cattle. But wait. What's this? A flying car that will actually exist, roll on real streets and highways and then take off into the wild blue? You betcha. Pony up your $194,000, and by the end of next year you'll be cruising skyward in a 1300-pound Terrafugia Transition and then parking it in your garage when you're done. It's more like a drivable airplane, but we'd rather call it a flying car.

Let's do a walkaround. Out back is a push prop, and the front canard does double duty as a wing and bumper. Its gas engine will push it over a range of 460 miles through the air. Look at the cool way the wings fold up into a compact package, completing its metamorphosis from airworthy flying machine to street-legal road rocket.

The first flying prototype is scheduled to take off next month. Nice. Covert that prop to a jet engine and give it vertical takeoff capabilities, and we'll be living in the future.

Tags: transportation, gudgets

save our words

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:32:21 GMT

clipped by: mona

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

It may appear agrestic to ask, but The Times is calling on its readers to come to the rescue of words that risk fading into caliginosity.

Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book.

Will you vote to save them? Some of the words heading for extinction

Abstergent

Agrestic

Apodeictic

Caducity

Caliginosity

Compossible

Embrangle

Exuviate

Fatidical

Fubsy

Griseous

Malison

Mansuetude

Muliebrity

Niddering

Nitid

Olid

Oppugnant

Periapt

Recrement

Roborant

Skirr

Vaticinate

Vilipend

Learning How Not To Be Afraid

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:35:41 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: When Kandel's team used radiation to blunt the birth of new cells in the dentate gyrus, they discovered that their interventions both slowed safety learning and stunted the antidepressant effects of learned safety.

Another study that points to the origin of fear as a biological entity. the glitch is it turning into anxiety.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Learning How Not To Be Afraid

experiments in which they conditioned mice to feel safe in stressful situations

The behavioral changes observed in the mice squelched anxiety as effectively as antidepressant drugs

The new study is noteworthy because it reveals in elegant detail how behavioral conditioning can affect the brain.

Two types of fear, instinctive and learned, have deep evolutionary roots and are essential for survival.

But in some people, pathological forms of learned fear can lead to debilitating anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or depression

"The ability to identify, develop, and exploit conditions of safety and security is central to survival and mental health

taught mice to associate a specific audible tone with protection from an impending averse event

We found that the mice trained for safety could overcome their sense of hopelessness in the swim test

conditioned for safety had a greater number of newborn cells in the dentate gyrus

Tags: fear, neuroscience

Vigrin Birth

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:53:50 GMT

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

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Scientists: DNA testing proves Virginia shark's pup a 'virgin birth'; 2nd case ever confirmed

scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.

Virgin birth has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and has been suspected among sharks in the wild. The scientists who studied the Virginia and Nebraska sharks said the newly formed pups acquired one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development, then united anew.

"It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth," Chapman said

their findings offer "intriguing questions" about how frequently automictic parthenogenesis occurs in the wild

Tags: sharks, birth, stress

DNA could reveal your surname

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:11:56 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Cool and... frightening

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Scientists at the world-leading Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester – where the revolutionary technique of genetic fingerprinting was invented by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys- are developing techniques which may one day allow police to work out someone's surname from the DNA alone.

Doctoral research by Turi King has shown that men with the same British surname are highly likely to be genetically linked. The results of her research have implications in the fields of forensics, genealogy, epidemiology and the history of surnames.

Dr King said: "In Britain, surnames are passed down from father to son. A piece of our DNA, the Y chromosome, is the one part of our genetic material that confers maleness and is passed, like surnames, from father to son. Therefore, a link could exist between a man's surname and the type of Y chromosome he carries. A simple link between name and Y chromosome could in principle connect all men sharing a surname into one large family tree.

Tags: dna, genealogy, forensics