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Stone Age Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:43:37 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

It's more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended.

The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals.

According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.

"This is the first human-built holy place," Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute says in the November issue of Smithsonian magazine.

Yet the three dozen T-shaped standing limestone monoliths arranged around the site are 10 feet high, weigh several tons each and bear detailed, stylized carvings of foxes, scorpions, lions, boars and birds. The builders may not have been farmers, but they weren't primitive.

Tags: religion, civilization, ancient, history, archaeology, holy

How warfare shaped human evolution

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:45:51 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Interesting read.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

IT'S a question at the heart of what it is to be human: why do we go to war? The cost to human society is enormous, yet for all our intellectual development, we continue to wage war well into the 21st century.

Now a new theory is emerging that challenges the prevailing view that warfare is a product of human culture and thus a relatively recent phenomenon. For the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists, psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an integral role in our evolution.

The theory helps explain the evolution of familiar aspects of warlike behaviour such as gang warfare. And even suggests the cooperative skills we've had to develop to be effective warriors have turned into the modern ability to work towards a common goal.

Live

Tags: behavior, anthropology, warfare, evolution

Forget Corn: Mushrooms May Hold Key to Energy

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:06:49 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.bloomberg.com

A solution to the world's energy problems may lie in a Chinese mushroom growing in Novozymes A/S laboratories.

The Danish company's scientists in China, Brazil, Denmark and the U.S. are testing mushrooms and lichen to find one that will turn corn cobs and sugarcane stalks into biofuel. An affordable alternative to gasoline made from plant waste would end concerns that global hunger for energy is driving up food prices worldwide.

Novozymes said it will find the answer by 2010, getting to the market before its closest rival,

Fungi like mushrooms and lichen make enzymes to eat rotting logs and decaying leaves. Biofuel producers use the proteins to break down the complex carbohydrates in plant cells into a soup- like mixture of simple sugars that yeast can eat.

In a process much like making beer, yeast ferments the mixture, producing ethanol.

``In 2010, we will have enzymes commercially available and a process that will allow our customers to produce at around $2.50 per gallon,''

Tags: energy, biofuels, renewable energy, biotechnology

This is made of wood

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:38:05 GMT

clipped by: pcmkrfn
clipper's remarks: Impressive

Clip Source: funpresident.com

Peering into the micro world

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:46:36 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Hi-res at the site.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

A team of University of Michigan researchers has recently created a set of electron microscope images of carbon nanotube structures depicting images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. John Hart, leader of the research team says it wasn't a political statement, but an attempt to draw attention to what is possible these days with nanotechnology, and imaging at the very small scale. I'll take him up on this invitation and share with you some other images of very tiny things in our world. For visualizing the scale, most measurements below are in microns - one micron is a millionth of a meter - human hair is approximately 100 microns thick

Squid Suckers

400 microns

a weevil

its snout is just over 100 microns wide

a leaf from a Black Walnut

protrusion at center is just over 50 microns

A Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gear train

larger gear at center is about 80 microns

Microalgae

Rime on a columnar snow crystal

Pollen

largest one at center is nearly 100 microns wide

brain cells

melanoma cell

To know or not to know?

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:16:42 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: I do not understand nor support her attitude.
What is the 'father' she seeks? someone to blame for misfortunate emotional state? and if she looks him in the eyes, then what? would she understand something?

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

'I could have 300 siblings'

As a child, Jo Rose discovered her father was a sperm donor. At 36, she still hasn't found him. She describes the battle to have her rights recognised, and find her identity

Throughout my childhood, my family would use phrases such as "donor conception" quite openly, but they never acted as if this meant I had a genetic father, or a different paternal family out there, even as I got older.

By my mid-teens, I felt uncomfortable and confused about who I was, but I didn't have the words to verbalise it all. I started suffering from bulimia and bouts of depression - it was like a cauldron of black stuff that would bubble up every so often - but I couldn't have told you what it was about.

What would it be like to look my genetic father in the eyes?

it was dehumanising and deeply upsetting to know that I was bred with plastic gloves

my case helped to lead to a ban on anonymity for sperm donors

naive and deeply focused on themselves and their infertility

Tags: sperm donation

Waiting for the Light...

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:50:06 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "The quality of light influences how we react to what we see, whether we’re looking at a landscape, a building, a person, a picture, whatever. Because the effect takes place on an almost subliminal level, most people go through life totally unaware of it happening"

Clip Source: www.summitpost.org

Waiting for the Light

Though most humans rely on vision more than other senses, I suspect those of us who like to spend time in the mountains are probably among the most visually oriented of people

most people are not aware of the subtle changes in light that occur during the golden hours. There is a good reason for that lack of awareness

Each of us who makes it to adulthood has seen so many things during our lifetimes, our brains have learned to compensate for small changes in light. No matter what we look at, our minds "see" a compilation of similarly lighted scenes that we have been exposed to in the past. Put another way, we typically "see" an average built upon our past visual experiences

if you take a series of pictures of the same thing on a fairly clear day and during the golden hours, the subtle shifts in light quickly become apparent

I took just such a series of shots

nine pictures, also taken over a period of 39 minutes, illustrates the more subtle shift in the color of light.

Anatomy of a false memory

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:35:19 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: A new study now reconciles these conflicting data, by showing that the different regions of the brain previously implicated are involved in different kinds of memory errors. It also pinpoints a specific region as being involved in false memories, and could help researchers better understand how the brain controls memory.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

We believe that memory provides us with a faithful record of past events. But in fact, it is well established that memory is reconstructive, and not reproductive, in nature. In retrieval, a memory is pieced together from fragments, but during the reconstruction errors creep in due to our own biases and expectations.

Generally, these errors are small, so despite not being completely accurate, our memories are usually reliable. Occasionally, there are too many errors, and the memory becomes unreliable. In extreme cases, memories can be completely false.

False memory, or confabulation, is completely unintentional, and can occur spontaneously due, for example, to the suggestive power of a leading question or a doctored photograph. It can also following frontal lobe damage due to tumours, head injuries, or ruptured arteries.

Studies of confabulation have providing confusing results, mainly because they have implicated several different regions of the frontal lobes.

Tags: neuroscience, brain, memory, anatomy

Planet Earth: An Illustrated History

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:45:14 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.time.com

A stunning new photography book captures the natural miracles of the world we live in

Clip Source: www.time.com

Clouds

Clip Source: www.time.com

The Sun

Clip Source: www.time.com

Ice

Clip Source: www.time.com

Snowflake

Clip Source: www.time.com

Cavern

Clip Source: www.time.com

Formation

Clip Source: www.time.com

Geyser

Clip Source: www.time.com

Limestone

Clip Source: www.time.com

Sea Life

Clip Source: www.time.com

Meltwater

Tags: planet, earth, photography

The Answer Terrifies Them

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:23:33 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: Foreign terrorism against Americans would disappear along with the need for a "war on terror." Civil liberties that were suspended could be restored. A sense of balance and harmony could return to our lives.

Ending interventionism would mean that the era of big government in foreign affairs could be brought to an end.

Clip Source: mwcnews.net

Ron Paul suggested that U.S. foreign policy motivated the 9/11 terrorists

the Republican establishment suggested that Paul was "blaming America" for the 9/11 attacks. That's because they think that the federal government is America.

U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East generated the anger that motivated the 9/11 terrorists.

the stationing of U.S. troops on Islamic holy lands

and the long-time, unconditional financial and military aid provided the Israeli government.

By invading Iraq the U.S. government was engaging in the same course of interventionist conduct that had produced prior acts of terrorism against the United States

The 9/11 terrorist attacks also generated the "war on terror,"

omnipotent power to the CIA

ever-increasing budgets for the military-industrial complex

an endless stream of color-coded fear-mongering

there is an obvious solution

End the U.S. government's role as international policeman, invader, intervener, interloper, provider, and sanctioner.

Tags: the bogus war on terror, interventionism, mic

Palin as Yoda

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:33:08 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: When home you finally go, miss you I will not.

Clip Source: blogs.tnr.com

Ms. Palin used the term “Sarah-centric” to describe her campaign rallies, arguing that fans were responding to her more as a symbol than as a person. “But not me personally were those cheers for,” she said to Ms. Van Susteren in an interview shown Monday night on Fox News.

Tags: palin, go home

My Best Friend...

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:05:12 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Keeps me warm.

Clip Source: bp0.blogger.com

FDR 2.0

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:20:20 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Obama's weekly presidential address will be posted on YouTube.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

President-elect Obama's office gave the media a new way to present him as Franklin Roosevelt 2.0 by announcing Friday that it will be posting weekly addresses - fireside chats for the web generation - on YouTube.

The first address will appear on Change.gov this Saturday, after it airs in audio. An Obama spokesperson says that this innovation is just the beginning of the digital, transparent presidency. The plan appears to be in the mold of what the campaign did with videos like "Four Days in Denver" and Campaign Manager David Plouffe's conversations on the state of the race. These videos allowed supporters to feel like they had a direct connection to the campaign, a connection that bypassed the media.

An Intellectual Makeover

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:46:49 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

For the women in her neighborhood, Nazanin Gohari has become a savior of minds.

A few years back, the part-time hairdresser-turned-community activist transformed her shabby apartment into a library for women, collecting secondhand books to fill the makeshift shelves in her living room.

For Gohari, helping the teen became a mission, one of many. She scoured the city for the study books, relatively cheap by Western standards but a fortune for Iran's poor.

"She was ashamed because she couldn't afford the books," Gohari said.

The older woman put her hand out to the girl. "I said, 'Study here.' " And then Gohari handed her the books.

Instead of creating a powerful new Islamic generation, they pushed the country into the modern age, raising the ambitions and savvy of young Iranians, half of them women, who began to question society's rules and strictures.

The Promise and Power of RNA

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:29:20 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: RNA interference, or RNAi, discovered only about 10 years ago, is attracting huge interest for its seeming ability to knock out disease-causing genes. There are already at least six RNAi drugs being tested in people, for illnesses including cancer and an eye disease.

And while there are still huge challenges to surmount, that number could easily double in the coming year.

“I’ve never found a gene that couldn’t be down-regulated by RNAi,” said Tod Woolf, president of RXi Pharmaceuticals, one of the many companies that have sprung up in the last few years to pursue RNA-based medicines.

The two scientists credited with discovering the basic mechanism of RNA interference won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006, only eight years after publishing their seminal paper. And three scientists credited with discovering the closely related micro-RNA in the 1990s won Lasker Awards for medical research this year.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

People whose bodies make an unusually active form of a certain protein tend to have dangerously high levels of cholesterol. Those with an inactive form of the protein have low cholesterol and a low risk of heart attacks.

pharmaceutical companies would love to find a drug that can attach itself to the protein and block its activity. That might be difficult for this protein, which is called PCSK9.

But a powerful new approach, called RNA interference, may surmount that obstacle. Instead of mopping up a protein after it has been produced, as a conventional drug would do, RNA interference turns off the faucet, halting production of a protein by silencing the gene that contains its recipe.

In monkeys, a single injection of a drug to induce RNA interference against PCSK9 lowered levels of bad cholesterol by about 60 percent, an effect that lasted up to three weeks. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the biotechnology company that developed the drug, hopes to begin testing it in people next year.

Tags: molecular biology, rnai, medicine