Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch

This is your universe and these are what it's made of.

The much larger original here.

Cork boy 55

Found God!!!!!!!!

near earth object 1991 VG

Due to its unusual orbit and rapid variation in brightness, there was early speculation that it could be a extraterrestrial object.


Steele, D. (1995). "SETA and 1991 VG". The Observatory 115: 78–83.
SETA and 1991 VG

robindch

From the WTF/SciFi drawer:

"You can send them a text file and they'll send you back physical DNA."

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/27/programming-life-with-click-mouse/

Fox News wrote:

Biochemical engineers can now download a piece of software and, with a few simple clicks, assemble the DNA for new life forms through their laptops.

“With the proper computer tools, biologists can write their own genetic code -- and then turn that code into life,” said biochemist Omri Amirav-Drory, who founded Genome Compiler Corp., the company that built the software.
He demonstrated for FoxNews.com at a Starbucks early one morning by manipulating a bacteria's genes on his MacBook.

The left side of the Genome Compiler app lists folders for known viruses, bacteria and other organisms, each storing files of genome sequences, the unique biological stamp encoded in an organism's DNA. The software offers tools to add extra genes, mutate proteins, or toss in a few amino acids. If a particular genetic sequence is not in the list, the compiler downloads it from a library at the National Institute of Health. Once satisfied with the results, a scientist can save her invention to a file, click the order button and ship the virtual creature’s specs to a DNA synthesizing lab such as GenScript or GeneArt, which can assemble actual physical DNA based on the specs.

The synthetic biology app is still in beta; on Jan. 15, the company added an undo feature and support for new DNA file formats. Building creatures is increasingly like word processing, it would seem. But such is the strange reality in the age of cheap genome sequencing, DNA synthesizing and "bioinformatics." A Fulbright Scholar with a Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University, Amirav-Drory has simply merged two fields: computer science and biochemical engineering.

“Computers understand code and living things understand the language of DNA,” he said. The software has built-in biosecurity measures to stop someone from building Ebola and other deadly agents, Amirav-Drory said, and assembling complex creatures that think is still far, far off. But it will let scientists program simple new microorganisms that can clean our air and water or produce energy just by coding their DNA in a certain way. John Cumbers, a synthetic biologist at the NASA Ames Research Center who has been using the genome compiler, says it speeds up his DNA work approximately ten times.

“You . . . lay out all the parts of the genetic constructs that you’re working with and then reconstruct your genetic circuits just by clicking and moving things around on the screen,” he said.

[...]

legspin

Originally Posted by Fox News

Sorry Rob, if they told me the sky was blue I would have to go and check for myself.

robindch

legspin wrote: »

Sorry Rob, if they told me the sky was blue I would have to go and check for myself.

Yes, I concur. However, the gene-compiler website seems legit:

http://www.genomecompiler.com/

and, being an optimistic type, well, Fox News can't lie about everything, can they? :eek:

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Yes, I concur. However, the gene-compiler website seems legit:

http://www.genomecompiler.com/

and, being an optimistic type, well, Fox News can't lie about everything, can they? :eek:

They are bound to slip up and report something factual at some point.

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

They are bound to slip up and report something factual at some point.

Winston Churchill wrote:

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

.

legspin

robindch wrote: »

Yes, I concur. However, the gene-compiler website seems legit:

http://www.genomecompiler.com/

and, being an optimistic type, well, Fox News can't lie about everything, can they? :eek:

Maybe not, but I think you can rest assured you aren't getting the whole truth.

I am reminded of what Harry S Truman said about Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

legspin

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/scientists-uncover-invisible-motion-in-video/?smid=fb-share

If posted before, apologies.

Sarky

robindch wrote: »

Yes, I concur. However, the gene-compiler website seems legit:

http://www.genomecompiler.com/

and, being an optimistic type, well, Fox News can't lie about everything, can they? :eek:

Well I'd believe the software exists, once you have gene sequences it's not hard to string them together. Hell, I've done that in Notepad, which is generally the tool of choice in bioinformatics.

Actually synthesising the dna though, that's a problem. Current technology can't really do more than a few thousand base pairs at a time before the error rate makes longer sequences totally unreliable. When most bacterial chromosomes are several million base pairs long containing up to 10,000 genes, and multi-cellular organisms usually orders of magnitude longer, I'd be fairly confident that Fox have maintained their integrity and stayed away from the whole story.

Gbear

legspin wrote: »

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/scientists-uncover-invisible-motion-in-video/?smid=fb-share

If posted before, apologies.

Wonderful when you see this sort of thing getting released online.

Open source is a very powerful concept.

Kivaro

This is so cool:

Scientists have connected the brains of lab rats, allowing one to communicate directly to another via cables.
The wired brain implants allowed sensory and motor signals to be sent from one rat to another, creating the first ever brain-to-brain interface.

More here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21604005

I can just imagine the numerous applications of this breakthrough.

TheChizler

Gbear wrote: »

Wonderful when you see this sort of thing getting released online.

Open source is a very powerful concept.

Dammit, I'm one version of Matlab away from being able to run that code! I know what I'll be doing in college tomorrow instead of assignment work!

Bannasidhe

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html

As a friend of mine put it 'This will be an interesting controversy. We will have 50% of Americans saying "We have more rights than the Native Americans cos we were here first" and 50% saying "But the earth is only 6'000 years old" The problem is they will be the same 50%.'

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html

As a friend of mine put it 'This will be an interesting controversy. We will have 50% of Americans saying "We have more rights than the Native Americans cos we were here first" and 50% saying "But the earth is only 6'000 years old" The problem is they will be the same 50%.'

Sorry My Lady, I just had to steal the article and your friend's comment.

kylith

A very interesting article. The only thing that would give me pause is that historically some people have planted finds in the US, I've certainly heard of it with Roman coins, but I'm sure that those clever archaeologist will have some way to rule those kind of shenanigans out.

oldrnwisr

Bannasidhe wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html

As a friend of mine put it 'This will be an interesting controversy. We will have 50% of Americans saying "We have more rights than the Native Americans cos we were here first" and 50% saying "But the earth is only 6'000 years old" The problem is they will be the same 50%.'

There's quite a good treatment of this topic here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib1_Ux2g7YM

The rest of the series is well worth a watch too.

Also, AronRa makes a reference to and slightly rambly summary of the above episode here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaWjswiZGgM

robindch

Skynet gets one step closer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jvLalY6ubc

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Skynet gets one step closer:

Skynet 0 - Traffic 1.

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

As a friend of mine put it 'This will be an interesting controversy. We will have 50% of Americans saying "We have more rights than the Native Americans cos we were here first"

Get one of those spinning globes of the Earth. Viewed from the top (the North Pole), the terms east and west, Europe and Asia, become meaningless. What you see is interconnected islands and small easily crossable seas. In those regions today you still have Inuit, Lapps, Samii etc. who are Northern peoples, more than they belong to the West or the East. Finnish is an Asian language. The blonde type of Scandinavians seem to have arrived up there later.
In other words, whether early settlers arrived in America from Europe or Asia, or both, they were probably all "Eskimos."

Gordon

recedite wrote: »

Still, knowing that the last thing they will feel is the water on their tongue starting to boil, makes up for not seeing your nemesis actually explode.

Just before you push him out, tell him: "Good riddance Mr Bond, I have ensured to leave a bad taste in your mouth, literally."

robindch

Dades wrote: »

Skynet 0 - Traffic 1.

Been browsing liveleak's collection of Russian dashcam videos again, have we?

PopePalpatine

robindch wrote: »

Skynet gets one step closer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jvLalY6ubc

Call me back when they build a giant anime mech. :pac:

recedite

Was that robot designed to hurl concrete blocks around the workshop, or was it just having a particularly bad day?

Gbear

recedite wrote: »

Was that robot designed to hurl concrete blocks around the workshop, or was it just having a particularly bad day?

I'm guessing it's a really early prototype for something that clears debris from collapsed buildings, etc..

I'd imagine that in those circumstances rather than ****ing around with this silly robot that has to clippity clop around to stop itself falling a spider-like robot would be better.

I'd imagine that the four-legged sort would be faster on the flat.

Lol - I just reread that and it looks suspiciously like someone pretending to know what they're talking about :P

FouxDaFaFa

Fantastic development. A child born with HIV in the US has been (functionally) cured.

Hotblack Desiato

Without the use of condoms. +1 for Jeezus.

Turtwig

ninja900 wrote: »

Without the use of condoms. +1 for Jeezus.

Was the Child baptised? I'll bet it was that extra sprinkle of Holy Water that dowsed the bad HIV away from this innocent soul.

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Been browsing liveleak's collection of Russian dashcam videos again, have we?

Not yet! Though I did come across a deadly compilation that showed a truckful of live cows spilling across the road. :pac:

PopePalpatine

So it turns out that Christians may not have been so harshly persecuted by the Romans after all. :rolleyes:

Sarky

Something something historical document, mumble mumble logical, cough cough.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

Something something lack of historical documents, mumble no proof mumble logical conclusion, cough church lies cough.

Fixed that for ya.

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

So it turns out that Christians may not have been so harshly persecuted by the Romans after all.

Edward Gibbon said as much in Decline and Fall, in his deliciously savage -- and infamous -- discourse upon the progress of christianity:

Decline and Fall, Chapter 16 wrote:

We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that, even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular character of reformers.

The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by the proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and country at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence and increased the danger of detection.

If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed that the number of Protestants who were executed in a single province and a single reign far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and sufferings of the reformers; we shall be naturally led to inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly bishop and a passionate declaimer, who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.

Liamario

Rwanda: Rising Atheism Among Genocide Survivors

Kivaro

Liamario wrote: »

Rwanda: Rising Atheism Among Genocide Survivors

From the article:

So, what is atheism? "It's is not a religion. Becoming an atheist is more of a journey than a choice. It is a gradual quest for answers about life and the universe as a whole," said Kamugisha Ndahiro, a successful businessman. "Curiosity is paramount, and the need to escape all the dogma we were taught back in school."

Having a conversation with an atheist makes you realise how little you know about your own religion.

"You do not need religion to know what is wrong and what is right," says Ndahiro. "In fact, what religious people do practice is not morality. I consider a moral action as that which is free from promises like a heaven or fear of hell."

Hotblack Desiato

Durrr.

seamus wrote: »

Eamonn Coughlan has suggested [in the Seanad] that people should have to register their passport or credit card before being allowed online.

PopePalpatine

Eamonn Coughlan sounds like this guy:

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0308/1224330912879.html

Dr DNA to visit Dublin as statue unveiled

A 6m aluminium sculpture is being installed at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin to mark the 60th anniversary of DNA, the human genetic blueprint. Dr James Watson and Francis Crick revealed the structure of DNA in 1953. Dr Watson will be in Dublin on April 27th to unveil the piece and to deliver a public lecture on April 28th.

robindch

Next Monday evening, 11th March, Andrew Liddle of Edinburgh University will be giving a lecture on 'Fingerprinting the Universe' in TCD:

http://www.astronomy.ie/lecture201303.php

Sarky

So Israel is currently dealing with a plague of locusts. I really, REALLY hope a Palestinian walks up to the wall shouting "Let my people go!" :pac:

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_07/Israel-plague-of-Egypt-returns/

Kivaro

I find this story fascinating.
It appears that we are older than you thought (or were taught).

A miniscule bit of DNA from an African American man now living in South Carolina has been traced back 338,000 years, according to a new study. The fellow’s chromosome turned out to carry a rare mutation, which researchers matched to a similar chromosome in the Mbo, a population living in a tiny area of western Cameroon in sub-Saharan Africa.

We can now (possibly) call Western Cameroon home.

Here is the gist of the story:

The DNA detective work began after the South Carolinian submitted a small tissue sample to the National Geographic Genographic Project. The researchers were shocked after they noticed none of the genetic markers used to assign lineages to known Y chromosome groupings were found.
They sent the man’s DNA sample to Family Tree DNA for sequencing.
The scientists could then estimate the emergence of the chromosome mutation based on rates of change, creating a sort of “family tree” for the chromosome.

The study has even further implications. It strengthens the belief that there is no “mitochondrial Eve” or “Y chromosome Adam.”

Result:
All of humankind, as a result, did not descend from exactly one pair of humans that lived at a certain point in human evolution.
Say What?

Turtwig

Kivaro wrote: »

Result:
All of humankind, as a result, did not descend from exactly one pair of humans that lived at a certain point in human evolution.
Say What?

You know what.

darjeeling

Kivaro wrote: »

I find this story fascinating.
It appears that we are older than you thought (or were taught).



We can now (possibly) call Western Cameroon home.

Here is the gist of the story:



Result:
All of humankind, as a result, did not descend from exactly one pair of humans that lived at a certain point in human evolution.
Say What?

It's an interesting finding, though journalists have struggled to explain what it means.

The discovery pushes the common ancestor of all modern human Y chromosomes further back into the past - earlier in fact than the first modern humans, but still in Africa.

Y chromosomes still have a common ancestor, as this is a key prediction of evolutionary theory. The same also applies to any other segment of the human genome. However, the date of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) differs for each fraction of the genome. Usually MRCA dates will be older than for the Y chromosome, though they can be younger where recent strong Darwinian selection has been acting (reasons here).

The MRCA of any gene corresponds in each case to a real individual who lived at some time in pre-history. Only for the two DNA molecules that come down the female and male lines have we given the individuals names: 'mtDNA Eve' and 'Y chromosome Adam'. Whether or not these names should be used depends on whether they aid understanding or cause confusion. They have been much abused by creationists, who have misrepresented the science as telling us we are all descendants of just two recent individuals, one man and one woman.

Bannasidhe

darjeeling wrote: »

It's an interesting finding, though journalists have struggled to explain what it means.

The discovery pushes the common ancestor of all modern human Y chromosomes further back into the past - earlier in fact than the first modern humans, but still in Africa.

Y chromosomes still have a common ancestor, as this is a key prediction of evolutionary theory. The same also applies to any other segment of the human genome. However, the date of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) differs for each fraction of the genome. Usually MRCA dates will be older than for the Y chromosome, though they can be younger where recent strong Darwinian selection has been acting (reasons here).

The MRCA of any gene corresponds in each case to a real individual who lived at some time in pre-history. Only for the two DNA molecules that come down the female and male lines have we given the individuals names: 'mtDNA Eve' and 'Y chromosome Adam'. Whether or not these names should be used depends on whether they aid understanding or cause confusion. They have been much abused by creationists, who have misrepresented the science as telling us we are all descendants of just two recent individuals, one man and one woman.

but..but..we are -mummy and daddy.

:pac:

recedite

Kivaro wrote: »

We can now (possibly) call Western Cameroon home.

That particular man's ancestor was probably taken from there.
But the Rift Valley in Kenya and Bloemfontein in South Africa are the two places where the oldest proto-humans are found, so we probably evolved near either or both of these places.

Didn't think it would be worth starting a new thread to ask this and this thread looked the best place for it. :P I was wondering if anyone remembers a recent enough documentary on Channel 4 about trying to find out about Mohammed etc. I think it was on in the last year or so. I may well have imagined seeing ads for it however. :pac:

PopePalpatine

I think it was called "Untold History of Islam".

Kivaro

I am in the middle of reading Dawkins' Selfish Gene, so this story is topical for me.

There is new evidence suggesting that evolution does not proceed inexorably forward in a more or less straight line as many have long believed.

Researchers have discovered that the common house dust mite has undergone “reverse” evolution, changing from a parasitic life form to a free-living one, presenting scientists with a new piece of the evolution puzzle.

This notion of "direction" may be misleading. Isn't it just Evolution?

Kivaro

Kivaro wrote: »

This notion of "direction" may be misleading. Isn't it just Evolution?

Yep, the language thing makes it awkward.
We covered something similar in a lecture recently when the lecturer said pandas aren't going to "go back" to eating what their ancestors did. I'm pretty sure most people understood what he meant but the current thing of "evolution in reverse" smacks of non-scientist journalists torturing things out.

robindch

Kivaro wrote: »

This notion of "direction" may be misleading. Isn't it just Evolution?

There is no "direction" in evolution -- there's just generation-by-generation adaption to changing conditions over time.

One simple example of complex adaptions evolving, but subsequently being lost, are the many species of cave fish, snails etc which used to have colors and the eyes to see them, but which lost both as neither conferred any advantage in the absence of light.