Science & Technology

Three-Quarters of mutations in human protein-coding genes occurred only recently

Christine Hsu
Medical Daily
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:02 UTC

A new study found that nearly three-quarters of mutations in genes that code for proteins occurred fairly recently in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years.

Researchers said that the study, published in the journal Nature, shows that "recent" events have a powerful effect on the human genome, and reveals that the amount of variation or mutation identified in protein-coding genes is very different than the variation that would have been seen 5,000 years ago.

"One of the most interesting points is that Europeans have more new deleterious (potentially disease-causing) mutations than Africans," researcher Dr. Suzanne Leal, professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine said in a statement.

"Having so many of these new variants can be partially explained by the population explosion in the European population," she said. "However, variation that occur in genes that are involved in Mendelian traits and in those that affect genes essential to the proper functioning of the cell tend to be much older."

Astronomers spot massive comet belts in nearby systems

Sean Patterson
webpronews.com
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:01 UTC

Astronomers using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel space observatory have discovered massive comet belts orbiting two nearby planetary systems. The systems, named GJ 581 and 61 Vir, are known to host planets that range in mass from Earth-sized to Neptune-sized.

Neither of the systems shows evidence of planets that are close to Jupiter's or Saturn's mass. Scientists believe that Jupiter is responsible for disrupting our own Kuiper Belt in the past, sending comets raining toward the inner planets millions of years.

"The new observations are giving us a clue: they're saying that in the Solar System we have giant planets and a relatively sparse Kuiper Belt, but systems with only low-mass planets often have much denser Kuiper belts," said Mark Wyatt, lead author of a paper describing observations of the debris disc around 61 Vir and an Astronomer at the University of Cambridge. "We think that may be because the absence of a Jupiter in the low-mass planet systems allows them to avoid a dramatic heavy bombardment event, and instead experience a gradual rain of comets over billions of years."

Ancient microbes found in buried Antarctic lake

Our Amazing Planet
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:45 UTC

© Christian H. Fritsen, DRI Research Professor, and Clinton Davis DRI graduate student
This image shows a scanning electron micrograph of very small (about 0.2 micron) and numerous bacterial cells found inhabiting icy brine channels in Antarctica's Lake Vida, which lies in the Victoria Valley, one of the northernmost of the Antarctic dry valleys.

Beneath the icy surface of a buried Antarctic lake, in super-salty water devoid of light and oxygen that is also cold enough to freeze seawater, researchers have now discovered that a diverse community of bacteria has survived for millennia.

The findings shed light on the extreme limits at which life can live not just on Earth, but possibly alien worlds, scientists added.

Researchers analyzed Lake Vida, which lies encapsulated within ice at least 60 feet (18 meters) beneath Antarctica's surface. Past studies revealed the brine in the lake has been isolated from the surface for at least 2,800 years.

Funneling the sun's energy: New way of harnessing photons for electricity proposed

ScienceDaily
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:45 UTC

The quest to harness a broader spectrum of sunlight's energy to produce electricity has taken a radically new turn, with the proposal of a "solar energy funnel" that takes advantage of materials under elastic strain.

"We're trying to use elastic strains to produce unprecedented properties," says Ju Li, an MIT professor and corresponding author of a paper describing the new solar-funnel concept that was published this week in the journal Nature Photonics.

In this case, the "funnel" is a metaphor: Electrons and their counterparts, holes -- which are split off from atoms by the energy of photons -- are driven to the center of the structure by electronic forces, not by gravity as in a household funnel. And yet, as it happens, the material actually does assume the shape of a funnel: It is a stretched sheet of vanishingly thin material, poked down at its center by a microscopic needle that indents the surface and produces a curved, funnel-like shape.

The pressure exerted by the needle imparts elastic strain, which increases toward the sheet's center. The varying strain changes the atomic structure just enough to "tune" different sections to different wavelengths of light -- including not just visible light, but also some of the invisible spectrum, which accounts for much of sunlight's energy.

Too little, too late? Strategic Defense of Earth - Hypervelocity Asteroid Deflection

LaRouchePAC TV
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:31 UTC

Asteroids and comets will strike the Earth in the future, so what can mankind do to defend itself? Benjamin Deniston interviews professor Bong Wie (Iowa St. U.) and Brent Barbee (NASA Goddard) about their "Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle" concept, designed to utilize a thermonuclear explosive device at very high speeds for scenarios with little warning time before an asteroid impact. The interview was conducted at the Fall 2012 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium, held Nov. 14-15, 2012 in Virginia. NIAC examines early stage concepts that may lead to advanced and innovative space technologies critical for NASA missions in the next 10 to 100 years.

Palm scanners adopted in schools, hospitals despite privacy concerns

Brian Shane
USA Today
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:15 UTC

© Jack Gruber, USA Today
Cranberry Station cafeteria manager Peggy Vincent runs the computer that links the scan to a student's account.

At schools in Pinellas County, Fla., students aren't paying for lunch with cash or a card, but with a wave of their hand over a palm scanner.

"It's so quick that a child could be standing in line, call mom and say, 'I forgot my lunch money today.' She's by her computer, runs her card, and by the time the child is at the front of the line, it's already recorded," says Art Dunham, director of food services for Pinellas County Schools.

Students take about four seconds to swipe and pay for lunch, Dunham says, and they're doing it with 99% accuracy.

"We just love it. No one wants to go back," Dunham says.

Palm-scanning technology is popping up nationwide as a bona fide biometric tracker of identities, and it appears poised to make the jump from schools and hospitals to other sectors of the economy including ATM usage and retail. It also has applications as a secure identifier for cloud computing.

Direction of time fuzzy for subatomic particles

Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:11 UTC

© Greg Stewart, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
In this illustration, two different B mesons are changing between states (represented as colors); however blue-B changes into red-B more quickly than red-B changes into blue-B (a process running in reverse-time, as shown by the backwards clock dial).

Subatomic particles don't care if time moves forward or backward - it's all the same to them. But now physicists have found proof of one theorized exception to this rule.

Usually, time is symmetrical for particles, meaning events happen the same way if time progresses forward or backward. For example, a video of two particles colliding and scattering off each other can be played forward or backward, and makes sense either way. (That's not the case for macroscopic objects in the real world. You can spill a glass of milk on the floor, but if time were to move backward, the milk can't pick itself up and fall back into the glass.)

However, physicists thought there might be cases where time wasn't symmetrical for particles either - where certain events worked with time flowing in one direction and not the other. Now, for the first time, they've found proof of this phenomenon.

Researchers working on the BaBar experiment, which ran from 1999 to 2008 at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, analyzed nearly 10 years of data from billions of particle collisions. They now report that certain types of particles change into one another much more often in one direction than they do in the reverse, confirming that some particle processes have a preferred direction in time.

This is the first solid proof of time asymmetry for subatomic particles.

Scientist: Many pro-GMO corporate biologists own GMO patents, in bed with Monsanto

Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:12 UTC

The lead researcher behind the monumental study that linked Monsanto's GMOs and best-selling herbicide Roundup to tumor development and early death is now blowing the whistle on many corporate scientists who are not just close to Monsanto and profit-harvesting GMO crops - many of them actually have or are seeking their own GMO patents. These patents, of course, enable them to make bountiful amounts of cash. Other corporate scientists are on (or 'were' at one point) Monsanto's pay roll, including former Monsanto executive turned Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA Michael R. Taylor.

Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, a French scientists who has been under assault from Monsanto and pro-GMO scientists, was responsible for perhaps the largest awakening over the dangers of Monsanto's GMO foods that we have ever seen. Not only did the public begin to further recognize the existence and threat of GMOs thanks to his research, but numerous countries like Russia and others actually enacted a suspension on the import of genetically modified maize due to public health concerns.

This, of course, upset the Monsanto-funded corporate scientists who proverbially 'unleashed the dogs' on Dr. Séralini. Even Monsanto released a comment, stating that the lifelong rat study wasn't sufficient to substantiate any real health concerns. The company itself, amazingly, only conducted a 90 day trial period for its GMOs before unleashing them on the public.

Brain, Universe, Internet governed by same fundamental laws, suggests supercomputer simulation

Will Parker
Science Agogo
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:28 UTC

By performing supercomputer simulations of the Universe, researchers have shown that the causal network representing the large-scale structure of space and time is a graph that shows remarkable similarity to other complex networks such as the Internet, as well as social and biological networks.

A paper describing the simulations in the journal Nature's Scientific Reports speculates that some as-yet unknown fundamental laws might be at work.

"By no means do we claim that the Universe is a global brain or a computer," said paper co-author Dmitri Krioukov, at the University of California, San Diego.

"But the discovered equivalence between the growth of the Universe and complex networks strongly suggests that unexpectedly similar laws govern the dynamics of these very different complex systems."

For the simulations, the researchers found a way to downscale the space-time network while preserving its vital properties, by proving mathematically that these properties do not depend on the network size in a certain range of parameters, such as the curvature and age of our Universe.

Cambridge center to study tech extinction risks

Emma Woollacott
TG Daily
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:39 UTC

A proposed new center at Cambridge University will examine technologies, from biotechnology to artificial intelligence, that could perhaps threaten the future of our species.

"At some point, this century or next, we may well be facing one of the major shifts in human history - perhaps even cosmic history - when intelligence escapes the constraints of biology," says Huw Price, the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and one of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)'s three founders.

"Nature didn't anticipate us, and we in our turn shouldn't take [artificial general intelligence] AGI for granted. We need to take seriously the possibility that there might be a 'Pandora's box' moment with AGI that, if missed, could be disastrous."

While there's little doubt that advances in engineering - from longer life to global networks - have brought great benefits to humanity, Price and his colleagues question whether the acceleration of human technologies will increase our chances of long-term survival - or do the opposite.

Thanks, all, for great comments and links. Lots to think about.

ReRan

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HashAttack2

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Gator

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Buffalo_Ken

Science & Technology

Three-Quarters of mutations in human protein-coding genes occurred only recently

Astronomers spot massive comet belts in nearby systems

Ancient microbes found in buried Antarctic lake

Funneling the sun's energy: New way of harnessing photons for electricity proposed

Too little, too late? Strategic Defense of Earth - Hypervelocity Asteroid Deflection

Palm scanners adopted in schools, hospitals despite privacy concerns

Direction of time fuzzy for subatomic particles

Scientist: Many pro-GMO corporate biologists own GMO patents, in bed with Monsanto

Brain, Universe, Internet governed by same fundamental laws, suggests supercomputer simulation

Cambridge center to study tech extinction risks

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