Science & TechnologyS


Bulb

'I'm with stupid': Another philosopher comes out against Darwin

J. Budziszewski
Underground Thomist
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:02 UTC
i'm with stupid t-shirt
I am not one of those (actually there are very few) who believe that natural selection does not explain anything. Yet the godlike properties attributed to this mechanism are more than a little bit difficult to credit.

Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously wrote, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Did you get that? Nothing.

Yet after urging that "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved," molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick remarked, "It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large role in guiding biological research, but that is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now."

The contradiction between these two scientists is rather odd. If it is enough to study living things without paying attention to natural selection, as Crick thought, then why did Dobzhansky say that natural selection is the one and only key to the study of living things?

I wonder whether part of the explanation might lie in the fact that Dobzhansky was writing not in a journal for biologists, but in a journal for K through 12 biology instructors, American Biology Teacher.

Comment: It's good to see some honesty about the lying that necessarily accompanies Darwinism. The theory is so stupid that the only way to defend it is through lies - whether to others or to oneself. See also:

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Galaxy

Study findings: Our universe may be 2B years younger

Seth Borenstein
AP
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Galaxies in space
© NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech), HUDF 2012 Team via APThis image made available by the European Space agency shows galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2012, an improved version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. A study from the Max Planck Institute in Germany published Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019, in the journal Science uses a new technique to come up with a rate that the universe is expanding that is nearly 18% higher than the number scientists had been using since the year 2000.
The universe is looking younger every day, it seems.

New calculations suggest the universe could be a couple billion years younger than scientists now estimate, and even younger than suggested by two other calculations published this year that trimmed hundreds of millions of years from the age of the cosmos.

The huge swings in scientists' estimates — even this new calculation could be off by billions of years — reflect different approaches to the tricky problem of figuring the universe's real age. "We have large uncertainty for how the stars are moving in the galaxy," said Inh Jee, of the Max Plank Institute in Germany, lead author of the study in Thursday's journal Science .

Scientists estimate the age of the universe by using the movement of stars to measure how fast it is expanding. If the universe is expanding faster, that means it got to its current size more quickly, and therefore must be relatively younger.

The expansion rate, called the Hubble constant, is one of the most important numbers in cosmology. A larger Hubble Constant makes for a faster moving — and younger — universe.

The generally accepted age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, based on a Hubble Constant of 70. Jee's team came up with a Hubble Constant of 82.4, which would put the age of the universe at around 11.4 billion years.
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Bug

Hypersexual zombie cicadas infected with psychoactive fungus discovered

charles the moderator
Watts Up With That
Sun, 15 Sep 2019 11:40 UTC
Psychscape
© Terri Loewenthal The artist“Psychscape 493 (Lassen, CA), 2017,” “Psychscape 06 (Gold Lake, CA), 2017,” and “Psychscape 75 (White Rock Canyon, AZ), 2018,”
If cicadas made horror movies, they'd probably study the actions of their counterparts plagued by a certain psychedelic fungus.

West Virginia University researchers have discovered that a cicada fungus called Massopora contains chemicals similar to those found in hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The fungus causes cicadas to lose their limbs and eccentric behavior sets in: Males try to mate with everything they encounter, although the fungus has consumed their genitals and butts.

Despite the horrid physical state of infected cicadas, they continue to roam around freely as if nothing's wrong, dousing other cicadas with a dose of their disease.

Comment: The rise in unusual communicable infections, diseases and fungi of all kinds appear to be on the rise, both in humans and in the animal kingdom:

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Info

A new understanding of disease - the 'pathobiome'


University of Exeter
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 02:16 UTC
Pathogens
© Massage Magazine
Cefas and University of Exeter scientists have presented a novel concept describing the complex microbial interactions that lead to disease in plants, animals and humans.

Microbial organisms and viruses cause many diseases of plants and animals.

They can also help protect from disease, for example the complex communities of microbes in the human gut, which are very important for our health.

However, very little is known about these microbes and how they cause and prevent disease.

The pathobiome concept opens a door on this unexplored world of microbial diversity and how it controls all other organisms on the planet.

It will change the way we approach health and disease control in animals, plants and humans.

Traditional approaches to describe infectious disease in plants, animals and in humans are based on the concept that single pathogens are responsible for the signs or symptoms of disease observed in those hosts.

The pathobiome concept explains that in reality, disease occurrence is much more complex.

Today sees the publication of a paper exploring the pathobiome concept, a novel way of seeking to understand diseases of plants and animals, including humans.
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Info

MIT engineers have developed the 'blackest black' material to date

Jennifer Chu
MIT News
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Diamond/Blacked out
© R. Capanna, A. Berlato, A. PinatoA 16.78-carat natural yellow diamond from LJ West Diamonds (left), is coated with a new carbon nanotube-based material that is the blackest material on record (the covered diamond, shown at right). The diamond is the subject of The Redemption of Vanity, a work of art created by MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology artist-in-residence Diemut Strebe, in collaboration with MIT engineer Brian Wardle and his lab, on view at the New York Stock Exchange.
With apologies to "Spinal Tap," it appears that black can, indeed, get more black.

MIT engineers report today that they have cooked up a material that is 10 times blacker than anything that has previously been reported. The material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, or CNTs — microscopic filaments of carbon, like a fuzzy forest of tiny trees, that the team grew on a surface of chlorine-etched aluminum foil. The foil captures at least 99.995 percent* of any incoming light, making it the blackest material on record.

The researchers have published their findings today in the journal ACS-Applied Materials and Interfaces. They are also showcasing the cloak-like material as part of a new exhibit today at the New York Stock Exchange, titled "The Redemption of Vanity."
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Biohazard

Failed GM mosquito control experiment may have strengthened wild bugs

Michael Irving
New Atlas
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:01 UTC
mosquito
© Deposit PhotosA trial to control mosquito populations using genetic engineering has gone wrong.
Mosquitoes are more than just a pest - they can be downright dangerous carriers of disease. One of the most innovative ideas to control populations of the bugs has been to release genetically modified male mosquitoes that produce unviable offspring. But unfortunately a test of this in Brazil appears to have failed, with genes from the mutant mosquitoes now mixing with the native population.

The idea sounded solid. Male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were genetically engineered to have a dominant lethal gene. When they mated with wild female mozzies, this gene would drastically cut down the number of offspring they produced, and the few that were born should be too weak to survive long.

Ultimately, this program should cut down the population of mosquitoes in an area - up to 85 percent, in some early tests. This of course means fewer bug-borne diseases, such as dengue, yellow fever, zika, and malaria, in humans. And since the offspring don't live long enough to breed themselves, genes from the engineered bugs should stay neatly out of the gene pool of the wild population. The only visible effect should be the reduction of mosquito populations.

Comment: Yet another example that the biotechnology 'experts' really have no idea what they're doing, and we're all paying the price for their hubris.

See also:

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Comet 2

'Behaving like a comet': Astronomers discover enormous exoplanet with wild, slingshot-like orbit


RT
Sun, 01 Sep 2019 21:53 UTC
Exoplanet HR 5183-b
Exoplanet HR 5183-b's eccentric orbit has astronomers scratching their heads
Astronomers have discovered a gigantic exoplanet with a truly bizarre and extreme orbit that flings it around its star like a slingshot.

Exoplanet HR 5183-b doesn't have the usual circular orbit that most planets have. Instead, the planet, which has three times the mass of Jupiter, has a long, oval orbit and slingshots around in a manner that is more like a comet, exciting new research from Caltech astronomers has found.

"This planet is unlike the planets in our Solar System, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far," said study lead author Sarah Blunt.

Comment: Not only that, it means the planets in our solar system may not always have had their current, stable orbits.

They don't realize it but these astronomers have found supporting evidence for Velikovsky's theory that Venus was once a comet on an eccentric orbit around our Sun.

The inverse to their above scenario is also possible: HR 5183-b may be acting like a comet... because it is (or was) a comet, has been 'captured' by that solar system, and will likely make future dangerously close encounters with other planets in that system, the result of which could be to move it into a more stable, circular orbit.

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Info

Bone marrow may be the missing piece of the fertility puzzle say researchers

Kendall Teare
Yale University
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 22:15 UTC
Pregnancy
© Stock Adobe
A woman's bone marrow may determine her ability to start and sustain a pregnancy, report Yale researchers in PLOS Biology. The study shows that when an egg is fertilized, stem cells leave the bone marrow and travel via the bloodstream to the uterus, where they help transform the uterine lining for implantation. If the lining fails to go through this essential transformation, the embryo cannot implant, and the body terminates the pregnancy.

"We have always known that two kind of things were necessary for pregnancy," says Dr. Hugh Taylor, senior author and the Anita O'Keeffe Young Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Yale. "You must have ovaries to make eggs, and you must also have a uterus to receive the embryo. But knowing that bone marrow has a significant role is a paradigm shift."

Previous research has indicated that, in small numbers, bone marrow-derived stem cells contribute to the non-immune environment of the non-pregnant uterus, but it's remained unknown if and how stem cells affect a pregnant uterus. In this study, the researchers were able to prove the physiological relevance of stem cells to pregnancy.
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Microscope 1

Johns Hopkins to open new $17 million psychedelic research center for treatment of numerous disorders

John Vibes
Truth Theory
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 09:09 UTC
mushrooms
Johns Hopkins University recently announced the opening of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, a facility within John Hopkins Medicine that will be dedicated to studying psychedelics and their potential to be used medicinally.

This research center is the first of its kind in the United States, and the largest of its kind in the entire world. The unprecedented research effort is being made possible thanks to $17 million in donations from private investors. Although, it is important to note that half of those donations were gathered by one person, the best-selling author, and podcaster Tim Ferriss, who also donated $2 million of his own money, in addition to organizing half of the outside investments.

Ferriss was also one of the key investors behind a similar center at Imperial College London, which was said to be the first of its kind in the world when it opened.

Researchers at the new Johns Hopkins facility will be studying psychedelic substances and their effect on the human brain. More specifically, they will be seeking possible treatments for mental health issues like addiction, depression, PTSD, Alzheimer's disease, eating disorders and a variety of other conditions.
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Bullseye

A first: Quantum physicists successfully teleport a Qutrit


Physics.org
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
qubit teleporter?
© unknown
Quantum teleportation has been a term related to qubits for the longest time and recently, researchers have successfully teleported 'qutrits'. The research published on American Physical Society is a major breakthrough that will propel the quantum computation prowess to incredibly faster speeds.

Scientists have been able to teleport qubits, Quantum Bits of information that have binary states - 0 or 1 - but qutrits have three possible states - 0, 1 and 2. Qubits and qutrits have the property of being able to exist in multiple states at the same time, i.e. superposition which allows for amazing applications in quantum computing.

Quantum Teleportation is based on quantum entanglement, through which the properties of a quantum particle can be transferred to a distant particle without physical movement of the particle itself. It is nothing like the 'Warp Speed' or 'Warp Drive' that has been popularized in sci-fi but rather, it is just two interlinked particles revealing the properties of the other particle. Quantum teleportation is possible by using photons which carry the quantum information about the two possible states in case of qubits or three possible states as in qutrits.
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