Category Archives: Research

Beyond Genetics in DNA

Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA by Nicholas Wade:

The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.
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Jerry Workman of the Stowers Institute in Kansas City said the detection of the nucleosome code was “a profound insight if true,” because it would explain many aspects of how the DNA is controlled.

Reducing Risk of Diabetes Through Exercise

A Diabetic Battle of the Bulge by Diane Garcia

Diabetes appears to be written into some people’s genes, but with the right diet and exercise, the disease may never surface, according to a new study.
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In the lifestyle modification group, however, even individuals with two copies of the variant were no more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than participants without the variant, the team reports 20 July in the New England Journal of Medicine

Update – AAAS broke the link so I removed the link. I hope those responsible for web sites eventually take the time to learn what that responsibility entails: Web Pages Must Live Forever. I find these failures to follow the most basic web usability practices displayed most often in organizations where burocrates that don’t understand technology make decisions on how web sites should work instead of allowing those that have the necessary understanding of the technology do so.

Robot Learning

photo of robot dog playpen

This is very cool stuff:

Indeed, as opposed to the work in classical artificial intelligence in which engineers impose pre-defined anthropocentric tasks to robots, the techniques we develop endow the robots with the capacity of deciding by themselves which are the activities that are maximally fitted to their current capabilities. Our developmental robots autonomously and actively choose their learning situations, thus beginning by simple ones and progressively increasing their complexity. No tasks are pre-specified to the robots, which are only provided with an internal abstract reward function. For example, in the case of the Intelligent Adaptive Curiosity which we developped, this internal reward function pushes the robot to search for situations where its learning progress is maximal.

Very interesting article from Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris (Developmental Robotics): Discovering Communication by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Frederic Kaplan, abstract:
Continue reading →

CERN Tour webcast

Tour the underground accelerator at CERN – webcast led by the scientists who work there.

Featuring interviews with physicists Brian Cox (University of Manchester), Jon Butterworth (University College London) and Albert de Roeck (Antwerp University), Lords of the Ring explains why so many scientists are pinning their hopes on this experiment’s potential to answer some of the biggest questions in science.

More science and engineering webcast posts.

Bacteria Living in Glacier

photo of sulfur stained snow in the Artic

Arctic Expedition lead by the Arctic Institute of North America to explore bacteria living in an artic glacier. The photo shows sulfur site with living bacteria.

More information on the study:

Grasby also sent some of the water and mineral samples to specialized laboratories to investigate whether bacteria or other microbes may have been involved in the precipitation of native sulfur and vaterite. Cell counts and DNA analyses confirm that cold-loving bacteria are present in the spring system. It appears that complex communities of bacteria live within the ice system, and that microbially mediated sulfate reduction is probably widespread.

NASA took interest in this evidence of life in extreme conditions.

Following publication of a first article describing the new discovery, astrophysicists and planetary scientists associated with NASA expressed the views that this unique example of life in an extreme ecosystem (bacteria living within or beneath a glacier and performing mineral transformation on Ellesmere Island is an extreme ecosystem) may actually be a perfect analogue to what life may look like on another planetary body of our Solar System – Europa – a moon of Jupiter.

Bacteria Sprout Conducting Nanowires

photo of Bacteria with Conducting Nanowires

Bacteria made to sprout conducting nanowires by Mason Inman

Bacteria that use sugars and sewage as fuel are being investigated as a pollution-free source of electricity. They feed by plucking electrons from atoms in their fuel and dumping them onto the oxygen or metal atoms in the mixture. The transfer of the electrons creates a current, and connecting the bacteria to an electrode in a microbial fuel cell will generate electricity, although not necessarily very efficiently.

Continue reading →

Meerkats Teach Their Young

School is in for meerkat youngsters (broken link – poor usability):

Researchers from the University of Cambridge in England observed meerkats gradually introducing cubs to prey, showing them how to handle captured insects and even removing the stingers from scorpions before giving them to youngsters.

“Although there are anecdotal reports of teaching in species from chimpanzees to killer whales, until this year solid evidence was really lacking,” said Alex Thornton, co-author of the report appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
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Animals teaching their young is probably more common than it appears, Hopp said, but “a clear demonstration, and particularly in a wild population, is the uncommon part.”

“Thus, I think this paper is important, as it makes a clear and unambiguous case for the teaching behavior,” he said.

Bonobo’s Using Language?

bonobo with a symbols board she uses to communicate

A Voluble Visit with Two Talking Apes by Jon Hamilton, NPR.

But linguists still weren’t satisfied. They pointed out that humans invent metaphors and figures of speech when literal meanings aren’t enough.

Savage-Rumbaugh says the bonobos pass this test, as well. For example, Panbanisha once used the symbol for “monster” when referring to a visitor who misbehaved.

Bill Fields, a researcher at the Great Ape Trust and a close friend of Kanzi, recalls another time when Kanzi used language creatively.

Fields says it was during a visit by a Swedish scientist named Par Segerdahl. Kanzi knew that Segerdahl was bringing bread. But Kanzi’s keyboard had no symbol for Segerdahl the scientist. So he got the attention of Savage-Rumbaugh’s sister, Liz, and began pointing to the symbols for “bread” and “pear,” the fruit.

“Liz got it immediately,” Fields says. “She says, ‘What do you mean Kanzi? Are you talking about Par or pears to eat?’ And he pointed over to Par.”

The site also includes more photos and video and audio webcasts.

Cash Awards for Engineering Innovation

This article discusses the recent explosion of cash awards to encourage development of engineering solutions. Want innovation? Offer cash (page deleted by external site – poor usability):

In the early 20th century, prizes in the aviation and automotive worlds were common. Sometimes they were awarded for incremental progress, other times for breakthroughs like the Lindbergh flight.