Sapere Aude
Tag: science
i’m sure this will be some viral hit, but i think it’s more interesting in the way it shows the deep co-evolution of our 2 species
The symbiotic relationship between dog and man is responsible for the victory of our lineage of hominins in the evolutionary war of all against all
this is amazing work, and very much a beginning:
the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5B years ago. 10Ks of smaller trees have been published over the years for select branches of the tree of life — some containing upwards of 100k species — but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree that encompasses all of life.
is another nice one.
doing real experimentation about web platform features by tying these to developer keys with surveys etc. i hope this works, the web could really use a more mature iteration process.
the virome outnumbers the biome 10x: for every human cell, there are 10 bacterial cells, and 100 virii
will this new experiment finally convince everyone that local realism is dead, and that quantum mechanics might indeed be the operating system of reality?
The idea that prehistoric people didn’t eat grain “is just wrong. It’s misinformed. People ate what they could get their hands on. Eating is surviving.”
“We’re learning how to build complex states of light that, in turn, can be built into more complex objects. This is the first time anyone has shown how to bind 2 photons a finite distance apart. Lots of modern technologies are based on light, from communication technology to high-definition imaging. Many of them would be greatly improved if we could engineer interactions between photons.”
Einstein believed that there must exist hidden aspects of reality, not yet recognized within the conventional formulation of quantum theory, which would restore Einstein Sanity. In this view it is not so much that God does not play dice, but that the game he’s playing does not differ fundamentally from classical dice. It appears random, but that’s only because of our ignorance of certain “hidden variables.” Roughly: “God plays dice, but he’s rigged the game.” But as the predictions of conventional quantum theory, free of hidden variables, have gone from triumph to triumph, the wiggle room where one might accommodate such variables has become small and uncomfortable.
a new method that uses this phage mixture to test blood samples for over 200 species and 1000 strains of virus at a time. The team speculates that their technique, named VirScan (VEERscan), could one day become a near-universal test for viral infections using just one drop of a patient’s blood, replacing one-off tests for specific types of virus. Very common infections, like rhinoviruses and herpesviruses, come up regularly in VirScan, while more exotic viruses are found rarely if at all. “Sure enough, for many common viral infections we’re detecting them at pretty high levels. And for some viruses like CMV [one of the herpesviruses], which is known to infect 50% of the population, that is in fact what we saw.” VirScan could be brought into a number of research areas where virome-wide sequencing, or targeted viral tests, have not given us the full picture. Wylie, for instance, is curious what antibodies would be found in a large study of children, a major focus of her own research on the virome. “You’re actually developing your immune repertoire at that time. It would be interesting to see that history of what children had been exposed to, and what might be missing from the common pathogens in a child… We have to realize we’re a bit changed after these exposures, and this is one method of looking broadly at that.” Kula hopes that VirScan can shine a light on mysterious diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and Kawasaki disease. Some experts suspect these illnesses are caused or exacerbated by viruses, but those suspicions are hard to confirm when no one knows which virus to look for. With VirScan, this is no obstacle.
Homo naledi is a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin discovered within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. This species is characterized by body mass and stature similar to small-bodied human populations but a small endocranial volume similar to australopiths. Cranial morphology of H. naledi is unique, but most similar to early Homo species including Homo erectus, Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. While primitive, the dentition is generally small and simple in occlusal morphology. H. naledi has humanlike manipulatory adaptations of the hand and wrist. It also exhibits a humanlike foot and lower limb. These humanlike aspects are contrasted in the postcrania with a more primitive or australopith-like trunk, shoulder, pelvis and proximal femur. Representing at least 15 individuals with most skeletal elements repeated multiple times, this is the largest assemblage of a single species of hominins yet discovered in Africa.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 