Randy McDonald just pointed me to a 2008 paper in AJHG, Japanese Population Structure, Based on SNP Genotypes from 7003 Individuals Compared to Other Ethnic Groups: Effects on Population-Based Association Studies. It speaks to an issue I brought up earlier in my post, Sons of the farmers, the story of Japan, which describes the ethnogenesis of the Japanese modern people from the Yayoi culture. The Yayoi presumably brought rice from the Asian mainland, probably from what is today southern Korea. But the Japanese islands were not uninhabited before this period. Japan was home to the Jomon culture, which has a rather storied history in the annals of archaeology. The Jomon seem to have been a predominantly hunter-gatherer population which was also sedentary, and engaged in the production of objects such as pottery which are normally associated with more advanced farming societies. I have a difficult time crediting the ~13,000 year period of continuous development which is attributed to the Jomon, but, it does seem likely that the period between 2,000 and 2,500 years before the present did mark a sharp cultural discontinuity in the ...
Scientists Use Bird-O-Vision to Learn Why Some Cuckoos Are Expert Counterfeiters | 80beats
What’s the News: The reproductive life of a cuckoo is both easy—it lays its eggs in others birds’ nests, and lets them feed the young—and difficult: cuckoos are involved in an “evolutionary arms race” with other birds, finds a new study. Even as cuckoos improve their counterfeiting skills—producing eggs that look more like others birds’—the host birds get better and better at identifying the forged eggs.
How the Heck:
Knowing that birds have four types of color-sensitive cone cells in their eyes, allowing them to see ultraviolet wavelengths, researchers used a spectroscope to measure the amount of light reflected from hundreds of cuckoo and host-bird eggs. They then fed this data into models to produce images showing how birds see the different types of eggs.
They discovered that while cuckoo and redstart eggs have a high degree of color overlap, cuckoo eggs targeted for dunnock nests did not.
Here’s the kicker: Redstarts and dunnocks don’t spot forgeries equally. Redstarts are more discerning of foreign eggs and readily kick out cuckoo forgeries, while the dumb dunnocks accept even the most mismatched eggs. So these findings suggest that cuckoos targeting redstarts evolved the ...
Nuclear power as the “shark attacks” of energy | Gene Expression
Image Credit: Stefan Kuhn
I was at a coffee shop recently and a SWPL couple (woman had dreads to boot!) a number of tables away were reading a newspaper, and the husband expressed worry about the Fukushima disaster. The wife responded that “now other people will understand how dangerous nuclear power is,” with a sage nod. They then launched into twenty minutes of loud righteous gibberish about chemicals (I had a hard time making sense of it, despite the fact that I learned a lot about chemicals in the past due to my biochemistry background). Because they’d irritated me I was curious and I tailed them as they left. Naturally they had driven to get coffee in a S.U.V. of some sort (albeit, a modestly sized one which looked like it was more outfitted for the outdoors’ activities common in the Pacific Northwest; they’d probably done their cost vs. benefit about those chemicals!).
In terms of radiation fears, I suspect that if more people just automatically knew the inverse-square law in relation to the drop off of its effects we’d be in a whole lot less ...
Crafting a Hubble galaxy in two minutes | Bad Astronomy
Have you ever wondered how those gorgeous Hubble pictures of distant cosmic objects are made?
Well, lucky you! My old pal Tiffany Borders alerted me to a video she and some other folks at the Space Telescope Science Institute put together. It’s a delightful whirlwind tour of how they go from digital data to stunning shots, using screenshots tied together into a two-minute frenetic animation:
How cool is that? I’ll note that when astronomers actually do science with the images, they use the raw data which is processed very carefully to maintain the data’s integrity. The beautiful pictures made the way shown in the video are for show… but I’ve found that they can help guide the eye to features you might miss in the individual images, too. So this isn’t just Photoshop trickery!
The galaxy in the video is the spectacular spiral NGC 3982, which I described in a little more detail when this image came out last year. Coincidentally, in that post I focused more on how the image was constructed than the science in it (though I have links there ...
The Radio Spectrum | Cosmic Variance
At every point in space, there is something we call the “electric field.” It’s a tiny vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction. If you want to measure it, just put an electron at rest at that point, and watch it start moving. The direction and size of its acceleration (over and above what we get from gravity) is proportional to the electric field. Typically, if you watch closely enough, you’ll see our little electron jiggle back and forth like mad. That’s because the electric field doesn’t just sit there; we are surrounded by an extraordinary superposition of all kinds of electromagnetic waves, pushing by us with different amplitudes and directions and frequencies. If you build the right type of gizmo with an appropriate collection of electrons, you can pick out just a single wavelength from amidst the cacophony. Voila! You are listening in on the electromagnetic spectrum.
In the modern world, there are an awful lot of devices out there communicating by shooting electromagnetic waves at each other. In particular in the radio frequency range (roughly between 10 kHz and 300 GHz), which has the nice property that its waves aren’t blocked by annoying things like walls or air. This means that everyone building such devices wants to produce waves at some part of the spectrum, and that in turn means that the right to do so is an extraordinarily valuable commodity. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission gets to decide who can do what at various different radio frequencies.
This state of affairs has come into the news once again, as wireless carrier AT&T has swallowed competitor T-Mobile; many people would be unsurprised if Verizon counters by swallowing Sprint, leaving us with a duopoly and possibly giving consumers the squeeze. Currently big chunk of spectrum is allocated to broadcast TV, which some are arguing is a waste, since you could stick a lot of mobile data devices in there and everyone has cable anyway.
All very fascinating, but somewhat over my head. I’m more of a theoretical kind of guy. I just wanted an excuse to link to this gorgeous chart (pdf), showing how the spectrum is currently allocated.
Click for much bigger and more legible pdf version. There’s a lot going on here; see the zoom-in of a tiny region near 30 GHz:
Nice to see that there is space carved out for scientific research, including radio astronomy. Those jiggling electrons have a lot of work to do, let’s hope they can keep everything straight.
Nerve Cells Reach Out and Touch Someone: Electronic Components | 80beats
What’s the News: Scientists have discovered a new technique for linking semiconducting tubes with mouse nerve cell tendrils: They let the cells do the work for them. After creating biologically friendly semiconductor tubes, they found that nerve cells’ tendril-like axons didn’t shy away. “They seem to like the tubes,” University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineer Justin Williams told Science News. This represents a step toward new technology involving computer-brain networks.
How the Heck: The trick was to create tubes of layered germanium and silicone (which insulate the nerve’s electrical signals) that were big enough for the nerve cell’s threadlike projections to enter but too small for the cell body: When seeded with live mouse nerve cells, the only way the cells could interact with the tubes was be sending tendrils into it—which is just what they did.
What’s the Context:
This research builds upon some work done in previous studies, where researchers actively connected nerves to semiconductors.
Science Not Fiction and 80beats have covered other methods of connecting neurons and electronics.
Which shouldn’t be confused with the development of a brain-like chip. Or the ...
Lawrence Krauss’s Feynman Biography Now Available | The Intersection
I just did a fun interview with Lawrence Krauss for Point of Inquiry–airing Monday–and to prepare, I got to read his new scientific biography of Richard Feynman, Quantum Man.
Being a non-physics wonk, I can’t say that I fully understood *everything* that Feynman accomplished, but that didn’t make the book any less illuminating in its depiction of this fascinating, and brilliant, scientific character.
It’s not that no one has written on Feynman before–it’s just that having a top physicist do a scientific biography of Feynman’s accomplishments is something pretty unique.
In advance of the show, then, I want to recommend the book–it just went on sale this week. Check it out here.
Is that a double helix round your neck or are you just pleased to see me? | Not Exactly Rocket Science
In which we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to celebrate… a scarf. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary strip of black and grey wool, but if you look down its length, an iconic hidden pattern emerges (see below).
Yes, thanks to this present from my awesome friend Alice Bell, I now get to wind an illusory double helix around my neck. There’s probably a joke about histones to be made.
The DNA illusion scarf is Alice’s own design (video here). In her own words:
DNA and illusion knitting seemed to be made for one another. The ladders of the striping pattern twist round those of the helix as purls and knit-stitches collect to display a regular shape. I also like that you have know how to look at the scarf to really see the pattern. There’s an “OH!” moment when you spot it. Symbolic of the science it reflects, the pattern isn’t self-evident.
If you’re not already doing so, you can and should read Alice’s sharp musings on science communication at Through the Looking Glass, and on knitting at Slipped Stitch
WISE shuts its eye | Bad Astronomy
One of my favorite space astronomy missions, WISE, has shut its eye for the last time.
This wasn’t unexpected, though! The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer was meant to be a short mission, mapping the sky in far-infrared light for a year or so. It needed coolant to chill its detectors, and that ran out last year. On February 1, 2011, it took this one, final image:
[Click to infrareddenate.]
That’s a shot of the constellation Perseus, which is along the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy and is thus littered with stars and dust. It’s very much like millions of other images WISE took in its time in space. Below are links to some of my favorite images from WISE, and you really should take a look. They are eerily beautiful, and tell us a lot about the Universe that our eyes cannot perceive.
My congratulations to all my friends at WISE on an amazingly successful mission!
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Related posts:
- Shocking star is shocking. Shocking, I say!
- In galactic collisions, might makes right
- A WISE view of a small neighbor
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Genetic paternalism & the F.D.A. | Gene Expression
It’s been over a week since I’ve addressed the “F.D.A. D.T.C.” controversy. I plan on getting back to the issue in more detail later, but right now I thought I’d point you to Robert Verbruggen’s article in National Review. It’s titled ‘The FDA’s Genetic Paternalism’. Robert contacted me for my take on the issue, and you get a few choice quotes from yours truly. It being National Review you can guess the general tenor of the objections from that quarter. Over the past few weeks tracking inbound links and Twitter mentions it does look as if the coming possible restrictions on direct-to-consumer personal genomics have triggered more suspicion and opposition from the political Right. Even with that said, my friends Michelle and Zack, who I think are accurately characterized as on the political Left, also both expressed great reservations about the thrust of Jeffrey Shuren’s comments. Nor do I think that the Genomes Unzipped crowd are all Right-libertarians. Even those who assert the need for regulation and some intermediation between genomic results and the patient/consumer are unhappy with the way the government and some pro-regulation activists have been approaching the matter.
Overall ...
Homeless Man Builds His Own Car Out of Junk
From Jalopnik:
This is Orismar de Souza, a homeless man in Brazil, who decided to build the car he couldn't buy using junk, spare parts and a hammer and chisel. Four years later, the "shrimpmobile" has him back on his feet.
Read the whole article
The 'Coolest' Semiconductor Nanowires
From PhysOrg.com:
Semiconductor nanowires are essential materials in the development of cheaper and more efficient solar cells, as well as batteries with higher storage capacity. Moreover, they are important building blocks in nanoelectronics. However, manufacturing semiconductor nanowir
Festo Creates SmartBird Flying Robotic Seagull
From Gizmag:
Festo has added to its robotic menagerie with the creation of a robotic seagull that weighs just 450 g (15.87 oz) and boasts a wingspan of 1.96 m (6.4 ft). Dubbed the SmartBird, the ultralight flying robot was inspired by the herring gull and can take off, fly and land auton
First Orion Spacecraft Begins Testing
From Gizmag:
The first Orion crew module has begun testing at Lockheed Martin's Space Operations Simulation Center (SOSC) in Denver, Colorado. This 41,000 square foot research facility will test the ability of NASA's next-gen multipurpose exploration spacecraft to safely fly astronauts t
Plastic Pallet Maker Wants New Rules on Wooden Pallets
iGPS, a manufacturer of plastic pallets, want to see federal standards to prevent fires from wooden pallets. They claim over 15 wooden pallet fires last year.
According to http://www.greatdreams.com/wildfires-2009.htm, there were 32,000 wildfires in the first 5 months of 2009. No call for congressi
Do You Want Ethanol-Free Gasoline?
Ethanol helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it's not that great for those of us with classic cars. Luckily, pure-gas.org has come to the rescue with a list of 2,705 stations in 50 states that sell ethanol-free gas. Looks like there are at least two stations in Seattle and one is prett
Mechanical Engineer Explains Secrets of the Wiffle Ball
From Wired Discoveries:
Wiffle balls are very poorly behaved. They curve wildly, practically bouncing around in midair. No surprise, given the eight holes molded into one side. But to learn how the little plastic balls twist and spin through space, the go-to researcher is Jenn Rossmann,
Bike Produced On A Printer
From Neatorama:
Believe it or not the lightweight bicycle pictured above was printed out on a computer. Designed by scientists in Bristol, England, it is created by building up layers of nylon powder through a process known as Additive Layer Manufacturing. The computer-aided design is se
Re-Creating the First Human Spaceflight Experience
From Wired Top Stories:
A collaboration between ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli and filmmaker Christopher Riley hopes to show what Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin -- the first human to go into space and orbit the planet -- saw on April 12, 1961.
Read the whole article
Million Dollar Duesy
Nowadays, it's not necessarily a headline grabber if a Duesenberg makes a million bucks at auction, and there are a couple dozen "auctions of a lifetime" every year.
Not so in 1985, when Harrah's conducted the next-to-last of their liquidation sales and Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Piz