Glowing monkeys promise to further medical research: scientists
Quote:
Scientists gave marmosets a gene that made their feet glow green, and one of the animals passed it along to its offspring — the first time that an added gene has been inherited by a monkey.
That's important because it opens the door to creating colonies of transgenic monkeys by breeding, which would be far simpler than the cumbersome process of making each animal from scratch by injecting a gene into an embryo.
Being CBC, I'm sure it's not entirely correct. If the glow is feet specific, the glowing gene was probably attached to a gene that is localized in the feet, otherwise, the entire monkey would glow under UV light. Still great news though
The comments on the CBC article makes me sad though
In November 2008, Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old student from upstate New York, discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so. Additional observations determined that the object, called SN 2008ha, is a new type of stellar explosion, 1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova. Astronomers say that it may be the weakest supernova ever seen.
On a side note, a large study done in Scotland, which was conducted over 35 years, has yeilded substantial data reinforcing the awesomeness of beer. 4 pints of week kids and you too can expect, on average, fewer hospital visits throughout your life.
the biggest hurdle right now, as far as moving away from silicon is concerned, is finding a process that works as well as processes used in silicon. For those that took first year chem or something related to this field, you can pretty much understand near-all of it as it talks about the benefits of carbon. Unfortunately, they didn't talk at all about the processes of how to use carbon is mass production.
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If you startled a deer, you might not expect it to jump into the nearest pond and submerge itself for minutes.
But that is exactly what two species of mouse-deer in Asia do when confronted by predators, scientists have found.
One other African mouse-deer species is known to do the same thing, but the new discovery suggests all ruminants may once have had an affinity with water.
It also lends support to the idea that whales evolved from water-loving creatures that looked like small deer.
There are around 10 species of mouse-deer, which are also called 'chevrotains'.
All belong to the ancient ruminant family Tragulidae, which split some 50 million years ago from other ruminants, the group that went on to evolve into cattle, goats, sheep, deer and antelope.
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To combat all the recent drivel on the site, you may enjoy this recent wired article regarding the claims of the discovery of DNA within the intact fossilized femur of a T-rex.
While the article is lengthy, it is interesting and explores some of the common themes that get rehashed over and over here on CP (eg. Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof, adaptability of science, etc.).
"Everyone suspected dinosaurs were giant birds; then one researcher produced 68 million-year-old protein to prove it. Critics rejected those findings as statistical junk. How a femur sparked a new field of biology—and a scientific smackdown."
While the article is lengthy, it is interesting and explores some of the common themes that get rehashed over and over here on CP (eg. Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof, adaptability of science, etc.).
Worth mentioning that the problem with this is that a lot of computational biologists (or moreso computer scientists working on biological models ....) seem to think that it is within their right to ask and receive for data on a whim with no idea of the effort or money involved in collecting said data or contributing to the collection of the data.
This is the bit I don't agree with.
Quote:
The one lesson that all sides of the debate now agree on is that the new age of computational biology must be one of data transparency. Such disputes can only be resolved—and the scientific method can only survive the digital age—if scientists dump their digital notebooks online for anyone to try to replicate.
Sure ... dump it online .... once the owner of the data has exhausted all uses for it. Computational biologists want data ... either enter into a formal collaboration, wait until the owner of the data has exhausted their use for it or collect your own. It's a dog eat dog world out there where publications = increased chance of funding. Who in their right mind is going to spend a lot of time and money collecting data so they can then dump it online so some nerdy kid with faster modelling skills can get the jump.
I agree though, that a claim like that should have been verifiable more easily and the data should have been released for verification purposes more readily.
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The husband and wife owners of the company, Brendan Quine and Caroline Roberts, believe their elevator project may come to fruition in just five to 10 years.
That prediction is inline with what LiftPort Group -- an umbrella organization comprised of companies interested in researching and developing a space elevator - has predicted is a reasonable estimate for the completion of one.
...
The creation of a space elevator would mean that for an estimated $1,000, tourists from around the world could be transported to the height of approximately 20 kilometres above the earth.
"You'll be able to see the electric blue of the earth on the horizon and the dark blackness of space," said Quine, also an associate professor of space engineering at York University.
He said the view would be similar to what astronauts see, with a vision range of about 600 kilometres in any direction.
In certain respects, the way it reacts is as though we had changed every aluminium atom into silicon: it’s almost as surprising as finding that you can turn lead into gold with light!’
I frickin' hate ants. Send those SOBs my way ... I'll fight them. I have a huge arsenal of chemical warfare agents at my disposal that I like nothing better than to employ against frickin' ants. Bring 'em on. I'll napalm them back into the primordial soup they crawled out of.
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Glowing monkeys promise to further medical research: scientists
