Ongoing important Science news thread

[Thor]

This is a big breakthrough, in regards to genes in evolutionary processes and how they affect change, and in this case 'jumping genes' seems to be a key we've not understood well until this research.

PhD student Keith Oliver and Associate Professor Wayne Greene have spent the last two years gathering a wealth of evidence which proves that what are commonly known as jumping genes are actually driving the evolutionary process in some species.
Jumping genes are sequences of DNA that can move to new positions within the genome of a cell. This movement can create mutations and therefore change the observable characteristics of a species.

Their latest scientific paper on the idea brings together around 100 examples of where the activity of jumping genes have created or greatly-modified primate and human genes, resulting in the generation of well-known primate-specific traits.

“Visual red-green colour perception, faster brain function, better foetal nutrition in the womb along with a more assertive placenta and better infectious disease resistance are just some of the evolutionary advances in primates brought about by jumping genes,” said A/Prof Greene, who is Academic Chair of Biomedical Science.
“In fact, it’s very hard to see how primates and humans could have evolved in the way they have, without the intervention of jumping genes.”

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-...on-theory.html

[SeeGeeWhy]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/da.../pia14313.html

[troutman]

http://planetary.org/blog/archive/

A fourth moon for Pluto
That's right: Hubble observations have yielded the discovery of a third small body orbiting Pluto and Charon. The faint thing, mellifluously designated S/2011 (134340) 1 but which is being referred to as P4, is only 10% as bright as Nix

Yet another new image of Vesta
A sharp-eyed reader noticed that a size comparison montage posted by the Dawn mission today included an image of Vesta that had not yet been released separately to the public, and it is a very cool one.



Spiffy human spaceflight T-shirt!
From Chop Shop, the same guys who brought you my favorite space T-shirt ever, there is now a very cool shirt celebrating the spacecraft and missions of 50 years of human spaceflight

[Thor]

My latest free DVDs from HHMI! I love this place, such good stuff for free.

Don't be crazy and not take advantage of these awesome DVD's, I have about 10 now from them.

[ricosuave]

^ link?

[Thor]

Oh yeah that would help lol.

http://www.hhmi.org/catalog/main?action=home

[Super-Rye]

That's awesome! Thanks Thor. But the skeptic in me has to ask, whats the catch? Why are these things free?

[T@T]

Largest and oldest mass of water found.

a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive blackhole called a quasar located 12 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said.
"Because the light we are seeing left this quasar more than 12 billion years ago, we are seeing water that was present only some 1.6 billion years after the beginning of the universe," said study co-author Alberto Bolatto, of the University of Maryland, in a statement. "This discovery pushes the detection of water one billion years closer to the Big Bang than any previous find."

http://www.space.com/12400-universe-...ml?fb_ref=rnav

[ricosuave]

^ whaaaaaa?

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Super-Rye

That's awesome! Thanks Thor. But the skeptic in me has to ask, whats the catch? Why are these things free?

One of the many cool missions of the HHMI is to promote education in medical sciences

Its got a cool history, a quick read if your interested, I mean its Howard Hughes legacy, worth knowing about.

http://www.hhmi.org/about/origins.html

[koop]

Originally Posted by T@T

Largest and oldest mass of water found.




http://www.space.com/12400-universe-...ml?fb_ref=rnav

That sounds really cool, but the thing I always wonder when I see stories like this is how the hell they can identify water vapor in space from 12 billion light years away...... Personally that's more interesting to me than the discovery to be honest. I can't imagine they would exactly get a clear picture of this in a telescope from 12 billion light years away, so how do they know it's water vapor? What even makes someone think it might be water vapor?

[Thor]

Originally Posted by koop

That sounds really cool, but the thing I always wonder when I see stories like this is how the hell they can identify water vapor in space from 12 billion light years away...... Personally that's more interesting to me than the discovery to be honest. I can't imagine they would exactly get a clear picture of this in a telescope from 12 billion light years away, so how do they know it's water vapor? What even makes someone think it might be water vapor?

Check out this website, better than any explanation I could muddle up.

http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/01_intro.html

[Cheese]

Metamaterials researchers Yaroslav Urzhumov and David Smith, working at Duke University have built a simulation of an object that can move through water without leaving a trace and claim it's a concept that could be built and used in the real world provided more research is done.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-...ated-lab-.html

[Ashartus]

A major breakthrough into the possible reasons for declining salmon stocks, but the scientist works for the Government of Canada and therefore isn't allowed to talk about it: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Feds+si...633/story.html

[BurningYears]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

A major breakthrough into the possible reasons for declining salmon stocks, but the scientist works for the Government of Canada and therefore isn't allowed to talk about it: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Feds+si...633/story.html

I guess we can only hope they are actually doing something with the data, and just not letting the public know.

[David Struch]

Why would a scientist require Government permission to talk about a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada at the end of the last ice age?

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by David Struch

Why would a scientist require Government permission to talk about a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada at the end of the last ice age?

I no clue but i have heard this is one of the theories that explains the flood that has been noted in so many ancient texts including the bible where it's called Noah's flood.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

I no clue but i have heard this is one of the theories that explains the flood that has been noted in so many ancient texts including the bible where it's called Noah's flood.

Here is a fine example of how ancient literature, its composition, and purpose is so badly misunderstood by modern practices of text interpretation. In actual fact, there was no historical event behind the flood myth, which was perpetuated in Akkadian, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures, and which eventually made its way into Hebrew scriptures. The flood myth was always part of the creation myth, and was composed to address the question of origins. In these ancient cultures, creation was a process by which one of the gods from the heavenly court conquered "watery chaos" which resulted in the created order. The idea that the sea represented the turmoil of pre-created existence was likely a result of floods that occurred periodically, and wreaked havoc in early Mesopotamian civilizations, but it is a mistake to see any specific historical event behind the construction of these stories, whose purpose was to imbue the common perception of the natural world with a god-given sense of structure and order that conformed and coalesced with fairly specific religious practices designed for maintaining the delicate balance between creation and chaos.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by David Struch

Why would a scientist require Government permission to talk about a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada at the end of the last ice age?

The Government seems to be taking the position that no science can be talked about unless it is confirmed to comply with the Conservative Party's official position on any issue (this has been going on for a couple of years now). I take extreme exception to this position - I believe government scientists work for the people of Canada, not the Conservative Party or the Prime Minister's Office, and that science has to be transparent and public for it to work properly.

[Thor]

TC, have you read or seen Ballard's word on the black sea, it seems to be a likely candidate for a real biblical type flood in ancient times which would explain so many cultures telling a story of a great flood.

At least anyhow the epic of Gilgamesh.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/bl.../ax/frame.html