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POPSAwesome research/ Homework resource I only found this the other day and mostly I'm clipping it for my own uses; however, it's a great resource and I thought I'd share. The site itself has pretty cool info too. 'Hope you guys like the clip.
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POPSWhy do humans kiss? "...They formally study the anatomy and evolutionary history of kissing and call themselves philematologists."
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POPSThe Mathematical Lives of Plants The seeds of a sunflower, the spines of a cactus, and the bracts of a pine cone all grow in whirling spiral patterns. Remarkable for their complexity and beauty, they also show consistent mathematical patterns that scientists have been striving to understand. ... Scientists have puzzled over this pattern of plant growth for hundreds of years. Why would plants prefer the golden angle to any other? And how can plants possibly "know" anything about Fibonacci numbers? For the first time, scientists have found convincing biochemical mechanisms responsible for the interlocking spiral growth patterns seen in many plants. (The Romanesco broccoli plant is a striking example.) The video of the experiment with magnetized liquid iron droplets demonstrates how the geometry of such growth could occur in nature.
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POPSA New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (Lecture) worth watching, on cellular automata, complexity, randomness, nature, mathematics, science, biology, natural selection, networks, space-time, physics, causality, relativity, determinism, quantum mechanics, computational irreducibility, ... (not necessarily in that order) His book is freely available online: http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html (see also The Nature of Code )
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POPSThe Coming Death Shortage "Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive" a must read. Though I fail to agree with many of the premises of this article, the critical views it presents are important and the issues need be taken into consideration seriously
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POPSSCIENTISTS SHOW HALLUCINOGEN CREATES UNIVERSAL “MYSTICAL” EXPERIENCE in the 1950s, showed signs of therapeutic potential or value in research into the nature of consciousness and sensory perception. “Human consciousness…is a function of the ebb and flow of neural impulses in various regions of the brain-the very substrate that drugs such as psilocybin act upon,” Schuster says. “Understanding what mediates these effects is clearly within the realm of neuroscience and deserves investigation.” “A vast gap exists between what we know of these drugs-mostly from descriptive anthropology-and what we believe we can understand using modern clinical pharmacology techniques,” says study leader Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., a professor with Hopkins’ departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioral Biology. “That gap is large because, as a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time these last forty years.”
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POPSLab Freaks Gone Wild? “What was once only science fiction is now becoming a reality, and we need to ensure that experimentation and subsequent ramifications do not outpace ethical discussion and societal decisions.
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POPSKilling the Buddha a fascinating and interesting read:from the article: "It is as yet undetermined what it means to be human, because every facet of our culture—and even our biology itself—remains open to innovation and insight."
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POPSViruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself Prof La Scola and his colleagues were surprised to spot a smaller type of virus attached to the virus-making factory inside infected cells. The new virus - Sputnik - was unable to infect cells by itself but seemed to hijack the larger to achieve its infectious aims. By regulating the growth and death of plankton, giant viruses - and satellite viruses such as Sputnik - could be a major influence on ocean nutrient cycles and climate. "These viruses could be major players in global systems," Nature is told by Prof Curtis Suttle, an expert in marine viruses at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
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POPSFuture 'Top 10' Hot Careers in 2012 5) Simulation Engineering By 2012, an increase in processing power and rich data will make simulations more realistic, and user-friendly. Simulation engineers will be working on bringing us closer to “Star Trek’s” Holodecks—the ultimate total immersion simulation. Simulations will be in every industry and every engineering field, 6) Boomer Caregiving 7) Genetic Counseling 8) Brain Analysts 9) Space Tourism 10) Roboticists
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POPSThe Sound of Sight Both groups judged auditory patterns accurately about 85 percent of the time, the researchers report in the August 5 issue of Current Biology. On the visual trials, nonsynesthetes’ judgments fell to nearly chance levels, a result that corroborates other research showing that most people are better at judging auditory patterns than assessing visual patterns. In contrast, synesthetes—who reported hearing sounds such as beeps or taps in time with the visual signals—distinguished matching from nonmatching rhythms 75 percent of the time.
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POPSThe Story Of Ohh! "How can our world be functional and Darwinian if the site of our orgasm is divorced from the place of intercourse? Why do females orgasm?? Three theories have been put forth. The whole article is quite an interesting read and well worth a gander! *whispering* For some reason, I think we should hide this clip from {{debbyski}}. The topic might just send her into overdrive. Shhh. :lol:
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POPSZebra's Stripes, Butterfly's Wings: How Do Biological Patterns Emerge? Previous work identified a specific signal necessary for getting these fly egg cells to move; the problem is that this signal is “graded.” Like drops of ink spreading out on wet paper, this signal travels in between surrounding cells, gradually fading away as it moves outwards. But clear lines are required for pattern formation — there is no grey area between a zebra’s black and white stripes, between heart and liver cells and, in this case, between migrating cells and those that stay put. How are graded signals converted to a clear move or stay signal? By examining flies containing mutations in different genes, the researchers discovered that one gene in particular, called apontic, is important for converting a graded signal.
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