The Daily Science Nugget...

[D. Allan]

And what puzzles me is that the abusers here are often, perhaps even usually, those who pride themselve on their religious/doctrinal correctness.

I'm full of joy because it is not necessary to be correct! Hoorayyyyyyyyyyyyy.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

The scientific cloning community looked on skeptically this week when a private research company announced that it had cloned the first human embryos. Researchers at Stemagen, based in La Jolla, Calif., reported in the journal Stem Cells, that they had produced three cloned blastocysts (early-stage embryos) from 25 donated egg cells by the procedure of somatic cell nuclear transfer, which involves replacing an egg nucleus with that of an adult donor's skin cell. (In this case, one donor was the company's CEO, Samuel Wood.) Although Stemagen said the cloned embryos grew to the stage that yields embryonic stem cell lines—the company's stated goal is to created cloned cell lines for therapeutic purposes—other experts in the field told news outlets that the blastocysts in published photographs didn't look that healthy. (Stemagen; The Washington Post)

Would you like to raise a little baby you?

[D. Allan]

"A volcano beneath Antarctica’s icy surface has been detected for the first time.

Under the frozen continent's western-most ice sheet, the volcano erupted about 2,300 years ago yet remains active, according to a study published Sunday in an online issue of the journal Nature Geosciences." - Live Science, 20 January 2008

- from http://www.livescience.com/environment/080120-antarctic-volcano.html

[D. Allan]

Scientific American Magazine - February, 2008

Disease for Darwinism

More kids, less cancer: Huntington's may confer survival benefits

By Melinda Wenner

" Over the past 35 years, scientists have made several curious discoveries about Huntington’s disease. First, individuals with the neurological disorder are less likely than others to suffer from cancer; second, they tend to have more children than average—about 1.24 children for every one child born to unaffected siblings. Although no one yet knows what is behind these seemingly unconnected findings, a group at Tufts University has proposed that they are linked—and that one of the proteins implicated in Huntington’s may, ironically, provide patients with subtle health benefits."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=disease--for-darwinism

[D. Allan]

Science Nourishes the Mind and the Soul

by Brian Greene

[D. Allan]

A leatherback turtle was tracked by satellite traveling 12,774 miles (20,558 kilometers) from Indonesia to Oregon, one of the longest recorded migrations of any vertebrate animal, scientists announced in a new report on sea turtle conservation.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/080129-turtle-migration.html

[D. Allan]

Bye-bye banana?

January 29th, 2008

Author Andrea Thompson

Enjoy those banana splits while you can because in 10 years the banana may be no more… or at least may never be the same.

In this Guardian Unlimited article, science correspondent James Meek discusses the potential plight of the yellow fruit in the face of potentially deadly diseases.

Like its fellow fruit the apple, the bananas you buy from the grocery store are a particular genetic mutant of wild bananas discovered by farmers and grown from cuttings, essentially making them something like a clone of the original mutant.

Two fungi, Panama disease and Sigatoka, are threatening the current major variety, the Cavendish. (This variety was more resistant than the earlier Gros Michel, which succumbed to Panama disease in the 1950s.) Because the repeated cuttings have prevented the bananas from reproducing sexually and therefore changing up their genes, they are less resistant to pests.

Other monocultured crops, from grains to cows (which I recently mentioned in an article on animal cloning), can have this problem, so the banana may not be the only food we have to worry about disappearing in the future…

- LiveScience.com

[D. Allan]

Archaeological Discovery in Mexico City

Posted: 2008-01-31 10:24:45 UTC-06:00

"An exciting archaeological discovery in Mexico City is shaking things up for pre-Hispanic historians. Salvador Guilliem Arroyo announced that his team had uncovered ancient ruins in Tlatelolco, a neighborhood in the center of the sprawling capital. Believed to be built between 800 and 1,100 A.D., the site’s Templo Mayor (Main Temple) could be 225 to 525 years older than any other previously-known Aztec remnant. If the teac can corroborate these initial findings, the discovery will necessitate revision of the established timeline for the development of the Aztec civilization.

Guilliem Arroyo’s team began investigation of the Tlatelolco ruins in 1992, but work was suspended in 1993 after an earthquake damaged the site. To aid in accessing the ruins, the workers used a tunnel that reached up to seven meters (about 21 feet) in depth, largely constructed by Mexica peoples. The Tlatelolco site includes a complex used as a religious center dedicated to the military elite.

Previous research determined that Tlatelolco was founded in 1325, the same time as the Aztec Empire’s capital of Tenochtitlán, what is today Mexico City’s historic downtown. The great city was destroyed in 1521 after being conquered by Hernán Cortés’ small army. One of the first projects of the Spanish conquistadors was to construct a cathedral—which they did directly on top of Tenochtitlán’s Templo Mayor. This pyramid has been partially recovered, although full exploration would compromise the cathedral, something that no one is willing to do. The new evidence from Tlatelolco seems to place that city earlier than Tenochctitlán, and will most likely spur further investigation of the latter."

- http://feeds.feedburner.com/SpanishArticles