Science Etcetera, Marsday 20090512

Posted in Science Etcetera on May 12th, 2009

Miller and Urey proved organic molecules could be produced through inorganic processes in 1953, which led to the Primordial Soup hypothesis of how the molecules came together into self-replicating mechanisms, which was overcome by a hypothesis of an RNA Phase of life’s origins in the 1980s, which competes with the “Metabolism First” hypothesis, which… Ah, you just need to read this engaging article about how electrons descended into living things.

Nicholson Metabolic Pathways Chart

Rather than “Swine Flu” or H1N1P, let’s call it Hamthrax! (Starts headbanging)

Sorry Polar Bears, Obama won’t be using the Endangered Species Act to curb CO₂ emissions. BOOOOO!!!

Software in the prototype stage will soon identify species of trees for you from photographs you take with your mobile phone.

Synthetic biology focuses on the biological interactions of system parts, but by viewing these biological parts as logical interactions, Microsoft researchers are coming up with a programming language for modeling biological interactions logically (HT Oranchak).

Graphical Representation of a Predator-Prey Program

Researchers find that the first digit of prime number sets follow Benford’s Law, which is to say the number 1 appears most often with the distribution of first digits trending downward logarithmically to 9 appearing the least often.

50 Years after the publication of The Two Cultures, the editor of Edge brings attention to the Third Culture, scientists who, through writing and lecturing, are bringing science to popular culture.

Women in Houston, Texas are being forced to pay for their rape kits or have their credit ruined. This despite the state’s Crime Victim’s Compensation Fund having a tens of millions of dollar surplus each year. Could this state please hurry up and secede already?

Wireless Lightbulb