Science News and Links for Moonday, 20091214

Posted on 14th December 2009 by ideonexus in Science Etcetera
  • Check out a diagram of the 200 specialized protein machines that make up the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
    • Mycoplasma pneumoniae
    Mycoplasma pneumoniae
  • Google.org has unveiled a tool for identifying changes in satellite imagery, which can be used to identify where deforestation is occurring in the Amazon rainforests similar to the way we use aerial photography to identify such abuses in the United States.
  • Counterintuitive finding that organisms naturally try to express as males, where it was previously thought that being female was the natural expression and male’s being the mutant; however, the FOXL2 gene in mice appears to prevent ovaries from turning into testes and a malfunction in this gene could be implicated in women becoming infertile. As fascinating as this is, it does seem to contradict much of the previous literature and seems to complicate animal evolution to my mind.
  • I saw the film 2012 this weekend out of desire to take in some mindless disaster-porn and turn off my brain to keep the science and plot holes from ruining the special effects, but I was really struck by what appeared to be an extremely anti-religion theme in the film, where <spoileralert>anyone who prayed in the film was doomed to die</spoileralert> and how the film focused on the destruction of sacred religious icons; however, Roland Emmerich was afraid to destroy Muslim icons for fear of having fatwa declared against him.
  • NATURE | Can Animals Predict Disaster?
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