Denisova Cave and the Mystery of the mtDNA Phylogenetic Tree « Rokus Blog Nobody expected a great surprise. Genetic testing of the little finger of an early hominin child found in the Siberian Denisova Cave, Kostenki, in the middle of archeological remains pertaining to Upper Paleolithic culture, would almost for sure confirm DNA similar to ours. There was a slim change that the pinky belonged to a Neanderthal from the neighborhood that got lost, but everything pointed at a an unequivocal member of the advanced group of hominins responsible for introducing symbolic art all over the world, the so-called anatomically modern humans (AMH). The collection of personal adornments and artifacts suggestive of symbolic behavior from the Early Upper Paleolithic deposits of Denisova Cave, Altai, is one of the earliest and the most representative of the Upper Paleolithic assemblages from Northern and Central Asia. Humans spend more time gathering around the campfire to celebrate their victory on Nature, only to challenge evolution in an entirely new way. Dr.
MykoWeb: Mushrooms, Fungi, Mycology Nanotechnology Basics Home > Introduction > Nanotechnology Basics Nanotechnology Basics Last Updated: Friday, 14-Jun-2013 09:28:04 PDT What is Nanotechnology? Answers differ depending on who you ask, and their background. Coined as "nano-technology" in a 1974 paper by Norio Taniguchi at the University of Tokyo, and encompassing a multitude of rapidly emerging technologies, based upon the scaling down of existing technologies to the next level of precision and miniaturization. Foresight Nanotech Institute Founder K. In the future, "nanotechnology" will likely include building machines and mechanisms with nanoscale dimensions, referred to these days as Molecular Nanotechnology (MNT). Click image for larger version. This image was written using Dip-Pen Nanolithography, and imaged using lateral force microscopy mode of an atomic force microscope. It uses a basic unit of measure called a "nanometer" (abbreviated nm). There are one billion nm's to a meter. One thousandth of that is a millimeter.
Drift Seeds and Drift Fruits Imagine yourself floating helplessly on the open sea, thousands of miles from land, your destination at the mercy of the wind and currents. Perhaps eventually you may drift ashore on the coral sand beaches of a remote tropical island or distant continent. This is precisely what happens to countless thousands of tropical drift seeds and fruits, a remarkable flotilla of flowering plants that travel the oceans of the world. Seeds provide the vital genetic link and primary dispersal agent between successive generations of plants. The tropical islands of Indonesia, Polynesia and the Caribbean probably have the greatest variety of drift seeds. Charles Darwin & Ocean Dispersal Of Seeds Plant dispersal by ocean currents has fascinated many famous explorers, including Charles Darwin and Thor Heyerdahl. During his famous voyage around the world on the H.M.S. After he returned to England, Darwin conducted flotation experiments with cultivated plants. The Hawaiian Silver Sword Nickernuts The Coconut
Penn study shows why sleep is needed to form memories PHILADELPHIA – If you ever argued with your mother when she told you to get some sleep after studying for an exam instead of pulling an all-nighter, you owe her an apology, because it turns out she's right. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why. In research published this week in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories. "This is the first real direct insight into how the brain, on a cellular level, changes the strength of its connections during sleep," Frank says. The findings, says Frank, reveal that the brain during sleep is fundamentally different from the brain during wakefulness. "We find that the biochemical changes are simply not happening in the neurons of animals that are awake," Frank says. A molecular explanation is emerging.
Online Books : "Golden Guide Hallucinogenic Plants" - pg 1-10 HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTSby RICHARD EVANS SHULTES Illustrated by ELMER W. SMITH. GOLDEN PRESS - NEW YORK 1976 Western Publishing Company, Inc. .Scanning and html by loplop, Aug '99 Maintained by Erowid.org FOREWORD Hallucinogenic plants have been used by man for thousands of years, probably since he began gathering plants for food. CONTENTS.Contents...1-10...11-20...21-30...31-40...41-50...51-60...61-70...71-80...81-9091-100...101-110...111-120...121-130...131-140...141-150...151-156...Index What Are Hallucinogenic Plants? Hallucinogenic plants have been featured on many postage stamps: (1, 6) Amanita muscaria, (2) fruit of Peganum harmala, (3) Atropa belladonna, (4) Pancratium trianthum, (5) Rivea corymbosa, (7) Datura stramonium, (8) Datura candida, (9) Hyoscyamus niger. WHAT ARE HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTS? Paramount among the hallucinogens of religious significance is the peyote cactus. HALLUCINOGENS IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES Contents Next
Artificial Robotic Hand Transmits Feeling To Nerves Astro Teller has an unusual way of starting a new project: He tries to kill it. Teller is the head of X, formerly called Google X, the advanced technology lab of Alphabet. At X’s headquarters not far from the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., Teller leads a group of engineers, inventors, and designers devoted to futuristic “moonshot” projects like self-driving cars, delivery drones, and Internet-beaming balloons. To turn their wild ideas into reality, Teller and his team have developed a unique approach. It starts with trying to prove that whatever it is that you’re trying to do can’t be done—in other words, trying to kill your own idea. As Teller explains, “Instead of saying, ‘What’s most fun to do about this or what’s easiest to do first?’ The ideas that survive get additional rounds of scrutiny, and only a tiny fraction eventually becomes official projects; the proposals that are found to have an Achilles’ heel are discarded, and Xers quickly move on to their next idea.
Hi-Res Images of Hydrogen Nonmetal, mass: 1.008 u, 2 stable isotopes (1, 2), abundance rank (earth/space): 9/1 Click image to magnify. Vial of glowing ultrapure hydrogen, H2. Original size in cm: 1 x 5. Hydrogen is the lightest and simplest element and, with a ratio of 80%, is the main ingredient of the visible universe. 20% consist of helium, the ratio of the heavier elements is below 1%. Right: The Great Orion Nebula, 80% hydrogen. The images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, unless otherwise noted. Physics Flash Animations We have been increasingly using Flash animations for illustrating Physics content. This page provides access to those animations which may be of general interest. The animations will appear in a separate window. The animations are sorted by category, and the file size of each animation is included in the listing. In addition, I have prepared a small tutorial in using Flash to do Physics animations. LInks to versions of these animations in other languages, other links, and license information appear towards the bottom of this page. The Animations There are 99 animations listed below. Other Languages and Links These animations have been translated into Catalan, Spanish and Basque: En aquest enllaç podeu trobar la versió al català de les animacions Flash de Física. Many animations have been translated into Greek by Vangelis Koltsakis. Most animations have been translated into Hungarian by Sandor Nagy, Eötvös Loránd University.
The Ultimate Field Guide to Subatomic Particles This is, for the most part, an accurate article, except for a few statements. "Exactly what makes a fermion a fermion is a bit complicated, but suffice it to say that fermions are all the particles that deal with matter. So what about the last group of elementary particles, the ones that don't deal with matter? These are the bosons, and they deal with the fundamental forces of the universe." The statements above can be misinterpreted as suggesting that fermions are defined as particles that deal with matter and bosons are defined as particles that deal with forces. And that is not true. Particles that deal with matter are fermions and particles that carry the fundamental forces are bosons. What fermions and bosons really are have to do with two apparently unrelated (but actually related) particle properties: spin and statistics. "There are four known bosons" See, this is an example of the misconception I just mentioned. According to special relativity, not general relativity.