noosphere

we are too close
to the end of these sad bad times
to stop moving


what lives here:
microfiction, science, philosophy(?)
poetry, autobiography, photography
a bit of maths, art, music
and stuff

gmail at noosphere.tumblr

We now know that diatoms contain unusual assortments of genes derived from different sources, including those acquired by horizontal gene transfer from bacteria.

for billy and jack

also, while googling “diatom behavior” so i could find enough info to make this bad joke/quip, i found two articles from last year (re: conversation on diatom-powered advances in technology):  one on using diatom silica bioprocessing to increase transistor density (a tighter computer chip), the other on CdS(cadmium sulfide)-coated diatoms exhibiting semiconductor diode properties.

(sounds like two more f.m.l. stories…)

Scientists have known for some time that an electrical charge could be harvested from the metabolic processes of bacteria living in soil but the effort required to achieve this was time consuming for a very low power output. But a team of Harvard scientists has used the idea to design an inexpensive battery, a microbial fuel cell, which can produce enough current to power LED lights and charge cellphone batteries in rural Africa.

Brought to you by Lebônê Solutions, Inc. — a social enterprise working in off-grid energy delivery and lighting technology.

Oceanlinx begins building third-generation ocean-swell-to-energy generator.

[W]ave-power technology development has been plagued by the unpredictability of the source and technical troubles stemming from the harsh ocean water environment. Now an Australia-based company has found a new way, to predictably and reliably generate energy from the ocean. The technology relies on the power of ocean swells, which are easy-to-predict long-wavelength oscillations.

Computer scientists engineered small robots that tend to tomato plants. The robots can determine when a plant needs water or when tomatoes are ripe for harvesting- and then follow up by carrying out the necessary action. Sensors in the plant soil indicate their locations to the robots, and humidity sensors determine the level of moisture in the soil. Once a task is completed, the robots can audibly describe what’s been done. A mounted camera enables the robot to report how many tomatoes are on the plant and when it is ready for picking.

video available at site.

excerpt:

Lenski, Hannah Professor of Microbial Ecology at MSU, started growing cultures of fast-reproducing, single-celled E. coli bacteria in 1988. If a genetic mutation gives a cell an advantage in competition for food, he reasoned, it should dominate the entire culture. While Darwin’s theory of natural selection is supported by other studies, it has never before been studied for so many cycles and in such detail.

Lenski’s team periodically froze bacteria for later study, and technology has since developed to allow complete genetic sequencing. By the 20,000-generation midpoint, researchers discovered 45 mutations among surviving cells. Those mutations, according to Darwin’s theory, should have conferred some advantage, and that’s exactly what the researchers found.

Emory researchers have identified the first fish known to have switched from ultraviolet vision to violet vision, or the ability to see blue light. The discovery is also the first example of an animal deleting a molecule to change its visual spectrum.

Their findings on scabbardfish, linking molecular evolution to functional changes and the possible environmental factors driving them, are in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

excerpt:

More than a year after an explosion of sparks, soot and frigid helium shut it down, the world’s biggest and most expensive physics experiment, known as the Large Hadron Collider, is poised to start up again.

[I]t will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. … A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Kinarm Ko and Hans Schöler’s team at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster have succeeded for the first time in culturing a clearly defined cell type from the testis of adult mice and converting these cells into pluripotent stem cells without introduced genes, viruses or reprogramming proteins. These stem cells have the capacity to generate all types of body tissue. The culture conditions alone were the crucial factor behind the success of the reprogramming process.

… the term consciousness still has no adequate definition, and the question of how it is generated by the brain is the biggest challenge to modern neuroscience. Researchers investigating this mysterious phenomenon therefore use a working definition, and focus on the subjective contents of conscious awareness. This is usually done indirectly, by using functional neuroimaging to investigate, for example, the neural correlates of visual perception.

Now a group of French researchers and clinicians report that they have measured the neural correlates of conscious awareness directly, and with higher spatial and temporal resolution that previous studies, using electrodes implanted into the brains of patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy. Their findings, which have just been published in the open access journal PLoS Biology, lend support to the global workspace model of consciousness.

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The journey undertaken by newly generated neurons in the adult brain is like the cellular equivalent of the arduous upstream migration of salmon returning to the rivers in which they were hatched. Soon after they are born in the subventricular zone near the back of the brain, these cells migrate to the front-most tip of of the olfactory bulb. This is the furthest point from their birth place, and they traverse two-thirds of the length of the brain to get there.

The first leg of this epic journey - the departure of the newborn cells from the subventricular zone - involves some of the signalling cues that guide cell migrations during development of the brain. However, these signals alone are known to be insufficient, and until now the precise mechanisms governing this migration were unclear. But a new study by Canadian researchers shows that the cells travel such long distances by crawling along the capillaries in the olfactory bulb.

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One of the central dogmas of neuroscience, which persisted for much of the history of the discipline, was that the adult human brain is immalleable, and could not change itself once fully developed. However, we now know that this is not the case: rather than setting like clay placed into a mould, the brain remains pliable, like a piece of putty, so that each new experience makes a lasting impression upon it.

This phenomenon, referred to as synaptic (or neural) plasticity, involves reorganization of the connections between nerve cells, and is arguably the most important discovery in modern neuroscience. It is well established, from research carried out in the past 20 years or so, that the brain can adapt itself to any circumstance; this therefore opens up the possibility of therapies for a wide variety of neurological conditions.

Until now, it was thought that such reorganization is restricted to small numbers of connections within discrete areas of the brain. But new research published yesterday in the journal Current Biology now provides the first evidence that local modifications to small numbers of connections can induce global changes in brain connectivity.

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