Recently I have run across a cluster of good links. Thought others here might enjoy reading about recent progress on a number of fronts.
I receive various science summaries by email. The one from science magazine, today, turned out to be packed with goodies. It's called Bio-Med Roundup and I think subscription is free (I see it as a AAAS member and coming from a UC IP).
- If having lots of kids is your goal, marry your 3rd or 4th cousin. Being more or less distantly related is correlated with fewer kids. At least, if you're Icelandic.
- Inhibiting protein synthesis and degradation in mouse hippocampal neurons alters the way they retain fear memories. The notion is that a memory is actively labilized upon being conjured so that new information can become incorporated. Interrupting that process can destroy the memory (or at least the behaviors taken to be associated with it).
- Regret is the key. Neural network models of human game interactions become significantly more accurate when regret is included in the models.
- Turns out, we came out of Africa. For really real now.
- And of course the one many of us have been hearing about for months. Craig Venter et al synthesized the entire genome of a small organism (about the smallest actually).
Other fun items:
A (nano) tiny etch-a-sketch.
Recent nano-art contest winners.
Been waiting to hear developments about this for almost 2 years. Nanotubes that desalinate water at high flow rates for little energy cost. I haven't seen anything from the lead author yet (who I met once over poker); anybody seen anything more recent?
What's a black hole?