The Science Thread

If you've never seen it, you might enjoy Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets. It's a two part BBC show, a fictional documentary about a manned mission to the planets, examining some of the real issues involved. I really liked it. You can get it on DVD, too.

Part 1

Part 2
 
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Man it must suck being a huntsman spider. Only 3 weeks of maternal attentions...
 
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Eye said:
New tree of life revealed based on genomes - NY Times


More info - Nature.com; Nature Microbiology
Click to expand...

Very interesting.

BTW, I thought the archae were more in a league of their own, since there are significant differences from both bacteria and eukaryotes. The membrane contains ether lipids, in stead of the esters found in the other domains. Their energy sources are much more varied. And some of them have very weird shapes.

Regarding bacteria, they are even more widespread, since, according to the dominant theory, they are the source of mitochondria in eukaryotic cells, as well as the chloroplasts in plants.

One more thing: What about viruses? They are not included. It does make sence, since viruses are not life as we know it. On their own they have no metabolism and they can't reproduce, both very fundamental properties of living organisms. Many consider them not life at all.

pibbur who has named his my ipad after an archae, Haloquadratum walsbyi, to indicate that it's different from all his other computer. In addition, said species has quadratic cells.

PS: Here's a picture of 4 H. walsbyi cells, stolen(?) from Wikipedia:
Haloquadratum_walsbyi00.jpg

DS.
 
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ElderGnome said:
In science today, "Ifuckinglovescience" posted this link which they claim is their most important ever:

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/dear-parents-you-are-being-lied
Click to expand...

Also: smallpox, responsible for 300-500 million deaths during the 20th century has been completely eradicated due to vaccination (so we don't need to vaccinate for that one anymore). The last verified case of smallpox from natural causes was diagnosed in Somalia on the 26th of october 1977 (two employees at the University of Birmingham was infected in 1978. One of them died.).

It's one of the most significant achievements ever in medicine.

The reason we could eradicate smallpox is that the only reservoir for the virus is human. Still, the virus isn't all gone, two laboratories, one in the US, one in Russia have viable virus cultures, for research purposes.

pibbur who was vaccinated in the early seventies and has a scar to prove it.
 
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Eye said:
It somehow reminds me of Windows… :)
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Hah! No likes for you!!! :( :)))

pibbur who knows this, but tries to ignore it, as it would affect his reasons for naming the pad after the little creature.
 
"Only when the last bit of Reality has been tuerned into Information, then you'll learn that you can't satisfy your Emotions with Information.
Or fill your belly with it."
 
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Alrik Fassbauer said:
"Only when the last bit of Reality has been tuerned into Information, then you'll learn that you can't satisfy your Emotions with Information.
Or fill your belly with it."
Click to expand...

And I've suppled 242 bits.

50 69 62 62 75 72 20 77 68 6f 20 6c 69 6b 65 73 20 6e 75 6d 62 33 72 73

4
 
42

:p
 
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