news
lite
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platypussies
makes sex complicated
“In most mammals, including humans, sex is decided by the X
and Y chromosomes: two Xs create a female, while XY creates a male.
In birds, the system is similar: ZW makes for a female, while ZZ makes
for a male.
“But in platypuses, XXXXXXXXXX creates a female, while XYXYXYXYXY
creates a male. In other words, rather than a single chromosome pair,
platypuses have a set of ten-chromosomes that determine their sex.”
—
“ But this links the two systems together and raises the issue
of whether the ancestral mammal had a sex chromosome system similar
to birds," says Grützner.”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#platypus |
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| micro
diesel turbos to replace batteries....development
“By spinning a tiny magnet above a mesh of interleaved coils
etched into a wafer, David Arnold and Mark Allen of the Georgia Institute
of Technology, US, have built the first silicon-compatible device capable
of converting mechanical energy - produced by a rotating microturbine
- into usable amounts of electrical energy.”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#micro_diesel_turbine |
removing
junk dna shows little change in organism
“[...] Edward Rubin's team at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in California has shown that deleting large sections of non-coding
DNA from mice appears not to affect their development, longevity or
reproduction.
“The team created mice with more than a million base pairs of
non-coding DNA missing - equivalent to about 1% of their genome. The
animals' organs looked perfectly normal. And of more than 100 tests
done on the mice tissues to assess gene activity, only two showed changes
[...]”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#dna_mouse |
large
windmill arrays could effect local climate conditions
Work based on modelling a 10,000 (100 x 100) mills array at 1 km spacing
(windmill size not stated in this report).
Near Artajona, Northern Spain: a mere row of
windmills.
“Averaged over an entire day, the wind speed at ground level
would go up about 0.6 m/s and the temperature would jump 0.7°C.
“Turbulence caused by the rotating blades would shunt some of
the high-speed winds typically found 100 m off the ground down to Earth's
surface, says Roy. Those surface winds would boost evaporation of soil
moisture by as much as 0.3 millimeter per day.”
Heavens knows why people complain about windmills –
even up close, they are no noisier than a rustling copse, and they are
rather pretty.
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#windmills |
dreaming
of 5-inch terabyte+ discs
using polarised light to increase data density.
“Using the technique, the researchers think it should be possible
to create disks capable of holding 250 gigabytes in a single layer.
This is enough to store 118 hours of video, which could allow every
episode of long-running television shows to be put on one disk. Using
a four-layer disk would mean a terabyte could be stored.”
—
“The most advanced optical storage disks available today use a
technology known as Blu-ray and can hold roughly 100 gigabytes of data.
Blu-ray makes use of blue light instead of red, which has a smaller
wavelength and can therefore read smaller areas of a disk's surface.”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#terabyte |
looting
and anarchy in iraq
“ "More than 100 Sumerian cities have been destroyed by
the looters since the beginning of the war," says Hamadani, who
was appointed at the war's end by the State Board of Antiquities and
Heritage in Iraq. "It's a disaster that all we are keeping watch
on but about which we can do little. We are incapable of stopping the
looting. We are five archaeologists, some hundred guards and, occasionally,
a couple of policemen - and they are a million armed looters, backed
by their tribes and the dealers." ”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#iraq_looting |
| the
sea is slowly rising
“ WARM WATER takes up more space than cold water does.
That simple fact of physics, utterly inexorable, is one of the two or
three most important pieces of information humans will have to grapple
with in this century. And the people who get to grapple with it first
are in places like Tuvalu, where suddenly the spring high tides are washing
across the island of Funafuti, eroding foundations and salt-poisoning
crops in the fields. Tuvalu is the canary in the miner's cage, and instead
of choking it's drowning. Tuvaluans have begun to work out plans for evacuating
the population over the course of the next decades as the sea rises.”
the web address for the article above
is
https://www.abelard.org/news/lite0410.php#sea_level |
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