ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 625
December 1, 2015
Should We Be Editing Human DNA?
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Should humanity be allowed to edit human DNA? Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock
Ever since the structure of DNA was discovered in 1953, our constantly evolving understanding of it, and our application of this knowledge, has represented one of the greatest endeavors in human history. It’s a science not without controversy, however: The modification of human DNA is a particularly sensitive subject.
Exiled Exoplanet Might Be A Super-Saturn
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Artist's rendition of a ringed exoplanet. MarcelClemens/Shutterstock
One of the most beautiful things in science is that no matter how much we know about the universe we still get surprises which send us back to the drawing board. Exoplanet HD 106906b is one of those surprises. It’s a huge planet that shouldn’t exist, but not only does it, astronomers think it may also have a ring around itself like a super-Saturn.
Dog-Sized Dinosaur Reveals Secrets Of Ancient “Lost Continent”
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Artist's impression of the newly discovered leptoceratopsid dinosaur from Appalachia. Admit it, you want one. Longrich/Cretaceous Research
A beaked relative of the triceratops has shed light on how geographical division affected dinosaurs enjoying their last years of world domination.
The Eiffel Tower Goes Green To Tackle Climate Change
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Anyone around the world can add a tree to the Eiffel Tower over the next week. Yann Caradec/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
To mark the beginning of the COP21 climate talks that kicked off on Monday, the Eiffel Tower has been lit up with a vibrant virtual forest. The green digital trees will cover and “grow” over the tower during the week in a bid to raise awareness for the world’s forests.
We Asked The Head Of NASA 23 Of Your Questions About Warp Travel, Aliens, And More
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Charles Bolden, right, speaking to IFLScience
Two weeks ago, we asked you on Facebook to submit questions for our exclusive interview with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. You can read our own grilling of the NASA chief in Part 1 of our two-part video, but here we present his answers to a selection of the thousands of questions you supplied.
Giving Up On Mars Would Be “Disastrous,” NASA Chief Tells IFLScience
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, speaking to IFLScience
When Major General Charles Bolden speaks, you listen. Not just because he is the head of NASA, nor just because he is a former astronaut of four missions. You listen because he is largely responsible for giving the agency a clear goal that has instilled excitement in his 18,000 employees, the American public, and the whole world – landing humans on Mars.
New Research Shows Male and Female Brains Hardly Differ
In the mid-19th century, researchers claimed they could tell the sex of an individual just by looking at their disembodied brain. But a new study finds that human brains do not fit neatly into “male” and “female” categories. Indeed, all of our brains seem to share a patchwork of forms; some that are more common in males, others that are more common in females, and some that are common to both. The findings could change how scientists study the brain and even how society defines gender.
“Nobody has had a way of quantifying this before,” says Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Chicago Medical School in Illinois who was not involved in the study. “Everything they’ve done here is new.”
As soon as scientists could image the brain, they began hunting for sex differences. Some modest disparities have been reported: On average, for example, men tend to have a larger amygdala, a region associated with emotion. Such differences are small and highly influenced by the environment, yet they have still been used to paint a binary picture of the human brain, “even when the data reveal much more overlap than difference between males and females,” Eliot says.
So in the new study, researchers led by Daphna Joel, a behavioral neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, tried to be as comprehensive as possible. Using existing sets of MRI brain images, they measured the volume of gray matter (the dark, knobby tissue that contains the core of nerve cells) and white matter (the bundles of nerve fibers that transmit signals around the nervous system) in the brains of more than 1400 individuals. They also studied data from diffusion tensor imaging, which shows how tracts of white matter extend throughout the brain, connecting different regions.
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November 30, 2015
Mystery of how snakes lost their legs solved by reptile fossil
Fresh analysis of a reptile fossil is helping scientists solve an evolutionary puzzle — how snakes lost their limbs.
The 90 million-year-old skull is giving researchers vital clues about how snakes evolved.
Comparisons between CT scans of the fossil and modern reptiles indicate that snakes lost their legs when their ancestors evolved to live and hunt in burrows, which many snakes still do today.
The findings show snakes did not lose their limbs in order to live in the sea, as was previously suggested.
Scientists used CT scans to examine the bony inner ear of Dinilysia patagonica, a 2-metre long reptile closely linked to modern snakes. These bony canals and cavities, like those in the ears of modern burrowing snakes, controlled its hearing and balance.
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Hayabusa 2 Captures Stunning Image Of Earth And The Moon
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The Hayabusa 2 asteroid explorer took this amazing photo of the Earth and Moon from a distance of 3 million kilometers (1.9 million miles). Jaxa
If you’ve ever pondered how the Earth and Moon might look from a distance of three million kilometers (1.9 million miles), then wonder no more, as the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa 2 asteroid explorer has managed to capture an incredible image of the two bodies in a single shot.
Robot Bartender Helps Reveal The Science Of Ordering A Drink
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A robotic barman named James has helped researchers identify the social signals that indicate when someone wants to order a drink. bogdanhoda/Shutterstock
If you ever find yourself being ignored by a bartender while trying to order a drink, it probably means you haven’t been tipping enough. However, if that bartender happens to be a robot, it could be that it simply hasn’t picked up on the social signals that indicate your interest in placing an order.
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