Space is bad for your eyesight - New Scientist latest

Mr M's summary of the 17 March issue of NS:

·       Space is bad for your eyesight. Astronauts returning from long periods in space displayed some deformation in their optic nerves.

·       Low fat diet boosts sperm count.

·       Researchers on animal behaviour are using virtual worlds for testing. This allows them to carry out investigation in a more controlled and precise manner, focusing down to the role of specific neurons.

·       Primitive nerve clusters, predecessors to our brains, have been found in worms living 600m years ago.

·       Gene loading may be the next method of cheating at sport. Tests on mice have shown that those with a injected with a virus containing gene IGG-1 could swim 3 times further than control. Current testing methods would not detect this.

·       A study testing impact of alcohol on creative problem solving showed a small amount of vodka improved performance on a test linking words to an underlying concept.

·       A fibre optic cable is being laid from between Tokyo and London. It will cross the Arctic Ocean the first time this route has been followed. It should reduce latency between these cities by around 30%.

·       Most of the energy usage for free Android apps is used to power advertising. 

·       One or more of the following fundamental particles may be the next Higgs: Stringballs, Tetraquarks, Glueballs, Inflatons, Pomerons, Leptoquarks, Winos, Anyons, Galileons, Majorana particles, Wimpzillas. 

·       Religion has been shown to predate agriculture in terms of human evolution. This had led to speculation that religion was a key enabler in allowing the co-operative behaviour that agricultural societies need to succeed. Large groups require shared rules in order to remain stable but the larger the group the easier it is for people to cheat. (studies show that feelings of anonymity, even just wearing dark glasses, promote selfishness and cheating) . Coalescing around a shared belief, enforced by an all seeing entity, makes this cheating behaviour less likely.

Tip-toeing Spiders - New Scientist latest

Following on from  New Scientist monster flea fossil revelations, sit back and enjoy  some more snippets from the 10 March issue, courtesy of Mr GP:

·       Scientist in Japan has made violin strings out of spider thread. Thickest contains 15,000 filaments

·       A robot called Cheetah has set a new speed record for 4 legged robots, near 30 km/h

·       Seeds are being imported to Antarctica unwittingly. Every visitor there has an average of 10 seeds on their clothes, the worry is some of these may take root.

·       An eel like creature 550 million years ago looks like it was the forerunner to all vertebrates

·       Spiders have 3 tricks to avoid getting stuck in their own webs: hairy legs, anti-stick chemicals and elegant tip toeing.

·       SpaceX Dragon spaceship is scheduled for launch in April.It will be the first private shot to the international space station.

·       Mammalian tissue generates complex and sophisticated electrical phenomena similar to those used in computers. This opens up the idea of building complex electronic devices from tissue for use in medicine or other uses.

·       DNA from the last of the great apes, the gorilla, has been decoded.

·       Bonobos have been shown to demonstrate high levels of caring. A group was observed to go back and help a trapped male, behaviour quite different from other species who would abandon them. Speculation is that this is related to bonobos being matriarchal. The female leaders of the group put more emphasis on group unity.

·       Enzymes are capable of working at an incredibly fast speed, reacting at a femtosecond - one quadrillionth (1/1000000000000000)s. Understanding this process is leading towards new drugs that are capable of reducing virulence of pathogens without killing them. This should reduce the problem of pathogens becoming drug resistant.

·       Brown bears like a good scratch. They have been seen using barnacle encrusted stones to sort out an itch. This is first time bears have been seen to use a tool.

·       Snakes can exercise fine control over each of their scales to help them move and stick as firmly as possible to a surface. This explains how they are capable of moving up a smooth sloping surface. 

·       Exercise has been shown to have a direct impact on your genes. In a study sedentary males did an hour of exercise, afterwards the genes in their thigh muscles had changed from fat processing to protein production.

·        Video games special feature

·       An AI computer game designer Angelina has been developed. It can only create rudimentary games atm but may be a sign of things to come.

·       Prom Week trials the use of a social physics engine that captures rules about character behaviour/interaction to create games with more realistic interpersonal behaviour. 

·       Snake, the Planet is a new variant on the old game that allows you to project snakes and play the game on real world surfaces.

·       Outerra is a world engine. Capable of generating an entire world using fractal algorithms you can zoom in from space to walk around it. 

·       Expect new developments in virtual reality. The Kinect can now works with PCs and applications developed to take it beyond gaming e.g. video conferencing and virtual shopping. Next generation devices will be more immersive. Research shows that experience through virtual reality can lead to changes in behaviour.

·       A game controller using a bowl of water has been developed. Moving your hand in it passes signals to the computer that can be used to interact with it.  . 

·       Article on the very first digital camera. Built in 1975 it weighed 4kg and took 23 s to record a 0.01  megapixel black and white picture on a cassette. The cassette was then transferred to a custom television where it could be viewed.. The developer worked for Kodak but his colleagues were sceptical asking "why would you want to look at photos on a TV?"!

·       Wormholes: new research shows these may be easier to create than was previously thought. It is now theoretically quite plausible to imagine a wormhole that would allow instantaneous transfer between points in a universe or even between universes. However for this to be capable of allowing an object as massive as a human to travel it would need to be tens to hundreds of light years across. Nonetheless these wormholes may exist naturally and they are now being looked for, though will be hard to spot. 

·       Language: Two theories exist for why humans uniquely have language. One is the "nativist" idea that language is predetermined and has a universal grammar set by our genes. The other is that language is as much determined by culture as innate abilities. The former idea has been favoured but a study on the Piraha Amazonians shows their language lacks certain aspects that would be predicted if grammar was innate.

·       A new look on middle age. From an evolutionary point of view there is a strong argument to suggest that middle age provides a benefit to the species and is one of the reasons for human's success. Even in ancient hunter gatherer societies a number of individuals survived to middle age and these people were capable of being super providers (hunting/gathering far more than required for their own survival) and being master culture conveyors passing on learning and nurturing youngsters. So middle age is not a stumbling deterioration but rather a key part of human development, liberating women and their partners from the unremitting demands of producing children to do what they do best, live long and pamper. Without the evolution of middle age human life may never have existed. Hear hear!

Scientific thought existed pre Renaissance. In particular a remarkable man, Bishop Grosseteste, born in Suffolk, published a book in 1220 that gave a remarkably sophisticated analysis of colour theory that is consistent with our understanding today. (An interesting side note which illustrates the importance of going back to original evidence. Grosseteste's writing were disregarded because they seemed to have a basic error in saying there are 9 ways colours can be combined, while the correct answer is 14. Researchers tracked down an early version of the article and found that Grossetese had been an early adopter of the Arabic numeral system. He had written 14 but later transcribers, only aware of the Roman system, had seen 14 and misread it as IX so transcribed it as "nine").   

Giant Fleas and Tyranosaurus Rex - New Scientist latest

Mr GP, too, is into lists. One of his latest exercises is to post a summary of the latest snippets from his favourite mag New Scientist. Here's the latest, for 3 March issue. Am I thankful that new GP cat isn't a dinosaur. It'd take a sight more than a splash of Advocate to see off Freddie the Flea then!

- T rex had the most powerful bite of any animal that has ever lived,
some 60 times greater than a human.
- It was thought women are born with all the eggs they will ever
produce. However stem cells have been discovered which suggest eggs
continue to be produced throughout life.
- Neutrinos: some errors in the equipment may explain the faster than
light neutrinos.
- Neanderthals were mariners, evidence being found of them colonising
islands in the Mediterranean 100,000 years ago.
- The "Bruce" effect has been demonstrated in wild monkeys. (not a
tendency to emit strange sounds at high volume btw. Its the fact that
after a new male takes over a pack of females causes them to abort any
foetuses they may be carrying)
- Fossils of a 1.3m tall penguin have been discovered, making it the
tallest ever.
- As has the fossil of the largest ever flea, 20mm long, which may
have lived on feathered dinosaurs.
- Near 25 billion apps have been downloades from AppStore. The user
who downloads the 25 billionth itself will get a $100k dollar reward.
- Pinterest.com is faster hittng 10m users than twitter or facebook.
- An underwater equivalent of streetview for the Great Barrier Reef is
launched at seaview.org.
- Special issue speculating on the future of humanity over the next
100,000 years. Key points
-- We will still be here. Its hard to imagine an event so catastrophic
that it would wipe out all human life. The only event likely to do
this is a nearby supernova that would cause an extreme gamma ray burst
which would wipe out the ozone layer. However these only occur once
every 300 million years or so.
-- Left to nature, human beings will not have evolved to an extent
that they would be unrecognisable. However the impact of cybernetics
and genetic engineering is much harder to anticipate.
-- No consensus on what will happen to language. May become simpler
and more universal, may become more fragmented.
- If global warming continues, some parts of the world around the
equator may become uninhabitable. On the other hand barren tundra may
become fertile and access to the Antarctic bedrock may encourage
colonisation
- We are unlikely to send people beyond the solar system without a
breakthrough in space travel speed.
- We are unlikely to run out of natural resources, as history has
shown new alternatives are found more quickly than old resources run
out.