Science just asks for your eyes.

“Sciencedaily.com is reporting that scientists have discovered how DNA is folded within the nucleus of a cell such that active genes remain accessible without becoming tangled. The first observation is that genes are actually stored in two locations. The first location acts as a cache where all active genes are kept. The second location is a denser storage area where inactive genes are kept. The second observation is that all genes are stored as fractal globules, which allows genes that are used together to be adjacent to each other when folded, even though they may be far apart when unfolded.”

Woo! Go science!

(Via Slashdot)

This is a very cool flash video of how the sun, a low-mass star, works.

RNA Biology has decided to ask every author who submits an article to a newly created section of the journal about families of RNA molecules to also submit a Wikipedia page that summarizes the work. As Nature reports, this is the first time an academic journal has forced its authors to disseminate information this way. The initiative is a collaboration between the journal and the RNA family database (Rfam) consortium led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

(Via www.readwriteweb.com)

God, I love our socialized researchers and watchdogs. This is why we pay taxes!

• Eating fatty food appears to take an almost immediate toll on both short-term memory and exercise performance, according to new research on rats and people. (New York Times)

• Canadian Privacy Commissioner: Facebook has until Monday to find a way to fix its ’serious privacy gaps.’ These include the retaining of personal information after an account has been deactivated, and the sending of personal information (other than contact info) to third parties. (www.canada.com)

• Gene therapy improves vision for the blind, by creating a new fovea, the part of the retina that is most densely populated with photoreceptors. (www.technologyreview.com)

• The temperature of the sun’s outer atmosphere soars to several million degrees Kelvin (K); which is much hotter than at the sun’s surface. Scientists have been baffled by this until now. (www.spacefellowship.com)

• Seth Godin has written another unreal post, this time about the future of education. (www.sethgodin.typepad.com)

Now this is how to communicate science!

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

In the legal department:

• A man is sentenced to 6 months in jail for what ?! (www.nbcnewyork.com)

• Is it now a crime to be poor? (www.nlchp.org)

• Blackwater (if you don’t know what it is, please look it up) founder is accused of murder, along with being quoted as saying he “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.” (www.thenation.com)

In science:

• A Swiss experiment shows that robots can form human-like societies, complete with traitors and martyrs. (www.dailygalaxy.com)

• www.telegraph.co.uk reports on a study: Dogs are as intelligent as two year old children. (via Slashdot, and here is a great comment)

• Multiple sclerosis successfully reversed in animals (www.physorg.com)

…but unfortunately, I have to talk about the weather for a moment: Wow! This weekend was so sunny and awesome! I spent it all at the beach watching the Atlantic beach volleyball championships. I tanned, I swam, I ran, I stayed offline. Now it’s Monday and it’s raining, so I cannot see how it could be more appropriate.

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I’d like to harp once more on how little credit we give to animals, and their intelligence. A friend sent me a link on how birds from the same family as crows use tools when necessary (link contains some awesome footage). In this case, they mimicked Aesop’s fable of the crow dropping rocks in a pitcher to raise the water level so it can drink.

The video shows birds in a lab carefully inspecting test tubes with worms on the surface of water they cannot reach. Once rocks are introduced, they drop them in the water, to raise the level enough to eat the worm. What I found striking was the last video, where the birds could tell the difference between water and sawdust, and how they didn’t even bother dropping rocks on the sawdust.

near the end of the article, the authors also made a great point (emphasis added):

Although the study demonstrates the flexible nature of tool use in rooks, they are not believed to use tools in the wild.

“Wild tool use appears to be dependent on motivation,” Bird said. “Rooks do not use tools in the wild because they do not need to, not because they can’t. They have access to other food that can be acquired without using tools.”

As Bird noted, that fits nicely with Aesop’s maxim, demonstrated by the crow: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

As per usual in these types of posts, I sign off with someone else’s thoughts, in this case, Einstein:

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Tip of the hat to Ysabelle Vautour for having this link as her MSN sig.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Argh, it’s hard for me to work, when I see all the headlines on Slashdot that interest me. I want to learn as much as I can about open source software and arguing for the democratization of the internet and how it creates accountability, as long as openness is maintained. I’m considering making the switch to Linux, which for many sounds either silly, geeky, or (most likely) like something they don’t know/care about.

I want to form an opinion on the use of radar to prevent bats from colliding into windmills (it does so by literally microwaving their heads). Then there’s Canada’s nuclear reactors, that help create the medical isotopes desperately needed in a new global shortage. Harper wants us to stop making them. At least those who live near the reactor won’t be needing the isotopes as much (a large proportion of people who live near them get cancer).

I also want to know more about issues when it comes to intellectual property, aside from the obvious music/game/movie industry piracy issues. For example, I want to form an opinion on doctors fighting patents on methods of metabolite level observation.

I want to explore the moon, learn more about the new stage in human evolution, and I wish to learn more about autism.

I’m also really interested in biomimicry, and the development of countermeasures for modern weapons. But alas, I have to get back to work—as much as I would liked to be bathed in a soothing green light.