October – 2011 – BrainiYak

Monthly Archives: October 2011

Replicating bacteria may divide aged from newer intra-cellular components, thereby creating one fitter and one less fit offspring — this is evolutionarily more favorable than giving both daughters equal amounts of garbage 0

An inference from computer theory and subsequent visual analysis Given the way bacteria split, we once thought that they didn’t really age. This now appears not to be true. From an evolutionary perspective, it would make sense to put accumulated non-genetic damage into one offspring and the newer materials in the other. A University of [...]

Categories: Science

Tagged: Annie Y. Peng, bacteria, bacterial aging, Camilla U. Rang, daughter cell, division, E. coli, Kim McDonald, Lin Chao, rejuvenation, replication

Published:: 29 October 2011 – 07:49
Author:: By BrainiYak

Three species of wasps turn out to be the same one — an illustration of continual refinement in science 0

The importance of paying attention If one stumbles across one stage of insect development, how could one be sure that a critter that looks different (in a previous or subsequent stage) is not still the same species? A recent study discovered that what had been thought to be three different species of parasitic wasps are [...]

Categories: Science

Tagged: Donald L. J. Quicke, Ephialtini, hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, life cycle, Malcolm T. Jennings, Mark R. Shaw, morphology, morphs, parasitic, Pimplinae, Scambus calobatus, Scambus planatus, Scambus ventricosus, wasp

Published:: 27 October 2011 – 12:45
Author:: By BrainiYak

Coyotes expanding their range eastward to Virginia mated with Great Lakes wolves along the way — an interesting research article about coyotes and red, gray, and Great Lakes wolves 0

Analyzing DNA from coyote scat Researchers screened 455 coyote scats in northern Virginia for DNA. From their abstract: Coyotes (Canis latrans) have benefitted from anthropogenic changes to North American ecosystems and have experienced a dramatic range expansion since the early 19th century. The region east of the Mississippi River has been colonized via 2 routes [...]

Categories: Environment,Science

Tagged: Canis latrans, Christine A. Bozarth, Cody W. Edwards, colonize, DNA, Frank Hailer, gray wolf, Great Lakes wolf, interbreeding, Jesús E. Maldonado, Journal of Mammology, Larry L. Rockwood, Mid-Atlantic, red wolf, scat, Virginia, wolves

Published:: 26 October 2011 – 08:27
Author:: By BrainiYak

Farming did not immediately and completely “transform” subsistence fisher/hunter-gathering 6,000 years ago — says a study that seems, to me, to demonstrate mostly the opposite 0

Study of residues in Western Baltic cooking pots How quickly agriculture supplanted subsistence gathering, fishing, and hunting has been subject to debate: For Northern Europe, the debate has often centered on the rich archaeological record of the Western Baltic, but even here it is unclear how quickly or completely people abandoned wild terrestrial and marine [...]

Categories: Agriculture,Science

Tagged: agriculture, Aikaterini Glykou, Anders Fischer, Baltic, Carl P. Heron, ceramic, continuity, culinary practices, D. Martin Jones, Eva Koch, fisher, fresh water, Hayley Saul, hunter-gatherer, lipids, n-alkanoic acids, oils, Oliver E. Craig, Paul Donohoe, Sönke Hartz, Søren H. Andersen, Val J. Steele, vessels, ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids

Published:: 25 October 2011 – 07:40
Author:: By BrainiYak

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to publish four papers confirming global warming — but does not yet comment on the source of the warming 0

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study The four analyses are currently under peer review. They are available here. Findings The studies confirm a rise of about 1 degree Centigrade in land surface temperature, since the mid-1950s. This magnitude agrees with previous studies. What the team did These studies combined 1.6 billion temperature reports from 15 pre-existing [...]

Categories: Climate change,Science

Tagged: 1950s, Arthur Rosenfeld, Berkeley Earth Temperature Averaging Process, Berkeley National Laboratory, Centigrade, Charlotte Wickham, Donald Groom, Earth surface, global warming, Jonathan Wurtele, Judith Curry, Richard A. Muller, Robert Jacobsen, Robert Rohde, Saul Perlmutter

Published:: 22 October 2011 – 07:25
Author:: By BrainiYak

Tweets analysis shows regularly occurring daily and day length-related mood changes across cultures 0

Twitter permits a novel approach to mood research Scott Golder and Michael Macy measured “positive” and “negative affect” in 2.4 million English speakers’ 509 million total tweets — made between February 2008 and January 2010 — in eighty-four different countries. Affect was assessed using the “Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count” lexicon. By approaching mood analysis [...]

Categories: Psychology

Tagged: affect, circadian, culture, diurnal, diverse, Michael W. Macy, mood, negative, positive, Scott A. Golder, sleep, tweet, Twitter, wake, work

Published:: 19 October 2011 – 10:04
Author:: By BrainiYak

A good example of an almost useless science abstract — fodder for America’s anti-scientific political Right 0

Sloppy wording hides the point — if there was a valid one The abstract in question says: Determining how climate change will affect global ecology and ecosystem services is one of the next important frontiers in environmental science. Many species already exhibit smaller sizes as a result of climate change and many others are likely [...]

Categories: Climate,Climate change,Science

Tagged: body size, David Bickford, ecology, ecosystem, food sources, Jennifer A. Sheridan, protein, response, shrinking, trophic

Published:: 17 October 2011 – 18:34
Author:: By BrainiYak

Glyphosate-resistance among weeds is bringing auxin-based herbicides like 2,4-D back into more prevalent use — A morality play about capitalistic profligacy? 0

It didn’t take long for this to happen, thanks to Roundup® and its buds Remember when manufacturers told us that we didn’t have to worry much about weeds developing resistance to glyphosate-based herbicides? Even when the same manufacturers partnered up to develop glyphosate-resistant crops? Well, guess what (predictably) happened: GR [glyphosate-resistant] crops, first released in [...]

Categories: Agriculture

Tagged: 2 4-D, 2 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, agronomic, auxin, auxinic, broadleaf, common ragweed, common waterhemp, crops, Dean E. Riechers, evolution, field bindweed, giant ragweed, glyphosate, horseweed, J. Christopher Hall, J. Mithila, Kevin B. Kelley, Palmer amaranth, resistance, Roundup, William G. Johnson

Published:: 12 October 2011 – 14:48
Author:: By BrainiYak

Earthquakes in the Atacama Desert Chile rub boulders together to produce smooth surfaces — hypothesis confirmed during a 5.3 magnitude quake 0

The good fortune of being there to witness what happens Geology is often about making careful observations and exercising deductive common sense. But getting to see one’s ideas proven true in immediate time is rare. Geologist Jay Quade once noticed that some surfaces of Atacama Desert boulders were worn smooth. Given the lack of water [...]

Categories: Science

Tagged: 5.3, alpha particles, Ari Matmon, Atacama Desert, beryllium ten, boulders, Chile, Christa J. Placzek, cosmic rays, earthquake, helium, Jay Quade, Kendra Murray, magnitude, Martin Pepper, oxygen sixteen, Peter W. Reiners, rubbing, seismic, seismicity, smooth, surface exposure dating

Published:: 11 October 2011 – 11:08
Author:: By BrainiYak

Cattle competing with East African savanna animals may not all be bad news — shared grazing ground is apparently advantageous under some conditions 0

More complicated than one might think Science writer Johan T. du Toit reviewed recent findings: [C]attle do compete with herbivores such as zebras and gazelles during the dry season, when food quantity is low. In contrast, during the wet season, when food quantity is high, grazing by wildlife benefits cattle by improving the quality of [...]

Categories: Environment,Science

Tagged: biodiversity, browser, cattle, compete, drought, dry season, East Africa, facilitate, forage, grazer, grazing, Johan T. du Toit, livestock, Moses K. Karachi, niche, savanna, Shaukat A. Abdulrazak, Truman P. Young, ungulate, wet season, Wilfred O. Odadi, zero sum

Published:: 8 October 2011 – 09:07
Author:: By BrainiYak

BrainiYak

Monthly Archives: October 2011

Replicating bacteria may divide aged from newer intra-cellular components, thereby creating one fitter and one less fit offspring — this is evolutionarily more favorable than giving both daughters equal amounts of garbage 0

Three species of wasps turn out to be the same one — an illustration of continual refinement in science 0

Coyotes expanding their range eastward to Virginia mated with Great Lakes wolves along the way — an interesting research article about coyotes and red, gray, and Great Lakes wolves 0

Farming did not immediately and completely “transform” subsistence fisher/hunter-gathering 6,000 years ago — says a study that seems, to me, to demonstrate mostly the opposite 0

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to publish four papers confirming global warming — but does not yet comment on the source of the warming 0

Tweets analysis shows regularly occurring daily and day length-related mood changes across cultures 0

A good example of an almost useless science abstract — fodder for America’s anti-scientific political Right 0

Glyphosate-resistance among weeds is bringing auxin-based herbicides like 2,4-D back into more prevalent use — A morality play about capitalistic profligacy? 0

Earthquakes in the Atacama Desert Chile rub boulders together to produce smooth surfaces — hypothesis confirmed during a 5.3 magnitude quake 0

Cattle competing with East African savanna animals may not all be bad news — shared grazing ground is apparently advantageous under some conditions 0

Pages

Categories

Search

Blogroll

RSS Feeds

Meta

Archives

October 2011
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Sep				Nov »
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31