Mirror Bacteria Research Poses Significant Risks, Dozens of Scientists Warn | The Scientist Magazine®

We recently joined a number of other scientists in calling for a certain line of research to not be pursued: work that could result in the creation of “mirror bacteria.” These are bacteria made of all components that natural cells possess, but with every biopolymer being of opposite stereochemistry. We are passionate defenders of allowing scientists to conduct their research with as few limits on intellectual curiosity as possible, and calling for a ban is not something that we do often or lightly. However, every rule has exceptions, and this is one of them. Unless compelling evidence emerges showing that mirror bacteria do not pose unacceptable risks, we believe research to develop mirror life should not continue.

Nerdly Pleasures: The Saga of the Color Brown in the Early Years of the PC

In 1980-81 IBM developed a graphics card for its new IBM PC called the Color/Graphics Adapter.  This card was designed to display 16 colors on a compatible CRT monitor via a 9-pin digital video port.  IBM defined the colors in its Technical Reference Manual using a 4-bit binary code.  The CGA could also display colors with a composite video connector on the card.  It is the evolution of the display of one of those colors, color 6, commonly but yet simplistically referred to as brown, that we are interested in today.

Mnemotechnics And Ultima Underworld II | Rock Paper Shotgun

This isn’t like other Ultima Underworld II retrospectives. This is Dan Griliopoulos’ account of Ultima Underworld II as a “memory palace”, a mental construct which Wikipedia describes as a “mnemonic technique that relies on memorised spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content.” That’s the starting point. Let’s find out what he’s up to in there.

The Rise and Fall of Ashton-Tate – by Bradford Morgan White

Ik heb enorm veel geleerd door dingen te maken in dBASE II en dan dBASE III+. Toen dBASE IV er was, was ik al overgestapt op eerst Q&A en dan Access.

Ah, good times.

Oldest Human Genomes Reveal How a Small Group Burst Out of Africa – The New York Times

Some 45,000 years ago, a tiny group of people — fewer than 1,000, all told — wandered the icy northern fringes of Europe. Across thousands of miles of tundra, they hunted woolly rhinoceros and other big game. Their skin was most likely dark. To keep warm in the bone-chilling temperatures, they probably wore the hides and furs of the animals they killed.

These hardy people of the Ice Age, known as the LRJ culture, left behind distinctive stone tools and their own remains in caves scattered across Europe. On Thursday, researchers revealed the genomes of seven LRJ individuals from fossilized bones found in Germany and the Czech Republic — the oldest genetic specimens of modern humans yet found.

9 weird transients from 1950 still unexplained

Something odd happened back in 1950, when astronomers noticed that nine starlike point sources of light had simultaneously appeared in a photographic plate acquired at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California as part of the famous Palomar Sky Survey. That might or might not sound unusual. But … none of those point sources were seen in images taken just before, of the same small patch of sky. Likewise, they didn’t appear in images taken after, either. That remains true through today, even with images from current surveys that are much more sensitive to faint objects. So what were these nine weird transients?

Saving the Apple’s Ancient Ancestor in the Forests of Kazakhstan | Smithsonian

The foothills of Kazakhstan’s Tian Shan mountains are something of a genetic wonderland. This vast mountain system forms the border between China and Central Asia, and between its higher spruce-covered slopes and its lower poplar trees are dense patches of woodlands, ones brimming with walnuts and wild fruits. These include apricots, cherry plums and pears, as well as Malus sieversii, a wild apple—the primary ancestor of the modern apple—that’s been growing in this region for thousands of years.

Thousands of apple varieties—crunchy, thick-skinned Fujis, which originated in Japan in the 1930s; aromatic Galas; and rare Pink Pearls—exist in the world today, many of them bred for their distinct flavor, color and texture. Turns out the bulk of these domesticated apples can be traced right back to Kazakhstan’s Malus sieversii.

Researchers discover new ocean predator in the Atacama Trench

Characterized by darkness and intense pressure, the ocean’s hadal zone seems uninhabitable, yet dozens of unique organisms call it home. Each species discovered there adds a crucial piece to the puzzle of how life has evolved and even thrives in one of Earth’s most extreme environments.

A new study published in Systematics and Biodiversity highlights one of those species—the newly named Dulcibella camanchaca. This crustacean is the first large, active predatory amphipod from these extreme depths. The species was discovered by scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Instituto Milenio de Oceanografía (IMO) based at the Universidad de Concepción, Chile.

How bloom filters made SQLite 10x faster – blag

This is the fascinating story of how researchers used Bloom filters cleverly to make SQLite 10x faster for analytical queries. These are my five-minute notes on the paper SQLite: Past, Present, and Future (2022). I’ll also explain some database internals and how databases implement joins.

Will artificial intelligence let us talk to the animals?

The chirps and whistles of dolphins, the rumblings of elephants and the trills and tweets of birdsong all have patterns and structure that convey information to other members of the animal’s species. For a person, the subtleties of these patterns can be difficult to identify and understand, but finding patterns is a task at which artificial intelligence (AI) excels. The hope of a growing number of biologists and computer scientists is that applying AI to animal sounds might reveal what these creatures are saying to each other.

How did human butts evolve to look that way?

Take a look around the animal kingdom. Even our closest living relatives among the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas), don’t have proportionally as big butts as humans do. The main reason for this probably comes down to our unique style of locomotion. We’re the only mammals alive today whose primary way of getting around is walking on two legs. And becoming upright bipeds has had some important consequences for our derrières.