There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live…..the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.
– Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)(Source: katelizabeth)
Via Where is my mind?
For decades, scientists have known that DNA consists of four basic units — adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. Those four bases have been taught in science textbooks and have formed the basis of the growing knowledge regarding how genes code for life. Yet in recent history, scientists have expanded that list from four to six.
These last two bases — called 5-formylcytosine and 5 carboxylcytosine — are actually versions of cytosine that have been modified by Tet proteins, molecular entities thought to play a role in DNA demethylation and stem cell reprogramming.
Thus, the discovery could advance stem cell research by giving a glimpse into the DNA changes — such as the removal of chemical groups through demethylation — that could reprogram adult cells to make them act like stem cells.
“Before we can grasp the magnitude of this discovery, we have to figure out the function of these new bases,” said senior study author Yi Zhang, Ph.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UNC and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “Because these bases represent an intermediate state in the demethylation process, they could be important for cell fate reprogramming and cancer, both of which involve DNA demethylation.”
The Oldest Bird Was Actually a Dinosaur
“It’s a stunning affirmation of evolution…and it’s sort of fitting that Archaeopteryx, the emblem of evolution since Darwin’s time, is still part of the story.”
Largest water reservoir discovered in black hole.
The reservoir holds as much as 140 trillion oceans, or more than 4,000 times more than exists in the entire Milky Way. It exists as vapour spread across hundreds of light years.
While water has been found across much of the universe previously, this is interesting because of the fact this reservoir is 12 billion light years away, meaning that this water existed when the universe was only 1.6 billion years old.
The brains of our closest relatives, unlike our own, do not shrink with age.
The findings suggest that humans are more vulnerable than chimpanzees to age-related diseases because we live relatively longer.
Our longer lifespan is probably an adaptation to having bigger brains, the team suggests in their Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper.
(Source: ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology)
Ancient bird pigments identified
Using several cutting edge techniques, scientists were able to detect trace elements and pigment granules that gave ancient birds their hue.
Conclusion: C. sanctus had the pigment eumelanin in its neck feathers, so it probably had dark downy feathers, shading into lighter colors at the tips of the flight feathers, where copper concentration is lower. The distal flight feathers had no trace metals, and so were probably white or another color. Our best guess, then, is that this ancient bird was parti-colored.
Does anyone else think it’s incredible that we have an accurate picture of a 120 million-year-old bird?
New reactor gets closer to reality, would use nuclear waste as fuel.
The reactor, built by Terrapower, is proposed as a possible alternative to fusion reactors, which will also have the ability to produce power from the almost unlimited fuel source of nuclear waste. The company expects to begin construction of a prototype plant in 2016, to start producing 500-megawatts from 2020.
As opposed to conventional nuclear reactors which need large amounts of the rare element uranium 235, the Terrapower reactor only needs a small amount of uranium 235 to start a reaction. The neutrons it produces are then able to convert uranium 238 to the far more abundant plutonium 239, which is able to generate the heat needed to make electricity. Uranium 238 is a readily available material because it is a waste product of the enrichment process used to create traditional nuclear fuel. In the future it may also be affordable to extract uranium 238 from seawater.
Terrapower says this technique would be able to supply the world with electricity for a million years, even if everyone were to use as much power as people in the United States do.
(Source: technologyreview.com)
