Science Kicks Nature’s Ass, Creates New Species From Scratch
No, that isn’t the plot of a new sci-fi movie. It actually happened. A group of scientists at the JC Venter Institute have successfully designed a complete genome for a living, self-replicating creature and brought it to life in a lab. Luckily, it is not the shark-bear-octopus pictured above, but a lowly bacteria. Still, this is an entire new species of bacteria, designed on a computer and brought to life. This has never been done before, and is a big fucking deal. Designer micro-organisms are now real, and the implications for this breakthrough are staggering. For better or worse, shit is about to get interesting.
Michael Specter gives an excellent talk on the stupidity and danger of science denialism. Most of the TED talks tend to be rambling and too damn long, but this one is both concise and important. I recommend you watch all 16 minutes of it. (via Boingboing)
Holy crap. Buckyballs are the coolest toy ever. I am definitely ordering a set of these. (via Boingboing)
EDIT: Way cheaper on Ebay. It’s too bad I’m poor, or I’d seriously consider the 2000 ball mega set.
An Important Anniversary
No, that’s not Halloween makeup. That is what smallpox looks like. Most people alive today have never seen this disease, which killed several million people per year in the first half of the 20th century. The reason we’ve never seen it is because starting in 1950, the governments of the world decided that enough was enough, and went on a global crusade to wipe it out. Unlike most global crusades, this one actually worked.
On this day in 1977, the last case of smallpox was diagnosed.
Since then, no person has had to endure the painful, debilitating, and often fatal virus. How was this horrible disease destroyed? Through organic diets, homeopathy, application of magic crystals, and prayer. A vaccine.
Keep that in mind the next time some dingbat celebrity tries to tell you vaccines are the devil and that your children will be healthier if treated with happy thoughts and unicorn farts. We’ve been free of smallpox for 32 years. Hopefully in another 32, we’ll have eliminated more maladies and avoided more pointless suffering. If we do, it will be through science and legitimate medicine, not through nonsense and quackery. (via Discover Magazine)
First solid extrasolar planet “rains rocks”
Astronomers announced the discovery of the first rocky extrasolar planet - COROT-7b - a couple weeks ago. Now based on available data and computer simulations, they say the planet has a mineral atmosphere. COROT-7b is so close to it’s sun that it’s gravitationally locked. The side facing the sun gets hot enough to boil the planet’s rocky surface. It evaporates into a mineral vapor that cools as it rises, eventually condensing into pebbles and falling as rock-rain. How badass is that?
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Time.com has a great spread on the people behind the greatest acheivement of modern science. Read it.
Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light
Fuck you, Einstein. The speed of light isn’t a hard limit for the transmission of information. Not if a couple of scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct. If they are, not only will they rewrite some very fundamental laws of physics, but their research could pave the way for vastly superior communications systems. Awesome. (via Digg)
The latest episode of Motherboard features a short (16 min) documentary about a Wisconsin trucker who reverse-engineered the designs of the two bombs that were dropped on Japan at the end of WWII. The world would be a very boring place if it weren’t for obsessive geeks. (via Digg)
Atlas Obscura is like Weird NJ for the entire world. They hunt down stories about quirky, bizarre and spooky buildings and landmarks and then post very professional writups on them along with photos and google maps coordinates. There’s hours worth of infotainment on this site. (via Boingboing)
