News

From biologist and computer scientist Arend Hintze at LiveScience: We have some time – somewhere between 50 and 250 years, depending on how fast AI develops. As a species we can come together and come up with a good answer for why a superintelligence shouldn’t just wipe us out. But that will be hard: Saying we embrace diversity and actually doing it are two different things – as are saying we want to save the planet and successfully doing so. We all, individually and as a society, need to prepare for that nightmare scenario, using the time we have left to demonstrate why our creations should let us continue to exist. Or we can decide to believe that it will Read More ›

For whatever reason, I have been receiving a spate of journal articles written by high-maintenance academic welfare recipients on how to Really Fix the people who doubt Darwin. David Klinghoffer, editor at Evolution News and Views, noticed something I wrote here at UD and offers: Skeptics are now social deviants. The journal Sociological Perspectives offers this from Joshua C. Tom of the University of Virginia: Scientific communities maintain respected authority on matters related to the natural world; however, there are instances where significant portions of the population hold beliefs contrary to the scientific consensus. These beliefs have generally been studied as the product of scientific illiteracy. This project reframes the issue as one of social deviance from the consensus of scientific Read More ›

It ought to be so simple, right? Planet of the Apes and all that. From Colin Barras at BBC: It is true that, today, some researchers have a well-thought-through idea of what the LCA looked like and how it behaved. The trouble is that other researchers have equally well-reasoned models that suggest an LCA that looked and behaved in a completely different way. And that puts the research community in a bit of a quandary. In principle, fossilised remains of the LCA might come to light any time. They might even be discovered this very year. But because there is so little agreement on what the LCA should look like, researchers will interpret the fossils differently. “It’s a problem that Read More ›

As asked by Don Lincoln, Senior Scientist, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory at Space.com, acknowledging the difficulties: However, in a paper released in June, scientists have given dark matter models a significant boost. Not only does the new work reproduce the successes of earlier predictions of the dark matter model, it also reproduces the Tully-Fisher relation. The new paper is a “semi-analytic” model, which means that it is a combination of analytic equations and simulation. It simulates the clumping of dark matter in the early universe that may have seeded galaxy formation but also includes the interaction of ordinary matter, including such things as the infall of ordinary matter into another celestial body due to its gravitational pull, star formation and Read More ›

The paper discusses epigenetics. Of course it’s true that we are more than the sum of our genes but you know things are changing when researchers dare say so. From ScienceDaily: Epigenetics between the generations He and his team at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany used fruit flies to explore how epigenetic modifications are transmitted from the mother to the embryo. The team focused on a particular modification called H3K27me3 that can also be found in humans. It alters the so-called chromatin, the packaging of the DNA in the cell nucleus, and is mainly associated with repressing gene expression. The Max Planck researchers found that H3K27me3 modifications labeling chromatin DNA in the mother’s egg Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Japanese researchers from Osaka University have uncovered a way in which our cells regulate the repair of broken DNA. Their results, published in the journal “Cell Reports,” show a common molecule regulates multiple repair mechanisms and help shed light on how the cell maintains the integrity of the human genome when it is damaged. The human body consists of trillions of cells, and within each are billions of DNA molecules. Strict maintenance of the molecules is essential to maintain a healthy cell and thus a healthy body. This maintenance is challenged by the daily bombardment of chemicals, UV light, radical oxgen and radiation that can damage the DNA molecules. If left unrepaired, the damage could lead to genomic Read More ›

At Science, we learn that researchers think that sunlight might have given life on Earth the needed jolt to produce life: A new study suggests that the iron-and-sulfur clusters at the heart of many life-critical enzymes could have been floating around Earth’s primordial seas some 4 billion years ago, produced by nothing more than primitive biomolecules, iron salts, and a previously unknown ingredient—ultraviolet (UV) light. … To find out whether iron-sulfur clusters were a core ingredient for life from the start—or whether the first organisms got along fine without them—Mansy and his team recreated the conditions of early Earth in their lab. University of Trento biochemist Claudia Bonfio removed oxygen and mixed together a brew of iron and glutathione, a Read More ›

New Scientist’s Scare of the Month: From Timothy Revell at New Scientist: Mathematicians around the world are rushing to check millennia of calculations, as the Australian prime minister Malcom Turnbull has explained that their discoveries aren’t as concrete as we thought. “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull. Turnbull’s comments came as he proposed a new law to force tech companies to give security services access to encrypted messages. Apps like WhatsApp currently prevent any snoopers from reading your messages using end-to-end encryption, jumbling it up in such a way that only the recipient can de-jumble it.More. What he really means is that his government Read More ›

Trivia to most of us but, in an era of increased space exploration, something to consider. From Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience: Gravity’s smothering hold on Earth’s inhabitants means that eighty to ninety percent of the mass of current rockets must be taken up by the actual propellant burned to lift the rocket into space! According to Pettit, this means that sitting atop a rocket is more precarious than perching oneself atop a bottle of gasoline. It also means that there isn’t much room for stuff like food, computers, scientific experiments, and astronauts. Despite these drawbacks, we should count ourselves lucky. “If the radius of our planet were larger, there could be a point at which an Earth escaping rocket could Read More ›

Here’s a question for a lazy summer evening, should you be so lucky as to score one: From James Vincent at the Verge: Most economists agree that advances in robotics and AI over the next few decades are likely to lead to significant job losses. But what’s less often considered is how these changes could also impact social mobility. A new report from UK charity Sutton Trust explains the danger, noting that unless governments take action, the next wave of automation will dramatically increase inequality within societies, further entrenching the divide between rich and poor. … For example, the demand for paralegals and similar professions is likely to be reduced over the coming years as artificial intelligence is trained to Read More ›

From Erica Tennenhouse at New Scientist: Most life forms on Earth lack neurons, and yet they frequently manage to behave in complex ways. Previously, we have chalked this up to innate responses refined over generations, but it is beginning to look as if some of these humble non-neural organisms can actually learn. While that’s left some scientists scratching their heads, others are busy investigating how this ability could offer new approaches to fighting diseases and designing intelligent machines. (paywall) More. As Tennenhouse points out, even slime molds can learn, but they are a collection of individual life forms acting as one. New Scientist is probably looking for some explanation that does not see intelligence as immaterial. But it is immaterial, Read More ›

Older (Ichthus, Fall 2013) but interesting Rudelius is apparently a Christian (“passionate about connecting students to Jesus Christ”): The first bad argument against the multiverse is, as far as I can tell, a simple misunderstanding of conditional probabilities. The argument proceeds by analogy: suppose you are playing a game of poker, and your opponent deals himself four aces three times in a row. By the third time, you realize that he must be cheating, and draw your pistol. “Hold on a minute,” says your opponent, “In this infinite ensemble of worlds, there is an infinite number of poker games going on right now. And in some of these universes I am bound to deal myself four aces three times in Read More ›

Here’s an idea presented at YouTube that got kicked around at an ID-friendly online chips n’ gravy fest: The animal must be able to breed in captivity and must have a social structure in which a human can substitute for an animal. Domesticable animals are rare simply because the combination of necessary features is rare. A human can become the leader of a herd or pack. Note: Domestic cats, like Tom, Dick and Harry (UD editorial assistants) are not herd or pack animals; However, handled by humans early enough, cats tend to put the human in the role of Mommy Cat. That is, they never really grow up. But that hardly matters if they have found a human who will Read More ›

From Don Lincoln, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, LiveScience: Dark matter remains a powerfully predictive theory for the structure of the universe. It is not complete and it needs validation by discovering the actual dark matter particle. So, there is still work still to do. But this most recent calculation is an important step toward the day where we will know once and for all if the universe really is dominated by the dark side.More. Dark matter could solve a lot of problems, in the same way that the primordial cell of origin of life studies or the ancestral human of evolutionary psychology could. If only they would exist, and make their existence known. Local bets are on dark matter to Read More ›

From Dean Burnett at the Guardian: There are competing theories about this, but the point is that most other species’ young can do a lot more of the work when it comes to feeding. Human babies can latch, but not much else, so the mother has to essentially do everything. Sometimes that’s totally fine. Other times it’s like trying to insert a water balloon into a wine bottle. A soft, constantly moving, unfathomably precious wine bottle that eventually grows teeth. And the water balloon is incredibly sensitive. And you have to do this a dozen times a day. Even when you’re meant to be sleeping. It may be natural, but breastfeeding isn’t as easy a process for humans as it Read More ›