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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:46 | Votes:103

posted by janrinok on Friday October 11 2019, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the metmen-in-space? dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

After years of delays, NASA is finally poised to launch a satellite to better understand space weather

The mission is named ICON — for Ionospheric Connection Explorer — and it was originally supposed to launch in the summer of 2017. However, technical issues with the rocket, called Pegasus, forced the launch to be put on hold for the last two years. Now, Northrop Grumman, which operates the Pegasus system, says the rocket is ready to fly after making a few modifications to the vehicle and performing a variety of qualification tests.

If ICON finally gets off the ground this week, scientists are particularly eager about what the satellite might tell us about Earth's mysterious ionosphere — a huge layer of our planet's atmosphere that begins 30 miles up and spans all the way to 600 miles high. This part of our planet's atmosphere overlaps with the boundary of space and is responsible for what is known as space weather. It's here where charged particles streaming from the Sun interact with particles in our atmosphere, charging them up and creating strange phenomena such as the aurora and geomagnetic storms.

"What we know about the ionosphere is that it really changes from one day to the next quite a bit."

The challenge, though, is that scientists have a hard time forecasting how the ionosphere is going to behave. "What we know about the ionosphere is that it really changes from one day to the next quite a bit," Thomas Immel, the principal investigator for ICON at the University of California Berkeley, tells The Verge. "And the other thing we know is that those changes are hard to predict."

That's a problem since space weather events can have a very real impact on electronics and systems here on Earth. Various satellites fly through the ionosphere, as well as astronauts on the International Space Station. GPS signals also travel through this region. Disturbances in the ionosphere can muck up these signals and equipment and even disrupt our power grid on the surface below.

One way to help predict space weather is to image the Sun and understand its activity, which NASA is doing with various missions like the Parker Solar Probe. But right now, it's still difficult to know how the atmosphere will respond to solar events. And that makes it hard to plan for storms and other weird space weather behavior. "You would be sort of surprised at how poorly you could sort of plan your days if you didn't know the weather tomorrow," says Immel, "which is something of our situation with the ionosphere."

To better understand this enigmatic area of space, the ICON mission team is sending the satellite right into the thick of things. The vehicle is going to an altitude of about 360 miles, just above the peak of this atmospheric layer, which is about 120 to 200 miles high, according to Immel. ICON will also circulate Earth at a low latitude over the planet; that's where the ionosphere is densest. "We're focusing on that region because that's where all the action is," says Immel.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Friday October 11 2019, @10:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the would-it-work? dept.

The rise, fall and rise again of businesses

What's the purpose of a business? For a long time, the textbook answer to that question has been purely "to make as much money as possible for its shareholders". But business leaders – who often themselves get huge payouts from this model – are beginning to challenge this orthodoxy.

Or so it seems. The influential Business Roundtable association of top US business leaders, which includes CEOs of Apple, Boeing, Walmart and JP Morgan, made a landmark statement in August. They committed "to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders". Maximising profits, they said, would no longer be their primary goal.

For many, it was seen as an historic moment for business. Markets, however, greeted the news with a yawn. Both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 in the US increased marginally on the day of the announcement.

[...] This brief history has us lurching back and forth between the ideas of shareholder versus stakeholder primacy that have waxed and waned over the decades. Are we doomed to pontificate on this endlessly?

As a way forward, I would advocate for a modest approach to end this interminable debate. A Hippocratic oath for corporations, based on seven principles:

1. Do no evil.

2. Pay taxes and adhere to laws and regulations.

3. Avoid interfering in politics.

4. Do not deny science.

5. Focus on core competencies and embrace competition.

6. If invested in the stakeholder model, ensure that stakeholders are represented in your governance structures.

7. If concerned about inequality, start at home.

This approach can help restore faith in corporations, protect their brands and reputation, and avoid accusations of hypocrisy, while focusing their attention on what they truly do best – producing goods or services. To paraphrase the writer Anand Giridharadas: "Avoid virtue signalling and virtuous side projects; do your day jobs more honourably."

And to quote Milton Friedman, business "should engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud".

What do you guys think ??


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Friday October 11 2019, @08:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the smoke-and-mirrors dept.

https://medium.com/@wtfmitchel/azure-vs-moores-law-2020-65a6fe67e31b

As a result of undershooting their projected capacity by such a large margin, Microsoft was way off on their capacity projections with Azure and only built roughly 1/3 of the data center capacity that was actually necessary. Consequently, they had to over-provision their existing data centers to the point of tripping the breakers and rapidly fill the gaps with an excessive amount of leased space to meet the demand that they projected. All of which effectively doubled the amount of leased space in their portfolio from 25% to 50%, extended their break-even to nearly a decade, and killed their hopes of profitability any time soon.

While an honest mistake and not being able to foresee the future is forgivable, knowingly omitting a mistake of this magnitude is criminal when considering how much Microsoft is hedging its future on Azure. On top of supplying misleading revenue metrics in their quarterly 10K filings to fortify a position of strength and being second only to AWS, Microsoft seems to be wary about reporting Azure's individual performance metrics or news of these failings that would enable investors to conclude this for themselves. Instead, Microsoft appears to be averaging out Azure's losses with their legacy mainstays that are profitable by reporting its revenue within their Intelligent Cloud container instead of itemizing it.

Previously:


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Friday October 11 2019, @07:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-play-global-thermonuclear-war dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Donald Trump joins Twitch, Amazon's game-streaming service

Donald Trump is spreading his social media wings with the launch of a channel on Twitch. Trump is at least the third candidate for president to create a presence on the video game streaming service.

Trump's account, which has a verification check mark, counts about 7,000 followers but hasn't posted any content as of this writing, but the move suggests the president will use the platform to livestream videos to his supporters as part of his 2020 re-election bid. Other candidates to launch Twitch accounts include Democrats Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang.

Although not a fan of social media, Trump is one of the industry's most prolific users, using his Twitter account to announce policy changes and criticize his opponents. His 65.5 million followers on Twitter put him just out of the top 10 most-followed Twitter accounts. He also has nearly 15 million followers on Instagram, although he posts on that account far less frequently than he does on Twitter.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @05:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the hope-you-charged-your-car dept.

Massive California Power Outage Triggers Chaos in Science Labs

Massive California Power Outage Triggers Chaos in Science Labs:

Researchers without access to backup power scramble to save invaluable specimens and expensive reagents.

California's largest utility company shut off power to more than a million people across the northern part of the state on 9 and 10 October. The outage sent scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, scrambling to save specimens and experiments.

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), based in San Francisco, California, planned the outages to reduce the risk of wildfires. [...]The company has said that the power outage could last several days, frustrating residents — including some researchers.

[...] Many labs at UC Berkeley lack reliable back-up power. Some researchers are taking drastic measures to preserve samples and supplies that require refrigeration. James Olzmann, a metabolic researcher at Berkeley, loaded his lab's freezers onto trucks on 9 October and moved them to facilities at the nearby University of California, San Francisco, which still has power.

Jessica Lyons, a molecular biologist at UC Berkeley, says that each lab in her building has a single outlet that is connected to an emergency power system. The main freezer in Lyons' lab, which keeps specimens at -80 °C, is plugged into that outlet. Lyons and her colleagues stocked the other freezers in their lab with dry ice on 8 October after being warned of the impending outages, to keep things cool.

"For any scientist, the bottom line is are all of the freezers getting power right now, or are they not," she says. "I actually don't know the answer to that right now, and they keep telling us not to come in."

I'd not thought of interrupted research when I first learned of PG&E's planned outages. What other "unexpected" venues would be dramatically affected? Sperm banks are obvious now that I think of refrigeration issues. What light-sensitive activities would now be stymied with the power out? What about supporting research animals? There's a lot more than meets the eye.

California PG&E Blackouts: What Electric-Car Makers Have to say about the Situation

CNET spoke with several electric car makers about what they suggest for electric car owners during the "public safety power shutoff" put in place by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) .

California PG&E Blackouts: What Electric-Car Makers Have to say about the Situation:

When power will come back on is unclear. For electric vehicle owners, that poses a bit of a problem, since their cars' main source of power comes from electric charging stations at home or at public stations. Without a source of power, EVs won't get terribly far.

Ahead of the blackout on Wednesday, Tesla pushed a notification to owners' cars urging them to fully charge their car ahead of the blackout in their area. In part, the notification said the blackout "may affect power to charging options." The automaker continued, "As always, your touchscreen will display live statuses of Superchargers in your area."

Tesla did not respond to Roadshow's request for comment when we asked for additional information

[...] Audi told Roadshow that E-Tron owners typically drive, on average, 48 miles per day, which leaves plenty of battery reserve in the case of a blackout. With the figure, E-Tron drivers, on average, need to fully charge their cars every four days.

Still, the company checked with Electrify America (a Volkswagen Group subsidiary) and the charging station operator said there are no stations affected by the PG&E blackouts at this time. The Audi E-Tron's in-car navigation will show which Electrify America stations are currently occupied or not available, though the company said it's working to learn what a station would display if it did not have power.

If that's not enough, Audi also offers seven days of Silvercar service to all owners, including those who left the dealership with an E-Tron. "It would allow customers to drive an Audi from Silvercar at no additional cost [if] they needed to get through a difficult period caused by a blackout," a representative told Roadshow via email.


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @04:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the keeping-things-charged-up dept.

Dyson has scrapped its electric car project

Dyson had planned to invest more than £2bn in developing a "radical and different" electric vehicle, a project it launched in 2016. It said the car would not be aimed at the mass market. Half of the funds would go towards building the car, half towards developing electric batteries.

In October 2018 Dyson revealed plans to build the car at a new plant in Singapore. It was expected to be completed next year, with the first vehicles due to roll off the production line in 2021.

[...] Dyson has concluded it simply can't afford to play with the big boys - although its efforts to make a quantum leap in battery technology will continue. [...] Sir James said Dyson would continue to work on the battery technology, which was used in the car. "Our battery will benefit Dyson in a profound way and take us in exciting new directions."

Previously: Dyson Developing Electric Cars... With UK Government Money
Dyson Will Build Electric Cars in Singapore for a 2021 Launch


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @02:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the Brrrr! dept.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/09/winter-storm-aubrey-historic-snow-cold-forecast-central-us/3918343002/

A "potentially historic" winter storm will slam the north-central USA over the next few days with up to 2 feet of snow possible in some areas.

Snow will accumulate from eastern Washington and Montana to Colorado, the Dakotas, Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, the Weather Channel said. Record low temperatures are also possible Thursday and Friday across the western USA.

The system will produce severe storms and heavy rain Thursday in the southern Plains and critical-to-extreme fire weather threats from the central and southern Rockies to California, the National Weather Service said.

The size and intensity of this snowstorm are unheard of for October, according to AccuWeather.

[...] A slew of winter storm warnings, watches and freeze warnings were in effect across parts of seven states as the storm ramped up Wednesday, AccuWeather said.

[...] The storm will have two parts, the first of which is targeting the northern and central Rockies and High Plains on Wednesday into Thursday. The second part will bring snow to the eastern and central portions of the Dakotas and western Minnesota by week's end.

"Near-blizzard to full-fledged blizzard conditions are possible across portions of central North Dakota Friday afternoon into Saturday morning," the weather service in Bismarck said. "Expect high impacts and dangerous to impossible travel conditions."

The weather service called it a "potentially historic October winter storm."

Meanwhile, locations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, and Australia (among others) reported temperatures well over 100°F (38 C)!


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @12:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the its-quiet-awl-write-two-laugh-hat-you're-miss-steaks dept.

I was recently introduced to Professor Paul Brians' web site at Washington State University (WSU). I know I've made many mistakes like these over the years, and would like to think that I have learned from those mistakes. Would that I could have learned them, then, without having to go through those experiences.

So, with a sense of gratitude for what I've been taught and learned so far, and in hopes that it might afford a Soylentil a chance to avoid a red-face-inducing faux pas, I offer you examples of some Common Errors in English Usage:

People send me quite a few word confusions which don't seem worth writing up but which are nevertheless entertaining or interesting. I simply list a number of these below for your amusement. Many of them are discussed on the Eggcorn Database site.

Note: if you don't find what you're looking for below, please be aware that this is only a supplementary page to a much more extensive site that begins here.

NOTE: This is a greatly thinned list of examples from the linked page and has been reformatted for use here. Ellipses ([...]) between entries are implied.

What was saidWhat was meant
ad homonymad hominem
aerobic numbersArabic numbers
ashfaultasphalt
Cadillac convertercatalytic converter
circus sizedcircumcised
deformation of characterdefamation of character
flamingo dancerflamenco dancer
four-stair heatingforced-air heating
gentile mannersgenteel manners
glaucomoleglaucoma
gorilla warfareguerilla warfare
Heineken removerHeimlich maneuver
immaculate degenerationmacular degeneration
in sinkin synch
ivy towerivory tower
misconscrewmisconstrue
muncho manmacho man
parody of virtueparagon of virtue
piece of mindpeace of mind
pot-bellied politicspork-barrel politics
shock waysshockwaves
techknowledgytechnology
two sense worthtwo cents' worth
tyrannical yolktyrannical yoke
very close veinsvaricose veins
windshield factorwind chill factor

What are your favorites — either from this list — or from elsewhere?

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @11:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the Pew!-Pew!-Pew! dept.

Atari VCS Lead Architect Quits, Claims Six Months of Design Work Went Unpaid:

A key member of the Atari VCS project has quit the team, claiming Atari has not paid him for his work in six months. And by key member, we are talking about Rob Wyatt, the lead architect of the Atari VCS. From the outside looking in, Wyatt's departure is seemingly a big blow to a project that has seen multiple delays.

Wyatt is an industry veteran who also helped design and launch the original Xbox console. He joined the Atari VCS team in June 2018, with Atari at the time promoting his expertise and resume in GPU hardware and 3D graphics.

"While at Microsoft, Wyatt held roles on the development teams on DirectX and the Windows kernel before becoming the system architect of the original Xbox game console. Wyatt later contributed to the graphics systems of the PlayStation 3 before moving on to become the graphics architect at Magic Leap, an augmented reality startup. Along the way, he has also lent his expertise to many AAA video games and high-end movie special effects," Atari stated in a press release announcing its hiring of Wyatt.

[...]"Atari haven't paid invoices going back over six months. As a small company, we have been lucky to survive this long," Wyatt told The Register. "I was hoping to see the project through to the end and that it wouldn't come to this, but I have little choice other than to pursue other opportunities."

The Atari VCS raised million dollars through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, and has also collected money through preorders on its website, Walmart, and GameStop. Earlier this week, Atari showed off a pre-production motherboard with a Ryzen APU installed, and prior to that, it announced a partnership with Antstream Arcade to bring thousands of retro games to the Atari VCS through a subscription model.

According to Atari, the retro console is still on track to release next year, despite the departure of Wyatt.

Any ideas of why the project is running late? Going too far past the "minimal viable product" stage? I'm just a bit surprised that he worked six months without payment.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the buy-"low"-and-sell-high? dept.

New Study Analyzes FEMA-Funded Home Buyout Program

An analysis of FEMA's 30-year-old property buyout program offers new insight into the growing debate on managed retreat—moving people and assets out of flood-prone areas.

A research team led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that FEMA-funded voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties have been more likely to take place in counties with higher population and income. However, the buyouts themselves were concentrated in neighborhoods with lower income and greater social vulnerability. The researchers hope their analysis can provide insights to help revise this program in the future.

"In recent decades, communities throughout the United States have been building experiences with retreat from flood-prone areas, largely through voluntary buyouts of properties after disasters," said the study's lead author Katharine Mach, an associate professor of marine ecosystems and society at the UM Rosenstiel School. "While a proven method of reducing risk, buyouts to date have also illustrated the challenges with locally driven managed retreat and the potential benefits of experimentation with different retreat policies in the future."

In the U.S., over 40,000 homes in flood-prone areas have been purchased and returned to open space in 49 states and three U.S. territories under the FEMA program since its inception in the late 1990s. The federally funded program is typically administered through local government agencies.

Mach and colleagues analyzed data on the more than 40,000 buyouts alongside data on flood risk, socioeconomics and demographics to reveal that local governments in counties with higher population and income were more likely to administer buyouts of flood-prone properties. However, at the zip-code level, the bought-out properties themselves were concentrated in areas of lower population and income.

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @08:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the bravo! dept.

Nobel Honors Pioneers in Cosmology and Exoplanets

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics honors the human desire to understand both the fundamental nature of the universe and its details. Half of the $900,000 prize goes to Princeton University cosmologist James Peebles, for laying the foundations of modern-day cosmology. The other half is split between astronomers Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Didier Queloz, now at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who discovered the first planet around another sunlike star. In 1965, Peebles predicted that the big bang should have left an afterglow. That cosmic microwave background (CMB) was discovered the same year. Peebles also deduced that tiny fluctuations in the temperature of the CMB across the sky could be used determine the amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter, and space-stretching dark energy that make up the universe. Mayor and Queloz changed astronomy in a stroke in 1995, when they found a gas giant half the mass of Jupiter in an orbit much tighter than Mercury's. Since then the floodgates of discovery have opened and astronomers have found thousands more exoplanets of every description.

Full article is paywalled.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @06:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the planning-ahead-is-for-the-birds dept.

These State Birds may be Forced out of their States as the World Warms:

WASHINGTON — Each state in America has an official state bird, usually an iconic species that helps define the landscape. Minnesota chose the common loon, whose haunting wails echo across the state's northern lakes each summer. Georgia picked the brown thrasher, a fiercely territorial bird with a repertoire of more than 1,000 song types.

But as the planet warms and birds across the country relocate to escape the heat, at least eight states could see their state birds largely or entirely disappear from within their borders during the summer, according to a new study.

[...]The research, released Thursday by the National Audubon Society, projects that hundreds of bird species across North America are likely to drastically shift their ranges in the decades ahead in response to rising temperatures and other threats from climate change.

The report raises the prospect that many bird species could struggle to cope as warming forces them into unfamiliar territory or shrinks their existing habitats. And it illustrates how thoroughly the avian world as we know it may be remapped if humans continue pumping greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

If global temperatures rise a plausible 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels this century, Minnesota will no longer enjoy the local climate conditions that loons are accustomed to as they arrive each summer to breed and hunt for food, the study found. As a result, the birds may bypass the state altogether and head farther north.

The same goes for other state birds, including the northern flicker in Alabama — known locally as the yellowhammer — as well as the brown thrasher in Georgia, the purple finch in New Hampshire, the hermit thrush in Vermont and the goldfinch in Iowa and New Jersey. Those birds are projected to lose virtually all of their summer ranges within those states at 3 degrees of global warming.

[...] The California quail, often seen strutting around the state's suburbs and parks, could lose 87 percent of its winter range in California. And the ruffed grouse, the official state game bird in Pennsylvania and one that is popular with hunters, could lose its entire summer and winter ranges in the state, the study found.

"It's one way we'll see the effects of climate change right in our own backyards," said David Yarnold, the president of the National Audubon Society. "If you've ever been around a lake in the upper United States, you can probably hear the sound of a loon in your head. It's hard to imagine a Minnesota summer without them. It's hard to imagine a New Jersey summer without goldfinches."

[...]To conduct the study, Audubon's scientists mapped the current ranges and habitats of 604 bird species across North America, using data from millions of bird observations. They then used climate models to estimate the birds' future ranges under warming conditions of 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. The expectation was that many birds will try to move to keep up with shifts in temperature, rainfall and vegetation.

[...]The report classified 389 of the species studied as "vulnerable" to 3 degrees Celsius of warming. That means the birds are projected to lose a significant portion of their current range and may have relatively limited opportunities to move elsewhere. Examples include the lark bunting, Colorado's state bird, and the wood thrush, a migratory bird that breeds in Eastern forests.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Friday October 11 2019, @05:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the spidey-sense-is-tingling dept.

A Mob of Horny Tarantulas is Prowling San Francisco:

October is turning out to be a bad month to live in San Francisco. First, utilities company PG&E initiated wide-ranging Bay Area blackouts to protect against the possibility of wildfires. Now it seems the warmer weather is attracting thousands of tarantulas looking for mates, so residents will have to fight off horny spiders in the dark.

[...]"San Francisco officials are warning residents to be on the lookout for thousands of giant male spiders," according to The Wall Street Journal. "The spiders aren't dangerous to people. In fact it's the other way around."

Creepy as they may be to those who [fear] them, spiders help humans by eating thousands of bugs every year that are a threat to crops.

"If spiders disappeared, we would face famine," New York's American Museum of Natural History's Norman Platnick told Treehugger this week. "Spiders are primary controllers of insects. Without spiders, all of our crops would be consumed by those pests."

While tarantulas do eat insects, frogs and small lizards, the spiders are mostly harmless to humans. Tarantula bites are painful like bee stings, but their venom is very mild.

[...]So if you happen to come across a tarantula on the trail, or under your sheets, "fear not, don't kill them," the site[*] continues. "Know that while they may look terrifying, they're doing the good work."

[*] Mount Diablo park website.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @03:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the papering-over-their-differences dept.

The Gannett–GateHouse merger is really happening, but expect to see more than 10% of jobs cut off the top:

The megamerger is really happening. Expect the new Gannett — the brand that will survive that chain's acquisition by GateHouse Media — to officially take wobbly flight soon, perhaps around Thanksgiving.

Both companies, the country's No. 1 and No. 2 newspaper publishers, say it's full speed ahead. Independent financial analysts tell me that their data-driven analysis shows a 90-percent-plus chance the merger completes. The deal has already gotten the blessing of the Department of Justice's antitrust division; that approval flashes a very green light to all the other newspaper chains eyeing various mergers and recombinations.

So by New Year's Day 2020, all the companies' news products across 265 markets will move under one giant umbrella. Never before in U.S. history have we seen a single company own and manage so much of the American newspaper business — about one of every six dailies. (Both companies are declining comment on the merger's details at this juncture.)

In other words, it's been a boffo opening season of The Consolidation Games, the newspaper-industry drama that's played out in corporate offices, bank meeting rooms, and the stock market since the beginning of 2019 — and which is certain to be picked up for a second series in 2020.

Readers, advertisers, and journalists will feel the reverberations of the Gannett–GateHouse merger for years to come

[...] These are two struggling companies seeking short-term salvation — enough oxygen to get a few more years down the road. Taking a $300 million whack at all the "redundancies" in day-to-day operation seems a better choice than going it alone. Sure, it'll cost $100 million or so to cut all those jobs and rationalize all that tech — most of it in severance. But that's far preferable, both Gannett and GateHouse believe, than a thousand smaller cuts, atop the thousands both have already made.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @01:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-bear-the-thought dept.

A Virus in Koala DNA Stirs the Genetic Pot:

Koalas have been running into hard times. They have suffered for years from habitat destruction, dog attacks, automobile accidents. But that's only the beginning.

They are also plagued by chlamydia and cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, and in researching those problems, scientists have found a natural laboratory in which to study one of the hottest topics in biology: how viruses can insert themselves into an animal's DNA and sometimes change the course of evolution.

The target of this research is Koala retrovirus, or KoRV, a bit of protein and genetic material in the same family as H.I.V. that began inserting itself into the koala genome about 40,000 years ago and is now passed on from generation to generation, like genes. It is also still passed from animal, as a typical viral infection.

[...] The koala retrovirus is unusual because 40,000 years is the blink of an eye in evolutionary time, and because the process appears to be continuing. A group of scientists reported in Cell on Thursday that they observed a genome immune system fighting to render the virus inactive now that it has established itself in the koala DNA. They also reported that koala retrovirus may have activated other ancient viral DNA. All of this activity stirs the pot of mutation and variation that is the raw material for natural selection.

Koala genetics are a gold mine, said William Theurkauf, a professor in molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and one of the authors of the report. "What they are going through is the process of what's driven the evolution of every animal on the planet."

Past viral infections have led to major evolutionary changes, he said. For example: "A gene that is absolutely essential for the placenta was derived from the shell of a virus millions of years ago." Humans would not exist without that ancient retroviral infection.

Retroviruses are made of RNA, a single strand of genetic information. When they infect a cell, they translate themselves into DNA, the two-stranded molecule that carries all the information for making humans, koalas and other animals. The retroviruses take over the DNA machinery to make more of themselves, which keeps the process going.

That process makes us and other animals sick. AIDS is probably the best known retroviral disease. But when the insertion of a retrovirus occurs in a sperm or an egg cell, the change can become permanent, passed on forever. When retroviruses become part of an animal's inherited DNA, they are called endogenous and eventually they no longer cause the kind of original infection they once did. But they can still be used by the animal's genetic machinery for other purposes, like making a placenta.

"It was long thought they were just junk DNA," said Shawn L. Chavez, a molecular biologist at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine in Portland, who wrote a review of research on endogenous retroviruses in mammals. Now it is clear that some of them have changed the course of evolution. Exactly how is what scientists are trying to find out. "It seems like there's a new publication every day," she said.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Friday October 11 2019, @12:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the When-in-the-course-of-human-events... dept.

Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale, described the horror of the authoritarian regime of Gilead. In this theocracy, self-preservation was the best people could hope for, being powerless to kick against the system. But her sequel, The Testaments, raises the possibility that individuals, with suitable luck, bravery and cleverness, can fight back.

But can they? There are countless examples of past and present monstrous regimes in the real world. And they all raise the question of why people didn't just rise up against their rulers. Some of us are quick to judge those who conform to such regimes as evil psychopaths – or at least morally inferior to ourselves.

To answer this question, let's start by considering a now classic analysis by American organisational theorist James March and Norwegian political scientist Johan Olsen from 2004.

They argued that human behaviour is governed by two complementary, and very different, "logics". According to the logic of consequence, we choose our actions like a good economist: weighing up the costs and benefits of the alternative options in the light of our personal objectives. This is basically how we get what we want.

But there is also a second logic, the logic of appropriateness. According to this, outcomes, good or bad, are often of secondary importance – we often choose what to do by asking "What is a person like me supposed to do in a situation like this"?

The idea is backed up by psychological research. Human social interactions depend on our tendency to conform to unwritten rules of appropriate behaviour. Most of us are truthful, polite, don't cheat when playing board games and follow etiquette. We are happy to let judges or football referees enforce rules. A recent study showed we even conform to arbitrary norms.

[...] A small number of us, however, would rebel – but not primarily, I suspect, based on differences in individual moral character. Rebels, too, need to harness the logic of appropriateness – they need to find different norms and ideals, shared with fellow members of the resistance, or inspired by history or literature. Breaking out of one set of norms requires that we have an available alternative.

Would you stand up to an oppressive regime or would you conform?

Do you agree with this analysis? What would you do in such situations?


Original Submission