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Arsenic Bacteria Genome, Cheap Solar, Touchy Feely Chimps And Rats, Bad Science, Thank You Video Games, Mammoth Cloning, Inheriting Worms, Old Marbles, Vaccines, Vitamins, And Much More…
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Science rewards the scientist with great personal satisfaction.
The labor of learning is a labor of love, and those that make further discovery find the greatest satisfaction in what was already a rewarding endeavor.
When first announced, new discovery can be met with tremendous resistance from the general public. Fear of the unknown presuming unknown danger, or fear of real danger, ignoring potential benefits.
This has happened often enough throughout history that we can wonder how many times fire must have been discovered by some happy inventor…
Only to have it stamped out by the feet of fearful cavemen thinking some evil spirit had been released
But as time passes the unknown becomes the ordinary.
Eventually they accept fire as fire, and move on to worshiping the shadows at the back of the cave wall
Those who benefit from the warmth and light of scientific labor know little of the long hours of work, or the great joy and triumph of discovery and so …value it as ordinary
As though all the scientific discovery of the past centuries was inevitable,
as if knowledge simply leaks out into the world through an eventual randomness of time.
But it simply is not so.
It requires the dedication and knowledge of scientists across the globe to make progress happen.
Without this hard work we couldn’t even have something as simple as…
This Week in Science… Coming up next.
Solar power is cheaper than you think
Chimpanzee synesthete
Empathic rats?
The worst science paper of the year…
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Video games make kids smarter
Worm inheritance
Vitamin D and MS
A vaccine for Ebola
A sleeping pill for waking?
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Fascinating stuff.
What is the song played during the break?
… [The GFAJ-1 shotgun sequence] could be a point for the arsenic bacteria.
NO! NO! NO!!! It is a BULLET TO THE HEAD for the theory that As is used in place of P!
DNA sequences like this are read using Chain-termination methods.
This technique relies hooking a molecule onto the end of fragments of DNA using what are called dideoxynucleotide triphosphates.
Notice the word phosphates in there?
Arsenic-based nucleotides could never have been read using this technique!
Therefore, the sample of GFAJ-1 which was sequenced contained normal DNA, with normal P in it, and no As.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Traces/wgs/?val=AHBC01
I’m a little late on this post but I was having trouble getting on your site for some reason.
Anyway.. always a great show but I have a criticism for this episode regarding the “Worst science paper of the year”. In fairness, I am usually doing chores while I listen to the podcast so I may have missed something.
Your opinions on this seemed to be more based on a dislike of the theory then facts…. even made up ones by Justin! (LoL).
1) Kirsten: You said that “most births are by caesarian”. Not true. I would agree that mankind can surpass the restriction on brain size by doing that but that is not what you said. Could have just been a simple mistatement of course.
2) Justin: You harped on brain size and eugenics. Obviously, eugenics has been debunked since WWII but the idea that brain size can’t affect intelligence is wrong. Now the way eugenics tried to separate races by brain size and color, etc, was of questionable measurements and crappy science. But the basic idea that the brain of a human developed larger since the days of the early hominids is tied directly to our intelligence as well as other abilities (language, abstractions, etc). I thought it was a bit harsh to hint that these guys were following Nazis science!
3) I am not familiar with the concept of Ashkanazi (sp?) Jews being more intelligent but is it really crazy to think that as we evolve certain traits or increase existing ones that there are going to be trade-offs? You guys even talked about autism possibly being a trait that helped early man and you even talked about how the brain gave some excellent skills at the cost of ones that, at the time, might not have mattered. But the trade-off was there.
Now I’m not saying I agree 100% with the concept of the paper. But I thought you guys were putting it down for all the wrong reasons and not really giving it the criticism it needed or the discussion it deserved.
Please tell me if I missed something or if there was something not mentioned that may have been more of a factor… I would love to know if I’m wrong on this.
Anyway… Great show regardless!
Down with the Higgs-Boson!
LOL