The genealogical relationship of human, chimpanzee, and gorilla varies along the genome. We develop a hidden Markov model (HMM) that incorporates this variation and relate the model parameters to population genetics quantities such as speciation times and ancestral population sizes. Our HMM is an analytically tractable approximation

Läs mer: PLoS Genetics - Genomic Relationships and Speciation Times of Human, Chimpanzee, and Gorilla Inferred from a Coalescent Hidden Markov Model

Christian and Druze-owned land is being bought for cash by a Shia businessman. Hezbollah’s opponents believe the goal is to create a Shia-populated belt spanning the northern bank of the Litani, allowing the Lebanese group to operate away from prying eyes.

Läs mer: Hezbollah regroups in a new mountain stronghold-News-World-Middle East-TimesOnline

Emile Durkind was perhaps the first to speculate about sociological causes of childhood. He points out two key observations about children: 1) the vast majority of children are unemployed, and 2) children represent one of the least educated segments of our society.

Läs mer: THE ETIOLOGY & TREATMENT OF CHILDHOOD

Det här måste vara världens häftigaste sluss. Det som ser ut som en gångbro längst upp är den vattennivå slussen lyfter till.<br><img src="/images/falkirk"><br><br><br>


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En fransk tidigare racerbilsmotorkonstruktör har under tio år utvecklat en luftdriven bil som ska komma ut på marknaden i år enligt hans företag.

Innehåller verkligen komprimerad luft tillräckligt mycket energi för att driva en bil så här? Om det är sant så kan man ju också tänka sig en massa lokala kraftverk som med alla möjliga snurror (eller solenergi) laddar upp tankar med komprimerad luft.

Såg i videon nu att tankarna ska vara fyllda till 200 bar och göras av kompositmaterial.

MDI (Motor Development International), the brainchild of a French engineer who once designed Formula One engines, plans to have air-driven cars available on the market later this year. They will be available in 2, 4 and 6-cyclinder "flavors" and starting at a price of $15,000. These vehicles use Compressed Air Technology (CAT) as opposed to the regular internal combustion of the fossil-fuelled engines where small explosions of fuel push the pistons up and down. In CAT engines, compressed air pushes the pistons up and down

Läs mer: Digital Journal - Car Runs on Compressed Air
Tillverkarens webbsajt

But thanks in part to an explosion of demand for air conditioners in hot places like India and southern China — mostly relying on refrigerants already banned in Europe and in the process of being phased out in the United States — the ozone layer is proving very hard to repair.

Läs mer: Cool rooms in Asia warming the planet - International Herald Tribune

FN (IEAA) har gjort en ny symbol för radioaktiv strålning.

Man får liksom en känsla av att de gjort symbolen eftersom de inser att de inte kommer att klara att hålla efter spridningen av kärnvapen. Man kan riktigt se ett möte framför sig:

-Eh, det går inte så bra med att stoppa Iran.
- Så att...?
- Japp, rädd för det..
- (Gestikulerar med händerna) Pooof!
-Okej, hur tacklar vi det här? Hot om åtgärder?
- Nja vi har lite mindre utrymme än så att jobba på.
- Vad blir det då?
-Vi tänkte att man kan ha en liten..
-En liten?
-En liten..
-En liten?
-..symbol... att det är ganska farligt...

Who says the United Nations can't get things done? The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency—that's the body in a slow-motion confrontation with Iran—has just come out with a new radiation symbol. It seems the old symbol just wasn't scary enough.

Läs mer: The international symbol for panic | FP Passport

En del gener påverkar förmodligen både inre egenskaper ( t ex hjärnan) och yttre. Kan iris vara ett sådant ställe?

Larsson found that 'crypts' were significantly associated with five personality characteristics (Feelings, Tendermindedness, Warmth, Trust and Positive Emotions) whereas 'contraction furrows' were associated with Impulsiveness. I can't say I'm entirely clear what 'crypts' and 'contraction furrows' look like, but there's a description on Wikipedia and you can click here to see the diagram from Larsson's paper in a popup window. If it comes as a surprise that the same gene could influence both the eye and brain development, it's actually not that strange an idea based on what we already know.

Läs mer: Mind Hacks: The iris is the window to the soul

Many studies have shown that alcohol-dependent men and women have smaller brain volumes than non-alcohol-dependent individuals. It is widely believed that this is due to the toxic effects of ethanol, which causes the alcoholic’s brain to shrink with aging to a greater extent than the non-alcoholic’s. “Our study is the first to demonstrate that brain size among alcohol-dependent individuals with a family history of alcoholism is reduced even before the onset of alcohol dependence,” explains first author Jodi Gilman

Läs mer: Reduced Brain Growth in Alcoholics with Family Drinking History | Science Blog

Afghanistan's warlords and their followers are planning a major rally in Kabul tomorrow. Their cause? Impunity. Of course, they wouldn't put it quite that way. The country's warlords will be demonstrating in favor of a bill guaranteeing amnesty for the mujahidin who fought against Soviet occupation.

Läs mer: Afghan warlords: Please don't prosecute us | FP Passport

Studies evaluating cognitive restructuring-inspired programs in Canada reported some fairly impressive results a few years back; recidivism appeared to have decreased as a result of the intervention. Unfortunately, these studies were flawed by self-selection: inmates who signed up for the program are likely to have been motivated to change to begin with, and furthermore, inmates who did not complete the program were typically removed from analysis.

Läs mer: The Supposed Irrationality of Crime « The Phineas Gage Fan Club

Across Africa, autocracy and one- party rule have slowly yielded to open, multiparty democracy. Guinea, one of the last bastions of one-man rule, now seems on the verge of insurrection. No one knows what kind of change will come — a military coup, a people's uprising, a civil war or some grim combination.

Läs mer: Discontent in Guinea nears boiling point - International Herald Tribune

Apropå att den del kulturpersonligheter har haft svårt att fjärma sig från despoter:

folkmordschic

From "Overwhelming Evidence":

One of the great things about Intelligent Design is that it simplifies things.

So does a lobotomy.
Posted by: Sonja | February 21, 2007 12:44 PM

Hittat i kommentarerna till: Pharyngula: I'm assuming many conservatives are embarrassed by Conservapedia

In rats and mice, a structure called the rostral extension connects the lateral ventricles and the olfactory bulb. This tube-like structure, which is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, provides a pathway for neurons generated in the subventricular zone (a proliferative tissue lining the cerebral ventricles) to migrate to the olfactory bulb, which contains neurons that bind to odorant receptors and produce nervous impulses related to smell. The rostral migratory stream is the equivalent of the rostral extension in rodents, and was not known to exist in humans before this study.

Läs mer: Neurogenesis in the adult human brain « Neurophilosophy

A re-examination of one series of wells running from Taji, just north of Baghdad, to an area southeast of the capital nearly doubled the estimate of recoverable reserves after raising the estimated total to around 15 billion barrels, Bayati said. That is one of a series of similar structures that form a brevet- like pattern in Sunni areas north of Baghdad and are still being studied, he said. Current estimates for all proven reserves in Iraq amount to about 115 billion barrels.

Läs mer: New oil find in Iraq gives hope to Sunni areas - International Herald Tribune

Personally, what I'm noticing is that every time I read somebody who has taken a consistent point of view on gene patents, like Crichton's op-ed, they usually selectively leave out details. For instance, how much does it cost to develop a gene test? Why are the volunteer efforts to build up samples of affected populations so valuable? How will the relative values of these efforts change with changes in gene assay technology? How much government (e.g., NIH) investment has contributed to research versus private (e.g. Gates Foundation) funding? Are the patents owned by pharmaceutical corporations (rarely) or universities (commonly)?

Läs mer: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : 2007 02

Enligt den brittiska tidningen Gramophone så har den engelska nu döda pianisten Joyce Hatto hyllats av kritiker för sina fantastiska tolkningar och sitt breda register av klassisk pianomusik. En ljudexpert har nu granskat flera av inspelningarna och de är i flera fall manipulerade inspelningar av andra pianister och i vissa fall inspelningar som är snodda rakt av från stora namn, både vad gäller solist och orkester.

Tekniker som använts är time-stretching (i ett fall hela 15% vilket måste gjort timingen konstig) och pitch-shifting (för att komma tillbaka i rätt ton).

Also, I admit that my list is biased in favour of my own personal specialties and interests, but I have made a conscious effort to be as cross-disciplinary as possible. There are terms from computer science, cosmology, neuroscience, environmentalism, sociology, biotechnology, philosophy, astrobiology, political science, and many other fields.

Läs mer: Sentient Developments: Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux

På en del Windows-versioner så var BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) en välkänd syn, när datorn kraschade. På mobiltelefoner finns nu White Screen of Death, när telefonen hänger sig med blank skärm så att bakgrundsbelysningen bara visar ett vitt fält över hela skärmen.

I mitt fall var problemet dessutom att omstarter inte hjälpte, hur jag än gjorde med variationer med och utan SIM-kort och minneskort, och batteriurtagning. Det känns rätt surt att ha en obrukbar telefon av mjukvaruskäl.

Jag kan inte heller av praktiska skäl ta telefonen till någon helbrägdagörare. Så lösningen fick bli Internet. Jag använde mig av DaVinci Team, köpte en kredit på 10 Euro och flashade om telefonen. DaVinci team har en programvara som kan flasha om en massa olika telefoner. Man betalar sedan för att få själva flashningen utförd av programmet. Programmet är inte speciellt lätt att använda. Man behöver också en datakabel.

Första gången tog den pengarna fast flashningen misslyckades. Jag e-mailade då DaVinci och några minuter senare hade skickat ny kredit till mig. Och då lyckades flashningen. 28h utan mobil  är nu över.

Jag kan rekommendera DaVinci team efter denna erfarenhet.