DNA - The Search For Adam

Three Moons Cast Shadows on Jupiter

Source: Hubblesite.org
a rare alignment of three of Jupiter's largest moons – Io, Ganymede, and Callisto – across the planet's face. In this image, the telltale signatures of this alignment are the shadows [the three black circles] cast by the moons. Io's shadow is located just above center and to the left; Ganymede's on the planet's left edge; and Callisto's near the right edge. Only two of the moons, however, are visible in this image. Io is the white circle in the center of the image, and Ganymede is the blue circle at upper right. Callisto is out of the image and to the right. The image was taken March 28, 2004, with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer.

Gyroscope

Like No Other Planet

1. Like no other known planet, 98% of earth is made up of iron, oxygen, sulfur, silicon, magnesium and nickel.
2. Like no other planet, the earth is covered with green vegetation pumping mountains of fresh oxygen into our air and cleaning the atmosphere of harmful carbon dioxide.
3. Like no other planet, earth has an endless supply of oxygen-laden water, circulating in its streams, rivers and oceans teeming with self-sustaining life.
4. Like no other planet, the surface of the earth is a glorious gem in the universe compared to its dull and lifeless counterparts.
5. Like no other planet, life is found in every square inch of earth—even in Antarctica. One acre of farmland six inches thick is estimated to contain several tons of living bacteria, a ton of fungi, 200 pounds of unicellular protozoan animals, about 100 pounds of yeast and 100 pounds of algae.
6. Like no other planet, the earth travels at just the right speed in its 292 million-mile-long orbit around the sun. Too much faster and it would be pulled away from the sun and if too far all life would die. And if it traveled slightly slower it would move too close to the sun and all life would perish.
7. Like no other planet, the earth's rotation on its axis protects the life on it. If slower all life would die in time by a combination of freezing at night due to a lack of sunlight and burning up during the day due to too much sun.
8. Like no other planet, the earth sits perfectly in its environment. For example, if the moon were too close to the earth it would create massive tides which would erode the continents and mountain ridges making the earth flat. It is estimated it would then be covered with one and a half miles of water.
9. Like no other planet, 70% of the earth is covered with living water. The water acts as a heat sink absorbing the sun's energy during the day keeping the earth comfortable and gradually releasing its heat by night keeping the earth from becoming unbearably cold. Without the temperature balancing act of the vast reservoirs of the earth's water many parts would be hot enough to boil water during the day and freeze water during the night. Life could not exist.
10. Like no other planet, God's earth has a built-in thermostat. Just a few degrees change in earth's average temperature would result in most life roasting or freezing.
11. Like no other known planet, the earth's one mile thick girdle protects it from the heat of its molten core.
12. Like no other planet, the earth touts a radiation shielding ozone layer, without which life could not exist.

There are literally hundreds of such examples that testify of the uniqueness of God's good earth. The tolerances for life to exist and amenities necessary to sustain it are so phenomenally unique to earth that the odds of them existing elsewhere in space are simply beyond numerical comprehension

Paper-Ink=battery

MRI of a guys brain

See MRI of a Brain
Really cool presentation.

Brain activity exposes those who break promises

Scientists from the University of Zurich have discovered the physiological mechanisms in the brain that underlie broken promises. Patterns of brain activity even enable predicting whether someone will break a promise. The results of the study conducted by Dr. Thomas Baumgartner and Professor Ernst Fehr, both of the University of Zurich, and Professor Urs Fischbacher of the University of Konstanz, will be published in the journal Neuron on December 10, 2009.

The promise is one of the oldest human-specific behaviors promoting cooperation, trust, and partnership. Although promises are generally not legally binding, they form the basis for a great many everyday social and economic exchange situations. Promises, however, are not only kept, but also broken. Material incentives to deceive are in fact ubiquitous in human society, and promises can thus also be misused in any social or economic exchange scenario in order to cheat one's interaction partner. Business people, politicians, diplomats, attorneys, and private persons do not always behave honestly, as recent financial scandals have dramatically demonstrated.

Despite the ubiquity of promises in human life, we know very little about the brain physiological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. In order to increase understanding in this area, neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner (University of Zurich) and economists Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich) and Urs Fischbacher (University of Konstanz) carried out a social interaction experiment in a brain scanner where the breach of a promise led both to monetary benefits for the promise breaker and to monetary costs for the interaction partner. The results of the study show that increased activity in areas of the brain playing an important role in processes of emotion and control accompany the breach of a promise. This pattern of brain activity suggests that breaking a promise triggers an emotional conflict in the promise breaker due to the suppression of an honest response.

Furthermore, the most important finding of the study enabled the researchers to show that "perfidious" patterns of brain activity even allow the prediction of future behavior. Indeed, experimental subjects who ultimately keep a promise and those who eventually break one act exactly the same at the time the promise is made - both swear to keep their word. Brain activity at this stage, however, often exposes the subsequent promise breakers.

Catching culprits

As neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner elucidates, these findings indicate that brain activity measurements may already reveal malevolent intentions at a point in time prior to commitment of a dishonest or deceitful act. "Such a finding thus permits the speculation that the measurement of brain activity could be applied in the (distant) future not only to catch culprits, but even beyond this perhaps to aid in the prevention of fraudulent and criminal intrigues - a vision already made reality in the science fiction film 'Minority Report'."

"We've discovered critical elements of the neuronal basis of broken promises," economist Ernst Fehr explains. "In light of the significance of promises in everyday, interpersonal cohabitation in society, these findings offer the prospect of being able to fathom and better understand the brain physiological basis of pro-social and especially of antisocial behavior in general."

Source: University of Zurich

Mind over matter technology

Water droplet at a high speed camera view

You use 100% of your brain.

That’s ten times more than many people think, according to Dr. Aaron Carroll, coauthor of Don’t Swallow Your Gum: Myths, Half-Truths, and Original Lies About Your Body and Health. The false notion that most of our gray matter sits idle probably first cropped up in the early 20th century. “Snake-oil salesmen needed to convince people that they could be smarter,” says Carrol. “The oil is gone, but the myth is still a round.” In fact, your brain resembles a running car. All of it works all of the time, but parts “rev up” depending on what you do. That means you keep loosing your keys for other reasons. “If you don’t think you live up to your full potential,” Carol says, “don’t blame it on the physical properties of your brain.”

Spirit – P33

My Comment:

The human body on the cellular level, operates by a principle of ineducable complexity, which means, take one component out of the cell and the system fails, add one to it and you get the same result. On a larger scale, cells which are useful are thriving and the ones that are idle, are discarded by the body. At the age of approximately five the brain undergoes drastic change, all neurons which a re used are reinforced and the ones that are not used, are discarded, which kid of sets the course of life. The brain of a child contrary a to popular belief, contains more neurons that a brain of an adult. It awaits sorting, reinforcing of used neurons and elimination of the ones which will are not likely to be used.

This principle can be found in the New Testament:

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:2

This spiritual principle permeates through entire creation and applies to both spiritual and material things. We can also apply it to any area of our lives. For example: Things you don't use for extended period of time, you give away or dispose of, only things that will help you to achieve some greater purpose in your life you acquire, and the goal of acquiring new thins should always be a greater purpose. God's purpose can be seen through all creation. I think we can learn a great deal from nature to live with purpose and meaning at maximum efficiency.

The inner life of the cell

The inner life of the cell, cool animation from Harvard University


Click here to see the video

How fast is Earth moving through space?

To begin with, Earth is rotating on its axis at the familiar rate of one revolution per day. For those of us living at Earth's midlatitudes -- including the United States, Europe, and Japan -- the rate is almost a thousand miles an hour. The rate is higher at the equator and lower at the poles. In addition to this daily rotation, Earth orbits the Sun at an average speed of 67,000 mph, or 18.5 miles a second.

Perhaps that seems a bit sluggish -- after all, Mars Pathfinder journeyed to Mars at nearly 75,000 miles per hour. Buckle your seat belts, friends. The Sun, Earth, and the entire solar system also are in motion, orbiting the center of the Milky Way at a blazing 140 miles a second. Even at this great speed, though, our planetary neighborhood still takes about 200 million years to make one complete orbit -- a testament to the vast size of our home galaxy.

Dizzy yet? Well hold on. The Milky Way itself is moving through the vastness of intergalactic space. Our galaxy belongs to a cluster of nearby galaxies, the Local Group, and together we are easing toward the center of our cluster at a leisurely 25 miles a second.

If all this isn't enough to make you feel you deserve an intergalactic speeding ticket, consider that we, along with our cousins in the Local Group, are hurtling at a truly astonishing 375 miles a second toward the Virgo Cluster, an enormous collection of galaxies some 45 million light-years away.

Global Warming Projections Overestimated, Says Black Carbon Study

A detailed analysis of black carbon, the residue of burned organic matter, in computer climate models suggests they may be overestimating global warming predictions. A new Cornell study in Nature Geosciences quantified the amount of black carbon in Australian soils and found that there was far more than expected, said Johannes Lehmann, the paper's lead author and a Cornell professor of biogeochemistry. The survey was the largest of black carbon ever published.

As a result of global warming, soils are expected to release more carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, which, in turn, creates more warming. Climate models try to incorporate these increases of carbon dioxide from soils as the planet warms, but results vary greatly when realistic estimates of black carbon in soils are included in the predictions, the study found.

Soils include many forms of carbon, including organic carbon from leaf litter and vegetation and black carbon from the burning of organic matter. It takes a few years for organic carbon to decompose, as microbes eat it and convert it to carbon dioxide. But black carbon can take 1,000-2,000 years, on average, to convert to carbon dioxide.

By entering realistic estimates of stocks of black carbon in soil from two Australian savannas into a computer model that calculates carbon dioxide release from soil, the researchers found that carbon dioxide emissions from soils were reduced by about 20 percent over 100 years, as compared with simulations that did not take black carbon's long shelf life into account.

The findings are significant because soils are by far the world's largest source of carbon dioxide, producing 10 times more carbon dioxide each year than all the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities combined. Small changes in how carbon emissions from soils are estimated, therefore, can have a large impact.

"We know from measurements that climate change today is worse than people have predicted," said Lehmann. "But this particular aspect, black carbon's stability in soil, if incorporated in climate models, would actually decrease climate predictions."

The study quantified the amount of black carbon in 452 Australian soils across two savannas. Black carbon content varied widely, between zero and more than 80 percent, in soils across Australia.

"It's a mistake to look at soil as one blob of carbon," said Lehmann. "Rather, it has different chemical components with different characteristics. In this way, soil will interact differently to warming based on what's in it."
Article was found here.
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Global warming is a myth, and a lot of arrogant fools bought into it.
Compared to the size of the earth, human population is like invisible microbes and their footprint is erased by elements immediately after it's left. The earth is a living breathing planet, and no matter how much 'harm' people can do to environment, it will always win. When it comes to human vs nature, the nature always wins. We are not gods but dust, we come from dust and to dust we return. It's shocking how arrogant people are these days, they think they can change the orbit of the planet, but are helpless in the face of tsunamis, tornadoes and earthquakes. People who reject God always turn into dumb animals.

PLIGHT OF BEES

A new study by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that scientists still do not know the exact cause of the disorder that has resulted in the mysterious disappearance of billions of honeybees. However there is some evidence that the bees may have been infected with multiple viruses that combined to create "the perfect storm."

This troubling phenomenon is the subject of a new documentary titled "The Last Beekeeper." The film follows commercial beekeepers from Montana, Washington, and South Carolina in an effort to shed light on the vital importance of honeybees and the struggles they face.

In recent years scientists have observed a pattern of abnormal behavior in colonies of honeybees across the nation - a puzzling phenomenon that could have far-reaching consequences. Thousands of colonies are dying off, and the cause remains a mystery. The problem began in 2006 and peaked last year. It is estimated that this phenomenon has resulted in the deaths of as much as 46 percent of the honeybee population throughout the United States.

Colony Collapse Disorder

For lack of a better name, scientists have dubbed this phenomenon "colony collapse disorder." Colony collapse disorder or CCD is the rapid and unexpected loss of adult worker bees from the colony over a very short period of time. Bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

According to a report by the National Research Council, "In CCD, the bee colony proceeds rapidly from a strong colony with many individuals to a colony with few or no surviving bees. Queens are found in collapsing colonies with a few young adult bees, lots of brood, and more than adequate food resources. No dead adult bees are found in the colony or outside in proximity to the colony. A unique aspect of CCD is that there is a significant delay in robbing of the dead colony by bees from other colonies or invasion by pest insects; this suggests the presence of a deterrent chemical or toxin in the hive."

Experts say that large-scale bee die-offs have happened before. However never before has the cause of death been so elusive. Scientists have so-far been unable to identify what is causing the deaths. The most likely possibilities are a parasite, an unknown virus, some kind of bacteria, pesticides, or some combination of these factors. A few have even suggested that the problem could be the result of fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field. Scientists believe the magnetic field is what enables migrating birds and other animals and insects - such as bees - to navigate. The problem has prompted congressional hearings and has left scientists around the world scrambling to find answers.

Why Are Bees So Important?

The reason experts are so concerned is that honeybees make more than just honey. Honeybee hives are rented out to growers to pollinate their crops, and many commercial beekeepers move around the country as the growing seasons change. Each year, an estimated more than 2 million bee colonies are rented out to farmers. What most people don't realize is that there are more than 90 crops that rely on honeybees for pollination. Among them are: apples, oranges, avocados, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, citrus fruit, melons, peaches, pears, artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, celery, cucumbers, soybeans, almonds and various other nuts, as well as a wide variety of other crops. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about one-third of our food supply comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination. Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees.

Kevin Hackett, head of the USDA's bee and pollination program, described colony collapse disorder as "the biggest general threat to our food supply." He also said that if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water."

In the US, honeybees are used to pollinate 15 billion dollars worth of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other crops annually. Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, described the importance of the bee population by saying "Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food." Thus the continued loss of billions of honeybees could have a substantial impact on our food supply and our economy

Documentary looks at plight of the honeybee
New Clues in the Mass Death of Bees
Life Without Bumblebees?
New Documentary Sheds Light on Plight of Bees

Real interesting geneology question and answer

2, 4, 8, 16 ... how can you always have MORE ancestors as you go back in time?

Have you ever considered the puzzle of doubling ancestors? Everybody has two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and so on back through time, with the number of ancestors doubling in each generation. Go back 30 generations and the number of ancestors tops one billion. Eventually we arrive at a time when we have more ancestors than there could have been people in the world. How can this be? Common sense, not to mention the book of Genesis, suggests the human race started off with a handful of individuals whose numbers steadily increased. What are the implications of these two surging numerical tides, ancestors and descendants, butting head to head? Enclosed is a $10 check for the trouble of a personal reply.

— George M., Monrovia, California

Dear George:

You ask a question as cosmic as this one and you think a lousy sawbuck is going to cover it? Keep your money until you can fork over some real cash. The ancestor puzzle has its explanation in what one genealogist has called "pedigree collapse." This occurs when relatives, usually cousins, marry, in effect narrowing the family tree. (Fortunately for the gene pool, most of the cousins are only distantly related.) When this happens you find that many of the "slots" in a given generation of your family tree are filled by duplicates.

Consider an extreme case. Mr. and Mrs. Nosepicker have two children, a girl and a boy. These two develop an unnatural yen for one another and marry. Six months later the girl gives birth to an eight-pound horseradish with a lisp. In theory, the horseradish has four grandparents. In reality, its maternal and paternal grandparents are identical. Two of the four grandparent slots are thus filled by duplicates--pedigree collapse with a vengeance. Only slightly less extreme is the case of Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886-1941). Because of inbreeding in the royal family, he had only ten great-great-grandparents instead of the expected 16.

If you go back far enough, however, pedigree collapse happens to everybody. Think of your personal family tree as a diamond-shaped array imposed on the ever-spreading fan of human generations. (I told you this was cosmic.) As you trace your pedigree back, the number of ancestors in each generation increases steadily up to a point, then slows, stops, and finally collapses. Go back far enough and no doubt you would find that you and all your ancestors were descended from the first human tribe in some remote Mesopotamian village. Or, if you like, from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

These simple facts have given rise to some remarkable displays of statistical pyrotechnics. Demographer Kenneth Wachtel estimates that the typical English child born in 1947 would have had around 60,000 theoretical ancestors at the time of the discovery of America. Of this number, 95 percent would have been different individuals and 5 percent duplicates. (Sounds like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but you know what I mean.) Twenty generations back the kid would have 600,000 ancestors, one-third of which would be duplicates. At the time of the Black Death, he'd have had 3.5 million--30 percent real, 70 percent duplicates. The maximum number of "real" ancestors occurs around 1200 AD--2 million, some 80 percent of the population of England.

Pedigree collapse explains why it's so easy for professional genealogists to trace your lineage back to royalty--go far enough back and you're related to everybody. For that matter, you're probably related to everybody alive today. Some geneticists believe that everybody on earth is at least 50th cousin to everybody else. For a fuller discussion of the above, see The Mountain of Names, by Alex Shoumatoff (1985).

— Cecil Adams

Mind-Control Microbe

Five years ago, Oxford University zoologists showed that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii alters the brain chemistry of rats so that they are more likely to seek out cats. Infection thus makes a rat more likely to be killed and the parasite more likely to end up in a cat—the only host in which it can complete the reproductive step of its life cycle. The parasite also lives in the brain cells of thousands of species, including about 60 million supposedly symptom-free Americans. Studies over the past few years have suggested that toxoplasmosis infections in humans, too, may cause behavioral changes—from subtle shifts to outright schizophrenia. Two studies this year add even weirder twists.


Toxoplasma gondii, revealed here in
a colorized electron micrograph, may
exert a spooky influence on the
people it infects.

U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kevin Lafferty has linked high rates of toxoplasmosis infection in 39 countries with elevated incidences of neuroticism, suggesting the mind-altering organism may be affecting the cultures of nations.

Bizarre theory suggests time may be running out

Time may literally be running out – and could one day vanish altogether, according to a bizarre new theory.

The suggestion has been put forward to explain a cosmological mystery that has baffled scientists.

A decade ago, measurements of the light from distant exploding stars showed the universe to be expanding at an accelerating rate.

Physicists assumed that a kind of anti-gravitational force must be driving the galaxies apart, and gave it the name “dark energy”.

However, to this day no-one has been able to say what dark energy is or where it comes from.

The new theory from Professor Jose Senovilla, at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, offers a radical alternative idea.

He believes there is no such thing as dark energy. Instead, he says we have been fooled into thinking the expansion of the universe is accelerating because time itself is slowing down.

At our local everyday level, the change would be imperceptible.

But it would be obvious from cosmic scale measurements tracking the course of the universe over billions of years.

Astronomers work out the speed of the universe’s expansion from the frequency of light emitted by certain types of supernovae, or exploding stars.

However, these measurements depend on our current perception of time, says Prof Senovilla.

If time has been slowing down, and clocks are now running more slowly than they did long ago, it would appear from our perspective as if things have been speeding up. Looking back over billions of years, galaxies would seem to be travelling away from each other faster and faster at various intervals since the Big Bang.

“Our calculations show that we would think that the expansion of the universe is accelerating,” said Senovilla.

His idea is based on string theory concepts which allow dimensions of space and time to switch from one to another.

If our single time dimension was changing into a new space dimension, it would produce just such an effect.

After billions of years, time would eventually disappear altogether.

“Then everything will be frozen, like a snapshot of one instant, forever,” Prof Senovilla told New Scientist magazine. “Our planet will be long gone by then.”

Prof Gary Gibbons, a cosmologist at Cambridge University, is drawn to the idea.

“We believe that time emerged during the Big Bang, and if time can emerge, it can also disappear – that’s just the reverse effect,” he said.

Read more: http://breakingnews.ie/world/bizarre-theory-suggests-time-may-be-running-out-341140.html#ixzz0NiWdXTEa

Is your heart just a pumb or much more?

"......For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart." (Jesus)

The highest pitch I can hera is 10Khz

You can't remember my teens

But you can just about hear some of these tones that those youngsters are on about so you're feeling moderately smug. The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 10kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!

Political speaches hipnotise people