Category: Reality
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Neurons, plants and the mystery of patterns…
Plants and brains are more alike than you might think. Salk scientists discovered that the mathematical rules governing how plants grow are similar to how brain cells sprout connections. In particular, plants use the same rules to grow under widely different conditions (for example, cloudy versus sunny) and the density of branches in space follows…
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The transition to life. mRNA translation. The futility of life questions.
The transition from an egg to a developing embryo is one of life's most remarkable transformations. Yet little is known about it. Now Whitehead Institute researchers have deciphered how one aspect - control of the all-important translation of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins - switches as the egg becomes an embryo. That shift is controlled…
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X, Y, Male, Female…
In most mammals, us included, biological sex is determined by a lottery between two letters: X and Y, the sex chromosomes. Inherit one X each from mom and dad, and develop ovaries, a womb and a vagina. Inherit an X from mom and a Y from dad, and develop testes and a penis. But there…
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Changing color. Turing. Von Neumann. Automata. Thinking. Tautologies.
Skin colour patterns in animals arise from microscopic interactions among coloured cells that obey equations discovered by the mathematician Alan Turing. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics reported in the journal Nature that a southwestern European lizard slowly acquires its intricate adult skin colour by changing the…
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Transformations. Modern alchemy. Ancient secrets…
Since the Middle Ages, alchemists have sought to transmute elements, the most famous example being the long quest to turn lead into gold. Transmutation has been realized in modern times, but on a minute scale using a massive particle accelerator. Researchers have now taken a different approach to that alchemists' ancient goal by making one…
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