ZayZayEM - kickin' moron ass since 2002: Burst your bubble: Biodiversity, hygeine and evolution

March 10, 2005

Burst your bubble: Biodiversity, hygeine and evolution

I forgot to clean the bathroom today. However, I did sweep the floor today instead of tomorrow (though, only to catch up on what I didn't do on Monday).

On top of things I am, I am.

Got a nice AEON letter today explaining more details on my airport pickup and training adventure, as well as some tourist info on Hitachi, Mito and Tokyo.

This week in science:

Ecologists propose 'intactness index': in a bid to convince plunderers and phillistines that biodiversity is actually dropping, scientists trying to come up with a way of measuring changes in biodiversity to put in hard believable facts and figures -n@n
Politician stops GM studies: The German minister for Agriculture is under scrutiny for stalling two studies looking into the safety of genetically modified crops; some people are crying foul, oddly not because of pressure from thsoe wanting to hide risk, but because Herr Kunast and his buddies don't want such risks being solved, and therefore opening the door for safe GMOs - BMC
Creationism: from the US, with love: Disturbing news, US Creationist power in politics might be spreading to their compatriots on the British Isles, pushing Creationism to be taught in schools alongside evolution - BMC
Evidence for organelle origin: the research into the genetics in hydrogenosomes, mitochondrial-like organelles of some cilliates and fungi, suggests that they may have evolved from mitochondria - BMC
Critics silenced by scan of hobbit skull: the ranks of skeptics about the authenticity of Flores-man must be thinning as scanning and consequent CGI has further established the "hobbit" as a unique species amongst humans and apes. - n@n
Millions of babies' lives could be saved: want your baby to live longer, follow simple hygeine; its that simple, says a Lancet study, and hope goes that such simple solutions can be used to the UN in reducing mother/infant deaths by 60% by 2015 - n@n

News Item of the week:

Collapsing bubbles have hot plasma core
Burst Bubble: its gotta burn...
Bubbles, when they collapse can produce at their peak heat equal to 15,000 degrees Celsius.
Its so cool.
Apparently the big deal here is actually measuring the temperature in such a small volume and short tiem frame.
But the heat of four Suns in a bubble has to be pretty mindblowing.