We weren't the only one (but you knew that)

It's been known for a while that H. Sapiens weren't the sole human species during the beginning of it's history. H. Neanderthalensis was around with us as well, and it has been theorize that we may have interbreed with their population.  The Denisova hominin were around in northern Europe and in the Flores Island in Indonesia, the last vestige of the first wave of human migration lingered as H. Floresiensis. Or so we thought, anyway. There may be new evidence that another human species may have survived in China as the a contemporary of H. Sapiens. Skeletal remains found by Chinese minors, including jaw bones, have been concluded to be different from that as anatomical modern humans, but only dates back to about 14,500 years ago.

I think it's an intriguing thought. If Neanderthal studies have taught us anything is that these four non-modern humans were still just as capable of art and sophistication as modern humans. I will still hold reservations, of course. It's entirely possible for the differences in bone structure be caused by disease or other affliction. Still, it's a great thought.

This is so cool

Scientists has observed the transition of a species of skink from being egg laying to giving live birth. Evolution in action!

Already?

Is the USB flash drive already being replaced? Currently it's the best memory storage system out there for the common folks. Of course it has it's limitations. This has prompted companies to research and develop new storage system that will no doubt out shine the flash drive. Currently they are looking into Resistive Random Access Memory or RRAM and they are making head way into developing it for the market.

I have four personal flash drives: an 8 GB, a 4 GB, a 2 GB, 250 MB. This is actually pretty slow and pretty low on memory. But remember how much have changed? It use to be the floppy drive some eons ago in the 90's. Those drives couldn't hold a video file, but they were the best at their time. Now everyone has a personal note book, PCs are ultra fast and inexpensive, and flash drives are in the double digits in memory. I must be ages old because my PC still has a floppy drive. Technology makes you feel old, doesn't it? :P

Red is the New Green

Scientific America reports:

Researchers may have found a new form of chlorophyll, the pigment that plants, algae
and cyanobacteria use to obtain energy from light through photosynthesis.
Preliminary findings published August 19 in Science suggest that the newly
discovered molecule, dubbed chlorophyll f, has a distinct chemical composition
when compared with the four known forms of chlorophyll and can absorb more
near-infrared light than is typical for the photosynthetic pigments. Chlorophyll
f, which was extracted from cultures of cyanobacteria and other oxygenic
microorganisms, may allow certain photosynthetic life forms to harvest energy
from wavelengths of light that many of their competitors cannot use.
"This is
the most red-shifted chlorophyll we have found in nature," says Min
Chen, a biologist at The University of Sydney in Australia and lead author
of the study. "That means that organisms that have this chlorophyll inside can
extend their photosynthetic range for maximum use of solar energy."

Was Lucy a Butcher?

New bones found suggest that tool use has started 800000 years earlier than we had thought.

Early human ancestors may have been using tools about 800,000 years earlier
than thought, according to a new study based on newfound bone
evidence—prehistoric leftovers linked to the famed "Lucy"
fossil's species.
The discovery suggests, to at least one scientist, that
tool use may extend as far back as five million years ago, to the last common
ancestor of chimps and humans.

The stuff of your nightmares

And probably found in your backyard

The Color of the Ocean

New research suggest that the color of the ocean may deflect hurricane:

Led by oceanographer Anand Gnanadesikan, the study used computer
simulations to look for links between ocean color and strong tropical
cyclones—called hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern
Pacific and known as typhoons in the northwestern Pacific. "Our group develops
climate models," said Gnanadesikan, of the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in
Princeton New Jersey. "One of my jobs is to try to make those more realistic.
"One way to make the models more realistic is to look more closely at
little-studied variables, such as ocean color.
In the North Pacific the
predominant color is green, thanks to an abundance of minute, chlorophyll-packed
plants called phytoplankton. By absorbing sunlight, the floating plants help
keep the ocean surface relatively warm. When there are fewer of them, the sun's
heat concentrates deeper down.

Green Flash

The Gay Gene Thing

Talk to a homosexual, a bisexual, or a transexual and they will tell you "it's not a choice". My dick doesn't erect for the opposite sex (Sorry ladies, lol), and no amount of ex-gay therapy is going to change that (since being ex-gay is demonstrably bullshit). It's something we were born with and knew about. Even in my time in the closet and in denial, I couldn't deny the fact that I've been "like that" and will always be "like that".

Talk to a bigot and they will tell you it's a choice, an ugly lifestyle, and spout a few verse from a man-made holy book. They can't let it be a innate thing, because then it takes away their control, and it's always about control with their crowd.

Now talk to science. Unfortunately for bigots, science tends lean towards the gay side. Not that bigots care what science have to say, mind you. The evidence is there, though. Increasingly, scientific studies are showing that homosexuality has a strong genetic factor.

Though, it's not understood how or why. Genetic studies are still making it's way in completing the picture of a lot of other human traits. We still, for example, have conflicts over why OCA2, one of the genes responsible for light skin pigmentation and albinism's, was selected. Though we have evidence that it was strongly selected in some population and developed as a result of genetic drift in other populations. The genetic components of homosexuality (in males, at least though it could very well be the case for females as well) is revealed be inheritable matralinially. In fact, it appears that male homosexuality may increase reproductive fitness in females and possibly inherited through the X chromosome. However, genes are not islands. Some traits are influenced by both genes and the environment. Some genes code for more than one trait or function. Some traits or functions are covered by more than one gene. All these will influence the study of the genetic component of Homosexuality. Drawing back from OCA2, it's expression changes from area to area. It's also not the only gene to code for light skin: SLC45A2 and MC1R also covers skin pigmentation as well as other necessary functions. Further study is needed to understand these things. But the evidence that it exist is there. And one thing is clear: it's being selected for.

Why is it being selected?

It's hard to say. One of the theory is that homosexual individuals will increase the reproductive fitness of siblings. A sibling's child is actually very closely related to the individual in terms of genetics. They're pretty much almost like you're own child. This theory is called the gay uncle/aunt theory. It could also be due to the fact that being gay doesn't actually affect reproductive fitness, because a human homosexual individual still can sexually reproduce. Another aspect is that it maybe a social community development. In the same way females ant and bee workers are not sexual reproductive but important aspect in keeping their species functional, homosexual individuals may have the same function. In many animals, homosexual individual can and do adopt children and provide care for other members of their species. Homosexuality may also be selected for because the genes involve may code for something else. APO-E is a gene that is necessary for catabolism but also have strong links to Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is then selected for. Since Alzheimer's doesn't affect the fitness of the individual during their reproductive life, it isn't a hindrance.

What are the implications?

DNA Magazine's issue 121 published an article entitled "The Science of Sexuality" and posed a question that provoked me to write this pieces:

"What happens if a specific gene or biological trigger is identified as being
responsible for same-sex attraction? Could that mean there'll be a 'cure'? Will
some zealot try to eradicate homosexuality?"

The answer is yes, zealots will try. Zealots have tried. They have tried with stuff like eugenics. They've tried with race, with class, and recently against lesbians. But it won't work. As I've stated before, it's likely that these gene has more than one function . There fore any attempt and shutting them off will result in shutting off an necessary function. More over, we can't do it for ethical reasons. If we can shut off homosexuality, then we can shut off a whole lot of other traits. We'd be eliminating the natural diversity of the of the human genome. We should pride our self on being different. We shouldn't strive to make the human race look and act like clones. We're humans. Homosexuals are humans with a different variable on sexual attraction. As long as our relations remain consensual (somethings fundamentalist can't seem to fathom), we're harming no one.

Edit: I'm also a fan of being different. People can chose the life that they want to chose as long as they do not harm other people or infringe on other people's rights. That's right fundies, you can believe whatever the fuck you want as long as you don't infringe on other people's rights.

Iemmola, F., & Ciani, AC. (2009). New Evidence of Genetic Factors Influencing Sexual Orientation in Men: Female Fecundity Increase in the Maternal Line. Archives of Sexual Behaviors. 33(3), DOI: 10.1007/s10508-008-9381-6

Edwards, M., Bigham, A., Tan, JZ, Li, SL., Gozdzik, A., Ross, K., Jin, L., & Parra EJ. (2010) Association of the OCA2 Polymorphism His615Arg with Melanin Content in East Asian Populations: Further Evidence of Convergent Evolution of Skin Pigmentation. PLoS Genetics, 6(3), e1000867

Johanson, HC., Chen, W., Wicking, C., & Sturm, RA. (2010) Inheritance of a novel mutated allele of the OCA2 gene associated with high incidence of oculocutaneous albinism in a Polynesian community. International Journal of Cancer, 125(4), 909-917

Mengel, J., Wong, TH., Morling, N., Rees, JL., & Jackson, IJ. (2009). Genetic determinants of hair and eye colours in the Scottish and Danish populations. BMC Genetics, 2009, 10, doi:10.1186/1471-2156-10-88

Bailey, JM., Pillard, RC., Dawood, K., Miller, MB., Farrer, LA., Trivedi, S. & Murphy, RL. (1999) A family history study of male sexual orientation using three independent samples. Behavior Genetics. 29, 79–86

Genome Gone Viral

Scientific American reports: Genes from Ebola Virus Family Found in Human Genome

Genetic code from retroviruses has been found to compose some 8 percent of
the human genome, having been copied in during replication and left to be
inherited by us and our progeny. But non-retroviral RNA viruses do not use their
host's DNA to replicate—and some do not even enter the host cell's nucleus.
Nevertheless, new research has turned up surprising evidence that some of these
viruses are enmeshed in the genomes of vertebrates—including humans and other
mammals.

One of these new studies, published online July 29 in PLoS Pathogens, has
uncovered some 80 examples of viral genetic data circulating in the genomes of
vertebrate species for the past 40 million years.

Course the issue is that virus do not fossilize well. So understanding how they evolve is tricky.

Romance of the Scienceblog

If you guys haven't been keeping up, or if you're not scienceblog follower then let me summarize the fallowing to you: It's the fucking Three Kingdoms over there except with out the three kingdoms. Okay more like the disintegration of the Easter Han in general. When Zimmer and Yong left to Discoverblog, it's like the individual territories that ceded themselves to outside forces. We can consider the intrusion of Pepsi to be like the Yellow Turban rebellion, weakening the power of SB. The railing of this intrusion is like the campaign against the Yellow Turbans. Finally after SB quails the Pepsi incident, like the Han, the individual bloggers begin to make their own way and break away from SB. Superbug, Zuska, Speakeasy Science, PalMD, Grrlscientist, Laelaps, and Bora are some of such bloggers that chose to break away from the seemingly inept SEED media. PZ and Laden are in strike. A number of other scientist like Orac are considering their resignation as well. Yet like the Han, there are a few bloggers, like Brayton, Tetrapod, and Klemetti, are still there and functional. But like the last Han Emperor, SB has been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to fix the situation.

Well, at least the fallout isn't because they were caught sockpuppeting. That event was just aggravating. At the same time though it was unexpected. SB's fallout was a storm we could see coming. Complaints about the ads, the paycheck, and the commenting system had been there for awhile. Pepsi just broke the back of the all the bloggers there.

The consequence of this is quite clear: A great lost of readership. People like to read stable blogs and not have to change so abruptly. For PZ, I know already that his announced strike has caused a great deal of his readership to move on.

So what's left today? In the end of the day a blogger does whatever he or she wants regardless of the readership. I blog but still have virtually no one reading it. PZ could equally do the same and yet some how he'll have followers. Blogging isn't as simple as finding a domain in which to host it. If the conditions is wrong, no matter how much a blogger wants to write, they will refrain from doing so.

Oh crap for men with RLS

Via Scienceblog

A study in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that erectile dysfunction
was more common in older men with restless leg syndrome (RLS) than in those
without RLS, and the magnitude of this association increased with a higher
frequency of RLS symptoms.
Results show that erectile dysfunction was 16
percent more likely in men with RLS symptoms that occur five to 14 times per
month (odds ratio of 1.16) and 78 percent more likely in men whose RLS symptoms
occur 15 or more times a month (OR=1.78). The associations were independent of
age, body mass index, use of antidepressants, anxiety and other possible risk
factors for RLS. Fifty-three percent of RLS patients and 40 percent of
participants without RLS reported having erectile dysfunction, which was defined
as a poor or very poor ability to have and maintain an erection sufficient for
intercourse.
The results suggest it is likely that the two disorders share
common mechanisms, said lead author Xiang Gao, MD, PhD, instructor at Harvard
Medical School, associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and
research scientist at the Harvard School of public health in Boston, Mass.

Well I guess my new year resolution is to stop my RLS, less I want to pop blue pills when I'm older.

Things that need fixin'

I took these letters from PZ Myers and Ed Brayton because I felt that they convey a good sense of how fundy-zealots are threatening the institutions that are valued by the American society and how they marginalize those who disagree with them. The next time some says there are not atheist in foxholes, I'll tell them to open their eyes.

I was always a mediocre student, especially in high school. I never really knew what I wanted to do, and nothing seemed to excite me. This changed in my senior year, when a creationist visited my biology class.

On that fateful day, all the science students were herded into the school auditorium, where we listened to a long and richly illustrated lecture describing literal creationism. We were informed that in an effort to "balance" our education, we would soon hear an equally long lecture on evolution. This, like many things I heard that day, turned out to be false. The evolution lecture never materialized. Remarkably, I graduated from senior biology having learned only about creationism.

School had finally gotten my full attention. I wanted to know what we were missing, and why. For the first time in my life, I willingly (eagerly even) picked up my textbook and studiously read it. With growing interest, I realized that evolution made an awful lot of sense, and that I was being hoodwinked by my biology class.

It's hard to overestimate the appeal of rebelling against the system to a teenaged boy, and that day marked the beginning of my path to a career in evolutionary biology. We learned other things in science class that year, too--for example, that all actions have an opposite reaction. For at least one sulky teenager in the small town of Owen Sound, Ontario, it took a creationist to make him into an evolutionary biologist.

The second letter relates to the military:

I am a United States Army Captain. On a spring day at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York several years ago, I took a solemn oath to support and defend the United States Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic as an officer in the United States Army. I took a legally altered oath which omitted the words "So Help Me G-d." When I submitted my first signed copy, with those words neatly crossed out and initialed, I was informed that it was not valid. When threatened with the prospect of not graduating and being refused a Commission, I stood by my refusal to sign the Oath as it read. I could not in good conscience do so because I was deeply disturbed by fusion of religion and military service. I could not reconcile the suspicion that the Oath itself was establishing religion in a way which contradicted the spirit of the Constitution with the intensity of my commitment to defend same. I believed, and still believe, that my personal metaphysical experience of the universe must be separate from my role as a military professional. In the passing years, I have come to the unsettling conclusion that the sentiment in the Oath which so disturbed me is a practical reality in my United States Army.
Based on my alteration of The Oath, you may be tempted to label me "non-religious." I find this odd, because religion has broadly influenced my life and values. I was born into a mixed Jewish and Catholic family. The family I belong to now is mixed Buddhist and Agnostic. I attended Catholic high school where I excelled in my religious studies. I was one of a literal fistful of non-Christian students voluntarily attending a religious institution, and I never once felt pressure to conform. In our mandatory religious classes we studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Quaker, Mormon, Jewish, Protestant, Wiccan, and other religions and we were taught that mere "tolerance" was abhorrent and basic "acceptance" was the absolute minimum standard. I learned during my second semester as a Plebe (freshman) at West Point that even lowly tolerance is a privilege not to be bestowed on all Soldiers in the United States Army.

During my second year at the West Point, my Squad Leader for summer training expressed disapproval on numerous occasions with my being Jewish, and, during one mission, he grabbed my MRE (a military meal) as we sat down for lunch and handed me another. He ordered me to eat the pork chop and I reminded him that I refrain from pork for religious reasons. He told me that I could eat the pork or eat nothing. One of his peers, a female Jewish cadet, urged me to obey him and not to make him angry; I declined. The next day, my cadet Platoon Leader presented me with a written counseling statement detailing my signs of "anorexia" and a "troubling" refusal to eat which was detrimental to my health and indicative of "incapacity for leadership." I was filled with righteous indignation. I went through the Cadet and Commissioned Chain of Command and my rebuttal culminated with a conversation with the Active Duty Major in command of the summer training. When I explained the events in detail, he told me that my Cadet Chain of Command was right to be concerned, and spoke words I will never forget: "the Army is not in the business of catering to people like you." Those words have haunted me throughout my career as an Officer. They were the turning point for me--when I finally understood the message several of my leaders had been expressing to me all along: the Army has no place for people like me: dissidents who stray from the unofficially mandated military religion; conservative fundamentalist Christianity.

Throughout my service, I have been inundated by reminders of the tenacity of this "Army Religion". On a regular basis, I am confronted with being forced/coerced to partake in involuntary prayer. At change of command ceremonies, promotions, retirements, banquets, mandatory Officer/NCO call, the list goes on. What do I do when this happens? I see no reason why I should have to bow my head to participate in this involuntary prayer. But if I stand at attention, I am still showing that I am subject to religion in my professional duties. I have discovered that any other movements or fidgeting are viewed as disrespectful to those who wish to pray. Army leaders send the message out that prayer is voluntary, and that Soldiers do not have to participate. As a Platoon Leader serving in Iraq, my Squad Leaders and I were ordered to attend a mission briefing with the Battalion Command Team's security squad. The briefing concluded with a Soldier being ordered to lead the group in prayer. I was disturbed because I knew that there were Soldiers on this team who did not share the specific, sectarian Christian religious beliefs being expressed. I was standing at the edge of the formation, and chose to quietly walk away. I was later counseled by my Commander and informed that the Battalion Command Team had heard of the incident and recommended I be relieved from my duties as Platoon Leader. My Commander explained that, by not bowing my head in blatantly Christian prayer with the others, I was sending a message that I "want my Soldiers to die." These words penetrated my core. What leader can imagine a worse accusation? Who wouldn't doubt herself or himself when confronted with this message? The threat of being relieved was completely overshadowed and, again, I was an outsider, incapable of leadership because I refused this unconstitutional perversion of Christianity synonymous with the Command.Could I not, would I not be an effective combat ready officer/leader/warrior without first very publicly and repeatedly demonstrating my singular loyalty to Jesus Christ? Could I not lead brave military women and men into combat for my country without being an avowed fundamentalist Christian? I stopped practicing my own religion; I disassociated myself from Soldiers who were similarly persecuted; I lost hope.

Who can you talk to about something like this? Certainly not my Chain of Command- my immediate supervisor/rater and senior supervisor/rater had threatened to relieve me. Obviously my counseling statement wouldn't address mandatory prayer, but what did it matter what it said if both my rater and senior rater agreed I was "unfit" and there were no other Officers who I worked with or around? I later contacted the Equal Opportunity Office to make an official anonymous report about the noxious, compulsive Christian, command climate. Shockingly, the NCO I filed the report with wasted no time in contacting my Battalion Commander directly, in complete violation of the privacy regulations and guarantees of protective anonymity attendant to such hyper-sensitive filings. I later became a member of an Installation Inspector General Team and observed firsthand the impotent, incapacity of the IG to affect any meaningful change. The difference between lower enlisted Soldiers and myself is this: they suspect that they have nowhere to turn in order to escape this unbearable religious persecution--in contrast, as an officer, I do not suspect. I know.

Looking back over all my time in the Army and at the United States Military Academy at West Point, I know that there were so many good memories, so many wonderful opportunities, and so many outstanding leaders of character I met along the way. Yet, the time is painfully tainted for me by a long shadow of bitter religious persecution by zealously righteous Christians essentially universally extant throughout the United States Army command structure.What has most surprised me about this struggle is how utterly powerless I am as a Captain- a Command level Officer- to stand up for my rights and for the Constitution and Country I love. I am a great Soldier, a great leader, and a great person, and I am a victim. It is not comfortable to admit one is a victim; I believe that admitting it takes a certain type of personal strength. The first day I met my current military superior/rater, he was playing Christian gospel music in his office while he called me in to talk. Perhaps it was an innocent oversight on his part, or perhaps it is another hint of the sinister nature of the current "Army Religion". There is no safe way to find out. My experiences have shown that the inundation of invitations for fundamentalist Christian prayer and fellowship, "spiritual growth" and "moral development" that target fellow Soldiers tends to thinly mask an undeniable and comprehensive underlying propensity for aggression, hatred, and ambition to subjugate the United States Army to an official religion; fundamentalist Christianity. The result for the American military is a total destruction of esprit de corps, teamwork, morale, good order and discipline. The result for the fundamentalist Islamic enemies we fight is an immeasurable bonanza of emboldenment for their recruitment, propaganda and insurgency efforts to maim and kill our soldiers down range in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. I am still living it.

When Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation describe this catastrophe of fundamentalist Christian usurpation of the command and control of our armed forces as a "national security threat of the gravest magnitude", they are precisely correct. It is injuring and killing our brave military members, specifically. It is desecrating the magnificent Constitution we swore an oath to, generally. And it is destroying our military's solidarity of purpose and ability to accomplish The Mission, completely.