Linux Took Over the Web. Now, It’s Taking Over the World On August 25, 1991, a Finnish computer science student named Linus Torvalds announced a new project. “I’m doing a (free) operating system,” he wrote on an Internet messaging system, insisting this would just be a hobby. But it became something bigger. Plus, Linux is now finding its way onto televisions, thermostats, and even cars. Click to Open Overlay Gallery The Idea But Linus shouldn’t get all the credit. In 1984, Richard Stallman started working on GNU, a Unix-clone that stands, paradoxically, for “GNU’s not Unix.” Soon, other developers were using the Linux kernel in combination with GNU and a wide variety of other tools in cobbling together their own operating systems. The Web The rise of Linux mirrors the rise of the web, which just happens to have started around the same time. Even Microsoft, once the sworn enemy of Linux, has embraced this open source OS. There are a few reasons for all this. But Linux also got lucky. The Great Beyond Android now dominates the smartphone market.
Vitamins’ Old, Old Edge It took hundreds of millions of years for plants to become such proficient vitamin C manufacturers, but vitamin production can change in far less time. Our own ancestors needed just thousands of years to alter their production of vitamin D. When humans left equatorial Africa and spread to higher latitudes, the sun was lower in the sky and supplied less ultraviolet light. By evolving lighter skin, Europeans and Asians were able to continue making a healthy supply of vitamin D. Aside from vitamins D and K, we humans can’t make any of the vitamins we need to stay healthy. Many vertebrates can make vitamin C, and use an identical set of genes to do so. Unlike a frog or a kangaroo, however, we have crippling mutations in one of those genes, known as GULO. “It’s not just us — it goes back a long time,” said Guy Drouin, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Ottawa. It Wasn’t Just Us
How the squishy 'octobot' may change the course of robotics Step aside, T-800 and R2-D2. The future of robotics is on the horizon, and it is squishy. Harvard researchers have engineered the first robot that is both autonomous and completely soft-bodied. The fleshy automaton, described Thursday in the journal Nature, runs on hydrogen peroxide and was designed to look like a small octopus. This "octobot," researchers say, is a major step toward developing functional robots that don’t need hard skeletons or rigid moving parts. “One long-standing vision for the field of soft robotics has been to create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in replacing rigid components like batteries and electronic controls with analogous soft systems and then putting it all together,” said co-author Robert Wood, a professor of engineering at Harvard, in a statement. Wood and colleagues used 3-D printing to build the octobot’s rubbery body. Despite having no skeleton, octopuses are remarkably powerful creatures.
NASA is growing a Martian garden to prepare for life on Mars As many of us witnessed in director Ridley Scott's sci-fi drama "The Martian," the soil of Mars is devoid of the organic nutrients otherwise vital to support plant life. To get around this, the character of Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, uses his own feces to supplement the otherwise dead soil and grow potatoes. But does this science match up with how the first Mars farmers might actually introduce agriculture to the red planet? In addition to experimenting with crops grown in space, NASA is beginning to trial "Martian Gardens" to figure out the kinds of vegetables that might tolerate soil sourced from the red planet. "Soil, by definition, contains organics; it has held plant life, insects, worms. In an effort to simulate the crushed volcanic rock on Mars, researchers gathered 100 pounds of similar soil from Hawaii. Lettuce plants grown as part of a Martian Garden comparing (left to right) potting soil, regolith simulant with added nutrients and simulant without nutrients.
Scientists unveil the 'most clever CRISPR gadget' so far - STAT For all the hoopla about CRISPR, the revolutionary genome-editing technology has a dirty little secret: it’s a very messy business. Scientists basically whack the famed double helix with a molecular machete, often triggering the cell’s DNA repair machinery to make all sorts of unwanted changes to the genome beyond what they intended. On Wednesday, researchers unveiled in Nature a significant improvement — a new CRISPR system that can switch single letters of the genome cleanly and efficiently, in a way that they say could reliably repair many disease-causing mutations. Because of “the cell’s desperate attempts” to mend its genome, said Harvard University biologist George Church, “what often passes as ‘genome editing’ would more appropriately be called ‘genome vandalism,’” as the cell inserts and deletes random bits of DNA where CRISPR cuts it. article continues after advertisement “Most known human genetic variations associated with disease are point mutations,” said Liu. Play Video Close
Students Win NASA Contest With a Greenhouse Designed for Mars Greek students have attempted to take one step forward in the quest to make Mars more hospitable: They created a self-supporting greenhouse that grows spinach and is brilliantly named Popeye. This May, the students' design won NASA's International Space Apps Challenge, a competition over the course of 48 hours in cities across the world. Its goal is to produce open-source solutions to address various needs for life on Earth and in space. In the designs, the greenhouse is comprised of a solar-powered system enclosed in a protective dome. It's supposed to grow spinach over a 45-day period to supply potential astronauts on Mars with food. According to Reuters, the greenhouse's air garden is equipped with a "suite of solar-powered sensors and electrical systems" that nurture and monitor the spinach by providing plenty of water and carbon dioxide. The Red Planet isn't exactly known for its welcoming nature. Homepage image: Flickr, Jason
FCC advances privacy proposal for U.S. internet users Mars Greenhouse Dome - FinalProjects Introduction Figure 1: Diagram of a Environmental Factors for a Projected Greenhouse Dome[1] Life on Mars will be difficult to sustain by just migrating to the planet alone. Although it contains carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen all in biologically ready forms[2], it is still a highly hostile environment for sustaining the life of human beings. In order to circumvent the necessity of underground housing to avoid radiation exposure, greenhouse domes can be created on the surface for civilization and agricultural needs. Accomplishing the growth of crop for future habitation will be done through harvesting solar power and using it to generate power for the greenhouse dome. Selection and Analysis Martian Environment Gravitational pull on Mars is a little less than two-fifths of the gravity on Earth at 3.73 m/s^2[4]. Prominent Plant Growth At lower pressures, optimal plant growth depends on the dissolved oxygen present in the root zone which should be around -3mg/l[5]. Structure of the Dome
Scientists Attempt to Reanimate the Brain Dead. What are the Implications? Imagine this, your loved one gets into a serious accident. You and your family gather at the hospital. In the I.C.U. the doctor makes a grim announcement, they‘re brain dead. It is highly unlikely they will ever come out of a vegetative state. Today, there is no way past such horror, save for a miracle. The idea originates from nature, as certain fish and amphibians can actually heal whole sections of the brain, brain stem, and other portions of the central nervous system, even after significant injury. This study surrounds Bioquark, Inc., a Philadelphia-based company, who has received ethical approval by a U.S. and Indian Institutional Review Board. Traumatic brain injury under an MRI. The CEO of Bioquark Inc. According to Dr. Model of the human brain. Those on life support deemed brain dead still have active bodies which grow, mature, heal, digest, circulate blood, and excrete waste. Dr. Beyond that, advancements in science are always a mixed blessing. To learn more click here:
News Story - SpaceRef Canada When humans made the transition from the nomadic life of the hunter-gather to become inhabitants of communities, they did so by means of cultivating plants and domesticating animals. Soon, agriculture was born. Armed with the ability to stay in one place - humans now had the time and luxury to accumulate things - with knowledge being the foremost. At some point "civilization" emerged as a result. As human communities spread out across our planet, these two learned behaviors have become ever more pliant, allowing previously uninhabitable regions to become habitable. Each new challenge spurred the development of new solutions. We now look forward to the prospect of leaving our world to visit others. Earth's first greenhouse Perhaps the first true attempt at creating an artificial life support system on Earth was the creation of greenhouses. The immediate predecessors of today's greenhouses emerged in Europe in the 1600's. Offworld greenhouses Design specs for a Martian greenhouse