Book written in DNA code | Science Scientists have for the first time used DNA to encode the contents of a book. At 53,000 words, and including 11 images and a computer program, it is the largest amount of data yet stored artificially using the genetic material. The researchers claim that the cost of DNA coding is dropping so quickly that within five to 10 years it could be cheaper to store information using this method than in conventional digital devices. Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA – the chemical that stores genetic instructions in almost all known organisms – has an impressive data capacity. One gram can store up to 455bn gigabytes: the contents of more than 100bn DVDs, making it the ultimate in compact storage media. A three-strong team led by Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School has now demonstrated that the technology to store data in DNA, while still slow, is becoming more practical. Writing the data to DNA took several days. DNA has numerous advantages over traditional digital storage media.
Best free courses & lectures | The Do It Yourself Scholar Updated June 29, 2012 Not every teacher is a great teacher. Not every course is a great course. So, this list is my effort to help you separate the winners from the losers. This list of the best academic podcasts and webcasts is a work-in-progress. As I discover new courses and lectures, I add to the list. For a description of my criteria for choosing a course or lecture for this list, click here. A warning: The internet is a changeable place and universities can change their websites without warning. Anthropology Introduction to Biological Anthropology (iTunes), Terrence Deacon, UC Berkeley Deacon’s class is a fascinating mix of biology, genetics, animal ethology and anthropology, as he works his way from single-celled organisms up to human physiology and the evolution of culture. Prehistory and the Birth of Civilization (audio), Tara Carter, UCSD Carter relates the story of hominid evolution and the birth of social organization with infectious enthusiasm. Archaeology/Classics Art History
VALBEC - Building Strength with Numeracy - Contents Background In 2011, the VALBEC Committee recognised that it was over two decades since the publication of the iconic numeracy resources Strength in Numbers and Breaking the Maths Barrier, and others. They decided it was timely to celebrate their coming of age by funding the development of new resources that would build on and update elements of these resources for teachers to use in a range of settings and made accessible online. The original publications benefitted from the input of teachers who were at the time pioneering the new field of adult numeracy. These teachers, who had backgrounds in mathematics, language and literacy and primary education, came together through professional development events to share their growing ‘wisdom of practice’. The adult educational environment has changed enormously in the past two decades. VALBEC acknowledged that it is important to ensure that the ‘wisdom of practice’ contained within the earlier publications s made available to new teachers.
The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension High performance access to file storage Special report Now that all the fanfare over the sighting of a Higgs-like boson in the Large Hadron Collider has died down, CERN scientists have a few burning questions about the particle. The gigantic proton accelerator will be shut down this year, but physicist Paris Sphicas told The Register the boffins should be able to gather enough data about the particle's properties to tackle two of their conundrums before the big switch off. Inside the Large Hadron Collider's tunnels. For those still baffled by last month's discovery, the proposed Higgs boson helps explain how everything around us actually exists: its own existence suggests that the Higgs field is real and that particles moving through this omnipresent field gain mass. However, although the Higgs field in theory gives everything else mass, it doesn't appear to be giving mass to the boson itself, a mystery that can only be answered with further study of this Higgs-like particle.
Chiropractic Chiropractic is well established in the U.S., Canada and Australia.[20] It overlaps with other manual-therapy professions, including massage therapy, osteopathy, and physical therapy.[21] Back and neck pain are the specialties of chiropractic but many chiropractors treat ailments other than musculoskeletal issues.[9] Most who seek chiropractic care do so for low back pain.[22] D.D. Palmer founded chiropractic in the 1890s, and his son B.J. Conceptual basis Philosophy Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine[1] which focuses on manipulation of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine.[2] Its founder, D.D. Chiropractic philosophy includes the following perspectives:[32] Straights and mixers Straight chiropractors adhere to the philosophical principles set forth by D.D. and B.J. Vertebral subluxation "Physiologists divide nerve-fibers, which form the nerves, into two classes, afferent and efferent. Scope of practice A treatment table at a chiropractic office
Higgs boson: A cause for celebration It has been hailed as a triumph for international science, the coalescing of four decades of intellectual and engineering effort to create a new understanding of the universe's structure. And certainly the discovery of the Higgs boson represents a significant milestone in the history of particle physics. Consider the logistics. And it is particularly sweet success for the UK. But at the time of its proposal 30 years ago, the idea of the LHC certainly did not overwhelm scientists or politicians. The collider, today hailed as a triumph of science and engineering, was almost cancelled on several occasions, a point that should be noted by those physicists who are now dreaming of a successor. "People today think the LHC's construction was inevitable once we came up with the proposal but it didn't seem that way at the time," says Llewellyn Smith. But the SSC proved to be a debacle. After its rival disappeared, the case for the LHC looked stronger. This point is backed by Llewellyn Smith.
Boffins find 17,425,170-digit prime number High performance access to file storage The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has struck again, finding the largest-ever Mersenne prime number. The number, the 48th Mersenne prime found, is 17,425,170 digits long and therefore most comfortably represented as 257885161-1 . Mersenne primes, as we've reported before are numbers of the form Mn = 2n − 1, where n is an integer. 17th century French monk Marin Mersenne was rather fond of them. So is Curtis Cooper, a professor at the University of Central Missouri who participates in GIMPS, a distributed prime number hunter that works in the mode made famous by alien-spotting app SETI@Home. Both use individual PCs to work on small portions of larger tasks and collate results centrally. Marin Mersenne The GIMPS project says “primality proof took 39 days of non-stop computing on one of the University of Central Missouri's PCs” before tests using the same app, but on other hardware proved the result.