Science News Digest 18th January 2010
In the science news this week, an interesting find on the Y chromosome, a sad day for the RI, the shape of jobs to come, great news for techies and finally....the real reason men want marriage.
That's elementary.
In the BBC this week, a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota have developed an ingenious ‘self assembly’ method to attach electrical elements to a variety of surfaces, hard, soft, plastic or metal.
The implications of this mean that there are many new possibilities for display and imaging applications.
The method, described as using a similar format as salad dressings- where a barrier forms between water and oil- has allowed the mass production of the elements, creating a working device with 64,000 elements in it in only 3 minutes.
Using this barrier, ‘blank’ devices have shapes that match the components carved into them, so when the components are dropped onto this liquid, they are forced along the barrier until they find their niche to sit in.
To create solar cells as an example, the elements are coated on the bottom with hydrophilic molecules and on the top with hydrophobic molecules. The blank solar cell with the depressions already etched out is dipped through the barrier and as it comes back out slowly, the elements slide into place.
By measuring the density of the oil and water very carefully, they were able to float a sheet of elements between the barrier and pointing in the correct direction to be soldered.
The next stage for the team is to play with the boundaries and see how miniature they can make the elements and how big they can make the final devices.
-------------------------------------
Generation next.
“When I grow up I want to be a quarantine enforcer” could be the words you hear coming from children in 20 years time if a report by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills is accurate.
The document entitled the ‘Shape of Jobs to Come’ commissioned as part of the Science: [So what? So everything] campaign, looks at the effects of advances in the STEM arena and how these will impact on the careers available to future scientists.
Other careers on the list include a vertical farmer, space pilot and body part maker.
They have anticipated a significant rise in the number of people working in the social arena, due to the continued rise and rise of the online social networks. Furthermore, the fields of medicine and farming are likely to become increasing dominated by computers and robots as well.
The highest expectations are anticipated to come in medicine, where the creation of new limbs becoming a reality would lead to a full career path as a body part maker.
The Chief executive of Fast Future, the organisation that carried out the research for BIS, Rohit Talwar, thinks that the ability to create extra limbs would be a huge asset not only to the military, but to sport as well. He said; "If you're spending £80m on a footballer and for £2m you can have a couple of spare legs, then you're going to do it,"
The team also ran a few different scenarios to come up with so completely new career paths, including space tourism requiring space pilots and tour guides, quarantine enforcers to cope with the outbreak of a deadly disease and climate change reversal specialists to reverse a climate shift.
Read more in the Guardian
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Great news from the Y chromo-zone.
In ScienceNOW this week, geneticists around the world have been dealt a ‘curve ball’ according to Huntington Willard of Duke University in North Carolina following the discovery of some rather interesting changes to the composition of the Y chromosome in chimps and humans.
Long written off as being stagnant and decaying by scientists, a team of researchers led by David Page from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have actually discovered that the Y chromosome is a hot spot of evolution.
It is widely known we share 98% of our DNA with chimps, but they have found that there’s a massive 30% difference between the two species on the Y chromosome.
This not only points to an extraordinary change in the chromosome since we split from our common ancestor some 6 million years ago, but because chimps have lost lots of the genes that are still present in humans, it means that we are actually more closely linked to our common ancestors than they are.
The team made these discoveries by sequencing the Y chromosome in both species. One thing of key note that they found in chimps is that while they have lost 30% of the genes they share with humans, they have also gained large sections of DNA which are the mirror image of the sequencing on its complementary strand.
Furthermore, they suggest that this ‘prefabrication’ of genes has come about because the Y cannot exchange genes with the X chromosome anymore.
------------------------------------
Sad news from the RI
It’s been a sad week for science after learning that the Royal Institution’s £22 million refurbishment of its inspirational premises on Albemarle St. has left it some £3million in the red.
Furthermore in the wake of this crisis, Baroness Susan Greenfield, one of the UK’s most prominent female scientists has been served redundancy papers for her position as the director of the RI.
The position was abolished following a review of the management structure in light of the funding shortfall and the organisation will now be lead by its Chief Executive, Chris Rofe.
Baroness Greenfield, is well known face in the scientific community, frequently referred to as not only one of Britain’s most colourful and influential scientists, but also as one of the most outspoken and controversial.
Chief Executive of the British Science Association, Sir Roland Jackson said;
“Susan Greenfield is an inspirational communicator of science and, during her tenure, has more than kept up the great tradition of the Royal Institution in presenting science to the wider public. She has been instrumental in raising its profile and that of science in general, and I wish her and the Royal Institution every success in the future.”
Read the full story in the Times
-------------------------------------
And finally......
Marriage of convenience.
Well so much for romance. Researchers from University College London and Harvard University have developed a new theory to explain why men and women decided to get married as reported in New Scientist.
In contrast to the traditional theory that marriage was created to support religion and stop men fighting over women, they had actually suggested that men got married to ensure that their offspring were in fact carrying their own genes and to provide their true heirs with a valuable inheritance, rather than one shared with multiple siblings from other mothers.
Furthermore, the researchers explained that as cultivation intensified and land became more scarce, farming a plot that isn’t big enough to feed your family was not a viable existence any longer.
One of the researchers, Laura Fortunato from UCL has suggested that cultures have adopted religions that fit their monogamous or polygamous values, instead of the other way round.
That's elementary.
In the BBC this week, a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota have developed an ingenious ‘self assembly’ method to attach electrical elements to a variety of surfaces, hard, soft, plastic or metal.
The implications of this mean that there are many new possibilities for display and imaging applications.
The method, described as using a similar format as salad dressings- where a barrier forms between water and oil- has allowed the mass production of the elements, creating a working device with 64,000 elements in it in only 3 minutes.
Using this barrier, ‘blank’ devices have shapes that match the components carved into them, so when the components are dropped onto this liquid, they are forced along the barrier until they find their niche to sit in.
To create solar cells as an example, the elements are coated on the bottom with hydrophilic molecules and on the top with hydrophobic molecules. The blank solar cell with the depressions already etched out is dipped through the barrier and as it comes back out slowly, the elements slide into place.
By measuring the density of the oil and water very carefully, they were able to float a sheet of elements between the barrier and pointing in the correct direction to be soldered.
The next stage for the team is to play with the boundaries and see how miniature they can make the elements and how big they can make the final devices.
-------------------------------------
Generation next.
“When I grow up I want to be a quarantine enforcer” could be the words you hear coming from children in 20 years time if a report by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills is accurate.
The document entitled the ‘Shape of Jobs to Come’ commissioned as part of the Science: [So what? So everything] campaign, looks at the effects of advances in the STEM arena and how these will impact on the careers available to future scientists.
Other careers on the list include a vertical farmer, space pilot and body part maker.
They have anticipated a significant rise in the number of people working in the social arena, due to the continued rise and rise of the online social networks. Furthermore, the fields of medicine and farming are likely to become increasing dominated by computers and robots as well.
The highest expectations are anticipated to come in medicine, where the creation of new limbs becoming a reality would lead to a full career path as a body part maker.
The Chief executive of Fast Future, the organisation that carried out the research for BIS, Rohit Talwar, thinks that the ability to create extra limbs would be a huge asset not only to the military, but to sport as well. He said; "If you're spending £80m on a footballer and for £2m you can have a couple of spare legs, then you're going to do it,"
The team also ran a few different scenarios to come up with so completely new career paths, including space tourism requiring space pilots and tour guides, quarantine enforcers to cope with the outbreak of a deadly disease and climate change reversal specialists to reverse a climate shift.
Read more in the Guardian
----------------------------------
Great news from the Y chromo-zone.
In ScienceNOW this week, geneticists around the world have been dealt a ‘curve ball’ according to Huntington Willard of Duke University in North Carolina following the discovery of some rather interesting changes to the composition of the Y chromosome in chimps and humans.
Long written off as being stagnant and decaying by scientists, a team of researchers led by David Page from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have actually discovered that the Y chromosome is a hot spot of evolution.
It is widely known we share 98% of our DNA with chimps, but they have found that there’s a massive 30% difference between the two species on the Y chromosome.
This not only points to an extraordinary change in the chromosome since we split from our common ancestor some 6 million years ago, but because chimps have lost lots of the genes that are still present in humans, it means that we are actually more closely linked to our common ancestors than they are.
The team made these discoveries by sequencing the Y chromosome in both species. One thing of key note that they found in chimps is that while they have lost 30% of the genes they share with humans, they have also gained large sections of DNA which are the mirror image of the sequencing on its complementary strand.
Furthermore, they suggest that this ‘prefabrication’ of genes has come about because the Y cannot exchange genes with the X chromosome anymore.
------------------------------------
Sad news from the RI
It’s been a sad week for science after learning that the Royal Institution’s £22 million refurbishment of its inspirational premises on Albemarle St. has left it some £3million in the red.
Furthermore in the wake of this crisis, Baroness Susan Greenfield, one of the UK’s most prominent female scientists has been served redundancy papers for her position as the director of the RI.
The position was abolished following a review of the management structure in light of the funding shortfall and the organisation will now be lead by its Chief Executive, Chris Rofe.
Baroness Greenfield, is well known face in the scientific community, frequently referred to as not only one of Britain’s most colourful and influential scientists, but also as one of the most outspoken and controversial.
Chief Executive of the British Science Association, Sir Roland Jackson said;
“Susan Greenfield is an inspirational communicator of science and, during her tenure, has more than kept up the great tradition of the Royal Institution in presenting science to the wider public. She has been instrumental in raising its profile and that of science in general, and I wish her and the Royal Institution every success in the future.”
Read the full story in the Times
-------------------------------------
And finally......
Marriage of convenience.
Well so much for romance. Researchers from University College London and Harvard University have developed a new theory to explain why men and women decided to get married as reported in New Scientist.
In contrast to the traditional theory that marriage was created to support religion and stop men fighting over women, they had actually suggested that men got married to ensure that their offspring were in fact carrying their own genes and to provide their true heirs with a valuable inheritance, rather than one shared with multiple siblings from other mothers.
Furthermore, the researchers explained that as cultivation intensified and land became more scarce, farming a plot that isn’t big enough to feed your family was not a viable existence any longer.
One of the researchers, Laura Fortunato from UCL has suggested that cultures have adopted religions that fit their monogamous or polygamous values, instead of the other way round.
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