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End-of-Summer Weird Science Round-up
Sep. 20th, 2007 10:51 amIt's been a while since I did one of these, but I thought y'all might like to be better informed about a few of the weirdest things I've come across in the past few months:
Mule Gives Birth! -- Theoretically, mules are sterile, due to their odd number of chromosomes: 63, the product of its horse (64) and donkey (62) genes. But for some reason, not yet understood, a Colorado pack mule named Kate had a foal earlier this year. Go to NPR for pics of Kate's baby and the full story.
And speaking of unlikely births... Weird science guru William Saletan over at Slate did a great run-down this summer on the science of virgin birth, or pathenogenesis. The oddest notes? Over a third of unfertilized turkey eggs can develop sponatneously. 7 young Komodo dragons in European zoos have been discovered to be parthenogens. And of course, biotech companies are vying to patent the process to create a human child this way. An eye-opening read. As Saletan says, sometimes "A shark's got to do what a shark's got to do."
Paging Gregory Benford -- The sci-fi writer who brought us intelligent black holes and giant interstellar ferns has got to like the news from an international team of physicists that electrically charged interstellar dust particles in zero gravity are attracted into a double-helix shape reminiscent of DNA, and can in fact replicate their conformation to future "generations" in much the same way. The money quote: "These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter."
Could 'plasma crystal' inorganic living matter really exist? Go check out their paper -- or at least the abstract -- or, for those who recoil from sciency-gibberish, at least the first and last sentences of the abstract -- and be boggled for yourself.
Global warming meets X-Files... Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists have successfully revived a bacterium from Antarctic ice several times older than the human race. Although the 'gene popsicle' had degraded somewhat -- DNA appears to have a half-life of just over a million years -- the bacteria has survived and is replicating.
We are, however, reassured by the study's leader that although the rapid thawing of polar ice will likely release more such suspended microbes, "marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health than, for instance, those found on land." What a relief!
Mule Gives Birth! -- Theoretically, mules are sterile, due to their odd number of chromosomes: 63, the product of its horse (64) and donkey (62) genes. But for some reason, not yet understood, a Colorado pack mule named Kate had a foal earlier this year. Go to NPR for pics of Kate's baby and the full story.
And speaking of unlikely births... Weird science guru William Saletan over at Slate did a great run-down this summer on the science of virgin birth, or pathenogenesis. The oddest notes? Over a third of unfertilized turkey eggs can develop sponatneously. 7 young Komodo dragons in European zoos have been discovered to be parthenogens. And of course, biotech companies are vying to patent the process to create a human child this way. An eye-opening read. As Saletan says, sometimes "A shark's got to do what a shark's got to do."
Paging Gregory Benford -- The sci-fi writer who brought us intelligent black holes and giant interstellar ferns has got to like the news from an international team of physicists that electrically charged interstellar dust particles in zero gravity are attracted into a double-helix shape reminiscent of DNA, and can in fact replicate their conformation to future "generations" in much the same way. The money quote: "These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter."
Could 'plasma crystal' inorganic living matter really exist? Go check out their paper -- or at least the abstract -- or, for those who recoil from sciency-gibberish, at least the first and last sentences of the abstract -- and be boggled for yourself.
Global warming meets X-Files... Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists have successfully revived a bacterium from Antarctic ice several times older than the human race. Although the 'gene popsicle' had degraded somewhat -- DNA appears to have a half-life of just over a million years -- the bacteria has survived and is replicating.
We are, however, reassured by the study's leader that although the rapid thawing of polar ice will likely release more such suspended microbes, "marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health than, for instance, those found on land." What a relief!
