Posted by: C C - Oct 15, 2014 03:45 PM - Forum: History
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http://www.livescience.com/48262-ancient...vered.html
SNIP ... The archaeologists said they aren't sure who was worshipped at the complex, though Baal, the Canaanite storm god, is a possibility. "The letters of Ugarit [an ancient site in modern-day Syria] suggest that of the Canaanite pantheon, Baal, the Canaanite storm god, would have been the most likely candidate," Itzhaq Shai, a professor at Ariel University who is directing a research project at Tel Burna, told Live Science in an email. The researchers said they can't rule out that a female deity, such as the ancient war goddess Anat, was worshipped there, Shai said....
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...124923.htm
SNIP Using an innovative algorithm that analyzes gene regulatory and signaling networks, researchers have found that loss of a gene called KLHL9 is the driving force behind the most aggressive form of glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer. [...] "Conventional techniques, like genome-wide association studies, must test all possible genetic mutations and variants in a disease cell, compared with a normal cell," said lead author James C. Chen, PhD, a postdoctoral research scientist in Dr. Califano's laboratory, who developed DIGGIT. "These can number in the tens to hundreds of thousands. As a result, based on the number of patients we have profiled, we have sufficient statistical power to identify only the most striking mutations. The DIGGIT algorithm, combined with what we know about regulatory events in the cell, can help us sort through this mass of data and identify critical hidden mutations that otherwise would have gone undetected."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...184204.htm
SNIP It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Scientists searching for the gene or gene combination that affects even one plant or animal characteristic must sort through massive amounts of data, according to a professor of the mathematics and statistics. He leads a bioinformatics research group, which provides the expertise that plant and animal scientists need to uncover how genes and proteins affect cell functions. [...] It's critical to have the statistician and biologist working together," noted plant science professor Fedora Sutton, who worked with Ge on identifying gene interactions that account for freeze resistance in winter wheat. "He is able to say, based on statistical rules and regulations, this is where this has to be."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/scienc...laces.html
SNIP ...Over the last decade or so, scientists have discovered that odor receptors are not solely confined to the nose, but found throughout body — in the liver, the heart, the kidneys and even sperm — where they play a pivotal role in a host of physiological functions.
Now, a team of biologists at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany has found that our skin is bristling with olfactory receptors. “More than 15 of the olfactory receptors that exist in the nose are also found in human skin cells,” said the lead researcher, Dr. Hanns Hatt. Not only that, but exposing one of these receptors (colorfully named OR2AT4) to a synthetic sandalwood odor known as Sandalore sets off a cascade of molecular signals that appears to induce healing in injured tissue....
http://plus.maths.org/content/laws-nature
SNIP ...Not only are the laws independent of us: they also appear to sit over and above all other objects to which they apply. "In some sense [the laws of nature] are not part of the Universe," says George Ellis, a mathematician and cosmologist at the University of Cape Town. "They underlie the Universe because they control how matter behaves, but they are not themselves made of matter. Laws of physics aren't made of lead or uranium or something." So it appears that the laws of nature exist in some abstract realm of their own. Through some mysterious mechanism we have access to this Platonic realm and can piece some of those laws together....
