DNA Can Survive Reentry from Space

In a new study published today in PLOS ONE, a team of Swiss and German scientists report that they dotted the exterior grooves of a rocket with fragments of DNA to test the genetic material’s stability in space. Surprisingly, they discovered that some of those building blocks of life remained intact during the hostile conditions of the flight and could pass on genetic information even after exiting and reentering the atmosphere during a roughly 13-minute round trip into space.

The findings suggest that if DNA traveled through space on meteorites, it could have conceivably survived, says lead author Oliver Ullrich of the University of Zurich. Moreover, he says, “DNA attached to a spacecraft has the potential to contaminate other celestial bodies, making it difficult to determine whether a life form existed on another planet or was introduced there by spacecraft.”

- More Here

Quote of the Day

Sometimes it is the people that no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine.

- The_Imitation_Game

Wisdom Of the Week

Smith notes a number of differences between how we react to grief and joy that is felt by others: There is, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are generally most disposed to sympathize with small joys and great sorrows.

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This asymmetry of joy and sorrow— the ease with which we sympathize with success relative to failure— is Smith’s explanation for why the rich and famous receive more attention and create more happiness than the poor and forgotten. We enjoy the successes of the rich and famous. The poor and forgotten move us briefly and not deeply. For Smith, this explains why rich people flaunt their wealth and poor people hide what they are missing: It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty. Nothing is so mortifying as to be obliged to expose our distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal conceives for us the half of what we suffer. Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.

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We don’t experience great grief the same way we experience great joy. The joy of others can make us happy, as long as we are not envious. The grief of others has a much more limited effect, even for close friends.

- Excerpts from the excellent book How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness by Russ Roberts

Quote of the Day

In a nation distracted by faction, there are, no doubt, always a few, though commonly but a very few, who preserve their judgment untainted by the general contagion. They seldom amount to more than, here and there, a solitary individual, without any influence, excluded, by his own candour, from the confidence of either party, and who, though he may be one of the wisest, is necessarily, upon that very account, one of the most insignificant men in the society.

- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Quote of the Day

Happy Thanksgiving

First snow - Winter 2014 in NJ !!

Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind. .

– Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

– Marcus Aurelius

Quote of the Day

Baidu’s performance at speech recognition has already improved substantially in the past year because of deep learning. About 10% of our web search queries today come in through voice search. Large parts of China are still a developing economy. If you’re illiterate, you can’t type, so enabling users to speak to us is critical for helping them find information. In China, some users are less sophisticated, and you get queries that you just wouldn’t get in the United States. For example, we get queries like, “Hi Baidu, how are you? I ate noodles at a corner store last week and they were delicious. Do you think they’re on sale this weekend?” That’s the query.

- Andrew Ng on Baidu

Quote of the Day

Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals