The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent. Antarctica is considered as a desert as this place is the coldest, driest, and windiest on the earth. It has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Now, NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live.
The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. According to BBC, A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. The team are trying to reverse engineer the brain.
Intelligence comes from the Latin verb "intellegere", which means "to understand". By this rationale, intelligence is arguably different from being "smart". It is a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. We are used to thinking of humans as occupying the sole pinnacle of evolutionary intelligence. That's where we're wrong.
New research suggest that evolution of Intelligence is more complex than once thought:
Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence.
Instead -- as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth's evolutionary history.
With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.
One World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom
Archaeologists have found the remains of what could be Britain's oldest surviving human brain.
Human brain evolution, from the earliest shrewlike mammals through primates to hominids, is marked by a steady increase in encephalization, or the ratio of brain to body size. The human brain has been estimated to contain 50–100 billion neurons, of which about 10 billion are cortical pyramidal cells. These cells pass signals to each other via around 100 trillion synaptic connections.
According to BBC article:
Brains consist of fatty tissue which microbes in the soil would absorb, so neurologists believe the find could be some kind of fossilised brain.
The skull was found in an area first farmed more than 2,000 years ago.
More tests will now be done to establish what it is actually made of.
Charles Darwin is best known for theory of evolution. He proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. Summary of his theory are as follows:
- Species have great fertility. They have more offspring than can grow to adulthood.
- Populations remain roughly the same size, with small changes.
- Food resources are limited, but are relatively stable over time.
- An implicit struggle for survival ensues.
- In sexually reproducing species, generally no two individuals are identical.
- Some of these variations directly impact the ability of an individual to survive in a given environment.
- Much of this variation is inheritable.
- Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce, while individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce.
- The individuals that survive are most likely to leave their inheritable traits to future generations.
- This slowly effected process results in populations that adapt to the environment over time, and ultimately, after interminable generations, these variations accumulate to form new varieties, and ultimately, new species.
The guardian has published an interesting information and story behind the origin of species:
It's 150 years since Darwin made one of the the most significant breakthroughs in scientific history - the theory of natural selection. But if it hadn't been for a young ornithologist on the other side of the world, his seminal work might never have appeared. Robin McKie tells the extraordinary story behind The Origin of Species
Memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and subsequently retrieve information. Human memory is short. And we would do well to remember that, say researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia. When we present phone numbers, we present them in groups of three and four, which helps us to remember the list said University of Missouri-Columbia psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-led the study with colleagues Jeff Rouder and Richard Morey.
That inflates the estimate. We believe we're approaching the estimate that you get when you cannot group. There is some controversy over what the real limit is, but more and more I've found people are accepting this kind of limit.
While most of us may only be able to hold three or four things in mind at once, some people have achieved amazing feats of working memory.
Theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler died of pneumonia at his residence in Hightstown, New Jersey yesterday. Wheeler is most known in the popular culture for popularizing the term "black hole" to describe stars which had become so dense that nothing, not even light, could escape their gravitational pull. Although Wheeler initially objected to the idea, he later accepted the idea and coined the term "black hole" to describe such objects.
RIP and condolences to the family.
=> John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term ‘Black Hole,’ Is Dead at 96 (photo credit: The New York Times)
Gene is unit of heredity in all living organisms. A gene is part of a DNA molecule within the nucleus of all cells. Each gene codes for a particular protein. Thus a gene is a unit of the inheritable characteristics of the organism. Humans have tens of thousands of different genes; these determine the phenotype of the individual.
According to new study our level of happiness throughout life is strongly influenced by the genes with which we were born.
An Edinburgh University study of identical and non-identical twins suggests genes may control half the personality traits keeping us happy. The other half is linked to lifestyle, career and relationships.
So if you are not happy, just blame to your genes ;). On a related note positive thinking may improve overall life.
=> Genes 'play key happiness role'
Depression is some sort of mood disorder in which you may feel sad, helplessness, worried or a loss of interest in life. Now new research suggests that 44 is the age at which we are most vulnerable to depression. 10 % of people have depression at some time in their lives. Depression happens most often in people between the ages of 24 and 44 years.
From the BBC article:
Data analysis on two million people from 80 countries found a remarkably consistent pattern around the world. The risk of depression was lowest in younger and older people, with the middle-aged years associated with the highest risk for both men and women. Andy Bell, of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, said mental health problems were extremely common - but he stressed they could occur at any time in life.
=> Depression risk 'highest in 40s'