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isaac Mao's Library tagged Evolution   View Popular

01 May 09

Unifying The Animate And The Inanimate Designs Of Nature

maybe it helps me solving the dilemma as well

www.physorg.com/news160153064.html - Preview

Evolution

  • What they believe connects the two worlds is a theory that flow systems - from animal locomotion to the formation of river deltas -- evolve in time to balance and minimize imperfections. Flows evolve to reduce friction or other forms of resistance, so that they flow more easily with time. This view has been termed the constructal law, which Bejan first stated 13 years ago.


  • The story began with the two scientists trying to determine if the same laws applied to two very different forms of locomotion -- the swimming of fish and the running or flying of animals. The commonly held belief among biologists was that fish locomotion was different than other animal locomotion. Since they live in water, the conventional wisdom held, fish were different because they would not be subject to gravity.


17 Apr 09

The Body Politic § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

  • But there’s a growing consensus among scientists that the relationship between us and our microbes is much more of a two-way street. With new technologies that allow scientists to better identify and study the organisms that live in and on us, we’ve become aware that bacteria, though tiny, are powerful chemical factories that fundamentally affect how the human body functions. They are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. Through research that has blurred the boundary between medical and environmental microbiology, we’re beginning to understand that because the human body constitutes their environment, these microbial communities have been forced to adapt to changes in our diets, health, and lifestyle choices. Yet they, in turn, are also part of our environments, and our bodies have adapted to them. Our dinner guests, it seems, have shaped the very path of human evolution.
03 Mar 09

Seed: The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds

  • The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds is an experiment in scale: By condensing 4.6 billion years of history into a minute, the video is a self-contained timepiece. Like a specialized clock, it gives one a sense of perspective. Everything — from the formation of the Earth, to the Cambrian Explosion, to the evolution of mice and squirrels — is proportionate to everything else, displaying humankind as a blip, almost indiscernible in the layered course of history.
12 Oct 08

Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

  • Evolution
  • This is because cell divisions in males increase with age. “Every time there
    is a cell division, there is a chance of a mistake, a mutation, an error,”
    he said. “For a 29-year old father [the mean age of reproduction in the
    West] there are around 300 divisions between the sperm that made him and the
    one he passes on – each one with an opportunity to make mistakes.
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07 Oct 08

英国遗传专家称人类已停止进化

我觉得他没有关注到社会性的一面

newsvote.bbc.co.uk/...7656891.stm - Preview

遗传 进化 Evolution

  • 伦敦大学学院( University College London)著名遗传学家施蒂夫·琼斯教授说,人类现在已经到了历来最大可能的先进阶段,而且进化的过程已经减慢。
  • 染色体
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15 Aug 08

Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart

  • For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make
    "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," he said.
    Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened
    — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried
    different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools,
    including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.
04 Jul 08

Mechanism and function of humor identified by new evolutionary theory

  • The theory further identifies the importance of pattern recognition in human evolution as Clarke explains: "An ability to recognize patterns instantly and unconsciously has proved a fundamental weapon in the cognitive arsenal of human beings. The humorous reward has encouraged the development of such faculties, leading to the unique perceptual and intellectual abilities of our species."
  • Amusing childish games such as peek-a-boo, clap hands and tower block demolition all exhibit the precise mechanism of humour as it appears in any adult form, but whether these instances of infantile humour actively contribute to the cognitive development of the child or are simply a record of the evolution of the species played out in the individual, is as yet unclear
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23 May 08

Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life - space - 22 May 2008 - New Scientist Space

  • The finding adds weight to the idea that alien life should be common throughout the universe.











    "The Sun's properties are consistent with it being pulled out at random from the bag of all stars," says Charles Lineweaver from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. "Life does not seem to require anything special in its host star, other than it be close."

  • it is more massive than 95% of nearby stars and its orbit around the centre of our galaxy is more circular than those of 93% of nearby stars.
15 Apr 08

Neanderthals speak out after 30,000 years - being-human - 15 April 2008 - New Scientist

  • Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child's face (Image: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich)
  • Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child's face (Image: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich)


    Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child's face (Image: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich)
29 Feb 08

Evolution: What missing link? - life - 27 February 2008 - New Scientist

  • We now know this is a misconception. Life does not progress up a hierarchical ladder from "low" to "high" but is a branching bush with numerous lineages splitting apart and coexisting simultaneously. For example, apes and humans split from a common ancestor 7 million years ago and both ..
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