Science News Thread (for articles that don't relate to ongoing discussions)

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

such as the heritability of stress response in children of holocaust survivors

Like if somebody had the stress response values of the pre-WWII generations to compare.

Maybe the studied population sampling has a different stress response itself.

 

Edited July 23 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

stress response values of the pre-WWII generations to compare

The article I read compared holocaust survivor children with related populations that managed to get out of Europe beforehand.  It's googlable and has been expanded on, I think. 

The other component I did not write above is that the 'hard line' of random selection may have been an anti-religionist / reaction to religious criticism, rather than good science. 

There is some talk (in the article /related work) about the 'intent / plan / purpose' of the organism that offers fraught language for those leery of the 'intelligent design' folks... But I read it as 'the organism has some agency in its choice of environment or the resources it has available to exploit - and how well that serves the critter's purpose to survive and procreate  may have some impact on the genes it passes to the next generation. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 7/21/2024 at 5:57 PM, K^2 said:

There's an abyss between a claim that, "Your environment can have impact on gene expression of your children," and "There is a mechanism in place to make it more likely for gene expression of your children to be more suited to the environment based on your own exposure to the environment." Getting to the former and claiming that it proves the latter is just stupid.

I think the authors of the study make a good case for the counter argument; the baseline "lifetime experience = zero impact on subsequent generations" / "Mutation is random, change is multi-generational" might probably not be a good baseline.  Just because Darwin's immediate successors said that, does not mean it was good science.  I think what the authors are saying is that the paradigm is based on prejudice, and it is worth the effort to ask whether the paradigm should be the paradigm at all.

That said, I agree with you - they've got an uphill battle of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' if they hope to survive the storm of criticism from those who've made careers out of the extant paradigm.  

Will be interesting to watch how the dust settles.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The article I read compared holocaust survivor children with related populations that managed to get out of Europe beforehand.  It's googlable and has been expanded on, I think. 

I would first of exclude the upbringing factor.

The people who survived a severe famine (such as the Leningrad blockade and so) are typically known for their obsession with the cult of food.
Not necessary as eating, but as collecting every breadcrumb from the table to not let it get gone, and for attempts to feed somebody as often as possible as a part of friendly style.

So, it would be expectable that the people who had survived such stressful period became anxious and neurotic, and share this with the children which they were upbringing.

Say, many of Soviet people have survived similar experience in the Civil War, 1930s, and WWII, rich of various cruelties, but as typically it's not customary to share such horrible memories with the children, the elder generation traumas mostly stay inside their own memories without affecting the children that traumatically, even when the children read and learn all those horrors from kindergarden.
Also the people who took part in WWII typically principally ignore movies about war, rather than propagate its topic to grandchildren (even when none of my grandfather's war memories was appropriate to include it into my school essays, lol, due to numerous and different stupid deaths and stupid traumas, thanks to three years at the Caucasus flash point and four years more on the frontline).

So, I would first of all suspect the excessive intentionally emotionally traumatizing narrative, rather than genes.

Edited July 23 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

I would first of all suspect the excessive intentionally emotionally traumatizing narrative, rather than genes

That's a good point.  I don't remember how the researchers dealt with this, but I do think it was part of the study.

holocaust survivor heritability stress - Google Search

 

[KSK]

19 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The article is interesting to me in that we see an open challenge by qualified individuals to a long standing 'hard line'. 

I'm the first to admit that I am not deeply read into the nuances of this. But my basic understanding was that the 'standard view' is that evolutionary pressure ignored events / experience within the lifetime of the organism and only worked in multi-generational, population-wide process completely dependent on seemingly random variations in the germ line.  One infant would have a variation of a gene that would turn out to be beneficial and its offspring (that inherit) would have advantages that compound over generations. 

That hard-line rule conflicts with articles I started reading decades ago - such as the heritability of stress response in children of holocaust survivors. 

Other reading from the 20 years of war America played in suggesting that combat PTSD may be an indication of gene expression are in line with the above. 

I don't think the authors and proponents are suggesting that Finch beaks grew longer in the lifetime of a bird... Just that the line may be not so hard.  One important thing is the bit about clones not developing in the same environment - that is interesting 

That's the thing though, I'm not at all sure that it is a hard line any more, and the author and their proponents are far from the first ones to challenge it.  Sure, random mutations over generations, might be the version that's taught in schools (been a long time since I was at school so I don't know!) but the field has definitely moved on in the last five years at least, as shown by the review article I cited.  What I don't know is whether the field has moved on enough that 'random mutations over generations'  is no longer the standard view.

Either way, 'slow accumulation of evidence gradually moves the needle'  is a fairly boring narrative compared to 'scrappy underdogs take on hard line orthodoxy' so you end up with articles like the one we're discussing. It's just kind of irritating when stuff that's at least been discussed in the literature for several years is being trumpeted as a radically new paradigm that's sticking it to the establishment.

 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

If the article study is correct, and the acquired stress is ancested with genes, it's bad news for some European country, as they will be paying at least one generation more.

Edited July 24 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

More than one 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

More than one 

Sounds like a plan.

***

Btw couldn't the stress, caused by capturing in the African jungles, chaining in a sailship, moving across the ocean, selling, and (see Uncle Tom's Cabin for more details) also inheritable?

This can mean some additional ideas...

Sometimes the pure scientific studies come just in proper time, when the generation of direct victims has almost gone...

Edited July 24 by kerbiloid

[Codraroll]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

If the article study is correct, and the acquired stress is ancested with genes, it's bad news for some European country, as they will be paying at least one generation more.

Oh, Russia is far off the deep end of trauma inflicted by centuries of mismanagement already, followed by a conga line of ineptitude and degradation over the past thirty years. Hopefully, the aftermath of their current actions will suffice to end the madness by way of removing the political construct that perpetrates it.

Edited July 24 by Codraroll

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Oh, Russia is far off the deep end of trauma inflicted by centuries of mismanagement already, followed by a conga line of ineptitude and degradation over the past thirty years. Hopefully, the aftermath of their current actions will suffice to end the madness by way of removing the political construct that perpetrates it.

Better worry about the aftermath future of your own country (I'm still not sure exactly, which one, as you're lurking).

And no, currently it's Germany who is the object of the mentioned study.

Edited July 25 by kerbiloid

[darthgently]

Intriguing Mars rock 

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-scientists-find-intriguing-mars-rock

 

Edited July 25 by darthgently

[darthgently]

On 7/23/2024 at 11:39 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That's a good point.  I don't remember how the researchers dealt with this, but I do think it was part of the study.

holocaust survivor heritability stress - Google Search

 

Cultural anthropology has always been the awkward guest at the genetic nature vs nurture debate wrt primates

Edited July 26 by darthgently

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, darthgently said:

Cultural anthropology has always been the awkward guest at the genetic nature vs nurture debate wrt primates

Yep.

In a related vein; I had a talk recently with someone who's generally intelligent & educated on most things.  He mentioned that "animals don't really have intelligence; everything they do is based of instinct alone."

uh...

Back to the instant discussion, however; the common argument seems to center on gross morphological change.  If they don't see the beak getting longer/pointier/harder in the lifetime of the bird, it clearly isn't part of the evolutionary process (outside of random change in its gametes).

Epigenetics, it seems, is the new kid on the block.

Epigenetic inheritance can be important for adaptation, especially in cases where the available genetic variation is limited. Firstly, epigenetic inheritance, like phenotypic plasticity, can enable survival in new environments before genetic adaptation evolves (Burggren 2016). Secondly, the rate of spontaneous gains and losses of individually methylated sites (i.e. the epimutation rate) is estimated to be substantially higher than the genetic mutation rate (Graaf et al. 2015), creating new heritable variation that can ultimately enable adaptation. Finally, for small populations with limited genetic variation, or asexual organisms, epigenetic variation can be a major source of heritable variation that can enable adaptation to new environments.

Evolutionary consequences of epigenetic inheritance | Heredity (nature.com)

 

 

 

 

 

(Rabbit holes, by the way!  I've got real work to do, and instead am spending my time reading into evolutionary biology.  Of course, it's not a complete side track.  I've got to teach human evolution from the time before the Neanderthal/Denisovan split through the end of the recent Ice Age in just a couple of weeks.  There - that justifies it!)

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

He mentioned that "animals don't really have intelligence; everything they do is based of instinct alone."

_{(from https://www.yaplakal.com/forum28/st/50/topic2782174.html?hl=#entry133998745)}

Quote

интеллект - это способности из двух мыслей синтезировать третью. У животных... это практически не развито
Есть же классический пример с обезьяной в клетке... которой ставили кружку с водой так.. чтобы она не могла дотянуться. Тогда ей просовывали в ручку кружки веревку...и предлагали за нее потянуть
Обезьяна тянула за эту веревку... и вытягивала веревку вместо кружки. И так раз за разом не добиваясь поставленной цели

Далее.. обезьянке показали, что тянуть надо не за один конец веревки, а за два. Обезьяна быстро получала этот навык. Теперь у нее СОВСЕМ не было проблем с водой.

И так было до тех пор...

Пока люди... не просунули в ручку крышки НЕСКОЛЬКО веревочек. Как только обезьяна увидела это...сразу позабыла о том, как правильно нужно тянуть.. и пыталась тянуть за два края произвольных веревок. И опять ничего у нее не получалось

Вывод. У обезьяны (как и других животных и примитивных людей) с плохим ИНТЕЛЛЕКТОМ нет способностей к ОБОБЩЕНИЮ опыта и синтезу НОВЫХ решений на основе полученного опыта
Т.е. 1+1...у них 2.... Тогда как у эрудитов.. это и 2 и 3 и 5

"The intelligence is an ability to formulate from two ideas a third one.
The animals almost don't have this ability developed.There is a classic example about the monkey in a cage.

They put a cup of water in front of it, too far to let the monkey pull it by hand.

Then they had stuck a rpe through the cup handle, and put the end into the cage.

The monkey was pulling the rope end, the rope was slipping from the handle, so the monkey was still getting nothing.

Then they had shown to the monkey that he/she/it/they should pull both rope ends at once to pull the cup.

The monkey tried this, and successfully got the water.

But the sneaky people stack through the cup handle several ropes more, and put all ends to the cage.

The monkey was pulling two random ends, instead of finding a same rope pair, and again was losing.

Conclusion: the monkey, like other animals and primitive people, with poor intelligence lacks ability of summarizing/generalizing of the experience, and of synthesizing of new solutions based on the received experience.

For them 1+1 is always 2, while the erudites know that it can be also 2, 3, or 5.

***

Also, the animals except the human don't understand the indicating gesture, they are looking at the finger and sniffing it.

Spoiler

So, while the animals definitely have an intelligence, we shouldn't overestimate it.

Most probably when the cat is showing its friendship and purring, he/she doesn't think: "Oh, my beloved human friend! Look at me, what a pleasure is to be with you, and let you enjoy my lovely purring!"

Instead of that, it's probably:
"10:24:23. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."
"10:24:41. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."
"10:24:54. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."

While the cat definitely has a landscape route it its head, can plan a sequence of movements in mind, and then fulfil the developed script.

Edited July 26 by kerbiloid

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

_{(from https://www.yaplakal.com/forum28/st/50/topic2782174.html?hl=#entry133998745)}

"The intelligence is an ability to formulate from two ideas a third one.
The animals almost don't have this ability developed.There is a classic example about the monkey in a cage.

They put a cup of water in front of it, too far to let the monkey pull it by hand.

Then they had stuck a rpe through the cup handle, and put the end into the cage.

The monkey was pulling the rope end, the rope was slipping from the handle, so the monkey was still getting nothing.

Then they had shown to the monkey that he/she/it/they should pull both rope ends at once to pull the cup.

The monkey tried this, and successfully got the water.

But the sneaky people stack through the cup handle several ropes more, and put all ends to the cage.

The monkey was pulling two random ends, instead of finding a same rope pair, and again was losing.

Conclusion: the monkey, like other animals and primitive people, with poor intelligence lacks ability of summarizing/generalizing of the experience, and of synthesizing of new solutions based on the received experience.

For them 1+1 is always 2, while the erudites know that it can be also 2, 3, or 5.

***

Also, the animals except the human don't understand the indicating gesture, they are looking at the finger and sniffing it.

  Reveal hidden contents

So, while the animals definitely have an intelligence, we shouldn't overestimate it.

Most probably when the cat is showing its friendship and purring, he/she doesn't think: "Oh, my beloved human friend! Look at me, what a pleasure is to be with you, and let you enjoy my lovely purring!"

Instead of that, it's probably:
"10:24:23. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."
"10:24:41. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."
"10:24:54. Oops. Big-human-beast-id-3264. Is he angry? Alarm on. Purr! Are we friends? Reaction detected: we are friends. Alarm off."

While the cat definitely has a landscape route it its head, can plan a sequence of movements in mind, and then fulfil the developed script.

To be fair, this describes the majority of human relationships also.  We have our moments, but having raised and said goodbye to many dogs and cats, I can without doubt state that they too have their moments.  But I do think we have more of them

[Nuke]

once observed a raven pick up crackers. there are four of them scattered about, likely dropped from some child's lunchable. raven picked up the first cracker, stacked it on the second, picked up both crackers and set them on the 3rd and so on until he had a stack of four crackers in his beak. he took off with all of them. yea i dont buy the whole instinct thing, they are capable of learning just as well as humans are. maybe not as fast, but you dont come up with tricks like that without at least some capacity for abstract thought.

On 7/21/2024 at 11:14 AM, magnemoe said:

This, an very interesting example is from thalidomide victims (Remember YouTube documentary from some years ago so might not be true)
Issue was cases of thalidomide victims falling in love and creating families, they shared fates after all. Their kids had an increase chance of limb deformities. 

Why its an drug no longer used (for this) Turned out lots of of the thalidomide victims had an higher chance to limb deformities in the first place and thalidomide pushed them over the threshold often after low usage. 
Well you now have two parents with  this issue and kids might inherit it. 
Did not, mother used lots of thalidomide  and you had no bad genes or your rolled an 2 not 1 gene mixing.  
(does not matter if correct) it sounds plausible on why environmental effects are inherited.

Animals getting scared of loud noises will do better after firearms is used for hunting, this was 200 years ago for common use. 
Add that mammals are smart. Pretty sure deer know they are not hunted in suburbs for good reasons, but they are getting annoying.  

we get that. local bucks move in to town the week before hunting season., they are just everywhere. i saw a nice four pointer the other day on my way to the post office. hunting season opens on the first. never ceases to amaze me that they know exactly when to move in.

Edited July 27 by Nuke

[darthgently]

8 hours ago, Nuke said:

once observed a raven pick up crackers. there are four of them scattered about, likely dropped from some child's lunchable. raven picked up the first cracker, stacked it on the second, picked up both crackers and set them on the 3rd and so on until he had a stack of four crackers in his beak. he took off with all of them. yea i dont buy the whole instinct thing, they are capable of learning just as well as humans are. maybe not as fast, but you dont come up with tricks like that without at least some capacity for abstract thought.

we get that. local bucks move in to town the week before hunting season., they are just everywhere. i saw a nice four pointer the other day on my way to the post office. hunting season opens on the first. never ceases to amaze me that they know exactly when to move in.

I worked in a national park with very restricted hunting in my youth and when the first rifle cracks sounded in the fall all the deer would jump the fence into the park like clockwork

[AckSed]

https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/tag/advanced-composite-solar-sail-system-acs3/

Solar sail almost finished commissioning, about to roll out the sail itself.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, AckSed said:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/tag/advanced-composite-solar-sail-system-acs3/

Solar sail almost finished commissioning, about to roll out the sail itself.

Very cool for interplanetary probes.  But given the light signature I imagine ground based astronomers will much prefer it not be a regular thing in Earth orbit.  There are better options within Earth's magnetic field anyway.  Looking forward to the results

Edited July 29 by darthgently

[farmerben]

On 7/29/2024 at 11:16 AM, darthgently said:

Very cool for interplanetary probes.  But given the light signature I imagine ground based astronomers will much prefer it not be a regular thing in Earth orbit.  There are better options within Earth's magnetic field anyway.  Looking forward to the results

This is a prototype from the New Zealanders.  They might not have the capability to leave Earth's SOI.  Even if they did the mass of communications gear would greatly retard the prototype.

 

[darthgently]

8 hours ago, farmerben said:

This is a prototype from the New Zealanders.  They might not have the capability to leave Earth's SOI.  Even if they did the mass of communications gear would greatly retard the prototype.

 

Yes, I get all that.  But I imagine it being deployed after a kick stage gets it interplanetary then it uses the sail to expand trajectory options indefinitely as the fuel wouldn't run out.  For example, it could probably cycle around the asteroid belt visiting hundreds of asteroids for multiple decades

[AckSed]

Polymetallic nodules in the deep sea act like natural batteries to electrolyse water.

All you need is some manganese and some cobalt around a kernel, it seems.

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, AckSed said:

Polymetallic nodules in the deep sea act like natural batteries to electrolyse water.

All you need is some manganese and some cobalt around a kernel, it seems.

What charges the "batteries"?  I'm guessing they form, then discharge until spent.  The nodules must be replaced at a rate that sustains an ongoing charge en masse.

I don't understand how they would seem to defy entropy to precipitate like that in the first place, but would love to learn more.  I wonder if some microbe is involved

Edited August 3 by darthgently

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

11 hours ago, darthgently said:

microbe is involved

Likely - vaguely remember reading that our seas used to be way more iron rich and some algae or plankton got ahold of it and died enmass (repeat over millennia) leaving behind iron-rich bands in present day exposed former sea beds. 

 

The way this planet works is endlessly fascinating! 

Banded iron formation https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/planet-earth/how-has-the-earth-evolved/banded-iron-formation#:~:text=Photosynthetic organisms were making oxygen,floor%2C creating banded iron formations.

 

 

Alt hypothesis: https://phys.org/news/2009-10-banded-reveal-early-earth-conditions.html

https://www.amnh.org/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/amnh/images/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/rose-center-for-earth-and-space/hall-of-planet-earth2/banded-iron-formation_smalldynamiclead/171362-1-eng-US/banded-iron-formation_smalldynamiclead_wideexact_1230.jpg

 

 

Huh... The image did not imbed.