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The Sun has hit a heretofore unforseen middle-aged evolutionary phase that is characterized by decreasing solar magnetic activity, including starspots and coronal mass ejections, say the authors of a new paper just submitted to APJ Letters. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope enabled the team to make the determination. The good news is that we have another 5 billion years of relative quiescence before the Sun begins its expansion as a Red Giant.


The Sun has likely already entered into a new unpredicted long-term phase of its evolution as a hydrogen-burning main sequence star — one characterized by magnetic sputtering indicative of a more quiescent middle-age. Or so say the authors of a new paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Using observations of other sunlike stars made by NASA ’s Kepler Space Telescope, the team found that the Sun is currently in a special phase of its magnetic evolution.

Heretofore, the Sun was thought to have been just a more slowly rotating version of a normal yellow dwarf (G-spectral type) star. These results offer the first real confirmation that the Sun is in the process of crossing into its magnetic middle age, where its 11-year Sunspot cycles are likely to slowly disappear entirely. That is, from here on out, the Sun is likely to have fewer sunspots than during the first half of its estimated 10 billion year life as a hydrogen-burning star.

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Physicists in the US presently made the most precise measurement ever made of the present rate of growth of the Universe, but there is a problem: our Universe is expanding 8 percent quicker than our present laws of physics can give details. Currently astronomers are looking over once more at their measurements and if turn out to be right, this latest measurement will automatically force us to redefine how dark substance and dark energy have been manipulating the evolution of the Universe for the past 13.8 billion years, and that can’t be done without changing or addition something in the typical model of particle Physics.

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Theoretical physicists have confirmed that it’s not just the information coded into our DNA that shapes who we are — it’s also the way DNA folds itself that controls which genes are expressed inside our bodies.

That’s something biologists have known for years, and they’ve even been able to figure out some of the proteins responsible for folding up DNA. But now a group of physicists have been able to demonstrate for the first time through simulations how this hidden information controls our evolution.

Let’s back up for a second here, because although it’s not necessarily news to many scientists, this second level of DNA information might not be something you’re familiar with.

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More news on Google’s AI kill switch — I am glad that it exist.


Developers are pondering on methods to prevent catastrophe in case an Artificial Intelligence, or AI, got ahead of its designated programming.

Theoretical scientist Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur for Tesla Motors Elon Musk, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates mentioned that AIs have a high learning curve regarding self-awareness, and anytime soon, AIs might surpass human knowledge and become sentient. In a 2014 interview, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking stated that the evolution of humans is slower compared to the rapid improvement of robots.

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So, all of this nextgen technology is wonderful; I truly see the vision and how to make it happen over time. However, what about the native people of the countries where this innovation and advancement is occurring? Are they getting the opportunity to be a part of the innovation story? Or, are they being left behind?

At Microsoft, we established many programs and outreach programs to engage many of the Native Americans across the US; I would like to encourage others to think about how can more be done to include the indigenous people of your countries to be part of the innovation/ evolution story. It truly is rewarding to so many.


The first Native Youth My Brother’s Keeper Hackathon saw students produce several games, apps.

Over the course of one weekend at the end of April in Albuquerque, NM, a few days of frantic organizing gave birth to the city’s first-ever Native Youth My Brother’s Keeper Hackathon, or #NativeMBK.

“It was a shoestring budget,” said Seth Saavedra, director of talent and advancement at Albuquerque’s Native American Community Academy. “We thought, let’s just make this happen. And it went serendipitously well.”

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Word cloudThe human genome contains more than 20,000 protein-coding genes, which carry the instructions for proteins essential to the structure and function of our cells, tissues and organs. Some of these genes are very similar to each other because, as the genomes of humans and other mammals evolve, glitches in DNA replication sometimes result in extra copies of a gene being made. Those duplicates can be passed along to subsequent generations and, on very rare occasions, usually at a much later point in time, acquire additional modifications that may enable them to serve new biological functions. By starting with a protein shape that has already been fine-tuned for one function, evolution can produce a new function more rapidly than starting from scratch.

Pretty cool! But it leads to a question that’s long perplexed evolutionary biologists: Why don’t duplicate genes vanish from the gene pool almost as soon as they appear? After all, instantly doubling the amount of protein produced in an organism is usually a recipe for disaster—just think what might happen to a human baby born with twice as much insulin or clotting factor as normal. At the very least, duplicate genes should be unnecessary and therefore vulnerable to being degraded into functionless pseudogenes as new mutations arise over time.

An NIH-supported team offers a possible answer to this question in a study published in the journal Science. Based on their analysis of duplicate gene pairs in the human and mouse genomes, the researchers suggest that extra genes persist in the genome because of rapid changes in gene activity. Instead of the original gene producing 100 percent of a protein in the body, the gene duo quickly divvies up the job [1]. For instance, the original gene might produce roughly 50 percent and its duplicate the other 50 percent. Most importantly, organisms find the right balance and the duplicate genes can easily survive to be passed along to their offspring, providing fodder for continued evolution.

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