Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have unravelled the genetic mechanisms behind tiny waterfleas’ ability to adapt to increased levels of phosphorus pollution in lakes.

By mapping networks of genes to the physiological responses of ancient and modern waterfleas (Daphnia), the researchers, based in the University’s School of Biosciences, were able to show that a cluster of over 800 genes, many of them involved in metabolic processes, evolved to become “plastic”, or flexible.

This allows the modern Daphnia to adjust its gene expression according to the amount of phosphorus present in the environment. This is particularly fascinating as their 700-year-old ancestors were incapable of such a plastic response.

Wielding state-of-the-art technologies and techniques, a team of Clemson University astrophysicists has added a novel approach to quantifying one of the most fundamental laws of the universe.

In a paper published Friday, Nov. 8, in The Astrophysical Journal, Clemson scientists Marco Ajello, Abhishek Desai, Lea Marcotulli and Dieter Hartmann have collaborated with six other scientists around the world to devise a new measurement of the Hubble Constant, the unit of measure used to describe the rate of expansion of the universe.

“Cosmology is about understanding the evolution of our universe—how it evolved in the past, what it is doing now and what will happen in the future,” said Ajello, an associate professor in the College of Science’s department of physics and astronomy. “Our knowledge rests on a number of parameters—including the Hubble Constant—that we strive to measure as precisely as possible. In this paper, our team analyzed data obtained from both orbiting and ground-based telescopes to come up with one of the newest measurements yet of how quickly the universe is expanding.”

Here’s how genomic instability messes with your body and contributes to aging.

After reading the new book “The Case Against Reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes” by cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman, many academics and general readers alike may conclude that the Interface Theory of Perception well might be regarded as the most advanced theory of consciousness to date. If you dare to glance outside the paradigmatic square of neuroscience and neurophilosophy, then this book opens up a brand new perspective shedding light on the most probable future venue of scientific endeavor for the theory of everything with computational underpinnings and revolving around phenomenal consciousness.

Challenging the orthodoxy of still-predominant physicalism with undeniable logic and recent epistemological discoveries, Donald Hoffman crafts out his new Interface Theory of Perception which, for some inexplicable reason has been overlooked for so long and is but self-evident: Each conscious agent inhabits their own virtual bubble-universe while using species-specific sensory-cognitive modality in interfacing with objective reality.

In my recently-published book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution (2019) I go a step further by submitting to you that “that something in objective reality” (in the words of Hoffman) is nothing less than non-local consciousness, or the Universal Mind if you prefer, co-creating each and every observer timeline. My ‘Experiential Realism’ is Hoffman’s Conscious Realism.

Continue reading “The Case Against Reality, a new book” »

On the outskirts of Colorado Springs, researchers have uncovered thousands of fossils showing how life on Earth revived in the aftermath of an asteroid impact 66 million years or so ago that killed most dinosaurs and other life on land and sea.

Taken together, the fossil trove documents an era when evolution, in essence, hit the reset button. While countless species vanished forever, some plants and animals rebounded relatively quickly in the first million years after the devastation, including the mammals ancestral to humankind, the scientists said in research published Thursday in Science.

Could intelligence simply be unlikely to evolve? Unfortunately, we can’t study extraterrestrial life to answer this question. But we can study some 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history, looking at where evolution repeats itself, or doesn’t.

Related: from big bang to present: snapshots of our universe through time.

Assumptions: The Case Against Reality

When it comes to scientific theory, (or your personal life) be sure to question everything.

Continue reading “Why should you always assume you’re wrong? Science” »

Smallsat launcher Rocket Lab has announced its ambition to begin missions to the Moon in the near-future, using a new satellite launch platform it has developed called Photon.

Announced today at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington D.C., Rocket Lab – which current flies its Electron rocket from New Zealand and will begin launching from a U.S. site next year – said Photon would enable small spacecraft to reach lunar orbit or conduct lunar flybys.

Photon is an evolution of the company’s existing kick stage that is used to deploy satellites in orbit, including on the company’s ninth launch last week, which saw them deploy a satellite to their highest altitude yet. It fits into the existing Electron rocket and is essentially its own standalone spacecraft, containing its own instruments, propulsion, fuel tanks, and more.

Are we alone in the universe? It comes down to whether intelligence is a probable outcome of natural selection, or an improbable fluke. By definition, probable events occur frequently, improbable events occur rarely—or once. Our evolutionary history shows that many key adaptations—not just intelligence, but complex animals, complex cells, photosynthesis, and life itself—were unique, one-off events, and therefore highly improbable. Our evolution may have been like winning the lottery … only far less likely.

The universe is astonishingly vast. The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars, and there are over a trillion galaxies in the visible universe, the tiny fraction of the universe we can see. Even if habitable worlds are rare, their sheer number—there are as many planets as stars, maybe more—suggests lots of life is out there. So where is everyone? This is the Fermi paradox. The universe is large, and old, with time and room for intelligence to evolve, but there’s no evidence of it.

Could intelligence simply be unlikely to evolve? Unfortunately, we can’t study extraterrestrial life to answer this question. But we can study some 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history, looking at where evolution repeats itself, or doesn’t.