linkstream2 microblog

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/29/its-feels-colder-in-parts-of-canada-than-on-mars/ QT:{{”
“For comparison: It’s about 1 degree at Antartica’s Amundsen-Scott weather station. (NB: It’s “summer” down there.) On Thursday, the Mars Gale Crater reached -9.4 degrees, making it feel warmer than Saskatoon, Montreal and Calgary. (At night, NASA’s Curiosity rover recorded lows of -112 degrees. So, take heart, Canadians! It’s warmer in Canada than Mars in the dead of night.)”
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QT:{{”
“For comparison: It’s about 1 degree at Antartica’s Amundsen-Scott weather station. (NB: It’s “summer” down there.) On Thursday, the Mars Gale Crater reached -9.4 degrees, making it feel warmer than Saskatoon, Montreal and Calgary. (At night, NASA’s Curiosity rover recorded lows of -112 degrees. So, take heart, Canadians! It’s warmer in Canada than Mars in the dead of night.)”
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QT{{”
“Early on, the cells in an embryo can turn into any tissue. As these stem cells divide, they can lose this flexibility, committing to becoming one kind of cell or another. After that, cells typically shut down their viral genes.
Viral proteins appear to help keep stem cells from losing this potential. …
Viruses might have exploited embryos to make more copies of
themselves. By keeping their hosts as stem cells for longer, the viruses were able to invade more parts of the embryo’s body.” “}}

Ancient Viruses Are Buried in Your DNA, by @CarlZimmer
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/10/04/science/ancient-viruses-dna-genome.html Nice #intuition on why they may promote the stem-cell state

QT:{{”
““I didn’t hear what happened after that and didn’t think anything of it until I got a notification that my Amazon order had been placed. I hadn’t ordered anything. I asked my husband and my son, who didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“So then I asked Alexa, ‘What was my last order?’ and she said it was these golden gift boxes. I laughed out loud because I knew then that it was Buddy.”
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Woman couldn’t explain mysterious Amazon orders until her parrot talked

Woman couldn’t explain mysterious $AMZN orders until her parrot talked
http://NYPost.com/2017/09/20/woman-couldnt-explain-mysterious-amazon-orders-until-her-parrot-talked #Alexa listens to everything, human or not

Microchip #Implants for Employees? 1 Company Says Yes
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/07/25/technology/microchips-wisconsin-company-employees.html Man-machine interface of the future w. serious #privacy issues

QT:{{”
“On Aug. 1, employees at Three Square Market, a technology company in Wisconsin, can choose to have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between their thumb and index finger. Once that is done, any task involving RFID technology — swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria — can be accomplished with a wave of the hand.”
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The Man Who Kicked Off…#Biotech by @CarlZimmer
http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/the-man-who-kicked-off-the-biotech-revolution H Smith for discovering restriction enzymes + a history of the term

QT:{{”
“Trying to make sense of the failure, Wilcox suggested to Smith that the bacteria were destroying the viral DNA. He based his suggestion on a hypothesis proposed a few years earlier by Werner Arber, a microbiologist at the University of Geneva. Arber speculated that enzymes could restrict the growth of viruses by chopping up their DNA, and dubbed these hypothetical molecules “restriction enzymes.”” “}}