Sunspots 971

 

Some things that I have spotted that may be of interest to others:

Newsweek reports that humpback whales appear to use tools. Really.

Politifact fact-checks the acceptance speech of Kamala Harris.

NPR presents the latest guidance on COVID.

NPR also reports that medical researchers are finally beginning to use menstrual blood in diagnoses.

NPR also reports that Australia is trying to allow workers to disconnect from the company when working hours have passed, 

CNN reports that marmoset monkeys can send messages to a specified individual monkey. In other words, they use names for each other.

Sunspots 749

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: A Christianity Today article suggests ways of dealing with temptation to sexual sin.

Computing: (And Politics) A web page that lists the best fact-checking sites.

Education: Grammarphobia on why we say "zig-zag," not "zag-zig."

Environment: CBS News, and other outlets, report that Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is being severely harmed by border fence construction.
 
Finance: (and politics) Catherine Rampell says that the economy probably won't be enough to keep President Trump from being impeached.

Catherine Rampell also points out that  President Trump has brought back the much-criticized individual mandate.

Food: (and politics) NPR reports that most Himalayan pink salt is actually from Pakistan.

Politics: Catherine Rampell describes another whistleblower matter -- about the President's tax returns.

FiveThirtyEight examines the question of whether Democratic Presidential hopefuls Sanders, Warren or Harris are likely to move toward the center if they become the Democratic nominee.

FiveThirtyEight also reviews evidence that most of us (of whatever political persuasion) see things through serious bias.

Michael Gerson believes that President Trump is being driven by a bizarre conspiracy theory.

Science: The Scientist tells us that macaques are not able to hear patterns and frequency ratios in music.

Gizmodo reports on a study that indicates that human fetuses have limb muscles that disappear during embryonic development. These muscles are like those found in reptiles.

Gizmodo also reports on evidence that a large object struck the earth about 12,800 years ago.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.
 
Thanks for looking!

Color vision established through genetic engineering

National Public Radio reports that scientists have enabled two monkeys, from a species that does not see in full color, to perceive colors they could not perceive at birth. The "cure" was not immediate, presumably because it took a few months for appropriate neural connections to be established.

If the same techniques worked in humans, perhaps, as the authors say, a variety of eye problems, and perhaps other problems, could be treated in this way.

Here's a link to a related page from the scientists involved. Here's another one.

Unfortunately, the actual research article is not freely available.

Be grateful that you can see. Thanks for reading.

Writing music for monkeys

On September 2nd, National Public Radio broadcast a story on an accomplished cello player who decided to see if he could compose music that would cause a reaction in tamarin monkeys. The first link in this post will send you to a description of what the composer did, and you can play music he composed (brief -- less than a minute total), and recorded, which was, indeed, said to cause a reaction in the monkeys.

One question brought up in the story was the question of what music is and isn't. You will understand why some might raise that question if you play the music. Don't ask me to sort that one out.