Month: September 2007

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, September 05 2007 @ 08:21 PM CST

Yahoo News/AP[*1] :

DENVER – A 20-year government effort to restore the population of an endangered native trout in Colorado has made little progress because biologists have been stocking some of the waterways with the wrong fish, a new study says.

Advances in genetic testing helped biologist discover the error, which was called a potential black eye, but they said there is still hope for restoring the greenback cutthroat trout.

The three-year study, led by University of Colorado researchers and published online in Molecular Ecology on Aug. 28, said that five of the nine populations believed to be descendants of the endangered trout were actually the more common Colorado River cutthroat trout, which look similar.

Alternate headline:  Scientists can, occasionally, be wrong.  For a long time.

But hey, it’s only trout.

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, September 05 2007 @ 10:40 AM CST

Kansas City Star/AP[*1] :

On Wednesday, Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the first flight will be pushed well into the fall because of delays in completing assembly of the first plane and in finalizing flight-control software.

Even so, Carson said the 787 remains on track to be delivered to its first customer, Japan’s All Nippon Airways, next May.

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, September 05 2007 @ 10:19 AM CST

Sioux Falls Argus Leader[*1] (this time, avoiding the dreaded Lorem ipsum disease):

Patrick Hamman, 22, of Des Moines, was arrested on a charge of domestic assault after he threw a bag of Cheetos at his father, Michael Hamman, hitting him in the face Sunday night.

Methamphetamines are reported to be involved.  Chester Cheeto is being sought as an accomplice to the attack.

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, September 05 2007 @ 10:13 AM CST

Sioux Falls Argus-Leader[*1] (get it while it’s hot):

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By Lorem ipsum dolor
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Published: September 5, 2007

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean bibendum, dolor quis vehicula dapibus, ante, et consequat tellus nulla nec neque.

Curabitur eget enim eget erat posuere aliquam. Maecenas id pede sit amet magna condimentum faucibus. Proin aliquet. Praesent augue. Aenean purus. Curabitur ut nisl.

Praesent nec sem id risus congue malesuada. Donec sodales enim imperdiet nisi. Fusce sit amet purus. Praesent eu neque et massa pharetra vehicula.

Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Maecenas condimentum vulputate lacus. In pretium urna sit amet diam.

(Reprinted in its entirety under Fair Use, a confidence that Lorem ipsum isn’t copyrightable, together with a vague but satisfied sense of gentle mocking of our revered Mainstream Media.  Plus, this isn’t the first time that South Dakota’s Largest Newspaper has let out a Lorem Ipsum unto the Intertubes.

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, September 04 2007 @ 01:53 PM CST

I just received this e-mail:

(Message redacted to protect my privacy, and hopefully to prevent other folks from buying into this lame stunt.)

Dear Rapleaf:
I didn’t ask you to keep track of my “reputation.”  Nor did I ask you to send me spam.  Don’t do it again.

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, September 04 2007 @ 01:27 PM CST

ScienceDaily[*1] :

‘On our last trip, we found that bonobos were better cooperators than chimpanzees because they had sex and played a lot. This time we want to see how much thinking is going on behind the cooperation.’

Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are related to humans by 98.7%. But in contrast to chimpanzees who live in male dominated societies, where infanticide and lethal aggression are observed, bonobos live in highly tolerant and peaceful societies due to female dominance that maintains group cohesion and regulates tensions through sexual behaviour.

‘We’re always comparing ourselves to chimpanzees, but they’re only half the picture. Bonobos and chimpanzees are so opposite in many ways, that we really need to understand bonobos if we’re ever going to understand ourselves.’

Well, er, OK, the article didn’t exactly talk about “handshakes.”   “Daddy and Mommy are ‘wrestling.'”

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, September 04 2007 @ 01:25 PM CST

Science Daily[*1] :

“Each time we peer deeper into the human genome we uncover more valuable insight into our intricate biology,” said Dr. Venter. “With this publication we have shown that human to human variation is five to seven-fold greater than earlier estimates proving that we are in fact more unique at the individual genetic level than we thought.” He added, “It is clear however that we are still at the earliest stages of discovery about ourselves and only with additional sequencing of more individual genomes will we garner a full understanding of how our genes influence our lives.”

Within the human genome there are several different kinds of DNA variants. The most studied type is single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs, which are thought to be the essential variants implicated in human traits and disease susceptibility. A total of 4.1 million variants covering 12.3 million base pairs of DNA were uncovered in this analysis of Dr. Venter’s genome. Of the 4.1 million variations between chromosome sets, 3.2 million were SNPs. This is a typical number expected to be found in any other human genome, but there were at least 1.2 million variants that had not been described before. Surprisingly, nearly one million were different kinds of variants including: insertion/deletions (“indels”), copy number variants, block substitutions and segmental duplications.