flickering pictures

A California company called LS9 says it has done the impossible: come up with cheap, homegrown, renewable “carbon-negative” oil to satisfy the world’s growing fuel needs. With bug poo.
From the Times:

To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs -– very, very small ones –- so that when they feed on agricultural waste such […]

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The New Scientist reports that over 20 years and 44,000 generations in the lab, a particular population of Escherichia coli (or E. coli for short) bacteria have evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, a nutrient that the bacteria normally can’t use. This is a big deal — something akin to humans developing the ability […]

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Well, sort of. From the International Herald Tribune:

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.
The report, released online […]

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Houston, Texas has apparently been invaded by red hairy “rasberry ants,” named for the exterminator who tried in vain to wipe them out. They’ve also been crawling into sewage pumps, computers, gas meters and other electrical equipment, causing short circuits.
A Fox News clip shows Tom Rasberry himself, who says “you can kill ‘em by […]

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In yet another breakthrough of modern medicine, MAKE Magazine features a homemade prosthetic wheel for an injured turtle, fitted after she was run over by a car and lost the use of her rear legs. Her shattered shell was held together with velcro and epoxy, and the turtle — named Little Bit — apparently […]

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I’ve started making National Geographic one of my regular online stops, and I’m starting to realize just how fantastic this magazine is. A few days ago it reported that in 1971, five pairs of Italian wall lizards were moved onto a small Croatian island. Today, they’ve taken over, and their bodies have adapted […]

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The end of the World War II in 1945 gave birth to another war — one that was “colder” but just as terrifying. US-Soviet tension and the arms race it caused had much of the world in a panic, and WWII’s victors were falling all over themselves to test nuclear weapons and build arsenals […]

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