Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Belief, disbelief and uncertainty activate distinct brain regions | Science Codex

Tree's leaves genetically different from its roots

Populus trichocarpa (black cottonwood; also known as western balsam poplar or California poplar) is a deciduous broadleaf tree species native to western North America, and it was the first tree species to have its genome sequenced and published in 2006.

This tree can also reproduce via vegetative reproduction. This means that these trees can cl
one themselves to produce offspring that are connected to their parents by the same root system. Now, after the first genome-wide analysis of a tree, it turns out that the connected clones have many genetic differences, even between tissues from the top and bottom of a single tree. And these variations within the tree could be as large as variations across unrelated trees, thus challenging the old paradigm that evolution only happens at the population level and not the individual level. (Source 1)

Mutations that occur in cells other than sperms or eggs are termed as somatic mutations, and although these mutations were well known, until recently we did not have a genome-wide study of them, and no one had catalogued the total number of mutations.

Biologists (detailed in Source 1) collected samples from 11 parent-clone sets of black cottonwood parents and their connected offspring. After comparing these sets, scientists found 188,406 mutations that were unique to just one tissue sample, differing even from other parts of the same tree.

The finding also has implications in cancer research, as recent research suggests that separate parts of the same tumour can build up distinct genetic mutations independently, meaning that single biopsies give only a narrow view of the tumour’s diversity. (Source 2)

Source:
1) http://www.nature.com/news/tree-s-leaves-genetically-different-from-its-roots-1.11156
2) http://www.nature.com/news/biopsy-gives-only-a-snapshot-of-tumour-diversity-1.9998
3) http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/populus/trichocarpa.htm

Image:
http://www.blackfootnativeplants.com/trees/blackfoot-native-plants/

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Why Some People See Sound
Brain anatomy may be key to explaining why some people see sound in a flash illusion.

Some people may actually see sounds, say researchers who found this odd ability is possible when the parts of the brain devoted to vision are small.

These findings points to a clever strategy the brain might use when vision is unreliable, investigators added.

Scientists took a closer look at the sound-induced flash illusion. When a single flash is followed by two bleeps, people sometimes also see two illusory consecutive flashes.
http://www.livescience.com/24191-why-some-people-see-sound.html
Image: Handy Widiyanto | shutterstock

Animals have been used for scientific research since about 300 BCE, but modern biomedical research since the mid-1800s has focused on the use of model organisms. Model organisms are chosen for a variety of reasons: reproductive rate, size, ease of manipulation, information payout potential, and a biological homologue to humans.

The strains of animals used for testing are thoroughly inbred, which
eliminates genetic uncertainty with the researcher. If, say, a mouse is manipulated in one fashion, all changes can be noted and attributed to that change, without worry that an unknown underlying condition skewed results. These conditions cannot be found in humans, making animals the better choice to study the early stages of potential medical therapies.

Over the last 150 years, model organisms have helped scientists understand the cell cycle, cancer emergence and proliferation, genetics, development, pharmaceutical efficacy, DNA synthesis, disease, behavior, circadian rhythms, and aging -- to name a few.

Cutting-edge bioinformatics is helping scientists with the advent of computer programs that can translate mRNA and build 3D models based on biochemical properties. Some of the rough trial and error can occur on the computer interface, which reduces experiment time and animal usage. However, this technology is new and limited. A living organism is still necessary to confirm the computer’s findings and continue with developing a human application.

Though some may find it cruel to use animals for biomedical research, strict animal husbandry laws protect animals-particularly vertebrates- and ensure humane living conditions and treatment. Most of what has been learned in the last 150 years would have been impossible without the use of these model organisms.

For more information:
http://www.goddardlab.com/PHYS283_materials_Fall2011/Model_organisms_JProt_2010.pdf
http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/modelorg_factsheet.htm
Photo credit: nirojsbioblog.blogspot.com

Evil Bible Home Page

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Evil Bible Home Page

Happy Halloween readers! In honour of the occasion, we're going to tell you a story about fire ants and phorid flies.

Fire ants are very aggressive insects, armed with powerful stings that can kill frogs, lizards and even people. But when alarmed they release a pheromone, attracting a female phorid fly - the last thing any fire ant will want to do. The fly injects her eggs through a needle-like

appendage into the ant's thorax. A newly-hatched maggot makes its way into the ant's head, making itself at home by eating the brain. When the maggot is nearly ready to leave, it directs the "zombie" ant to go somewhere away from other ants (preferably a moist and leafy place). The unfortunate ant is decapitated by chemicals that break down membranes, and the maggot finishes off any remaining food in the head before emerging.

Looking at the photo, some of you may have noticed what looked like mandibles either side of the fly - and that's exactly what they are. This is the end of the process as the fly breaks free of the decapitated head.

Due to being accidentally imported in the 1930s, fire ants have become a big problem for organisms in the southern US. But over recent years scientists have been importing phorid flies to cope with the problem. According to Dr. Sanford Porter (US Department of Agriculture), 6 species of phorid flies have been released and 2 are spreading with the ants. Efforts have been relatively successful at controlling fire ant populations and the flies do not have a taste for native ants, reducing further impact on biodiversity. On a last interesting note, the flies do not make a great numerical impact on ant populations - but the ants are so afraid of them, they become reluctant to collect food. We don't think anyone can blame them!

Photo credit: Sanford D. Porter, USA.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19970460

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/zombie-ants/index.html#/zombie-ants-phorid-flies-approach_4287_600x450.jpg

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

John Keats

October 31, 2012

On this date in 1795, Romantic poet John Keats was born in London, the son of a livery-stable manager. His father died in an accident in 1804 and his mother died of tuberculosis in 1810. Keats' childhood was necessarily very unsettled but he was educated at Clarke's School in Enfield and apprenticed to be a surgeon-apothecary. Keats studied surgery in London but was inclined to pen verses instead of taking notes during class. His first real poem was written in 1814. Keats met Leigh Hunt, editor of The Examiner, and through him other Romantic poets, including Shelley. Keats' first book, Poems, was published in 1817. Keats first long poem, Endymion, was published when he was 21, followed by some of his most famous poems, including "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn." In 1818, Keats nursed his brother as he was dying of tuberculosis. That winter he began work on "Hyperion." His second volume of poetry appeared in 1820, to critical acclaim. By then, Keats was ill himself with tuberculosis, and depressed over his thwarted romance with Fanny Brawne, a spirited young acquaintance (who considered Keats too poor to be marriageable). Keats' death was a tortured, drawn-out ordeal of more than a year. He ended his days in Italy. Although invited by Shelley to visit him in Pisa, Keats instead traveled to Rome, where he died, at only 25, requesting of a friend that his tombstone be engraved with only one line: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Keats was a critic of religion who eschewed religious ritual before his death, and expressed his views in his many letters against "the pious friends of Religion" (cited by Encyclopedia of Unbelief edited by Gordon Stein). His famous poem, written in 1816, "Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition" (see quote) predicts Christianity is "dying like an outburnt lamp." D. 1821.

Sonnet Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition

The church bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound
In some black spell; seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,
And converse high of these with glory crown'd.
Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,--
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp;
That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go
Into oblivion;--that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.

— John Keats

Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor - www,ffrf.org

Origin Of Life: The Panspermia Theory

http://scienceinsociety.northwestern.edu/content/articles/2008/research-digest/student-papers/panspermia/origin-of-life-the-panspermia-theory

Michio Kaku, Fermi's Paradox, and the 10 Lane Superhighway of the Cosmos

http://vimeo.com/14646266

Michio Kaku 3 types of Civilizations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GooNhOIMY0&feature=share

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Animals learn to fine-tune their sniffs

A research team studying rats found that animals adjust their sense of smell through sniffing techniques that bring scents to receptors in different parts of the nose. The sniffing patterns changed according to what kind of substance the rats were attempting to detect. The sense of smell is particularly important for many animals, as they need it to detect
predators and to search out food. "Dogs, for instance, are quite dependent on their sense of smell," said study author Leslie Kay, associate professor of psychology and director of the Institute for Mind & Biology at the University of Chicago.

"But there are many chemicals in the smells they detect, so detecting the one that might be from a predator or an explosive, for instance, is a complex process." Kay was joined in writing the paper by Daniel Rojas-Líbano, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chile in Santiago, who received his PhD from UChicago in 2011. Rojas-Líbano, who did the work as a doctoral scholar, was the first author on the publication.

Their results are published in an article, "Interplay Between Sniffing and Odorant Properties in the Rat," in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Scholars have hypothesized that animals may be able to focus sniffing, just as humans focus their sight to detect a target, like the face of a friend, in a crowd. Humans are also known to be able to adjust their ability to detect specific odors with practice when cooking or sampling wine, for instance. Kay and Rojas-Libano drew from two ideas proposed by other scholars to test whether animals can focus their sniffs.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-animals-fine-tune.html

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Sunflower experiment proves Alan Turing was right

Thousands of green-fingered gardeners have used sunflowers in an experiment which appears to prove a theory drawn up by the mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing 60 years ago.

In 1951, he declared that the spiral shapes on the heads of sunflowers in his Wilmslow garden followed a mathematical pattern called the Fibonacci sequence.

Now gardeners across the world have defied slugs and floods to grow their own sunflowers as part of a project organised by the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester to prove that Turing was correct. More than eight out of ten flowers they examined followed the same Fibonacci sequence – proving that maths is an integral part of nature’s most beautiful creations. The sequence is a set of numbers where each number is the sum of the previous two (ie: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 etc).

Dr Erinma Ochu, who managed the Turing’s Sunflowers project, said: “It’s been brilliant to see sunflowers in bloom around the world and just goes to show the power of citizens working together for this exciting mass experiment.

“Thousands of people contributed to Turing’s Sunflowers and although we were hampered by bad weather and slugs in many cases, I’m delighted to have gathered a dataset that can be used in the future by scientists to help understand why Fibonacci numbers occur in nature and why they don’t.”

Turing, who was born in 1912, developed early computer software and made huge leaps in artificial intelligence. He made many of his greatest discoveries while working at Manchester University and became known as the father of computer science.

Read more at
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1592489_sunflower-experiment-proves-alan-turing-was-right
Image: http://pascalepetit.blogspot.se/2011/02/ai-weiweis-sunflower-seeds-at-tate.html

How to Be an Ethical Egg Eater | Care2 Causes

Palaeontology News and Fossil Focus

A new study, published in Science has suggested that feathers may have evolved first and foremost for courtship displays, not for flight. Specimens studied have also shown that feathers evolved earlier than previously thought. Head to the links below for more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20079390#story_continues_1

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22428-dinosaurs-may-have-evolved-feathers-for-courtship.html

Image Ryan McKellar

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Spontaneous knotting of self-trapped waves

The nonlinear phase of the self-trapped light beam breaks the wave front into a sequence of optical vortex loops around the soliton, which, through the soliton's orbital angular momentum and spatial twist, tangle on propagation to form links and knots. We anticipate similar spontaneous knot topology to be a universal feature of waves whose phase front is twisted and nonlinearly modulated, including superfluids and trapped matter waves.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121025/srep00771/full/srep00771.html

MC Paul Barman

October 30, 2012

On this date in 1974, Paul Barman was born in Ridgewood, N.J. He graduated from Brown University in 1997 with a B.A. degree. Barman is a rapper who often raps about humorous and academic subjects. He began rapping in 1996 and released his first album, “Postgraduate Work,” in 1998. Other albums include “It’s Very Stimulating” (2000), “Pallelujah!” (2002) and “Thought Balloon Mushroom Cloud” (2009).

Barman is culturally Jewish, but does not believe in god.

"Isn't believing in God like wearing chain mail? . . . In that you just don't do it anymore."

— Paul Barman, The Onion A.V. Club, September 6, 2000.

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor- www.ffrf.org

John Adams

October 30, 2012

On this date in 1735, John Adams, who became second president of the United States, was born on a farm in Braintree (now Quincy) Massachusetts. Harvard-educated, he chucked ministerial studies for the law. In his Works, he wrote: "People are not disposed to inquire for piety, integrity, good sense or learning in a young preacher, but for stupidity (for so I must call the pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces), irresistible grace, and original sin" (vol. 1, p. 37). He married Abigail Smith (who later fruitlessly urged her husband to "remember the ladies" in the Constitution). Their son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth U.S. president. A revolutionary, John Adams wrote against the Stamp Act, was a delegate at the First and Second Continental Congresses, and proposed George Washington as commander of the military. Adams seconded the motion for the Declaration of Independence. He was also a diplomat. Adams carefully studied religion. According to the biography by his somewhat orthodox grandson, he was "very much in the mold accepted by the Unitarians of New England," while other historians put him squarely in the Deist camp. Adams wrote Thomas Jefferson: "Twenty times in the course of my late readings, I have been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all worlds if there were no religion in it!' " But Adams qualified by adding that, "Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company—I mean hell." (Works, vol. 10, p. 254). (Jefferson replied that if by religion Adams was referring to the orthodox type, he would agree with Adams' initial assessment.) Adams did not believe in miracles or prophecies, eternal damnation, or demonic possession, and wrote a History of the Jesuits as an expose. In the Massachusetts constitutional conventions of 1779 and 1820, he fought to separate church and that state. That reform was finally adopted after his death. He believed in an afterlife for emotional reasons. "If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God," he wrote Jefferson (Works, vol. 10, pp. 362-363). Adams wrote a 3-volume treatise on the U.S. Constitution. He was Vice-President under George Washington from 1788 to 1796, and was elected president in 1796, serving one term. Although he and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, Adams' dramatic dying words were: "Jefferson lives." D. 1826.

“Until this awful blasphemy [the Incarnation] is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.”

— John Adams, letter, Jan. 22, 1825, Works of J. Adams

Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Monday, October 29, 2012

The universe: the full story - space - 29 October 2012 - New Scientist

Scientists in sleep-wake tests decode dreams

Evolution

‎"Bones upon bones, we couldn't believe our eyes."

With these words paleontologist Oliver Wings (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin) describes his team's reaction to a spectacular fossil find - a Jurassic turtle "bone bed" in the Xinjiang province in China. Approximately 1800 turtle fossils have been found there, approximately doubling the number of individual turtle fossils we have from the Jurassic.
Due to the large number of fossils, researchers can make statistical analyses of growth, morphology and variability - the first analyses of Asian turtles in the Jurassic period. Turtles are not the only fossils to have been found here, as other expeditions have unearthed the remains of sharks, dinosaurs, crocodiles and early mammals.

Though now one of the world's driest regions, 160 million years ago Xinjiang province was a very different place indeed. Lakes and rivers were present and the area supported an abundance of life. However climate change brought with it seasonal droughts, resulting in this great find.

In times of drought, turtles would gather en masse in one of the region's waterholes to await the rain. Turtles in Australia show this same behaviour. But these turtles were unlucky; they were already dead by the time the rains came, their bodies and the sediments washed into one place and dumped there. Researchers are now waiting for sponsors so they can embark on further field studies and find out more about the dinosaur finds.

Photo credit: Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121029111229.htm

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of a human, from 95-99% depending on what is counted. They are the next closest living relatives to humans after the two chimpanzee species, with all of the Hominidae having diverged from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago.
Gorilla infants are vulnerable and dependant and thus mothers, their primary caregivers, are important to their survival
. Gorilla mothers invest years caring for their offspring. Male gorillas are not active in caring for the young. However they do play a role in socializing them as they will associate with older infants and juveniles
[Source: Wikipedia]

A group of gorillas living together is called a “troop.” There can be 5 to 30 gorillas in one troop, led by a strong, experienced male known as a “silverback.” His job is a big one. He is responsible for the safety and well being of the members of his troop. The silverback makes all the decisions, such as where the troop will travel for food each day, when they will stop to eat or rest, and where they will spend the night. [Source: San Diego Zoo]

Photograph by NATALIE MANUEL

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Honeybee secretion may find use as local anesthetic

Bees can bite. Biologists from universities in Greece and France have discovered that, besides a tail sting, the honeybee is capable of packing a paralyzing bite. The bee uses its bite weapon on targets too small to be stung. such as wax moth larva and varroa mites. The intruders can infiltrate beehives and eat wax and pollen. The bee delivers a
bite that can paralyze them for up to nine minutes, enough time for them to be ejected from the hive. The honeybee uses its mandibles to bite its enemy and then secretes 2-heptanone into the wound. In their paper, the authors explain that this defense weapon is produced in the mandibular glands, released by the mandible pore of a reservoir and through the groove flows at the sharp edge of mandibles.

"We believe, based on our morphological studies and the anatomical evidence provided by others, that the release of 2-H is not passive, but actively controlled by the contraction of mandibular muscles." The "2-H" they refer to, 2-heptanone, is already known to biologists as a natural compound found in some foods, including beer and white bread, and is secreted by some insects. Biologists assumed, though, that the 2-H function is an alarm pheromone, chemically-tagging areas for bees to revisit or calling on other bees to attack intruders.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-honeybee-secretion-local-anesthetic.html

Evolution

The Ethiopian wolf is already the world's rarest dog, with a population of fewer than 500 left in the wild. Now the results of a 12-year study indicate that wolf groups are genetically fragmenting.

The team behind this result looked at the genetic diversity, population structure and gene flow in 72 wolves, taken from six populations (samples were also taken from a group living around Mount Choke,
but sadly this group became extinct during the study). They found that while genetic diversity was quite high, gene flow was weak. Not only were populations isolated from each other, it appeared that sub-populations were also becoming isolated from each other.

This result adds to concerns about the future of the Ethiopian wolf. Habitat loss is still a major threat as people push into the highlands in search of new places to live and farm, and a recent outbreak of rabies had a devastating effect (estimated to have reduced the total population by up to 75%). Limited gene flow between remaining groups could make them extremely vulnerable to disease and incapable of adapting to new habitats. Inbreeding could also become a major problem.

However, if "corridors" can created between populations or males moved to different groups, there may be hope for the wolf yet. Previous studies have shown that relocating males can have a great effect on genetic diversity - not such a problem for the Ethiopian wolf, but it may reduce the issue of isolation.

Photo credit: Laurent Geslin/NPL.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20041534

For the abstract of the study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00591.x/abstract

Atheists Worldwide

What's In The Food We Import From China? | Care2 Causes

Article | First Things

Chastened Humanism

Secular philosopher Luc Ferry defends human dignity against post-modern doubt.

Robert Royal

Article | First Things

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Edward Truelove

October 29, 2012

On this date in 1809, Edward Truelove was born In England. A follower of Robert Owen and his son, Truelove worked at the Owenite utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana, for a year. Truelove opened his own bookstore in the Strand in 1852, and later opened another shop in Holborn. He published Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary and Thomas Paine's writings. In 1858, after he published Tyrannicide by W.E. Adams, Truelove was charged with blasphemy, but the prosecution was withdrawn. In the 1870s, Truelove served four months in prison for the publication of Robert Dale Owen's book, Moral Physiology, addressing population and birth control. According to historian Joseph McCabe, "His admirers presented him with £200 after his release." D. 1899.

Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Sir Alfred Jules Ayer

October 29, 2012

On this date in 1910, Sir Alfred Jules Ayer was born in London into a wealthy family. His father was a Swiss Calvinist and his mother was of Dutch-Jewish ancestry. Ayer attended Eton preparatory school and studied philosophy and Greek at Oxford University. From 1946 to 1959, he taught philosophy at University College London. He then became Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford. Ayer was knighted in 1970. Included among his many works are The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), The Problem of Knowledge (1956), The Origins of Pragmatism (1968), Metaphysics and Common Sense (1969), Bertrand Russell (1972) and Hume (1980), about philosopher David Hume. In his still-popular book Language, Truth and Logic (1936), Ayer rejected the term “atheism” on the grounds that the existence of god as a hypothesis could never be proven. To argue that no god exists, to Ayer, was as meaningless as saying that one did exist. Later in life, Ayer frequently identified himself as an atheist and became active in humanist causes. He was the first vice president of the British Humanist Association and served as its president from 1965 to 1970. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association from 1947 until his death. He was also an honorary member of the Bertrand Russell Society. In 1988, Ayer had a near-death experience in the United States after choking on salmon and subsequently losing consciousness. He wrote of his experience in “That Undiscovered Country” (New Humanist, May 1989): “My recent experiences have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death, which is due fairly soon, will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be. They have not weakened my conviction that there is no god. I trust that my remaining an atheist will allay the anxieties of my fellow supporters of the British Humanist Association, the Rationalist Press Association and the South Place Ethical Society.” He died shortly after at age 78 in London. D. 1989.

"I do not believe in God. It seems to me that theists of all kinds have very largely failed to make their concept of a deity intelligible; and to the extent that they have made it intelligible, they have given us no reason to think that anything answers to it."

— A.J. Ayer in "What I Believe," The Humanist, August 1966, p. 226.

Compiled by Bonnie Gutsch- www.ffrf.org

British Engineers Create Gasoline Out Of Thin Air | Care2 Causes

Evolution

The fluffy caterpillars of the family Megalopygidae!

This particular caterpillar was found at Posada Amazonas lodge in Tambopata, Peru, and it is almost a fully grown caterpillar belonging to the family Megalopygidae, also collectively known as Flannel Moths. This family of moths is known for having hairy caterpillars, which look all fluffy, cute and cuddly (doesn't this pic look a bit like Donal
d Trump's wig? :-D).

And although it may look inviting to you, hidden beneath the soft hairs are poisonous spines. If they are handled the spines may break, releasing a chemical which causes excruciating pain, and will also pierce the skin. It can also cause an extreme allergic reaction resulting in rashes, blisters, inflammation, and breathing difficulty. So, if you're in Peru or anywhere in North America or the New World Tropics where these are usuall
y found, and you come across these, do remember the hidden spines and don't pick it up!

The adults, by comparison, are somewhat dull being blackish or ochreous in colour. (images in Source 1).

Sources:
1) http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Caterpillar%20-%20Megalopygidae%20or%20Podalia%20sp%20001.htm
2) http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/371426/enlarge
3) http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Lifecycle%205%20-%20larva%20survival.htm
4) http://www.animalsandearth.com/en/photo/view/id/158130-flannel-moth-caterpillar-with-defensive-hairs-megalopygidae-causing-irritation-peru

Image credit:
http://blog.perunature.com/2012/09/this-is-one-unbelievable-caterpillar.html

Atheists Worldwide

Rudolph Marcus (born 1923) is a Canadian-born chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his theory of electron transfer. Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. A type of chemical reaction linked to his many studies of electron transfer would be the transfer of an electron between me

tal ions in different states of oxidation. An example of this type of chemical reaction would be one between a bivalent and a trivalent iron ion in an aqueous solution. In Marcus's time chemists were astonished at the slow rate in which this specific reaction took place.
This attracted many chemists in the 1950s and is also what began Marcus's interests in electron transfer. Marcus made many studies based on the principles that were found within this chemical reaction, and through his studies was able to create his famous Marcus theory. This theory gave way to new experimental programs that contributed to all branches within chemistry.
Electron transfer is one of the simplest forms of a chemical reaction. It consists of one outer-sphere electron transfer between substances of the same atomic structure likewise to Marcus’s studies between bivalent and trivalent iron ions. Electron transfer may be one of the most basic forms of chemical reaction but without it life cannot exist.
Electron transfer is used in all respiratory functions as well as photosynthesis. In the process of oxidizing food molecules, 2 hydrogen ions,2 electrons, and an oxygen molecule react to make an exothermic reaction as well as H2O (water). Due to fact that electron transfer is such a broad, common, as well as essential reaction within nature, Marcus's theory has become vital within the field of chemistry.
On religion he says that he realizes that it would be very comforting to have a religious belief but he personally does not have one. He says that he does not feel that he needs to understand everything in science. He thinks that as time goes on we are understanding more but he can live without understanding everything.
"When my wife died, I could see how comforting religion would be if you believed in an afterlife...but that's the way it is. I don't know what makes some of us believe one thing and other people believe something else."
Rudolph Marcus (chemist)

Atheists Worldwide

Rudolph Marcus (born 1923) is a Canadian-born chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his theory of electron transfer. Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. A type of chemical reaction linked to his many studies of electron transfer would be the transfer of an electron between me

tal ions in different states of oxidation. An example of this type of chemical reaction would be one between a bivalent and a trivalent iron ion in an aqueous solution. In Marcus's time chemists were astonished at the slow rate in which this specific reaction took place.
This attracted many chemists in the 1950s and is also what began Marcus's interests in electron transfer. Marcus made many studies based on the principles that were found within this chemical reaction, and through his studies was able to create his famous Marcus theory. This theory gave way to new experimental programs that contributed to all branches within chemistry.
Electron transfer is one of the simplest forms of a chemical reaction. It consists of one outer-sphere electron transfer between substances of the same atomic structure likewise to Marcus’s studies between bivalent and trivalent iron ions. Electron transfer may be one of the most basic forms of chemical reaction but without it life cannot exist.
Electron transfer is used in all respiratory functions as well as photosynthesis. In the process of oxidizing food molecules, 2 hydrogen ions,2 electrons, and an oxygen molecule react to make an exothermic reaction as well as H2O (water). Due to fact that electron transfer is such a broad, common, as well as essential reaction within nature, Marcus's theory has become vital within the field of chemistry.
On religion he says that he realizes that it would be very comforting to have a religious belief but he personally does not have one. He says that he does not feel that he needs to understand everything in science. He thinks that as time goes on we are understanding more but he can live without understanding everything.
"When my wife died, I could see how comforting religion would be if you believed in an afterlife...but that's the way it is. I don't know what makes some of us believe one thing and other people believe something else."
Rudolph Marcus (chemist)