Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-8-2009

[andrewducker]

• Uber-Cool German Treehouse
  Want!
  (tags: trees design cool)
• The answer to the eternal question...
  (tags: funny movies)
• Introducing the Google Chrome OS
  Cue panic in the streets...
  (tags: google chrome opensource linux internet technology browser)
• Scientists create sperm
  From stem cells. This is a real game-changer.
  (tags: reproduction stem_cells science biology)
• Electromagnetic Leak
  Fantastic image of how far various bits of our broadcasts have gone. The Beatles have been seen on Beta Aquilae.
  (tags: astronomy television space physics aliens)

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Heather really has two mommies.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That's both very cool and a joyously wonderful way of causing fundy's heads to explode.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I don't see how. A lesbian couple using sperm created in this method wouldn't really be 'two mommies' any more than a lesbian couple using sperm from a sperm bank.

The sperm the Newcastle team have 'created' is through persuading stem cells from a male embryo to differentiate in to sperm cells. That means that the initial cells that you get the sperm from are male.

It is extremely unlikely that female stem cells (assuming you could take stem cells from an adult person and do the same thing - which is very unlikely for a variety of reasons) could do the same thing because the Y chromosome almost certainly contains necessary information for differentiating in to sperm cells, and women lack the Y chromosome.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Drat!

The real eternal question answered

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

http://www.400monkeys.com/God/

Re: The real eternal question answered

[andrewducker]

Sadly, already added to my delicious links in 2007 - and there doesn't seem to be a useful way to bring it to the top of the RSS feed.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

caught this? http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/20/eco-home-built-for-4000/

though the guy's website is a horrible design and spouts too much bollocks.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

sorry, the proper article is http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/property/how-i-built-my-house-for-1634000-784278.html

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

the sperm one looks a bit premature (ahem)- they haven't proven the ones they create really do work. And then they did it with mice the mice all died really young.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I had an idea once upon a time that the Fermi paradox was the result of emissions control technology. At some point in the technological development of a species, they realize the need to control electromagnetic emissions, and so reorient their technology so that they aren't constantly broadcasting. And as a result, they go dark and very hard to find in the galaxy.

[andrewducker]

Yup - it's either a move to a different form of information transmission technology, the singularity, or Cthulu eating everyone after they wake him up by shouting too loud.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's also likely that they die out too quickly. Given the age of the universe, and the speed at which a culture could build itself up to that level and then subsequently destroy itself, there might be all sorts of spots in the timeline where we're alone. Or there is no other life in the universe, which would be telling in and of itself.