[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140408213358.htm"]Processing new information during sleep compromises memory[/URL]

[URL="http://www.fastcocreate.com/3028508/see-a-classic-painting-thats-actually-a-spellbinding-cgi-masterpiece"]SEE A CLASSIC "PAINTING" THAT'S ACTUALLY A SPELLBINDING CGI MASTERPIECE[/URL]

[URL="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/new-switch-could-power-quantum-computing-0409"]New ‘switch’ could power quantum computing[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/technology/personaltech/virtual-reality-perfect-for-an-immersive-society.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0"]If You Like Immersion, You’ll Love This Reality[/URL]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26920528"]Living organ regeneration 'first' by gene manipulation[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/08/fermi-telescope-detects-dark-matter-destroying-signal"]Telescope finds signal that could be destroying dark matter[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2014/04/scientists-map-developing-human-brain/"]Scientists Create an Unprecedented Map of the Developing Human Brain[/URL]

[URL="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/02/health/brain-maps/index.html?eref=edition"]New maps may hold clues to brain mysteries[/URL]

[URL="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/01/zebras-stripes-evolution-animals-science/"]Why Do Zebras Have Stripes? New Study Offers Strong Evidence[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525976/a-bandage-that-senses-tremors-delivers-drugs-and-keeps-a-record/"]A Bandage That Senses Tremors, Delivers Drugs, and Keeps a Record[/URL]

[URL="http://www.medicaldaily.com/optimist-or-pessimist-brain-scans-show-positive-and-negative-people-really-do-think-differently"]Optimist Or Pessimist? Brain Scans Show Positive And Negative People Really Do Think Differently[/URL]

[URL="http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/179289-the-first-transparent-3d-printed-skull-has-been-successfully-implanted"]The first transparent 3D-printed skull has been successfully implanted[/URL]

[URL="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/17/kepler_186f_earth_sized_planet_in_the_habitable_zone.html"]kepler 186f - earthlike planet[/URL]

Did you know: the 2013 Chemistry Nobel Prize awarded to programmers!?!?!
 

At last! Who needs physical reality anyway? Model everything via code! Personally, I think this is great, I don't know how I missed when it was announced.

[url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/09/forget_test_tubes_computer_modeling_scoops_chemists_nobel_prize/[/url]

[QUOTE=tServo;371676]At last! Who needs physical reality anyway? Model everything via code! Personally, I think this is great, I don't know how I missed when it was announced.

[URL]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/09/forget_test_tubes_computer_modeling_scoops_chemists_nobel_prize/[/URL][/QUOTE]Was this the first Nobel for writing software?

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Here's the smart-part breakthrough:
[quote=http://www.kva.se/en/pressroom/Press-releases-2013/The-Nobel-Prize-in-Chemistry-2013/]. . .

[SIZE=4][COLOR=#00437b][SIZE=4][COLOR=#00437b][SIZE=4][COLOR=#00437b][SIZE=4][COLOR=#00437b][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2]The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics. Previously, chemists had to choose to use either or. The strength of classical physics was that calculations were simple and could be used to model really large molecules. Its weakness, it offered no way to simulate chemical reactions. For that purpose, chemists instead had to use quantum physics. But such calculations required enormous computing power and could therefore only be carried out for small molecules.[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE]
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[SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f][SIZE=2][COLOR=#221e1f]This year’s Nobel Laureates in chemistry took the best from both worlds and devised methods that use both classical and quantum physics. For instance, in simulations of how a drug couples to its target protein in the body, the computer performs quantum theoretical calculations on those atoms in the target protein that interact with the drug. The rest of the large protein is simulated using less demanding classical physics.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE]
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. . .[/quote]
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To say that it was for writing software would be a gross trivialization.

It was for developing usable theoretical models (which, even though are simplifications of fuller models, are very far from trivial). Which were in turn implemented in software - primarily by their postdocs, and then developed and extended by many people. Karplus' and Levitt's work was not "writing software". There are also some people who wrote software (and who deserve significant admiration for a job excellently done) who did not receive a Nobel; take for example Thomas A. Halgren whose documentation for the MMFF ([URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_Molecular_Force_Field"]Merck Molecular Force Field[/URL] model, not to be confused with mmff) when was donated by Merck to public domain took almost the [URL="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-987X(199604)17:5/6%3C%3E1.0.CO;2-C/issuetoc"]whole issue[/URL] of J.C.C. (some details were continued in a few extra issues, Parts VI, VII). 152 pages for the parts I-V, and mostly one author.

[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/publishing-stings-find-predatory-journals-shoddy-peer-review/[/url]

[url]http://thatsmathematics.com/mathgen/[/url]

(Check out the attached paper and it's author!)

[url=https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/4472460b82c2]In the 1970s, Scientists Discovered a 2 Billion-Year-Old Nuclear Reactor in West Africa | The Physics arXiv Blog[/url]
[quote]In June 1972, nuclear scientists at the Pierrelatte uranium enrichment plant in south-east France noticed a strange deficit in the amount of uranium-235 they were processing. That’s a serious problem in a uranium enrichment plant where every gram of fissionable material has to be carefully accounted for.

The problem lay in the ratio of uranium isotopes in their samples. Natural uranium contains three isotopes, always in the same ratios: uranium-238 (99.2744 per cent), uranium-235 (0.7202 per cent) and uranium-234 (0.0054 per cent).

The problem was with the uranium-235 of which there was only 0.600 per cent.

Physicists soon traced the anomaly to the supply of uranium ore from Gabon in West Africa, which contained far less uranium-235 than the ore from anywhere else on the planet, a problem that caused some consternation among nuclear scientists.

So France’s top nuclear scientists began an investigation and, in the process, made one of the more remarkable discoveries in recent history.

This kind of depleted uranium is only found inside nuclear reactors, which burn uranium-235. That set off a hunt for a reactor that could have produced this stuff.

On 25 September 1972, they announced that the depleted uranium had come from Gabon where nuclear scientists had discovered a 2 billion year-old nuclear reactor at the site of the Oklo uranium mines near a town called Franceville. This was a naturally occurring deposit of uranium where the concentration of uranium-235 had been high enough to trigger a self-sustaining nuclear reaction.[/quote]
Holy fission-critical finding, Batman!

[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/world-health-organization-warns-of-post-antibiotic-era/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;372516][URL]http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/world-health-organization-warns-of-post-antibiotic-era/[/URL][/QUOTE]

I believe that the single most effective way to address the problem of resistant bacteria is to stop the reckless use of antibiotics in livestock feed for non-infected animals. This is one of the huge drivers of the development of resistant strains.

Of course, at this point, curtailing frivolous use may well be closing the barn door when the horse is miles down the road.

The problem of antibiotic resistance is an uncomfortable one for many western politicians.
It is not one you can avoid by retreating into gated communities or sending in the marines.
When it comes to public health issues on this scale, we are all in this together whether we like it or not.

As my dad as said, "Everyone eats about one pound of dirt in their lifetime... ...I'm on my second pound."

Until people understand the difference between good bacteria and bad bacteria, this won't change.