[QUOTE=rogue;493953][URL="https://www.us.mensa.org/read/bulletin/features/standing-up-in-slow-time/"]Standing Up in Slow Time[/URL][/QUOTE]Not exactly a hard science story, but worth the read. I plan on sharing it on FB.

[url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/give-us-this-day-our-daily-bread-wheat-genome/]The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to scientists[/url] | Ars Technica
[quote]Wheat is the most widely cultivated crop on the planet, accounting for about a fifth of all calories consumed by humans and more protein than any other food source. Although we have relied on bread wheat so heavily and for so long (14,000 years-ish), an understanding of its genetics has been a challenge. Its genome has been hard to solve because it is ridiculously complex. The genome is huge, about five times larger than ours. It's hexaploid, meaning it has six copies of each of its chromosomes. More than 85 percent of the genetic sequences among these three sets of chromosome pairs are repetitive DNA, and they are quite similar to each other, making it difficult to tease out which sequences reside where.

The genomes of rice and corn—two other staple grain crops—were solved in 2002 and 2009, respectively. In 2005, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium determined to get a reference genome of the bread wheat cultivar Chinese Spring. Thirteen years later, the consortium has finally succeeded.

[b]Hexawhat?[/b]

Humans are diploid. That means we have two copies (one pair) of each of our chromosomes (one from each parent). But bread wheat — [i]Triticum aestivum L.[/i] [ewm: Latin for "wheat of summer"] — is a combination of three different grasses, each of which contributed both of its seven pairs of chromosomes. The first two grasses linked up about 500,000 years ago to make [i]Triticum turgidum[/i], an ancestor of durum wheat that has "only" four copies of each chromosome. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the third grass threw its chromosome pairs in to make the ancestor of our bread wheat.

The new reference genome published this week shows that most wheat genes are present in all three subgenomes, but some appear in only one or two out of three. One such gene, [i]granule bound starch synthase (GBSS)[/i], “is a key determinant of udon noodle quality.”[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;494329][url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/give-us-this-day-our-daily-bread-wheat-genome/]The nightmarishly complex wheat genome finally yields to scientists[/url] | Ars Technica[/QUOTE]

All the mad scientists cranking out wacky mix-and-match GMO foods can't hold a candle to what Mother Nature has already been doing, all along. If this triply-recombined monster mash had come out of a lab, no one would ever touch it.

But people have always been extraordinarily cautious about food. It took about a quarter of a millennium after tomatoes and potatoes were encountered in the New World before Europeans actually started eating them. That's a long time, longer than the US has existed for example.

[QUOTE=GP2;494338]But people have always been extraordinarily cautious about food. It took about a quarter of a millennium after tomatoes and potatoes were encountered in the New World before Europeans actually started eating them.[/QUOTE]That is something I find surprising. I would have thought the opposite. Many people are curious about eating all sorts of things. Nails, glass, dirt, faeces :poop:, etc. It wouldn't take very long to figure out what is dangerous/poisonous vs what is safe/nutritious, just look for the dead or healthy crazy people eating the weird stuff.

[QUOTE=GP2;494338]But people have always been extraordinarily cautious about food. It took about a quarter of a millennium after tomatoes and potatoes were encountered in the New World before Europeans actually started eating them. That's a long time, longer than the US has existed for example.[/QUOTE]
In defense of the European caution WRT potatoes and tomatoes, both are members of the nightshade family [i]Solanaceae[/i], which contains many poisonous plants. The tomato was named Solanum lycopersicum by Linneus, renamed Lycopersicon esculentum later on. The potato is Solanum tuberosum.

It probably didn't help that, when potato plants arrived in Europe, they weren't sure what part to eat. I have heard that they tried the leafy green part, which is not a good choice. Note that if the tubers are exposed to light, they turn green, and produce a toxic alkaloid, solanine.

Other food crops from the nightshade family are eggplants and all varieties of chile pepper.

Curiously, the use by Europeans of a poisonous non-food member of the nightshade family from the New World, namely tobacco, quickly spread after Columbus encountered it as an article of trade among the natives on his first voyage in 1492.

[url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-superconductor-scandal-scientists-question-a-nobel-prize-worthy-claim/]A Superconductor Scandal? Scientists Question a Nobel Prize–Worthy Claim[/url] - Scientific American

[URL="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/driverless-car-technology-could-help-find-unmarked-graves-180969950/"]Driverless Car Technology Could Help Find Unmarked Graves[/URL]

[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/japanese-ghost-stories-dwell-in-the-spirit-of-their-times"]Ghosts on the Shore[/URL]

[URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/08/soon-most-beautiful-people-world-may-no-longer-be-human/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bc31d137bf41"]Soon, the most beautiful people in the world may no longer be human[/URL]

[URL="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/end-of-the-rainbow-new-map-scale-is-more-readable-by-people-who-are-color-blind/"]End of the Rainbow? New Map Scale Is More Readable by People Who Are Color Blind[/URL]

[URL="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/08/13/fossil-oldest-pterodactyl-discovered-utah-desert/977979002/"]Oldest pterodactyl fossil discovered in Utah desert[/URL]

[URL="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/civil-war-tattoos"]Tattooing in the Civil War Was a Hedge Against Anonymous Death[/URL]

[URL="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/design/a22687390/history-of-roller-coasters/"]From Death Traps to Disneyland: The 600-Year History of the Roller Coaster[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;494525][URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/08/soon-most-beautiful-people-world-may-no-longer-be-human/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bc31d137bf41"]Soon, the most beautiful people in the world may no longer be human[/URL][/QUOTE]

I recommend the British SciFi series [i]Humans[/i] (apparently based on a Swedish series) - the U.S. AMC network carries it, but this year's 10-episode run is done, so streaming is your friend.

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o [url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/bone-fragment-belongs-to-a-girl-with-denisovan-dad-neanderthal-mom/]DNA shows girl had one Neanderthal, one Denisovan parent[/url] | Ars Technica
[quote]Running Denisova 11 through an analysis of these differences showed she was a nearly even mix. Instead of being mostly Neanderthal, as you would expect from the mitochondrial DNA, only 39 percent of the DNA fragments were clearly Neanderthal. Another 42 percent, by contrast, were Denisovan, meaning she was nearly an even mix of the two groups of archaic humans.[/quote]

o [url=https://www.familyhandyman.com/garden/10-crazy-things-you-didnt-know-about-bees/]10 Crazy Things You Didn't Know About Bees[/url] | The Family Handyman
[quote]They’re mighty mathematicians, capable of solving what mathematicians call the “traveling salesman problem,” that even stumps some computers. The traveling salesman problem asks the following question: “Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city and returns to the origin city?” Researchers at [url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025090020.htm]Royal Holloway University in London[/url] found that bumblebees fly the shortest route possible between flowers, making them the only animals known to able to solve the problem.[/quote]
The research article cited alas does not say up to which-degree TSP problem bees have been observed to find the optimum.

[URL="https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/8/21/17759524/pinball-not-random-tips-hints"]Pinball isn't as random as it seems[/URL]

[URL="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jesseshanahan/2018/08/24/did-scientists-actually-spot-evidence-of-another-universe/#495ce86c1425"]Did Scientists Actually Spot Evidence Of Another Universe?[/URL]

[URL="https://www.space.com/41596-nasa-icesat2-earth-ice-satellite-september-launch.html"]NASA Will Launch a Laser Into Space Next Month to Track Earth’s Melting Ice[/URL]

[URL="https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/"]The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History[/URL]

[URL="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/the-evolutionary-mystery-of-gigantic-human-brains/"]he evolutionary mystery of gigantic human brains[/URL]

[URL="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-the-shadow-of-a-doubt-water-ice-exists-on-the-moon/"]Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt, Water Ice Exists on the Moon[/URL]

[URL="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/08/16/spaghetti-mystery-solved-scientists-cleanly-break-noodles-two/1007914002/"]A story with a twist: Researchers master how to cleanly break dry spaghetti in two[/URL]

[URL="https://www.us.mensa.org/read/bulletin/features/you-are-a-language-inventor/"]You Are a Language Inventor[/URL]

[URL="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/news-helium-mri-superconducting-markets-reserve-technology/"]We Discovered Helium 150 Years Ago. Are We Running Out?[/URL]

[URL="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blind-except-for-movement-womans-injury-offers-insight-into-how-the-brain-works/"]Blind Except for Movement: Woman’s Injury Offers Insight into How the Brain Works[/URL]

[URL="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5nzx4/what-was-the-first-blockchain"]The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995[/URL]

[URL="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/27/642255886/a-new-discovery-may-explain-what-makes-the-human-brain-unique"]What Makes A Human Brain Unique? A Newly Discovered Neuron May Be A Clue[/URL]

[URL="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/scientists-found-brains-internal-clock-that-influences-how-we-perceive-time/"]Scientists found brain’s internal clock that influences how we perceive time[/URL]

[URL="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322940.php"]How does generosity benefit health? Brain study sheds light[/URL]

[URL="https://aeon.co/essays/why-wonder-is-the-most-human-of-all-emotions"]How wonder works[/URL]

[URL="https://theconversation.com/why-you-can-smell-rain-101507"]Why you can smell rain[/URL]

[URL="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/30/lego-built-a-life-size-drivable-bugatti-from-over-a-million-technic-pieces/"]LEGO built a life size, drivable Bugatti from over a million Technic pieces[/URL]

[URL="https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-new-science-of-seeing-around-corners-20180830/"]The New Science of Seeing Around Corners[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;494943][URL="https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/"]The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History[/URL][/QUOTE]
Excellent article! We gulped it once, then once again, instead of lunch, during our lunch break here. Then we sip it once more, slowly, savoring it..