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Saturday, February 23, 2013
Molecules Assemble in Water, Hint at Origins of Life
The base pairs that hold together two pieces of RNA, the older cousin of DNA, are some of the most important molecular interactions in living cells. Many scientists believe that these base pairs were part of life from the very beginning and that RNA was one of the first polymers of life.
But there is a problem. The RNA bases don't form base pairs in water unless they are connected to a polymer backbone, a trait that has baffled origin-of-life scientists for decades.
If the bases don't pair before they are part of polymers, how would the bases have been selected out from the many molecules in the "prebiotic soup" so that RNA polymers could be formed?
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are exploring an alternate theory for the origin of RNA: they think the RNA bases may have evolved from a pair of molecules distinct from the bases we have today.
This theory looks increasingly attractive, as the Georgia Tech group was able to achieve efficient, highly ordered self-assembly in water with small molecules that are similar to the bases of RNA. These "proto-RNA bases" spontaneously assemble into gene-length linear stacks, suggesting that the genes of life could have gotten started from these or similar molecules. The research is published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The discovery was made by a team of scientists led by Georgia Tech Professor Nicholas Hud, who has been trying for years to find simple molecules that will assemble in water and be capable of forming RNA or its ancestor.
Hud's group knew that they were on to something when they added a small chemical tail to a proto-RNA base and saw it spontaneously form linear assemblies with another proto-RNA base. In some cases, the results produced 18,000 nicely ordered, stacked molecules in one long structure.
"Thinking about the origin of RNA reminds me of the paradox of your grandfather's ax," said Hud, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "If your father changed the handle and you changed the head, is it the same ax? We see RNA the same way. Its chemical structure might have changed over time, but it was in continual use so we can consider it to be the same molecule."
Hud concedes that scientists may never be 100 percent sure what existed four billion years ago when a complex mixture of chemicals started to work together to start life. His next goal is to determine whether the proto-RNA bases can be linked by a backbone to form a polymer that could have functioned as a genetic material.
Georgia Tech partnered with the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, Spain on the project. The proto-RNA's two-component, self-assembling system consisted of cyanuric acid (CA) and TAPAS, a derivative of triaminopyrimidine (TAP).
In addition to addressing the origin-of-life questions, Hud suggests the self-assembly process could be used in the future to create new materials, such as nanowires.
JACS study
Source: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Molecules_Assemble_in_Water_Hint_at_Origins_of_Life_999.html
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Friday, February 22, 2013
Automatically Clean Up Gmail on a Schedule with This Script
Whipped up by John Day, these time-based Gmail filters will move old read emails to the trash or auto-archive them.
So, for example, you could automatically get rid of expired daily deals emails or other promotional emails that are more than two days old. First, create a Gmail filter that automatically applies the label "delete me" to that semi-spam when it comes in.
Then the Google Apps script, which you'll need to authorize for your Gmail account, takes care of deleting emails with that label that are older than two days. You can adjust the number of days before messages are moved to the trash in the script (see the delayDays variable and change the 2 to another number) and under the Resources > Current project's triggers... option, set the script to check your inbox every half hour or other interval.
For those old, read emails you want to keep but move out of your inbox, there's another function that archives them. (In the script you can also adjust the older_than search to something other than 2d and add or exclude other labels.)
For more details, see John's post, where he offers the code for you to paste into a new Google Apps Script. I've shared this Google Apps script with the two functions pasted in, so you can just make a copy of it to your account and run it per John's instructions.
Create time-based Gmail filters with Google Apps Script | Johneday via adayzdone
Photo by Storozhenko (Shutterstock)
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Thursday, February 21, 2013
Sony Jumps the Gun With Skimpy PlayStation 4 Reveal
NEW YORK ? After filing into the Hammerstein Ballroom and shaking off the brittle chill of the Manhattan winter, we sit in quiet expectation. Every five minutes, an Englishwoman with a soothing voice encourages us take our seats and updates us on just how much time we had before the presentation began. Shockingly, it starts exactly on time.
Lights flash and music blasts at us as a series of marketing slogans appears on the screen, one after another, in succession so rapid that they are rendered almost meaningless. Sony is at war with something or other. It?s all very serious. When the strobing stops, Andrew House, Sony Computer Entertainment?s Group CEO, takes the stage and welcomes us for a long time, making no mention of a new console. For a moment, it seems that perhaps the joke that was circulating on Twitter all day was true ? maybe this was just an elaborate ruse, maybe we weren?t going to see a new console after all.
But then the letters appear on the screen, PS4, and the room relaxes, though perhaps too soon.There is a certain tolerance for sleight of hand at a press event like PlayStation Meeting. There will be fancy light shows and slogans and corny jokes, a bit of prestige meant to entertain and distract from the fact that, over the course of hours, only a few nuggets of genuine information will be presented to the public. The job of the marketing people at Sony is to use that time to sell an idea; it is far too long until launch to be selling a physical product. The job of the audience is to dig through all the lip service to find the substance underneath.
Even so, considering this was the presentation of Sony?s vision of the future of gaming, a first step in a journey into the next generation that will likely last years, there was surprisingly little substance for the audience to find. Rather, after the dog and pony show, we were most interested in what was absent.
Namely, the console itself. While the architecture of the system was sketched out in broad strokes, the box itself did not make an appearance. Is it flat? Is it tall? Is it black? Is it white? Will it look sexy and sleek next to my flatscreen TV? These questions, seemingly integral for an event announcing a new piece of consumer hardware, were left to be answered on another day.
In fact, the vast majority of the presentation was concerned with things we had already seen. The lone piece of hardware on display, the redesigned DualShock 4 controller, made the rounds in the gaming press last week. The new touch pad, an admittedly intriguing addition, was mentioned in passing but not elaborated on. None of the game demos showed us how it could be used.
The new games that were introduced felt similarly familiar. We learned that Diablo III, a game that came out for PC in 2012, would be coming to PlayStation, the same for Ubisoft?s Watch Dogs, a game that was revealed last year at E3 and widely thought to be a next-gen title. We saw the tech demo of Unreal Engine 4, a version of which has been circulating in the industry since March of last year, and ?Agni?s Prophecy? from Square Enix, which surfaced for the first time last summer.
Even what was new was old. Killzone will be getting another sequel in Shadow Fall, a game that, by the series? established standards, is refreshingly vibrant (this one has colors other than gray and red in it) but, in the end, looks like just another sci-fi first-person shooter. The Infamous franchise will also be getting another installment with Second Son, which looks rather like the last Infamous game but with more particle effects.
There were new titles on display as well, of course. Mark Cerny, the console?s lead system architect, showed off Knack, a charming enough brawler with a Pixar vibe. DriveClub, an obsessively detailed team racing game, took a page from Gran Turismo. Capcom?s demo for Deep Down also looked promising in a way reminiscent of Dark Souls and Dragon?s Dogma. And there was Bungie?s spiritual successor to Halo, called Destiny, which looks very Haloey indeed.
None of these things, new or old, felt very like a bold new generation. The feeling of sameness, of deja vu, ran very deep over the course of the program. And, again, what was absent was what was most conspicuous. Long time tent pole series like God of War and Uncharted went without mention and, while Journey was proudly referenced on several occasions, no one from thatgamecompany took to the stage.
Sure, there was grand talk of integrated social initiatives, most of which boiled down to the new controller having a Share button. Much was made of the idea of accessing games from any of your other high tech devices, something that seems like a cousin of Microsoft?s SmartGlass. And the struggling Vita got a boost, thanks to the implication that it could be used for remote play ?- a promise that has been made and broken before.
At least in regards to the remote play, Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony?s game development studios, gave a concrete clarification during a roundtable interview. ?Remote play will work. Virtually every PS4 game will be playable on PSP Vita via remote play. It is a great experience. We have tried it already,? he says. ?I will be heartbroken if it [isn?t available] day one.?
The most exciting thing discussed during the presentation was Sony?s commitment to immediacy. No more infinite updates. No more long install times. With a separate chip dedicated to background downloads, you?ll be able to fire up your PlayStation 4 and play games without delay. But when reducing load times is an undisputed highlight, trouble might be looming.
After the presentation, we adjourn to the lounge. It is a chic space with low light, an open bar and waiters serving hors d?oeuvres, the kind of place meant to foster conversations and positive opinions. Yet the atmosphere runs from ambivalent to confused. Harold Goldberg, author of the gaming history book All Your Base Are Belong to Us, said it best: ?Well, it was vague.?
Over and over, the same question was being asked: ?Why now?? With no prototype console on display, with no hands-on opportunities after the presentation, with nothing but assurances that more details would come later in the year, why not wait until later in the year to introduce the system? Why bring 1,200 journalists and fans from all over the country to New York in the dead of winter to show a video that was livestreamed around the world?
Yoshida tried to clear up some of those mysteries. He apologized directly for not showing the actual hardware during the event, explaining that from now until launch, Sony has a lot of information to communicate to consumers. Last night?s priority, he said, was on the philosophy behind the system. Yoshida also noted the final console is ?not finished. We are still making tweaks.?
He also offered some assurances that the console?s price will not be as high as the PS3?s, which launched at $600. ?The architecture choice that we have made this time around allows us to not have to create dedicated factories,? he explains. ?That helps us provide an affordable price to consumers.?
A final bit of good news: Yoshida said that PlayStation 4 will not outright block the play of games bought second-hand. ?When you purchase disc-based games for PS4, they will work on any hardware,? Yoshida says. As for online registration of games, he noted that was a decision for publishers to make.
For every clarification, however, there seemed to be a hydra of topics Yoshida wasn?t willing to talk about yet. The real answer is likely that, having been late to market with the PlayStation 3, Sony is looking for an early edge in mindshare this time around. But with so many elaborate promises and so few details, what was meant to be a head start might really have been jumping the gun.
Source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/Gamelife/~3/kn_A7YiYG9M/
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Reno Tahoe USA ? Food, Drink, Dining & Restaurant Blog ? Blog ...
Campo Reno?s chef/owner Mark Estee is a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Award in the category of Best Chef: West. Estee?s company for the nomination includes 19 other noted chefs from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, including Top Chef Masters? contestant John Rivera Sedlar and renowned chef-owner Corey Lee.
Estee credits his continued success to his superb Campo team, including Chef Arturo Moscoso.
?Campo is dedicated to creating a food culture in Reno that rivals any large city in the U.S. and is honored to be a part of our city?s ongoing redevelopment,? said Estee. ?Reno is on its way and we are proud to be an important part of the journey.?
The list will be narrowed down to finalists and winners will be announced at the James Beard Awards dinner on Friday, May 3 in the heart of New York City. Tickets are available to the public and go on sale March 18.
You can view all nominees at: http://www.jamesbeard.org/sites/default/files/static/additional/2013-jbf-semifinalists.pdf
For more information on the awards visit: http://www.jamesbeard.org/about
###
About Mark Estee:
Mark Estee is driven by a love for authentic ingredients that create true connections between land, farmer, food and diner. Whether it is hand-choosing his restaurant?s produce or meat from a local organic farm or developing new dishes based on his ?Whole Hog Philosophy,? Estee believes in building full-flavored food using every portion of every ingredient.
Estee is the current chef/owner of Campo Reno and the former owner of Moody?s Bistro and Lounge in Truckee. Estee?s downtown Reno riverfront restaurant, Campo was recently named one of Esquire magazine?s Best New Restaurants in America for 2012. Estee emphasizes passion, energy and learning in all he does.? Communications through innovative social media practices at his Reno restaurant have drawn rave reviews.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Opinion: How Microsoft could regain its footing (Hint: more Office, less Windows)
Even after several months, I don't know what to make of Windows 8. And Microsoft's tablet initiative feels like it's on the rocks. Still, when I look at SkyDrive and Outlook.com ? which will replace Hotmail completely by this summer ? I see hope for the company. All that's missing is Office for iPad ... and iPhone ... and Android.
Excellent webmail and cloud storage services could help Microsoft grab users from the competition. But Google is doing a great job on both of those fronts, too, and Amazon, Apple and others play in that same space. The big gun, the thing that Microsoft still does better than everybody else, is the office suite. Microsoft's recent launch of the subscription-based any-device Office 365 is testament to the fact that the company ? or at least that incredibly successful division ? understands the benefit of not being locked to one platform. So what are the folks in Redmond waiting for?
Here's how the pieces fit together: Webmail is the most popular Web service there is, and it's a good gateway to other services. (Just ask Google, which makes a regular practice out of nagging Gmailers to get on Google+.) SkyDrive is a great add-on service because it serves as a spillover for Outlook.com mail: If you have a lot of attachments, or files that are really big, Outlook asks you to throw them into a shareable SkyDrive folder instead. And Office 2013 already connects to SkyDrive to save stuff in the cloud.
Outlook and SkyDrive are cheerfully platform agnostic: The Outlook team released an Android mail app last fall, and optimized its compatibility with iOS's Mail. Meanwhile, SkyDrive syncs beautifully on Macs and iPhones, and lots of other devices too. Success in webmail and cloud storage leaves a lot of options open for Microsoft, and cross compatibility means decreasing the dependence on Windows. No matter how much Microsoft wants to save Windows, its other businesses need to acknowledge the fact that operating systems don't matter anymore.
Look, your car may look different than mine, and have more cupholders, but we can both drive on the same roads. Applications (software written for specific computers) gave way to the Internet, where software lived somewhere out in the ether. We are now in a third age where apps, optimized for our devices, bring services from the Internet. I don't care if you love Windows 8 or hate it, ditto for OS X, iOS, Android or even Chrome OS (not that you've necessarily heard of Google's browser-based desktop OS) ? they are but vehicles.
I know what you are thinking: Apple and Google have been using their recent success to push music and video, storage, photo management, even social networking, all in one "ecosystem." While it makes sense on paper, people don't buy books from Apple, they buy 'em from Amazon; they don't stream music and movies from Google, they get it from Spotify and Netflix. Apple's Ping social network didn't exactly have the momentum of Google+, so it implanted both Twitter and Facebook directly into all of its operating systems.
Lately I have looked around for services outside of "ecosystems" precisely because they won't tie me down inconveniently to one family of like-branded products. Even if you love Apple (or Samsung) products so much to only buy them, you still have to get every single one of your family members to do the same in order to start enjoying the benefits of some services such as messaging, photo sharing, etc.
So what about office software? We have seen serviceable iWork apps from Apple, but they won't run on Android. We've seen some shabby free office suites that will. Google Docs, which I use all the time for collaboration, are lightweight and platform indifferent, but they lack the power and versatility of classic Office. Despite the usual design and workflow criticism, we can agree that nobody does the whole package better than Microsoft.
What we want ? and I'm pretty sure I really am speaking for most of the world here ? is Microsoft's suite on whatever device we happen to be using.
So how about it, Redmond? Office for the iPad, this year? Seriously. One hundred million iPad users can't be totally wrong. SkyDrive should be integrated for storing documents, and an update for OS X should provide SkyDrive access. Meanwhile, an Outlook.com mail account should be a (free) requirement to sync these services.
So then, five years from now, when people are laughing about that whole Windows 8 thing, at least the formerly all-powerful software maker will continue to make billions in profit from its Office suite, which would remain a must-have ubiquitous service for paying customers anywhere ... on any device. Ya dig?
Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.
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Pictures Don't Lie: Corn And Soybeans Are Conquering U.S. Grasslands
A corn field is shrouded in mist at sunrise in rural Springfield, Neb.
Nati Harnik/APFor years, I've been hearing stories about the changing agricultural landscape of the northern plains. Grasslands are disappearing, farmers told me. They're being replaced by fields of corn and soybeans.
This week, those stories got a big dose of scientific, peer-reviewed validation. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows actual pictures ? derived from satellite data ? of that changing landscape. The images show that farmers in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska converted 1.3 million acres of grassland into soybean and corn production between 2006 and 2011.
"This is kind of the worst-kept secret in the Northern Plains. We just put some numbers on it," says Christopher Wright, from South Dakota State University, who got funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to take a close look at this phenomenon. Earlier studies from the Environmental Working Group and the USDA's Economic Research Service have also looked at it, each using slightly different methods.
Hot spots of grassland conversion: This map shows the percentage of existing grasslands that were converted into corn or soybean fields between 2006 and 2011.
Christopher K. Wright/South Dakota State UniversityStill, Wright's images are striking, and these changes are having profound effects on the environment of this region. For instance, it's bad news for wildlife, because corn fields are much less inviting habitat for a wide range of wild creatures, from ground-nesting birds to insects, including bees. Corn and soybean fields are increasingly encroaching into the Prairie Pothole region of the Dakotas and Minnesota, the most important breeding habitat for waterfowl in North America.
In southern Iowa, Wright says, much of the land conversion is taking place on hillsides. The soil of those fields, without permanent grass to hold it in place, is now much more likely to wash into streams and ponds. And on the western edge of this region, farmers are taking a chance on corn and soybeans in places that sometimes don't get enough rainfall for these thirsty crops.
Why? There's one very simple reason: Corn and soybean prices are high, so farmers can earn a lot of money growing those crops. Meanwhile, funding has been declining for one important alternative ? the government's Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to protect wildlife and water quality by keeping land in grass.
Another reason, however, is getting increasing attention: crop insurance. The government subsidizes private insurance policies that cover the risks of poor harvests, or even that prices will fall. Because farmers don't pay for the full cost of this insurance, critics of crop insurance say that it encourages risky behavior: planting crops in areas that don't drain well, where rainfall is unreliable, or on hillsides where soil erosion is a problem.
Critics say that the government should drastically reduce its subsidies for such insurance. Not only is it fiscally irresponsible, they say. It's encouraging farmers to destroy the grasslands of the northern plains, a priceless and increasingly scarce natural treasure.
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