Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have successfuly made a two-way communication with a bunch of neurons which they (cryptically) call the [i]animats[/i]. The bunch of neurons are interfaced with a computer & live in a virtual environment. Th...
All posts by Paras Chopra
The Handicap Principle is Handicapped
The name [i]'handicapped'[/i] is a bad-word in evolutionary biology because any phenotype which handicaps the organism gets eliminated in the long run. [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_Principle]The handicap principle[/URL], as put by Zahavi ...
Evolvability: It is a misnomer or the basis of life?
Can some organism be more evolvable than others? Is there any kind of genetic capacitance built into organisms which prepares them to evolve at accelerated rates in case the environmental conditions become harsh? The above questions fall under the topic ...
Computational Biology Documents
I have found a report on computational biology on the internet. It is really a very detailed report which includes discussion of many aspects of this field. It has chapters on Computational Modelling, Biocomputing, Bioinformatics, etc. Click to: [URL]ht...
The March of the Penguins
I saw this absolutely stunning documentary movie called [I]'March of the Penguins'[/I]. It shows the complete lifespan of the Emperor Penguin in the Antartica. The mother and father fight death and cold so that the baby may surive. Everything they do m...
Tomatoes to contain vaccines for HIV and HBV
Now tomatoes can be put to even better use as researchers have planned to use tomatoes to deliver HIV and HBV vaccines. I would call that superbly innovative. They have genetically modified the tomatoe to contain fragments of HIV protein coat genes, so w...
Constructive Biology by George Church in Edge Magazine
The Edge Maagazine has released an issue dedicated to [b]constructive biology[/b]. The article is very well written and gives a beautiful view of where we are headed as far as our *playing ...
Quantum Mechanics and The Theory of Evolution
I had a wild thought yesterday. The [b]Theory of Evolution[/b] can be analogous to the [b]Theory of Quantum Mechanics[/b]. I know this might seem ridiculous, but I may try to explain it a little bit. See, the states of a particle (position, momentum, spi...
Do you have GUTs in you?
Is the Grand Unified Theory really elusive? No, I don't mean combining General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. I mean some theory which thousand times more subtle and has equal importance as the grand unified theory of physics which would explain eve...
The Origin of Life — Metabolism first or Genes first?
The evolutionary equivalent of chicken-and-egg problem is the origin of life. The question of how did life came into being is a great(est) topic for debate and research today. There are essentialy two hypothesises regarding this: first one ( "RNA world...