Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA

Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped.

Site – http://www.nytimes.com

AI set to exceed human brain power

Mention Artificial Intelligence and most people are immediately transported into a distant future inspired by popular science fiction. Humankind either co-exists in blissful peace with subservient robots and conscious computers or faces a battle for survival against ultra-smart psychotic machines set on its destruction.

Site – http://www.cnn.com

Google exec challenges Berners-Lee

A Google executive challenged Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee on his ideas for a Semantic Web during a conference in Boston on artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, Berners-Lee, the father of the Web and the current director of the World Wide Web Consortium, gave the keynote on artificial intelligence and the Semantic Web at a conference sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Site – http://news.com.com

At the Centre of the Milky Way

You’re looking at the heart of your own galaxy with X-ray specs. This photograph was captured by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory, and shows the three massive star clusters that surround the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. These star clusters have so many large, bright stars that the whole area blazes in the X-ray spectrum. This photo shows 1 million seconds of accumulated observing time by Chandra of these mysterious region of our galaxy.

Site – http://www.universetoday.com

Bush vetoes stem cell bill, to scientists’ dismay

President George W Bush has kept his promise to veto a bill supporting stem cell research, much to the dismay of scientists across the country and prominent members of his own Republican party. The bill, which would have loosened restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research, had just received approval from the Senate by a vote of 63 to 37 (see Senate passes stem cell Act, but Bush may veto it) on Tuesday.

Site – http://www.newscientist.com

Quantum Computer: Laser tweezers sort atoms

Physicists of the University of Bonn have taken one more important hurdle on the path to what is known as a quantum computer: by using ‘laser tweezers’ they have succeeded in sorting up to seven atoms and lining them up. The researchers filmed this process and report on their breakthrough in the next issue of the prestigious journal Nature (13th July 2006).

Site – http://www.physorg.com

Scientists to build ‘brain box’

A new type of computer that mimics the complex interactions in the human brain is being built by UK scientists. The £1m machine, nicknamed the “brain box”, will be constructed at the University of Manchester.

Site – http://news.bbc.co.uk

AI Reaches the Golden Years

Artificial intelligence is 50 years old this summer, and while computers can beat the world’s best chess players, we still can’t get them to think like a 4-year-old. This week in Boston, some of the field’s leading practitioners are gathering to examine this most ambitious of computer research fields, which at once has managed to exceed, and fall short of, our grandest expectations.

Site – http://wired.com

Molecular DNA Switch Found to be the Same for All Life

The molecular machinery that starts the process by which a biological cell divides into two identical daughter cells apparently worked so well early on that evolution has conserved it across the eons in all forms of life on Earth. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have shown that the core machinery for initiating DNA replication is the same for all three domains of life – Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya.

Site – http://www.lbl.gov

Earth faces ‘catastrophic loss of species’

Life on earth is facing a major crisis with thousands of species threatened with imminent extinction – a global emergency demanding urgent action. This is the view of 19 of the world’s most eminent biodiversity specialists, who have called on governments to establish a political framework to save the planet. The planet is losing species faster than at any time since 65 million years ago, when the earth was hit by an enormous asteroid that wiped out thousands of animals and plants, including the dinosaurs.

Site – http://news.independent.co.uk

The Universe Within

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.

Site – http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu

Marvin Minsky on Common Sense and Computers That Emote

Top computer scientists from around the world are meeting today at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, to mark the 50th anniversary of “artificial intelligence.” Back in 1956, John McCarthy, then a member of Dartmouth’s mathematics faculty, invented the term for the field’s seminal gathering, the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. McCarthy and four other participants in the 1956 project, including MIT’s Marvin Minsky, are participating in this week’s meeting, which focuses on AI’s next 50 years.

Site – http://www.technologyreview.com