(via inhabitat.com)

Consider: We are animals who can digest milk. But only because we first domesticated milk-bearing animals. When we did that, just a few thousand years ago, we genetically engineered ourselves

Making Peace With Our Cyborg Nature : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

But who knows what language its discoverers will understand in thousands or hundreds of thousands of years—or even if they will be human beings? Holtorf points out that a much earlier attempt to warn off future excavations, the Egyptian pyramids, were looted within a generation. “The future will be radically different from today,” says archaeologist Anders Högberg, who is also from Linnaeus University. “We have no idea how humans will think.”

…

The sapphire disk is one product of that effort. It’s made from two thin disks, about 20 centimeters across, of industrial sapphire. On one side, text or images are etched in platinum—Charton says a single disk can store 40,000 miniaturized pages—and then the two disks are molecularly fused together. All a future archaeologist would need to read them is a microscope. The disks have been immersed in acid to test their durability and to simulate ageing. Charton says they hope to demonstrate a lifetime of 10 million years.

A Million-Year Hard Disk – ScienceNOW

When the researchers measured the aphids’ levels of ATP — the ‘currency’ of energy transfer in all living things — the results were striking. Green aphids, which contain high levels of carotenoids, make significantly more ATP than do white ones, which are almost devoid of these pigments. Moreover, ATP production rose when the orange insects — which contain an intermediate amount of carotenoids — were placed in the light, and fell when they were moved into the dark. (via Photosynthesis-like process found in insects : Nature News & Comment)

The 10,000-year-old skulls were found in Syria. Like those found in other caches, they have been cleanly separated from their spines, suggesting they were collected from dead bodies that had already begun to decompose. Patterns on the bone indicate that some had been decomposing for longer than others, making it likely that they were all gathered together for a specific purpose. (via Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery – life – 16 August 2012 – New Scientist)

There is one incredible concept: We could place the asteroid in an orbit between the Earth and Mars to allow astronauts who want to get there to hop on and off it like a bus. Think about that. You could make a spacecraft out of the asteroid. (via Asteroid mining by Planetary Resources: Google billionaires are backing an outlandish venture. – Slate Magazine)

(via Wombs with a view: Revolutionary four-dimensional imaging reveals spectacular photos of mammal embryos that already look just like mum | Mail Online)

patron saint of apples and monsters: learning curve

zerosociety:

So about half my job is client-facing, either through email, IMs or Telephone.

The last few months, since going from Kevin to Emily at work (actually my work names are different, we use pseudonyms due to the fact we all pick up a weird level of internet celebrity by virtue of what we do and who…