A new report published in the January 8 issue of Cell explains how plants, which are incredibly temperature sensitive, not only 'feel' the temperature rise, but also coordinate an appropriate response -- activating hundreds of genes and deactivating others; it turns out it's all about the way that their DNA is packaged. The findings may help to explain how plants will respond in the face of climate change and offer scientists new leads in the quest to create crop plants better able to withstand high temperature stress, the researchers say.
Reporting in the current online edition of the journal BMC Medicine, researchers from UCLA say they can predict the number of H1N1 flu infections that could occur during a commercial flight using novel mathematical modeling techniques. They found that transmission could be rather significant, particularly during long flights, if the infected individual travels in economy class. Specifically, two to five infections could occur during a five-hour flight, five to 10 during an 11-hour flight, and seven to 17 during a 17-hour flight.
I've often run into the idea of 'realspace' (or 'meatspace') versus 'virtual reality' (or 'the Internet'). The concept is that they are two often separate worlds. I disagree with that, and feel there are three spaces. One has solid entities like people and rooms, and you interact with them noticeably. The second may be online or it may be solid, but the interactions are between individuals and kept private. The third is completely open, for many to access-- typically via online presence, because online lends permanence that the 'solid' world rarely has.
