life inspired

"The human brain is truly awesome. A typical, healthy one houses some 200 billion nerve cells, which are connected to one another via hundreds of trillions of synapses. Each synapse functions like a microprocessor, and tens of thousands of them can connect a single neuron to other nerve cells. In the cerebral cortex alone, there are roughly 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies." Read more @ CNET News

"Two years ago, a paper was published in Nature describing the function of the oldest known scientific computer, a device built in Greece around 100 BCE. Recovered in 1901 from a shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, this mechanism had been lost and unknown for 2000 years. It took one century for scientists to understand its purpose: it is an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. In 2010, a fully-functional replica was constructed out of Lego." Full news story and videos @ The Guardian

"Did the immune system evolve to keep out harmful organisms, or is it like a bouncer at a nightclub, trained to allow the right microbes in and kick the less desirable ones out?" Full Essay @ Science/AAAS

The Bacterial Social Intelligence movies from Eshel Ben-Jacob that Sean presented in class.

New story of animals' spots, stripes. A mathematical model of cell signaling helps explain how animal patterns emerge.

Read more: New story of animals' spots, stripes - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

Biocomplexity XI: The Evolution of Cooperation: Paradoxes of Collectivity & Individuality

An annual workshop of Indiana University's Biocomplexity Institute, this year entitled Biocomplexity XI: "The Evolution of Cooperation: Paradoxes of Collectivity & Individuality," will include a guest public lecture by Richard Michod, a University of Arizona professor who is head of UA's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department

Biocomplexity XI