# evol: traces of proto harpist players, 40k year old evidence that Neanderthal's wove strings (three bundles of twisted fibres).

AA << show direct evidence of fibre technology in the form of a 3-ply cord fragment made from inner bark fibres on a stone tool recovered in situ from the same site (Abri du Maras Paleolithic site). Twisted fibres provide the basis for clothing, rope, bags, nets, mats, boats, etc. which, once discovered, would have become an indispensable part of daily life. Understanding and use of twisted fibres implies the use of complex multi-component technology as well as a mathematical understanding of pairs, sets, and numbers. Added to recent evidence of birch bark tar, art, and shell beads, the idea that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans is becoming increasingly untenable. >>

B. L. Hardy, M.-H. Moncel, et al. 

Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications.  Sci Rep 10, 4889. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w. Apr 9, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w

40,000 year old evidence that Neanderthals wove string. CNRS. Apr 9, 2020.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200409110533.htm

FonT

non per essere frainteso sulla prima parte del titolo di questo post ('traces of proto harpist players'), ma quando approccio dissertazioni circa argomenti che trattano 'corde', per associazione (a senso unico) richiamo  in modo automatico, meccanico,  immagini relative alla musica (e al caos); ognuno ha i suoi limiti ...

Also

keyword 'Neanderthal' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=Neanderthal

# gst: how a virus could cause context-dependent manipulation in host social behavior

<< Honey bees that guard hive entrances are twice as likely to allow in trespassers from other hives if the intruders are infected with the Israeli acute paralysis virus, a deadly pathogen of bees, >>

<< It seems that the virus is changing how the bees smell, and perhaps the infected bees also are behaving in a way that is meant to appease the guards by engaging more in trophallaxis (a process by which honey bees exchange regurgitated food and other liquids), >> Adam Dolezal

Diana Yates. Virus-infected honey bees more likely to gain entrance to healthy hives. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. April 27, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-virus-infected-honey-bees-gain-entrance.html

Amy C. Geffre, Tim Gernat, et al. Honey bee virus causes context-dependent changes in host social behavior. PNAS  doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002268117. Apr 27, 2020.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/21/2002268117

keyword 'trophallaxis' in Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Trophallaxis

# life: chaotic visions, by Thomas (on the wave of 1or2 achoo from Wuhan)

<< On peut être certain d’une chose : les grands bouleversements politico-idéologiques ne font que commencer. >>

Thomas Piketty. Eviter le pire. 14 Avril, 2020.

https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty

Un nuovo stato sociale per uscire dalla crisi. Le Monde. 26 aprile 2020.

https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/thomas-piketty/2020/04/26/crisi-nuovo-stato-sociale

Also:  the unmentionable GTTD - Great Tea Trolley Disaster, by Bristow

il grande disastro del carrello del the' per Egon. FonT. 13 Dic 2015. 

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/2015/12/rmx-trade-il-grande-disastro-del.html

# gst: a view of multi-system self-assembly

<< a team of scientists in Turkey has demonstrated the fundamental principles of a universal self-assembly process acting on a range of materials-starting from a few atoms-large quantum dots up to nearly 100 trillion atoms-large human cells. >>

AA << not only demonstrated the self-assembly of simple as well as complex structures that are more than four orders of magnitude different in size and mass. They all come together following a sigmoid function, also known as the S-curve. Curiously, they also observed that the individual deviations from the S-curves follow the statistics of the Tracy-Widom distribution, which manifests in diverse, social, economic, and physical systems.>>

<< To initiate self-assembly, either you force the system to deliver a specific outcome, or you use its inner dynamics to your advantage for universal outcomes. We followed the second approach, >> Serim Ilday.

Scientists uncover principles of universal self-assembly. Bilkent University. Apr 20, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-scientists-uncover-principles-universal-self-assembly.html

Ghaith Makey, Sezin Galioglu, et al. Universality of dissipative self-assembly from quantum dots to human cells. Nat. Phys. doi: 10.1038/s41567-020-0879-8. Apr 20, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0879-8

Also

keyword 'self-assembly' in FonT

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=self-assembly

keyword 'self' in Notes (quasi- stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=self

# ai: the dawn of 'Darwinian' self-programming machines, by Quoc Le (Google)

<< Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving-literally. Researchers have created software that borrows concepts from Darwinian evolution, including "survival of the fittest," to build AI programs that improve generation after generation without human input. The program replicated decades of AI research in a matter of days, and its designers think that one day, it could discover new approaches to AI. >>

<< So Quoc Le, a computer scientist at Google, and colleagues developed a program called AutoML-Zero that could develop AI programs with effectively zero human input, using only basic mathematical concepts a high school student would know. >>

<< Our ultimate goal is to actually develop novel machine learning concepts that even researchers could not find, >> Quoc Le.

Edd Gent. Artificial intelligence is evolving all by itself. Science. Technology. doi: 10.1126/ science.abc2274. Apr. 13, 2020.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/artificial-intelligence-evolving-all-itself

Esteban Real, Chen Liang, et al. AutoML-Zero: Evolving Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch. arXiv:2003.03384v1 [cs.LG]. Mar 6, 2020.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03384

David Nield. Google Engineers 'Mutate' AI to Make It Evolve Systems Faster Than We Can Code Them. Apr 17, 2020.

https://www.sciencealert.com/coders-mutate-ai-systems-to-make-them-evolve-faster-than-we-can-program-them    

Also 

keyword 'ai' in FonT 

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=ai

keyword 'ia' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=ia

# gst: apropos of strange fluctuations in oscillation and translation

<< The dynamical processes of the inner core rely significantly on the viscous strength of iron. Since plastic deformation of iron may produce crystallographic preferred orientations  (CPO), creep is commonly considered to be a potential source contributing to the seismic anisotropy observed in the inner core. The viscosity of the inner core also influences the rotational dynamics of the Earth. >>

AA << show  that  dislocation  creep  is  a key  mechanism driving  deformation  of  hcp (hexagonal  close  packed) iron  at  inner  core  conditions. The  associated  viscosity  agrees well  with  the  estimates  from  geophysical  observations  supporting  that  the  inner  core  is  significantly less  viscous  than  the  Earth’s  mantle. Such  low  viscosity  rules  out  inner  core  translation,  with  melting on one side  and  solidification  on  the  opposite,  but  allows  for  the  occurrence  of  the  seismically  observed fluctuations  in  inner  core  differential  rotation. >>

Sebastian Ritterbex & Taku Tsuchiya. Viscosity of hcp iron at Earth’s inner core conditions from density functional theory. Sci Rep 10, 6311 (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-63166-6. Apr 14, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63166-6

Is the Earth's inner core oscillating and translating anomalously? Ehime University.  Apr 14, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-earth-core-oscillating-anomalously.html

# phys: bizarre, cosmic mysteries, when spin particles bump up from 1/2 to 3/2 and more

<< spin is essential when delving into virtually any topic governed by quantum mechanics (..) Yet after almost a century of playing a central role in quantum research, questions about spin remain. For example, why do all the elementary particles that we know about only have spin values of 0, 1/2, or 1? And what new behaviors might exist for particles with spin values greater than 1? The first question may remain a cosmic mystery, but there are opportunities to explore the second. (..)  In the past couple years, researchers have discovered materials in which electrons behave like their spin has been bumped up, from 1/2 to 3/2. (..)  (recently, AA) explored the new behaviors these spins might produce .>>

Bailey Bedford. Peeking into a world of spin-3/2 materials. Joint Quantum Institute. Apr 16, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-peeking-world-spin-materials.html

AA << study, for the first time, the effects of strong short-range electron-electron interactions (..) (they) combine symmetry considerations and a perturbative renormalization group analysis to discern three interacting phases that are prone to emerge in the strongly correlated regime (..) (AA) find that symmetry breaking occurs at weaker coupling if the total monopole charge remains constant across the transition. >>

Igor Boettcher. Interplay of Topology and Electron-Electron Interactions in Rarita-Schwinger-Weyl semimetals. 

Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 127602. Mar 27, 2020.

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.127602

# life: how humans could mutate, step by step, into proto- alien entities ...

AA << studied the brain after long-duration space flight. The authors performed serial MRI on 11 of 54 eligible International Space Station astronauts (10 men, one woman; five astronauts had previous exposure to spaceflight; mean mission duration almost 6 months), both preflight and at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year after spaceflight. They found that prolonged microgravity exposure caused the following brain changes: (a) an approximate 2% expansion of brain and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) volumes, attributable to both white matter and lateral ventricular measurements, and these remained elevated at 1-year after spaceflight, suggesting permanent alterations; (b) a 13% increase in mean CSF intraventricular (aqueductal) flow velocity, suggesting a reduction in intracranial compliance; and (c) in roughly half (six of 11 astronauts), depression of the pituitary dome compared with baseline (average midline height decreased from 5.9 to 5.3 mm), suggesting elevated intracranial pressure during spaceflight. >>

Michael H. Lev. The Long-term Effects of Spaceflight on Human Brain Physiology. Radiology. doi: 10.1148/radiol.2020201164. Apr 14, 2020.

https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020201164

Chelsea Gohd. Space travel can seriously change your brain. Apr 14, 2020.

https://www.space.com/brain-changes-in-space-astronaut-health-study.html

# gst: unusual properties of substances trapped in nanobubbles.

AA << modeled the behavior of nanobubbles appearing in van der Waals heterostructures and the behavior of substances trapped inside the bubbles. >>

<< The properties exhibited by substances inside the van der Waals nanobubbles are quite unusual. For example, water trapped inside a nanobubble displays a tenfold decrease in its dielectric constant and etches the diamond surface, something it would never do under normal conditions. Argon which typically exists in liquid form when in large quantities can become solid at the same pressure if trapped inside very small nanobubbles with a radius of less than 50 nanometers. >>

Substances trapped in nanobubbles exhibit unusual properties. Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology. April 14, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-substances-nanobubbles-unusual-properties.html

T. F. Aslyamov,  E. S. Iakovlev, et al. Model of graphene nanobubble: Combining classical density functional and elasticity theories. J. Chem. Phys. 152, 054705. Feb 3, 2020. 

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5138687

# gene: stuttering, syncopated (but not junk) codes

<< All organisms have DNA, the genetic material that provides a blueprint for life. The long double-helix-shaped DNA molecules in the body's cells are first translated into RNA molecules and then translated into proteins that ensure the functioning of the cell and the entire organism. But there are large parts of the DNA that are not used for making proteins. This is called 'junk DNA', because its function remained unclear for a long time. However, a certain type of junk DNA that is found in mosquitoes and which repeats itself dozens of times, known as 'satellite DNA', has now been shown to play an essential role in the early development of mosquito embryos. >>

Stuttering DNA orchestrates the start of the mosquito's life. Radboud University Medical Center. Apr 9, 2020.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200409100332.htm 

AA << results reveal a mechanism by which satellite repeats regulate global gene expression in trans via piRNA-mediated gene silencing that is essential for embryonic development. >>

Rebecca Halbach, Pascal Miesen, et al. A satellite repeat-derived piRNA controls embryonic development of Aedes. Nature 580, 274–277. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2159-2. 

Apr 1, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2159-2

Also

keyword 'piRNA' in ncbi pubmed

"piRNA"[all] AND (Review[ptyp]) AND ("last 3 years"[PDat])

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

# gst: ab.normal (fuzzy, bizarre) Nature; apparently, ancient bacterial parasites could have used CRISPR to self-defense and 'interference' for Ma ...

<< In recent years, the development of CRISPR technologies and gene-editing scissors in particular have taken the world by storm. Indeed, scientists have learned how to harness these clever natural systems in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, among other areas. >>

<< New research (..) shows that we are not the first to find a way to exploit the benefits of the CRISPR technique. Apparently, primitive bacterial parasites have been doing so for millions of years. >>

<< Until recently, CRISPR-Cas was believed to be a defense system used by bacteria to protect themselves against invading parasites such as viruses, much like our very own immune system protects us. However, it appears that CRISPR is a tool that can be used for different purposes by diverse biological entities, (..) Here we found evidence that certain plasmids use type IV CRISPR-Cas systems to fight other plasmids competing over the same bacterial host. >> Rafael Pinilla-Redondo.

Humans are not the first to repurpose CRISPR. University of Copenhagen. Mar 24, 2020.

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-humans-repurpose-crispr.html

Rafael Pinilla-Redondo, David Mayo-Muñoz, et al. Type IV CRISPR–Cas systems are highly diverse and involved in competition between plasmids.  Nucleic Acids Research, Vol. 48, Issue 4, Pages 2000–12. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkz1197. Dec 27, 2019.

https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/48/4/2000/5687823

Also

keyword 'CRISPR' (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) in PubMed:

 "CRISPR"[all] AND (Review[ptyp]) AND ("last 3 years"[PDat])

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

keyword 'CRISPR' in FonT:

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=crispr

keyword 'interferenza' | 'interferente' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry):

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=interferenza

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/search?q=interferente

# brain: related noise in perception, like a type of "groupthink"

<< The findings, (..) offer new insights into the limits of perception and could aid in the design of so-called neuroprosthetics-devices that enable people to regain some lost sensory capabilities. >>

<< because neurons are highly interconnected, when one randomly responds incorrectly and misidentifies an image, it can influence other neurons to make the same mistake. >>

<< You can think of correlated noise like a type of 'groupthink,' in which neurons can act like lemmings, with one heedlessly following another into making a mistake, >> Surya Ganguli

<< Remarkably, the visual system is able to cut through about 90% of this neuronal noise, but the remaining 10% places a limit on how finely we can discern between two images that look very similar. >>

<< With this study, we've helped resolve a puzzle that's been around for over 30 years about what limits mammals-and by extension humans-when it comes to sensory perception, >> Mark Schnitzer

Adam Hadhazy. Misfiring from jittery neurons sets fundamental limit on perception.  Stanford University. Apr 9, 2020.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-misfiring-jittery-neurons-fundamental-limit.html

Rumyantsev OI, Lecoq JA, et al. Fundamental bounds on the fidelity of sensory cortical coding. Nature 580, 100–105 doi:.10.1038/ s41586-020-2130-2. Mar 18, 2020.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2130-2

# gst: apropos of slipping, the motion on a deformable ground under fast-moving sheets

<< Backed by experimental data from a laboratory machine that simulates the huge forces involved in glacier flow, glaciologists have written an equation that accounts for the motion of ice that rests on the soft, deformable ground underneath unusually fast-moving parts of ice sheets. >>

<< That equation - or "slip law" - is a tool that scientists can include in computer models of glacier movement over the deformable beds of mud, sand, pebbles, rocks and boulders under glaciers such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, >> Neal Iverson

<< Models using the new slip law could better predict how quickly glaciers are sliding, how much ice they're sending to oceans and how that would affect sea-level rise. >>

Neal Iverson. Experiments lead to slip law for better forecasts of glacier speed, sea-level rise. Iowa State University. Apr 2, 2020.

https://m.phys.org/news/2020-04-law-glacier-sea-level.html

<< These observations should help to solve the long-standing problem of constructing a generalized slip law that combines the processes of hard-bedded sliding and bed deformation. >>

Lucas K. Zoet, Neal R. Iverson. A slip law for glaciers on deformable beds.  Science. Vol. 368, Issue 6486, pp. 76-78 doi: 10.1126/science.aaz1183.  Apr 3, 2020.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6486/76

# life: 27 proteins to confine a world to a (complex 3D) virus dance

<< The novel coronavirus sweeping the globe packs 27 proteins, each adopting a unique, often incredibly complex 3D structure. 

Each protein is part of the molecular toolkit that the virus uses to infect, replicate, and spread. >>

Tom Rickey. Scientists Take Aim at the Coronavirus Toolkit. PNNL. Mar 31, 2020.

https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/scientists-take-aim-coronavirus-toolkit

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-scientists-aim-coronavirus-toolkit.html

Also 

keyword 'dance' in FonT 

https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/search?q=dance

Also (quasi-stochastic poetry)

Catalisi d'astrattivo Tao. FonT.  Jan 22, 2005.

https://inkpi.blogspot.com/2005/01/1808-catalisi-dastrattivo-tao.html

# astro: apropos of elusive predators ... the mid-sized mass black hole

<< Astronomers have found the best evidence for the perpetrator of a cosmic homicide: a black hole of an elusive class known as "intermediate-mass," which betrayed its existence by tearing apart a wayward star that passed too close. >>

<< These so-called intermediate-mass black holes (..) are a long-sought "missing link" in black hole evolution. >>

Claire Andreoli. Hubble finds best evidence for elusive mid-sized black hole. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Mar 31, 2020

https://m.phys.org/news/2020-03-hubble-evidence-elusive-mid-sized-black.html

Dacheng Lin, Jay Strader, et al.  Multiwavelength Follow-up of the Hyperluminous Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidate 3XMM J215022.4−055108. ApJL 892 L25. Mar 31, 2020

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab745b