# s-evol: smoking, mutation and evolution

<< A genetic mutation may have helped modern humans adapt to smoke exposure from fires and perhaps sparked an evolutionary advantage over their archaic competitors >>

Matt Swayne. Where there's smoke and a mutation there may be an evolutionary edge for humans. August 2, 2016

http://news.psu.edu/story/419626/2016/08/02/research/where-theres-smoke-and-mutation-there-may-be-evolutionary-edge

<< (..) a functionally significant change in the AHR (aryl hydrocarbon receptor) occurred uniquely in humans, relative to other primates, that would attenuate the response to many environmental pollutants, including chemicals present in smoke from fire use during cooking. >>

Troy D. Hubbard, Iain A. Murray, et al. Divergent Ah receptor ligand selectivity during hominin evolution. Mol Biol Evol (2016) doi: 10.1093/molbev/msw143 First published online: August 2, 2016

http://m.mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/07/17/molbev.msw143

# s-bot: automatically cracked ... the first "Cyber Grand Challenge"

<<  Last night, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, seven autonomous bots proved that hacking isn't just for humans. >>

Nathaniel  Wood. Hackers  Don’t  Have  to  Be  Human  Anymore. This  Bot  Battle  Proves  It .  WIRED. 05 Aug 2016  8:57  am

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/security-bots-show-hacking-isnt-just-humans/

<< Starting  with  over  100  teams  consisting  of  some  of  the  top security  researchers  and  hackers  in  the  world,  the Defense  Advanced  Research  Projects  Agency  (DARPA)  pit seven  teams  against  each  other  in  the  Cyber  Grand Challenge  final  event,  held  August  4  in  Las  Vegas.  During the  competition,  each  team’s  Cyber  Reasoning  System (CRS)  automatically  identified  software  flaws,  and  scanned a  purpose-built,  air-gapped  network  to  identify  affected hosts.  For  nearly  twelve  hours  teams  were  scored  based on  how capably  their  systems  protected  hosts,  scanned  the network  for  vulnerabilities  and  maintained  the  correct function  of  software. >> 06  Aug  2016

THE WORLD'S FIRST ALL-MACHINE HACKING TOURNAMENT  PARIS  HOTEL & CONFERENCE CENTER, LAS VEGAS, NV, AUGUST 4, 2016

https://www.cybergrandchallenge.com/

# s-astro: lack of Cepheids in the inner Galaxy

<<  C’è un “buco” nela  Via  Lattea: una  enorme regione priva di stelle  giovani proprio  nel cuore della  Galassia.  Un  fatto  inatteso,  che  richiederà  un profondo ripensamento sull'idea  che  abbiamo  del modo con il quale la nostra isola di stelle  si è evoluta nel tempo. >>

Luigi Bignami. Via  Lattea:  non  ci sono  stelle  giovani  al centro  della  Galassia. 02  Agosto  2016.

http://www.focus.it/scienza/spazio/il-grande-buco-della-via-lattea

AA << (..) suggests a lack of Cepheids in the inner 2.5 kpc (kiloparsec) region of the Galactic disc >>

Noriyuki Matsunaga, Michael W. Feast, et al. A lack of classical Cepheids in the inner part of the Galactic disc. MNRAS (October 11, 2016) 462 (1): 414-420. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stw1548 First published online June 27, 2016

http://m.mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/462/1/414

# n-socsci: a mix and match model at dawn of agriculture

<< Genetic analyses reveal a collection of highly distinct groups in the Near East and Europe at the dawn of agriculture. These groups mixed and migrated to form the relatively homogeneous populations seen in the region today. >>

<< They now appear to have descended from four major groups: hunter-gatherers in what is now western Europe, hunter-gatherers in eastern Europe and the Russian steppe, the Iran farming group and the Levant farming group. >>

<< The findings (..) also suggest that agriculture spread in the Near East at least in part because existing groups invented or adopted farming technologies, rather than because one population replaced another. >>

Stephanie Dutchen. Meet  the  First  Farmers. Ancient  DNA reveals  complex genetic history  of  Near  East  at  dawn of  agriculture. July  25, 2016.

http://hms.harvard.edu/news/meet-first-farmers

Iosif Lazaridis, Dani Nadel, et al. Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East. Nature (2016). doi:10.1038/nature19310. Published online 25 July 2016

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature19310.html

# s-gst: vortex knots in wave systems

<< Waves  surround  us  all  the  time:  sound waves in  the  noise  around  us, light  waves enabling  us  to see,  and  according  to  quantum  mechanics,  all  matter  has  a  wave  nature.  Most  of  these  waves, however,  do  not  resemble  the  regular  train  of  waves  at  the  shore  of  the  ocean—the  pattern  is much  more  chaotic.  Most  significantly,  the  whirls  and  eddies  form  lines  in  space  called  vortices. Along  these  lines,  the  wave  intensity  is  zero,  and  natural  wave  fields  -  light,  sound  and  quantum matter  -  are  filled  with  a  dense  tangle  of  these  null  filaments >>

Knots  in  chaotic  waves. July  29,  2016.

http://m.phys.org/news/2016-07-chaotic.html

Alexander J. Taylor & Mark R. Dennis. Vortex knots in tangled quantum eigenfunctions. Nature Communications. Published 29 Jul 2016 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12346 OPEN

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160729/ncomms12346/full/ncomms12346.html

# p-usa: POTUS race: five reasons why Donald will win, by Michael

<< I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but ... >>

Michael Moore.  (www.twitter.com/MMFlint)
5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win
07/23/2016 03:45 pm ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/5-reasons-why-trump-will-_b_11156794.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.it/michael-moore/5-motivi-per-cui-donald-trump-vincera_b_11166616.html?utm_hp_ref=italy

FonT: l'articolo di Moore sembra risuonare  dell'echi dai riflessi purpurei di Entita' del tipo << Vico, flagello di Moldavia, travaglio di Carpazia >>  << cio' che e' stato ritornera', cio' che e' non si ripetera' >> (Ghostbusters 2) ; chissa' se la causa  nascosta, sottotraccia, di un ipotetico sottoinsieme non numericamente banale delle Moltitudini che votano (voteranno) Donald possa essere riconducibile alle considerazioni in ambito etologico di M.Palacios, S.Killen (et al.);  talvolta le cause in apparenza piu' semplici ...

http://flashontrack.blogspot.it/2016/04/s-behav-to-comfort-small-fish-by-more.html

# rmx-s-phys: wave's complex exceptional points

<< When  waves  are  able  to  absorb  or  release  energy,  so-called  "exceptional  points"  occur,  around which  the  waves  show  quite  peculiar  behaviour >>

<< Exceptional  points  occur,  when  the  shape  and  the absorption  of  a  system  can  be  tuned  in  such  a  way  that  two  different  waves  can  meet  at  one specific  complex  frequency >>

<< At  this  exceptional  point  the  waves  not  only  share the  same  frequency  and  absorption  rate,  but  also  their  spatial  structure  is  the  same.  One  may thus  really  interpret  this  as  two  wave  states  merging  into  a  single  one  at  the  exceptional  point. >>

The  exception  and  its  rules. 'Exceptional  points'  give  rise  to  counterintuitive  physical  effects. Vienna University of Technology. 27 Jul 2016.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/vuot-tea072016.php

Jorg  Doppler,  Alexei  A.  Mailybaev, et al.  Dynamically  encircling  an  exceptional  point  for asymmetric  mode  switching. Nature   (2016)   doi:10.1038/nature18605.  Published  online  25  July  2016

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature18605