Slashdot Mirror
Switching Tasks Changes Worker Bee DNA
`puddingebola writes "A report in the journal Nature Neuroscience (paywalled) says scientists have observed epigenetic markers in bees that correspond to their roles in the society. From the article, 'Honeybees are born into their place in society. Those fed royal jelly as larvae emerge as queens and do little but lay eggs. The rest become worker bees and divvy up the jobs that need doing around the hive. While some worker bees remain at home, others take flight in search of nectar, pollen and other hive essentials. The entire honeybee workforce are genetically identical sisters. But analysis of the worker bees' DNA revealed that foragers had one pattern of chemical tags on their genes, while those that stayed home had another. When bees swapped one job for the other, their genetic tags changed accordingly.'"
Why even include sources that cannot be accessed by the majority of readers?
Taks transcribed to DNA. Hmm. This doesn't sound all that far from a mechanism that could transcribe thoughts... primitive or otherwise... back into DNA to be passed to offspring. Much like the concept of inherited behaviors actually, which clearly exist. We could explain inherited behavior by random selection... higher mortality of individuals not exhibiting the behavior... but that would be awfully slow compared to a mechanism that could pass learned behaviors to offspring. And such a mechanism would give the species possessing it a huge advantage, therefore by the law of evolution it almost has to exist.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I wonder what percentage of those reading this get the reference?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Totally feel the bees on that.
Whenever I need to completely switch gears from one project to the next (like going from Drupal into Zend Framework), I will require at least two weeks of downtime (although I would never dare admit to it to my manager). It's unavoidable. It's like my brain is jammed between channels and no matter how much I beat the horse, it will be this way while my neurons rearrange themselves. Then, one sunny day, bing it's all realigned and reprogrammed and I'm off to the productive races.
Wish there were medical-creative downtime available....
Epigenetics is not about the DNA sequence itself, but rather about how the DNA is managed and accessed. Generally it refers to the protein that helps to condense the DNA and make some parts more accessible than others. Really the more noticeable change would be in their RNA, which is the sequence of expressed genes.
Basically if your genome is a tape library, RNA is your local hard drive, which is pulling files as needed from the tape library. Your system RAM is, of course, protein.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I didn't... but a little google searching gave me a new sig.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
not to multi-task.
more cowbell
Problem with Brave New World, 1984, THX-1138 and other dystopias is that no society like that would ever emerge. People won't allow themselves to be suppressed so readily. Instead you have to TRICK the people into believing their suppression is actually freedom & democracy. For example:
- Convincing people that private profits and shared losses is a good thing. - When the rich corporate managers "win" they get to keep the money for themselves, but when they "lose" then the loss is spread across the entire taxpayer base. (TARP and Stimulus Bills and QE1/2/3 are what I'm talking about.) Many people actually believe making the workers bear the burden of the loss is a good thing!
Somehow I fail to see how my losing ~$15,000 funding Goldman Sachs and Solyndra with free cash is benefiicial for me, but millions of other people think it is. That's a True dystopia. Rob from the poor/middle incomes and give to the rich.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Eh? The entire plot of Brave New World revolves around people being hoodwinked into believing that they're happy with life. The system works incredibly well: virtually everyone is happy, people live fixed lifespans which they don't care about and everyone is comfortable with their caste.
Well, speaking as a Delta Tau Chi ...... Road Trip!
Have gnu, will travel.
Bees are known to be sensitive to the pherenome balance within the hive. Observationally, bees tend to regress from field tasks to hive tasks following a succesfull swarm and the establishment of a new hive (but not too great a proportion, so it seems likely that a initial lack of hive worker pherenomes could lead to changes within individuals that would reestablish the overall hive balance. Examined individually in individuals or hive regulatory mechanisms respond like a large collection well-tuned PID (Proportional-Integral-Differential) controllers, only a small portion of which have been recognized.
A Hive is not identical sisters. There are usually 3 to 5 males who mated with the Queen, so there are factions which are more closely related and they try to elevate their Queen larvae when the time comes to create a new Queen. Also, even the sisters with the same 2 parents are not genetically identical, they still have the usual mix of traits from both parents from when the egg was fertilized.
It's exactly what the elite don't want you to know - that human life can adapt and do great things given the chance. But they want us kept down in the mud to toil.
"Epigenetics is not about the DNA sequence itself, but rather about how the DNA is managed and accessed."
But intelligence is not just about the brain itself, it's the ability to access and use the full potential of higher thought that is already there.
I noticed this a while ago. People in New Jersey, doing whatever it is people in New Jersey do, have their DNA changed to the point that their skin becomes orange and several other peculiarities...
Become a customer. They like to screw their customers.
Worker bees in a hive are not geneticially identical, nor are they all sisters in the usual sense of the word. Queen bees are typically multiply mated during a mating flight and store sperm for life. Male bees develop from unfertilized eggs and they only have one set of chromosomes which each of their offspring inherits in full. Pairs of worker bees therefore either have the same father so they share on average 75% of their genes, or they have different fathers so that they share 25% of their genes.
Somehow I fail to see how my losing ~$15,000 funding Goldman Sachs and Solyndra with free cash is benefiicial for me, but millions of other people think it is.
Millions of other people aren't gullible enough to believe either of these were given any free cash, or that they've lost $15,000 in loans to Goldman Sachs and Solyndra. Goldman Sachs has long since paid back the money it was loaned, costing citizens absolutely nothing, in fact earning them a bit of interest, and the total cost of Solyndra will come to less than $2 per citizen at worst (which was already spent before the loan was given -- Congress knew when it loaned money to several dozen companies speculating on new technologies that not all would be successful, and set aside money to cover the losses -- Solyndra's failure sucked up a mere 5% of that, a mere fraction of what Congress was expecting the program to cost).
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
wow flying fpga's
The DNA sequence doesn't change, only its methylation patterns. This is to be expected. The same thing happens in all organisms.
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. ... "
I wonder what percentage of those reading this get the reference?
It was almost a whoosh for myself, before realizing the reference to Brave New World. I thought the post was referring to the American High School Student IQ Classification system. Based on intelligence tests and grades, students were segregated into one of three mental levels -- above average, average and below average -- the difficulty and demands of the subject matter being simplified accordingly.
The secretive system was meant to be kept from the parents and students; any discussions about the students status by the administration required their use of special labels. The labels for those levels corresponded to the following examples: X, Y or Z; A, B or C; Redbirds, Bluebirds or Canaries; and so on. It's been around since the early 1900's, the labels differing depending on the methodology of the plan used. Although there was more than one plan using other labels besides those just mentioned, one of them was referred to as the Santa Barbara Plan (IIRC).
However, the secret wasn't so secret and most of us knew our classifications -- to my occasional dismay. Cliques used it to create their cliques and would use that knowledge to power-grab, occasionally with demeaning insults. It was somewhat obvious (especially in hindsight) something wasn't right -- the vast majority of the students in the above average classrooms came from the right-side of the tracks.
Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I can't help thinking Aldous Huxley, an Educator, was unaware of the process.
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
Waiving their private parts at our aunties, again. Father was a hamster, mother smelt of eldeberries, all that.
Gently reply
As a non-American I have a very hard time to tell Mitt Romney apart from the mock politicians on the GTA radio channels.
Why would anyone ever want to vote for someone who openly says that he is going to funnel tax-money to his cronies?
I've always wanted to be the Alpha male of the pack. Too bad I'm a Beta.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I wouldn't be surprised if iPhone users have mutated chemical tags too. Look for the "religious" gene first, and don't forget to check the "fashion-victim", "metrosexual softie" and "RDF-sensititvity" genes, then verify that the "die-hard technologist" gene is turned off.
Wait, I'm going to write a research proposal just now...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I'm confused. The title says that the bees' DNA is changed, but the summary says that chemical markers ON the DNA are changed?
I didn't RTFA since the hook was so ambiguous.
I bought my first home in 2004, in California, putting 20% down and taking out a 30-yr fixed loan. I have since refinanced once, taking a loan from my 401k to do so (I had to pay down my loan somewhat to cover the losses incurred to that point).
I've now lost about $150k in my home value - all the money that I used for a down payment, all my money that went to paying principle, all my money that went to the refinance have effectively evaporated. I can't move because I can't afford to sell and wouldn't have a downpayment anyway; I can't refinance again either. And none of the postulated "help for homeowners" programs is worth a bucket of warm spit - if you aren't underwater, if you make a middle class income, if someone somewhere deems you can "afford your loan", you don't qualify.
So my family has had 10x the postulated $15k in wealth removed from its balance sheet, yet no one is making me whole.
It's OK... there has to be bottoms/catchers.
So, you are borrowing a sig from a book you haven't read? You couldn't possibly get the depth of what the author was trying to write.... whatever.
Honest politicians are so rare people want to vote for them no matter what they say.
Clearly you were below average, because it's was QUITE obvious what "level" a student was at due to the labeling of the classes: "accelerated or AP" at the top end and "remedial" at the bottom end. Everything else was average. Grammar school is a bit more segregated and harder to get on or off a given track since you tended to have all of your classes with the same group.
And it's not some conspiracy as to why the wealthier kids end up at the top. Well educated people tend to have more money and tend to value education more than those who do not. Educated parents tend to push their children harder than the school does and often have the means to provide outside education. They also complain more and browbeat teachers into placing children higher. It's not class warfare.
Ford's in his flivver. All's well with the world.
You guys understand the brain bugs in Starship Troopers, bred whenever a problem needed magical solving, and the engineers in The Mote in God's Eye, were both sarcastic commentary about highly intelligent science and engineering knuckling under to let political idiots run the show and tell them what to do.
See also A Deepness In the Sky. Or parts of Atlas Shrugged, for that matter.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Suddenly, common sense broke out on the Internet!
Convincing people that private profits and shared losses is a good thing. - When the rich corporate managers "win" they get to keep the money for themselves, but when they "lose" then the loss is spread across the entire taxpayer base.
I have no problem with this, as long as it's done right. IE, if you have a bad year, you may write it off on your taxes. But if you have a good year, then you pay your Goddess damned fair share of taxes. None of this bailout crap, and none of this shirking your societal responsibility by avoiding paying your fair share of taxes.
And just to be clear, does this mean that you now support raising taxes on the rich? Y'know, since you're implying that them "winning" is a bad thing (presumably because they aren't paying their fair share in taxes).
They do it with the Bible, The Torah, and Qur'an. Heck they are willing to make war over an out of context quote.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yeah, reminded me of the Brave New World too, but you see, bees *can* change their genes. Well, except for the queen, but there is only one.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Somehow I fail to see how my losing ~$15,000 funding Goldman Sachs and Solyndra with free cash is benefiicial for me, but millions of other people think it is. That's a True dystopia. Rob from the poor/middle incomes and give to the rich.
Well, it's obvious: the rich will be able to invent new plastic toy! Poor won't be able to buy it, but who cares, it's progress!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
buying a home on credit, or using it as equity to get credit, is an investment, a gamble that its value wont change significantly other than to maybe go up. like other investments, its subject to market changes. you assume that risk willingly by buying the house. really everything is essentially an investment, it's just the degree to which other people also want said item. and some people dont use their homes for credit, and dont intend to sell, content to stay so for them its less of an investment (gamble).
but if its value goes down cause you neglected it, should we fix you then? if its value goes down cause the neighborhood goes to pot, should we fix you then? so why is this any different? you assumed the risk when you bought it. no it probably didnt seem like a big risk. but every so often the long shots come in.
(for the record I didnt support the bailouts either, though they did turn a bit of profit for the taxpayer in the end)
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Color me surprised that your state media depicts an American politician in a negative light!
I have the same problem when I swap between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. I can get fairly good at one of them, but never good at both of them at the same time.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
>>>or that they've lost $15,000 in loans to Goldman Sachs and Solyndra
Thanks for demoing how easily people are duped. Solyndra went out of business (as did almost all the other green companies that received loans). That money is GONE and the taxpayers will never get it back. As for Goldman & other banks they still exist but they also still owe the U.S. Treasury (i.e. the taxpayers' treasury) trillions of dollars.
And no TARP was not paid back. I wish people would stop repeating that myth. All the companies did was borrow money from a *different* loan program and then use that second loan to pay off the original loan. It's called accounting trickery. Similar to how Hollywood claims no movie ever makes a profit.
READ: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242731/did-tarp-money-really-get-paid-back-kevin-d-williamson#
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You bet on a house. You lost.
The reason it was a bad bet isn't necessarily the government's fault, but they could have done more to keep the bubble from forming and alleviating the problem afterwards.
But no one owes it to you to "make you whole".
The reason that the government stepped in to help the financial market is because it would have taken down the government with it. The reason it made a bet on solar power is because it would enrich everyone.
Or the short story "Swarm" at the end of Schismatrix Plus...
I can see the fnords!
Buying a home you live-in is not an investment. It's where you raise your family. You don't buy it hoping to cash-in on the profit once it's value increases. You buy it knowing it's value will decrease as it wears since you need the space to raise your kids. Those kids are too a non-investment. They too won't make you any richer.
At best, buying a house mitigates the loss of renting one. However, it's still not an investment.
Their is no scarcity in lands so their can't be a housing market based on price increase. Only inner city can have those and only to some degree until it's no longer affordable.
The bubble crashed because the values were inflated by the banks. People had little choice but to buy them since they still needed the place to live. Even if they did know they couldn't afford it in the long run, they assumed that if the bank approved the loan they're in the clear. People trust authority and banks are the authority when it comes to money. It's stupid, but that how people are. Trusting and stupid. I know if I were to stop and ask a police officer for directions I'd expect him not to rob me. Same goes when people ask a bank for a loan. They didn't expect the bank to lie about the numbers.
Lesson learned. Next time, don't trust profit for deregulation.
I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.
or
to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
or
"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other."
, or
Machines can be made to see in a wider spectrum, to detect every wavelength precisely as it is, undistorted by love or hate or awe... But still men's eyes see more than lenses do.
. Most folk have not read Moby Dick, Jonathan Livingston Seagul, or Berserker, yet they recognize stirring words.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
don't mark that guy a troll, i would totally do flo too. god, she is hot in a really weird way that i can't quite describe. put a gun in her hand and it's porn.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT