Bannanas Going Going Gone

Can This Fruit Be Saved? by Dan Koeppel, Popular Science:

The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. For scientists, the battle to resuscitate the world’s favorite fruit has begun…

. It also turns out that the 100 billion Cavendish bananas consumed annually worldwide are perfect from a genetic standpoint, every single one a duplicate of every other. It doesn’t matter if it comes from Honduras or Thailand, Jamaica or the Canary Islands—each Cavendish is an identical twin to one first found in Southeast Asia, brought to a Caribbean botanic garden in the early part of the 20th century, and put into commercial production about 50 years ago.

That sameness is the banana’s paradox. After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.
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What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.

A wild scenario? Not when you consider that there’s already been one banana apocalypse. Until the early 1960s, American cereal bowls and ice cream dishes were filled with the Gros Michel, a banana that was larger and, by all accounts, tastier than the fruit we now eat.

Gates Millennium Scholars

Gates Millennium Scholars, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was established in 1999 to provide outstanding low income African American, American Indian/Alaska Natives, Asian Pacific Islander American, and Hispanic American students with an opportunity to complete an undergraduate college education in any discipline area of interest.

Continuing GMS Scholars may request funding for a graduate degree program in one of the following discipline areas: education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health or science.

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle

Scientist at University of Bath: Stefan Bagby, Jean van den Elsen and Huan-Lin Wu

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle and point to ‘hot soup’ at the origin of life:

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists believe.
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The University of Bath researchers suggest that the primordial ‘doublet’ code was read in threes – but with only either the first two ‘prefix’ or last two ‘suffix’ pairs of bases being actively read.

By combining arrangements of these doublet codes together, the scientists can replicate the table of amino acids – explaining why some amino acids can be translated from groups of 2, 4 or 6 codons. They can also show how the groups of water loving (hydrophilic) and water-hating (hydrophobic) amino acids emerge naturally in the table, evolving from overlapping ‘prefix’ and ‘suffix’ codons.

The University of Bath researchers suggest that the primordial ‘doublet’ code was read in threes – but with only either the first two ‘prefix’ or last two ‘suffix’ pairs of bases being actively read.

By combining arrangements of these doublet codes together, the scientists can replicate the table of amino acids – explaining why some amino acids can be translated from groups of 2, 4 or 6 codons. They can also show how the groups of water loving (hydrophilic) and water-hating (hydrophobic) amino acids emerge naturally in the table, evolving from overlapping ‘prefix’ and ‘suffix’ codons.
…
The theory also explains how the structure of the genetic code maximises error tolerance. For instance, ‘slippage’ in the translation process tends to produce another amino acid with the same characteristics, and explains why the DNA code is so good at maintaining its integrity.

“This is important because these kinds of mistakes can be fatal for an organism,” said Dr van den Elsen. “None of the older theories can explain how this error tolerant structure might have arisen.”

200,000 science and engineering doctorates in China by 2010?

Below are more statistics on engineering doctoral students in China, via China will increase its science and engineering doctorates to some 200,000 by 2010. I can’t say how reliable these figures are; but you can judge for yourself. The internet makes a great deal of information available but people still have to decide what level of credibility to give any source.

For more details see the original post:

Below are some figures taken from the China Statistical Yearbook 2005 on China’s graduate schools:

Science:
  New enrollment: 41,607
      Ph. D. 10,083
      M. S. 30,984

Total enrollment: 102,769
      Ph. D. 28,769
      M. S. 73,612

  Graduates: 17,540
      Ph. D. 4,518
      M. S. 13,022

Engineering:
  New enrollment: 120,750
      Ph. D. 20,271
      M. S. 100,479

  Total enrollment: 318,063
      Ph. D. 69,315
      M. S. 248,748

  Graduates: 56,074
      Ph. D. 8,054
      M. S. 48,020
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Number of science and engineering doctorate holders up to 1985:
      Probably less than 2,000.
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients between 1985 and 2001:
      Approximately 51,400
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients for 2002 and 2003:
      Approximately 16,000.
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2004:
      Exactly 12,572
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2005:
      Approximately 15,000
Total number of science and engineering doctorates up to the end of 2005:
      Approximately: 95,000
Total number of science and engineering doctorate enrollment at the beginning of 2006:
      Approximately 85512

Whatever numbers turn out to be true the increase in science and engineering education in China is huge.

Related posts:

Engineering for the Americas Symposium

Engineering for the Americas Symposium:

Engineering education, innovation trends and perspectives on the knowledge-based economy will top the agenda in the four-day Engineering for the Americas Symposium, which opens November 29 in Lima, Peru.

The forum is a joint initiative of the Organization of American States (OAS) Office of Education, Science and Technology, the US Trade and Development Agency, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, several professional associations, academia, governments and industry, including Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), National Instruments and Microsoft.

Among other objectives, the organizers hope the four-day meeting will produce a clear understanding of the role of engineering education and capacity building in developing countries and a “country roadmap” to that end as well as information on potential funding sources to implement country plans. The organizers also hope to chart a “way forward” for the Engineering for the Americas program.

Science and Engineering Apprenticeships

Office of Naval Research Science & Engineering Apprentice Program (SEAP)

SEAP provides competitive research internships to approximately 250 high school students each year. Participating students spend eight weeks during the summer doing research at Department of Navy laboratories.

Requirements:

  • High school students who have completed at least Grade 9. A graduating senior is eligible to apply.
  • Must be 16 years of age for most laboratories
  • Applicants must be US citizens and participation by Permanent Resident Aliens is limited.
  • The application deadline is February 17, 2006.

Apply online for the apprenticeship/internship. See more internship oportunities at externs.com.

Innovative Science Education

Great Scientific Debates

Teach History and the Nature of Scientific Inquiry, History and Philosophy of Science: Overview of Engaging Students in Science Debates.

To take students deep into the process of the development of a scientific idea, we needed to engage the students not only in the real world data and documented history, but also in the process of constructing arguments. Students worked in collaborative groups of 4 in order to write, film, edit, and present their historical scientific debate. In order to prepare them for weighing abstract concepts using available evidence, students learned much of their content through hands-on labs, as well as internet research, related to their selected scientists.

This is a great example of innovating in education. The students in the example were in5th grade at Turtleback Elementary in San Diego.

The Apple site has a great deal of information on the entire process.

Science Books

With many people’s minds turning to what they can get for presents in the holiday season we will take the opportunity to list some excellent books related to science that are educational and entertaining:

Our books page includes more science related books.

I am not related to John Hunter, the surgeon, though a Google search connects us – in that the results include links related to both of us. So my site, John Hunter, is competing with sites about, or related, to a surgeon born in 1728 (which may only be interesting to me).

Buckminster Fuller

Everything I Know, the historic 42-hour session with Buckminster Fuller via Spontaneous Arising:

During the last two weeks of January 1975 Buckminster Fuller gave an extraordinary series of lectures concerning his entire life’s work. These thinking out loud lectures span 42 hours and examine in depth all of Fuller’s major inventions and discoveries from the 1927 Dymaxion house, car and bathroom, through the Wichita House, geodesic domes, and tensegrity structures, as well as the contents of Synergetics.
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Permeating the entire series is his unique comprehensive design approach to solving the problems of the world. Some of the topics Fuller covered in this wide ranging discourse include: architecture, design, philosophy, education, mathematics, geometry, cartography, economics, history, structure, industry, housing and engineering.

Includes some video and audio or transcribed sessions.