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Beta
The 500-Year-Long Science Experiment
Studying bacteria: The long-term plan
For the 500-year experiment to succeed, scientists are supposed to test the dried bacteria for viability and DNA damage every other year for the first 24 years and then every quarter-century for the next 475.
The team left a USB stick with instructions as well as a hard copy on paper. As neither is foolproof, the team asks that researchers will at each 25-year point copy the instructions, so they remain linguistically and technologically up to date.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Meat from labs
Meat might have finally met its match. Some meat is now being cultured and grown into slabs that mimic meat.
It currently goes by names such as in-vitro meat, cultured meat, lab-grown mea...
Labeling lab-grown meat
- In 1869, margarine was invented as a butter replacement. The dairy farmers raised the alarm in the United States; They convinced the U.S. Government to tax margarine and lobbied against the use of yellow dyes to make the butter replacement look more buttery.
- Dairy farmers objected to soymilk and almond milk being called milk, but the FDA hasn't done anything to stop brands from using the word.
Unlike margarine or soymilk, cultured meat is biochemically identical to the substance it's competing with.
Making the rules
The USDA (responsible for overseeing agriculture) and the FDA (regulating drugs and dietary supplements) both could have some say in how lab-grown meat is labeled.
- From a production standpoint, cultured meat is more in line with the way drugs and additives are made in a lab.
- From a final product, if lab-grown meat is going to end up next to the traditionally slaughtered meat, the USDA should take charge.
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Key Ideas
Living in the age o doubt
We live in a time when all scientific knowledge (the safety of fluoride, vaccines, climate change, moon landing, etc.) faces coordinated and vehement resistance.
The acces...
We now face risks we can’t easily analyze
Our existence is invaded by science and technology as never before. For many of us, this brings comfort and rewards, but this existence is also more complicated and sometimes agitated.
Our lives are full of real and imaginary risks, and distinguishing between them isn’t easy. We have to be able to decide what to believe and how to act on that.
Marcia McNutt - Geophysicist
“Science is not a body of facts. Science is a method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not.”
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Key Ideas
Fasting
Human studies on fasting are only just beginning to ramp up. And while we ha...
Popular types of fasting
- Intermittent fasts: eating no food or massively cutting back on calorie intake only intermittently;
- Time-restricted feeding: involves consuming calories only for a 4- to 6-hour window each day.
- Periodic fasts, the most extreme, typically last several days or longer.
- Fasting-mimicking diet, a plant-based diet that involves eating very few calories for several days each month.
Religious fasting
Many religious groups incorporate periods of fasting into their rituals, though the focus there tends to be more spiritual than health-oriented: Muslims fast from dawn until dusk during the month of Ramadan, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus who traditionally fast on designated days of the week or calendar year.