Posted by on under news aggregators, extence, compas, standout, blogosphere, heading, mystery, job | 
The internet (the blogosphere to be precise) is still a bit of a mystery to many in tech and entertainment. It's weird to think that companies whose job it is to reach tech-savvy consumers aren't using this tool correctly, but it's also no secret that the biggest and most influential companies are often the slowest to adapt. At any rate, they're learning, but some are learning faster than others. Here I chronicle just a few standout cases. Note that many companies are bunched under the PR heading, which is in the second half of this post for reasons which will become obvious. Also, it's a bit awkward talking about the "new media" right after I
denied its existence, but for the purposes of this post please just consider it to mean big blogs, news aggregators, and social or bottom-up media.
Tagi: news aggregators, extence, compas, standout, blogosphere, heading, mystery, job
Posted by on under cassini spacecraft, radial pattern, digg, nasa, titan, saturn, mystery |
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found yet another mystery to be solved -- hills with a wrinkly radial pattern discovered on Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
Tagi: cassini spacecraft, radial pattern, digg, nasa, titan, saturn, mystery
Posted by on under ceo eric schmidt, john battelle, eric schmidt, google, tweet, milli, super bowl, super bowl ad, mystery, hell, peoe, love |
As
predicted, Hell has indeed frozen over. Yesterday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sent a tweet
hinting at something most people probably never expected to see: a Google Super Bowl ad. But the contents of the ad, and even the product it would be promoting, remained a mystery. Moments ago some 90 million Americans watched as Google showed off the search functionality that it's famous for, in an ad called
Parisian Love. We've embedded the ad below. Yesterday,
John Battelle correctly
predicted that the ad would be running during the Super Bowl.
Tagi: ceo eric schmidt, john battelle, eric schmidt, google, tweet, milli, super bowl, super bowl ad, mystery, hell, peoe, love
Posted by on under highland clan, clan system, digg, picts, caledonian, asterix, romans, memories, mystery |
History loves a mystery. And there have been few things in Scottish history more mysterious than the Picts. Given the name Pictii by the Romans, they remain lodged in our memories as some brutal, painted, naked-warrior-dervishes resisting the invaders like a Caledonian version of Asterix.
Tagi: highland clan, clan system, digg, picts, caledonian, asterix, romans, memories, mystery
Posted by Maggie Koerth-Baker on under svante pääbo, papua new guinea, neanderthal dna, leaving africa, genetics research, neanderthal genome, genetic sequence, neanderthals, locati, hominid, africans, ancestors, grandma, little bit, ace, soap, boots, middle east, mystery, china |
So, remember a few weeks ago when new genetics research challenged the accepted idea that humans and neanderthals had never knocked boots? Back then, I mentioned that we were waiting to hear from Svante Pääbo, a hominid genetics expert who was due to publish his findings from sequencing the neanderthal genome. The Pääbo data would be the key to clearing up this ancient soap-operatic mystery.
This week, Pääbo weighed in and the answer looks pretty clear: If your ancestors are from anyplace other than Africa, you've got a little neanderthal in you. And so did your great-great-etc. grandma.
In fact, researchers can actually narrow down the location where at least some of this hanky panky happened.
all non-Africans - be they from France, China or Papua New Guinea - share the same amount of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that interbreeding occurred before those populations split. The timing makes the Middle East the likeliest place where humans leaving Africa and resident Neanderthals did the deed.
Interestingly, there's not any one trait or even genetic sequence that seems to come from the neanderthals. Everybody (except Africans) is a little bit neanderthal, but it's not the same little bit.
Got questions? This New Scientist feature has answers.
Image courtesy Flickr user erix, via CC
Tagi: svante pääbo, papua new guinea, neanderthal dna, leaving africa, genetics research, neanderthal genome, genetic sequence, neanderthals, locati, hominid, africans, ancestors, grandma, little bit, ace, soap, boots, middle east, mystery, china
