Draper Made A Robotic Insect That Can Fly. 🦋🐝🐞 - They Call It The DragonflEye | #djiphantom4

Hawaii Becomes the First State to Pass a Bill in Support of Universal Basic Income

Hawaii's government is going to evaluate UBI.

As the threat of automation grows, governments will have to deal with growing unemployment. UBI is growing in interest, and while there’s still research to be done, I’m glad that people are at least having the conversation.

Also, since automation is coming for middle and upper class jobs too, I expect to see progress to be made a bit more quickly. Hopefully.

Are Birds Living Dinosaurs?

7 True Stories That Should've Already Been Made Into Movies - The Cracke...

Biologists create beetle with functional extra eye

On “Game of Thrones,” a three-eyed raven holds the secrets of the past, present and future in a vast fantasy kingdom. But for real-world biologists, a “three-eyed beetle” may offer a true glimpse into the future of studying evolutionary development.

Using a simple genetic tool, IU scientists have intentionally grown a fully functional extra eye in the center of the forehead of the common beetle. Unraveling the biological mechanisms behind this occurrence could help researchers understand how evolution draws upon pre-existing developmental and genetic “building blocks” to create novel complex traits, or “old” traits in novel places.

The study’s results appear in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work also provides deeper insights into an earlier experiment that accidentally produced an extra eye as part of a study to understand how the insect head develops.

“Developmental biology is beautifully complex in part because there’s no single gene for an eye, a brain, a butterfly’s wing or a turtle’s shell,” said Armin P. Moczek, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology. “Instead, thousands of individual genes and dozens of developmental processes come together to enable the formation of each of these traits.

Eduardo E. Zattara, Anna L. M. Macagno, Hannah A. Busey, Armin P. Moczek. Development of functional ectopic compound eyes in scarabaeid beetles by knockdown oforthodenticle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 114 (45): 12021 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714895114

The creation of three-eyed beetles through a new technique developed at IU provides scientists a new way to investigate the genetic mechanisms responsible for the evolutionary emergence of new physical traits.Credit: Photo by Eduardo Zattara

Oceans under greatest threat in history, warns Sir David Attenborough

Blue Planet 2 producers say final episode lays bare shocking damage humanity is wreaking in the seas, from climate change to plastic pollution to noise

Sorry for the doom and gloom today, but these have literally been the articles that I’ve come across today  =[

Use them as motivation for the mid-term elections.

Incredible footage of the critically endangered Hooded Grebe in a full mating dance. This species was not even discovered until 1974 due to the remoteness of where they live in Argentina. Hopefully as more people learn about this species it can help boost conservation efforts to help them! Knowledge is power and we hope to facilitate these kind of connections to the public in the future! Learn more on our website www.keyconservation.org (link in bio) | Repost @sirovenbird | The seldom seen, full mating display dance of the Hooded Grebe, Podiceps gallardoi. @moomgene and I were luckily enough to see a breeding colony develop out of nothing in a few days, and see the whole social dynamic of displaying to pair formation to nest building and egg laying play out less than 10m from us. #patagonia #argentina #proyectomacátobiano #hoodedgrebe #dance #tango #amazing #dramatic #SouthAmerica #discover #travel #bird #birds #birding #criticallyendangered #endangered #wildlifebiologist #wildlifephotography #wildlifeconservation #wildlife #conservation #conservationoptimism #nature #animal #fieldwork #hope #endextinction #KeyConservation

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aF_unlvjccA?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque

Christopher Columbus: What Really Happened