links for 2011-01-11


  • Officers found a Glock 9mm pistol, another 9mm handgun, a pump-action shotgun and a fully-automatic rifle, along with ammunition, at a house on Burbage Road in Wythenshawe.

    They also found a large cannabis farm.

  • All I’m saying is that whilst Phillip Hammond and his ilk insist on playing the victim mentality card with overblown rhetoric, we might as well go mad and have fun with language to trump the stupidity of what is being stated by those in power.
  • How did a bunch of lifeless molecules transform themselves into living cells, turning the ancient, dead Earth into a planet teeming with life? It's an incredibly difficult question to answer, but a new model might explain part of the story.

    Before you can have life, complex organic molecules have to start replicating themselves in much the same way that cells reproduce. Molecules that can replicate themselves using only the chemicals around them are what we might call "protocells", a key transitional stage between a fully lifeless world and one dominated by living cells.

    (tags: life)