26 AUG 2024 by ideonexus

 Increasing the Number of Researchers to Perpetuate Techno...

Over the past century, we’ve seen relatively steady, though slowing, technological progress. Sustaining this progress is the result of a balancing act: every year, further progress gets harder, but every year we exponentially increase the number of researchers and engineers. For instance, in the United States, research effort is over twenty times higher today than in the 1930s.27 The number of scientists in the world is doubling every couple of decades, such that at least three-quarters of ...
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16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus

 Mammals Produce Useless Yolks

Vestigial genes can go hand in hand with vestigial structures. We mammals evolved from reptilian ancestors that laid eggs. With the exceptions of the “monotremes” (the order of mammals that includes the Australian spiny anteater and duck-billed platypus), mammals have dispensed with egg-laying, and mothers nourish their young directly through the placenta instead of by providing a storehouse of yolk. And mammals carry three genes that, in reptiles and birds, produce the nutritious protein...
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Because they evolve from egg-laying reptiles, they have dead genes for producing yolks and even produce yolks in the placenta.