Polybius: Mysterious Video Game
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| Polybius arcade cabinet built by Robb Sherwin Image courtesy of Wikipedia(Khtexg98537) |
The game proved to be incredibly popular, to the point of addiction, and lines formed around the machines, often resulting in fighting over who played next. Then this was followed by clusters of visits from men in black. Rather than the usual marketing data collected by company visitors to arcade machines, they collected some unknown data, allegedly testing responses to the psychoactive machines. The players themselves suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and even suicide in some versions of the legend. Some players stopped playing video games, while reportedly one became an antigaming activist.
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| Title frame of the alleged game Image courtesy of Wikipedia(Khtexg98537) |
Polybius gets its name from the Greek historian born about 200 years BCE. In a Polybius square, the letters of the alphabet are arranged in a grid, numbered five across and five high (the Greek alphabet had only 24 letters, so it fit). His idea was that this would make it easier to send messages by flag or drum or fire, having only five characters to worry about instead of a whole alphabet. But rearrange the letters within the grid, and you have a simple ciphering system.
If these game consoles were ever actually in Oregon, they must have gone somewhere. Many owners of rare and classic arcade games are members of the Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, which lists exactly one person as the owner of an original Polybius: Robb Sherwin, who lives in Colorado, and owns a dozen or so classic video games.
References: [Wikipedia] [Skeptoid]
Blue Eyes, A Genetic Mutation?
What is Genetic Mutation?
“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”. The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour – a condition known as albinism.
Limited Genetic Variation
Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” says Professor Eiberg. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.
Professor Eiberg and his team examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. His findings are the latest in a decade of genetic research, which began in 1996, when Professor Eiberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour.
Nature Shuffles Our Genes
The mutation of brown eyes to blue represents neither a positive nor a negative mutation. It is one of several mutations such as hair colour, baldness, freckles and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human’s chance of survival. As Professor Eiberg says, “it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so.”
Astronomers detect mysterious radio signals from 11 billion light years away
According to the astronomers, these radio waves do not come from Earthly sources. In fact, astronomers posit that their brightness and distance promote the idea that they originate from space distances when the Universe was only half its current age.
Furthermore, astronomers posit that the burst energetics signify that they come from an intense astrophysical event associated with relativistic objects like neutron stars or black holes.
Lead author Dan Thornton, a PhD student at University of Manchester and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, notes that the study’s results suggested some intense events involving big amounts of mass or energy as the starting point of the radio bursts.
According to Thornton, a single burst of radio emission of unidentified origin was picked up outside our own Milky Way galaxy approximately six years ago but no one had any idea what it was or if it was genuine in existence. For the last four years, astronomers have looked for more of these strange radio bursts.
In the study, astronomers discuss four more radio bursts, ending any discussion of whether or not these radio bursts are real. According to the authors, the radio bursts last for only a few milliseconds and the most distant one that they identified was approximately 11 billion light years away from Earth.
Interestingly, the discoveries also provide evidence for the theory that there should be one of these radio bursts being released every 10 seconds. According to Michael Kramer, a professor at the University of Manchester and the Max-Planck Institute Director, the radio bursts lost for only a few milliseconds, meaning that with the available technology astronomers have to be observing the right location at the right time to detect them. However, the ability to view the entire sky, all of the time, would lead to the discovery of radio bursts on a much more frequent basis.
To make their discoveries, the international research team utilized the CSIRO Parkes 64-meter radio telescope in Australia.
According to co-author Matthew Bailes, a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology, the radio bursts may originate from “magnetars.” Magnetars have the ability to give off more energy in a millisecond than our Sun gives off in 300,000 years and are the principal suspect for the mysterious radio signals.
According to the astronomers, the findings will help scientists learn more about characteristics of space between the Earth and where the bursts originated.
Ben Strappers, a professor at the University of Manchester’s School of Physics and Astronomy, posits that astronomers are still uncertain about what space is like between galaxies, but these radio signals will offer key data in their quest to learn more about the Universe.
References: [The Space Reporter]