Once again, a whole slew of science stuff that mostly appeared on my radar towards the end of the month.
As usual I like to start with what I think is the most important findings instead of what is spread virally the most. This one is huge if the experiment can be replicated and it concerns how multicellularity can evolve in a single-celled species. The scientists exposed green algae to predation and found that they had evolved novel multicellular structures within 750 generations. They also observed that these new traits helped protect the algae from the predator.
Next is research claiming that a lack of sleep can lead to DNA damage. The sample size of the study is admittedly small but the claim is that they examined who had to work overtime shifts and found that they had more breaks in their DNA and less active DNA repair activity than those with more normal sleep patterns. It is theorized that this could raise cancer risk.
Returning to the controversy-laden announcement of gene-edited twins in China last year, there’s been a new claim that by deleting the CCR5 gene to make the girls immune to HIV, the team also inadvertently improved their brains’ ability to recover from stroke and perhaps also increased their overall intelligence.
Moving on from the life sciences, here’s a paper about how autonomous pricing algorithms, essentially AI agents assigned to determine prices to maximize revenue in a market can spontaneously engage in collusive pricing behavior without being specifically programmed to do so and without even being allowed to communicate with one another. This isn’t surprising but it does as the paper states pose a challenge for authorities trying to set competition policy.
Last year there was a paper that tried to value Facebook by asking users how much they would have to be paid to voluntarily give it up. This new paper instead forced a group of people off of the social network and afterwards monitored their activity. It was found that many of them reduced their usage levels even after the deactivation period and some didn’t return to Facebook at all. The researchers make the argument that Facebook could be a net bad for society but the costs of individuals voluntarily giving it up are too high so there is case for forcing a reset.
Finally the news that has been spread everywhere is this bit about zombie deer in North America. It’s caused by an infection that attacks the brain and spinal cord tissue and eventually causes death. But before then it apparently makes the animals more aggressive and affects their coordination, hence zombies. So far it doesn’t appear to pose any risk to humans.
Here’s yet another film by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev and it pretty much completes his entire filmography until he comes out with something newer. This one is even slower paced and more languorous than any of his other films. The cinematography is exquisite and credit for that should be due to Mikhail Krichman. Unfortunately the film’s poor characterization and weak grasp of its themes make it unworthy of its beautiful imagery.
We don’t usually watch reality shows but Tyler Cowen mentioned this in his blog and I was curious enough to give it a try. The series follows a businessman Marcus Lemonis as he meets with owners of various businesses which under some form of distress or another. He then makes an offer of money in exchange for a stake in the company or a share of the profits. The series appears to be very successful as it now has six seasons but watching just this first season is enough to satisfy my curiosity.
This is a boardgame that is old enough of be considered a venerable classic. It’s also known for being actually rather awful as my boardgame friend once warned me. It does have so many expansions that it must have its share of fans and I was curious enough to want to try it when it was included in a bundle of other such boardgame adaptations.
This would be the first film I’ve watched by director Masaharu Take and it’s pretty hard to decide what genre it belongs in. Its Wikipedia page describes it as a sports drama but while it has boxing, it’s not really about boxing. My wife suggests that it’s a love story but that’s not entirely right. In the end, I think that this is a film about people just don’t quite fit right in society and so this film too doesn’t feel like a perfect fit in any genre.
Like many other children I thought that The Pink Panther was a cartoon due to the popularity of its mascot and was left disappointed and confused when I saw that this was not the case. Much later I learned that there is an entire series of these films about the bumbling Jacques Clouseau but I still remembered my early irritation and never watched any of them. Since I’ve been working through all of the classics of cinema, it’s only fair to give what is considered one of the greatest comedies of all time a shot.
So I only just wrote that we’re probably done with the oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick and immediately upon watching this, I realized that we’ve never watched Barry Lyndon. This is a documentary about Leon Vitali, the man who would become Kubrick’s primary assistant. I originally thought that he must have been his cameraman or something but, no, he really was his assistant for about 25 years.
