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A Simplified Explanation of Bitcoin

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The symbol for bitcoin. Ironically, this coin does not actually exist. Pic Source So Cryptocurrency is probably a word that you have heard being thrown around a lot recently.  And if you have hurt of Cryptocurrency you have no doubt heard about the biggest one, Bitcoin. You have probably heard more negative things than good about it, such as it being used as the main currency in places like the dark net. But, beyond that what do you really know about Bitcoin, and why should you really care. The first thing you need to know about bitcoin is that it is not real. Bitcoins are not physical coins or currency that you just keep in your wallet. They are virtual things and are kept in virtual wallets. So this brings up the question of how do you get bitcoins? Well, all bitcoins are generated through mining. Now, its not real mining like going into a hole in the middle of a mountain, but its mining in that you put in risk and energy with no guarantee of a profit. Imagine for a second t
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CRISPR The Gene Editor that Could Change the World

Many people have heard about CRISPR, but very few actually know what it is, how it works, or even what the big deal is. Well scientists have been excited about the CRISPR system for a while and hopefully, even if you aren't a scientist, I can spread some light on why this will be a big deal going forward. So What Is It? CRISPR stands for Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Palindromes are sequences that read the same backwards and forward. So for example madam is a palindrome because it spells the same thing backwards in forwards. In DNA, ACDCA would be a palindrome. CRISPR are specifically DNA sequences found in bacteria, and play major part of the bacterial defense system from things such as viruses. So you might be wondering how it does that? Well, each palindromic repeat is followed by DNA that is nonpalindromic. These pieces are foreign DNA from something that tried to invade the bacteria perviously. Think of it like some guy breaks into your house, a
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A New Way of Storing Digital Data?

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When you think of storing you data what do you think off? Paper and pen, sure. Spinning hard drive, off course. Flash memory, getting a little more technical but sure why not. DNA, wait what? Yes, DNA could be a new way of storing DNA. Not now, but in the foreseeable future why not. When you think about it, it actually makes sense that DNA can be used ti store digital data. After all, we already us it to store our genetic data. Everything we are is stored in our DNA which is made up of 4 DNA bases, adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). The 4 DNA Bases.  Source This is actually very similar to how digital data is stored. Just like our entire being is stored in 4 little molecules, all digital information is essentially 0s and 1s. So scientists from Microsoft and the University of Washington are working together to store data as DNA by converting these 0s and 1s into a theoretical strand of DNA using these four bases using a special algor
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Using Mosquitoes to Wipe Out Mosquitoes

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Aedes Aegypti, a major form of transmission of many deadly diseases. Source When was the last time you were bitten by a mosquitoe? If you are in a tropical area it was probably pretty recent. Not only on the bites extremely annoying, but they can also transmit diseases like malaria and West Nile. I'm sure that almost nobody has fond memories of mosquitoes. Lucky, a company called Oxitec is trying to eliminate mosquitoes, and it is entirely possible that they can. So trying to stop mosquitoes is nothing new. There are repellants of all kind, and different tricks you use to prevent being bit. None of them really work. However, this company is doing something different by trying to reduce the population of mosquitoes, specifically Aedes aegypti ,  all together. And they are doing it using mosquitoes. Now, time for some fun science. The first thing the company does is insert a gene (there are multiple ways to do this so the exact method Oxitec does it is not clear) into male m
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Glasses that Correct Color Blindness

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So what is color blindness exactly? Well, in every eye there are things called cones that are sensitive to different color lights. Normally, humans have three different types of cones that are each sensitive to blue, green, or red. However, in certain cases with humans it is possible for some of the rods to have shifted color sensitive or the rods are missing all together, causing dramatic decreases in visual range. For examples, anomalous trichromatism is when there is a shift in the sensitive of one the rods. A common example of this is when the peak sensitivity of the green cones moves toward a higher wavelength, overlapping with the sensitivity of the red cones. This leads to red green colorblindness, where people have a difficulty distinguishing between red and green and many of those colored objects take on a orange tint. A normal human has rods that can see three unique colors. People with anamalous vision, or dicromatic (only two function cone type) vision have a much more l
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