Silkworm Secrets. Free Technical Library News

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Silkworm Secrets

04.06.2010

Chinese emperors have guarded the secrets of silk making for thousands of years. Anyone who tried to take silkworms or their testicles out of the country was immediately executed. However, sericulture gradually spread to Japan, Korea and some other countries.

Now China offers everyone the secrets of the silkworm in an article about its genome published on the Internet. Chinese geneticists compared the genomes of many local silkworm breeds from different parts of China and other countries, and also compared their DNA with that of wild relatives of this insect.

The results of the study showed that domestication occurred relatively quickly. But it remains unclear exactly where, in which region of China, people lived, who 5000 years ago first had the idea to collect a lot of caterpillars, keep them, feed them with fresh mulberry leaves, and then unwind the cocoons of the pupated caterpillars, spin the resulting threads and make magnificent fabrics from them. .

Geneticists have identified 354 genes in the domesticated silkworm that have changed under the influence of artificial selection. The caterpillars became more voracious, the production of silk thread increased. The caterpillars have ceased to curl up into a ring when touched, they tolerate crowding well when kept. At the same time, butterflies have lost the ability to fly and have forgotten how to hide from birds - after all, they are guarded by a person.

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Traffic lights will soon disappear from the roads 22.06.2017

Researchers at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) are developing an algorithm for automated traffic control at intersections. It is planned to replace traffic lights with special signal beacons, which will analyze in real time how fast cars are moving and how far from the intersection they are.

Researchers at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) are developing an algorithm for automated traffic control at intersections. It is planned to replace traffic lights with special signal beacons, which will analyze in real time how fast cars are moving and how far from the intersection they are.

The transmission of data by cars to the traffic management system will be carried out automatically. A special algorithm will analyze the data and draw up the safest schedule for passing the intersection. Moreover, no one will have to stop at the intersection - all road users will pass it at a safe interval. To do this, the system will speed up and slow down cars in real time so that everyone crosses the road as evenly as possible.

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According to the developers, cars will become smarter, so integrating them into a traffic management system will not be difficult.

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