Segregation of morphological and isozyme markers in a cross of Capsicum baccatum and Capsicum cardenasii

The genus Capsicum has 20-30 species, of which only a few are cultivated. Capsicum annuum L. is the best known Capsicum all around the world, while the other species are not common outside Latin America. Since it is the best known and commercially the most valuable species, many breeding programs have been conducted on C annuum L., especially on the non-pungent vegetable types. Breeding of other species has received less attention. Therefore, this work was conducted on two species other than C. annuum that are rarely studied-C. baccatum and C. cardenasii. Other results concern linkage groups and association of the marker genes or linkage groups with the chromosomes involved in an interchange. Linkage was detected for two pairs of genes only; these were between Got-1 and Idh-1, and between Pgi-2 and Est-5. No gene was found to show a statistically significant association with chromosomes with interchanged segments.

Understanding cumulative risk

This paper summarizes the theory of simple cumulative risks—for example, the risk of food poisoning from the consumption of a series of portions of tainted food. Problems concerning such risks are extraordinarily difficult for naı¨ve individuals, and the paper explains the reasons for this difficulty. It describes how naı¨ve individuals usually attempt to estimate cumulative risks, and it outlines a computer program that models these methods. This account predicts that estimates can be improved if problems of cumulative risk are framed so that individuals can focus on the appropriate subset of cases. The paper reports two experiments that corroborated this prediction. They also showed that whether problems are stated in terms of frequencies (80 out of 100 people got food poisoning) or in terms of percentages (80% of people got food poisoning) did not reliably affect accuracy.

The intelligence paradox; will ET get the metabolic syndrome? Lessons from and for Earth

Mankind is facing an unprecedented health challenge in the current pandemic of obesity and diabetes. We propose that this is the inevitable (and predictable) consequence of the evolution of intelligence, which itself could be an expression of life being an information system driven by entropy. Because of its ability to make life more adaptable and robust, intelligence evolved as an efficient adaptive response to the stresses arising from an ever-changing environment. These adaptive responses are encapsulated by the epiphenomena of “hormesis”, a phenomenon we believe to be central to the evolution of intelligence and essential for the maintenance of optimal physiological function and health. Thus, as intelligence evolved, it would eventually reach a cognitive level with the ability to control its environment through technology and have the ability remove all stressors. In effect, it would act to remove the very hormetic factors that had driven its evolution. Mankind may have reached this point, creating an environmental utopia that has reduced the very stimuli necessary for optimal health and the evolution of intelligence – “the intelligence paradox”. One of the hallmarks of this paradox is of course the rising incidence in obesity, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. This leads to the conclusion that wherever life evolves, here on earth or in another part of the galaxy, the “intelligence paradox’” would be the inevitable side-effect of the evolution of intelligence. ET may not need to just “phone home” but may also need to “phone the local gym”. This suggests another possible reason to explain Fermi’s paradox; Enrico Fermi, the famous physicist, suggested in the 1950s that if extra-terrestrial intelligence was so prevalent, which was a common belief at the time, then where was it? Our suggestion is that if advanced life has got going elsewhere in our galaxy, it can’t afford to explore the galaxy because it has to pay its healthcare costs.