Nature is reporting on a new research, in which scientists managed to create an artificial RNA molecule in an environment which is believed to be what the oceans looked like in the early Earth. ScienseNews has this in a bit more readable form.

RNA is one of the most important players in the DNA replication process inside every cell of every organism, but because it's simpler than DNA, some scientists believe early life had only RNA and not the more complex DNA. Viruses, for example, are nothing more than an RNA molecule, and they rely on the replication mechanisms of the cells they infect to multiply.

The importance of this finding is that so far, while scientists had a good explanation for the evolution of species from primitive life forms up to the complex and diverse life we see today, they didn't have a good explanation to how it started in the first place. They had a theory, but they couldn't prove it. They couldn't show how molecules combined into organic life forms. This, of course, gave ground to "intelligent design" proponents, who claimed that only an intelligent being could have combined the ingredients into life. They did, however, fail to show evidence to the existence of such a being. The new finding shows that no external intervention was needed - life can indeed start spontaneously, given the right conditions.

Like with every first step, there is more work to be done. The primordial soup of the oceans wasn't exactly like a controlled lab environment. But it will most likely be easier from here.

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. CNN is reporting that Facebook refuses to remove groups of holocaust deniers, saying that

"Just being offensive or objectionable doesn't get it taken off Facebook. We want it [the site] to be a place where people can discuss all kinds of ideas, including controversial ones."

Controversial?! so the holocaust existence is controversial?! I am amazed that these kind of groups are not removed automatically, in particular when the site was founded by a Jew, Mark Zuckerberg, which may have lost some of his own relatives in the holocaust (I'm just speculating here). There is fairness, and there is common sense. I think in this case common sense was left out.

Some of the bookmarks on my Firefox are almost as old as the internet itself. This is one of the few things, if not the only one, I managed to save while changing computers over the last 10-15 years. I collected some of them while I was still using Netscape 3.0 or maybe even earlier. So while I was going over some old bookmarks, I stumbled upon this piece of internet archeology. Somehow, this site is still online, although it seems like it hadn't been updated in the last 10 years. Complete with frames and <blink>,(see the "Hacks 'n Cracks" section"), the Netscape 3.0 button at the bottom, mirror sites, and only the visitors counter is missing. It even has a page about this new thingy called ICQ :)

If you only logged on to the 'net circa 2000 or so, this site could give you a clue on how Web 1.0 looked like.