The first eviction

The competition was on leading up to today’s first evictions. We’ve just lost one scientist from each zone (though we hope they’ll still take part in some chats!), leaving four to battle it out for the prize money. Keep voting!

Today’s highlights:

• In the Disease Zone, it was all about genetics, from baby blue eyes to criminal minds:
  

  Why do babies often have blue eyes? Image by Ajsmen91 for Wikimedia

miasinnett : why do babies have blue eyes when born?

peterbalfe : Great question, their melanin cells don’t switch on for several months after birth.

miasinnett : are criminals born with a different type of cell that makes them want to kill or do they develop it?

peterbalfe : There is no “criminal” gene…

eelynlim : not that we know of! but there is a genetic condition that makes them more aggressive than other people, we’ve found an unusually high number of these guys in prison!

• In the Silver Zone they were talking about cloning:
  

  Is there a criminal gene? Image by File Upload Bot for Wikimedia

Is it possible to re-create a human being once they are dead with a sample of their DNA?

• Over in the Cadmium Zone language was a big topic:

totallynotseamus : what would be an example of an artificial learning language

hannahlittle : an artificial language is any language which is made up, I just make tiny ones to see how people learn certain aspects of language, but cooler ones include the navi language in avatar and klingon and elvish and stuff like that

totallynotseamus : would esparanto count as an artificial language?

hannahlittle : I suppose it would though some people speak esperanto as a native language so it’s also arguably a living language in its own right

• In the New Materials Zone, the limitations of bird flight:
  

  Would green blood give us lizard skin? Image by File Upload Bot for Wikimedia

Why don’t birds fly all the way up in the sky, what is stopping them?

• And in the Crystallography Zone… pet crystals!?

Are crystals living organisms?

• Plus lizard skin talk in the Blood Zone:

kateisabella : if our blood was a different colour would it alter our appearance? (like if it was blue!)

andrewswale : it may well do yes – paleness results from a lack of iron. if our blood was green it would no longer have iron in and would instead have copper – we may look more like a lizard eventually