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10 de septiembre de 2018

Over a fifth of meat in Britain's restaurants and supermarkets contains 'unspecified animal' DNA

Over a fifth of meat in Britain's restaurants and supermarkets contains 'unspecified animal' DNA

  • Figure comes from a 2017 British Food Standards Agency (FSA) report
  • 145 items of 665 sampled in consisted partly or wholly of unspecified meat
  • Products came from 487 businesses, including restaurants and supermarkets 
  • The FSA said the results were consistent with 'deliberate inclusion'
Over a fifth of meat sample tests in British supermarkets and restaurants including sausages, burgers and pizzas contains 'unspecified meat' an alarming investigation has found.
In the second food contamination scandal to rock Britain in just five years, 145 items out of 665 tested in a Food Standards Agency (FSA) report contained animal DNA that was not listed on the packaging. 
But the names of the 487 brands and shops implicated have not been revealed.
The results point to 'deliberate inclusion' of foreign meat, according to the FSA - possibly as part of a scam that stretches across the food sector.
The most highly contaminated items were fresh and cooked lamb products, with some curries and kebabs labelled as lamb made entirely from beef.
It follows the 2013 horsemeat scandal that shook Europe after horse DNA was found in several beef products sold on the continent.
Pictured are the meats that were contaminated with unspecified DNA. One-hundred-forty-five items out of 665 tested as part of a Food Standards Agency (FSA) report contained animal DNA that was not listed on the packaging
Pictured are the meats that were contaminated with unspecified DNA. One-hundred-forty-five items out of 665 tested as part of a Food Standards Agency (FSA) report contained animal DNA that was not listed on the packaging

WHICH MEAT WAS CONTAMINATED WITH OTHER DNA? 

The FSA found 145 of 665 food items were contaminated with other DNA.
Below are the number of items that were contaminated.
- Lamb: 77
- Beef: 29
- Goat: 19
- Pork/ham: 18
- Duck: One
- Ostrich: One
The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) found 145 items out of 665 that it sampled in 2017 consisted partly or wholly of unspecified meat, it reported. 
The FSA said the results, accessed under a freedom of information request by the BBC, were consistent with 'deliberate inclusion'.
But the agency added that the tests had deliberately targeted operations suspected of 'compliance issues'.
They were 'not representative of the wider food industry', an FSA spokesman told MailOnline.
Around half of the 145 contaminated samples came from retailers, which included three supermarkets, 50 belonged to restaurants and 22 originated from food manufacturers.
Around 85 per cent of contaminated samples were sold by either butchers or takeaway businesses.

Why Nature Prefers Hexagons





The geometric rules behind fly eyes, honeycombs, and soap bubbles.


BY PHILIP BALL




How do bees do it? The honeycombs in which they store their amber nectar are marvels of precision engineering, an array of prism-shaped cells with a perfectly hexagonal cross-section. The wax walls are made with a very precise thickness, the cells are gently tilted from the horizontal to prevent the viscous honey from running out, and the entire comb is aligned with the Earth’s magnetic field. Yet this structure is made without any blueprint or foresight, by many bees working simultaneously and somehow coordinating their efforts to avoid mismatched cells.


The ancient Greek philosopher Pappus of Alexandria thought that the bees must be endowed with “a certain geometrical forethought.” And who could have given them this wisdom, but God? According to William Kirby in 1852, bees are “Heaven-instructed mathematicians.” Charles Darwin wasn’t so sure, and he conducted experiments to establish whether bees are able to build perfect honeycombs using nothing but evolved and inherited instincts, as his theory of evolution would imply.

FORCES AT WORK: Bees seem to have evolved capabilities
for making perfectly hexagonal cells from the soft wax that they secrete. However, some researchers believe that surface tension in the soft wax might be sufficient to pull the cells into shape, in much the same way as it organizes bubbles in a bubble raft.Grafissimo / Getty




Why hexagons, though? It’s a simple matter of geometry. If you want to pack together cells that are identical in shape and size so that they fill all of a flat plane, only three regular shapes (with all sides and angles identical) will work: equilateral triangles, squares, and hexagons. Of these, hexagonal cells require the least total length of wall, compared with triangles or squares of the same area. So it makes sense that bees would choose hexagons, since making wax costs them energy, and they will want to use up as little as possible—just as builders might want to save on the cost of bricks. This was understood in the 18th century, and Darwin declared that the hexagonal honeycomb is “absolutely perfect in economizing labor and wax.”


Darwin thought that natural selection had endowed bees with instincts for making these wax chambers, which had the advantage of requiring less energy and time than those with other shapes. But even though bees do seem to possess specialized abilities to measure angles and wall thickness, not everyone agrees about how much they have to rely on them. That’s because making hexagonal arrays of cells is something that nature does anyway.

FITTING IN: A single layer or “raft” of bubbles contains mostly hexagonal bubbles, albeit not all of them perfect hexagons. There are some “defects”—bubbles with perhaps five or seven sides. Nonetheless, all the junctions of bubble walls are threefold, intersecting at angles that are close to 120 degrees.Shebeko / Shuttersto










If you blow a layer of bubbles on the surface of water—a so-called “bubble raft”—the bubbles become hexagonal, or almost so. You’ll never find a raft of square bubbles: If four bubble walls come together, they instantly rearrange into three-wall junctions with more or less equal angles of 120 degrees between them, like the center of the Mercedes-Benz symbol.


Evidently there are no agents shaping these rafts as bees do with their combs. All that’s guiding the pattern are the laws of physics. Those laws evidently have definite preferences, such as the bias toward three-way junctions of bubble walls. The same is true of more complicated foams. If you pile up bubbles in three dimensions by blowing through a straw into a bowl of soapy water you’ll see that when bubble walls meet at a vertex, it’s always a four-way union with angles between the intersecting films roughly equal to about 109 degrees—an angle related to the four-faceted geometric tetrahedron.

BUBBLE VISION: The compound eyes of insects are packed hexagonally, just like the bubbles of a bubble raft— although, in fact, each facet is a lens connected to a long, thin, retinal cell beneath. The structures that are formed by clusters of biological cells often have forms governed by much the same rules as foams and bubble rafts—for example, just three cell walls meet at any vertex. The microscopic structure of the facets of a fly’s eye—beyond what is visible here—supplies one of the best examples. Each facet contains a cluster of four light-sensitive cells that have the same shape as a cluster of four ordinary bubbles.Tomatito / Shutterstock




What determines these rules of soap-film junctions and bubble shapes? Nature is even more concerned about economy than the bees are. Bubbles and soap films are made of water (with a skin of soap molecules) and surface tension pulls at the liquid surface to give it as small an area as possible. That’s why raindrops are spherical (more or less) as they fall: A sphere has less surface area than any other shape with the same volume. On a waxy leaf, droplets of water retract into little beads for the same reason.


This surface tension explains the patterns of bubble rafts and foams. The foam will seek to find the structure that has the lowest total surface tension, which means the least area of soap-film wall. But the configuration of bubble walls also has to be mechanically stable: The tugs in different directions at a junction have to balance perfectly, just as the forces must be balanced in the walls of a cathedral if the building is going to stand up. The three-way junction in a bubble raft, and the four-way junctions in foam, are the configurations that achieve this balance.


But those who think (as some do) that the honeycomb is just a solidified bubble raft of soft wax might have trouble explaining how the same hexagonal array of cells is found in the nests of paper wasps, who build not with wax but with chewed-up wads of fibrous wood and plant stem, from which they make a kind of paper. Not only can surface tension have little effect here, but it also seems clear that different types of wasp have different inherited instincts for their architectural designs, which can vary significantly from one species to another.

SHAPING A DROPLET: When water sits on a water-repellent surface, it may break up into droplets. The shapes of these drops are governed by surface tension, which pulls them into roughly spherical shapes, as well as by gravity (which will flatten a droplet on a horizontal surface) and the forces that act between the water and the underlying solid surface. If those latter forces are strong enough, the droplets are pulled into lens-shaped pancakes. And if the surface isn’t strongly water-repellent, the droplets may spread out into a flat, smooth film.Top left: Stuchelova, Kuttelvaserova / Shutterstock; Top right: Olgysha / Shutterstock; Bottom: Pitiya Phinjongsakundit / Shutterstock




Although the geometry of soap-film junctions is dictated by this interplay of mechanical forces, it doesn’t tell us what the shape of the foam will be. A typical foam contains polyhedral cells of many different shapes and sizes. Look closely and you’ll see that their edges are rarely perfectly straight; they’re a little curved. That’s because the pressure of the gas inside a cell or bubble gets bigger as the bubble gets smaller, so the wall of a small bubble next to a larger one will bulge outward slightly. What’s more, some facets have five sides, some six, and some just four or even three. With a little bending of the walls, all of these shapes can acquire four-way junctions close to the “tetrahedral” arrangement needed for mechanical stability. So there’s a fair bit of flexibility (literally) in the shapes of the cells. Foams, while subject to geometrical rules, are rather disorderly.


Suppose that you could make a “perfect” foam in which all the bubbles are the same size. What then is the ideal cell shape that makes the total bubble wall area as small as possible while satisfying the demands for the angles at the junctions? That has been debated for many years, and for a long time it was thought that the ideal cell shape was a 14-sided polyhedron with square and hexagonal faces. But in 1993 a slightly more economical—although less orderly—structure was discovered, consisting of a repeating group of eight different cell shapes. This more complex pattern was used as the inspiration for the foam-like design of the swimming stadium of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.


The rules of cell shapes in foams also control some of the patterns seen in living cells. Not only does a fly’s compound eye show the same hexagonal packing of facets as a bubble raft, but the light-sensitive cells within each of the individual lenses are also clustered in groups of four that look just like soap bubbles. In mutant flies with more than four of these cells per cluster, the arrangements are also more or less identical to those that bubbles would adopt.

MAKING USE OF BUBBLES: Bubbles and foams are put
to use in nature. Here the common purple snail hangs onto the surface of the sea from a buoyant raft made of bubbles coated with mucus. This enables the snail to feed on small creatures that live at the water’s surface.Dorling Kindersley








Because of surface tension, a soap film stretching across a loop of wire is pulled flat like the springy membrane of a trampoline. If the wire frame is bent, the film also bends with an elegant contour that automatically tells you the most economical way, in terms of material, to cover over the space enclosed by the frame. That can show an architect how to make a roof for a complicated structure using the least amount of material. However, it’s as much because of the beauty and elegance of these so-called “minimal surfaces,” as because of their economy that architects such as Frei Otto have used them in their buildings.


These surfaces minimize not only their surface area, but also their total curvature. The tighter the bend, the greater the curvature. Curvature can be positive (bulges) or negative (dips, depressions, and saddles). A curved surface can therefore have zero mean curvature so long as the positives and negatives cancel each other out.


So a sheet can be full of curvature and yet have very little or even no mean curvature. Such a minimally curved surface can divide up space into an orderly labyrinth of passageways and channels—a network. These are called periodic minimal surfaces. (Periodic just means a structure that repeats identically again and again, or in other words, a regular pattern.) When such patterns were discovered in the 19th century, they seemed to be just a mathematical curiosity. But now we know that nature makes use of them.


The cells of many different types of organisms, from plants to lampreys to rats, contain membranes with microscopic structures like this. No one knows what they are for, but they are so widespread that it’s fair to assume they have some sort of useful role. Perhaps they isolate one biochemical process from another, avoiding crosstalk and interference. Or maybe they are just an efficient way of creating lots of “work surface,” since many biochemical processes take place at the surface of membranes, where enzymes and other active molecules may be embedded. Whatever its function, you don’t need complicated genetic instructions to create such a labyrinth: The laws of physics will do it for you.


Some butterflies, such as the European green hairstreak and the emerald-patched cattleheart, have wing scales containing an orderly labyrinth of the tough material called chitin, shaped like a particular periodic minimal surface called the gyroid. Interference between light waves bouncing regular arrays of ridges and other structures on the wing-scale surface causes some wavelengths—that is, some colors—to disappear while others reinforce each other. So here the patterns offer a means of producing animal color.

MINERAL MESH: The filigree porous skeletons of sponges, such as this Venus’s flower basket, are forms of “frozen foam” in which a mineral is cast around the junctions and intersections of bubblelike soft tissues.Dmitry Grigoriev / Shutterstock








The skeleton of the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa is a porous mesh with the shape of another kind of periodic minimal surface. It’s actually an exoskeleton, sitting outside the organism’s soft tissue, a protective shell that sprouts dangerous-looking spines made from the same mineral as chalk and marble. The open lattice structure means that the material is strong without being too heavy, rather like the metal foams used for building aircraft.


To make orderly networks from hard, stiff mineral, these organisms apparently make a mold from soft, flexible membranes and then crystallize the hard material inside one of the interpenetrating networks. Other creatures may cast orderly mineral foams this way for more sophisticated purposes. Because of the way that light bounces off the elements of the patterned structure, such trellises can act rather like mirrors to confine and guide light. A honeycomb arrangement of hollow microscopic channels within the chitin spines of a peculiar marine worm known as the sea mouse turns these hair-like structures into natural optical fibers that can channel light, making the creature change from red to bluish green depending on the direction of the illumination. This color change might serve to deter predators.


This principle of using soft tissues and membranes as molds for forming patterned mineral exoskeletons is widely used in the sea. Some sponges have exoskeletons made of bars of mineral linked like climbing frames, which look remarkably similar to the patterns formed by the edges and junctions of soap films in foam—no coincidence, if surface tension dictates the architecture.


Such processes, known as biomineralization, generate spectacular results in marine organisms called radiolarians and diatoms. Some of these have delicately patterned exoskeletons made from a mesh of mineral hexagons and pentagons: You might call them the honeycombs of the sea. When the German biologist (and talented artist) Ernst Haeckel first saw their shapes in a microscope in the late 19th century, he made them the star attraction of a portfolio of drawings called Art Forms in Nature, which were very influential among artists of the early 20th century and still inspire admiration today. To Haeckel, they seemed to offer evidence of a fundamental creativity and artistry in the natural world—a preference for order and pattern built into the very laws of nature. Even if we don’t subscribe to that notion now, there’s something in Haeckel’s conviction that patterns are an irrepressible impulse of the natural world—one that we have every right to find beautiful.






Philip Ball is the author of Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen and many books on science and art.






Reprinted with permission from Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does, by Philip Ball, published by The University of Chicago Press. © 2016 by Marshall Editions. All rights reserved.

Por qué la naturaleza prefiere los hexágonos





Las reglas geométricas detrás de ojos de mosca, panales y pompas de jabón.


POR PHILIP BALL





Hay qué las abejas lo hacen? Los panales en los que almacenan su néctar de ámbar son maravillas de la ingeniería de precisión, una serie de células en forma de prisma con una sección transversal perfectamente hexagonal. Las paredes de cera están hechas con un grosor muy preciso, las celdas se inclinan suavemente desde la horizontal para evitar que se agote la miel viscosa, y todo el peine se alinea con el campo magnético de la Tierra. Sin embargo, esta estructura se hace sin ningún plan o previsión, por muchas abejas trabajando simultáneamente y de alguna manera coordinando sus esfuerzos para evitar celdas que no coinciden.


El antiguo filósofo griego Pappus de Alejandría pensó que las abejas debían estar dotadas de "una cierta previsión geométrica". ¿Y quién podría haberles dado esta sabiduría, sino Dios? Según William Kirby en 1852, las abejas son "matemáticos instruidos por el cielo". Charles Darwin no estaba tan seguro, y condujo experimentos para establecer si las abejas son capaces de construir panales perfectos usando nada más que instintos evolucionados y heredados, como su teoría de la evolución implicaría.

FUERZAS EN EL TRABAJO: Las abejas parecen haber desarrollado capacidades para fabricar células perfectamente hexagonales a partir de la cera blanda que secretan. Sin embargo, algunos investigadores creen que la tensión superficial en la cera blanda podría ser suficiente para poner las células en forma, de la misma manera que organiza las burbujas en una balsa de burbujas.Grafissimo / Getty




¿Por qué los hexágonos, sin embargo? Es una simple cuestión de geometría. Si desea agrupar celdas que son idénticas en forma y tamaño para que llenen todo un plano plano, solo funcionarán tres formas regulares (con todos los lados y ángulos idénticos): triángulos equiláteros, cuadrados y hexágonos. De estas, las celdas hexagonales requieren la menor longitud total de pared, en comparación con los triángulos o cuadrados de la misma área. Por lo tanto, tiene sentido que las abejas elijan hexágonos, ya que la cera les cuesta energía, y querrán usar lo menos posible, al igual que los constructores podrían querer ahorrar en el costo de los ladrillos. Esto se entendió en el siglo XVIII, y Darwin declaró que el panal hexagonal es "absolutamente perfecto para economizar trabajo y cera".


Darwin pensó que la selección natural había dotado a las abejas de instintos para hacer estas cámaras de cera, que tenían la ventaja de requerir menos energía y tiempo que las que tenían otras formas. Pero a pesar de que las abejas parecen poseer habilidades especializadas para medir ángulos y grosores de pared, no todos están de acuerdo sobre cuánto tienen que depender de ellos. Eso es porque hacer arreglos hexagonales de células es algo que la naturaleza hace de todos modos.

INSTALACIÓN: Una sola capa o "balsa" de burbujas contiene principalmente burbujas hexagonales, aunque no todas ellas son hexágonos perfectos. Hay algunos "defectos": burbujas con quizás cinco o siete lados. No obstante, todas las uniones de los muros de burbujas son triples, intersectando en ángulos cercanos a los 120 grados.Shebeko / Shutterstockj

If usted sopla una capa de burbujas en la superficie del agua, una llamada “balsa de burbujas”, la convierten en burbujas hexagonal, o casi. Nunca encontrarás una gran cantidad de burbujas cuadradas: si cuatro paredes de burbujas se unen, se reubican instantáneamente en uniones de tres paredes con ángulos más o menos iguales de 120 grados entre ellas, como el centro del símbolo de Mercedes-Benz.


Evidentemente, no hay agentes que modelen estas balsas como hacen las abejas con sus panales. Todo lo que está guiando el patrón son las leyes de la física. Esas leyes evidentemente tienen preferencias definidas, como el sesgo hacia las uniones tridireccionales de los muros de burbujas. Lo mismo es cierto para las espumas más complicadas. Si acumula burbujas en tres dimensiones soplando una pajita en un recipiente con agua jabonosa, verá que cuando las paredes de burbujas se juntan en un vértice, siempre hay una unión en cuatro direcciones con ángulos entre las películas que se cruzan aproximadamente igual a 109 grados: un ángulo relacionado con el tetraedro geométrico de cuatro facetas.


VISIÓN DE LA BURBUJA: Los ojos compuestos de los insectos están empaquetados hexagonalmente, al igual que las burbujas de una balsa de burbujas, aunque, de hecho, cada faceta es una lente conectada a una celda de retina larga y delgada debajo. Las estructuras que están formadas por grupos de células biológicas a menudo tienen formas gobernadas por las mismas reglas que las espumas y las balsas de burbujas; por ejemplo, solo tres paredes celulares se encuentran en cualquier vértice. La estructura microscópica de las facetas del ojo de una mosca, más allá de lo que se ve aquí, proporciona uno de los mejores ejemplos. Cada faceta contiene un grupo de cuatro células sensibles a la luz que tienen la misma forma que un grupo de cuatro burbujas ordinarias.Tomatito / Shutterstock

¿Qué determina estas reglas de uniones de película de jabón y formas de burbujas? La naturaleza está aún más preocupada por la economía que las abejas. Las burbujas y las películas de jabón están hechas de agua (con una capa de moléculas de jabón) y la tensión superficial tira de la superficie del líquido para darle el área más pequeña posible. Es por eso que las gotas de lluvia son esféricas (más o menos) a medida que caen: una esfera tiene menos área de superficie que cualquier otra forma con el mismo volumen. En una hoja cerosa, gotitas de agua se retraen en pequeñas perlas por la misma razón.


Esta tensión superficial explica los patrones de las balsas y espumas de burbujas. La espuma buscará encontrar la estructura que tenga la menor tensión superficial total, lo que significa la menor área de la pared de la película de jabón. Pero la configuración de los muros de burbujas también tiene que ser mecánicamente estable: los remolcadores en diferentes direcciones en un empalme tienen que equilibrarse perfectamente, del mismo modo que las fuerzas deben equilibrarse en las paredes de una catedral si el edificio se va a levantar. La unión de tres vías en una balsa de burbujas, y las uniones de cuatro vías en espuma, son las configuraciones que logran este equilibrio.


Pero aquellos que piensan (como algunos lo hacen) que el panal no es más que una burbuja de cera blanda solidificada pueden tener problemas para explicar cómo se encuentra la misma serie hexagonal de células en los nidos de avispas de papel, que no construyen con cera sino con masticado un montón de madera fibrosa y tallo de la planta, de la cual hacen una especie de papel. No solo la tensión superficial tiene poco efecto aquí, sino que también parece claro que diferentes tipos de avispas tienen diferentes instintos heredados para sus diseños arquitectónicos, que pueden variar significativamente de una especie a otra.


CONFIGURANDO UNA GOTA: Cuando el agua se asienta sobre una superficie repelente al agua, puede romperse en gotitas. Las formas de estas gotas se rigen por la tensión superficial, que las empuja en formas aproximadamente esféricas, así como por la gravedad (que aplanará una gota en una superficie horizontal) y las fuerzas que actúan entre el agua y la superficie sólida subyacente. Si esas últimas fuerzas son lo suficientemente fuertes, las gotitas se envuelven en panqueques con forma de lente. Y si la superficie no es muy repelente al agua, las gotas pueden extenderse en una película lisa y plana.Arriba a la izquierda: Stuchelova, Kuttelvaserova / Shutterstock; Arriba a la derecha: Olgysha / Shutterstock; Abajo: Pitiya Phinjongsakundit / Shutterstock




Aunque la geometría de las uniones jabón-película está dictada por esta interacción de fuerzas mecánicas, no nos dice cuál será la forma de la espuma. Una espuma típica contiene células poliédricas de muchas formas y tamaños diferentes. Mire de cerca y verá que sus bordes rara vez son perfectamente rectos; están un poco curvos. Esto se debe a que la presión del gas dentro de una celda o burbuja se agranda a medida que la burbuja se hace más pequeña, por lo que la pared de una burbuja pequeña al lado de una burbuja grande sobresaldrá ligeramente hacia afuera. Además, algunas facetas tienen cinco lados, unos seis y algunos solo cuatro o incluso tres. Con un poco de flexión de las paredes, todas estas formas pueden adquirir uniones de cuatro vías cercanas a la disposición "tetraédrica" ​​necesaria para la estabilidad mecánica. Entonces, hay un poco de flexibilidad (literalmente) en las formas de las celdas. Espumas,


Supongamos que puede hacer una espuma "perfecta" en la que todas las burbujas son del mismo tamaño. Entonces, ¿cuál es la forma de celda ideal que hace que el área total de la pared de burbujas sea lo más pequeña posible a la vez que satisface las demandas de los ángulos en las uniones? Esto se debatió durante muchos años, y durante mucho tiempo se pensó que la forma ideal de la celda era un poliedro de 14 lados con caras cuadradas y hexagonales. Pero en 1993 se descubrió una estructura un poco más económica, aunque menos ordenada, que consistía en un grupo repetitivo de ocho formas celulares diferentes. Este patrón más complejo fue utilizado como la inspiración para el diseño similar a la espuma del estadio de natación de los Juegos Olímpicos de 2008 en Beijing.


Las reglas de las formas de las células en las espumas también controlan algunos de los patrones observados en las células vivas. El ojo compuesto de una mosca no solo muestra el mismo empaque hexagonal de facetas que una burbuja de espuma, sino que las células sensibles a la luz dentro de cada una de las lentes también se agrupan en grupos de cuatro que parecen burbujas de jabón. En moscas mutantes con más de cuatro de estas células por conglomerado, las disposiciones también son más o menos idénticas a las que adoptarían las burbujas.


HACER USO DE BURBUJAS: LAS burbujas y las espumas se usan en la naturaleza. Aquí, el caracol común de color púrpura cuelga de la superficie del mar desde una balsa flotante hecha de burbujas recubiertas de moco. Esto permite que el caracol se alimente de pequeñas criaturas que viven en la superficie del agua.Dorling Kindersley

Bebido a la tensión superficial, una película de jabón extiende a través de un bucle de alambre se tira plana como la membrana elástica de un trampolín. Si el marco de alambre está doblado, la película también se dobla con un contorno elegante que automáticamente le indica la forma más económica, en términos de material, de cubrir el espacio encerrado por el marco. Eso puede mostrarle a un arquitecto cómo hacer un techo para una estructura complicada usando la menor cantidad de material. Sin embargo, es tanto por la belleza y la elegancia de estas llamadas "superficies mínimas", ya que debido a su economía arquitectos como Frei Otto las han utilizado en sus edificios.


Estas superficies minimizan no solo su superficie, sino también su curvatura total. Cuanto más apretada sea la curvatura, mayor será la curvatura. La curvatura puede ser positiva (protuberancias) o negativa (depresiones, depresiones y monturas). Una superficie curva puede, por lo tanto, tener curvatura media cero siempre que los positivos y negativos se anulen mutuamente.


Por lo tanto, una hoja puede estar llena de curvatura y, sin embargo, tener una curvatura media muy pequeña o incluso nula. Dicha superficie mínimamente curvada puede dividir el espacio en un laberinto ordenado de pasillos y canales: una red. Estas se llaman superficies mínimas periódicas. (Periódico simplemente significa una estructura que se repite idénticamente una y otra vez, o en otras palabras, un patrón regular.) Cuando tales patrones se descubrieron en el siglo XIX, parecían ser solo una curiosidad matemática. Pero ahora sabemos que la naturaleza los usa.


Las células de muchos tipos diferentes de organismos, desde plantas hasta lampreas y ratas, contienen membranas con estructuras microscópicas como esta. Nadie sabe para qué sirven, pero están tan extendidos que es justo asumir que tienen algún tipo de papel útil. Tal vez aíslan un proceso bioquímico de otro, evitando la interferencia y la diafonía. O tal vez solo sean una forma eficiente de crear mucha "superficie de trabajo", ya que muchos procesos bioquímicos tienen lugar en la superficie de las membranas, donde las enzimas y otras moléculas activas pueden estar incrustadas. Cualquiera que sea su función, no necesita instrucciones genéticas complicadas para crear ese laberinto: las leyes de la física lo harán por usted.


Algunas mariposas, como el hairstreak verde europeo y el cattleheart parcheado con esmeraldas, tienen escamas de ala que contienen un laberinto ordenado del material resistente llamado quitina, con forma de una particular superficie periódica mínima llamada gyroid. La interferencia entre ondas de luz que rebotan en arreglos regulares de crestas y otras estructuras en la superficie de la escala del ala hace que algunas longitudes de onda, es decir, algunos colores, desaparezcan, mientras que otras se refuerzan mutuamente. Entonces, aquí los patrones ofrecen un medio de producir color animal.

MALLA MINERAL: Los esqueletos porosos y filosos de esponjas, como la canasta de flores de Venus, son formas de "espuma congelada" en las que se deposita un mineral alrededor de las uniones e intersecciones de los tejidos blandos similares a burbujas.Dmitry Grigoriev / Shutterstock

ELesqueleto del erizo de mar Cidaris rugosa es una malla porosa con la forma de otro tipo de superficie periódica mínima. En realidad es un exoesqueleto, sentado fuera del tejido blando del organismo, una capa protectora que produce espinas de aspecto peligroso hechas del mismo mineral que la tiza y el mármol. La estructura de celosía abierta significa que el material es fuerte sin ser demasiado pesado, al igual que las espumas metálicas utilizadas para la construcción de aviones.


Para hacer redes ordenadas a partir de minerales duros y rígidos, estos organismos aparentemente forman un molde a partir de membranas blandas y flexibles y luego cristalizan el material duro dentro de una de las redes interpenetrantes. Otras criaturas pueden lanzar espumas minerales ordenadas de esta manera para fines más sofisticados. Debido a la forma en que la luz rebota en los elementos de la estructura modelada, estos enrejados pueden actuar como espejos para confinar y guiar la luz. Una disposición en forma de panal de canales microscópicos huecos dentro de las espinas de quitina de un peculiar gusano marino conocido como el ratón marino convierte estas estructuras similares a cabello en fibras ópticas naturales que pueden canalizar la luz, haciendo que la criatura cambie de rojo a verde azulado dependiendo de la dirección de la iluminación. Este cambio de color podría servir para disuadir a los depredadores.


Este principio de utilizar los tejidos blandos y las membranas como moldes para formar exoesqueletos minerales modelados es ampliamente utilizado en el mar. Algunas esponjas tienen exoesqueletos hechos de barras de mineral vinculadas como marcos trepadores, que se parecen notablemente a los patrones formados por los bordes y las uniones de las películas de jabón en espuma, no es coincidencia, si la tensión superficial dicta la arquitectura.


Tales procesos, conocidos como biomineralización, generan resultados espectaculares en organismos marinos llamados radiolarios y diatomeas. Algunos de estos tienen exoesqueletos delicadamente modelados hechos de una malla de hexágonos minerales y pentágonos: se los puede llamar los panales del mar. Cuando el biólogo alemán (y talentoso artista) Ernst Haeckel vio por primera vez sus formas en un microscopio a fines del siglo XIX, los convirtió en la atracción principal de un portafolio de dibujos llamado Art Forms in Nature., que fueron muy influyentes entre los artistas de principios del siglo XX y todavía inspiran admiración en la actualidad. Para Haeckel, parecían ofrecer evidencia de una creatividad y arte fundamental en el mundo natural: una preferencia por el orden y el patrón integrados en las leyes de la naturaleza. Incluso si no nos suscribimos a esa noción ahora, hay algo en la convicción de Haeckel de que los patrones son un impulso irreprimible del mundo natural, uno que tenemos todo el derecho a encontrar hermoso.

Philip Ball es el autor de Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen y muchos libros sobre ciencia y arte.

Reimpreso con permiso de Patterns in Nature: Por qué el mundo natural se ve como lo hace , por Philip Ball, publicado por The University of Chicago Press. © 2016 por Marshall Editions. Todos los derechos reservados.

Changing Times and Karma

Kuthumi School of Wisdom, Balance Within
I greet you in  the vibrational rays of Light and Oneness.
I am so pleased to meet with you once more.
I have asked this one to come today so I can speak to you on the matters of change and karma.
As we, (the  Brotherhood ) watch and observe we see the vibrational level of the planet rising. This is very encouraging for the planet and also for each of you.
During your current year for many of you, much has come to fulfillment, often through struggle and adversity. I want to say to you that from struggle comes growth. You see you have a survival gene within you. Usually it is this gene which triggers the need to get through your challenges, to overcome the hurdles before you. It is this, along with your Higher Self and the Light flow in the atmosphere which all combine to give you the strength and sometimes even the solution to enable you to step forward.
For many at this time, this will require change. Going through adversity can give you the courage needed. Of course this is not always so. There are some who simply want to change their life, the direction or a certain area of their life. They consciously make this choice which leads them on another path, another experience. So you see creating change is not a bad decision, it simply is a choice you make on your journey in this incarnation. As I have said, there are times when change is necessary, when you are tired of your current circumstances and yearn for new experiences. Times when you feel stuck and are suffering unhappiness. Change is always a choice for you alone choose your new experience.
Some think that in dire circumstances you are creating karma. You look back on previous events and wish you had spoken or done things differently. Times when your words or actions could have been kinder perhaps. Some of you wonder if that karma will stay with you in your next lifetime. I tell you there are many levels of karma. For you to understand simply, you could say less or more karma depending on the intent of the person choosing to hurt another, either with words or actions, no matter. I tell you words can be a painful sword, sometimes as painful as a physical hurt. It is the intent which decides on the level of karma - the Cause and Effect Universal Law. Yes, we have structure on all levels of being.
If the intent is slight or a person did not intend to hurt another, it is not what we call a karmic deed. If the intent was anger toward another, then afterwards the person wanted to 'take the deed back' with regret, apologized to the person, this is not a karmic deed. If the person receiving the apology, the spoken regret, chooses not to accept the persons apology, it is their choice not to do so if they choose. You all have free will. However we do not consider it a karmic event due to the instant remorse felt and the words spoken in remorse. You could say this is an instant karmic reaction for the person has suddenly seen the 'bigger picture,' the vibrational picture and sometimes a future picture of the hurt and pain that their words or action has created for the other person. This 'bigger picture' is always led by the persons Higher Self, almost immediately in your Linear time you see? At that very moment the person is faced with a choice. Do they feel remorseful, sorry for their actions? Or choose to override and ignore the message from their Higher Self, the inner voice? When remorse is felt we call it No Karma. It is already a balanced action. However if the choice made is stubbornness, refusal to listen, we do not judge the person, no.  However it is noted and they usually receive hurtful words or actions from another at some other Linear time. So the person is able to feel the consequence of being stubbornly unforgiving, thereby deliberately preventing any Soul growth. Mankind is at a vibrational level now where you will create instant karma. In this lifetime all karma is balanced wherever possible.
Kuthumi School of Wisdom, Balance Within
In the situation where one may choose to continually keep hurting another in spite of receiving instant karma in some way, often from another person, then the karma is carried through to another lifetime. This does become an issue where the soul requires much healing to overcome emotions of deep anger and sometimes even the emotion of hate. It can take more than one lifetime to heal the soul completely in these situations. We are pleased to say that these events are far less now on the planet. As more Light frequencies amass on the planet great healing is able to occur on many levels. This is another reason why many of you are wanting to create change in your lives now. People decide they no longer want to be angry, to struggle, may now want to heal old conflicts with another. Healing. For others after a lifetime of experiencing struggle to pay for grand homes and possessions, will say, " I no longer want this struggle in my life." So they will choose to simplify their lives and enjoy the unseen healing energies because they paused long enough to absorb those energies. They begin to feel a peace within.
So you see this time also creates magnificent opportunities for each of you. I urge to listen within, to begin to pay attention to what you feel, rather than the many thoughts in your mind.
I embrace you in Oneness.
I am Kuthumi
Lynette
Chosen Channel

THE NEXT PHASE OF OUR ASCENSION PROCESS


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  Newsletter English
THE NEXT PHASE OF OUR ASCENSION PROCESS
 
Patricia Cota-Robles


The consciousness codes within the DNA of the Millennials and the children have been activated and we have Ascended a quantum leap up the Spiral of Evolution. As a result of this miracle, Mother Earth has victoriously reclaimed her rightful place in our Solar System. Now, it is the responsibility of awakening Humanity to magnetize from the Heart of God the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity we will use to cocreate the patterns of perfection on the New Earth. These are the highest frequencies of Light the Earth has ever been able to withstand. The Company of Heaven said that we are only capable of receiving this frequency of Light because of the incredible shifts that have taken place this year and the fact that the consciousness codes within the DNA of the Millennials and the children have been successfully activated.

These events have allowed our I AM Presence and our 5th-Dimensional Body Elemental to greatly accelerated the Divine Alchemy taking place within our Earthly Bodies. This alchemy is transforming our carbon-based planetary cells into crystalline-based Solar Light Cells. This is enabling our physical, etheric, mental and emotional bodies to withstand higher frequencies of the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Solar Aspects of Deity than we have ever been able to assimilate at a cellular level.

Contemplate this information within the Flame of Illumined Truth in your heart and you will intuitively know how you can most effectively be the Open Door for this exquisite Light. The Company of Heaven said that at this time Humanity is experiencing major changes at a cellular level through our 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Spines and our Twelve Solar Chakras. This increase in vibration is actually altering and rebuilding our nervous systems. These pathways of Light are being strengthened to accommodate the greatly intensified Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity now flowing into the mental and emotional strata of Earth.

Our nervous systems are being recalibrated to withstand higher levels of Divine Wisdom and Sacred Knowledge. Our spiritual brain centers are also being altered in profound ways through this new infusion of Crystalline Solar Light. As Christ Consciousness filters into the conscious mind of every man, woman and child, our I AM Presences are releasing new visions of possibility in which Oneness, Divine Love and Reverence for ALL Life are gradually becoming tangible realities for every Human Being.

In order to accelerate the process of bringing the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity tangibly into our lives, the Mighty Elohim who are the Builders of Form, have created above the Earth and also upon the head of every single person, a Twelve-pointed Crown. This forcefield of Light is called the Crown of the Elohim. This Crown is the vehicle through which our Father-Mother God will breathe the highest 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar frequencies of the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity that the Earth and Humanity are capable of receiving. Since our Father-Mother God are now amplifying the Lightwork of every person on Earth one thousand fold through our Planetary Grid of Transfiguring Divine Love, the more we focus on this awesome Crystalline Light the faster the patterns of perfection for the New Earth will manifest.

Once the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity flow through the Crown of the Elohim above the Earth and through the Crown of the Elohim on every person’s head, this Divine Light descends down our 5th-Dimensional Solar Spine and is transmitted into every cell of our bodies through our Twelve 5th-Dimensional Solar Chakras.

Each of these Chakras is a sphere of Light that pulsates with all Twelve Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity simultaneously. These twelve spheres of Light are aligned along our spinal column from our Crown Chakra at the top of our head to our Root Chakra at the base of our spine. The Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity that simultaneously radiate through each of our Twelve 5th-Dimensional Solar Chakras form a circle within each Chakra that the Company of Heaven refers to as The Circle of the Sacred Twelve. In our 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Spine all Twelve Chakras reflect all Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity all of the time.

We have each been preparing in myriad ways to integrate and assimilate this vitally important Crystalline Light during this phase of our Ascension process. Our I AM Presence will guide each of us unerringly on just how to do that. In addition to our individual contributions and activities of Light, Mother Mary is giving us the opportunity to intensify our effectiveness by utilizing Crystallized Sacred Fire from the Elemental Kingdom that she has Consecrated with the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity in the most powerful ways. I will share with you some background on this profound Gift from Mother Mary so you can see if this opportunity resonates in your heart for you.

A Gift of Crystalline Sacred Fire from Mother Mary

In 1983 Beloved Mother Mary revealed to us that in order for the Earth to make it through the impending Shift of the Ages which was destined to occur in 2012, Humanity needed to begin integrating the initial frequencies of the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Solar Aspects of Deity. She asked if we would be willing to assist her in bringing the sacred knowledge about these powerful frequencies of Light to the outer world and the conscious minds of Humanity. In deep humility and gratitude for this blessed opportunity we volunteered and Consecrated our Life Force to be the Open Door for this 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Light.

To assist with this Divine Mission, Mother Mary gave to us what she called, “The Rosary of the New Age.” The Divine Intent of this Gift from On High was to give Humanity an easy way to invoke the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity, one by one, as we focused on the Divine Qualities and colors of each of the Twelve Aspects of Deity.

This is the Rosary, which was to be repeated twelve times, once for each Aspect of Deity:

“Hail Mother, full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb “I AM.”

Hold for me NOW the Immaculate Concept of my True God Reality from this moment unto my Eternal Ascension in the Light.  I AM That I AM.”

For thirty-five years hundreds of thousands of Lightworkers around the world have been assisting Mother Mary with this facet of the Divine Plan. Now Mother Mary is asking us to take this Mission to the next level by working with Crystallized Sacred Fire.

As unformed primal Light flows forth from the Core of Creation in the very Heart of our Father-Mother God, it manifests as pure Light. As the Light of God descends into denser frequencies, it is transformed into Sacred Fire. As this Sacred Fire descends into denser frequencies and manifests in the physical plane of Earth, it is transformed into Crystallized Sacred Fire.

This crystallized substance forms the Crystals in Mother Earth’s Crystal Grid System and the other Crystals that are encoded with the Divine Qualities, colors and frequencies of the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Aspects of Deity.

Now that the Mighty Elohim have infused Mother Earth’s Twelve Solar Chakras with frequencies of the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity beyond anything the Earth and Humanity have ever been able to withstand, Mother Mary is asking us if we will be willing to serve as surrogates on behalf of Humanity and all Life evolving on this planet. She is asking us to assist the masses of Humanity and the Elemental Kingdom by focus our attention on the Crystallized Sacred Fire representing the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity. This will allow the I AM Presence of every person to integrate this Light at a cellular level which will greatly accelerate our Ascension process.

There will be myriad ways for us to accomplish this, however Mother Mary has asked us to make this as easy as possible for everyone by assisting her with the cocreation of tangible objects made from Crystallized Sacred Fire which she will personally Consecrate with the Twelve 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Solar Aspects of Deity.

We have willingly complied by cocreating a beautiful Crystal Bracelet and a Strand of Crystallized Sacred Fire. I want to share with you the Love and dedication that goes into these sacred items as they are being cocreated, so you can intuitively know if they are appropriate for you.

Mother Mary’s Consecrated Strand of Sacred Fire and Crystal Bracelet

By having the Strand of Crystallized Sacred Fire in your environment or by wearing the Crystal Bracelet, you will be able maintain your focus of attention on the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity much more easily. These items will also enhance and clear your energy field.

As the Earth Ascends into higher and higher frequencies of 5th-Dimensional Crystalline Light, Mother Mary has made the heart commitment to Consecrate the Crystals in these Bracelets and these Strands, no matter who has them or where they are, into the higher frequency of Light. This means quite literally that the Crystals in the Bracelets and the Strands are Ascending in frequency with us and that they will always be lifting us into the next level of our Divine Alchemy.

Sacred Strands of Crystallized Sacred Fire

My Beloved Husband, Dickie, has accepted Mother Mary’s request to make the Strands of Crystallized Sacred Fire. I will share with you that he has accepted this honor with the deepest reverence and Love. Whenever he works on the Strands, he plays beautiful music, lights a candle and burns incense. He has always been exceptionally close to Mother Mary and he says he tangibly feels her wondrous Presence while he is working on the Strands of Crystallized Sacred Fire.

The Strands consist of twelve beautiful Swarovski Crystals each one representing one of the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity. At the top of the Strand is a ring that represents the double helix of our DNA. At the bottom of the Strand is a small disc with a Tree of Life engraved on it.

If you would like to order a Strand of Crystallized Sacred Fire that has been Consecrated by Mother Mary, please click on the link below:


Crystal Bracelets

One of our beautiful volunteers, Alma, who is very close to Mother Mary has accepted the honor of making the Crystal Bracelets. The Bracelets are also made from beautiful Swarovski Crystals representing the Twelve Solar Aspects of Deity.

Alma also experiences the Presence of Mother Mary while she is making the Bracelets and is very aware of the shift in vibration when Mother Mary Consecrates the Crystals.

If you would like to order a Crystal Bracelet that has been Consecrated by Mother Mary, please click on the link below:


Patricia Cota-Robles
New Age Study of Humanity’s Purpose
a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit educational organization
Dba
Era of Peace
PO Box 41883,
Tucson, Arizona 85717
Phone: 520-885-7909, Fax: 520-750-2981

www.eraofpeace.org


This article is copyrighted, but you have my permission to share it through any medium as long as it is offered for FREE, it is not altered, and the proper credit line is included. Thank You.

©2018 Patricia Cota-Robles

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