Even by the standards of web software,
the Google App Engine team moves pretty quickly, with a new version every 6 weeks or so. (I
learned how fast they go when I was writing App Engine technical docs and trying to keep up
with what the engineers were creating.) This week, the team launched App Engine 1.5.1, with a
nice collection of new features, including support in the SDK for testing the High
Replication Datastore, an API to use ProtoRPC from Python, and
support for user presence in the Channel
API. You can see the complete list and more details in the App Engine
Blog.
Nature does new releases too, although it usually takes
a lot longer to add new features and fix bugs. Can the current version of humans sense a
magnetic field? Scientists in Massachusetts found indirect clues by replacing a fly protein with
a human one. In a study, the human cryptochrome protein restored the fly’s ability
to respond to a magnetic field. Not only is that pretty cool, that BBC Science News page has
an awesome picture of a fly.
Finally, if you have a few minutes this
weekend, check out this nifty video that takes an original and fun look at
multiplication.
Fridaygram
posts are lighter than our usual fare. They're designed for your Friday afternoon and weekend
enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to us
nerds.
