Anibal M. Astobiza › Likes

"The Issue: Transportation The industrial world’s addiction to cars is costly and will become more so. The U.S. uses roughly 21 million barrels of oil per day. According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report, 2.8 million people have so-called “extreme commutes,” or commutes longer than 90 minutes. The Texas Transportation Institute has found that in the United States alone 2.3 billion gallons of gas is wasted each year in traffic jams. The Future: Globally, the number of vehicles on the world’s roads will grow from 800 million now to 1.1 billion in the next 15 years. Public transportation is often cited as a cure for oil addiction. In the United States, rise of disabled elderly Americans will strain public transportation systems. Futurist Fixes 1. Non Human (Robotic) Transportation: The same drone technology that the U.S. military is using in Afghanistan could be put to use in the United States to transport goods between locations safer and faster than human drivers. This could... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

Vol. 65, No. 4. (25 February 2010), pp. 550-562. One of the most consistent observations in human functional imaging is that a network of brain regions referred to as the default network increases its activity during passive states. Here we explored the anatomy and function of the default network across three studies to resolve divergent hypotheses about its contributions to spontaneous cognition and active forms of decision making. Analysis of intrinsic activity revealed the network comprises multiple, dissociated components. A midline core (posterior cingulate and anterior medial prefrontal cortex) is active when people make self-relevant, affective decisions. In contrast, a medial temporal lobe subsystem becomes engaged when decisions involve constructing a mental scene based on memory. During certain experimentally directed and spontaneous acts of future-oriented thought, these dissociated components are simultaneously engaged, presumably to facilitate construction of mental... - Björn Brembs

"Today, the neurosciences enjoy a similar prestige as psychoanalysis in the twentieth century, write Hennric Jokeit and Ewa Hess. Despite the immense costs for healthcare systems, the fear of depression, dementia and attention deficit disorder legitimises the boom in neuro-psychotropic drugs. In a performance-driven society that confronts the self with its own shortcomings, neuroscience serves an expanding market. Today, the phenomenology of the mind is stepping indignantly aside for a host of hyphenated disciplines such as neuro-anthropology, neuro-pedagogy, neuro-theology, neuro-aesthetics and neuro-economics. Their self-assurance reveals the neurosciences' usurpatory tendency to become not only the humanities of science, but the leading science of the twenty-first century. The legitimacy, impetus and promise of this claim derive from the maxim that all human behaviour is determined by the laws governing neuronal activity and the way it is organised in the brain." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

The psychologically relevant question of how the self will relate to a mood-enhanced, more capable version of itself is rendered irrelevant by the fact that the requirements of the new capitalist reality make an individual improvement of this kind appear a highly desirable option. Indeed, as a consumer and commodity value appropriate to capitalism, it has already been in currency for... more... - Wildcat

"Experts in ethics and sustainable tourism said that kind of reaction is natural and understandable, but they urged people to look deeper at the issue and consider the benefits of tourism for Haiti now and beyond. "Monies that are coming in as part of tourism are going to trickle down throughout the local economy at a time when the local people need it the most," said Brian Mullis, president of Sustainable Travel International, a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible travel. Because visitors can have a positive effect during their stay, tourism should still be taking place in Haiti, even at this terrible time, Mullis said." - Alexander Kruel from Bookmarklet

To me the ethical problems of vacationing in poor countries are independent of such disasters. I'm not a fan of secluded area/resort vacations myself, but if I was going on a trip like that it would be important to me that the probably western cruise/resort owner paid fair wages and interacted with the local economy as much as possible. - Eivind

"What intrigues me most about laughter is how it spreads. It’s almost impossible not to laugh when everybody else is. There have been laughing epidemics, in which no one could stop and some even died in a prolonged fit. There are laughing churches and laugh therapies based on the healing power of laughter. The must-have toy of 1996—Tickle Me Elmo—laughed hysterically after being squeezed three times in a row. All of this because we love to laugh and can’t resist joining laughing around us. This is why comedy shows on television have laugh tracks and why theater audiences are sometimes sprinkled with “laugh plants”: people paid to produce raucous laughing at any joke that comes along. The infectiousness of laughter even works across species. Below my office window at the Yerkes Primate Center, I often hear my chimps laugh during rough-and-tumble games, and I cannot suppress a chuckle myself. It’s such a happy sound. Tickling and wrestling are the typical laugh triggers for apes, and... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

Since I just saw them in London last week, it's only appropriate to give you some BASEMENT JAXX for #MM - Noah Gray from Blip.fm