Science Online

"What songwriting has to do with string theory. (...) The project began as a set of 26 songs, exploring the intersection of science and philosophy. Over the years, Bryanton began to see connections between his own ideas and scientific theories across quantum physics, multiple dimensions, and superstrings, including the “Many Worlds Theory” first advanced by physicist Hugh Everett III in 1957. In time, he developed a model of the universe based on the harmonics of superstring vibrations. Before launching into the additional dimensions, Bryanton also breaks down the familiar three. (...) A kind of scientific expressionism and creative exploration of curiosity, Imagining the Tenth Dimension might not rewrite the theories of Stephen Hawking, but it is certain to give you pause." - Amira from Bookmarklet

My brain's not dimensioned for thinking about this! - Eivind

See also: The Multiverse Has 11 Dimensions http://ff.im/NJxib - Amira

"Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted. (...) They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. (...) Introverts are comfortable working alone — and solitude is a catalyst to innovation. (...) The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools (...) In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question. (...) Privacy also makes us productive. (...) What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn’t greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed. (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

"Brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. (...) Decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases. (...) The one important exception to this dismal record is electronic brainstorming, where large groups outperform individuals;... more... - Amira

"An artificial brain has taught itself to estimate the number of objects in an image without actually counting them, emulating abilities displayed by some animals including lions and fish, as well as humans. Because the model was not preprogrammed with numerical capabilities, the feat suggests that this skill emerges due to general learning processes rather than number-specific mechanisms. "It answers the question of how numerosity emerges without teaching anything about numbers in the first place," (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

"In response to each image, the program strengthened or weakened connections between neurons so that its image generation model was refined by the pattern it had just "seen". Zorzi likens it to "learning how to visualise what it has just experienced". Infants demonstrate ANS without being taught, so the network was not preprogrammed with the concept of "amount". But when Zorzi and... more... - Amira

"Physics has definitely avoided what were traditionally considered to be foundational physical questions, but the reason for that goes back to the foundation of quantum mechanics. The problem is that quantum mechanics was developed as a mathematical tool. Physicists understood how to use it as a tool for making predictions, but without an agreement or understanding about what it was telling us about the physical world. And that’s very clear when you look at any of the foundational discussions. (...) Sean Carroll for example is very adamant about saying that time is real. You have others saying that time is just an illusion, that there isn’t really a direction of time, and so forth. I myself think that all of the reasons that lead people to say things like that have very little merit, and that people have just been misled, largely by mistaking the mathematics they use to describe reality for reality itself. If you think that mathematical objects are not in time, and mathematical... more... - Amira from Bookmarklet

"What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on earth, of all the billions of species that have evolved, only one has developed intelligence to the level of producing technology. Which means that kind of intelligence is really not very useful. It’s not actually, in the general case, of much evolutionary value. We tend to think, because we love to think of ourselves, human beings, as... more... - Amira

"Ambiguity actually makes language more efficient, by allowing for the reuse of short, efficient sounds that listeners can easily disambiguate with the help of context. (...) By comparing certain properties of words to their numbers of meanings, the researchers confirmed their suspicion that shorter, more frequent words, as well as those that conform to the language’s typical sound patterns, are most likely to be ambiguous — trends that were statistically significant in all three languages. (...) It is “cognitively cheaper” to have the listener infer certain things from the context than to have the speaker spend time on longer and more complicated utterances. The result is a system that skews toward ambiguity, reusing the “easiest” words. Once context is considered, it’s clear that “ambiguity is actually something you would want in the communication system.” (...) - Amira from Bookmarklet

"As long as words a different sense will bear, // And each may be his own interpreter, // Our airy faith will no foundation find; // The word’s a weathercock for every wind." — John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther (1687) :-) - Amira

What a beautiful video! - Ken Morley

"More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth’s surface began forming multi-cellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. (…) The yeast “evolved” into multi-cellular clusters that work together cooperatively, reproduce and adapt to their environment—in essence, they became precursors to life on Earth as it is today. (…) How one-celled organisms made the switch to living as a group, as multi-celled organisms.” (…) Analysis showed that the clusters were not just groups of random cells that adhered to each other, but related cells that remained attached following cell division." - Amira from Bookmarklet

"That was significant because it meant that they were genetically similar, which promotes cooperation. When the clusters reached a critical size, some cells died off in a process known as apoptosis to allow offspring to separate. (...) “A cluster alone isn’t multi-cellular,” “But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that’s an... more... - Amira

"It’s important to note that more complex doesn’t necessarily mean better. (...) Evolution only leads to increases in complexity when complexity is beneficial to survival and reproduction. Indeed, simplicity has its perks: the more simple you are, the faster you can reproduce, and thus the more offspring you can have. Many bacteria live happy simple lives, produce billions of offspring,... more... - Amira

"We're building a new way for you to explore, follow, share and interact with published papers throughout history, and as they happen - in real time. Connect discoveries to the teams, fields and places where they were produced, and navigate the rich human context of scientific research." - Amira from Bookmarklet

"Scientists' greatest pleasure comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called "beautiful" or "elegant". Historical examples are Kepler's explanation of complex planetary motions as simple ellipses, Bohr's explanation of the periodic table of the elements in terms of electron shells, and Watson and Crick's double helix. Einstein famously said that he did not need experimental confirmation of his general theory of relativity because it "was so beautiful it had to be true." Since this question is about explanation, answers may embrace scientific thinking in the broadest sense: as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, including other fields of inquiry such as philosophy, mathematics, economics, history, political theory, literary theory, or the human spirit. The only requirement is that some simple and non-obvious idea explain some diverse and complicated set of phenomena." - Amira from Bookmarklet

"Where memories might be stored. (...) The answer lies in the multitude of tiny modifiable connections between neuronal cells, the information-processing units of the brain. These cells, with their wispy tree-like protrusions, hang like stars in miniature galaxies and pulse with electrical charge. Thus, your memories are patterns inscribed in the connections between the millions of neurons in your brain. Each memory has its unique pattern of activity, logged in the vast cellular network every time a memory is formed. It is thought that during recall of past events the original activity pattern in the hippocampus is re-established via a process that is known as “pattern completion”. (...) The physical structure of your brain is malleable." - Amira from Bookmarklet

+ - Amir

"The world’s smallest magnetic data storage unit is made of just 12 atoms, squeezing an entire byte into just 96 atoms, a significant shrinkage in the world of information storage. It’s not a quantum computer, but it’s a computer storage unit at the quantum scale. By contrast, modern hard disk drives use about a million atoms to store a single bit, and a half billion atoms per byte. Until now, it was unclear how many (or how few) atoms would be needed to build a reliable, lasting memory bit, the basic piece of information that a computer understands. Researchers at IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science decided to start from the ground up, building a magnetic memory bit atom-by-atom. They used a scanning tunneling microscope to create regular patterns of iron atoms aligned in rows of six each. They found two rows was enough to securely store one bit, and eight pairs of rows was enough to store a byte. (...) “If you take a single atom, you have to look at quantum mechanics when you describe its behavior,” (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

According to Wolfram it's 1,25 X 10^68 GB of information... I'll better stay with my 1 to 3 posts a day... ;-) Take a look also here (article from yesterday): 'Scientists Create World's Tiniest Ear' -- "Have you ever wondered what a virus sounds like? Or what noise a bacterium makes when it moves between hosts? If the answer is yes, you may soon get your chance to find out" http://news.sciencemag.org/science... - Amira

"We’re all born with it. Albert Einstein dubbed it “holy,” Alistair Cooke called it “free-wheeling intelligence.” It’s that piquing force that nudges us to try it again, explore it some more, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out. From the moment we open our eyes, it fuels our existence. With each new answer we find, our world expands and our passions grow. We can't wait to share what we’ve learned and teach others how to do it themselves. (...) The future belongs to the curious. The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out." http://www.skillshare.com/about... - Amira from Bookmarklet

faith in Climate change is the real heresy in secular culture. I'm not a bible literalist, but there is more historical fact in the Torah then any other ancient document. That is why the Palestinians are so afraid of Jews and Christians digging for facts. with all we know about time and space it is very sad to hear the arrogance of secular culture's hostility to time mechanisms... that... more... - NoahDavidSimon

Can't beat the irony of reality :-) - Björn Brembs

"We have no ways to directly observe molecules and what they do -- Drew Berry wants to change that. At TEDxSydney he shows his scientifically accurate (and entertaining!) animations that help researchers see unseeable processes within our own cells." - Amira from Bookmarklet

“It [writing] has enormous meta-cognitive implications. The power is this: That you cannot only think in ways that you could not possibly think if you did not have the written word, but you can now think about the thinking that you do with the written word. There is danger in this, and the danger is that the enormous expressive and self-referential capacities of the written word, that is, the capacities to keep referring to referring to referring, will reach a point where you lose contact with the real world. And this, believe me, is very common in universities. There’s a technical name for it, I don’t know if we can use it on television, it’s called “bullshit.” But this is very common in academic life, where people just get a form of self-referentiality of the language, where the language is talking about the language, which is talking about the language, and in the end, it’s hot air. That’s another name for the same phenomenon.” - Amira from Bookmarklet

“Metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are “metaphors we live by”—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. (…) We are neural beings, (…) our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything – only what our embodied brains permit. (…) The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.” - Amira from Bookmarklet

"The constructal law puts forth the idea that the generation of design (configuration, pattern, geometry) in nature is a physics phenomenon that unites all animate and inanimate systems, and that this phenomenon is covered by the Constructal Law. The constructal law was stated by Adrian Bejan in 1996 as follows: "For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it." Design in nature is attracting interest across the entire range of science, from biology and geophysics to social dynamics and engineering. (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

cool way to view self-similar Geometry emerging from thermodynamics: minimization of energy expended or entropy generated, i.e. attain highest flow configuration at lowest cost. - Adriano

“Much of what living cells do is carried out by “molecular machines” – physical complexes of specialized proteins working together to carry out some biological function. (…) In a study published early online on January 8, in Nature, a team of scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Oregon demonstrate how just a few small, high-probability mutations increased the complexity of a molecular machine more than 800 million years ago. By biochemically resurrecting ancient genes and testing their functions in modern organisms, the researchers showed that a new component was incorporated into the machine due to selective losses of function rather than the sudden appearance of new capabilities. (...) The increase in complexity was due to complementary loss of ancestral functions rather than gaining new ones. (...) “It’s counterintuitive but simple: complexity increased because protein functions were lost, not gained,” Thornton said. “Just as in society, complexity... more... - Amira from Bookmarklet

"The accumulation of simple, degenerative changes over long periods of times could have created many of the complex molecular machines present in organisms today. Such a mechanism argues against the intelligent design concept of “irreducible complexity,” the claim that molecular machines are too complicated to have formed stepwise through evolution. (...) “These really aren’t like... more... - Amira

“If men were rational in their conduct, that is to say, if they acted in the way most likely to bring about the ends that they deliberately desire, intelligence would be enough to make the world almost a paradise. In the main, what is in the long run advantageous to one man is also advantageous to another. But men are actuated by passions which distort their view; feeling an impulse to injure others, they persuade themselves that it is to their interest to do so. They will not, therefore, act in the way that is in fact to their own interest unless they are actuated by generous impulses which make them indifferent to their own interest. This is why the heart is as important as the head. By the “heart” I mean, for the moment, the sum-total of kindly impulses. (…) And so we come back to the old dilemma: only kindliness can save the world, and even if we knew how to produce kindliness we should not do so unless we were already kindly. Failing that, it seems that the solution which the... more... - Amira from Bookmarklet

See also: Kevin Kelly - Speculations on the future of science, Edge.com http://www.edge.org/3rd_cul... - Amira

"It is commonly agreed by linguists and anthropologists that the majority of languages spoken now around the globe will likely disappear within our lifetime. The phenomenon known as language death has started to accelerate as the world has grown smaller. "This extinction of languages, and the knowledge therein, has no parallel in human history. K. David Harrison's book is the first to focus on the essential question, what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in a language's structure and vocabulary? And how harmful is it to humanity that such knowledge is lost forever?" http://www.amazon.com/When-La... - Amira

"A Brief History of Time was Morris’s first film as a director-for-hire (he was recruited by Steven Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment), which created some difficulties, but Morris was pleased with the outcome. He later said, “It’s actually one of the most beautiful films I ever shot.” The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Filmmaking and the Documentary Filmmaker’s Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival. In 1992 Morris told the New York Times Magazine that A Brief History of Time was “less cerebral and more moving” than anything he had worked on before. “This feeling of time, of aging, of mortality combined with this search for the most basic and deep questions about the world around us and ourselves,” Morris said, “is pretty persuasive stuff.” http://www.openculture.com/2012... - Amira

"In the Pacific Islands, however, sailors have long claimed to have something else in their navigational toolbox, te lapa — loosely translated as “underwater lightning” — flashes of iridescent light that appear in nighttime waters, and which some claim point toward nearby islands. (...) Could the strange phenomenon have helped lead wayward sailors to safe harbors for thousands of years? Might it even have played a critical role in human migrations through the South Pacific by pointing ancient peoples toward islands just over the horizon? Experiments suggest that they may be the product of millions of single-celled microorganisms called dinoflagellates, which emit light when subjected to pressure waves like those caused by darting fish. (...) “It’s possible that some combination of factors — migratory birds, accidental drift, and also underwater lightning — were used by early navigators.” See also: Dinoflagellate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Amira

Missing data from clinical trials could endanger patients, health experts have warned. In an editorial for the British Medical Journal website bmj.com, Dr Richard Lehman from Oxford University and the journal's clinical epidemiology editor Dr Elizabeth Loder have called for an end to the "culture of haphazard publication and incomplete data disclosure". The BMJ, which is releasing several papers looking into the problem of unpublished data, said that missing information "distorts the scientific record" and means decisions are not made on the best evidence. Dr Lehman and Dr Loder said: "Clinical medicine involves making decisions under uncertainty. "Clinical research aims to reduce this uncertainty, usually by performing experiments on groups of people who consent to run the risks of such trials in the belief that the resulting knowledge will benefit others. "Most clinicians assume that the complex regulatory systems that govern human research ensure that this knowledge is relevant,... more... - Halil from Bookmarklet

They have called for more robust regulation and full access to the raw trial data, and said that those who deliberately hide results "have breached their ethical duty to trial participants". The pair concluded: "These changes have long been called for, and delay has already caused harm. "The evidence we publish shows that the current situation is a disservice to research participants, patients, health systems, and the whole endeavour of clinical medicine." - Halil

I wonder how much influence/guilt the big pharmaceutical companies have in these clinical trials, with respect to selective data being disclosed/published. Also please remember/be aware that some clinical human drug trials are often carried out in poor countries on very poor very ill people, a recent BBC2 documentary exposed the unethical practices of some pharmaceutical companies using... more... - Halil

“As opposed to the conventional wisdom, Harvard economist Edward Glaeser believes urbanization to be a solution to many unanswered problems, such as pollution, depression and a lack of creativity. (…) People who live in urban apartments all typically use less electricity at home and less energy at home heating than people who live in larger suburban or rural homes. A single family detached house uses on average 83% more electricity than urban apartments do within the United States. (…) Q: How are cities making us smarter? Glaeser: I think the most important thing cities do today is to allow the creation of new ideas. Chains of collaborative brilliance have always been responsible for human kind’s greatest hits. We have seen this in cities for millennia – Socrates and Plato bickered on an Athenian street corner. (...) It helps us to know each other, learn from each other and to collectively create something great. In some sense, cities are making us more human. Our greatest asset as a species is the ability to learn from the people around us. (...)" - Amira

"These facts are related to the role cities play today, a role very much tied to the generation of information. Globalization and new technologies did make the industrial city obsolete, at least in the West. But they also increased the idea of returns of human capital and innovation. (...) I also want to emphasize that cities are often places of significant and often positive political... more... - Amira

"The Earth Observatory’s mission is to share with the public the images, stories, and discoveries about climate and the environment that emerge from NASA research, including its satellite missions, in-the-field research, and climate models." - Amira from Bookmarklet

"From emotional honeybees to particles flying faster than Einstein's theory of relativity ought to allow, 2011 abounded in findings that posed new questions and expanded frontiers of possibility. Here are Wired Science's favorites." - Amira from Bookmarklet

R. Buckminster Fuller: “Understanding order begins with understanding patterns,” (...) Poet is a very general term for a person who puts things together in an era of great specialization when most people are differentiating or taking things apart. (...) This is why he can describe Einstein and Henry Ford as the greatest poets of the 20th century.” (...) Barry Ptolemy: “First of all we are all patterns of information. Second, the universe has been revealing itself as patterns of information of increasing order since the big bang. From atoms, to molecules, to DNA, to brains, to technology, to us now merging with that technology. (...) Albert-László Barabás: ‘For decades, we assumed that the components of such complex systems as the cell, the society, or the Internet are randomly wired together. In the past decade, an avalanche of research has shown that many real networks, independent of their age, function, and scope, converge to similar architectures, a universality that allowed researchers from different disciplines to embrace network theory as a common paradigm.” (...) - Amira from Bookmarklet

Steven Johnson: “Coral reefs are sometimes called “the cities of the sea”, and part of the argument is that we need to take the metaphor seriously: the reef ecosystem is so innovative because it shares some defining characteristics with actual cities. These patterns of innovation and creativity are fractal: they reappear in recognizable form as you zoom in and out, from molecule to... more... - Amira

“In philosophy of mind, the language of thought hypothesis (LOTH) (...) our thoughts have a language-like structure that is independent of natural language. (...) There is a language of thought, and that it has a more logical form than ordinary natural language. This view has an added bonus: it tells us that, if you want to express yourself more clearly and more effectively in natural language, then you should express yourself in a form that is closer to computational logic - and therefore closer to the language of thought. (...) Thoughts as represented in a “language” (sometimes known as mentalese) that allows complex thoughts to be built up by combining simpler thoughts in various ways. In its most basic form the theory states that thought follows the same rules as language: thought has syntax. (...) LOTH implies that the mind has some tacit knowledge of the logical rules of inference and the linguistic rules of syntax (sentence structure) and semantics (concept or word meaning). (...)" - Amira from Bookmarklet

“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare the observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds.” — Benjamin Lee Whorf http://amiquote.tumblr.com/post... - Amira