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sensation does not demand consciousness - Wildcat

"As a molecular anthropologist, my research involves using genetic data to address questions of anthropological interest about the origins, history, migration, structure, and relationships of human populations. I frequently am asked to give lectures to nonspecialist audiences on insights from genetics into human evolution, and invariably during the ensuing discussion period the viewpoint will be expressed that while yes, humans may have evolved during the distant past, surely humans have stopped evolving, because of culture: if something changes in our environment, we respond culturally, not biologically. For example, if the ozone layer continues to disappear, and levels of ultraviolet radiation reach life-threatening levels, we will most likely respond by developing protective skin creams and clothing, moving our cities underground, etc., and not by evolving thicker skin or hair. Conversely, many research groups (including my own) have become interested in detecting and analyzing... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

1. Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, 2. The Art of Community by Jono Bacon, 3. The World According to Twitter by David Pogue, 4. Content by Cory Doctorow, 5. Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics — and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of clinical trials." - Alexander Kruel from Bookmarklet

just saw this, brilliant presentation, highly recommended - Wildcat

There are so many examples where most fail miserable within statistics and probability. That's what got me to try to get into math more seriously actually. Just take the famous Monty Hall problem... - Alexander Kruel

" With many renewable energy companies facing hard financial times ("Weeding Out Solar Companies"), a lot of the big energy news this year was coming out of Washington, DC, with massive federal stimulus funding for batteries and renewable energy and programs such as Energy Frontier Research Centers and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy ("A Year of Stimulus for High Tech"). Credit: Roy Ritchie But there was still plenty of action outside the beltway, both in the United States and around the world. One of the most dramatic developments ("Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map") was the rush to exploit a vast new resource; new drilling technologies have made it possible to economically recover natural gas from shale deposits scattered throughout the country, including in Texas and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Advances in drilling technology have increased available natural gas by 39 percent, according to an estimate released in June. The relatively clean-burning fuel... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

Is going to college really worth it? Probably so, but it's not that clear cut, and economics have been arguing the point for 30 years. Most studies tend to show that college-educated people end up making far more money in the course of their lifetimes. (The niggle: Usually, it's not worth paying for a private university.) Still, that evidence isn't totally cut and dry: What do you really learn in college? Is what you learned in college really what's producing the value? Or is it simply the mere fact of having a college degree? Or maybe there's something more subtle going on--that is, people who go to college tend to be more motivated or hard-working and would have ended up succeeding whatever they did? This graph makes a couple points in that debate: 1. Whatever kids are doing in college, it doesn't seem to be about getting an education. (Witness how students spend their hours every week.) 2. Some majors don't really qualify you for much. - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

I can tell. When I've been in vocational school 2007/8 I've noticed. I'm pretty much a geek as I don't party but what struck me is that they now use the media even more than I do. I didn't even know about a lot of those German networks. They even used social networks to communicate within the class during the break. I'm not exaggerating, they've been all (literally) sitting in the class... more... - Alexander Kruel

The sites and services you'll be telling the grandkids about - Wildcat from Amplify

"At 11 p.m. on Dec. 27, I checked my inbox out of habit. I had 581 new e-mails. All had been sent between 8 and 11 p.m. The days between Christmas and New Year's are not usually a busy time for e-mailing. What was going on? It turns out that the home page for msn.com had linked to a short article I had published a year earlier. In the article, I argue that we should stop teaching cursive in primary schools and provide some background on the history of handwriting to back up my claims." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"In the 18 December 2009 issue, the editors and news staff of Science look back at the big science stories of the past 12 months and dub one of them the Breakthrough of the Year. A special section showcases the top breakthrough and the nine runners-up, rates last year's predictions, and forecasts areas to watch in 2010. Science Careers profiles two young researchers involved in this year's Breakthrough achievement and a video presentation and special edition of the Science Podcast round out the special section." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime written by Jean-François Lyotard" - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"For years, cardiologists were aware that heart attacks are more common during the winter months than in any other season. Most assumed that the cause was cold weather. But then researchers in California examined death certificates in Los Angeles County, an area not known for its inclement winters, and found that, even there, fatal heart attacks spiked during the winter months. More specifically, they started rising around Thanksgiving, climbed inexorably through Christmas and peaked on New Year’s Day. A subsequent study of death certificates nationwide, published in Circulation in 2004, confirmed the association between the two holidays and heart-attack deaths. It was accompanied by a cheery editorial headlined “The ‘Merry Christmas Coronary’ and ‘Happy New Year Heart Attack’ Phenomenon.”" - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"A Perfect Pill: From Neurons to Nirvana is a smart-looking, in-depth analysis and commentary on psychedelic drugs in light of current scientific, medical and cultural knowledge." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

Bill has tried to extract EEG information in order to simulate BrainPaintings. To his amazement, he can not recreate the beauty generated from the power of the brain. - Tristan Hambling from Bookmarklet

beautiful.. - Wildcat

Social entrepreneurs around the world have shown that technology can solve a lot of problems, from delivering affordable health care to providing access to clean water and electricity. Fortunately, their achievements have inspired new waves of innovation in the social sector. We’ve seen a lot of exciting new products targeting base-of-pyramid customers and original business models for delivering these innovations to communities. Despite these success stories, technology is not universally effective; technology only solves problems when designed and implemented properly. Why do some technologies fall short of maximizing their impact? And how can entrepreneurs get it right? - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"The science of cognitive enhancement is evolving, which means the business of cognitive enhancement is evolving. Supplying cognitive enhancement to the masses can be viewed through the lens of any commodities marketplace. Human experience is already commoditized through drugs that pack mood and performance into portable units — pills or doses — that can be easily traded and consumed, and the drug market is one of the biggest on the planet. The same can be said for audio and visual experience. The platforms and hardware for trading audiovisual experience — TVs, computers, media players, telecomm, cell phones, software — are huge markets with influence over every facet of our lives. The media and drug markets are built upon the ideal of commoditizing consumer moods and experiences. The cognitive enhancement industry is now poised to undergo a similar market revolution." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"This expansive, open age of digital information challenges the traditions of scholarship, learning, and even the act of reading. So what will be the fate of higher education in the digital age?" An important understanding concerning the changing face of higher education, we need more panels of this kind to fully realize the revolution taking place. - Wildcat from Amplify

"Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies say they have gained new insights into how humans make strategic decisions that affect their health, wealth and the fate of others in society. Their study, published this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accomplished when the scientists applied the mathematical techniques used in physics to describe the complex interplay of genes and proteins that colonies of bacteria rely upon to initiate different survival strategies during times of environmental stress. Using the mathematical tools of theoretical physics and chemistry to describe complex biological systems is becoming more commonplace in the emerging field of theoretical biological physics. The authors of the new study are theoretical physicists and chemists at the University of California, San Diego's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, the nation's... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"Again to think the cosmological cascade of Dark Vitallism in these terms we start with the following: Real – Immanence – Sense – Transcendence and translate it for the realm of thinking (and to borrow from Zizek: ) unknown unknowns - known unknowns – known knowns – unKnown knowns Previously I designated the following operators: Real—(Matter)—Immanence—(Life)—Sense—(Pathology)—Transcendence This schema is from an embodied or phenomenological point of view. This might also be taken to be a flattened ontology taken from an materialist (and not realist) point of view. To take a step back, to take a particularly realist point of view a different set of operators is required. From an epistemological point we could set up the following operators: Real—(Concept)—Immanence—(Process)—Sense—(Object)—Transcendence The unknown unknowns are what lie before the bare minimum of conceptualization following from the void of the Real, what could be designated as (borrowing from Badiou) being qua being.... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

important.. - Wildcat from Amplify

"Part of the London Science Museum’s Dana Centre Tech Know series of books, “Enhancing Me: The hope and the hype of enhancement” looks set to make a thoughtful and useful contribution to the enhancement debate. The aim of the Tech Know series is to bring the reader up to speed with the most thought provoking issues of the day and in doing so initiate further interest in the subject. On the basis of these criteria, “Enhancing Me” passes with flying colours. The book is an extremely interesting and engaging read, helped most by the fact that it documents a journey of discovery by the author himself. Whilst no novice to science (Moore is a freelance science writer and a university tutor in science communication), he openly writes in the introduction that the focus of the book will be his journey of exploring enhancement and differentiating between the hope and the hype. This being the case, he skilfully assumes nothing on the part of the reader’s knowledge and understanding and yet at... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"In this book, I attempt to cover a discursive and existential territory of the opposed modes of self-comprehension and identity. Focus is on the troubled identity, that is, an identity that constantly needs the assurance and confirmation. The task of this study is if not to cover an immense territory of, as Zygmunt Bauman would say, the unholy trinity of modernity—uncertainty, unsafety, and insecurity, then at least to enter and partly explore it. The central themes and main foci of the book are competing memories, the will-to-remember versus the will-to-forget, nationalism and patriotism, ambiguous person, fear and hatred of the modern world; anti-Semitism and other antimodernist obsessions, fanaticism, the loss of roots, the decline of the public domain; the new forms of wandering in the world, and forgeries of historical and cultural identity." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"Psychologists have many ways to get inside our heads: they can give us questionnaires, track our eyes, time how long we take to respond to cues and measure the blood flow to our brains. But how close can these methods get to the texture of our inner lives?" - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

read it again, my, phrenology has come a long way ... "I would like to see the way the world is without having a theory about it.” ... crikey, how about letting go of your one-way method? - Gregory Lent

"I wonder how long it will be before we get our first head of a government department who initially came into the orbit of the public service as an ''online Web 2.0 volunteer''. - Wildcat

"Whether you believe that evolution gave rise to our species from a primordial soup, or that we were manifest on this earth by some divine creator, the fact remains that humanity has progressed an immense distance to where we are today, which many regard as a pivotal moment in our journey. The pace of change in all aspects of our lives is accelerating, bringing with it a greater frequency of ‘paradigm shifting’ events (i.e. those events which shape the future direction of our entire species). Renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil illustrated the speed of these changes by looking at the time between paradigm-shifting events in our history (source): * From the time humans emerged, to basic art and proto-writing, 69900 years * From the emergence of this basic art (cave painting) to agriculture 16600 years * From agriculture to fire 8200 years * From the wheel to democracy 2470 years * From the industrial revolution to the advent of modern physics, 125 years It is clear to see that the pace increases dramatically, even over these long time periods. To take more recent examples:" - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

I actually created this map more than a year ago, and it appears that it demands some adjustments and new categories - Wildcat

what do you mean, your position? - Wildcat

"Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War. Here are the top ten forecasts for 2010 and beyond. 1. Your phone will tell you when you’re in love. Mobile devices are enabling new spontaneous connections in real-world settings, including love connections. One day soon, your phone will play matchmaker, recommending that you introduce yourself to someone nearby whose online profile displays tastes or passions similar to yours. Impossible? An iPhone application called Serendipity is currently being commercialized by MIT researchers. —Erica Orange, “Mining Information from the Data Clouds,” July-Aug 2009, p. 17 2. In the design economy of the future, people will download and print their own products, including auto... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

5. Micronations built on artificial islands will dramatically shift the face of global politics. New forms of government and unusual political models will begin to emerge, including corporate nation-states, religious states, tax-free zones, single-function countries, cause-related countries, and even rental nation-states, where organizations can “rent a country” for a year or two to... more... - Wildcat

"The beautiful tapestry of filaments, sheets and voids in the Cosmic Web is proving harder to model than anybody thought" - Alexander Kruel from Bookmarklet

sheer poetry.. - Wildcat

"How do you design a society for the really long term? There are a couple of levels to consider: notably, decision-making and economics. And it doesn’t look as if we’ve got any good solutions to either. Generation starships: they’re not fast. If you can crank yourself up to 1% of light-speed, alpha centauri is more than four and a half centuries away at cruising speed. To put it in perspective, that’s the same span of time that separates us from the Conquistadores and the Reformation; it’s twice the lifespan of the United States of America. We humans are really bad at designing institutions that outlast the life expectancy of a single human being. The average democratically elected administration lasts 3-8 years; public corporations last 30 years; the Leninist project lasted 70 years (and went off the rails after a decade). The Catholic Church, the Japanese monarchy, and a few other institutions have lasted more than a millennium, but they’re all almost unrecognizably different.... more... - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

"Contrary to popular belief, some very smart, accomplished people cannot read well. This unexpected difficulty in reading in relation to intelligence, education and professional status is called dyslexia, and researchers at Yale School of Medicine and University of California Davis, have presented new data that explain how otherwise bright and intelligent people struggle to read. The study, which will be published in the January 1, 2010 issue of the journal Psychological Science, provides a validated definition of dyslexia. "For the first time, we've found empirical evidence that shows the relationship between IQ and reading over time differs for typical compared to dyslexic readers," said Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D., the Audrey G. Ratner Professor in Learning Development at Yale School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics, and co-director of the newly formed Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

The Internet is different. It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods. - Wildcat

The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire. The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication. - Wildcat