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POPSPrenatal tests. from the article: "If a prenatal test for autism becomes available, should medical science be used to 'cure' the condition?"
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POPSA Moment Of Tooth Tooth story :) what i find as most interesting is the question of how the myth/symbolic meaning involved will be affected by the technological advancement. I see it as a metaphor of the tension that humanity is facing.
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POPSFearing failure An interesting read. courage has many layers one of them is the ability to look straight and face value oneself, without this one will forever remain the same.
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POPSSuddenly a mundane interaction becomes memorable "I don't like heights," Feather said. "The first couple weeks I was here . . . I would get to the edge of some of these things, and my stomach would turn. Now I jump off . . . just because I can. You crash land, get up off our stomach and dust yourself off."
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POPSIn Africa- The cellphone is the single most transformative technology for development" "Democratic Republic of Congo, with a population of 60 million, there are just 10,000 fixed-line telephones, but more than one million mobile subscribers. In Chad, the fifth-least-developed country in Africa, usage jumped from 10,000 to 200,000 in three years. At the end of 2007 there were more than 280 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration rate of 30.4%." "now they can call around and know what the prices are. They can call their relatives in town, for example, and ask how much is a bunch of bananas, so they get an idea of what the price is for their produce"
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POPSAn evolved tendency to care about cheating? "Why does an image of a pair of eyes motivate cooperative behaviour? While it is possible that the eyes were simply more effective than the flowers at attracting people's attention to the notice, we do not believe that this is the explanation for our findings. The participants had all been informed prior to the experiment that they were supposed to pay for their drinks. Furthermore, the notice was positioned such that it was not possible that anyone making drinks would fail to see it, irrespective of the image displayed. Instead, we believe that images of eyes motivate cooperative behaviour because they induce a perception in participants of being watched. Although participants were not actually observed in either of our experimental conditions, the human perceptual system contains neurons that respond selectively to stimuli involving faces and eyes" "reputational concerns may be extremely powerful in motivating cooperative behaviour."
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POPSOrangutan rides a jetski "So we discovered wearing children's lifejackets helps to give them confidence. Now some of them can even swim without their life jackets." Is this not one of the definition for intelligence? getting over basic instincts through education and learning.
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POPSClassrooms will not look or be the same in the future "Unlike lectures, games can be adapted to the pace of the user," Mayo writes. "Games also simultaneously present information in multiple visual and auditory modes, which capitalizes on different learning styles." While no one is saying that an experience akin to Call of Duty or World of Warcraft will ever replace more traditional lessons, research into the effectiveness of video games as learning tools indicates that classrooms of the future will certainly include a virtual component.
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POPSDifferent conflicts demand different resolutions The first interesting result was that offering money or material goods in exchange for sacred ones did not make the sacred goods less valuable but more. Expressions of anger and disgust and of the willingness to use violence actually rose among moral absolutists when a deal involving giving up some sacred value was sweetened with material incitements, the second, more optimistic, result was that the absolutists who rejected with contumely the offer of profane money (or peace) for sacred landwould accept deals that involved their enemies giving up things that they considered sacred . The paper cites both Israeli and Hamas leaders saying that they could make peace if only the other side would apologise for 1948, or recognise formally Israel's right to exist. Demanding this kind of wholly intangible mutual surrender of pride makes no sense on a utilitarian calculus, and yet it may be the only thing to unlock the situation.
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POPSIt is not the dope, it's the dopamine :) I think this finding is interesting in the light of the latest and fast growing body of experimental results in neuroscience; finding correlation (some are straight forward, and not very complex) of so called unique attributes to genetics and physiology. this might carry with it a fundamental perceptual change. first we learned that the earth is not the center, than we realized that the human emergence is part of a bigger continuum (evolution that is) and now we come to know that one own psyche is not unique...
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POPS"Hey Facebook, breast feeding is not obscene". though i do not understand why woman would like to publish photos of them breastfeeding, i most certainly do not agree a dumb to the letter policy that facebook is following. The web should stay open for different ways of expression even if some does not fully fall under ones description of tastefulness
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POPS137,228 is the answer The human-generated electricity will deliver enough juice to keep the bulbs blazing during the televised portion of the evening’s broadcast, or about 15 minutes. Afterward, the sign will revert to the utility grid for power for the remainder of the night. The numerical display isn’t the only New Year’s Eve sign in Times Square getting a green makeover: This year’s dropping ball, made of crystal triangles and illuminated by 32,256 LED bulbs, is 20 percent more energy-efficient than last year’s glowing sphere. Gre(en)at idea :)
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POPS"Innerspace" the artistic landscapes of nano-scale worlds Most artists use a paintbrush or a camera, but Michael Oliveri sometimes prefers a scanning electron microscope. The University of Georgia digital media professor finds inspiration in science, from organic chemistry to space exploration. In his recent project "Innerspace," he explores the landscapes of nano-scale worlds where objects are up to 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. beautiful. The samples Oliveri captures come from University of Georgia materials scientist Zhengwei Pan, who creates nanowires and other puny structures that may one day lead to miniscule electronics. Pan heats metals up to temps so hellish that they turn into vapor. Then the metals settle down to form rods, spheres and other shapes. Oliveri combines up to 40 smaller images to create his panoramas, which resemble familiar cornfields and underwater vistas.
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POPSLess killing, more kissing "Nintendo brought casual gaming mainstream with the Wii and DS consoles. Facebook games are of Nintendo quality but add the compelling social aspect of playing with your friends and family across the internet." "Games have been popular activities since the beginning of civilisation. began as a social activity, a form of play, interaction, connection and sharing. On Facebook they have come full circle, using the latest technologies to connect us with each other and have fun doing it."
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POPSDarwin is an ethical inspiration Freud's explanation in 1920 was that "humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realised that our earth was not the centre of the universe ... The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world". One wonders how long it took for Copernicus to be treated with respect; one scholar of Darwin suggested it could be another couple of centuries before we can forgive the man. very interesting quotation of Freud; i do agree that both scholars represent 2 major revolutions in the very definition of what is a human.
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POPS24H world Air Traffic i was sent by a friend this video, which i find fascinating. You could also tell it was summer time in the north by the suns foot print over the planet. You could see that it didn't quite set in the extreme north and it didn't quite rise in the extreme south. With this 24 hour observation of aircraft travel on the earth's surface we get to see the daylight pattern move as well.
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POPSMystery Of Hexagonal Column Formations Solved With Kitchen Materials nice piece. specially the way once we as humans invented figures such as giants, gods etc. to solve questions that seemed puzzling to our perception. and today we introduce a different method of explaining which creates a different coherency and replaces the old notions of godly powers and the like.
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POPSA new hobby- Biohackers interesting story, i find it pointing to the shifting balance of knowledge, from central locations to the periphery. it is A big change. the high level of availability enables an individual somewhere to make a difference.
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POPSHoney Bees On Cocaine Dance More, yet not out of control "Because cocaine causes honey bees to dance more – an altruistic behavior – the researchers believe their results support the idea that there is a reward system in the insect brain, something that has never before been shown. To determine whether the cocaine was merely causing the bees to move more or to dance at inappropriate times or places, the researchers conducted a second set of experiments. These tests showed that non-foraging honey bees don't dance, even when exposed to cocaine. They showed that foragers on cocaine do not move more than other bees (except when dancing), and that they do not dance at inappropriate times or in locations other than the dance floor." "And, most important, their dances are not distorted. "It's not like they're gyrating wildly on the dance floor out of control," Robinson said. "This is a patterned response."
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POPSRethinking science and religion "But at the same time, we have uncovered profound mysteries - dark matter and dark energy, for example, 95 percent (!) of the cosmic order but of unknown character - and these awaken a tangible sense of humility: We do not know it all. Today, religious people have cause to rejoice. The god of the gaps may be dead, but spiritual life is reinvigorated because God is no longer just the perfunctory explanation for mystery. God is the author of wonder." i think that behind science wonder exists, its parallel in religion is bewilderment.
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