I’ve often tried to articulate what Scalzi managed in the title, “Don’t Live For Your Obituary.” I would also add not to worry about those death bed regrets we always hear warnings about. We’ll spend a limited time on our death bed and a lot more time in our life. We should spend it doing … Continue reading Don’t Live For Your Obituary
Category: Zeitgeist
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. This seemed tangentially related to my post about HuffPost's new commenting policy and subsequent discussion. If you're not already reading Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, you're missing out on a lot of awesome philosophical insight with an often hilarious bent. Click through to read the rest. Related articles Zach Weiner makes his … Continue reading Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
When Will We Build the Starship Enterprise? | Seth Shostak
What if we could send humans anywhere at the speed of light, and at a rock-bottom price? That's eminently feasible if we send the information and not the protoplasm. No crew, just code. Consider: The human genome consists of about 3.3 billion base pairs. Since there are only four types of pair, that amounts to … Continue reading When Will We Build the Starship Enterprise? | Seth Shostak
The self as brain: Disturbing implications of neuroexistentialism.
Patricia Churchland, a neurophilosopher at the University of California at San Diego, says our hopes, loves and very existence are just elaborate functions of a complicated mass of grey tissue. Accepting that can be hard, but what we know should inspire us, not scare us. Her most recent book is Touching a Nerve: The Self … Continue reading The self as brain: Disturbing implications of neuroexistentialism.
God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer
God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can't Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer. Jeff Schweitzer's post bemoaning the problems in society caused by religion is getting a lot of attention around the web. Schweitzer blames religion for the battles on teaching evolution in schools, the denial of climate change, and the anti-vaccine movement. I … Continue reading God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer
Optical illusion: Shades of grey.
What’s the illusion, you ask? Those two vertical lozenge-shapes are the same shade! Don’t believe me? Good! It’s always best to check things like this out for yourself. One way is to put your finger across the middle, blocking the part where they meet. When you do that, boom! You can see they’re the same … Continue reading Optical illusion: Shades of grey.
Biologists continue to debate genes versus gene expression
PZ Myers has posted his views on David Dobb's Aeon article: That’s the peril of a historically successful, productive research program. We get locked in to a model; there is the appeal of being able to use solid, established protocols to gather lots of publishable data, and to keep on doing it over and over. … Continue reading Biologists continue to debate genes versus gene expression
Soyuz Videos
Not sure how I missed these videos before, but if you haven't seen them yet, and you're interested in how Soyuz launch and reentry works, they are awesome! Until NASA either get the Space Launch System deployed or private ventures succeed at developing something, the Russian Soyuz, which has been in use by Russia for … Continue reading Soyuz Videos
David Dobbs mucks up evolution, part II « Why Evolution Is True
David Dobbs mucks up evolution, part II « Why Evolution Is True. The second part of Jerry Coyne's response to David Dobb's Aeon piece on the problems with the selfish gene metaphor. Be sure to read Dobb's extended response in the comment section. Maybe I'm misreading, but Dobb's appears to be backpedaling significantly from the … Continue reading David Dobbs mucks up evolution, part II « Why Evolution Is True
David Dobbs mucks up evolution, part I « Why Evolution Is True
At any rate, Dobb’s goal is several fold. First, he wants to claim that the metaphor of the selfish gene is wrong. Second, he wants to show that it’s wrong because new understanding of gene regulation—how genes turn on and off during development—render the selfish gene metaphor passé. Finally, he claims that a new theory, … Continue reading David Dobbs mucks up evolution, part I « Why Evolution Is True
SelfAwarePatterns 