Zach Zorich has an interesting piece at Nautilus asking if the world began again, would life as we know it exist? In less than five milliseconds, a Hydromantes salamander can launch its tongue—including the muscles, cartilage, and part of its skeleton—out of its mouth to snag a hapless insect mid-flight. Among amphibians, it is the quick draw … Continue reading If evolution started over, how similar would its results be?
Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices
The TED talk by Ruth Chang gets at some of the points I've made before, namely that reason only carries you so far, and that reason exists to serve intuitive goals. This comes out in hard decisions, when reasoning by itself is often insufficient, and we have to fall back on our innate values, on … Continue reading Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices
SMBC: Surpassing the Turing test in order to assess moral standing
Click through to see the full sized version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
A debate on quantum mechanics interpretations
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." --Niels Bohr "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." --Richard Feynman Quantum mechanics are utterly bizarre. Quantum particles behave like spread out waves, until their position is measured, when they suddenly behave like a particle with definite position. The … Continue reading A debate on quantum mechanics interpretations
BICEP2 team publishes results, backpedals on certainty
The BICEP2 team have officially published their results. They had announced to much fanfare back in March, that they had detected primordial gravitational waves, and hence cosmic inflation. But the results have increasingly been met with doubt, primarily centered on the possibility of interstellar dust causing the observed results. From a New Scientist article on the published paper: It … Continue reading BICEP2 team publishes results, backpedals on certainty
Yog’s Law and Self-Publishing
Michael Dowd on the personification of reality
Michael Dowd is one of the few people with the title of "Reverend" whose views on reality I find interesting. His motto is, "reality is my God, evidence is my scripture." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QeTWVw9Fm4 The other day, I did a post asking what religion is, and wondering whether science wasn't itself a religion. It's hard to listen to … Continue reading Michael Dowd on the personification of reality
Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye, with some Tyson thrown in
This video is just wrong on so many levels. If you haven't seen it yet, you must watch it immediately! (Unless you're at work or something, then almost immediately.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yis7GzlXNM
How our brains store recent memories, cell by single cell — ScienceDaily
An interesting study providing more evidence for the computational theory of mind. Confirming what neurocomputational theorists have long suspected, researchers report that the human brain locks down episodic memories in the hippocampus, committing each recollection to a distinct, distributed fraction of individual cells. via How our brains store recent memories, cell by single cell -- … Continue reading How our brains store recent memories, cell by single cell — ScienceDaily
Transforming ourselves takes a lot less energy than terraforming Mars
Popular Science has a brief article laying out the three steps to terraform Mars. The recipe for creating a habitable planet turns out to be surprisingly simple: Just add water—and atmospheric gases. Mars has both, relics from four billion years ago when the planet was warm and wet. “When it comes to Mars, and only … Continue reading Transforming ourselves takes a lot less energy than terraforming Mars
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