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POPSAncient Blueprints of Calculus Uncovered in Archimedes Text Details have been released from the nine-year-long reconstruction project to recover the Greek mathematician's writings from this one-of-a-kind find and the results are fascinating. Buried beneath the surface of this gilded palimpsest, researchers discovered more extensive demonstrations of concepts such as infinite series, approximations, limits, and integral calculus than had been known to exist in ancient times. Archimedes wrote The Method almost two thousand years before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz developed calculus in the 1700s. Reviel Netz, an historian of mathematics at Stanford University who transcribed the text, says that the examination of Archimedes' work has revealed "a new twist on the entire trajectory of Western mathematics."
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POPSClues to Why We Dream at All ... In a recent paper in Psychological Bulletin, Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Levin proposed that dreaming served to create what they call “fear extinction memories,” the brain’s way of scrambling, detoxifying and finally discarding old fearful memories, the better to move on and make synaptic space for any novel threats that may show up at the door. “The brain learns quickly what to be afraid of,” Dr. Nielsen said. “But if there isn’t a check on the process, we’d fear things in adulthood we feared in childhood.” Ordinary bad dreams rarely recapitulate unpleasant events from real life but instead cannibalize them for props and spare parts, and through that reinvention, Dr. Nielsen explained, the fears are defanged. “A bad dream that doesn’t lead to awakening is successful in dealing with intense emotion,” he said. “It’s disturbing, but there is some kind of resolution to the extent we don’t wake up.” ...
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POPSCulture influences brain function “Everyone uses the same attention machinery for more difficult cognitive tasks, but they are trained to use it in different ways, and it's the culture that does the training,”
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POPSCould Jupiter wreck the solar system?
"So what's the likelihood Mercury could crash into the Earth? If it did, the asteroid that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs will seem like a drop in the ocean compared with a planet 4880 km in diameter slamming into us. There will be very little left after this wrecking ball impact. But here's the kicker: There is only a 1% chance that these gravitational instabilities of the inner Solar System are likely to cause any kind of chaos before the Sun turns into a Red Giant and swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in 7 billion years time. So, no need to look out for death-wish Mercury quite yet… there's a very low chance that any of this will happen. But some good news for Mars; the researchers have also found that if the chaos does ensue, the Red Planet may be flung out of the Solar System, possibly escaping our expanding Sun. So, let's get those Mars colonies started! Well, within the next few billions of years anyhow…" Good stuff for the next science-fiction movie :-)
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POPSA Holocaust Photo Essay This photo essay is part of a compilation of photos, documents and other information related to the Holocaust. Go to source for captions and photo credits that accompany these photos, and for the other documents and links provided. Last night I watched two parts of an excellent PBS series "Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State", which is a chronological exploration of the largest mass murder site in history. Information about that series can be found here , with a link that allows you to check for local listings by zip code, state or territory if you live in the US. I watched it in Canada on our PBS station.
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POPSAnimal senses humans don't have You might think you're smart, but none of your senses rival the keenest abilities in the animal world. Animals see in the dark, sniff prey miles away, and detect electrical output from muscle twitches in hidden meals. Read on, so you don't become one of those meals.<<
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