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POPSSingular Sensations "At a certain point in the future, probably within the next few decades, the smarter, faster, smarter, faster cycle will have allowed us to remake aspects of our world -- and, potentially, ourselves -- in ways that would astonish, confuse, and maybe even frighten earlier generations. To those of us imagining this point in the future, it's a dramatic transformation; to those folks living through that future point, it's the banality of the everyday."
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POPSThe coming famine "In light of all these hurdles, as I see it, the challenge is to double world food output by 2050 using less land, far less water and fewer nutrients – all in the teeth of increasing rates of drought. And we need to do it sustainably." "I believe we are quite capable of solving these issues through good science and good policy. In the first instance, we need to massively increase global public investment in agricultural research and development. Then we need to make sure the fruits of that research reach farmers everywhere. I also think that commercial wild harvests, such as fishing and forestry, should be phased out in favour of sustainable farming that dovetails with the local environment."
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POPSEnzymes made to order Making enzymes is a tricky business. Even the names of the techniques sound mind-boggling, with the process involving a mix of 'quantum mechanical computation', 'advanced protein engineering' and 'directed evolution'. while naturally occurring enzymes speed reaction rates by many billion (or even trillion) fold, the synthetic enzymes gave more conservative boosts – around 100,000 fold. "The acceleration is really rather modest by comparison to Nature," admits Houk – but it's still incredibly exciting
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POPSLogical Fallacies of Creationists and How to Spot Them THE ACHILLES' HEAL FALLACY They carbon-dated a snail and it turned out to be 25,000 years old! Carbon dating is totally unreliable! THE AD HOMINEM ATTACK You have been blinded by Satan, and you are a creature of the devil. Neither you nor what you say can be trusted. You will rot in Hell for your ways THE RED HERRING Evolution is impossible because the Big Bang is a totally unacceptable theory because it defies the word of our loving Creator, He who sent His only Son, our Lord to...
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POPSThe Pirate Bay to sue anti-piracy agencies? The Pirate Bay showed that emails leaked from media defenders servers clearly showed that the company had launched illegal denial of service attack on the pirate bay’s servers, engaged in illegal hacking and repeatedly flooded them with spam. Funny ???
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POPSTrading Algorithms Profit from Mood Swings If other traders are being aggressive – for example, by attempting to undercut others – it raises its game to trade even more aggressively. If trading is less competitive, the software acts less aggressively and calmly aims for the biggest profits available. Secondly, the software can also use past market trends to try to forecast future conditions. If a period of volatility seems likely, the software changes its behaviour more frequently, meaning it is more likely to be ready to exploit any sudden switches in conditions. "The majority of share trading in Europe is now handled by algorithms," says Richard Balarkas, CEO of Instinet Europe a leading algorithmic trading firm. Trading software that is able to read and respond to market behaviour like a human is very desirable, he says
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POPSMore Evidence for a Revolutionary Theory of Water The current study is the most recent addition to a growing body of evidence for a new theory about the structure of liquid water. In 2004, Nilsson and colleagues sparked controversy with a paper published in Science that suggested the tetrahedral model of water was incorrect. Nilsson agrees that the debate is far from settled and that much work remains before a clear picture of liquid water emerges. "Over the last decade or so we have discovered that materials once considered homogeneous exhibit complex nanoscale order," said Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory director Jo Stöhr. "In my view, the work on water is yet another example of the actual complexity of matter, this time within a simple liquid. Modern X-ray work appears to be triggering a new understanding of liquids and we may have only seen the beginning of a paradigm shift in our understanding."
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POPSAsteroid Impacts On Earth: A Protection Plan Indeed, over billions of years, the Tree of Life here on Earth has been whacked time and time again by what Schweickart labeled as “the crazy cosmic gardener.” “The good news is that we can do something about this,” the former astronaut explained. “The marriage of we human beings and the machines that we’ve created are now at a level of capability which enables us to fire the crazy cosmic gardener. We can stop this process from occurring again.”
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POPSIntuition can be explained However, these memories are stored only if they affect us. In other words, for experience to be built up, there must be commitment. This means, according to Lars-Erik Björklund, that we can never read or calculate our way to all the knowledge and abilities we need in our professional life. Practical experience is indispensable and needs to be reevaluated.
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POPSA Really Long Strange Trip Despite the long-held promise that such substances might reveal the secrets of the conscious mind, the study of hallucinogenic compounds has always been controversial. Once a thriving area of research, projects like these ground to a halt in the late 1960s when a media frenzy over rampant recreational use led the federal government to criminalize both psilocybin and LSD.
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POPSA Giant Solar Tower Could Power the Future On a sunny day, the air at the top of the tower would be 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), whereas the air in the greenhouse could reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius). As this hot air escapes up the tower at 34 mph (15 meters per second), it spins 32 turbines that generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity. Even with all this power, the solar tower is less than one tenth as efficient as solar cells in converting the sun's energy into electricity. The advantage for a solar tower is that its materials are much less expensive.
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POPSIs Helium 3 Exploitation China's Hidden Lunar Agenda? UN Treaties in place state that the moon and its minerals are the common heritage of mankind, so the quest to use Helium-3 as an energy source would likely demand joint international co-operation. Hopefully, exploitation of the moon's resources will be viewed as a solution for the world, rather than an out-moded nation-state solution.
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POPSHomosexual behavior due to genetics and environmental factors “Overall, genetics accounted for around 35 per cent of the differences between men in homosexual behavior and other individual-specific environmental factors (that is, not societal attitudes, family or parenting which are shared by twins) accounted for around 64 per cent. In other words, men become gay or straight because of different developmental pathways, not just one pathway.” For women, genetics explained roughly 18 per cent of the variation in same-sex behavior, non-shared environment roughly 64 per cent and shared factors, or the family environment, explained 16 per cent. The study shows that genetic influences are important but modest, and that non-shared environmental factors, which may include factors operating during fetal development, dominate.
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POPS'Mind's eye' influences visual perception The new findings offer an objective tool to assess the often-slippery concept of imagination. This is an interesting and fascinating experiment. It is perhaps a far shot but this may point towards the roots of human's ability and inclination to envision a future reality and than change the world around to fit this reality.
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POPSCrossed (evolutionary) signals? Animals depend on tyrosine phosphorylation to conduct a number of important communications between their cells, including immune system responses, hormone system stimulation and other crucial functions. These phospho-tyrosine signaling pathways utilize a three-part system of molecular components to make these communications possible.
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POPSBaby to be born free of breast cancer after embryo screening This case of genetic intervention for the elimination of genetic diseases, is a ground breaking first that may change our world and our ethical outlook. Many more will follow. I was quite surprised to read the following: "Some critics say it is wrong to destroy embryos because there is only a chance women with the gene may develop breast cancer in adulthood. They argue that, increasingly, breast cancer can also be successfully treated. " The said "embryos" are 3 days old lumps of undifferentiated cells.
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POPSYour brain lies to you This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true. With time, this misremembering gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.
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POPSA Quark Star? Super-luminous Stellar Explosion Observed Quarks are the fundamental components of protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus of atoms. The most dense objects known to exist today are neutron stars--stars composed entirely of tightly packed neutrons. A typical neutron star is some 16 miles across, yet has a mass one and a half times the mass of our Sun. The question is, is a neutron star indeed the most dense object that exists? It is thought that if the neutrons are too tightly packed--if what scientists consider a neutron star is too dense--the resulting instability may lead to a further collapse, resulting in a second explosion and the creation of a quark star. The energy that powers that second explosion comes from neutrons breaking down into their component parts: quarks.
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POPSWhat It's Like To Be A Bat Researchers are able to draw correlations between how bats and humans process information to perform functions. Both are mammals having the same basic brain organization, which leads to obvious comparisons.
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POPSGet Out of Your Own Way Conscious thought may well be largely overrated according to some of these studies. Alternatively, however, perhaps we do not fully understand the function of consciousness. For example, perhaps it is important in reflective thought which is not time bound and goal oriented. Some of our most profound thought processes of self description and self definition, might be of such kind. At any case, in matters of clear cut decision making and choice, consciousness seems to be more of a disturbing factor than anything else.
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POPSFluoride of the Future: Population Level Cognitive Enhancement It seems likely that widespread population level cognitive enhancement will be irresistible. Studies based on removing lead, which reduces cognitive ability, from the water and paint, have estimated that a 3 point IQ increase would lead to: Poverty rate -25% Males in jail -25% High school dropouts -28% Parentless children -20% Welfare recipiency -18% Out-of-wedlock births -15%
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POPSRight and wrong lessons from biology The opposite view stresses that evolution is an extremely effective way of searching parameter space, and that in consequence is that we should assume that biological design solutions are likely to be close to optimal for the environment for which they’ve evolved. Where these design solutions seem odd from our point of view, their unfamiliarity is to be ascribed to the different ways in which physics works at the nanoscale. At its most extreme, this view regards biological nanotechnology, not just as the existence proof for nanotechnology, but as an upper limit on its capabilities.
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