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POPSi-Aroma The company has already launched a scent-producing store signage system, piloted a mobile fragrance communication system and premiered smell-enhanced movies in Japanese theaters. With the i-Aroma, a more personal olfactory experience is on the way for volunteers lucky enough to be involved in the trial
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POPSMediastorm Each photograph represents a different project and a different story...
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POPSThis is the rhythm of the heart.. "investigators did find subconscious reflex autonomous responses. Almost every musical crescendo induced progressive skin vasoconstriction along with increases in blood pressure and heart rate. Correlations between cardiovascular variables and music profile were particularly evident during the aria "Nessun dorma," which is characterized by 3 progressively stronger crescendos. "We found that there were a lot of correspondences, particularly during the part of the musical track that has those crescendos," said Dr. Bernardi. Conversely, during the slower or silent phases, there was progressive skin vasodilation and reductions in heart rate and blood pressure, indicating progressive relaxation."
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POPSEvo Psych "Like other critics, he has no doubt that evolution shaped the human brain. How could it be otherwise, when evolution has shaped every other human organ? But evo psych's claims that human behavior is constrained by mental modules that calcified in the Stone Age make sense "only if the environmental challenges remain static enough to sculpt an instinct over evolutionary time," Pigliucci points out. If the environment, including the social environment, is instead dynamic rather than static—which all evidence suggests—then the only kind of mind that makes humans evolutionarily fit is one that is flexible and responsive, able to figure out a way to make trade-offs, survive, thrive and reproduce in whatever social and physical environment it finds itself in"
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POPSFixing My Gaze
"It is hard to imagine the dramatic nature of the sudden epiphany that stereoblind people have if they gain stereopsis, as when Barry saw the steering wheel floating before her. Stereoblind people perceive the world in two dimensions, as a flat display; they judge distance and depth by such cues as size, shading, and the partial obscuring of one object by another. They have to develop these techniques in childhood because they suppress the information coming from one of their eyes, since the data from both eyes fail to match. Nothing in the experience of the stereoblind can prepare them for what stereoscopic vision is like. If they get it, the experience can be overwhelming; it can even cause vertigo, as happened to Barry, and sensations of travel-sickness." "It is a pleasant and optimistic thought indeed, that at any point in life we might, if determined enough, be able to fix things, improve, mend, and grow in positive ways: even to see more clearly, and not just with our eyes."
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POPSGod or Darwin? some statistics... though i used the same headline as the article, i do not agree to it. Evolution is not equal to religion and they are merely two different perspectives of the same reality. Each one portrays a different worldview, a different world, a different view. the direction in religion is one of preservation, maintaining the existing order as it , whilst in evolution the dynamics are in constant motion of exploring new orders which by nature are transitory.
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POPSUrbanDictionary "Why would so many kids want to give up their jargon? Maybe they’re chasing a “neologasm,” which was the Word of the Day on Jan. 14: “the pleasurable feeling from having coined a new word.” urbandictionary.com
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POPSTheory and actuation I find it as a nice example of the need always to look for ways to test one theory of... Only then will clarity arise above the unmediated unchallenged and largely unsupported knowledge one has about the world and herself.
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POPSMonkey see, monkey do... "These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality. De Waal sees human morality as having grown out of primate sociality, but with two extra levels of sophistication. People enforce their society's moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. They also apply a degree of judgment and reason, for which there are no parallels in animals." Natural selection favors organisms that survive and reproduce, by whatever means. And it has provided people, he writes in "Primates and Philosophers," with "a compass for life's choices that takes the interests of the entire community into account, which is the essence of human morality."
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POPSHead Scarf Emerges as Indonesia Political Symbol Golkar Party officials rejected accusations by the president’s party that they were trying to exploit Islam for politics; they also denied having anything to do with the recent distribution of leaflets that stated, falsely, that Boediono’s wife was not Muslim, but Roman Catholic. The fundamentalists are trying to force women to wear the jilbab as an act of submission, and had already done so in various municipalities across the Indonesian archipelago in recent years, Ms. Neng said. For the progressives, she said, wearing the jilbab was an expression of a woman’s right. “For women in Indonesia, whether they want to wear the jilbab or not is their choice,” said Ms. Neng, who started wearing one five years ago. “It shouldn’t be political.”
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POPSUnderstanding does not diminish Awe "The religious experience is, at best, a stunted variety of this feeling. Awe without understanding, or at least the desire for understanding, degenerates into mysticism: viewing a mystery not as a challenge to be solved, but something to be worshipped for its own sake. Mysticism states that ignorance is a desirable condition, a state we should glory in. This attitude only keeps us frightened and ignorant, and worst of all, robs us of the deeper and more genuine awe that comes with comprehension. I say, let us explore. There may be problems too high or too deep for us, mysteries we cannot penetrate - but so far, we haven't found any, and if there are any, they will not need to be protected from our investigations."
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POPSA Moved Mover An interesting account that names and refute all arguments favoring a godly existence of any sort. ... As David Hume wrote over 200 years ago in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, "What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe?"
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POPSA game for life "The challenge is to learn enough about the brain changes induced by different technologies and types of games in order to be able to guide them, enhancing functions that result in a functional and behavioral advantage for each individual. If done properly, the motivating, almost addictive, nature of these technologies, may actually prove a very valuable ally to achieve desired goals in education, medical treatment, and rehabilitation." I do agree to the point that it is up to us, humans, to pour the meaning into the availability that is technology.
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POPSBrain could adapt well to cyborg enhancements Farné says the same kind of brain "plasticity" might be involved in regaining control of a transplanted hand or a prosthetic limb when the original has been lost. The brain might also readily incorporate cyborg additions – a cyborg arm or other body part – into its body schema, says Farné, "and possibly new body parts differing in shape and/or number, for example four arms." Small implants such as pacemakers are inserted in the existing body so do not need to be accepted by the body schema, adds Farné, "but a pair of wings would – that would be tough!"
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