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POPSLaws of Nature, Source Unknown The ultimate Platonist these days is Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In talks and papers recently he has speculated that mathematics does not describe the universe — it is the universe. Dr. Tegmark maintains that we are part of a mathematical structure, albeit one gorgeously more complicated than a hexagon, a multiplication table or even the multidimensional symmetries that describe modern particle physics. “Everything in our world is purely mathematical — including you,” he wrote in New Scientist.
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POPSAnti-Terrorism Cartoons in the Arab Press "The Arab press recently published more cartoons condemning terrorism. These cartoons presented terrorism as an indiscriminately destructive force striking everything in its path, and mocked the terrorists for blindly pursuing the promise of the virgins of Paradise. "The cartoons also expressed criticism of extremists who entice the youth, indoctrinating them to embrace extremist ideas."
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POPSRape: 'They looted my body like I was dead' "They kicked my breasts, which are still badly swollen. They took me to a graveyard and raped me again. When I was trying to stop them, they took a hot wire and burned my hand. They looted my body like I was dead. They took my ID card and all my money."
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POPS‘Leopard Behind You!’ A human in a blue shirt is announced differently from a human in a yellow shirt. In and of itself, it’s not surprising that the sounds animals make are not just noise, or a reflection of the state an animal’s in (scared, happy and so on). But the subtlety of the calls — the full amount of meaning they contain — is only now being appreciated. Animals of one species often respond to the alarms of another. In a small way, it’s like those childrens’ stories that have rats talking to toads, or elephants arguing with ostriches. Predators sometimes respond too. After all, alarm calls don’t just let other animals know there’s danger in the area. They can also let a predator know that it’s been seen. Ambush predators, like leopards, often give up and go away once an alarm has been sounded. <<
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POPSFear Factor: How Herd Mentality Drives Us
"Whether it's the fear of being the odd person out, whether it's the fear of uncertainty or the fear of losing your shirt in the market, the fear starts to compel you to do something, because a million years ago, that fear meant you probably had to run or fight," Berns said. But reactions that saved our ancestors from saber-toothed tigers don't make as much sense on the floor of the Stock Exchange. Financial historian Jeff Madrick says that's how we got into trouble in the first place - by developing the notion that the stock is highly rational. "That encouraged this herd behavior," he said. "People would say, 'The stock market is right. Let's get in here.' That was the mythology that fed the herd behavior." So the group think that helped build the bubble is now leading the charge to pop it. "I think there's probably a panic now," Madrick said. Berns agreed: "You could call it panic; I would." But the Bronx Zoo's Pat Thomas says, "It's definitely a survival mechanism."
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POPSIn Virginia, Palin crowd believes every myth This sounds like The Onion, but it's a New York Times story covering a race-track rally by Sarah Palin. How have we failed, that Americans could be so poorly educated as to be vulnerable to such tripe?
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POPST-shirt: Hey Hank... Where's my bailout? A friend of mine just put this one up on his site - definitely fits the mood for the moment. If all these banks get to back the money truck up to the treasury, why not everyone. It's going to be an interesting week.
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POPSIDF:"Bet you got raped!""1 shot, 2 kills""Better use Durex" Every child murder and rapist needs one. Durex? No, bullets and his owner designed T-shirt depicting how masterful a boastful killer he really is. Zionist snipers with small minds, smaller dicks and big guns, supplied free gratis by the USA. Dead children only rate one notch. Arab virgins rate 5 notches.
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