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POPSFuture of wind power - will be HUGE! I think it's incredibly exciting to be living during a time of such change. We are talking about a massive change in global dynamics that has already begun. The next few decades should be amazing.
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POPSDoes Pointing hold the Secret of Language? Thank you Clipmarks, for letting me point to this. It should promote a mutual contemplation. Looky there: M. Tomasello: Why Don't Apes Point?" Pollick & De Waal: Ape gestures and language evolution
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POPSThe net generation will be challenging "Net-geners like to get things done through collaboration. It's part of their digital upbringing. They like to achieve something with other people and experience power through other people, not by ordering a gaggle of followers to do their bidding." Interesting perspective.
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POPSSharism: A Mind Revolution However, daily decisions for most adults are quite low in creative productivity, if only because they've switched off their sharing paths. People generally like to share what they create, but in a culture that tells them to be protective of their ideas, people start to believe in the danger of sharing. Then Sharism will be degraded in their mind and not encouraged in their society. But if we can encourage someone to share, her sharing paths will stay open. Sharism will be kept in her mind as a memory and an instinct. If in the future she faces a creative choice, her choice will be, "Share."
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POPSEvolution of Human Consciousness, With Words, Music and Brain Imagery Self Comes To Mind is a collaboration between composer Bruce Adolphe and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, known for his research and writing on the evolution of human consciousness. "My view is that we evolved mind first, in a very broad sense," Damasio explains. "And eventually we also evolved the possibility of knowing that we have a mind. That is a process that begins with the construction of the self … and it is out of that which comes our sense of discovery — of our own existence, of our surroundings, and eventually of our own condition."
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POPSRepublicans: Crazy, Or Nuts?
Who in their right mind would argue with the observations in this article? More: "The Republican Party has become an aggregation of people who prefer to live in a world of fantasy -- and their first fantasy, the Ur-myth on which the entire conceit rests, is (classically) "we are the realists." "It degrades, into farce and Newspeak, from there. The perpetrators and defenders of the outing of a CIA agent are "patriots." Tom DeLay is a "leader" and Newt Gingrich is a "visionary." The President plays guitar while New Orleans drowns, causes a hundred thousand Americans and Iraqis to be killed or injured, and outsources torture, and it's the Democrats who, per the repellent Ramesh Ponnuru, are the "party of death." "It has gotten so that you have to muster all the compassion and understanding of which you are capable just to think of the Republicans as a party of greedy corporatists manipulating the credulous, the provincial, and the bigoted. That's the nice way of putting it.”
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POPSWhole Genome Sequencing To Cost Only $1,000 By End Of 2009 In 2008, only one year later, it appears that at least 3 human genomes have been completely sequenced, one of which was the first female to be fully sequenced. The sequencing successes in 2008 took less than 1 month and cost roughly $60,000 to complete. Wow! Now as we approach 2009 the $1,000 barrier just might be eclipsed.
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POPSone step closer to building artificial human brain Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex, which is the next phase of the Blue Brain project, due to begin next year. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain. Markram is banking on Moore's law holding steady, as a computer with the power of the human brain, using today's technology, would take up several football pitches and run up an electricity bill of $3bn a year. But by the time Markram gets around to mimicking a full human brain, computing will have moved on.
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POPSIBM plans 'brain-like' computers The fundamental shift toward putting the problem-solving before the problem makes the potential applications for such devices practically limitless. Free from the constraints of explicitly programmed function, computers could gather together disparate information, weigh it based on experience, form memory independently and arguably begin to solve problems in a way that has so far been the preserve of what we call "thinking".
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POPSInternet Access Without Electricity, Connectivity or Phone Services. No Matter Where You Are. what open source collaboration can do.. The terminals includes access to web browsing, email, voip, office, multimedia, software development and web development tools as well as 15,000 other applications. Wifi coverage spans a 2-mile radius, with no fuel costs, no polluting emissions and a long lifespan of up to 20 years with proper maintenance. The entire system, in fact, operates on about the same amount of power as a 100-watt light bulb, GNUveau says.
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POPSWorld's Oldest Bible Now Online The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest known complete copy of the Judaeo-Christian bible known to exist. It is now online, and it will give you a chance to read a text uncorrupted by the fog of translation. Of course, you'll have to be fluent in classical Greek and a number of other dead languages, but, after all, if you're serious about scripture, what's a little learning?
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POPSThe Evolving AI Ecosystem He takes his theory further, all the way in to the tubes of the internet. In collaboration with Professor Tim Berners-Lee – the co-inventor of the World Wide Web – the pair have been investigating the next generation Web. “What is emerging now is a digital ecosystem,’ says Professor Shadbolt, ‘involving lots of simple systems which connect millions of complex ones – humans!” And there begins to be a certain amount of logic and a lessening of the fear I feel for the day when I am some robots whipping boy. We see such developments already in websites such as Facebook and Flickr, and programs such as Google Earth and World of Warcraft. We are being linked together, ever so slowly by a collective consciousness.
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POPSrun girls, run!!! It couldn’t possibly be that these young girls see clearly the life that awaits them in the loving arms of Saudi Arabia and don’t want to live like an identity-less being, someone else’s third-rate possession and be doomed to a life of beatings, unending labor, and even death if they step out of line, could it? :rolleyes:
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POPS"Ancient rock art baffles experts" continues: "This" is joining more than 100 other Gore-Tex-clad volunteers scouring the moorland of north-east England, searching for traces of the enigmatic and weirdly beautiful carvings our ancestors made on stretches of flat rocks and boulders. The project is a collaboration between English Heritage and Northumberland and Durham County Councils. So far, more than 100 previously unknown carvings have been discovered, featuring a mysterious mix of concentric circles, interlocking rings and hollowed cups. They are broadly dated between 4,000 and 6,000 years old.
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POPSBBC: "Egypt women blog for their rights" Obsession with virginity Another blogger who wanted to remain anonymous, writes about her past as a drug addict and has criticised what she calls Arab society's "continuing obsession with female virginity. "My blog is a way to remind myself that I am not alone, Even if no one reads it, I would still keep writing," she says. Another significant way in which the blogosphere is being used to change Egyptian society is that it is one of the few public spaces in Egypt where men and women are represented more-or-less equally. It makes collaboration on social issues possible between men and women. Subjects that are taboo on the street can be discussed online. They discuss issues such as sexual harassment, which is often pigeon-holed in Egypt as a "woman's problem".
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POPSThe New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online From the article: "We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our minds. Did we really believe we could collaboratively build and inhabit virtual worlds all day, every day, and not have it affect our perspective? The force of online socialism is growing. Its dynamic is spreading beyond electrons—perhaps into elections." Interesting thought.
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POPSLove At First ... Smell more from this article : "Since sticklebacks use the same molecules to communicate information about their immune system as other vertebrates, this experiment can be assumed to be important for many animals, including humans. Humans have used perfumes for thousands of years. However, it seems that our choice of perfume should depend on our MHC genes. Perhaps these results explain why some perfumes smell good on some people and terrible on others."