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POPSMichael Phelps: ‘Naturally’ transhuman
* He has proportionately short legs relative to his long, powerful trunk; this large upper body is the engine that powers his long arms. Moreover, his unique physique reduces drag through the water and allows for maximum propulsion. * Phelps has a greater-than-average lung capacity allowing him to execute his underwater dolphin kicks longer than the competition. * He has a genetic advantage that cause his muscles to produce 50% less lactic acid than other athletes. This means he can work at higher work loads for longer periods. * With a low body fat of 4%, he is better able to convert his effort into speed. Looking at this list it’s as if Phelps was designed to swim. Which leads to an interesting question: Given the potential for genetic modification and gene doping, should it be acceptable for other athletes to acquire the same physiological endowments through artificial means? If not, what makes it so acceptable to come by these traits ‘naturally?’ And how
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POPSU.S. Ranked 36th Freest Press in the World 
Who Controls the U.S. Media? For the most part, the media spreads a lot of misinformation and corporate propaganda. This is not at all surprising considering that Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, Viacom (formerly CBS) and General Electric's NBC are the top owners of the entire media industry, which includes everything you read and hear in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. In the last 15 years alone, your sources for news have shrunk drastically. Whereas in 1983, 50 corporations ruled the U.S. news media, by 2004 this number decreased to a minuscule six corporations! As you might imagine, with just six corporations deciding what’s worthy of news and what’s not, you end up with sensationalized tragedies, celebrity features, and anything else that will capture people’s attention. There is virtually no competition in the media market today whatsoever, and this s
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POPS Wondeful images - 2000 years of human culture Awards competition winner -Wellcome Images is one of the world's richest and most unique collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science.
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POPSGirls Make History At Science Contest More: Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard’s president 13 months later James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, which oversees the competition for Siemens AG, a global electronics and engineering company, said the competition results send a great message to young women Alicia Darnell, 17, a senior at Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, N.Y., won second place and a $50,000 scholarship in the individual category for research that identified genetic defects that could play a role in the development of Lou Gehrig’s disease Pretty good for 16 and 17 year olds don't ya think?
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POPSSimple reason helps males evolve more quickly “There’s a health aspect in figuring out differences in gene expression between the sexes,” said Wayne. “To make a male or a female, even in a fly, it’s all about turning things on -- either in different places or different amounts or at different times -- because we all basically have the same starting set of genes.”
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POPSThe Science of Concentration "direct therapy that could help people with schizophrenia and attention-deficit problems (and might have fewer side effects than drugs)." Of course again the direction of the improved concentration is to the disabled. Why? i , as far as i know, do not fill the criteria for both conditions mentioned above, and still i would want to use such a device; there are some things that demand more than is possible for this body to perform, so why not augment it?
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POPSRadical Life Extension and Religious Evolution "Technology will inject competition into religion and force religious authorities to clarify what they mean by immortality." This is important, according to Cole-Turner because "there is currently a lot of evasiveness about what immortality means."
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POPSNatural African beauty - the Miss Authentica contest
From the slideshow captions: "African women, don't lighten your skin. It's a gift from God." These lyrics are a line from a song specially commissioned for a beauty competition with a difference in Ivory Coast. Only women with natural, untreated skin - confirmed by skin experts - can enter the competition which goes by the name, Miss Authentica. The organisers hope to encourage women to stop using dangerous skin-bleaching products…and instead celebrate the beauty of their natural skin. Skin-bleaching is big business in much of Africa. Proof of this are the many posters of smiling, fair-skinned women holding up the latest pots and tubes of skin-whitening creams that adorn the continent's cities…75% of women in Ivory Coast use skin-whitening creams of some sort. Many continue to use the bleaching products despite being aware of the dangers. One of the most common ingredients is hydroquinone, which has been banned in some countries because of claims that it is carcinogenic.
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POPSCheck out these cans! Architect and engineers compete to see whose team can build the most spectacular structure using little more than cans of food at Canstruction, the 13th annual NYC Design and Build competition in New York . All these cans will go to the food bank afterwards…
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POPSCooperation over Competition Think about what you need to feel good about yourself right now or what you would want someone to do for you. Provide those "wish list" items for another as well as for yourself.
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POPSHuman Wins in "Man vs. Machine" Scrabble Competition! Fighting the evil robot uprising, one Scrabble tile at a time. Kramer had the choice of spelling a five-letter word and picking up all the remaining tiles. Rather, he used four tiles to complete the word "meeter" on the board, leaving one available tile and confounding the computer. Kramer explained that if he had picked up all the remaining tiles, the computer would have known exactly what he had in his rack. But by leaving one behind, he stymied it. "That's just something hard for the program to solve. There are too many possibilities," Kramer said. Who's the Genius now?