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POPSTelescope spots monster galactic cluster They theorize that the fact that it's 7.7 billion light years away (as far as they know) meant that it was before the acceleration due to dark energy made it impossible for galactic clusters that large to hold together. It reminded me of a poem by Hughes Mearns. 'Antigonish' As I was going up the stair, I saw a star that wasn’t there. It wasn’t there again today, I wish, that star would stay away. (I thought I'd adjust it to cover Light years, and dark matter.)
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POPSNaturalism's Hot Water The problem, as several thinkers (C. S. Lewis, for example) have seen, is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false....
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POPSRobot controlled by own biological brain They used rat neurones. Maybe we'll discover what rats have been thinking, or how the nature of thinking varies from species to species, if and what significant 'character' differences there are. We may even find rats have the potential to be much smarter than we thought they were. The neurons act in response to stimuli. Maybe the best way to describe them is 'curious' It can be fairly certain there will be no official testing with human neurones, but there will be testing. I also wonder if the instinct for self preservation goes that deep - Sounds like the kind of thing that would interest the military.
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POPSPelosi Wants to Save the Planet? Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don't vote. From places Democratic legislators can't see. On May 13 Sen. Chuck Schumer -- deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil -- demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn't occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you. The desire to swing a cluebat at these twits is strong....
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POPS3 Aces Hope and love on the American road When I brought this subject to the fore a few posts ago, its appearance was occasioned by several local readers of my novel, 3ACES, who professed puzzlement over the terms they were crashing into in their dash through the book.
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POPSWe Almost Forgot To Pump Oil "Whooee, what a crazy story this will make when I tell my environmentally committed board of directors. If I can get them to stop planting trees long enough to hear me, that is. Ha! Not likely! Who wants to take time away from helping preserve the world around us to listen to me rattle on about petroleum profits? Certainly not anyone at BP, that's for sure! Oh, look! I'm waist-deep in cash right now! I didn't even see all this money piling up around my desk. I guess I've just been so focused on developing cost-efficient, clean-burning hydrogen cells that I wasn't even paying attention."
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POPSThree Servicemen sculpture in Apalachicola honors Vietnam Vets "And beyond that, he wanted the sculpture to be a heartfelt and simple thank you from the citizens of this nation to the service and sacrifice of the veterans and their families." She quoted from her husband's last public speech in May 1999, a few months before his death. "By the expressions on the faces of the intensity of the strain and the anguish that was part of the Vietnam veterans experience on the battlefield and at homecoming, and by their endurance and youthful dedication to duty, they reveal themselves as true heroes," she said. She told of how the sculptor had learned from his talks with Vietnam vets that "all treasured their deep bonds of loyalty, comradeship and interdependence," or as one veteran put it, "At first we thought we were fighting for our country but soon we came to realize we were fighting for each other."
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POPSThe Urge To End It All "Quite inadvertently, the British gas conversion proved that the incidence of suicide across an entire society could be radically reduced, upending the conventional wisdom about suicide in the process. At least a partial answer is that many of those Britons who asphyxiated themselves did so impulsively. In a moment of deep despair or rage or sadness, they turned to what was easy and quick and deadly — “the execution chamber in everyone’s kitchen,” as one psychologist described it — and that instrument allowed little time for second thoughts. Remove it, and the process slowed down; it allowed time for the dark passion to pass."
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POPSGood vibrations may help reduce falls Older people can have difficulty exercising, or be 'chairbound', and this can affect their balance. It keeps getting harder to exercise, affecting balance, and muscle strength. The vibrating platform, was tested by checking the improvement by recording the time they could stand on one leg, they generally showed improved balance. They tested for balance, but osteoporosis , and deep vein thrombosis, are thought to become more likely as activity decreases. This platform, and the vibrations could also provide the muscle movement that can alleviate these conditions as well.
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POPSYou Thought Wrong. Here's Why. From The New York Times, by neuroscientist Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, a former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience. A quick explanation of why rumors get remembered as facts.
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POPSCeltics' Allen Overcomes Issues On And Off Court "There were times when we were trying to figure everything out and what we needed to do and how we needed to proceed. But we always came back to each other as a team, and to finally win this and to prove we're the best team in the NBA this year, everything we went through was definitely worth it, and we know exactly what it takes to be the best." But those on-court frustrations and challenges were nothing compared to the last three days for the 32-year-old veteran who, like Pierce and Garnett, got his first taste of ultimate victory on stage on the parquet of TD Banknorth Garden Tuesday night. "It's not easy, but to be the best you have to give up a lot, and we gave up a lot but we definitely took a lot along the way," Allen said. And with Walker in his arms, that taste of a championship was even sweeter for Ray Allen.
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POPSCould an Acid Trip Help to overcome anxiety ? This is an important article. I believe that psychedelic drugs not only have highly valuable therapeutic properties, but they can serve when responsibly used, to expand one's consciousness and boost intelligence and creativity in many aspects of life. The use of psychedelic drugs is one of those case where something which is highly beneficial to the individual is arbitrarily banned by the 'system' because the system do not want us too conscious, or too creative, not even too intelligence. All these threat the stability of the system while promoting independent thought. It is worth mentioning that the family of psychedelic drugs DO NOT contain dangerous addicting drugs such as opium, heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, etc.
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POPSTrapped in a Living Hell "Then a Cambridge neuroscientist put her in a special kind of scanner and performed an unprecedented experiment. It revealed evidence of fluctuating levels of brain activation when she was presented with pictures of her parents....."
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POPSTop 10 Pre-Death Monologues in Film The clip has the links to videos of the 10 monologues The greatest challenge an actor can face, is the memorable death scene. The best can provoke deep reflection on mortality, and existence on a personal level. There's one thing that I've thought was 'in character' In a Star Trek Movie Generations. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) died twice. We 'knew' he was dead twice. He only got one monologue. (It's not on the list. ) I don't know if 10 videos links in a clip is too many, but I thought 'You only live once' Sometimes Death is just a setback. A 'speed hump' in the smooth flow of eternity. Perhaps God's way of telling us we should slow down a bit.
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POPSOn This Day 10 Years Ago, Chess Champion Defeated By Supercomputer WN: Kasparov's request for a rematch was turned down. Why do you think that was? It looked like IBM had got good publicity but took the ball away and didn't want to play anymore. Campbell: I believe we had accomplished what we were trying to do for so many years and it was time to move on to other problems. Garry Kasparov has now retired from chess and Deep Blue is in a museum so that's not going to happen, but matches between other computers and the current world champion have taken place as recently as last year.
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POPSWindows XP Sp3 - Run!!!! Just when you thought it was safe to run WIndows update, this shark rears its head. Think I'll wait a while before deploying it.
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POPSDeep Thought I can think of a few people that i would quite cheerfully give that kick to.
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POPSOf two minds Neuro-anatomist describes the brain and her own health crisis which better connected her with her right hemisphere. From a Ted Talk.
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