March 2012
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The mystery of longevity | News | National Post
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Louise Levy attends regular Tai-chi classes, retired three years ago from her secretarial job and says she would still be driving today if her car had not “conked out before I did.” None of which would be particularly unusual, except Mrs. do note .. Rather than all being paragons of lifestyle virtue, half the centenarians were overweight or...
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February 2012
Future Day-March 1: Future Day
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Holidays provide a fantastic way of channeling peoples’ attention and energy. Most of our holidays are focused on past events or individuals, or on the rhythms of nature. History and nature are wonderful and should be honored — but the amazing future we are building together should be honored as well. Future Day is a way of focusing and...
“The idea that little machine-guardians at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, like...”
– BLDGBLOG: Autonomous Angels of Maintenance (via iamdanw)
Artist Pushes for 'Copernican Revolution' in the...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future The mediocrity principle underlies science, so why not art? “The arts have preached all about being universal, about being profound, for as long as anyone can remember, and yet that paradigm shift into something that genuinely is profound and genuinely is universal hasn’t yet taken place,” Keats said. “So I decided I would...
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“The scientists by large know more liberal arts, than the science known by...”
– Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
I agree. But it really makes me sad when I hear scientists saying that literature is useless because it’s all about unreal stories, or that art in general is meaningless because is subjective. It’s not ok this either.
(via scipsy)
“What we do on social media platforms is often analyzed as a performance or...”
– From “What do I like when i like on Facebook?” (via modernandmaterialthings)
Would an Internet of Things Threaten the Internet...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future If 50 billion, or however many billion, devices share the same Internet as some 8 billion humans by the year 2020, will the weakest links in data security … Via readwriteweb.com
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“The strange rules of the quantum world lead to many weird phenomena. One of...”
– Can The Human Brain See Quantum Images? - Technology Review
Young Women Often Trendsetters in Vocal Patterns
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Researchers say young women deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends, including the latest, known as vocal fry. From Valley Girls to the Kardashians, young women have long been mocked for the way they talk.Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like “bitchin’ ” and “ridic,” or...
Chew On This: Edible Silk Sensors To Monitor Your...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Silk is a marvelously versatile material that is useful in an incredibly wide variety of settings besides luxurious underwear. You can find it in surgical sutures, flexible electronics, and other biologically friendly applications. Via fastcoexist.com
Aldebaran Robotics Introduces Romeo, Finally -...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future It’s only a year or so behind schedule, but we finally get to see what Aldebaran Robotics has planned for their human-sized humanoid robot… Via spectrum.ieee.org
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“This biotech century will be microbe enhanced and maybe microbe inspired....”
– Stewart Brand
Founder, The Whole Earth Catalog; Co-founder, The Well; Co-Founder, The Long Now Foundation; Author, Whole Earth Discipline
“Darwin himself realised that “No living species will preserve its...”
– Deep Time And The Far Future
Martin Rees
President, The Royal Society; Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics; Master, Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Author, Our Final Century: The 50/50 Threat to Humanity’s Survival
Using Body Heat to Recharge Cellphone, Laptop «...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Imagine being able to use your own body heat to recharge your phone or tablet. Scientists in North Carolina have recently developed a felt-like fabric that generates power by scavenging for so-called waste heat, such as body heat. Via blogs.voanews.com
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“Moravec asks us to “Consider the human form, [i]t clearly isn’t designed to be a...”
– Brave Bioart 2: Shedding the Bio, Amassing the Nano, and Cultivating Emortal (Posthuman) Life
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The Electronic Brain? Your Mind Vs. a Computer
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future According to Chris Chatham at Developing Intelligence, the brain-computer metaphor has lead to a lot of over-simplification in our thinking about our thinking. “An unfortunate legacy is the tendency to seek out modularity in the brain… the idea that computers require memory has lead some to seek for the ‘memory area,’ when...
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“(via ScienceNews) New theory doesn’t limit consciousness to the brainAs a...”
– NOOSPHE.RE: Enriched with Information
*Multicellular Life as Metaphor for Multicellular...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Computers collaborate in the Internet/Web much the way cells collaborate in multicellular organisms… Computers surround us now. Most of them surpass the compute power of the mainframes of yesteryear but few of them do the familiar jobs of yesteryear: accounting, payroll and other sorts of business record-keeping. As their costs dropped and...
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WatchRobotic Octopus Arm: the First Step on the Way to Soft-Robot Revolution
h\t to singularity weblog
“Last time I checked, the digital universe was expanding at the rate of 5...”
– George Dyson (via chrbutler)
“Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was...”
– Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel prize in literature (1872-1970)
“Every time society advances, it faces challenges from those people economically...”
– Are books and the internet about to merge? | Books | guardian.co.uk
Y Chromosome, Though Diminished, Is Holding Its...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future The Y chromosome is just a fraction of its original size, and much smaller than its buxom partner, the X chromosome, but researchers say its gene-shedding days seem to be over. Men, or at least male biologists, have long been alarmed that their tiny Y chromosome, once the same size as its buxom partner, the X, will continue to wither away until it...
Open Sourcers Drop Software Religion for Common...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Mike Olson was an open source pioneer. But he’s not an open source zealot. Olson helped build the open source Berkeley DB database in the ea… Via wired.com
“Why do we pay this obsessive attention to backing up a document, which we can...”
– Project Icarus: Laying the Plans for Interstellar Travel - Ross Andersen - Technology - The Atlantic
Project Icarus: Laying the Plans for Interstellar...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Andreas Tziolas is drafting a blueprint for a mission to a nearby star. Here, he discusses how we’ll get there — and why we try. We humans have known for a very long time that going to the stars will be difficult, if not impossible. The motto of NASA, Per Aspera Ad Astra, a latin phrase meaning “through hardship to the...
The neuroethics of non-invasive brain stimulation
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) is a brain stimulation tool that is portable, painless, inexpensive, apparently safe, and with potential long-term efficacy. Recent results obtained from TDCS experiments offer exciting possibilities for the enhancement and treatment of normal or impaired abilities, respectively. We discuss new...
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new entry by Wildcat: Gaining new insights - The... →
Looking at the present from the perspective of the future is probably one of the most interesting capabilities of the human mind, how much more so when the amount of interest we have invested in our futures has grown exponentially. Looking at the present from a future vantage point assumes we can project ourselves into an indefinite state of observation that demands no clarification, for it is...
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“The emotions and politics which surround this most intimate of social...”
– Adultolescence: It’s the Beginning of a New Age | Think Tank | Big Think
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Swimming through the blood stream: Stanford...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future For 50 years, scientists searched for the secret to making tiny implantable devices that could travel through the bloodstream. Engineers at Stanford have demonstrated just such a device. Via news.stanford.edu
The Symphony of Self-on Antonio Damasio’s Self...
lareviewofbooks:
AARON P. BLAISDELL on Antonio Damasio’s Self Comes to Mind. Head and Torso © Lisa Nilsson 2010 http://bit.ly/ylkpHy Photo by John Polak http://bit.ly/wllqit
Antonio Damasio Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Pantheon Books, November 2010. 384 pp. Perchance to Dream You are jolted awake from a terrifying nightmare. Your pulse is rapid, breathing shallow....
Civilisation faces 'perfect storm of ecological...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Abuse of the environment has created an ‘absolutely unprecedented’ emergency, say Blue Planet prizewinners… Celebrated scientists and development thinkers today warn that civilisation is faced with a perfect storm of ecological and social problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption and environmentally malign technologies....
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“Philosophies of experience and philosophies of imagination are in tension, since...”
– Analytic vs. Continental Philosophy - NYTimes.com
“To us, the Web is a sort of shared external memory. We do not have to remember...”
– We, the Web Kids – an essay by Polish political writer and commentator Piotr Czerski lays out a manifesto for the generation nursed on the web. (via curiositycounts)