Clipmarks | iskandar's clips

Old Blighty, the birthplace of English

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:31:33 GMT

clipped by: iskandar
clipper's remarks: "Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and that some people will vilipend (regard with contempt) any execution without a fair trial. So they've offered the chance of a reprieve. They have made public 24 words that face deletion because editors could find no example of their use in their database of English-language books, newspapers, broadcasts and other media. If, by February 2009, a word reappears in that database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be spared from the semantic dustbin. "We're looking to see if dropping a little stone in the pond of language actually does generate ripples," says Brookes."

Clip Source: www.time.com

Hangman, Spare That Word: The English Purge Their Language

For feminists examining muliebrity (the condition of being a woman), or soothsayers putting out their latest vaticination (prophecy), the available lexicon may soon get slimmer. The lexicographers behind Britain's Collins English Dictionary have decided to exuviate (shed) rarely used and archaic words as part of an abstergent (cleansing) process to make room for up to 2,000 new entries. "We want the dictionary to be a reflection of English as it is currently spoken," says Ian Brookes, managing editor of Collins, "rather than a fossilized version of the language."

Here in Old Blighty, the birthplace of English, the dictionary's compilers face passionate resistance from language lovers who believe that any cull reduces the richness and variety that make language powerful — and leaves us all a bit dumber.

Tags: english, dictionary

Tattoo culture under the spotlight

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:56:13 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Tattoo culture under the spotlight

In the past, tattoos used to be mainly a badge of belonging and were generally the preserve of armed forces personnel, bikers and tribes.

On 7 October, the Dana Centre at London's Science Museum is putting tattoo culture under the microscope, looking at not only contemporary fashion, but the history and medical implications of having this procedure and how to get rid of a tattoo.

Katie Maggs, associate medical curator at the Science Museum, said there would be a collection of late 19th Century tattoos on display and the equipment used to make them.

The event will look at how tattoo use has changed and examine whether improving technology may mean they do not need to be a permanent adornment.

One of the French tattoos on view

Tags: tattoo, science museum london

Poll: 50% Never Heard of Nanotech, 90% Synth Bio

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:03:52 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Poll: 50% Never Heard of Nanotech, 90% Synth Bio

Washington, DC -- A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about the emerging field of synthetic biology, according to a new report released by the Project and Peter D. Hart Research. Both technologies involve manipulating matter at an incredibly small scale to achieve something new....

only 2 percent say they have heard "a lot" about the new technology. Even with this very low level of awareness, a solid two-thirds of adults are willing to express an initial opinion on the potential benefits versus risks tradeoff of synthetic biology....

About 50 percent of adults are too unsure about nanotechnology to make an initial judgment on the possible tradeoffs between benefits and risks.

Tags: poll, science, u.s

Google offers $10 mn for world's best ideas

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:52:26 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: expressbuzz.com

Google offers $10 mn for world's best ideas

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is offering $10 million as prize money in a competition aimed at transforming the world's best ideas into useful products.

As part of the company's 10th anniversary celebrations, Project 10 to the 100th asks people to submit ideas in seven categories to the project's website, www.project10tothe100.com.

Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life,' said an announcement Thursday on the website. 'Yet at the same time, so many people, of all walks of life, could use so much help, in both little ways and big.'

The competition is open to anyone. The seven categories include sustainable energy use, environment, health, education, shelter, encouraging communities, and building opportunities to help people better provide for themselves and their families. An eighth category is simply titled 'everything else'.

Tags: google, competition, project

Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:21:52 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart

After two tremendous growth spurts — one in size, followed by an even more important one in cognitive ability — the human brain is now a lot like a teenage boy.

It consumes huge amounts of calories, is rather temperamental and, when harnessed just right, exhibits incredible prowess. The brain's roaring metabolism, possibly stimulated by early man's invention of cooking, may be the main factor behind our most critical cognitive leap, new research suggests.

To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism.

Does this mean renewing our subscriptions to Bon Appetit will make our brains more efficient? No, but we probably should avoid diving into the raw food movemen

Tags: research, brain

In Paris, burgers turn chic

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:27:43 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.iht.com

In Paris, burgers turn chic

Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed bun.

"It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even," said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. "Eating with your hands, it's pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it."

Hamburgers were everything that French dining is not: informal, messy, fast and foreign.

But as French chefs have embraced the quintessentially American food, they have also made it their own, incorporating Gallic flourishes like cornichons, fleur de sel and fresh thyme. These attempts to translate the burger, or maybe even improve it, strongly suggest that it is here to stay.

Tags: paris, food, burger

Hippocratic Oath for Scientists?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:05:59 GMT

clipped by: iskandar
clipper's remarks: "Scientific misconduct is very expensive, leading to years of wasted research dollars and effort in pursuit of a scientific mirage, and it damages the public's perception of the value of science to society. Not only that, but the personal and professional costs to those closest to it are tremendous; whistle-blowers often lose everything and, if their scientific career somehow survives, it will always bear the scars, as revealed by Allegra Goodman in her excellent book, Intuition. In response to what appears to be a growing problem, a group of people at the Institute of Medical Science at University of Toronto in Canada wrote a scientist's version of the Hippocratic oath. This oath (above) was recited by all graduate students in the biological sciences at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year."

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Hippocratic Oath for Scientists?

I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.

Tags: science, hippocratic oath

Rice Field Art

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:52:08 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.funforever.net

Rice Field Art

Tags: art, rice field

The evolution of morality

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:49:29 GMT

clipped by: iskandar
clipper's remarks: "So to answer the question why we are moral, it is because our ancestors, who were apes and shared the common ape heritage of being social animals of a certain kind, were rule followers, and had to cooperate to survive and gain mating opportunities. And then we evolved language. "

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

The evolution of morality

Morality is an "acquired dialect", which is a very useful metaphor. Like a dialect, it is conventional, and varies by geography. It is not inborn (although the capacity to acquire it, like that of language, is), and it doesn't correlate with biology (a Sicilian raised in Japan would speak Japanese, not Sicilian). This is what Sayre-McCord refers to as social conventions. And these things evolve at the social level, not (in general) at the biological. So to explain why, for example, it is regarded as moral to marry a first cousin in Louisiana, but not in London, while marrying within "seven degrees of kinship" in Orthodox society, or marrying anyone with the same family name in Korea (but a first cousin of a different name is acceptable) are considered taboo; these things are best explained in terms of the historical process at the level of social institutions, conventions, economic and cultural factors, rather than biology.

Tags: evolution, morality

Amazing Body Art

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:28:16 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: funnbee.info

Amazing Body Art

Tags: body art

Popular Wealth - Vintage Ads

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:20:18 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.popularwealth.com

Popular Wealth - Vintage Ads - 10 Funny Reminders Of How Times Change

Vintage Ad for Disease Prevention

Vintage Ad from Texaco

Vintage Ad for Baby Ruth

Vintage Ad Promoting Cig Sexiness

Vintage Shaving Ad

Vintage Ad For Tape Worms?!

Vintage Smoking Clothes Ad

Vintage Ad for Salt

Tags: vintage ads

The Myth of Multitasking

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:49:38 GMT

clipped by: iskandar
clipper's remarks: "In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.”
The Kaiser report noted several factors that increase the likelihood of media multitasking,
“In this media-heavy world, it is likely that brains that are more adept at media multitasking will be passed along and these changes will be naturally selected,” the report states. “After all, information is power, and if one can process more information all at once, perhaps one can be more powerful.”

Clip Source: www.onthemedia.org

The Myth of Multitasking

Clip Source: www.thenewatlantis.com

In modern times, hurry, bustle, and agitation have become a regular way of life for many people—so much so that we have embraced a word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing demands on our time: multitasking. Used for decades to describe the parallel processing abilities of computers, multitasking is now shorthand for the human attempt to do simultaneously as many things as possible, as quickly as possible, preferably marshalling the power of as many technologies as possible.

Tags: research, multitasking

Coffee Smell Wakes Up Genes

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:51:26 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.sciencefriday.com

Coffee Smell Wakes Up Genes (broadcast Friday, June 20th, 2008)

Sure, the commercials love to people energized by the mere whiff of a steaming pot of coffee -- but new research shows that those commercials may not be far off the mark. Just smelling the aroma of coffee is enough to change the activity of several genes in rats, researchers report this week in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The affected genes appear to help the animals deal with resistance to the stresses caused by sleep deprivation. In this segment, we'll talk with one of the researchers involved with the project about the team's findings. Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Tags: research, coffee

Summer Solstice Facts, for When "the Sun Stands Still"

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:44:41 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Summer Solstice Facts, for When "the Sun Stands Still"

On Friday, June 20, the summer of 2008 will begin in earnest across the Northern Hemisphere, with the longest day of the year.

Celestial Science

—The word solstice's Latin roots mean "sun stands still," an apt description of how the astronomical event appears from Earth.

Since ancient times people have followed the movement of the sun as it rises, crosses the sky, and sets along a path that changes incrementally throughout the year.

For a few days surrounding the solstice, however, our star seems to rise and set at the same locations. It also hovers at the same noontime spot, pausing before its trajectory begins its incremental shift until year's end—the December solstice.

On June 20, 2008, the North Pole will tilt most directly toward the sun, so that the noon sun appears at its highest point in the sky—nearly directly overhead. This is the year's longest day in terms of daylight hours.

Tags: solstice

Murphy's laws origin

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:21:40 GMT

clipped by: iskandar

Clip Source: www.murphys-laws.com

Murphy's laws origin

Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base.

It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.

One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible and said, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it."

The contractor's project manager kept a list of "laws" and added this one, which he called Murphy's Law.

Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. Murphy's Law was born.

The doctor, well-known Col. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp's Ironical Paradox, which says, "The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."

Tags: murphy's laws