Clipmarks | pascual's clips

your body

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 02:47:05 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: edge

Clip Source: edge.org

98 percent of the atoms in the body are replaced every year. 98 percent! Water molecules stays in your body for two weeks (and for an even shorter time in a hot climate), the atoms in your bones stays there for a few months. Some atoms stay for years. But almost not one single atom stay with you in your body from cradle to grave.

What is constant in you is not material. An average person takes in 1.5 ton of matter every year as food, drinks and oxygen. All this matter has to learn to be you. Every year. New atoms will have to learn to remember your childhood.

These numbers has been known for half a century or more, mostly from studies of radioactive isotopes. Physicist Richard Feynman said in 1955: "Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in your mind a year ago."

Tags: science

96% of the universe is invisible ... by light

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:51:05 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: NYT sunday science mag

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

If so, such a development would presumably not be without philosophical consequences of the civilization-altering variety. Cosmologists often refer to this possibility as “the ultimate Copernican revolution”: not only are we not at the center of anything; we’re not even made of the same stuff as most of the rest of everything. “We’re just a bit of pollution,” Lawrence M. Krauss, a theorist at Case Western Reserve, said not long ago at a public panel on cosmology in Chicago. “If you got rid of us, and all the stars and all the galaxies and all the planets and all the aliens and everybody, then the universe would be largely the same. We’re completely irrelevant.”

Tags: cosmology, universe

global gender gap index

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:55:50 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: world economic forum

Clip Source: www.weforum.org

Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday 8 November – Four Nordic countries, Sweden (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Iceland (4) once again top the latest Gender Gap Index released today by the World Economic Forum. All countries in the top 20 made progress relative to their scores last year – some more so than others. Latvia (13) and Lithuania (14) made the biggest advances among the top 20, gaining six and seven places respectively, driven by smaller gender gaps in labour force participation and wages.

The performance of the United States (31) was mixed over the last year

Tags: economy, globalization

Are we alone?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:04:12 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: mit rev of tech

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

For all these reasons, it seems unlikely that the galaxy is teeming with intelligent beings that voluntarily confine themselves to their home planets. Now, it is possible to concoct scenarios in which the universe is swarming with advanced civilizations every one of which chooses to keep itself well hidden from our view. Maybe there is a secret society of advanced civilizations that know about us but have decided not to contact us until we're mature enough to be admitted into their club. Perhaps they're observing us as if we were animals in a zoo. I don't see how we can conclusively rule out this possibility.

Tags: cosmology, science fiction

USA income distribution

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:43:36 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: economist

Clip Source: www.economist.com

Figures collated by Emmanuel Saez, an economist at Berkeley, make the point starkly. In the 1990s, the incomes of the richest 1% of taxpayers went up 10% a year in real terms (see chart), while those of the other 99% grew at an average annual rate of 2.4%. Between 2002 and 2006 the richest 1% saw 11% annual real income growth: everyone else got less than 1%. Three-quarters of the gains from the Bush expansion went to 1% of taxpayers, who now receive a larger share of overall income than at any time since the 1920s.

Tags: economy

scientific analysis of religion

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:08:31 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: economist

Clip Source: www.economist.com

Religion cries out for a biological explanation. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon—arguably one of the species markers of Homo sapiens—but a puzzling one. It has none of the obvious benefits of that other marker of humanity, language. Nevertheless, it consumes huge amounts of resources. Moreover, unlike language, it is the subject of violent disagreements. Science has, however, made significant progress in understanding the biology of language, from where it is processed in the brain to exactly how it communicates meaning. Time, therefore, to put religion under the microscope as well.

Open minds

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:28:54 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: latimes

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Whether watching television news, consulting political blogs or (more rarely) reading books, Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold. This absence of curiosity about other points of view is the essence of anti-intellectualism and represents a major departure from the nation's best cultural traditions.

Tags: society

guns in america

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:58:38 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: the actual percentage is around 10, not 15.

Clip Source: www.theglobalist.com

According to the United Nations, there are about 600 million light weapons in circulation, which cause 500,000 deaths each year.

The UN estimates 300,000 of these deaths occur as a result of armed conflict — while the other 200,000 are the result of crime.

The dangerous United States

If this figure is accurate, it means that while just 5% of the world’s citizens live in the United States, 15% of the world’s crime-related gun deaths take place there.

Tags: society, violence

Einstein on god

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:09:42 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: physicsworld

Clip Source: physicsworld.com

As such, it reveals some of his thinking on religion. He states in the letter, for example, “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.” And, although from a Jewish background, he writes, “For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

Tags: science, religion

the cost of US homeland (in)security

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:18:08 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: le monde diplomatique

Clip Source: mondediplo.com

When the history of this era is finally written, Osama bin Laden and his scattering of followers may be credited for goading the fundamentalist leaders of the United States into using the power in their grasp so stupidly and profligately as to send the planet’s sole superpower into decline. Above all, bin Laden and his crew of fanatics will have ensured that the real security problems of our age were ignored in Washington until far too late in favour of mad dreams and dark phantoms. In this lies a bleak but epic tale of folly worthy of a great American novelist. In the meantime, consider the following list – 15 numbers that offer an indication of just what the tai chi principle meant in action these last years; just where American energies did and did not flow; and, in the end, just how much less safe we are now than we were in January 2001, when George Bush entered the Oval Office:

Tags: globalization

on the fractal nature of space-time

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:22:13 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: sciam

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The outcome is pretty mind-boggling: the number of dimensions depends on the scale. In other words, if we let the diffusion go on for just a short while, spacetime appears to have a different number of dimensions than when we let it run for a long time. Even those of us who specialize in quantum gravity can scarcely imagine how spacetime could smoothly change its dimension depending on the resolution of one's microscope. Evidently, a small object experiences spacetime in a profoundly different way than a large object does. To that object, the universe has something akin to a fractal structure. A fractal is a bizarre kind of space where the concept of size simply does not exist. It is self-similar, which means that it looks the same on all scales. This implies there are no rulers and no other objects of a characteristic size that can serve as a yardstick.

Tags: physics

who sells arms and to whom

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:31:44 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: eco

Clip Source: www.economist.com

The world's biggest arms exporters

JUST five countries supplied 80% of global arms exports between 2003 and 2007, according to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank. SIPRI counts the deliveries of large conventional weapons, each of which are assigned a value according to cost, strategic importance and other criteria. America supplied a third of global exports by this count, with South Korea and Israel the main buyers. China is Russia's best customer, taking 45% of its total exports. China is also the largest recipient of imports, accounting for 12% of the global total. Other big importers include India and the United Arab Emirates.

Tags: economy, conflict

origin of the oil bubble

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:40:57 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: ft

Clip Source: www.ft.com

There is a growing feeling that the latest sharp upsurge in the price of oil may be a speculative bubble rather than an outcome of market fundamentals. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission indicated last week that there may be “system risk” and George Soros, the veteran investor, in testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, warned that commodity index funds, which treat oil as an asset rather than a commodity to be bought and sold for use, are creating a bubble.

Tags: economy

on bush impeachment

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:17:02 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: pbs

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

Well, this is the problem. Our leaders treat us as children. They think that we cannot handle a serious dialogue about the future of our republic, about what it will be and how it will operate. And so, you know, to an extent, we begin to act like children. We, you know, follow other interests. We decide to be entertained rather than to be citizens.

Well, you know, and Bruce makes frequent references to the fall of the Roman Empire. You know, that's the point at where the fall comes. It doesn't come because of a bad leader. It doesn't come because of a dysfunctional Congress. It comes when the people accept that-- role of the child or of the subject and are no longer citizens. And so I think this moment becomes so very, very important because we know the high crimes and misdemeanors.

Tags: politics

overcoming dualism simplicity

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:46:06 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: yaleonline

Clip Source: yaleglobal.yale.edu

“What I'm afraid of is that… we are getting locked into an either-or, we-and-they, black-and-white way of thinking, a shrunken, stereotyped, clichéd world with no room in it for shades of meaning or for adventures of ideas; and this is a condition for which the laid-down certainties of our time – whether religious or economic or violently nationalistic – are all responsible.”

Tags: globalization, culture, society