Clipmarks | wildcat's clips

Is life a gift?

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:55:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: ieet.org

Harvard’s Michael Sandel argues in his book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering that life is a gift and that we should accept the unbidden nature of this gift, working toward acceptance and solidarity with others rather than seeking unbridled mastery over human biology. But is life properly viewed as a gift?

The claim that life is a gift automatically entails a responsibility on the part of the recipient of that gift to respond with gratitude and without taking issue with the precise attributes and characteristics of what has been given and received. One is supposed to live by the aphorism “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” (or you might see a lot of rotten teeth). So to accept Sandel’s premise that life is a gift is also to accept that one is obliged to respond in a certain way and without closely scrutinizing the actual conditions of what has been received.

But is life a gift at all?

Tags: ethics, technology

The (Needed) New Economics of Abundance

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:32:01 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

Molecular manufacturing coupled with AI could bring about a "personal manufacturing" revolution and a new era of abundance. But abundance could be highly disruptive, so we need to design a new economics of abundance so society is prepared for it.

For centuries, we have built cultures and economies around scarcity. Economics is the "study of how human beings allocate scarce resources"¹ in the most efficient way and conventional wisdom agrees that regulated capitalism results in the most efficient allocation of those scarce resources.

But what happens if resources are not scarce? What economic system would we use to allocate plentiful resources? Is there even a point to talking about the “economics of abundance” in a culture where economic equations are entirely oriented around scarcity? As Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine says, "My college textbook, Gregory Mankiw's otherwise excellent Principles of Economics, doesn't mention the word abundance

Tags: nanotech, manufacturing, abundance, hope

Personal Nanotech, end of poverty,end of war

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:27:54 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: it's coming slowly,yet coming it is

Clip Source: memebox.com

Imagine a world with billions of desktop-size, nonpolluting, cheap machines that can manufacture almost anything – clothing, furniture, electronics, cars, even food. Today, such devices do not exist, but in the future, a small Star Trek-like replicator called a “personal nanofactory” (PN) will sit on your kitchen counter enabling you to create nearly anything your heart desires at little or no cost.

These incredible machines receive raw atoms from supplied chemicals or from something as inexpensive as dirt, air or water. Then, using Internet-delivered software, they instruct atoms to assemble into the final product; a sweater, refrigerator, health medicine, tonight’s dinner; even a duplicate PN.

In their latest book, Revolutionary Wealth, Alvin and Heidi Toffler argue convincingly that we are on the verge of a post-scarcity world that will slash poverty and “unlock countless opportunities and new life trajectories”.

Tags: nanotech, personal, end misery?

Robert Rauschenberg Dies at 82- Respect

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:45:42 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.efluxmedia.com

Robert Rauschenberg, one of the American artists who made significant changes in art during the 1950 transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, died on Monday night at his home on Captiva Island, Fla., at the age of 82.

According to his New York gallery, PaceWildenstein, the cause of his death was heart failure.

A painter, printmaker, choreographer, sculptor, photographer, onstage performer, set designer and even composer, Mr. Rauschenberg encouraged the idea that an artist should not only stick to one environment or style. If one has a mind as creative as Rauschenberg’s, he cannot be confined to only one domain.

With Rauschenberg, the lines between painting, sculpture, technology, printmaking, dancing and photography become really thin, almost invisible.

“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” Rauschenberg once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

Tags: art, robert rauschenberg, revolutionary

Shrimps see beyond the rainbow

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:31:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: physorg.com

A Swiss marine biologist and an Australian quantum physicist have found that a species of shrimp from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, can see a world invisible to all other animals.

Dr Sonja Kleinlogel and Professor Andrew White have shown that mantis shrimp not only have the ability to see colours from the ultraviolet through to the infrared, but have optimal polarisation vision — a first for any animal and a capability that humanity has only achieved in the last decade using fast computer technology. The findings are published in the journal PLoS ONE.

“The mantis shrimp is a delightfully weird beastie,”

Tags: shrimps, visibility

The World’s First GM Human Embryo Could Dramatically Alter the Future

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:24:48 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.”

~Isaac Asimov, famous thinker and sci-fi writer

Cornell University researchers in New York revealed that they had produced what is believed to be the world’s first genetically altered human embryo—an ironic twist considering all the criticism the US has heaped on South Korea over the past several years for going “too far” with its genetic research programs. The Cornell team, led by Nikica Zaninovic, used a virus to add a green fluorescent protein gene, to a human embryo left over from an in vitro fertilization procedure. The research was presented at a meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine last year, but details have emerged only after new controversy has emerged over the ethics and science of genetically modifying humans.

Tags: genetics, human, embryo, engineering

Microsoft vs.Google: New Masters of the Universe?

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:22:39 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Are Microsoft and Google in a space race? We think they are. Their rivalry is also, we believe, a precursor to the next great post-Internet technology boom: space exploration and development.

Microsoft just released its new Worldwide Telescope, which will access images from NASA's great fleet of space-born telescopes and earth-bound observatories such as the future Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, partially funded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which is projected for ‘first light’ in 2014 in Chile's Atacama Desert -the world's Southern Hemisphere space-observatory mecca. The 8.4-meter telescope will be able to survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week with its 3-billion pixel digital camera. The telescope will probe the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and it will open a movie-like window on objects that change or move rapidly: exploding supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids and distant Kuiper Belt objects.

Tags: microsoft, google, space race

The zeppelins are returning

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:06:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Stairway to heaven?

Finally, in answer to the inevitable question, the British rock group Led Zeppelin has no connection whatsoever with the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH or any airship. The name was a play on the "lead balloon" concept.

However, as Airship Ventures points out, the boarding gangway used for the original zeppelin passenger liners in the 1920s and 1930s was called the himmelstreppe, German for "Stairway to Heaven," which is also the name of a hit song that Led Zeppelin released in 1971.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano — except with a longer interval (73 years in this case) — the zeppelins are returning to California.

Operating out of Moffett Field, near Mountain View at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Airship Ventures has announced that it has inked a deal with Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH of Germany (the successor of the same firm who made the Hindenburg and the zeppelins that bombed London in World War I) to acquire a modern, 12-passenger zeppelin.

The $8 million airship will be sent to California in September, where it will be used mostly for sightseeing excursions. Being much smaller than the passenger zeppelins of the 1920s and 1930s, it will have to cross the Atlantic on the deck of a ship.

New zeppelins

The airship will be the fourth of the Zeppelin NT line produced by the German firm, which differs considerably from the aerial giants that roamed the skies before they were retired after the fiery crash of the Hindenburg in 1937.

Tags: zeppelin, air travel

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:43:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: so if you needed permission, now you've got it

Clip Source: physorg.com

(AP) -- Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

Tags: vatican, aliens, permission, religion

A Dead Man's Eyes Hold the Key to His Age

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:52:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Proteins in the eye offer a new means of identifying corpses.

After the 2004 tsunami smashed into South Asia, thousands of the dead awaited identification for weeks and even months. The more time passed, the harder it became to identify the victims, let alone determine their age.

In the wake of a similar catastrophe, however, a new technique may help us learn victims' ages by analyzing the crystalline proteins in their eyes. The proteins form in the lens of the eye during the first two years of life, remaining unchanged thereafter. For anyone born in the last six decades, moreover, the lens proteins carry a radioactive marker—a special signature reflecting the pattern of nuclear bomb tests starting in 1955 and declining at an exponential rate since 1963.

"We're always on the lookout for methods of improving our ways to identify corpses," says Niels Lynnerup, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen, who developed the technique based on levels of carbon-14.

Tags: proteins, eyes

Think about it

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:33:49 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.scienceblogs.com

Tags: humor

Plants Can Control Weather

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:25:17 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Gone are the days of believing plants are just passive organisms. Earlier this year, researchers found that plants can communicate through little understood chemical mechanisms. Now scientists are even saying that plants can do something perhaps even more incredible: Control the weather. According to researchers at the Scottish Association for Marine Science and the University of Manchester, brown seaweed, kelp, has the ability to create cloudy days at the seaside. But why would plants want to alter weather patterns? Apparently, because cloudy days make the plants more comfortable.

When the sky is overcast kelp are comfortable when the tide goes out, since they are able to stay moist until it comes back. On a bright day however, they dry out. When they start getting dry the plants become stressed and begin releasing iodide. The iodide rises, causing clouds to form overhead, which in turns protects the kelp from unwelcome sunshine.

Tags: plants, weather, kelp

Africa Launches Search for the Next Einstein

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:31:48 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “Apart from an African Einstein, we want to find the African Bill Gates and the Sergey Brins and Larry Pages of the future,”

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Stephen Hawking, who has devoted his career to discovering the origins of the universe, has made the journey to South Africa to join some of the world’s leading high-tech entrepreneurs and scientists who have backed the £75m plan to create Africa’s first postgraduate centers for advanced maths and physics, after the British government declined to provide funding.

“The world of science needs Africa’s brilliant talents and I look forward to meeting prospective young Einsteins from Africa,” said Hawking.

Hawking will be joined by eminent physicists and mathematicians including two Nobel laureates in physics, David Gross and George Smoot, and Michael Griffin, the head of Nasa.

Neil Turok, founder of the project and professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge University, where he is a close colleague of Hawking, said the aim of the centres was to “unlock and nurture scientific talent” across Africa.

Tags: africa, einstein, talent

semantic Wikipedia search tool is here!

Mon, 12 May 2008 09:43:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Web start-up unveils semantic Wikipedia search tool

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Powerset on Sunday unveiled tools for searching Wikipedia that use conversational phrasing instead of keywords, marking the first step of its challenge to established Web search services such as Google.

Powerset's technology breaks down the meaning of words and sentences into related concepts, freeing users from always needing to type the exact words they want to find.

For example, a user who wants to know how many wives King Henry VIII had (six, or two, depending on your definition of marriage) can find an answer via Powerset's service at tinyurl.com/5qpcr9/.

San Francisco-based Powerset is looking to leapfrog the current generation of services that rely on keyword searches such as Google Inc, Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp and IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask.com.

Tags: semantic web, search, wikipedia

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn?

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:14:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

SuperMemo is based on the insight that there is an ideal moment to practice what you've learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget. Unfortunately, this moment is different for every person and each bit of information. Imagine a pile of thousands of flash cards. Somewhere in this pile are the ones you should be practicing right now. Which are they?

Fortunately, human forgetting follows a pattern. We forget exponentially. A graph of our likelihood of getting the correct answer on a quiz sweeps quickly downward over time and then levels off. This pattern has long been known to cognitive psychology, but it has been difficult to put to practical use. It's too complex for us to employ with our naked brains.

Tags: memory, supermemo, ideal moment, practice

Clipmarks | wildcat's clips

Is life a gift?

Mike LaTorra

Ethical Technology

The (Needed) New Economics of Abundance

Personal Nanotech, end of poverty,end of war

Robert Rauschenberg Dies at 82- Respect

Shrimps see beyond the rainbow

The World’s First GM Human Embryo Could Dramatically Alter the Future

Microsoft vs.Google: New Masters of the Universe?

The zeppelins are returning

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

A Dead Man's Eyes Hold the Key to His Age

Proteins in the eye offer a new means of identifying corpses.

Think about it

Plants Can Control Weather

Africa Launches Search for the Next Einstein

semantic Wikipedia search tool is here!

Web start-up unveils semantic Wikipedia search tool

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn?

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm