Clipmarks | wildcat's society,lifestyle,civilization collection

A Plan to Add 12 Points to Everyone's IQ with Food Additives

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:21:31 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Of course, the next enhancer to come along might be distributed as unequally as iodized salt has. Right now, most developed countries have iodized salt, and many developing ones don't. Once the whole world has been iodine-enhanced, it's very possible that the richest nations will get salt that contains nutrients that boost IQs by 50 points, and therefore increases incomes respectively

Clip Source: io9.com

Right now, people all over the world are being made smarter through a simple food additive. The plan to unleash this additive on the world, called "the micronutrient initiative," has already boosted IQs in Pakistan by as much as 12-13 points. Is it really a good idea to put brain-changing additives in the food supply like this, even if it's for a good cause?

Most countries in the world have already answered that question with a resounding "yes." The additive in question here is iodine, and you probably eat it all the time in your enhanced, iodized salt. Canada's micronutrient initiative is trying to bring iodized salt to countries like Pakistan and elsewhere, where iodine deficiency creates a range of problems from severe developmental disorders to lowered IQs

researcher Anders Sandberg points out at Oxford University's Practical Ethics blog that there is really very little difference between "enhancement" and "normalization" in this case:

Tags: iq, iodine, salt, nutrition, cognitive enhancement

Broad Use of Brain Boosters?

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:21:30 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Use of drugs to enhance memory and concentration should be permitted, experts say.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Off-label use of stimulants, such as Ritalin, is on the rise among college students. Studies show that 5 percent to 15 percent of students use prescription drugs as study aids, and surveys suggest the practice may be common among academics as well. The trend has sparked debates over how and when these cognitive enhancers should be used. Military personnel routinely use stimulants while on active duty, but should that practice also be permitted among surgeons working long shifts? What about scientists working late nights in the lab? Or students taking exams?

A commentary appearing today online in the journal Natureadvocates for broad access to brain-boosting drugs.

According to the piece, written by a group of ethicists, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists, "cognitive enhancement, unlike enhancement for sports competitions, could lead to substantive improvements in the world."

Tags: brain, boost, cognitive enhancement

Brain tests show child wealth gap

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:21:35 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The brains of children from low-income families process information differently to those of their wealthier counterparts, US research suggests.

Normal nine and 10-year-olds from rich and poor backgrounds had differing electrical activity in a part of the brain linked to problem solving.

The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience study was described as a "wake-up call" about the impact of deprivation.

A UK researcher said it could shed light on early brain development.

The 26 children in the study, conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, were measured using an electroencephalograph (EEG), which measured activity in the "prefrontal cortex" of the brain.

Half were from low income homes, and half from high income families.

During the test, an image the children had not been briefed to expect was flashed onto a screen, and their brain responses were measured.

Those from lower income families showed a lower prefrontal cortex response to it than those from wealthier households.

Tags: brain, children, wealth gap

Create Your Own Currency

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:09:13 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.worldchanging.com

"Money," wrote Jamais Cascio, "is the tangible manifestation of an agreement between you and other people that the oddly-colored piece of paper in your hands has value."

But what's truly valuable is not those units of currency, so much as the units of time they represent to those who earn and spend them. Two women from Ashland, Ore., who follow this philosophy have created a way to turn units of time into currency that can be directly traded and tracked through their online system OurNexChange. This "community currency" allows local residents to buy goods and services without exchanging any money.

"The whole idea is to harness the resources of our businesses, organizations and government into a system that provides sustainability," Miranda said.

This would be done through a Web-based system that would track the exchange of currency units through users' accounts. There would be no tangible money.

"The idea is it's an online complementary currency exchange program," VanWyhe said.

Tags: money, currency, change

Internet Access Without Electricity, Connectivity or Phone Services. No Matter Where You Are.

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:16:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: what open source collaboration can do..
The terminals includes access to web browsing, email, voip, office, multimedia, software development and web development tools as well as 15,000 other applications. Wifi coverage spans a 2-mile radius, with no fuel costs, no polluting emissions and a long lifespan of up to 20 years with proper maintenance. The entire system, in fact, operates on about the same amount of power as a 100-watt light bulb, GNUveau says.

Clip Source: thenextweb.com

SolarNetOne is a collaborative effort spanning several continents, organizations, and technical disciplines. The goal of the effort is to develop a feasible, sustainable solution to bring the internet to places that have no connectivity, no phone service and no electricity.

Scott Johnson, founder of GNUveau:

With experts in open source software, photo-voltaic electricity, internet infrastructure, and true internet pioneers on the SolarNetOne team, we have endeavored to design and implement systems capable of bridging the digital divide under the most difficult of conditions, and in the most open method available.

[Video]

On the wiki, you can see the system running in Katsina State University in Nigeria right now, providing wireless connectivity and “Internet Cafe” like services to hundreds of people

Tags: open source, ubuntu, internet, sustainability

Top Ten Forecasts for 2009 & Beyond

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:45:24 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War.
All of these forecasts plus dozens more were included in the report that scanned the best writing and research from THE FUTURIST magazine over the course of the previous year. The Society hopes this report, covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology, will assist its readers in preparing for the challenges and opportunities in 2009 and beyond.

Clip Source: www.wfs.org

1. Everything you say and do will be recorded by 2030.

2. Bioviolence will become a greater threat as the technology becomes more accessible. Emerging scientific disciplines (notably genomics, nanotechnology, and other microsciences) could pave the way for a bioattack.

3. The car’s days as king of the road may soon be over.

4. Careers, and the college majors for preparing for them, are becoming more specialized

5. There may not be world law in the foreseeable future, but the world’s legal systems will be networked.

6. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it’s acquired. An individual’s professional knowledge is becoming outdated at a much faster rate than ever before

7. The race for biomedical and genetic enhancement will-in the twenty-first century-be what the space race was in the previous century

8. Urbanization will hit 60% by 2030

9. The Middle East will become more secular while religious influence in China will grow

electricity will reach 83% of the world

Tags: forecasts, 2009, beyond

Building an Anti-Economy

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:03:55 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Collectively, I call these projects “Nowtopia.” Rarely do the individual participants conceive of them in political terms; day-to-day issues about how we live, what we do, how we define and meet our needs tend to be understood as outside politics. But all Nowtopian activities are profoundly political."

Clip Source: www.orionmagazine.org

EVEN WHILE CAPITALISM continues its inexorable push to corral every square inch of the globe into its logic of money and markets, new practices are emerging that redefine politics and open up spaces of unpredictability. Instead of traditional political forms like unions or parties, people are coming together in practical projects, from urban gardening in vacant lots to the suddenly ubiquitous do-it-yourself bike shops. More and more people, recognizing the degradation inherent in business relations, are creating networks of activity that refuse the measurement of money. They depend instead on sharing skills and technological know-how within new communities, such as the biofuels co-ops that have proliferated in many cities. Networks have grown, thanks to the spread of the Internet and other telecommunications techologies, and new kinds of “families” based on shared values, alternative living arrangements, and non-economic relationships are growing within the old society.

“Nowtopia.”

Tags: collective, politics, economy, network

Poverty and the Brain

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:59:23 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "The point is that poverty isn't just an idea, or a state of mind: it actually warps the mind. Some brains never even have a chance."
deserves a second thought

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Whatever It Takes, the new book by Paul Tough that profiles Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone, is one of the most bracing, sobering and inspiring books I've read in a while. It's the story of one man's attempt to systematically disrupt the cycle of poverty, and fundamentally alter the nature of childhood in Harlem. Fixing the schools is only a small part of the solution: Canada realized that it was also crucial to change the typical parent-child interaction, and so he developed a Baby College where new parents are given lessons on how to speak to their child in the supermarket. In other words, poverty is a culture, a contagious way of life, and not something that can be fixed with smaller class size.

Tough also deftly summarizes much of the recent work done on the cognitive neuroscience of poverty, or how our brain is changed by the details of our upbringing

(One crucial finding is that "middle-class" parents are much more verbose than parents living in poverty.

Tags: poverty, brain, neuroscience

Internet collaboration still in infancy: Wikipedia founder

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:06:57 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The age of public collaboration over the Internet is still only in its infancy, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told AFP in an interview.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

The 42-year-old web guru, in an effort to show Wikipedia's impact thus far, referenced a recent trip to a slum in India where he "met this young man on the street who told me that he had used Wikipedia to pass his 11th grade exams."

"Wow, that's really cool, right? We've had some impact, even in such a place where I'm talking to this guy, and there's mud streets, and cows, and it's really quite a different environment from London."

Wales's popular online encyclopedia allows anyone with an Internet connection to make entries and edit content.

"In video, right now, we're still back in many ways in the Web 1.0 era," he said, referring to the age before so-called Web 2.0, the peer-sharing model of the Internet of which Wikipedia is almost the definitive example.

Speaking on the sidelines of an awards ceremony in London, Wales said: "We're really just at the beginning, still, of collaborative efforts."

Tags: collaboration, internet, wikipedia, jimmy wales

Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:40:54 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human".

One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up.

Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed? I asked two experts on automated weapons what they thought - click the continue reading link to read what they said.

Both were concerned that packs of robots would be entrusted with tasks - and weapons - they were not up to handling without making wrong decisions.

Tags: robots, hunt, uncooperative humans

Japanese Woman Jailed For The Virtual Murder of Her Virtual Husband Online

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:52:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Bad online behavior is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.

In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.

Clip Source: inplacenews.com

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game “Maple Story” to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

“I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $5,000.

Players in “Maple Story” create and manipulate digital images called “avatars” that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.

Tags: japan, virtual murder, virtual husband, online

Berlin Protest Organizers Call European ISP Rules "Stasi 2.0"

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:14:24 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

Demonstrators in Germany and elsewhere voice their dissatisfaction with a European directive on data retention

8 October 2008—Life in the former German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was no picnic. This grim socialist state was known for the extraordinary amount of spying it carried out on its own citizens. Conservative estimates suggest that 1 in 50 East Germans regularly collaborated with the Ministry for State Security—the infamous Stasi. Although such pervasive intrusions into their personal lives are outside the direct experience of young Germans today, some of them have dubbed their government’s latest rules on the retention of Internet data by Internet service providers “Stasi 2.0.” And they’re angry enough about it to take to the streets. Demonstrations are planned this Saturday for Berlin and other cities.

The rationale, of course, is that this information will help officials combat serious crimes, such as acts of terrorism.

Tags: privacy, isp, data retention

Open-Source Voting

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:02:27 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: as we said before, open source everything..

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

Its proponents could put pressure on voting-machine makers, but critics say it's not a cure-all

Privacy, Please: Is open-source voting the solution to the United States’ election issues?

In the aftermath of the Florida recount debacle of the 2000 presidential election, the U.S. Congress appropriated billions of dollars for state and local governments to buy electronic voting systems. But in the years since, a string of problematic elections has led much of the voting public to join early critics in concluding that available machines are buggy, easily subverted, and impossible to accurately audit. 

So perhaps it was only a matter of time before members of the open-source movement would enter the fray, with the claim that their kind of technology can guarantee free and democratic elections. Already, two bellwether states, California and New York, have taken notice

This spring, California’s state assembly considered a bill mandating that new voting systems be based on open-source software.

Tags: open-source, voting

What do you know? Not as much as you think

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:45:03 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Our results indicate that if a comparison is made relative to an expert, consumers' beliefs regarding their knowledge are more consistent with their actual knowledge than if a comparison had been made relative to an average

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

We've all met know-it-alls—people who think they know more than they actually do. If they're talking about products, like wine or motorcycles, they might actually know as much as they think. But when it comes to health plans, social policy, or nutrition, they might not, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Authors Jay P. Carlson (Union Graduate College of Union University), Leslie H. Vincent, David M. Hardesty (both University of Kentucky), and William O. Bearden (University of South Carolina) conducted a meta-analysis of 103 consumer knowledge research studies that took place between 1980 and 2007. "Overall, our results suggest that people are not overly knowledgeable regarding how knowledgeable they are. They can deceive themselves into believing they are more knowledgeable than they are," they explain.

The authors also found that people's sense of their own knowledge depends on whom they're comparing themselves to.

Tags: knowledge, self knowledge, compare

Brain boost drugs 'growing trend'

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:44:41 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin to boost alertness and brain power, say experts.

Up to a fifth of adults, including college students and shift workers, may be using cognitive enhancers, a poll of 1,400 by Nature journal suggests.

Neuropsychologist Professor Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge University said safety evidence is urgently needed.

Experts gather to debate this topic at a meeting in London on Monday evening.

Professor Sahakian's own work shows 17% of students in some US universities admit to using the stimulant Ritalin (methylphenidate) - a drug designed to treat hyperactive children - to maximise their learning power.

One in five of the 1,400 people who responded to the Nature survey said they had taken Ritalin, Provigil (modafinil) or beta-blockers for non-medical reasons. They used them to stimulate focus, concentration or memory.

Tags: brain boost, drugs, alertness