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Memories may be stored on your DNA

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:45:01 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: This is a very interesting hypothesis. Pointing the possible effects ones immediate experiences on ones own genetic composition!

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Memories may be stored on your DNA

REMEMBER your first kiss? Experiments in mice suggest that patterns of chemical "caps" on our DNA may be responsible for preserving such memories.

To remember a particular event, a specific sequence of neurons must fire at just the right time. For this to happen, neurons must be connected in a certain way by chemical junctions called synapses. But how they last over decades, given that proteins in the brain, including those that form synapses, are destroyed and replaced constantly, is a mystery.

Many genes are already coated with methyl groups. When a cell divides, this "cellular memory" is passed on and tells the new cell what type it is - a kidney cell, for example. Miller and Sweatt argue that in neurons, methyl groups also help to control the exact pattern of protein expression needed to maintain the synapses that make up memories.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

the brain could be borrowing a form of cellular memory from developmental biology to use for what we think of as memory

Tags: memory, dna

Taking A Shower Improves Moral Judgment

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:46:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The research was conducted through two experiments with university students. In the first, they were asked to complete a scrambled sentence task involving 40 sets of four words each. By underlining any three words, a sentence could be formed. For the neutral condition, the task contained 40 sets of neutral words, but for the cleanliness condition, half of the sets contained words such as ‘pure, washed, clean, immaculate, and pristine’. The participants were then asked to rate a series of moral dilemmas including keeping money found inside a wallet, putting false information on a resume and killing a terminally ill plane crash survivor in order to avoid starvation.

The second experiment saw the students watch a ‘disgusting’ film clip before rating the same moral dilemmas. However, half the group were asked to first wash their hands.

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

The next time you have to make a difficult moral decision, you might think twice about mulling it over in the bath or shower.

New research in Psychological Science has found that the physical notion of cleanliness significantly reduces the severity of moral judgments showing that intuition, rather than deliberate reasoning, can influence our perception of what is right and wrong.

“When we exercise moral judgment, we believe we are making a conscious, rational decision, but this research shows that we are subconsciously influenced by how clean or ‘pure’ we feel.

“Take for example the situation of a jury member or voting in an election - if the jury member had washes their hands prior to delivering their verdict, they may judge the crime less harshly.”

Similarly, someone may find it easier to overlook a political misdemeanor had they performed an action that made them feel ‘clean’ prior to casting their vote.”

Tags: morality, behavior, psychology

Green is the new red white and blue

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:35:05 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: We in America talk like we’re already “the greenest generation,” But here’s the really inconvenient truth: We have not even begun to be serious about the costs, the effort and the scale of change that will be required to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely emissions-free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years.

Thomas L. Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times specializing in foreign affairs.

a bit long article but worth read.

Clip Source: flickr.com

Clip Source: bagnewsnotes.typepad.com

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Power of Green

One day Iraq, our post-9/11 trauma and the divisiveness of the Bush years will all be behind us — and America will need, and want, to get its groove back.

We will need to find a way to reknit America at home, reconnect America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global order — as the beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an idea how. It’s called “green.”

One thing that always struck me about the term “green”

it was defined by its opponents

as “liberal,” “tree-hugging,” “sissy,” “girlie-man,” “unpatriotic,” “vaguely French.”

Well, I want to rename “green.” I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century.

The next president will have to rally us with a green patriotism. Hence my motto: “Green is the new red, white and blue.”

Clip Source: graphics8.nytimes.com

Ancient road found in cave

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:50:52 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly

Clip Source: www.grahamhancock.com

HA NOI — Traces of a road used by ancient people 21,000 years ago have just been discovered at the Xom Trai Cave in the northwestern province of Hoa Binh’s Lac Son District.

Scientists from the Centre for Southeast Asian Prehistory recently made the discovery during an on-going preservation project at the site.

"This is the first discovery of such an ancient road in the Southeast Asian region and a rare discovery in the world," Nguyen Viet, PhD, centre director told Viet Nam News.

The Xom Trai Cave represents a typical residence of the Hoa Binh civilisation (from 34,100 years ago until 2,000 BC) in the ancient Muong Vang region, which is today’s Tan Lap Commune, Lac Son District in Hoa Binh Province.

The Onion - They tried to teach my baby Science!

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:14:14 GMT

clipped by: dmtherob
clipper's remarks: A mother is horrified to find that a teacher that she trusted had been secretly teaching her only son about the physical world and its mechanics for almost a year.

Clip Source: www.theonion.com

Tags: religion, science, the onion

The new, free speech, gatekeepers

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 10:03:00 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "Given their clashing and sometimes self-contradictory missions — to obey local laws, repressive or not, and to ensure that information knows no bounds; to do no evil and to be everywhere in a sometimes evil world — Wong and her colleagues at Google seem to be working impressively to put the company’s long-term commitment to free expression above its short-term financial interests. But they won’t be at Google forever, and if history is any guide, they may eventually be replaced with lawyers who are more concerned about corporate profits than about free expression. “We’re at the dawn of a new technology,” Walker told me, referring not simply to Google but also to the many different ways we now interact online. “And when people try to come up with the best metaphors to describe it, all the metaphors run out. We’ve built this spaceship, but we really don’t know where it will take us.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Google’s Gatekeepers

In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity on YouTube in Turkey, and that the press was reporting that the Turkish government was blocking access to YouTube for virtually all Turkish Internet users

the video that sparked the controversy was a parody news broadcast

After having many of the videos translated into English, Wong and her colleagues set out to determine which ones were, in fact, illegal in Turkey; which violated YouTube’s terms of service prohibiting hate speech but allowing political speech; and which constituted expression that Google and YouTube would try to protect

a Turkish prosecutor made a sweeping demand: that Google block access to the offending videos throughout the world

Google refused, arguing that one nation’s government shouldn’t be able to set the limits of speech for Internet users worldwide

Turkish government today continues to block access

Tags: google, free speech

Our mantra is to make it possible to observe what was previously unobservable

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 09:33:30 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: “For most of human history, people have lived in small tribes where everything they did was known by everyone they knew,” Dr. Malone said. “In some sense we’re becoming a global village. Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly.”

Some food for thought.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?

Propelled by new technologies and the Internet’s steady incursion into every nook and cranny of life, collective intelligence offers powerful capabilities, from improving the efficiency of advertising to giving community groups new ways to organize.

But even its practitioners acknowledge that, if misused, collective intelligence tools could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Sense has developed two applications, one for consumers to use on smartphones like the BlackBerry and the iPhone, and the other for companies interested in forecasting social trends and financial behavior

There is a whole new set of metrics that no one has ever measured

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

individual privacy rights must also be weighed against the public good

SARS

If I could have looked at the cellphone records, it could have been stopped that morning rather than a couple of weeks later

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A smartphone experiment

moving picture of interaction in a dorm

Tags: internet, web, information, privacy, ethics