20 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Portrait of Social Media Psychosis
A Muslim woman with her burqa on fire: like. A policeman using a baton to beat a masked antifa protester: like. Hillary Clinton looking gaunt and pale: like. A military helicopter armed with machine guns and headed toward the caravan of immigrants: like.
She had spent a few hours scrolling one afternoon when she heard a noise outside her window, and she turned away from the screen to look outside. A neighbor was sweeping his sidewalk, pushing tiny white rocks back into his rock garden. The s... 1 
notes
notes07 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Sugar Impacts Learning
The DHA-deprived rats also developed signs of resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar and regulates synaptic function in the brain. A closer look at the rats' brain tissue suggested that insulin had lost much of its power to influence the brain cells.
"Because insulin can penetrate the blood–brain barrier, the hormone may signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and cause memory loss," Gomez-Pinilla said.
He suspects that fructose is the culprit behi...
1 11 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
How to Talk Math With Kids
Some simple ways to work numbers into the conversation:
Note numbers on signs when you’re walking or driving with children: speed limits and exit numbers, building addresses, sale prices in store windows.
Ask children to count how many toys they’re playing with, how many books they’ve pulled out to read, or how many pieces of food are on their plate.
Use numbers when you refer to time, dates, and temperatures: how many hours and minutes until bedtime, how many weeks and days until a hol... 1 notes
notesWork it into the day-to-day conversation.
03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
The Silence of the Universe is Significant
Geoff Marcy, the University of California at Berkeley astronomer who has found scores of exoplanets, and who has diligently searched for signs of anything artificial in the data, says the silence is significant: “If our Milky Way Galaxy were teeming with thousands of advanced civilizations, as depicted in science-fiction books and movies, we would already know about them. They would be sending probes to thousands of nearby stars. They would have a galactic Internet composed of laser beams a...Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
1 notes
notesThe fact that we can't detect anything out there means there may be nothing to detect.
26 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
MarsOne Response to Muslim Fatwa
And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors: verily in that are Signs for those who know. (Quran 30: 22)
The Muslim world has a rich tradition of exploration. The verse from the Quran above encourages Muslims to go out and see the signs of God’s creation in the ‘heavens and the earth’. The most influential example of this was the Moroccan Muslim traveller, Ibn Battuta, who from 1325 to 1355 travelled 73,000 mile... 1 notes
notes...against voyaging to Mars because it constitutes "suicide."
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Why a Machine Cannot Fully Imitate a Man
I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to u...Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
1 Descartes reasoning sounds like a precursor to the Turing Test.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Stones Speak Through Geology
For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life's motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present.Folksonomies: geology
Folksonomies: geology
1 notes
notesThe Earth has been writing into the strata, and now humans have arisen to read it.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Dr. Frankenstein as Scientific Hubris
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the Thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful Engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-st... 1 notes
notesFrom the author's introduction to her book.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Science Builds Up, Opinion Does Not
Signs also are to be drawn from the increase and progress of systems and sciences. For what is founded on nature grows and increases, while what is founded on opinion varies but increases not. If therefore those doctrines had not plainly been like a plant torn up from its roots, but had remained attached to the womb of nature and continued to draw nourishment from her, that could never have come to pass which we have seen now for twice a thousand years; namely, that the sciences stand where t... 1 notes
notesIdeas rooted in reality may be built upon like a solid foundation of truth, while opinions do no grow upward, but spread out thin and varied.
30 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Greek or Latin?
If I were asked which, of the Greek and Latin languages, is to be preferred, I would answer neither; my opinion is that they both should be used: Greek for anything that Latin cannot express, or would not offer equivalent expression for, or one less exacting; I would have Greek serve only to fill in the gaps in Latin, and this simply because familiarity with Latin is more widespread: for I concede that if we were to choose on the grounds of richness and abundance, there would be no hesitation... 1 notes
notesDiderot discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using each of these classical languages.
