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POPSThe Possibility of Impossible cultures Heuser suggests that only humans have evolved four computational capacities, constituting a phylogenetic mind gap between humans and other animals. An important perspective, go read all of it
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POPSSynthetic biology yields clues to evolution and the origin of life The first forms of life did not evolve in the usual sense, he said, but simply grew. "Evolution began when large populations of cells had variations that led to different metabolic efficiencies," Deamer said. "If the populations were in a confined environment, at some point they would begin to compete for limited resources."
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POPSE.O. Wilson Returns to the Hive With Superorganism Tome Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color.Many prominent biologists, led by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, said no, there was no such thing as a superorganism: Evolution worked on the genes of self-serving individuals only, not groups.
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POPSThe Coming Death Shortage "Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive" a must read. Though I fail to agree with many of the premises of this article, the critical views it presents are important and the issues need be taken into consideration seriously
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POPSHow one day we may all be eternally young "We found a normal developmental programme that works in young animals, but becomes unbalanced as the worm gets older. It accounts for the lion's share of molecular differences between young and old worms." If ageing is not a cost of unavoidable chemistry, but is instead driven by changes in regulatory genes, the ageing process may not be inevitable, he added.
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POPSThe Bottom is Not Enough I call myself an editor first, and author second. I think the top-down function of editors -- to select, prune, guide, solicit, shape, and guide the results from the crowd -- is essential to excellence... It's taken a while but I think we've learned that while top-down is needed, not much of it is needed. Editorship and expertise are like vitamins. You don't need much of them, just a trace even for a large body, and too much will be toxic, or just pissed away. But the proper dosage of intelligent control will vitalize the dumb hive mind.
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POPSYour Political Preferences Might be Hard-Wired However this expresses the naivety of many people, who believe that they were “hardcore” anything. The simple fact is that people’s opinions change as they mature and acquire more information. It doesn’t reflect this evidence, rather than focusing us on the reality behind it; that it is down to personality traits.
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POPSLab Freaks Gone Wild? “What was once only science fiction is now becoming a reality, and we need to ensure that experimentation and subsequent ramifications do not outpace ethical discussion and societal decisions.
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POPS"Techno-Doping" and the New Olympics The evolution of technological augmentation is progressing faster than natural human biology, and it's clear that it won't be long until these physical enhancements will completely out-class natural human sports capabilities. The growing likelihood that, within the next decade, the fastest humans alive will be "disabled" holds the potential for profound "future shock." As I wrote about last year (in "The Accidental Cyborg"), young athletes facing the choice between rehabilitation and amputation for leg injuries are starting to pick amputation, knowing that the prosthetics could be an improvement, not an impairment.
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