36
POPSA Clipmarkian New Year and my favorite: *I resolve... I resolve to... I resolve to, uh... I resolve to, uh, get my, er... I resolve to, uh, get my, er, off-line work done, too! happy new year from the Wcat
30
POPSLaws of Nature, Source Unknown The ultimate Platonist these days is Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In talks and papers recently he has speculated that mathematics does not describe the universe — it is the universe. Dr. Tegmark maintains that we are part of a mathematical structure, albeit one gorgeously more complicated than a hexagon, a multiplication table or even the multidimensional symmetries that describe modern particle physics. “Everything in our world is purely mathematical — including you,” he wrote in New Scientist.
29
POPSCould Jupiter wreck the solar system?
"So what's the likelihood Mercury could crash into the Earth? If it did, the asteroid that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs will seem like a drop in the ocean compared with a planet 4880 km in diameter slamming into us. There will be very little left after this wrecking ball impact. But here's the kicker: There is only a 1% chance that these gravitational instabilities of the inner Solar System are likely to cause any kind of chaos before the Sun turns into a Red Giant and swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in 7 billion years time. So, no need to look out for death-wish Mercury quite yet… there's a very low chance that any of this will happen. But some good news for Mars; the researchers have also found that if the chaos does ensue, the Red Planet may be flung out of the Solar System, possibly escaping our expanding Sun. So, let's get those Mars colonies started! Well, within the next few billions of years anyhow…" Good stuff for the next science-fiction movie :-)
28
POPSBoys Treat Girls Like People: Thanks to Feminism Masculine stereotypes still do all kinds of harm to men and women and girls and boys alike, and there's a good argument to be made for the idea that men are much further behind women when it comes to embracing feminist ideals. But feminism has had some successes, and it's been good for all involved -- this is just one example of that. There's still a long way to go, but hopefully studies like this will serve as reminders of who actually has the interests of human beings in mind, and who is solely dedicated to a dogma that doesn't fit into most peoples' realities or ideals.
26
POPSQuality of Sleep = Memory storage the Belgian study shows that getting a good night’s sleep the night after learning a new fact has a direct impact on the transfer process between the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex.
23
POPSPolitical Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist In The Political Brain , psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior. Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on. The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning." These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
8
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update