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POPSTranshumanism vs. Trans-Systemism What exactly is this “human” that we are supposed to extrapolate into the future? Is it an individual animal? A member of a species? A self-aware “software” that resides in the fore brain of an advanced mammal? Several combined pieces of software? Software combined with external knowledge and information? Does it depend on nature? Can it be distinguished form the system in which it resides? Can it exist without the broader system? ******** Perhaps the most critical challenge of transhumanist philosophy is exactly this: To offer a vision of the future human, the human of beyond. Transhumanism will not grow into a mature philosophy without defining and describing the possible favorable directions of human evolution, both as individuals and as a specie.
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POPSEarth From Space: A Blooming North Sea MERIS acquired this image on 7 May 2008, working in Full Resolution mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 m. Globally, phytoplankton are a major influence on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and hence need to be modelled into calculations of future climate change. Just like land-based plants, they accumulate carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and store it in their tissues, making them potentially important carbon sinks. To support ocean carbon cycle research, ESA's GlobColour project has merged 55 terabytes of data from three state-of-the-art instruments aboard different satellites, including MERIS, MODIS aboard NASA's Aqua and SeaWiFS aboard GeoEye's Orbview-2, to produce a 10-year dataset of global ocean colour stretching from 1997 to 2007. The ocean colour datasets are freely available to the public via the GlobColour website.
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POPSMyanmar’s Delta: Water World On April 15, rivers and lakes are sharply defined against a backdrop of vegetation and fallow agricultural land…. The wetlands near the shore are a deep blue green. Cyclone Nargis came ashore across the mouths of the Irrawaddy and followed the coastline northeast. The entire coastal plain is flooded in the May 5 image.