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POPSBy hook or by crook, I WON! Indian government wins confidence vote... The drama that had unfolded involving the monumental corruption and horse trading of the MPs all across the parties, that were highlighted by the national media before the no-confidence motion, is a monumental shame to the congress-led Govt... The poor common man looks on, feeling furious and frustrated and this is the so-called largest Democracy in the World, my dear Watson!
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POPSHow a simple mathematic formula is starting to explain the bizarre prevalence of altruism in society This new mathematic model for society’s evolution is particularly interesting because not only it reveals a logic behind the large numbers of cooperators that we know exist in all human societies, but also it gives us a glimpse of the principles that can help “pushing” them into a better, fairer, path. Evolutionary game theory is a mathematical approach used to study (and predict) the evolution of social interactions, in which the study of conflict and decision-making is treated – like its name indicates – as a game.
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POPSFuture Human: The Evolution of Immediate Emotion Humans, apparently, are still in the early stages of evolving extended response mechanisms. But it seems likely that by the time we portion more of our brain to long-term dangers, there will be few grizzly bears around to worry about, and a whole lotta global warming.
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POPS"Do Humans Have 23 years to Go?" Play Superstruct and Find Out -Invent the Future! “The survival horizon identifies the point in time after which a threatened population is expected to experience a catastrophic collapse,” GEAS president Audrey Chen said. “It is the point from which it a species is unlikely to recover. By identifying a survival horizon of 2042, GEAS has given human civilization a definite deadline for making substantive changes to planet and practices.” According to Chen, the latest GEAS simulation harnessed over 70 petabytes of environmental, economic, and demographic data, and was cross-validated by ten different probabilistic models. The GEAS models revealed a potentially terminal combination of five so-called “super-threats”, which represent a collision of environmental, economic, and social risks.
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POPSChina Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo Swell, just swell, borrowing techniques from communist dictatorships. Well done! Plus: "In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners." Brilliant!
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POPSAnts In Our Pants "Though Dr. Wilson is a fighter when necessary, he is also a conciliator. In his most recent book, “The Creation,” he calls for scientists and religious leaders to make common cause in saving the natural life of the planet. He has addressed major meetings of Mormons and Southern Baptists to ask for their help in protecting biodiversity. Of the differences between science and religion, he says: “Stop quibbling — I’m willing to say ‘Under God’ and to hold my hand to my heart. That’s recognition of how this country evolved, and that we are using strong language to strong purpose, even if we may not agree on how the Earth was created.”
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POPS"Do Humans Have 23 years to Go?" Play Superstruct and Find Out -Invent the Future! The Institute sees super-threats are "massively disrupting global society as we know it. There’s an entire generation of homeless people worldwide, as the number of climate refugees tops 250 million. Entrepreneurial chaos and “the axis of biofuel” wreak havoc in the alternative fuel industry. Carbon quotas plummet as food shortages mount. The existing structures of human civilization—from families and language to corporate society and technological infrastructures—just aren’t enough. We need a new set of superstructures to rise above, to take humans to the next stage." The Institute says: "You can help. Tell us your story. Strategize out loud. Superstruct now." Twitter that, Galaxians. Kind of makes Malthus look like a children's book.
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POPSEvolution of cooperation Another example of the selfish gene. What would be more interesting for me is to see cooperation (it can begin in human:) which is not based on survival only.
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POPSWhen Forced to Sleep at the Airport I've been writing about flying lately and this latest story about more travelers being forced to sleep in the airport doesn't surprise me. The article offers a few good tips, but I think the bottom line is that American airports are ill-equipped to assist passengers forced to stay overnight. And airport staff are often less than sympathetic. For more background on the situation, check out two of our latest stories: World's 10 Best Airports (http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/2008/07/14/airports-best-world-forbeslife-cx_rr_0714travel.html) and the Summer Flying Survival Guide (http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/03/summer-travel-survival-forbeslife-cx_rr_0703travel.html).
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POPSBisexual Species Summary: homosexuality is a natural behavior in the animal kingdom and also occurs in captive situations, suggesting bisexuality is natural for birds, mammals, and other animals...and for humans as well
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POPSWhy We're All Moral Hypocrites The researchers then "constrained cognition" by asking subjects to memorize long strings of numbers. In this greatly distracted state, subjects became impartial. They thought their own transgressions were just as terrible as those of others. This suggests that we are intuitively moral beings, but "when we are given time to think about it, we construct arguments about why what we did wasn’t that bad,"
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POPSMoney makes the heart grow less fond... but more hardworking Specifically, those participants who were exposed to money spent less time helping a person who needed it, sat farther away from another person and preferred solitary activities. In addition, they showed preferences for working alone and asked for help less frequently. On the other hand, participants also revealed an increased desire to take on more work and showed greater persistence in difficult tasks. Very interesting. I wonder if there is a way to disturb this relationship, or more to the point, an easy way to do so. Additionally, what would be the impact of doing so?
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POPSCan Recycling Be Used To Treat Cancer? The researchers discovered a compound, STF-62247, that was selectively toxic to RCCs deficient in VHL whereas cells with normal VHL were not affected. Treatment of RCC cells lacking functional VHL induced autophagy, a cellular recycling process that cells normally use to conserve resources during times of stress. "Increasing evidence implicates a role for autophagy in cancer, but it is not well understood how cellular and environmental cues drive autophagic cells down survival or death pathways," explains Dr. Giaccia. The researchers demonstrated that STF-62247 enhanced autophagy in VHL-deficient cells while inhibition of the autophagy pathway significantly increased the survival of VHL-deficient cells treated with STF-62247. "We have found a small molecule that selectively induces cell death in VHL-deficient cells, such as those that are found in kidney cancer. This represents a paradigm shift for targeted therapy," concludes Dr. Giaccia.
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POPSOuter-space sex For all these reasons, Logan said spontaneous sex in space could be "a little underwhelming." "It's a pretty messy environment, when you think about it," he said. "And for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. However ... I can well imagine how compelling, inspiring, and quite frankly stimulating choreographed sex in zero-G might be in the hands of a skilled and talented cinematographer with appropriate lighting and music." When the crowd tittered, Logan added, "I'm not kidding: Sex in zero-G is going to have to be more or less choreographed. Otherwise it's just going to be a wild flail."
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