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POPSMirrors Don’t Lie.. : -) “When people are made to be self-aware, they are likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,” Dr. Bodenhausen said. “A byproduct of that awareness may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward more desirable ways of behaving.” Physical self-reflection, in other words, encourages philosophical self-reflection, a crash course in the Socratic notion that you cannot know or appreciate others until you know yourself. "
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POPSDental Care Help Care for your teeth because your teeth enables you to bite that sumptuous meal and helps you live longer. you can get all the details about dental treatment and maintainance.
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POPSBiocultural Evolution in the 21st Century: The Evolutionary Role of Religion My outline introduces the concept of biocultural evolution, particularly with reference to the Twentieth Century and the prospects for the Twenty-First Century. I then explore the concept of complex distributed systems to characterize all highly creative processes in both culture and nature. Subsequently, I turn to the problem of complexity horizons and the challenge that these present for traditional moral reflections. Humans are then characterized as a Lamarckian wild card in epic of evolution. I close by discussing the evolutionary role of religion. See source for the full paper: http://metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8779/Default.aspx
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POPSNew Mode Of Gene Regulation Discovered In Mammals As research advances, the more it becomes clear, that gene regulation networks are actually complex computing machines. DNA is not a mere repository of information. What's more, the newly discovered mechanism is self referential, which adds another later of complexity to gene regulation processes.
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POPSdumb passwords my IT staff still insists I change my login password every 90 days - and they ask that we do it over the phone, with other people around (I work at a magazine - everyone in my group has the same access to everything that I do). my response has been to make them as simple and easy to remember - and as guessable - as possible.
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POPSMore Evidence for a Revolutionary Theory of Water The current study is the most recent addition to a growing body of evidence for a new theory about the structure of liquid water. In 2004, Nilsson and colleagues sparked controversy with a paper published in Science that suggested the tetrahedral model of water was incorrect. Nilsson agrees that the debate is far from settled and that much work remains before a clear picture of liquid water emerges. "Over the last decade or so we have discovered that materials once considered homogeneous exhibit complex nanoscale order," said Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory director Jo Stöhr. "In my view, the work on water is yet another example of the actual complexity of matter, this time within a simple liquid. Modern X-ray work appears to be triggering a new understanding of liquids and we may have only seen the beginning of a paradigm shift in our understanding."
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POPSThe Nazi War on Cancer "Proctor reveals then that the war against Jews and the war on cancer were not that far apart, having grown out of the same Nazi ideology. If that is true, he further posits, what are we to make of so much of the "progressive" health reforms put forth by the Nazis, ideas that echo today's push against smoking and alcohol and toward improved diet, exercise, and "clean living"? He sees as the answer not so much the need to refute the ideas themselves but the opportunity to see Nazism in its full complexity, good and evil together. " And, get this: "It is only by acknowledging and examining this "flip side of fascism," Proctor suggests, that we can really understand the appeal of such totalitarianism. "
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POPSStrategies for Dealing With IT Complexity Often times, IT looks for the solution to a cingular problem without considering how it fits into the whole picture. The result of doing this can be crippling as time goes on. Every one-off solution requires someone to administer it and probably requires some type of integration. Over time, you end up weaving yourself into a complex web of mini solutions that make it virtually impossible to respond to the business needs.
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POPSProtein folding simulation An interview with Professor Vijay Pande, one of the chief scientists in the protein folding program. He explains with a video representation how often a protein folding, can be like a drunk reverse parking. They can get into a 'knot', and have to unfold the section 'tangled,' and try again. They continue to fold until a solid unit is formed, with active units free. The complexity of the folds, and the specific nature in which they can fold, make the packing and unpacking of a cell nucleus as a prime example, something that is as easy to imagine as a Billion years. By the way the team in the video have made the top ten. http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teamstats
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POPSSpore - A Computer Game to Teach our Children Long Term Thinking This game is about evolution and exploring our universe at all scales from the microscopic to the galactic. It is about the 'Big Picture' of life, and how to think about it in a multilevel multiscale fashion. It will give a real grasp of the complexity and interconnectedness of life, and will educate the players holistic long term thinking and planning. Watch the fascinating presentation of Will Wright in TED. Toys may change the world by changing us. I am all for it, and can't wait playing :-)
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POPSNew Research On Octopuses Sheds Light On Memory It is not completely understood how these two systems are interconnected, if at all. However, the organization in the octopus demonstrates a sophistication that was not described yet in other animals. In the octopus, the short-term and long-term systems are working in parallel, but not independently. This is so because the long-term memory area -- in addition to its capacity to store long-term memories -- also regulates the rate at which the short-term memory system acquires short-term memories. This regulatory mechanism is probably useful in cases where faster learning is significant for the octopus' survival in emergency or risky situations.