Science & Tech
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Your Brain is Automatic. You Are Free.
about 7 hours ago
What's the Big Idea? Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world's leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, describes the mystery of free will: “If you think about it this way, if you are a Martian coming by earth and looking at all these humans and then looking at how they work you wouldn’t—it ... Read More
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Your Brain is Automatic. You Are Free.
about 7 hours ago
Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world's leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, argues, "We can understand brains to the nth degree, but that's not going to in any way interfere with the fact that taking responsibility in a social network is done at a social level. So the way I sum it up is that brains are automatic, but people are free because people join social groups" -- and those groups dictate the laws to live by. Read More
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Have Scientists Found HIV's Achilles' Heel?
about 17 hours ago
What's the Latest Development? A team of Japanese scientists have discovered a way to circumvent one of HIV's most potent defense mechanisms. The discovery involves a family of chemical compounds known as pradimicin A1 which stick strongly to the exterior coating of the HIV virus, called mannose ... Read More
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Heart Disease Tied to Y Chromosome
about 20 hours ago
What's the Latest Development? In a survey of 3,000 British men, scientists have found an important link between a particular version of the Y sex chromosome and heart disease, meaning the predisposition to illness is passed down from father to son. Researchers found that 90 percent of the men ... Read More
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So Long, Lone Inventor. Hello, Collective Capitalism.
2 days ago
What's the Latest Development? The way America thinks of its innovative heroes probably needs to change, says Harvard research fellow Neal Gabler. Today, technological progress is too complex for one individual to advance and communication networks make sharing ideas, a powerful part of the ... Read More
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NASA Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Medicine
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? NASA's Space Biosciences Division has created a new medical tool for astronauts that could vastly improve the health of millions of Earth-bound patients. A tiny biocapsule to be implanted beneath the skin was designed to solve the problem of radiation poisoning ... Read More
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The Statistics Behind the Higgs Boson
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Scientists behind world's most powerful physics experiment have released new data analysis, updating the search for the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle posited by the Standard Model. Combining the results of two separate laboratories at CERN, where the Large ... Read More
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Will Graphene Replace the Silicon Chip?
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? A pair of Nobel laureates have created what might become the replacement to the silicon computer chip. Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov have constructed a multi-layer graphene transistor which succeeds where past models have failed ... Read More
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Self-Driving Cars Have Arrived
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Self-driving cars are already here, though they are a technology of degrees. Features like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping technology will be released first. Adaptive cruise control, which automatically adjusts your speed to the car in front of you, is ... Read More
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Will 3D Printers Manufacture Human Organs?
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? The results of a groundbreaking surgery, involving a woman who received a prosthetic jaw created by a 3D printer, have just been published. Dutch surgeons who performed the operation say it is a one-of-a-kind procedure. Before the surgery, the jaw was designed ... Read More
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The Trouble With Confidence
3 days ago
. . . is that it's a completely unreliable guide to decision making. Yet we tend to trust it implicitly, in ourselves and in others. This insight belongs to psychologist Daniel Kahneman - Nobel Prize winning cartographer of the human mind, and the author of Thinking, Fast, and Slow. Kahneman's ... Read More
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The Higgs Particle Is as Good as Found
4 days ago
What's the Latest Development? New data analysis out of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland has increased the likelihood that scientists have found the elusive Higgs boson, that most fundamental of particles which is thought to endow matter with mass. Sensors at the LHC have ... Read More
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Russian Delays Renew Private Space Race
4 days ago
What's the Latest Development? A manned mission to the International Space Station has been delayed a month and a half after a Russian Soyuz rocket experienced a technical malfunction. During a test of the craft, air pressure was accidentally pumped too high, so another rocket is being readied ... Read More
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Bill Gates Backing Geoengineering Projects
4 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Hedging their bets against politicians and a United Nations which seem incapable of finding solutions to climate change, a handful of philanthropic billionaires are funding private geoengineering projects which seek to manipulate the Earth's climate on a global ... Read More
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Russians Win Race to Ancient Antarctic Lake
4 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Russia seems to have won an international race to examine ancient lakes buried deep beneath the Antarctic ice. Drilling through two miles of ice, a Russian team of scientists may have already reached the waters of lake Vostok. The water currently trapped beneath ... Read More
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Forget Search Engines: Web 3.0 Is a Knowledge Engine
5 days ago
What's the Latest Development? The Semantic Web, also known as the Web 3.0, is set to come of age this week when a powerful data crunching service becomes available to the public. Wolfram Alpha has been online since 2009 but has had trouble gaining traction in circles beyond statisticians and ... Read More
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What Makes the Human Mind Unique?
7 days ago
What's the Latest Development? New research has shed light onto the mystery of our own minds. Specifically, why the human mind is so superior to those of even monkeys and chimps, our closest animal relatives. A team of German scientists has extracted brain cells, post mortem, from people, chimps ... Read More
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Is the Brain to Blame for Drug Addiction?
7 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Oxford University researchers believe there is a biological predisposition to drug addiction, following their examinations of the brains of drug addicts and their non-addicted brothers and sisters. The research indicates that both siblings showed the same ... Read More
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Thanks to Science, a Better Definition of Consciousness
7 days ago
What's the Latest Development? New research out of the UK suggests that a new classification system for consciousness will help doctors and families better understand the condition of individuals with brain injuries. By measuring the brain activity of patients in a vegetative state while they ... Read More
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This Is Your Brain On Sports
7 days ago
What's the Big Idea? On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD: “The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t,” he noted. Five years later, he was traded to the Yankees. Fourteen years later ... Read More