RadioLab has an interesting discussion between neurologist Oliver Sacks and artist Chuck Close about their experience of having prosopagnosia - the inability to recognise people by their faces.
The condition is often called 'face blindness' but the discussion gives a great illustration of why the label is so inaccurate because Chuck Close is famous for his detailed and evocative portraits of people's faces.
Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corporation has developed a series of bold architectural plans for the world of tomorrow. Here is a preview of seven mega-projects that have the potential to reshape life on (and off) Earth in the coming decades.
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- Luna Ring
In response to the ever-growing demand for energy, Shimizu has developed plans for the Luna Ring, a project that seeks to transform the Moon into a massive solar power plant.
Luna Ring’s 11,000-kilometer (6,800-mile) “solar belt” spans the Moon’s equatorElectricity collected by the Luna Ring’s enormous “solar belt” is relayed to power conversion facilities located on the near side of the Moon. There, the electricity is converted into powerful microwaves and lasers, which are beamed at Earth. Terrestrial power stations receive the energy beams and convert them back to electricity.
Luna Ring feeds power to energy-hungry EarthThe solar power plant is built mainly using lunar resources. Moon rocks and dust are used to manufacture building materials such as cement, bricks and glass fibers. Water is produced through a chemical process involving lunar soil and hydrogen.
Large machinery and equipment from Earth is assembled in space and landed on the lunar surface for installation. Much of the construction is performed by robots controlled by people on Earth, and a team of human astronauts is stationed on the Moon to supervise the robot operations.
ROCK!
Any human whose ancestral group developed outside Africa has a little Neanderthal in them – between 1 and 4 per cent of their genome, Pääbo's team estimates. In other words, humans and Neanderthals had sex and had hybrid offspring. A small amount of that genetic mingling survives in "non-Africans" today: Neanderthals didn't live in Africa, which is why sub-Saharan African populations have no trace of Neanderthal DNA.
It's impossible to know how often humans invited Neanderthals back to their cave (and vice versa), but the genome data offers some intriguing details.
"It must have been at least 45,000 years ago," says David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who was involved in the project. That's because all non-Africans – be they from France, China or Papua New Guinea – share the same amount of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that interbreeding occurred before those populations split. The timing makes the Middle East the likeliest place where humans leaving Africa and resident Neanderthals did the deed.
From undead cats to particles popping up out of nowhere, from watched pots not boiling – sometimes – to ghostly influences at a distance, quantum physics delights in demolishing our intuitions about how the world works.Michael Brooks tours the quantum effects that are guaranteed to boggle our minds.
WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY
Corpuscles and buckyballs
Light is both a particle and a wave – and we're starting to prove that everything else is too. Read more
OFF THE BOIL
The Hamlet effect
To be decayed or not decayed, that is the analytically unsolvable question. Read more
THE CASIMIR EFFECT
Something for nothing
They might not stick around for long, but particles that pop in and out of existence could gum up nano-machines. Read more
LOVE THE QUANTUM BOMB
The Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-tester
You can use quantum trickery to shine light on a light-triggered bomb – and stay safe a guaranteed 25 per cent of the time. Read more
ENTANGLEMENT
Spooky action at a distance
Reality, free will or the speed of light? One's got to give, because quantum mechanics says you can't have them all. Read more
THE AHARONOV-BOHM EFFECT
The field that isn't there
You have to think about where an electromagnetic field isn't, as well as where it is, as far as particles are concerned. Read more
MIRACLE MATTER
Superfluids and supersolids
Forget radioactive spider bites and exposure to gamma rays, it's quantum theory that gives you superpowers. Read more
PARADOXES?
Nobody understands
Paradoxes are only conflicts between reality and your feelings of what reality ought to be. Read more
Caleb Charland is a Maine-based photographer who combines a love of scientific experiments and photographs into wonderful and amazing photographs. If Isaac Newton or Benjamin Franklin were into photography, their photographs might look something like these:
“Wooden Box with Horseshoe Magnet”
“Atomic Model”
“Demonstration with Hair Dryer and Aluminum Foil”
“Candle in a Vortex of Water”
“Fifteen Hours”
Regarding his work, Charland tells us,
Wonder is a state of mind somewhere between knowledge and uncertainty. It is the basis of my practice and results in images that are simultaneously familiar and strange. I utilize everyday objects and fundamental forces to illustrate experiences of wonder. Each photograph begins with a simple question “How would this look? Is that possible? What would happen if…?” and develops through a sculptural process of experimentation. As I explore the garage and search through the basement to solve these pictures, I find ways to exploit the mysterious qualities of these everyday objects and familiar materials.
To check out more of his work, you can visit his website.
WE WILL BE HERE - THE MAP OF THE FUTUREThe italian magazine WIRED asked us to draw a map based on the scenarios developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto to help the reader in the net of ideas and hypothesis built by 7000 influencers from all over the world.Format: 82x27 Print (Gatefold)Developed by Density DesignCreative direction: Donato RicciConcept: Michele Graffieti, Luca Masud, Mario Porpora, Gaia ScagnettiIllustration: Michele Graffieti
via: BehanceNetwork
An empirical test of ideas proposed by Martin Heidegger shows the great German philosopher to be correct: Everyday tools really do become part of ourselves.
The findings come from a deceptively simple study of people using a computer mouse rigged to malfunction. The resulting disruption in attention wasn’t superficial. It seemingly extended to the very roots of cognition.
“The person and the various parts of their brain and the mouse and the monitor are so tightly intertwined that they’re just one thing,” said Anthony Chemero, a cognitive scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “The tool isn’t separate from you. It’s part of you.”
Chemero’s experiment, published March 9 in Public Library of Science, was designed to test one of Heidegger’s fundamental concepts: that people don’t notice familiar, functional tools, but instead “see through” them to a task at hand, for precisely the same reasons that one doesn’t think of one’s fingers while tying shoelaces. The tools are us.
Video: Cats versus dogs
THE world is divided into "dog people" and "cat people", each passionately believing that their preferred pet is superior. Until a decade ago, there was very little scientific evidence either camp could muster to support its claims. Then animal behaviourists became interested in dogs and unleashed a pack of ingenious experiments testing canine capabilities and cognition. Recently, researchers have started doing similar work with cats. Could it be time for that showdown?
There are obvious pitfalls in trying to use science to resolve this perennial dispute. Every pet-owner knows their furry family member is special - a unique being with its own talents and foibles. Yet scientific research tends to look at species as a whole and deals in averages and trends when attempting to quantify their characteristics. Then there is the thorny issue of comparing two very different animals. Some might argue that the whole venture is doomed to failure, but here at New Scientist we like a challenge. So we have pitted cats against dogs in 11 categories. It's a winner-take-all competition with "best in show" being awarded to the pet that prevails in the most categories. Let the fur fly...
Click the via link for the rest of the story.. (Spoiler, dogs win.. which is bullshit..)
