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Humankind at its peak
According to geneticists the human being has reached its evolutionary peak.
This, my friends is as good as we get.
In terms of life expectancy, experts can see us maybe adding a mere 2 years onto our existence, but not much more than that.
And apparently living in bubble wrap, or even finding a cure for cancer won't make a difference to how long we can expect to be on the planet.
In the words of Prof Steve Jones, in the developed world at least, humans are now as close to utopia as they are ever likely to be.
I feel privileged to be alive at such a superior moment in human history ... ;) According to geneticists the human being has reached its evolutionary peak. This, my friends is as good as we get. ... more -
Why? Tell Me Why! :: Skin Pigmentation
Discovery-News.com: This week, Kasey-Dee Gardner finds out what caused humans to have different skin tones.
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Fingers and toes evolved from fins say scientists
SCIENTIST have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.
The findings, published today in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.
It had long been assumed that the first creatures to develop primitive fingers were tetrapods, air-breathing animals that crawled from sea to land some 10 to 20 million years later.
The need to adapt to swampy marshlands and terra firma, the theory went, is what drove the gradual shift through natural selection from fish fins suitable only for swimming to weight-bearing limbs with articulated joints.
The study, however, reveals that rudimentary fingers were already present inside the fins of the shallow-water Panderichthys, a transitional species that was nonetheless more fish than tetrapod.
"What we have shown is that the hand and the foot emerge from pre-existing bits of the fin skeleton that were just reshaped, rather than being entirely new bits that were bolted onto the existing fin skeleton,'' said co-author Per Ahlberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.
The discovery did not come from a new archeological find but from the reexamination of existing fossils, he said.
Previous research, it turns out, had simply overlooked what was there. SCIENTIST have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a... more -
How the human got his thumbs
For decades, people referred to the non-coding bits of DNA between genes as junk DNA. Then, in the eighties scientists discovered that some of that junk DNA served an important purpose. The DNA attracted or repelled transcription factors and RNA, greatly enhancing or inhibiting the potency of adjacent genes. Now scientists have just found that one of those gene enhancers may be what separates humans and chimps.
Researchers from U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, publishing online in the most recent issue of the journal Science, placed human, chimpanzee and macaque versions of the enhancer into mouse DNA. The scientists also added a gene that would release a blue dye to show where in the mouse fetus the enhancer was most active. When the mice developed, the researcher saw that it was active in the hands, feet and throat. Additionally, the mice with the human version showed the most activity, with the chimp version producing some activity, and the macaque version producing very little.
The researchers then showed that the difference between the human and chimp versions of the enhancer result from a difference of only 13 nucleotides, a far larger number of changes than would be expected had the mutations been the result of drift rather than selection. The location of enhancer activity highlights the importance of the difference. Our hands, with their opposable thumbs, our feet, evolved for bipedal locomotion, and our throats, which allow us to speak, make up three key differences between humans and all other apes. Because of its role enhancing the genes that regulate the development of those regions, the evolution of this gene enhancer must have been a key step in the evolutionary separation of the human/chimpanzee common ancestor. Furthermore, by following the presence of this particular gene enhancer, researchers should be able to locate which genes are responsible for our differences from chimps and when they evolved. Mapping out humanity's divergence from apes? Not bad for a bunch of DNA once thought of as junk.
By Stuart Fox For decades, people referred to the non-coding bits of DNA between genes as junk DNA. Then, in the eighties scientists discovered that... more -
Meaningless genetic code helped form human hands
Genetic code once written off as meaningless is today show to have played a potential role in the evolution of the human ability to hold tools and walk upright.
The study is the latest in a long line of evidence to show that the genetics textbooks will have to be rewritten.
It underlines how, even though the human genetic code was read letter by letter for the first time in 2000, geneticists are still struggling to figure out what it means almost a decade later.
When scientists refer to genes, they mean stretches of DNA code that contain the instructions to make the proteins that build and operate the body.
When the genome was first unveiled, it was thought all human genes resided in only around 1.5 per cent of the cell's DNA, prompting some scientists so dismiss the other 98.5 per cent as "junk".
Today, in the journal Science, Dr James Noonan of Yale University and colleagues report that one of these supposed non coding "junk" regions may have played a starring role in the evolutionary changes in human limbs that enabled us to manipulate tools and to walk upright.
The comparison of the human, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and other genetic codes provided evidence that changes in junk areas of the genome helped to separate us from our ape ancestors, notably by "humanising" our hands and feet.
Working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, the Genome Institute of Singapore, and the Medical Research Council's Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, Dr Noonan searched vast regions of the human genome for DNA sequences whose function may have changed during the evolution of humans from our ape-like ancestors.
The most rapidly evolving sequence they identified, termed HACNS1, is highly conserved among vertebrate species - that is, it hardly varies - but has accumulated variations in 16 letters since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees from a common ancestor six million years ago.
This was especially surprising, as the human and chimpanzee genomes are extremely similar overall, Dr Noonan said.
The importance of the changes in HACNS1 was confirmed bystudies that showed the same stretch of code could turn on a "reporter gene" in developing mouse limbs, in contrast to the equivalent chimpanzee and rhesus sequences.
Most intriguing for human evolution, the human sequence influenced the use of genes at the base of the primordial thumb in the forelimb and the great toe in the hind limb.
The results provided tantalizing, but researchers say preliminary, evidence that the functional changes in HACNS1 may have contributed to adaptations in the human ankle, foot, thumb and wrist-- critical advantages that underlie the evolutionary success of our species.
Remarkably, some five per cent of the genome - including DNA in addition to that found in genes - is similar in a range of mammals, from dog to human, suggesting it plays a crucial enough role for evolution to preserve it while species have evolved.
In the last several years, scientists have also discovered that non-coding regions of the genome contain thousands of regulatory elements that act as genetic "switches" to turn genes on or off.
An exhaustive analysis of one per cent of the genome, some 30 million letters of DNA, published by an international team called the ENCyclopedia of DNA Elements (Encode) Consortium, along with 28 companion papers published in the journal Genome Research, revealed that much of the "junk" DNA seems to be the cell's "operating system" that runs genes. Genetic code once written off as meaningless is today show to have played a potential role in the evolution of the human ability to ho... more -
Do I suffer from politicophobia ? Or am I going out of my mind?
Politicophobia is the fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.
Common symptoms include, according to US-based phobia experts CTRN, panic attacks, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea and overall feelings of dread.
Now I know what you are thinking: is your dislike of politicians abnormal or about average? At this moment, mine feels severe.
Elections are everywhere. South Africa has just come through municipal by-elections, Mugabe just pulled off another fast one, there has been the Papal election, and the UK is in the grips of election fever. I suspect I am not the only one feeling queasy at the sight of too many grinning politicians kissing babies and pressing the flesh with the masses.
Do I suffer from politicophobia? I suspect not. Phobias are serious business but, certainly, I am feeling the first pangs of distress here in Northern Ireland that accompany the arrival of election posters on lampposts. I imagine I am not alone.
Elections seem to create as much apathy as interest these days. About half of the young people in the UK under 25 voted in the 2001 election. In contrast, ten-million people, mostly under 25, voted in the Big Brother reality TV show. The problem is not as acute in South Africa, but apathy is growing. The turnout of registered voters in 1999 was 89% and in 2004 it had dropped to 77%.
There are many factors, but political campaigning as it currently stands is certainly one of the biggest turnoffs.
I read most elections like this: they are 25% about real issues, 25% about worthless promises, 25% about taking media pot shots at the opposition and 25% about self-promotion.
On top of this, elections imply choice, but political conservatism is slowly robbing the electorate of this. If you are lucky enough to live in a democracy, your ‘choices’ generally range between the centre-right and the right wing, and perhaps the odd lunatic on the fringe (left wing).
*Note from Arcticspirit, that comment was from them, not me. Please don't spam this with anti-lunatic stuff. It's about being tired of or having a mental condition related to politics. Thanks***
Voting is important and we should all do it. Look at the US as an example of where every vote counts. But politicians must realise they are part of the problem and part of the solution to voter apathy. They have a responsibility to transform the plastic distrustful world of politics.
As for the rest of us, if we are feeling a little bit overdosed with politicians right now CTRN offers a 24-hour fear-of-politicians programme with 100% money-back guarantee.
Look at the US as an example of where every vote counts. But politicians must realise they are part of the problem and part of the solution to voter apathy. They have a responsibility to transform the plastic distrustful world of politics.
As for the rest of us, if we are feeling a little bit overdosed with politicians right now CTRN offers a 24-hour fear-of-politicians programme with 100% money-back guarantee.
And, remember, it could be worse – you could live in Zimbabwe.
The above is from the article referenced..
The picture was my unique addition, only because I saw it and laughed by self silly.
NO, I don't want to outlaw SEX. I happen to enjoy getting it on with my bf!
SEX can be awesome if done correctly and can totally relieve stress and stuff.
I personally think the best sex is in Monogamy, because... well, it just gets way better and doesn't stop. Or maybe I am just lucky.
But, seriously, sex is not to be outlawed. Politicophobia is the fear or abnormal dislike of politicians. ... more -
ANTIVIRUS PER UMANI
È stato scoperto che l'attenta lettura del dialogo platonico intitolato (nella tradizione) Il Sofista, possa costituire un vero e proprio antivirus per l'essere umano; può fornire quegli strumenti necessari ad individuare, riconoscere dati (apparentemente innocui) destinati a danneggiare uno dei più sofisticati sistemi di calcolo, la mente umana.
Oggi, come in passato, spesso capita che nei periodi di 'democrazia', vi sia un dilagare di quell'atteggiamento che un tempo era definita sofistica, e che attualmente rinnovato e spogliato dal peso del termine rivive in quella illusione che chiunque possa diventare notabile, o addirittura giungere ai massimi vertici del sistema, purché abbia una adeguata istruzione e conosca 'il segreto del successo'; o abbia 'capacità di persuasione'; conosca quella che è ormai la diffusissima 'arte mimetica', utilissima in politica ma spesso anche per la conservazione di un posto di lavoro nei momenti di cambio di forza dirigente, riflesso dell'alternanza politica. In questo tipo di clima, ora come in passato, assistiamo a casi in cui genitori spendono tutto quanto necessario affinché i propri figli possano avere ogni possibilità frequentando corsi, masters, corsi per manager (si consideri l'etimologia di questo termine). Non c'è quindi da meravigliarsi se vi è un proliferare sempre maggiore di maestri, corsi, religioni o tecniche meditative particolari adatte a conseguire questa o quell'altra capacità. Abbiamo cacciatori e cacciati, e più che altro tante scuole di caccia ove i primi cacciati sono quelli che dovranno essere i futuri cacciatori, ovvero i propri allievi.
Nel Sofista di Platone noi dovremmo scorgere non un sapere, una conoscenza, non una filosofia bensì un metodo, quindi non una filosofia ma un come fare filosofia.
Nel Sofista è posta una problematica, che sarà una pietra angolare tra le questioni fondamentali nella storia dell’Umanità, della filosofia, del pensiero in generale, ovvero: come attribuire un predicato ad un soggetto che segua di logica necessità e non per caso.
Si può scaricare gratis un antivirus da:
http://www.humanus.it/Index/Antivirus/SOFISTHS.pdf È stato scoperto che l'attenta lettura del dialogo platonico intitolato (nella tradizione) Il Sofista, possa costituire un vero e... more -
If you use the web, you may have already been enlisted as a human scanner
"You're just about ready to buy a pair of tickets on Ticketmaster, but before you can take the next step, an annoying box with wavy letters and numbers shows up on your screen. You dutifully enter in what you see—and what a bot presumably can't—in the name of security.
But what you may not know is that you also have helped archivists decipher distorted characters in old books and newspapers so that they can be posted on the Web.
You might think that computer scientists would have figured out a way to get computers to decipher those characters. But they haven't, so instead they've figured out a way to harness all that effort you're making to protect your security. "When you're reading those squiggly characters, you are doing something that computers cannot," says Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University (C.M.U.) in Pittsburgh.
Von Ahn and colleagues reported last week in the journal Science that Web users have transcribed the equivalent of 160 books a day—that's more than 440 million words—in the year since researchers kicked off the program. The initiative is similar to "distributed computing" schemes like SETI@home, which take advantage of unused personal computer processing power to sift through signals received from space for those that might be generated by extraterrestrial intelligence or to figure out how proteins fold. But the difference with this system is that people, not processors, do the calculations.
"We are getting people to help us digitize books at the same time they are authenticating themselves as humans," von Ahn says. "Every time people are typing these [answers] out, they are actually taking old books or newspapers and helping to transcribe them." "You're just about ready to buy a pair of tickets on Ticketmaster, but before you can take the next step, an annoying box wi... more -
Primate intelligence
WHEN it comes to researching intelligence in primates, chimpanzees and orang-utans get all the attention. Chimpanzees have even been shown to outperform humans in memory tests and orang-utans have demonstrated impressive mathematical abilities. Gorillas, by comparison, have been left to one side because, well, let’s say they have been seen as the not-so-bright cousins. But that view of gorillas may not be deserved.
The perceptions of gorillas are beginning to change as primatologists get to know more about Rollie (pictured), a ten-year-old female who lives at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. This is a gorilla who is capable of doing a lot more than anyone expected. In a recent study Rollie showed that she is rather good at learning to put discrete items into a list, a skill that is used by people to memorise phone numbers, interpret calendars and, most importantly of all, acquire and process language.
Listing young
Studying list-making skills in humans can be confounded by the fact that people know a lot about lists because they are confronted with them from a very young age. This early introduction is thought to shape their list-making ability, but it makes it impossible to study that ability in its raw, uninfluenced form. As a result, psychologists have embraced a comparative approach and look for the underlying skills in animals that have never before been exposed to lists.
Many species, ranging from pigeons to monkeys, have shown that they can make or learn lists. But Steve Ross, a primatologist at Lincoln Park Zoo, wanted to explore this behaviour further and found that there were no data on sequential learning in gorillas. In fact, he found that there was scarcely any information on gorilla cognition at all.
Surprised by this gap in the literature, Mr Ross decided to test one of Lincoln Park Zoo’s gorillas with a simple list-learning task using a 42-inch touch-screen computer that was usually reserved for work with chimpanzees. This is how Rollie came into the picture.
During the study, Rollie voluntarily went into the area equipped with the screen. When she approached it a set of randomly positioned numbers appeared. Her task was to select each numeral in the correct order. If she correctly completed the entire sequence she received a small gift in the form of a sugar-free sweet. If she did not correctly complete the sequence she received no reward.
At the start the tasks were easy; she simply had to select a “1” before a “2” to get the sweet. Now, after some two years and about 25 hours in front of the computer screen, she is working on seven numerals and getting things right 35% of the time. The likelihood of getting such a sequence right by chance is less than 1 in 5,000.
Watch out, monkeys
Mr Ross told the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress held recently in Edinburgh that Rollie has advanced to longer and more complex list-related tasks faster than many other species that have been studied. For an example, it took her 18 sessions to graduate to five numerals. Many monkeys needed over 50 sessions to get there. Poor old lemurs required over 500 sessions.
However, comparing data from various studies can be unreliable because slightly different methods may be used. So to be certain that Rollie was as talented as she seemed to be, Mr Ross ran a bright chimp called Optimus Prime through the same process and compared the results. He found that Rollie completed her tasks in half the time that Optimus needed.
While it is a remarkable demonstration, a lot more gorillas need to be studied before broad conclusions can be drawn. Mr Ross admits that Rollie could just be an exceptional gorilla—or one that is highly motivated by jelly sweets. WHEN it comes to researching intelligence in primates, chimpanzees and orang-utans get all the attention. Chimpanzees have even been s... more -
A face you can trust?
How impostors like Clark Rockefeller capture our trust instantly - and why we're so eager to give it to them.
Human beings are social animals, and our first instinct is to trust others. Con men, of course, have long known this - their craft consists largely of playing on this predilection, and turning it to their advantage.
But recently, behavioral scientists have also begun to unravel the inner workings of trust. Their aim is to decode the subtle signals that we send out and pick up, the cues that, often without our knowledge, shape our sense of someone's reliability.
Researchers have discovered that surprisingly small factors - where we meet someone, whether their posture mimics ours, even the slope of their eyebrows or the thickness of their chin - can matter as much or more than what they say about themselves. We size up someone's trustworthiness within milliseconds of meeting them, and while we can revise our first impression, there are powerful psychological tendencies that often prevent us from doing so - tendencies that apply even more strongly if we've grown close.
"Trust is the baseline," says Susan Fiske, a social psychologist at Princeton University. "Trustworthiness is the very first thing that we decide about a person, and once we've decided, we do all kinds of elaborate gymnastics to believe in people."
According to researchers, the subtler aspects of body language or physiognomy are difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate. But what has become public about Gerhartsreiter's methods - his preppy clothes, penchant for approaching people at country clubs and society events, and modest hints at a storied lineage - matches up with a body of research that suggests just how powerful signals of common identity and status can be, and how they can override our better judgment.
And they illustrate how, though we live in an era of worry over faceless Internet predators and Web identity thieves, we can be at our most vulnerable face-to-face.
Why trust exists in the first place has been something of a puzzle for scholars of human behavior. Evolutionary biologists (and economists) have traditionally assumed that people are self-interested, concerned only with maximizing their own well-being and passing on their genes to succeeding generations. That model doesn't leave much room for trust - why would we assume that someone would act on our behalf rather than simply his own?
Yet human society would not function without trust. We loan things to friends, we take to the road assuming our fellow drivers are not suicidal, we get on airplanes piloted by people we've never seen before, and, when asked to sign something, we rarely read the fine print. If people stopped to double-check the background and references of everyone they had an interaction with, social life would slow to a standstill. How impostors like Clark Rockefeller capture our trust instantly - and why we're so eager to give it to them. ... more -
Amazing 5,000-year-old skeletons laid on bed of flowers found in Sahara
A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.
Researchers discovered the slender arms of the youngsters still extended to the woman in a perpetual embrace.
The remarkable cemetery is providing clues to two civilisations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find.
Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.
'Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert,' said Sereno.
'I realized we were in the green Sahara.'
The graveyard, uncovered by hot desert winds, is near what would have been a lake at the time people lived there. It's in a region called Gobero, hidden away in Niger's forbidding Tenere Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a 'desert within a desert.'
The human remains dated from two distinct populations that lived there during wet times, with a dry period in between.
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More at link.
Few people know that not all that long ago, a few thousand years ago, the Sahara was a lush green garden with girafes, lions, elephants, etc., roaming and prospering in it. There are cave-paintings and carvings on rocks in the Sahara depicting a rich fauna. A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. ... more -
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Extinction 'by man not climate'
news.bbc.co.uk — The extinction of many ancient species may be due to humans rather than climate change, experts say.
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the truth about humans
there is no time to debate which human is more human than another human,
we are all human..!!
that's it, itis what it is . there is no time to debate which human is more human than another human, we are all human..!! ... more -
Neanderthals are the closest human relatives
DNA extracted from a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone has just enabled scientists to sequence the complete mitochondrial genome for the human-like species, according to a paper that will be published tomorrow in the journal Cell.
The remarkable feat, which has led to at least three major discoveries about the extinct stocky European individuals, represents a breakthrough for studies on the human family.
"This is the first complete mitochondrial genome sequence from an extinct hominid," lead author Richard Green explained to Discovery News.
Mitochondria, which an individual inherits from his or her mother, are cellular powerhouses that possess their own DNA and include 13 protein-coding genes. The researchers sequenced the Neanderthal mitochondria 35 times to ensure their findings were as accurate as possible.
After studying the newly completed genome, Green, a researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and his team first concluded that the Neanderthal mitochondria falls outside the range of variation found in humans today, offering no evidence that interbreeding occurred between them and us.
The researchers are quick to add that such interbreeding could still have happened and that the Neanderthals' "exact relationship with modern humans remains a topic of debate."
Clearer is the fact that Neanderthals and humans split from a common ancestor around 660,000 years ago. The researchers based this initially upon prior research that determined humans and chimpanzees diverged from each other six to eight million years ago.
They calculated mtDNA sequence changes for both humans and Neanderthals since that time. These accumulated changes then "let us calculate how long ago was the most recent common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals," Green said.
He added, "This common ancestor likely looked something like Homo erectus." This extinct hominid is believed to have been super strong with a relatively large head and brain.
What most surprised the scientists was how little purification acted upon the Neanderthal's DNA, meaning that the elimination of slightly deleterious alleles, or variant gene forms, didn't occur very often within the population.
written by: Jennifer Viegas DNA extracted from a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone has just enabled scientists to sequence the complete mitochondrial genome for th... more -
Strained by war, U.S. Army promotes unqualified soldiers
America's military commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan is certain to remain a key issue in the presidential race -- and soon that could include renewed focus on a "stretched thin" U.S. Army.
According to a Salon investigation, the Army is facing a troubling shortage of qualified sergeants, the noncommissioned officers considered to be the backbone of training and combat operations.
In fact, a new Army policy intended to boost this critical leadership corps of NCOs has prompted a wave of promotions for apparently unqualified soldiers -- and even jeopardized some combat operations in Iraq. America's military commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan is certain to remain a key issue in the presidential race -- and soon that ... more -
Lines Between Human, Machine will Blur by 2012
Justin Rattner , CTO and a senior fellow at Intel, told Computerworld that perhaps as early as 2012 we will see the lines between human and machine intelligence begin to blur. Nanoscale chips or machines will move through our bodies, fixing deteriorating organs or unclogging arteries. Sensors will float around our internal systems monitoring blood sugar levels and heart rates, and alerting doctors to potential health problems.
Virtual worlds will become increasingly realistic, while robots will develop enough intelligence and human-like characteristics that they'll become companions , not merely vacuum cleaners and toys.
Most aspects of our lives, in fact, will be very different as we close in on the year 2050. Computing will be less about launching applications and more about living lives in which computers are inextricably woven into our daily activities.
"What we think of as a computer and what we think of as IT, in general, is likely to change," said Rattner , who has been at Intel for 35 of the companys 40 years. "The intelligent systems will move from being information systems to intelligent systems that will carry out a whole variety of tasks that we just won't think of as computing tasks... The technology will find its way into so many things we do and we won't even think about it. The explicit way we've done computing in the past will be there, but it will be a very small subset of what we'll be doing."
Intel hit its 40th anniversary last Friday. The company launched its first microprocessor in 1971, developed a processor with more than 1 million transistors in 1989, and late in 2007 packed 820 million transistors onto a single chip.
While chip advancements will continue throughout the semiconductor industry, technology advancements in general will start to change, according to Rattner.
"When you think back on where we were [decades ago]... Computers were still things that largely sat in big rooms behind big windows and were attended to by computing gurus or priests," he added. "In the 40 years, we've just completely changed the way people think about computers and computing. It's gone from a very expensive, very exclusive kind of technology to something that is unquestionably ubiquitous -- from the computers on our desks to the computers in our cell phones."
In the next 40 years, computer chips will extend beyond our computers and phones, as people want to become more entrenched in virtual worlds and computers learn to react to our motions and thoughts.
"When you see how intense the reaction is to things like the iPhone , with its use of touch and its sensitivity to motion, you begin to get a sense of, Gee, if machines understand the physical world and were capable of reacting to our voices, to our movements and gestures and touch, how much closer would we feel to them?"," asked Rattner. "At the same time, of course, we would like the ability to become more a part of these artificial or virtual worlds that are created entirely within the machine. We're starting to see, with things like Second Life and now Lively from Google , the ability of these machines to create these worlds that are much more comfortable for us to experience and be a part of."
As machine learning and computer perception progresses, machines will take on more and more human-like characteristics, he added. Recently, scientists have been putting electrodes into living neurons in living brains , but some researchers are working on ways to transfer brain waves and organic information without the electrodes, which wouldnt be physically intrusive.
"You can imagine a future where, in fact, not just our very senses will be engaged, but our thoughts will drive machine behavior," said Rattner. "You can see how that boundary starts to soften and begins to blur... There is no question in my mind that the technology will bring these two unique and distinct forms of intelligence together." Justin Rattner , CTO and a senior fellow at Intel, told Computerworld that perhaps as early as 2012 we will see the lines between huma... more -
Unexpected fall in puffin numbers
England's biggest colony of puffins has seen the birds' numbers fall by a third in just five years, a survey shows.
"Experts had expected to see a slight increase in the population on the Farne Islands, owned by the National Trust.
The Trust says the size of the decline is unprecedented, adding that it will carry out another survey in 2008 in order to monitor the situation.
One theory is that many of the birds are dying from starvation during the eight months they spend at sea.
"We were expecting a slight increase because since the last survey in 2003, we had a number of good years for puffins," explained David Steel, the Trust's head warden on the islands.
"There were plenty of chicks fledging from the nests, so we were not only getting enough to maintain the population, but increase it.
"But something is going badly wrong somewhere.""
Any guesses as to where...? England's biggest colony of puffins has seen the birds' numbers fall by a third in just five years, a survey shows. ... more -
Human Speech Traced to Talking Fish
Researchers say real fish can communicate with sound, too. And they say (the researchers, that is) that your speech skills and, in fact, all sound production in vertebrates can be traced back to this ability in fish. (You got your ears from fish, too.) Researchers say real fish can communicate with sound, too. And they say (the researchers, that is) that your speech skills and, in fac... more
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Hardcore grandma pins rabid fox!
STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A 77-year-old grandmother was recovering at home after she pinned down a rabid fox that bit her and held it until help arrived. Avis Blakeslee was attacked as she tended to her petunias outside her Stroudsburg farmhouse.
She said she pushed the animal to the ground after it bit her, and held its jaws shut with one arm as she flagged down a passing driver with the other.
Blakeslee's teenage grandson, who lives next door, heard the motorist's cries and ran to help, followed by Blakeslee's son, who shot the animal.
Blakeslee lost a large amount of blood. She underwent surgery to clean out her seven leg wounds and arm wound, and spent four days in the hospital after the attack last week.
"I've been on a lot of antibiotics and pain medicine," she said.
Cory Bentzoni, a wildlife conservation officer for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said tests confirmed that the fox was rabid.
Blakeslee said she initially thought the animal was a dog.
"I had never seen a fox," she said. "I've seen a dead one once." STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A 77-year-old grandmother was recovering at home after she pinned down a rabid fox that bit her and held it un... more -
Albinos Declared an Endangered Species in Africa
In Africa, albinos are hunted for for there body parts and are slowly becoming endangered.
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