The Evolution of Apple Design Between 1977-2008 | Webdesigner Depot
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/01/the-evolution-of-apple-design-between-1977-2008/
'Immortal' jellyfish swarming across the world - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html

The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature. Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die. Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion."

if the word swarming were 'taking over'; I'd be worshipping my new tentacle overlords.

ok, this is curious: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html

So uh... time to figure out how they do that and sequence it into humans. Right?

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance."

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

Attenborough is as great as his haters are tiny and useless.

because you LOVE him :P

"Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries."

"...asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.""

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance." Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

Dr. Weinstock goes even further. “Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat,” he said. He and Dr. Elliott pointed out that children who grow up on farms and are frequently exposed to worms and other organisms from farm animals are much less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune diseases. .... Also helpful, he said, is to “let kids have two dogs and a cat,” which will expose them to intestinal worms that can promote a healthy immune system.

researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system.

Ask mothers why babies are constantly picking things up from the floor or ground and putting them in their mouths, and chances are they’ll say that it’s instinctive — that that’s how babies explore the world. But why the mouth, when sight, hearing, touch and even scent are far better at identifying things?

Evolution of Search

A look at the History, Vision, Innovators, and Future of Information Accessibility

save n share

an outline, with graphs, about the 25 random things that spread across facebook

It's all evolution...

25 Things, Analyzed as an Infectious Disease

2.23.2009. "Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently solved the half-century-old mystery of a fish with tubular eyes and a transparent head. ..."

I know this has been linked to a million times already in the past week, but nobody told me there was a video of this guy swimming around!

Dvorak designed his layout in the 1930's without the aid of computers. It contains a couple annoying features that lead to common errors in my typing -- namely the placement of Y and B). Could a modern evolutionary algorithm and a huge input sample discover a better arrangement? I had to give it a try. The results surprised me!

Could a modern evolutionary algorithm and a huge input sample discover a better [keyboard layout]?

Using an experimental function & selection to discover a more efficient keyboard layout than Dvorak

Other layouts for a standard 3-row keyboard exist (as well as some interesting nonstandard arrangements). I have been using the Dvorak keyboard layout for about a year now. I like it a lot for my daily work, which involves a lot of typing. I used to feel a numbness of the backs of my hands after a long day with QWERTY, but I don't with Dvorak. And quantified measurements bear out its efficiency relative to QWERTY. (I acknowledge the argument that learning Dvorak also got me to type with the right fingers on the right keys, but I don't think that that's the whole story.) But Dvorak designed his layout in the 1930's without the aid of computers. It contains a couple annoying features that lead to common errors in my typing -- namely the placement of Y and B). Could a modern evolutionary algorithm and a huge input sample discover a better arrangement? I had to give it a try. The results surprised me!

The Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev provided a very interesting potential explanation. Genetics at the time was preoccupied with easily measurable traits that could be passed on - if you bred dogs, you could pick the biggest puppies, breed them, and they would produce bigger dogs on average. Fine. But that is selection of a single simple trait, something that likely did not require that many genes to “switch” in order for the puppies to be bigger.

Well, designer pets for one. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the project ran into serious financial trouble in the late 1990s. They had to cut down the amount of foxes drastically, and the project survived primarily on funding obtained from selling the tame foxes as exotic pets. Imagine a menagerie of dwarf exotic animals, who crave human attention and form bonds with people. It would be obscenely profitable. And the out there thought for the day? We’re doing this to ourselves. We don’t encourage people to act aggressively all day to everyone they meet. We reward certain behaviours more than other behaviours. My unprovable conjecture? Humanity is selecting itself for certain behaviours, and the traits we think of as fundamentally human (loss of hair, retention of juvenile characteristics relative to primates) are a side effect of this self-selection.

Dmitri Belyaev foxes

via rp

John Gruber on #iphone http://bit.ly/Gp4hX [from http://twitter.com/igeeo/statuses/1437949138]

"The problem is that while successful complex systems evolve from simple systems that work, not every simple system that works can support additional complexity. It’s not enough just to start simple, you have to start simple with a framework designed for future evolution and growth."

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.”

Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.

bacteria communicate with each other and can tell self from other

Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA, received the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1998 for Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Science. His most recent book is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2004). Professor Diamond argues that religion has encompassed at least four independent components that have arisen or disappeared at different stages of development of human societies over the last 10,000 years.

From Kottke

"A handful of scientists think that these ultra-marathoners are using their bodies just as our hominid forbears once did, a theory known as the endurance running hypothesis (ER)."

running animals to death

In tests where 15 subjects ran and walked on pressure-sensitive treadmills, Lieberman and Rolian found that toe length had no effect on walking. Yet when the subjects were running, an increase in toe length of just 20 percent doubled the amount of mechanical work, meaning that the longer-toed subjects required more metabolic energy, and each footfall produced more shock.

Running deer to death ...

The endurance running hypothesis, the idea that humans evolved as long-distance runners, may have legs thanks to a new study on toes.

But a handful of scientists think that these ultra-marathoners are using their bodies just as our hominid forbears once did, a theory known as the endurance running hypothesis (ER). ER proponents believe that being able to run for extended lengths of time is an adapted trait, most likely for obtaining food, and was the catalyst that forced Homo erectus to evolve from its apelike ancestors. Over time, the survival of the swift-footed shaped the anatomy of modern humans, giving us a body that is difficult to explain absent a marathoning past.

Endurance running hypothesis

Career evolution

Uncovering our earliest ancestor. How the discovery of Ida, a 47 million year old fossil, is rewriting our history.

A major documentary film on Ida and her place in our history.

Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor How the discovery of Ida, a 47 million year old fossil, is rewriting our history

One of the most significant scientific discoveries in recent memory!

Cell Phone design 1983 to 2009

Cell phones have evolved immensely since 1983, both in design and function. From the Motorola DynaTAC, that power symbol that Michael Douglas wielded so

My favorite part of this chart is that they call the 00's the "Noughties".

From air steward uniforms to Corn Flakes cereal boxes...how has everyday design evolved over the last half-century?

I imagine you've seen this already, but on the off chance you haven't . . . bosh!

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points...

But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA.

top 50 des animaux les plus degueu

Evolution sometimes go in weird directions...

Cat purrs train humans

I suspected this all along posted July 13 2009

Topic for discussion in AP

Steven Pinker on how violence has declined over history.

Interesting, somewhat counterintuitive hypothesis here - mankind has been getting steadily LESS violent since pre-historic times - and a bunch of theories as to why.

Steven Pinker explains why he thinks humans have evolved to be more peaceful over time.

I just don't know why they put up with the way men look http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece [from http://twitter.com/JacksonATL/statuses/2917669057]

Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.

"The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern." In my opinion, nowhere did they say there were any kind of studies done to analyze images of women from ancient past (as if such images could even be considered to be accurate), compare them to images of modern women, and determine that modern women are objectively more beautiful. Not to mention that beauty is subjective anyway. The whole article is deeply unscientific.

Women are getting more beautifu

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/st_best worst 1 wired 2 wiredwired 3

1 Sea mammal blowhole. Any animal that spends appreciable time in the ocean should be able to extract oxygen from water via gills. Enlarging the lungs and moving a nostril to the back of the head is a poor work-around. 2 Hyena clitoris. When engorged, this "pseudopenis," which doubles as the birth canal, becomes so hard it can crush babies to death during exit. 3 Kangaroo teat. In order to nurse, the just-born joey, a frail and squishy jellybean, must clamber up Mom's torso and into her pouch for a nipple. 4 Giraffe birth canal. Mama giraffes stand up while giving birth, so baby's entry into the world is a 5-foot drop. Wheeee! Crack. 5 Goliath bird-eating spider exoskeleton. This giant spider can climb trees to hunt very mobile prey. Yet it has a shell so fragile it practically explodes when it falls? Well, at least it can produce silk to make a sail. Oh, wait — it can't!

Via Marignal Revolution (it has a blog)

What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year? Try to put a number to it — 1 in 100? 1 in 10,000? Whatever it is, it will be twice as large 8 years from now. This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law of human mortality.”

!! digital information을 세번쩨 replicator로 규정. 그런데 그것이 copy,mutation,natural selection을 모두 충족하는가? 글쓴이에 의하면 현재의 컴퓨터들은 웹 상에서, 인간의 통제를 벗어나 스스로 복제하고, 정보를 수집하며, 편집하고, 뭐..그런말을 하는데.. / / mutation은 없고 summary만 있을뿐 아닌가? 그리고 natural selection은 혹시 virus에 의한것을 말하는가? 그렇다면 너무 유치하고.. 검색순위 상단에 오르는 것을 말한다면 그것은 인간에 의한것인데?

There's a new type of evolution going on and it may not be to our liking, says Susan Blackmore

Memes are a new kind of information - behaviours rather than DNA - copied by a new kind of machinery - brains rather than chemicals inside cells. This is a new evolutionary process because all of the three critical stages - copying, varying and selection - are done by those brains. So does the same apply to new technology?

Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages

"Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages"

So it takes about 25 kilobits — 3.2 kbytes — of data to code for a virus that has a non-trivial chance of killing a human.

Saturday 05 September 2009 | Health News feed | All feeds

książka Darwina - animacja rozwoju ksiazki

A visualization of Charles Darwin's edits and additions to On the Origin of Species over the course of six editions. Created using Processing. (via MeFi)

Team of scientists find more than 40 previously unidentified species in remote volcanic crater

Wow, I'm even more jealous of my boy, who's off hiking in PNG with his family.

A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

"...according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution."

This article raises a few questions for me: 1) Only 39% of Americans believe in evolution? 2) Are we sure the only (or main) reason the movie isn't being picked up is because of the controversy? Could it just not be a good movie or economically viable?

No US film distribution of Charles Darwin film bio

"Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published. "That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said. "The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up."

(11th September 2009)

Charles Darwin film

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

The Evolution of Apple Ads http://bit.ly/45FwRp [from http://twitter.com/inti/statuses/4005419829]

Webdesigner Depot

Apple first started advertising their products in the late 1970s. The 80s showed a wide variety of ads, some of which served to convince consumers that they

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi's key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.) The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

Contiene una información muy completa de redes sociales, videos, fotos... Genial

Artikel zur Geschichte der Social Media

In this article, we’ll review the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day.

The History and Evolution of Social Media | Webdesigner Depot - http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/10/the-history-and-evolution-of-social-media/

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edge.org%2F3rd_culture%2Fschirrmacher09%2Fschirrmacher09_index.html

He is interested in George Dyson's comment "What if the price of machines that think is people who don't?" He is looking at how the modification of our cognitive structures is a process that eventually blends machines and humans in a deeper way, more than any human-computer interface could possibly achieve. He's also fascinated in an idea presented a decade ago by Danny Hillis: "In the long run, the Internet will arrive at a much richer infrastructure, in which ideas can potentially evolve outside of human minds."

"Mitra’s team wanted to find out what would happen if an isolated bird raised his own colony. As expected, birds raised in soundproof boxes grew up to sing cacophonous songs. But then scientists let the isolated birds give voice lessons to a new round of hatchlings. They found that the young males imitated the songs — but they tweaked them slightly, bringing the structure closer to that of songs sung in the wild. When these birds grew up and became tutors, their pupils’ song continue to conform, with tweaks. After three to four generations, the teachers were producing strapping young finches that belted out normal-sounding songs."

A very cool study, and a well-written article.

via http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/can-culture-be-genetically-encoded-new-research-says-yes.html

GReader: Culture May Be Encoded in DNA [feedly] http://ow.ly/58hy [from http://twitter.com/ChipRiley/statuses/1700727055]

Knowledge is passed down directly from generation to generation in the animal kingdom as parents teach their children the things they will need to survive. But a new study has found that, even when the chain is broken, nature sometimes finds a way. Zebra finches, which normally learn their complex courtship songs from their fathers, spontaneously developed the same songs all on their own after only a few generations.

Subscribe Now! National Geographic Magazine $15

"Ida," the small "missing link" found in Germany that's created a big media splash.

May 19, 2009

Ida

missing link in human evolution May 2009 article from Nat. Geo.

News of a 47-million-year-old fossil that may give us more information on primate evolution.

Study on 5000 people across China. “Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research. [...] The study is certain to prove controversial, suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers." Replicated in Germany and USA.

gest lifestyle studies. The Chinese Health and Family Life Survey targeted 5,000 people across China for in-depth interviews about their personal lives, including questions about their sex lives, income and other factors. Among these were 1,534 women with male partne

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

Hilarious! Now I understand why my wife has a constant smile :-)

g abo

Creepy!! http://twurl.nl/1dsmw7 [from http://twitter.com/FANLESS/statuses/1024831220]

Cool weird squid

David Dobbs tells us about a new theory in genetics called the orchid hypothesis that suggests that the genes that underlie some of the most troubling human behaviors -- violence, depression, anxiety -- can, in combination with the right environment, also be responsible for our best behaviors. Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail -- but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most cr

People that are genetically prone to being at risk in poor environments are also more successful in good environments

found via kottke.org

"the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success"

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

a bad environment and poor parenting vs the right environment and good parenting

“stress diathesis” or “genetic vulnerability” model Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people. The Atlantic Online | December 2009 |

They look like a breed apart. I moved to Moscow with my family last year and was startled to see so many stray dogs. Watching them over time, I realised that, despite some variation in colour – some were black, others yellowish white or russet – they all shared a certain look. They were medium-sized with thick fur, wedge-shaped heads and almond eyes. Their tails were long and their ears erect.

2-year-old

Moscow’s stray dogs

Love this. Home of the Career Evolution in Advertising

software programs and wokr heirarchy

Evolution explained

There are all sorts of ways to reconstruct the history of life on Earth. Pinning down when specific events occurred is often tricky, though. For this, biologists depend mainly on dating the rocks in which fossils are found, and by looking at the "molecular clocks" in the DNA of living organisms.

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn17453-timeline-the-evolution-of-life.html%3Ffull%3Dtrue

There are all sorts of ways to reconstruct the history of life on Earth. Pinning down when specific events occurred is often tricky, though. For this, biologists depend mainly on dating the rocks in which fossils are found, and by looking at the "molecular clocks" in the DNA of living organisms. There are problems with each of these methods. The fossil record is like a movie with most of the frames cut out. Because it is so incomplete, it can be difficult to establish exactly when particular evolutionary changes happened

informational

I started using this with version 2.0. Some things never change.

A fundamental but elusive step in the early evolution of life on Earth has been replicated in a laboratory. Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients

something Creationists said could never be done or observed

RNAの合成に成功。nature may 13

amazing stuff

dziwne zwierzaki

eww.

A good idea of image compression based on genetic algorithms.

De evolutie van de logo's van pepsi en coka cola

Pepsi's logos vs. Coca Cola's

logos of the two companies over the years

READ THIS

finally they take a step or two towards the truth

So this freaking article has been showing up all over delicious for weeks, and I didn't save it when I read it, but since it's everywhere I'd like to officially say: NO. WHETHER OR NOT IT IS AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE, RIGHT NOW THERE IS NO REASON TO GO THROUGH LIFE MISERABLE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOUR PROBLEM-SOLVING OR WHATEVER IS IMPROVED. NO NO NO. Unless the *fate of the entire human population rests in your hands*, you should NOT STAY MISERABLE.

The persistence of this affliction — and the fact that it seemed to be heritable — posed a serious challenge to Darwin’s new evolutionary theory. If depression was a disorder, then evolution had made a tragic mistake, allowing an illness that impedes reproduction — it leads people to stop having sex and consider suicide — to spread throughout the population. For some unknown reason, the modern human mind is tilted toward sadness and, as we’ve now come to think, needs drugs to rescue itself.

While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

RT: @rapella {reassuring} So we’re all a bunch of mutants http://bit.ly/a1s6S (I love this, it's made me very happy). [from http://twitter.com/nijay/statuses/3819538334]

'We are all mutants', scientists find http://twurl.nl/li4gus [from http://twitter.com/znth/statuses/3714551195]

I'm a mutant! we are all mutants! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8227442.stm [from http://twitter.com/madguy000/statuses/3712074988]

visual spiral timeline of earth

as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources.

"Dr Nesse’s hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely to be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit—and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism." Via Mindhacks.

Their conclusion was that those who experienced mild depressive symptoms could, indeed, disengage more easily from unreachable goals. That supports Dr Nesse’s hypothesis. But the new study also found a remarkable corollary: those women who could disengage from the unattainable proved less likely to suffer more serious depression in the long run.

The Economist | Depression may be linked to how willing someone is to give up his goals

The problem with this line of questioning is that technology predated our humanness. Many other animals used tools millions of years before humans. Chimpanzees made (and of course still make) hunting tools from thin sticks to extract termites from mounds, or slam rocks to break nuts. Even termites themselves construct vast towering shells of mud for their homes. Ants herd aphids and farm fungi in gardens. Birds weave elaborate twiggy fabrics for their nests. The strategy of bending the environment to use as if it were part of your body is a billion year old trick at least.

Kevin Kelly on technology-and-humanity's coevolution. "Our genes have co-evolved with our inventions. In the past 10,000 years alone, in fact, our genes have evolved 100 times faster than the average rate for the previous 6 million years. This should not be a surprise. In the same period we domesticated the dog (all those breeds) from wolves, and cows and corn and more from their unrecognizable ancestors. We, too, have been domesticated. We have domesticated ourselves. Our teeth continue to shrink, our muscles thin out, our hair disappear, our molecular digestion adjust to new foods. Technology has domesticated us. As fast as we remake our tools, we remake ourselves. We are co-evolving with our technology, so that we have become deeply co-dependent on it. Sapiens can no longer survive biologically without some kind of tools. Nor can our humanity continue without the technium. In a world without technology, we would not be living, and we would not be human."

the evolution of humans is the evolution of our abilities to analyze and abstract patterns. Languagem, the ultimate pattern abstraction, was crucial to this. (math is just rigorously formal language)

Life before language and before technology

We are co-evolving with our technology, so that we have become deeply co-dependent on it. Sapiens can no longer survive biologically without some kind of tools. Nor can our humanity continue without the technium. In a world without technology, we would not be living, and we would not be human

Some of the most useful applications of genetic algorithms in the real world.

Although the configuration program specified tasks for all 100 cells, it transpired that only 32 were essential to the circuit's operation. Thompson could bypass the other cells without affecting it. A further five cells appeared to serve no logical purpose at all--there was no route of connections by which they could influence the output. And yet if he disconnected them, the circuit stopped working.

genetic fpga evolution/programming

CREATURES FROM PRIMORDIAL SILICON

apply evolution to digital FPGA

Using FPGAs to evolve solutions to problems.

Bobbie-the-Jean's Journal deviantART:

19.) Because I don’t understand why, if we share common ancestry with chimps, there are still chimps. And when someone with more than three brain cells in their head inevitably replies: “for the same reason Americans share common ancestry with Brits but there are still Brits, I can’t follow the logic. It’s just too big a leap. Who am I, Evil Knievel? 20.) Because my mom dropped me on my head when I was a baby. 21.) Multiple times. 22.) On purpose.

Gyaaarrrrrr!!

lolz

Recently I've been looking at the International Barcode of Life project. The idea is take DNA samples from animals and plants to help identify known species and discover new ones. While other projects strive to identify the complete genome for a few species, such as humans, dogs, red flour beetles and others, the barcoding project looks at a short 650-base sequence from a single gene. The idea is that this short sequence may not tell the whole story of an organism, but it should be enough to identify and distinguish between species. It will be successful as a barcode if (a) all (or most) members of a species have the same (or very similar) sequences and (b) members of different species have very different sequences.

acquire

In Seed Magazine, Jonathan Gottschall, a leading Literary Darwinist, reviews Geoffrey Miller's latest book, Spent, which argues that most of what we do, especially what we buy, is a kind of marketing designed to signal our power and secure our (genetic) place in the social hierarchy. That's all well and good, but it seems awful reductive.

In Spent, University of New Mexico evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller contends that marketing—the jet fuel of unrestrained consumerism—“is the most dominant force in human culture,” and thus the most powerful shaper of life on Earth. Using vivid, evocative language, Miller suggests that consumerism is the sea of modern life and we are the plankton—helplessly tumbled and swirled by forces we can feel but not understand. Miller aims to penetrate to the evolutionary wellsprings of consumerist mania, and to show how it is possible to live lives that are more sustainable, more sane, and more satisfying.

Printscreen das lojas da Apple online

The Apple website is somewhat iconic, and over the past few years has become one of the most frequented sites on the internet. According to Alexa, Apple.com is one of the top 100 ranked pages (69th, at the time of writing). Considering the change and evolution undergone by Apple as a company, their website has retained a similar style for almost a decade. This post will take a look at six-monthly snapshots (with a few other notable events) of Apple.com, providing an overview of how the website has evolved over the past 10 years. Prepare for a trip down memory lane!

amazing advances in brain studies

Critical of Paul MacLean

“So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab…”

# Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence. # Instead—as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history. # With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.

One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

Neanderthals? Oh yeah. Humans totally ate them and made their teeth into jewelry - http://tr.im/lLZN [from http://twitter.com/s_m_i/statuses/1848014151]

>One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert. Mmmm neanderthal burgers.

One of prehistory’s great mysteries is, what happened to the Neanderthals? Here’s an answer: we ate them.

About 95% of the human genome has once been designated as "junk" DNA. While much of this sequence may be an evolutionary artifact that serves no present-day purpose, some junk DNA may function in ways that are not currently understood. The conservation of some junk DNA over many millions of years of evolution may imply an essential function that has been "turned off." Now scientists say there's a junk gene that fights HIV. And they've discovered how to turn it back on. What these scientists have done could give us the first bulletproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome's latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures, and hey've published their ground-breaking research in PLoS Biology. A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman and Alexander Colewhether wanted to try a new approach to fighting HIV - one that worked with the body's own immune system. They knew Old World monkeys had a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein called retrocyclin, which c

Darwin's Radio: Prehistoric Gene Reawakens to Battle HIV

evolutionary theory put to work in optimising

SnapAds: Survival Of The Fittest Meets Madison Avenue

This is the best.

Darwin artwork that parodies the famous Shepard Fairey Obama poster.

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

Hahahahahahahaaaaaaa.... *phew*... Hahahahahahaha!

Huffington Post on the neanderthal Palin

humans versus animals

Very cool story about ants and smells.

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring. Instead, religious thoughts run on brain systems used to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. The findings, based on brain scans of people contemplating God, don't explain whether a propensity for religion is a neurobiological accident. But at least they give researchers a solid framework for exploring the question. "In a way, this is a very cold look at religious belief," said National Institutes of Health cognitive scientist Jordan Grafman, co-author of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We're only trying to understand where in the brain religious beliefs seem to be modulated."

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring.

"In a way, this is a very cold look at religious belief," said National Institutes of Health cognitive scientist Jordan Grafman, co-author of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We're only trying to understand where in the brain religious beliefs seem to be modulated."

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring. Instead, religious thoughts run on brain systems used to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. The findings, based on brain scans of people contemplating God, don't explain whether a propensity for religion is a neurobiological accident. But at least they give researchers a solid framework for exploring the question.

Our planet may harbour forms of "weird life" unrelated to life as we know it.

When will the BBC get better quality science journos Alien Life my arse - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7893414.stm [from http://twitter.com/AndyBoydnl/statuses/1227806875]

new forms of life on earth, from earth or arrived to it. How to look for them. Definition of life (self sustained and capable of darwinian evolution?). Did life hartch on earth from scratch more than once?

In his celebrated 1837 Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard, titled "The American Scholar," Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted that a day would come when America would end what he called "our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands." His prediction came true in the twentieth century, and in no area of learning more so than in science. This surely would have pleased Emerson. When he listed his heroes he would generally include Copernicus and Galileo and Newton along with Socrates and Jesus and Swedenborg. But I think that Emerson would have had mixed feelings about one consequence of the advance of science here and abroad—that it has led to a widespread weakening of religious belief.[1]

Without God By Steven Weinberg Charles DarwinCharles Darwin by David Levine In his celebrated 1837 Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard, titled "The American Scholar," Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted that a day would come when America would end what he called "our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands." His prediction came true in the twentieth century, and in no area of learning more so than in science. This surely would have pleased Emerson. When he listed his heroes he would generally include Copernicus and Galileo and Newton along with Socrates and Jesus and Swedenborg. But I think that Emerson would have had mixed feelings about one consequence of the advance of science here and abroad—that it has led to a widespread weakening of religious belief.[1]

He warned me that we must worship God, because otherwise we would start worshiping each other. He was right about the danger, but I would suggest a different cure: we should get out of the habit of worshiping anything.

“We will transcend all of the limitations of our biology,” says Raymond Kurzweil, the inventor and businessman who is the Singularity’s most ubiquitous spokesman and boasts that he intends to live for hundreds of years and resurrect the dead, including his own father. “That is what it means to be human — to extend who we are.” But, of course, one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia. http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D12295

NYT article about the singularity movement

ON a Tuesday evening this spring, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, became part man and part machine. About 40 people, all gathered here at a NASA campus for a nine-day, $15,000 course at Singularity University, saw it happen. While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin’s face. The BrinBot obeyed its human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system.

At that point, the Singularity holds, human beings and machines will so effortlessly and elegantly merge that poor health, the ravages of old age and even death itself will all be things of the past. Some of Silicon Valley’s smartest and wealthiest people have embraced the Singularity. They believe that technology may be the only way to solve the world’s ills, while also allowing people to seize control of the evolutionary process.

While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin’s face. The BrinBot obeyed its human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system. The BrinBot was hardly something out of “Star Trek.” It had a rudimentary, no-frills design and was a hodgepodge of loosely integrated technologies. Yet it also smacked of a future that the Singularity University founders hold dear and often discuss with a techno-utopian bravado: the arrival of the Singularity — a time, possibly just a couple decades from now, when a superior intelligence will dominate and life will take on an altered form that we can’t predict or comprehend in our current, limited state.

AndaBien - Evolution Timeline

To scale.

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Does anyone know if Gilbert Van Tassel Hamilton's studies were published into a coffee table book? If they were, then my gift shopping for the year just got a whole lot easier.

There must be something in the water here in Lanesboro, Minnesota, because last night I dreamt of an encounter with a very muscular African-American centaur, an orgiastic experience with – gasp – drunken members of the opposite sex and (as if

Smashing magazine on the evolution and future of the logo in a post-brand era. Very interesting. http://ow.ly/280jL – Simon Mainwaring (simonmainwaring) http://twitter.com/simonmainwaring/statuses/17971112135

Although it covers the history of logo development, the final paragraphs cover the future of brands and branding

Logo design has been a controversial subject in the design press lately. One branding professional recently claimed that logo design is not that hard to do and another said that logos are dead; some rebutted while others concurred. Why all the fuss?

Nick Yee, (year?)

Almost 3 decades ago, in 1978, Elaine Hatfield wrote a seminal book on the topic of love - teasing apart passionate and companionate love. She defined passionate love as "a state of intense longing for union with another" and companionate love as "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined". Around the same time, Dorothy Tennov was trying to answer the same question in her book "Love and Limerence" and, similar to Hatfield, quickly differentiated between the “love” that is sincere concern and caring as opposed to the “love” that is fiery, euphoric and ephemeral. ... Tennov coined the term “limerence” for the latter so as to be able to discuss it as a concept separate from “love”. She noted that “love” is an emotion that is acted on, while “limerence” is more of a transformed state that people go into (the difference in the proverbial “I love you, but I’m not in love with you”).

Love in Four Acts: What is Romantic Love? - http://j.mp/98a0ua