Monogamouse Prairie voles have many vasopressin receptors in the reward centres of their brains. It seems as though these are wired up in a way that causes the animal to take pleasure from monogamy. (previously
1|
2)
posted by kliuless
on Jan 9, 2010 -
20 comments
The simulated brain - "The scientists behind
Blue Brain hope to have a
virtual human brain functioning in ten years... Dr. Markram began by collecting detailed information about the rat's
NCC, down to the level of genes, proteins, molecules and the electrical signals that connect one neuron to another. These complex relationships were then turned into millions of equations, written in software. He then recorded real-world data -- the strength and path of each electrical signal -- directly from rat brains to test the accuracy of the software." Is it possible to
digitally simulate a brain accurately? Can it only
be analog? And are there
quantum effects to
be considered? (previously
1 2 3 4)
[more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Jul 18, 2009 -
251 comments
Correlative Analytics -- or as O'Reilly might term the
Social Graph -- sort of mirrors the debate on 'brute force'
algorithmic proofs (that are "
true for no reason,"
cf.) in which "computers can extract patterns in this ocean of data that no human could ever possibly detect. These patterns are correlations. They may or may not be
causative, but we can learn new things. Therefore they accomplish what science does, although not in the traditional manner... In this part of science, we may get answers that work, but which we don't understand. Is this partial understanding? Or
a different kind of
understanding?" Of course, say some in the scientific community:
hogwash; it's just a fabrication of scientifically/statistically illiterate pundits, like whilst new techniques in
data analysis are being developed to help keep ahead of the deluge...
posted by kliuless
on Jul 21, 2008 -
40 comments
Dean Kamen's Artificial "Luke" Arm - Segway inventor reinvents the prosthetic arm: "I've been able to do stuff with this that I haven't, seriously haven't, done in 26 years... uh, pick up a banana, peel a banana and eat it without it squishening... I can't wait to get one of these in a real environment, a home environment, and actually my wife can't either. She's going, oh yeah, I got lots of stuff for you to do."
posted by kliuless
on Feb 19, 2008 -
59 comments
Before the Big Bang -
way,
way out of my depth, but I thought this comment was intriguing: "The paper as published, along with a longer follow up paper, looks to my untrained eye a nearly complete quantum gravitation theory, which is an exciting prospect in itself. However, as with all physical theories, we will await for experimental support before popping the cork." Here's some more on
loop quantum gravity,
spin networks,
the big bang and
ekpyrosis.
posted by kliuless
on Apr 16, 2006 -
18 comments
The Logic of Diversity "A new book,
The Wisdom of Crowds [
..:] by
The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to
Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [
...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the
central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which
diversity can be beneficial in problem solving."
(Three-Toed Sloth)
posted by kliuless
on Jun 20, 2005 -
6 comments
Jaron Lanier talks about philosophy, computer science and physics.
Suppose poor old Shroedinger's Cat has survived all the quantum observation experiments but still has a taste for more brushes with death. We could oblige it by attaching the cat-killing box to our camera. So long as the camera can recognize an apple in front of it, the cat lives.
posted by kliuless
on Nov 20, 2003 -
11 comments
