Daniel Rourke /stream

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Neuroscientists have yet to find anything in the brain they are happy calling consciousness, and philosophers are far from agreement over a way of talking about what happens after we wake…

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With tongues in cheeks, Rich­ard Daw­kins, Chris­to­pher Hitch­ens, Sam Har­ris, and Dan­iel Dennett are embracing their reputation as the "Four Horsemen." Lampoon­ing the anx­i­eties of evan­geli­cals, these best-sell­ing athe­ists are em­brac­ing…

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I believe that by extrapolating from past and future stories about "islands in the net" we may collect evidence to suggest that a certain kind of "free enclave" is not only…

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In a clever juxtaposition of biology and technology, Stanford physicist, Ingmar Riedel-Kruse and his team are creating paramecia-based versions of classic video games that you can play by controlling the movements…

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In November the executive board of the American Anthropological Association, of which I am a member, met for one and a half days. In preparation for the meeting, we were expected…

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How do we deal with a purposeless universe and the finality of death? From Victorian séances to the embalming of Lenin's corpse to schemes for uploading our minds into cyberspace, there…

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Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometres below…

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It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived. An international group of scientists is aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth -…

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A key feature of complex adaptive systems is their ability to self-organize along a number of different pathways with possible sudden shifts between states: A lake, for example, can exist in…

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We're hard-wired to turn our lives into stories - how will we cope with the dizzying digital fictions of the future, ask John Bickle and Sean Keating "We are our narratives"…

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Rain may seem a harmless nuisance to us humans, but for ants, it's a big deal. They can get trapped by just a single drop and risk drowning. Paradoxically, it's by…

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By now, nearly everyone with a passing interest in science or religion is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould’s description of the two disciplines as “non-overlapping magisteria” with separate domains — science…

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Among the theorists who jumped into the market for models of the future, three stood out: Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and John Mearsheimer. Each made a splash with a controversial article,…

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by Mary Midgley Does the term "humanism" really stand for a new and better form of religion? If so, what is that religion? Or is it something designed as a cure…

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Just a quick fyi: If you head over to the Harvard University Press web site, you can grab a free copy of Marcus Boon’s new book, In Praise of Copying, which…

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Neanderthals really did act like Neanderthals, new research suggests, as our early relatives were found to be more aggressive, competitive and promiscuous than modern man. Scientists examining fossils have discovered that…

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Just this year, researchers have estimated that gene flow from Neanderthals to humans occurred between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago (ScienceDaily May, 2010). Researchers have long wondered if Neanderthals were an…

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A few scientists noticed in the late 1960s that the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri appeared to coordinate among themselves the production of chemicals that produced bioluminescence, waiting until a certain number…

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Who among us is invulnerable to the puppy in the pet store window? Not everyone is a dog person, of course; some people are cat people or horse people or parakeet…

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That headline flashed to all corners of the media universe this month. Of course, we don't know whether a universe has corners. Truth is, we don't know much about the universe…

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We make a mistake when we think of cancer as a noun. It is not something you have, it is something you do. Your body is probably cancering all the time.…

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"So here," says Hall, with suitable drama, "they are: the Ruxton Maggots." Were it not for the maggots, it is pretty safe to say the case of Dr Buck Ruxton, one…

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I like the BBC test card, because it's a wonderful example of how practical industrial design can develop into an enigmatic work of art. But even better is knowing that the…

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Neuroscientists have yet to find anything in the brain they are happy calling consciousness, and philosophers are far from agreement over a way of talking about what happens after we wake…

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The video above captures the moment when a malaria parasite invades a human red blood cell - the first time the event has been caught in high resolution. The Plasmodium parasite…

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I believe that by extrapolating from past and future stories about "islands in the net" we may collect evidence to suggest that a certain kind of "free enclave" is not only…

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In November the executive board of the American Anthropological Association, of which I am a member, met for one and a half days. In preparation for the meeting, we were expected…

Bookmark

We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over the past few decades, geneticists, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and others have made great strides in understanding the inner…

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Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometres below…

Bookmark

It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived. An international group of scientists is aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth -…

Bookmark

A key feature of complex adaptive systems is their ability to self-organize along a number of different pathways with possible sudden shifts between states: A lake, for example, can exist in…

Bookmark

We're hard-wired to turn our lives into stories - how will we cope with the dizzying digital fictions of the future, ask John Bickle and Sean Keating "We are our narratives"…

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Freeman Dyson is one of those force-of-nature intellects whose brilliance can be fully grasped by only a tiny subset of humanity, that handful of thinkers capable of following his equations. His…

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By now, nearly everyone with a passing interest in science or religion is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould’s description of the two disciplines as “non-overlapping magisteria” with separate domains — science…

Bookmark

by Mary Midgley Does the term "humanism" really stand for a new and better form of religion? If so, what is that religion? Or is it something designed as a cure…

Bookmark

It’s true that the code, as it was understood at the height of the genomic era, had some grounding in material reality. Each of the four different letters stands for one…

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Neanderthals really did act like Neanderthals, new research suggests, as our early relatives were found to be more aggressive, competitive and promiscuous than modern man. Scientists examining fossils have discovered that…

Bookmark

Just this year, researchers have estimated that gene flow from Neanderthals to humans occurred between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago (ScienceDaily May, 2010). Researchers have long wondered if Neanderthals were an…

Bookmark

A few scientists noticed in the late 1960s that the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri appeared to coordinate among themselves the production of chemicals that produced bioluminescence, waiting until a certain number…

Bookmark

Who among us is invulnerable to the puppy in the pet store window? Not everyone is a dog person, of course; some people are cat people or horse people or parakeet…

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Look, I wouldn’t trade the 21st century for any other. We have toilet paper and vitamin-fortified milk and a measles vaccine. We can buy avocados in Fairbanks in January. But sometimes,…

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We make a mistake when we think of cancer as a noun. It is not something you have, it is something you do. Your body is probably cancering all the time.…

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I like the BBC test card, because it's a wonderful example of how practical industrial design can develop into an enigmatic work of art. But even better is knowing that the…

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Good sense is the most fairly distributed commodity in the world, Descartes once quipped, because nobody thinks he needs any more of it than he already has. A neat illustration of…