https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-9rLlFgcm0 Bookmarking. h/t Hacker news.
Tag: biology
Typical & Atypical Aesthetic Taste
"Aesthetic experience seems both regular and idiosyncratic. On one hand, there are powerful regularities in what we tend to find attractive versus unattractive (e.g., beaches versus mud puddles). On the other hand, our tastes also vary dramatically from person to person: what one of us finds beautiful, another might find distasteful. What is the nature … Continue reading Typical & Atypical Aesthetic Taste
Haeckel’s Radiolaria
"Haeckel was evidently just as fascinated with the protozoa, enough to write and illustrate a substantial monograph. Die Radiolarien (Rhizopoda radiaria): Eine Monographie (1862) is available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Internet Archive in a mammoth four-volume set, a large portion of which is explanatory text. There’s also a separate volume with a … Continue reading Haeckel’s Radiolaria
Explanation of Why Life on Earth is Made Out of Only 20 Amino Acids When Hundreds are Possible| PNAS
"One of the long-standing questions in origins-of-life research centers on how the proteinaceous side chains and the protein backbone were selected during the earliest phases of evolution. Here we have studied oligomerization reactions of a group of positively charged amino acids, both proteinaceous and nonproteinaceous. Amino acids spontaneously oligomerized without the use of enzymes or … Continue reading Explanation of Why Life on Earth is Made Out of Only 20 Amino Acids When Hundreds are Possible| PNAS
Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us | WIRED
"Each of us has our precious things, and as we care for them we locate the essence of our humanity." —Bill Joy, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us." Wired. April 2000. Figured it was time to revisit this old classic and get a feel for how prescient it was almost 20 years on. Still feels … Continue reading Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us | WIRED
Rearranging Our Minds
Open Question: Should we make an effort to change our minds in some fundamental way? And if so, how? There are a number of stories of people suffering a traumatic brain injury that results in the brain being rearranged in a way that gives them a new ability. Generally, this involves some skill with art, … Continue reading Rearranging Our Minds
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