What is truth? How do we recognize it? Truth is a concept with which we are all pretty familiar. It is an undercurrent in every conversation and interaction we have with one another. Yet few of us ever give it much conscious thought except when we believe it is absent or in doubt. It’s one of those intangibles that, when it does come up, we typically speak of only in absolutes. A statement can be either true or false, and that is all…
...indeed, the human brain is an incredibly malleable organ when it comes to recognizing truth. Some philosophers have argued that this is because pursuing truth is an adaptation. We have been naturally selected to be curious about the world and gather knowledge from our experiences in it. Through millennia of trial and error, we have obtained the capacity to reason in ways that would not only help us survive, but would also help us to prosper.
In work that has implications for those with severe burns, researchers have demonstrated in mice a new way to encourage skin regeneration.
Artificial skin that slowly releases a stem-cell-attracting protein could improve the healing process for patients with severe burns and for diabetics with foot ulcers. Preliminary studies combining a commonly used skin substitute with a growth factor have demonstrated faster healing in mice. The animals even appear to have regenerated new tissue, rather than scar tissue.
Scientists may have discovered a way of triggering deep sleep in people suffering from chronic insomnia.
A study has found a way of stimulating the brain so that sleep-deprived people can feel the full restorative powers of an eight-hour period of slumber.
The researchers have developed an electronic device that stimulates the brain with harmless magnetic pulses which cross into the nerves that control a type of deep sleep called “slow-wave activity”.
This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?
For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.
German researchers have found a peptide in human blood that blocks HIV and have identified a synthetic variant that is 100 times more potent, they reported Friday in the journal Cell.
New treatment yields complete regression of a human cancer in mice. A simple modification in an anti-cancer treatment currently in clinical trials substantially improves the drug’s effectiveness and reduces side effects in experiments.
Paralyzed lab rodents with spinal cord injuries apparently regained some ability to walk six weeks after a simple injection of biodegradable soap-like molecules that helped nerves regenerate. The research could have implications for humans with similar injuries.
A drug that offers the first real hope for around ten per cent of patients who suffer the common genetic disorders Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and cystic fibrosis has been unveiled.
Beneficial effects are reported in studies on mice and the drug is now being tested on more than 100 patients, with initial data suggesting that it could offer the first treatment for the underlying disease.
Perhaps most remarkable of all is that the drug could also help a significant fraction of sufferers of around 2,000 other types of hereditary disease.
The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.
Department of Veterans Affairs and Wiccans adds the five-pointed star to the list of “emblems of belief” allowed on VA grave markers.
Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The settlement calls for the pentacle, whose five points represent earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.
The Japanese TV show PythagoraSwitch makes strange devices to aid learning. <3Yen provides a translation of the shows mission statement:
Within our daily lives, which we go about without thinking much about the many mysteries, archetypes, themes and more varied ways of thought. For example, have you ever thought why waffles are always the same shape? Behind it all is concept of “having a shape.†There all sorts of these archetypes/shapes: in print, in mass-produced goods and whatnot. Understanding these these “shapes†let’s you grasp how these things work.
“Pythagoras Switch†wants to help kids have that moment of A-HA! We want to raise thinking about thinking, to flip that epiphany switch in every child.
One of the most important bills for working Americans of the last 10 years is likely to go down in defeat, even though Democrats control Congress. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is an anti-union-busting measure that would restore the right to form unions, a right working people have enjoyed mostly on paper since the “Reagan revolution” stacked the deck against workers trying to organize. The House passed the bill last month, but it’s widely expected to be defeated in the Senate, and if it does survive, it will almost certainly fall to George Bush’s veto pen.
If EFCA is defeated, it will carry little or no political cost, largely because America’s corporatocracy has done a bang-up job of framing the debate. A coalition of big business groups conducted a wildly misleading poll, one that gave respondents the (false) idea that the bill will diminish rather than protect workers’ rights—specifically, their right to a fair vote about whether to unionize. They’ve taken that spin and synchronized it across the whole of the conservative communications infrastructure—from business-funded think tanks to right-wing blogs, to the Wall Street Journal editorial page to lawmakers walking the halls of Congress.
Starting in spring next year, a crew of six will be sent on a 500 day simulated mission to Mars. In reality the crew will remain in a special isolation facility in Russia. To investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration mission, such as to Mars, ESA is looking for experiment proposals for research to be carried out during their stay.
During the simulated Mars mission, known as Mars500, the crew will be put through all kinds of scenarios as if they really were travelling to the Red Planet – including a launch, an outward journey of up to 250 days, arrival at Mars and, after an excursion to the surface, they will face the long journey home.
Locked in the facility in Moscow, the crew will have tasks similar to those they would have on a real space mission. They will have to cope with simulated emergencies; they may even have real emergencies or illnesses. Communication delays of as much as 20 minutes each way will not make life any easier.
Ontario will ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012, a move that follows in the footsteps of Australia, the province said Wednesday.
The government estimates that replacing the 87 million incandescent bulbs in use across Ontario with more efficient bulbs would save six million megawatt hours every year — enough to power 600,000 homes.
Changing to more efficient bulbs is also the equivalent — in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions — of taking 250,000 cars off the road, said Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten, who announced the move along with Energy Minister Dwight Duncan on Wednesday morning.
“It’s lights out for old, inefficient bulbs in Ontario,” Duncan said in a statement.
Lamoko, 150 miles down the Maringa river, sits on the edge of a massive stretch of virgin rainforest in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On February 8 2005, representatives of a major timber firm arrived to negotiate a contract with the traditional landowners.
Few in the village realised that the talks would transform all their lives, but in just a few hours, the chief, who had received no legal advice and did not realise that just one tree might be worth more than £4,000 in Europe, had signed away his community’s rights in the forest for 25 years.
In return for his signed permission to log thousands of hectares for exotic woods such as Afromosia (African teak) and sapele, the company promised to build Lamoko and other communities in the area three simple village schools and pharmacies. In addition, the firm said it would give the chief 20 sacks of sugar, 200 bags of salt, some machetes and a few hoes. In all, it was estimated that the gifts would cost the company £10,000.
It was the kind of “social responsibility” agreement that is encouraged by the World Bank, but when the villagers found out that their forest had been “sold” so cheaply, they were furious.
Researchers from the University of Darmstadt in Germany and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry reported this week on a family of mites that have forsaken asexual reproduction and re-evolved to reproduce sexually. Reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the revival of a complex trait such as sexual reproduction after it had been dormant for millions of years raises interesting questions about our understanding of evolutionary biology.
For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy. 
German researchers have found a peptide in human blood that blocks HIV and have identified a synthetic variant that is 100 times more potent, they reported Friday in the journal Cell.
The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.
If EFCA is defeated, it will carry little or no political cost, largely because America’s corporatocracy has done a bang-up job of framing the debate. A coalition of big business groups conducted a wildly misleading poll, one that gave respondents the (false) idea that the bill will diminish rather than protect workers’ rights—specifically, their right to a fair vote about whether to unionize. They’ve taken that spin and synchronized it across the whole of the conservative communications infrastructure—from business-funded think tanks to right-wing blogs, to the Wall Street Journal editorial page to lawmakers walking the halls of Congress.
Starting in spring next year, a crew of six will be sent on a 500 day simulated mission to Mars. In reality the crew will remain in a special isolation facility in Russia. To investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration mission, such as to Mars, ESA is looking for experiment proposals for research to be carried out during their stay.
Ontario will ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012, a move that follows in the footsteps of Australia, the province said Wednesday.
Lamoko, 150 miles down the Maringa river, sits on the edge of a massive stretch of virgin rainforest in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On February 8 2005, representatives of a major timber firm arrived to negotiate a contract with the traditional landowners.
Researchers from the University of Darmstadt in Germany and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry reported this week on a family of mites that have forsaken asexual reproduction and re-evolved to reproduce sexually. Reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the revival of a complex trait such as sexual reproduction after it had been dormant for millions of years raises interesting questions about our understanding of evolutionary biology.
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