Celebrated neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga explains the new science behind an ancient philosophical question.
Epigenetics — how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches called epi-marks — appears to be critical in determining sexuality, U.S. researchers say. Study co-author Sergey Gavrilets of the Working Group on Intragenomic Conflict at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and a professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and colleagues said the…
Coaxing U.S. federal agencies to work together is no small feat. But an emerging National Ocean Policy (NOP) is attempting to do just that. The Obama Administration’s proposed NOP will help federal agencies better organize marine research efforts and inject data into policy decisions—and potentially prevent conflicts between ocean users and save money, U.S. officials…
Steven Pinker has written a long essay in The New Republic embracing scientism. That’s really too bad, because this way Pinker joins a disturbingly long list of scientists (and a few philosophers) who confuse a defense of good science with a knee-jerk reaction against sound criticism of science. [For a good, if partial, response to Pinker from the Left look here; for a far less convincing one, from the Right, look here.]
Here’s an interesting idea. Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so. That has produced an exponential increase in the number of transistors on microchips and continues to do so. But if an observer today was to measure this rate of increase, it would be…
The Affective Computing Research Group, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working on computers that can read facial expressions and track basic states like confusion, liking or disliking. Wearable devices, such as electronic bracelets, can detect stress or excitement by measuring minimal changes in the sweat level. The applications of this technology are…
We could wring our hands about our unreconstructed nature but sex is at the center of human thought, and always has been. Some of the earliest cave art has erotic themes. We didn’t get where we are without genetic programming that makes us value eating, drinking and having sex. Add to that our inbuilt compulsion…