Reckless Forum

A thermodynamic limit on brain size Posted: 25 May 2009 09:10 PM PDT If our brains have to be cooled like computer chips, is there a limit on how big they can be? In recent years, chip makers have conlcuded that the race to produce ever faster circuits is a fool’s game. As the clock speed increases,...

Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul by Kenneth R.
Miller

This review was published 6/29 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is now online here:

http://www.scienceshelf.com/OnlyaTheory.htm

16% of US science teachers are creationists New Scientist news service May 20, 2008 ************************* Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey by Pennsylvania State Univ...

Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests. God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program called Evogod may explain how religion evolved. By assuming that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts t...

The efforts of one astronomer to save Flagstaff, Arizona from encroaching light pollution: http://altairvi.blogspot.com/2008/04/wes-lockwood-saves-universe.html And check out these cities as seen from space at night - it looks pretty until you realize how those artificial lights have killed the real...

Check out this Web site, Expell Exposed:

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

Seeds of Future Agriculture Enter Doomsday Deep Freeze Scientific American Feb. 26, 2008 ************************* The first batch of 100 million of the most important agricultural seeds were placed into the “doomsday repository” Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. The vault is a backup of last re...

Next on NOVA: "Voyage to the Mystery Moon" http://www.pbs.org/nova/titan Tuesday, April 1 at 8 p.m. Check your local listings as dates and times may vary. Chronicling a bold voyage of discovery -- the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and its enigmatic moon Titan -- NOVA's "Voyage to ...

I will be blunt and say, why are people so utterly deluded when it comes to creationism: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/24/expelled You want to believe there is some being out there who made every thing? That's your business. But if you have no solid evidence, then don't push it on scien...

Language Feature Unique To Human Brain Identified (March 24, 2008) Researchers have identified a language feature unique to the human brain that is shedding light on how human language evolved. The study marks the first use of diffusion tensor imaging, a noninvasive imaging technique, to compare hum...

Why Language Is All Thumbs Chip Walter 03/15/2008 ************************* Toolmaking not only resulted in tools, but also the reconfiguration of our brains so they comprehended the world on the same terms as our toolmaking hands interacted with it. With mirror neurons, something entirely new enter...

Is Language a Window into Human Nature? "I told him to be fruitful and multiply, but not in those words." Woody Allen Is the gap between objective and inner reality the reason we have difficulty understanding large numbers, the way statistics works, scientific theories like quantum physics...

The Genetics of Language Technology Review January/February 2008 ************************* Neurogeneticists have begun to tease out how we evolved the capacity for sophisticated speech, using improved techniques for detecting DNA, cutting-edge analytical tools, and the genome sequences of species fr...

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World David W. Anthony To read the entire book description or a sample chapter, please visit: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8488.html Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived ...

Geologists Say 'Wall Of Africa' Allowed Humanity To Emerge ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2007) — Scientists long have focused on how climate and vegetation allowed human ancestors to evolve in Africa. Now, University of Utah geologists are calling renewed attention to the idea that ground movements formed ...