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Last login: 6 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a 56 year old guy from Wisconsin, USA.; Likes 1,586 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 227 fans • Received 64 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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Begley: Blame the Bugs | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com: Apr 10, 6:58pm 1 review science, society, life
http://www.newsweek.com/id/130623; You Can Blame the Bugs in Newsweek by Sharon Begley
For years scientists have scratched their heads over why collectivism declines with distance from the equator, and why living in colder regions should promote individualism (you'd think polar people would want to huddle together more). The answer seems to be that equatorial regions breed more pathogens. How might pathogen-fighting customs and attitudes arise, or fail to? Maybe people make conscious efforts to act in ways that inhibit the spread of pathogens, such as by shunning strangers and demanding conformity. Or maybe there are genes for behaviors that, at the level of a whole society, manifest themselves as collectivism or individualism, and genes for individualism get wiped out in disease-plagued regions. But when East Asians move to the West or Westerners go East, says Nisbett, they begin to see, think and behave like people in their adopted society. That would be hard to do if they were in the grip of collectivist or individualistic genes. You Can Blame the Bugs "The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently - and Why" Individual atoms left to themselves are nothingness. Their being is given by their being part of an assembling. In H2O each atom has a specific place in the assembling. When H, for example, is extracted from H2O it does need to be contained by an outside force to remain H. Without this containment the H atom would readily assemble with other atoms present in its near environment. The same goes for individual humans. They readily assemble with other individual human atoms present in their environment. Left to themselves they rapidly die. What all this means is that atoms (individual) and the assembling they are a part of (collective) are inseparable. Indeed the combination of the individual and collective form results in the existence of a constitutive unity. When H combines with O into H2O we have the atomic and collective forms combining in their constitutive unity that we know as water. The same goes for human atoms and their societal collective forms that are giving the constitutive unity that we have the habit to call humanity. The atomic and collective forms are inseparable they are the polarities of any unity. The one depends on the other and vice-versa. But the weight of each polarity within any given unity is variable. That means that sometimes one of the polarities is stronger than the other and so it exerts a stronger influence on the being of the unity. The relative weight of the polarities results from a complex web of interacting factors: - factors that are internal to the constitutive unity. - factors that are external to the constitutive unity, for example, bugs are forming individual demands for more or less collective relations. "... people make conscious efforts to act in ways that inhibit the spread of pathogens, such as by shunning strangers and demanding conformity."

The Loom : In Praise of Yeast: Oct 11, 2007 6:26pm 1 review evolution, art, life
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/10/11/in_praise_of_yeast.php; Endless Forms Most Beautiful in The Loom by Carl Zimmer
We do a pretty good job at appreciating the visible intricacies of nature: the antennae and legs and claws of a lobster, the geometrical order of the spots on a butterfly's wings. But a lot of nature's intricacies are hidden away inside single-celled creatures, such as the baker's yeast that makes bread rise and beer ferment. At an audition for a David Attenborough documentary, a yeast cell guzzling away on sugar is bound to do a lousy job. ("Thanks, don't call us; we'll call you. Send in the King Cobra!") But the intricacy of its metabolism is no less impressive. What's more, scientists know how to manipulate yeast in ways they can't with animals, and that power lets them set up experiments that yield clues to how that intricacy evolved. The latest study of yeast's intricacy comes from the University of Wisconsin lab of Sean Carroll. Carroll has become the public's go-to guy for evo-devo, or the evolution of development, thanks to his book Endless Forms Most Beautiful. In Praise of Yeast Endless Forms Most Beautiful The Making of the Fittest in "The making of the fittest" Carroll writes "DNA is the genetic blueprint of all creatures; it contains the operating instructions for everyday life and for making the next generation. Very recently, an important new dimension of DNA has been revealed -- it contains a vast and detailed record of how species adapt and change. That is, DNA is a living chronicle of Evolution. We can now pinpoint the precise changes in DNA that have enabled the marvelous creatures that inhabit our planet to adapt to its many shifting and sometimes extreme environments, from the freezing waters of the Antarctic to the lush canopy of the rain forest. We finally understand not just how the fittest survive, but how they are made." This is the scientific heart of my theory of beauty in art. The history of the evolution and the development of the principle of life is recorded in our DNA. The forms, colors, patterns, sounds and rhythms that have been retained are representative of beauty while non-beauty and ugliness represent what has been rejected. So, knowingly or unknowingly, we all are carrying the code of beauty as well as the code of ugliness inside ourselves. Gone is that old idea that germinated in high modernity that art has nothing to do with beauty time has come for artists to recognize that beauty is something objective that they can't run from. There is no hiding place left...

Cosmic Dust Could Form Inorganic Life, Study Suggests: Sep 19, 2007 9:50am 1 review evolution, science, life
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070917-alien-life.html; Cosmic Dust Forms Inorganic Life in The National Geographic by Scott Norris
A new study suggests that under certain conditions cosmic dust and plasma can organize into stable, helical-shaped structures that resemble inorganic life-forms. Using computer simulations, a team led by Vadim Tsytovich, of Russia's General Physics Institute in Moscow, found that under certain conditions dust and plasma can organize into stable, helix-shaped structures resembling DNA. While the structures exhibit none of the complex chemistry associated with even the simplest forms of life on Earth, they appear to at least mimic some the basic processes associated with living systems, the team said. For example, the helical strands were sometimes capable of reproducing by splitting and reassembling into two identical copies. The structures also exhibited a kind of evolution, according to the researchers. Structural changes that took place in the strands were passed from one "generation" to the next, the researchers said. As conditions changed, only the most stable configurations were able to persist. Cosmic Dust Forms Inorganic Life A nebula in the constellation Orion shows starlight being reflected off a mass of interstellar dust and gas. Emergence. Yes life emerges as the result of chain of complex chemical reactions flowing in particular conditions. What's the problem with that? I have none but why do humans experience such difficulties in accepting that fact?

Seed: The Meaning of Life: Sep 5, 2007 6:45pm 6 reviews biology, evolution, life
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/09/the_meaning_of_life.php; The meaning of life in SEED Magazine by Carl Zimmer
We create life, we search for it, we manipulate and revere it. Is it possible that we haven't yet defined the term? It's hard to think of a word more charged with meaning\u2014or meanings\u2014than "life." Some of the most passionate debates of our day, over stem cells or the right to die, genetically modified food, or wartime conduct, revolve around it. Whether we're talking about when life begins or when it ends, the sanctity of life, or the danger of playing God, we all have an idea of what we mean when we talk about life. Yet, it often turns out, we actually mean different things. Scientists, despite their intimacy with the subject, aren't exempt from this confusion. "There is no one definition that we agree upon," says Radu Popa, geobiologist and the author of Between Probability and Necessity: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life. In the course of researching his book, Popa started collecting definitions that have appeared in the scientific literature. He eventually lost count. "I've found at least three hundred, maybe four hundred definitions," he says. The meaning of life Starts with L, Rhymes with Rife initial posting about the same subject on The Loom DEFINING `LIFE' free 7 pages pdf by CAROL E. CLELAND and CHRISTOPHER F. CHYBA. University of Colorado, Generative art by Jared Tarbell An interesting post that all living beings should make it a priority to read. The comments on Carl's initial article on The Loom are particularly interesting. So here are some aspects of a definition: - self-assembling system that reproduces itself and expands - encodes the information of its evolutionary path in its offsprings' (in DNA or other). - successful outcomes are like the links of an evolutionary chain. - all the evolutionary changes carry the beauty of the miracle of reproduction - as such life is beauty and beauty is life.

YouTube - une mission ephemere - piotr kamler & bernard parmegiani: Sep 2, 2007 10:45am 1 review evolution, video, life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aulXlb8Dt24; une mission ephemere in You Tube by piotr kamler & bernard parmegiani
Animated by Piotr Kamler, featuring music by Bernard Parmegiani. une mission ephemere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aulXlb8Dt24 An animation about the long evolution of the principle of life and how, in the span of an eye blink, humans literally boxed themselves into the prison of singularity.

Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia: Aug 28, 2007 4:00pm 3 reviews complex-systems, genetics, microbiology, life, complexity
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070827-frozen-dna.html; Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia in National Geographic by Mason Inman
Bacteria can survive in deep freeze for hundreds of thousands of years by staying just alive enough to keep their DNA in good repair, a new study says. Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia Speaking about resilience... The principle of life seems to be hard wired for resisting extreme conditions. Advanced forms of life such as the human specie, for example, do not benefit from the same kind of resilience. It seems to me that the more advanced the level of development of a specie (the more diverse its components and the more complex their interactions) the less resilient that specie becomes. If this is correct it would mean that complexity engenders higher levels of fragility. Each new component engenders a flow of interactions with the other components. And a single interaction among that flow has the potential to destabilize the whole flux of interactions... There is a deep lesson of philosophy hidden in this mechanism of complexification - fragilization. I bet that the study of that mechanism shall gradually impose itself on a humanity discovering that it is at risk...

Dept. of Entomology: Stung: Reporting &Essays: The New Yorker: Aug 4, 2007 2:46pm 3 reviews environment, life, collapse
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/06/070806fa_fact_kolbert?currentPa...; Stung. Where have all the bees gone? in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert
Among the many possible contributing factors that the report cited are habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and introduced pathogens. May Berenbaum, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, chaired the National Research Council panel; she recently characterized C.C.D. as "a crisis on top of a crisis." "We can't count on wild pollinators, because we've so altered the landscape that many are no longer viable" she said. As the National Research Council report noted, invertebrate extinctions don't tend to have much "marquee appeal". Yet if it's a bad sign when an ecosystem loses its large mammals, it is probably an even worse sign when it can no longer support its insects. The report put it this way: "Pollinator decline is one form of global change that actually does have credible potential to alter the shape and structure of the terrestrial world." Stung. Where have all the bees gone? ILLUSTRATION: ARNOLD ROTH The conclusion of the US National Research Council panel on CCD could not be more on the mark: "Pollinator decline is one form of global change that actually does have credible potential to alter the shape and structure of the terrestrial world." In other words modernity and its ideology of rationality have fucked up with their godly games! And it seems that the best we can do now is simply to observe where and how modernity's induced global change is driving the principle of life. What we assist at is not the demise of the principle of life on earth. But in all probability humanity shall pay a heavy price in the form of: - or the collapse of its present-day societal stage of evolution: civilizational collapse. - or what could even be worse (for us I mean) the extinction of the specie as a whole. Blind followers of the ideology of rationality and the servicemen of science shall want to "counter-act" the consequences of that global change. Those apostles of rationality are already busy preparing "terra-forming" projects meant to save us from what they un-leached. And they would now like us to think about them as our saviors. Technology is going to take care of all our ills is it not? But how long will we continue to take this kind of bullshit? And more importantly how are we going to behave collectively once a lot more people start to understand that modernity has really fucked up? That's the real question of importance I guess.

ScienceDaily: Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core: Jun 30, 2007 5:27pm 4 reviews biology, evolution, life
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070629101101.htm; Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core in Science Daily from European Molecular Biology Laboratory From an article by Tessmar-Raible, K., Raible,F., Christodoulou, F., Guy, K., Rembold, M., Hausen, H. and Arendt, D. in Cell, 29 June 2007.
Researchers now reveal that the hypothalamus and its hormones are not purely vertebrate inventions, but have their evolutionary roots in marine, worm-like ancestors. In this week's issue of the journal Cell they report that hormone-secreting brain centres are much older than expected and likely evolved from multifunctional cells of the last common ancestor of vertebrates, flies and worms. Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core This study at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory adds a good chunk of evidence to my idea that our DNA / genes have in store the memory of the whole line of evolution of life on earth. Those who regularly read my comments here on SU or my posts on Crucial Talk surely remember my approach about beauty. In summary I posit that beauty is the nature itself of the evolution of life. To put this otherwise I suggest that the forms, colors and sounds that have been successfully retained along the road of evolution of the principle of life are the forms, colors and sounds that we are driven constantly to emulate as if we were under the stress of some sort of biological need. And by extension what we feel ugly are those forms, colors and sounds that did not make it through the evolution of the principle of life. Those are the forms colors and sounds that we all reject as being ugly and painful as if we were under the stress of some biological need too.

APOD: 2007 May 28 - A Hole in Mars: May 28, 2007 8:00am 5 reviews astronomy, life
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070528.html; A Hole in Mars in Nasa's Astronomy picture of the day
Credit: NASA, JPL, U. Arizona Explanation: Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist. The unusual hole pictured above was found on the slopes of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons. The above image was captured three weeks ago by the HiRISE instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars. The holes were originally identified on lower resolution images from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, The above hole is about the size of a football field and is so deep that it is completely unilluminated by the Sun. Such holes and underground caves might be prime targets for future spacecraft, robots, and even the next generation of human interplanetary explorers. A Hole in Mars

Amazing how the unknown behind this image of a hole is driving our imagination... As the commentary states "Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist." So here we go. But what if life were really present in those deep caves? If Martian life forms were becoming "prime targets for future spacecraft, robots, and even the next generation of human interplanetary explorers" what would be the impact of our encounter with them? Do you really believe that we could handle such an encounter any more gentler than our earlier encounters with other civilizations, human societies and other animal and plant species? Would our encounter not be a threat to the survival of Martian life? And if we think this could be a possibility what about our moral responsibility?

Future Feeder & Archive & Genetic Architecture: Feb 4, 2007 8:42am 1 review architecture, complex-systems, life, reality, worldviews
http://futurefeeder.com/index.php/archives/2006/08/06/genetic-architecture/; Genetic Architecture in Future Feeder by cw wang
With the dissolution of the last utopian project of Man in the name of Communism, the great specter that once haunted Europe and the rest of the world has all but vanished, leaving in its wake an ideological vacuum that is now being filled by the tentacles of globalization with its ecumenical ambition. As humanity has become mesmerized by the triumphant spell of capitalism, what remains less apparent in the aftermath of this dissolution is that the world is moving incipiently toward a threshold that is far more radical and fantastic than any utopic vision since the dawn of the Enlightenment. Once again, the world is witnessing the rumblings of a Promethean fire that is destined to irrupt into the universe of humanity, calling into question the nature and function of life world relations as they so far have existed. Genetic Architecture Leibniz, Information, Math and Physics. G. J. Chaitin 14 pages PDF. A New Kind of Science FREE Online access (1280 pages)
CC Wang is primary concerned with architecture and the conclusion of his post goes "...architecture is becoming increasingly dependent on genetic computation: the generative construction and the mutual coexistence of possible worlds within the computable domain of modal space." I have nothing against the organic principle... it's the principle of life. BUT It frightens me when man starts dreaming of taking over the organic principle in order to devise a possible materialization of his fantasies. This is just what's on the verge of happening. A few thinkers, dwelling into their abstractions, could eventually unleash "a Promethean fire that is destined to irrupt into the universe of humanity"... How to call this? Is this not by definition the summit of what is totalitarianism? Totalitarianism is the principle of complete and unrestricted power of government. Tampering with the organic principle does not require the control over the power of a government. It only requires brain power and cash invested into that brain power. In the end this combination of capital + brain power is far more potent than government. It has the potential to inflict its will to all governments and all people on earth... This is uber-totalitarianism.

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