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Feb 13, 2021

Plastic-Eating Yacht Cleans Oceans

Posted by in category: energy

😃


These guys developed a super yacht that scoops up plastic trash from the ocean and then uses it as FUEL! đŸ€Ż @theseacleaners’ Mantra concept is seriously effective
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Feb 13, 2021

Buddhism in Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, evolution, life extension

Julian Huxley was part of the intellectual dynasty started by TH Huxley, and is more influenced by Buddhist ideas than Judeo-Christian. “T. H. Huxley was a paleontologist with a medical background who gained great prominence in the nineteenth century as one of the foremost defenders of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Victorians were often inclined to see him as “the living embodiment of science militant,”(8) for Huxley actually clashed with contemporary defenders of Biblical supernaturalism in the name of science.(9) A very late product of his intellectual career, Evolution and Ethics (1893) shows him in a mellowed, reflective mood. The radical disjunction between the ethical and the cosmic processes such as is frequently highlighted here hardly squares with “orthodox” Darwinism; in fact Irvine has called Huxley’s effort in this context a “somewhat puzzling manoeuvre” that is “full of talk about Indian mysticism and of protest about the cruelties of evolution.”(10) Yet his overall treatment of his theme is not a matter that need concern us now.(11) What must be noted, on the other hand, is that in the course of his professed endeavor to inquire into the origin and the basis of ethical values from an evolutionary standpoint, Huxley indeed undertook a brief survey of the leading philosophies that had helped to form mankind’s conceptions of such values. He emphasized in this connection that India had engendered a distinctive outlook on life, and some of the ideas central to that outlook (as, for example, karman) actually made a notable impression on him. But it is upon a particular religion of Indian origin, namely Buddhism, that he chose to dwell at length and, I think, in a way that merits close attention.” Buddhism is” system which knows no God in the Western sense; which denies a soul to man; which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and hope of it a sin; which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice; which bids men look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation; which in its original purity, knew nothing of vows of obedience, abhorred intolerance, and never sought the aid of the secular arm; yet spread over a considerable moiety of the Old World with marvellous rapidity, and is still, with whatever base admixure of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind.”


A note on a Victorian evaluation and its “comparativist dimension” By Vijitha Rajapakse Philosophy East and West Volume 35, no. 3 (July 1985)

©by the University of Hawaii Press

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Feb 13, 2021

How a Single Gene Alteration May Have Separated Modern Humans From Predecessors

Posted by in category: neuroscience

By altering the NOVA1 gene, researchers were able to “Neanderthal-izes” a brain organoid model. Study reveals there is only a one gene difference between the modern human brain and that of our extinct ancestors.

Feb 13, 2021

The last time I went for a long walk in a big city and worried about being arrested was Hong Hong in the early 2000’s as China began dismantling the one country

Posted by in category: futurism

The last time I went for a long walk in a big city and worried about being arrested was Hong Hong in the early 2000’s as China began dismantling the “one country, two systems” policies which once protected Hong Hong citizens from Chinese autocrats.

The only time before that was in Moscow in the middle 1970’s when Russia was under the dictatorship of the communist party and free movement wasn’t allowed. The communist media in Russia then, much like the Canadian media today, also felt it important to remind us that the restrictions on movement, liberty and association were for our safety, not theirs.

But I’m still gonna go for a walk past Dundas Square and Queens Park today around noon and take pictures of what I find. Wish me luck.

Feb 13, 2021

Unexpected Discovery: Hubble Space Telescope Uncovers Concentration of Small Black Holes

Posted by in category: cosmology

Scientists were expecting to find an intermediate-mass black hole at the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6397, but instead they found evidence of a concentration of smaller black holes lurking there. New data from the NASA /ESA Hubble Space Telescope have led to the first measurement of the extent of a collection of black holes in a core-collapsed globular cluster.

Globular clusters are extremely dense stellar systems, in which stars are packed closely together. They are also typically very old — the globular cluster that is the focus of this study, NGC 6397, is almost as old as the Universe itself. It resides 7800 light-years away, making it one of the closest globular clusters to Earth. Because of its very dense nucleus, it is known as a core-collapsed cluster.

Feb 13, 2021

Quantum Computer Chips Manufactured Using Mass-Market Industrial Fabrication Techniques

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Intel engineers have solved the quality control challenge for mass production of quantum computers.

Feb 13, 2021

Researchers Levitated a Small Tray Using Nothing but Light

Posted by in categories: climatology, electronics

One day a “magic carpet” based on this light-induced flow technology could carry climate sensors high in the atmosphere—wind permitting.

Feb 13, 2021

For The First Time, Scans Link Childhood Stress With Changes to Key Adult Brain Regions

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Traumatic and stressful events in childhood can affect the brain into adulthood, scientists have shown, identifying for the first time specific alterations to key brain structures in the amygdala and the hippocampus.

Feb 13, 2021

New Technique Used to Spot Possible Super-Earth in Alpha Centauri’s Habitable Zone

Posted by in category: space

Astronomers using a new technique may have not only found a super-Earth at a neighbouring star, but they may also have directly imaged it. And it could be nice and cozy in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri.

Feb 13, 2021

Social media must not be allowed to destroy democracy, says the EU President

Posted by in categories: government, information science, law

All governments across the globe are the same they don’t want a free flow of information that would challenge their authority and decisions that they think are good for us, maybe because they want to maintain law and order in society.

I am against the control of social media by the government and I am also against the algorithms which are designed to make people addicted to social media by showing the thing that appeals most to them for profit.

What are your opinions on this topic, how we can achieve the balance between these challenging aspects of social media use?

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