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“People believe that the best way to predict how happy they will be in the future is to know what their future holds, but what they should really want to know is how happy those who’ve been to the future actually turned out to be.” Daniel Gilbert, Science, Mar 2009 “… journals in the humanities and social sciences … emerge as gateways between [scientific journal] clusters that are otherwise poorly connected, and so act as key bridges between disciplines.” Nature, 9 Mar 2009 National Public Radio has a story on ways researchers are using functional MRI to map religious beliefs. All Things Considered March 9, 2009 The human brain, it appears, responds to God as if he were just another person, according to a team at the National Institutes of Health. A study of 40 people — some Continue reading fMRI researcher looks at religion (NPR) Santino, a 31-year-old male at Furuvik zoo in Sweden, may be the first animal to exhibit an unambiguous ability to plan for the future. UPDATE: The BBC also has the story, which includes an audio interview with researcher Mathias Osvath. Sarah Hrdy argues humans are distinct from other animals in that only we have “allo-mothers,” as-if mothers recruited by babies to help with child-rearing. Why do we behave in the way that we do? In a series of 8 essays, contributors to Nature reveal how the latest research is altering our understanding of what it is to be human. Whether in relation to religion or to our collective behaviour in cities, experts explore the potential impact on society, now Continue reading ‘Being Human’ series (Nature) Babybot’s software mimics biological neural networks, adjusting the strength of links between the computer program’s artificial neurons to perfect learned tasks. Is the program training its arm to pick up the rubber ducky in a way analogous to the way Junior trains his arm? Read more. Continue reading Baby robot learns by trial and error? (New Scientist) Apparently imitating human handlers, an orangutan spontaneously begins whistling. Read more. Autonomy Singularity Creativity, the three year project by the National Humanities Center to bring scientists and humanities scholars together to discuss the various ways that science is altering our understanding of the human experience, is coming to an end. Over the course of these three years, we have generated an enormous amount of new scholarship, Continue reading ASC website expands, becomes On the Human In January, the Washington Post reports on a crash survivor seeking a bionic eye to replace her otherwise inert glass eye. You used to need hubris, millions of dollars and the support of a great research university to imagine building a replacement for the human eye. Now it’s become dream and quest material for artists Continue reading Eye of a Dream Beheld (Washington Post) |
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