Luis Andrade
Compulsive aggregator of quasi-apocrypha found scattered around. A mind tuned to changes. Afflicted by spontaneous bouts of pareidolia. A life--ongoing at that--dedicated to the study of the Yijing. Occasional translator. Avid reader. A person who tries to be a good friend, always. Jester. The priority order of the above can be shuffled at will.
Freud on Creative Writing and Daydreaming. Glass Mirrors Life in the Seas - Interactive Feature. Pink Poison, the Surprising New Trend That’s Saving Rhinos. With over 200 rhinos already dead this year at the hands of poachers in South Africa and no signs of the slaughter slowing, some innovative rhinoceros lovers are stepping up their game.
Wildlife workers at Sabi Sand, a private game reserve at the southernmost tip of Kruger National Park, have injected a special cocktail into 100 rhino horns, turning them pink in an effort to deter illegal horn hunters. In addition to discoloring the horn, the pink dye can also be detected by airport scanners, even when the horn is ground into a powder to make the high-priced traditional "medicines" that help fuel the killing of rhinos. The hope is to make transport of the illegal product that much riskier. And that's not all. There's poison in the pink. The indelible pink dye is mixed with parasiticides, usually used to control ticks. Dr. "If this strategy discourages even one person from buying horn, I think it's marvelous," she says. Who’re You Calling a Neanderthal? Book Review: Lee Smolin's 'Time Reborn' : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture.
iStockphoto.com We physicists are all romantics.
Don't laugh; it's true. In our youth we all fall deeply in love. We fall in love with a beautiful idea: beyond this world of constant change lies another world that is perfect and timeless. This eternal domain is made not of matter or energy. Unless we lose faith in that Grail. I used to think my job as a theoretical physicist was to find that formula.
For Smolin there is no timeless world and there are no timeless laws. Time, of course, seems real to us. Ever since Newton, physicists have been developing ever-more exact laws describing the behavior of the world. That means these laws are more real than time. Now before you say "that's crazy," remember that every modern miracle of physics — from jet planes to GPS — is built using these laws. But, according to Smolin, when it comes to cosmology, the ultimate study of the Universe as a whole, faith in timeless laws has led physicists astray. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. By Maria Popova “The real enemy is the man who tries to mold the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.”
In an age obsessed with practicality, productivity, and efficiency, I frequently worry that we are leaving little room for abstract knowledge and for the kind of curiosity that invites just enough serendipity to allow for the discovery of ideas we didn’t know we were interested in until we are, ideas that we may later transform into new combinations with applications both practical and metaphysical. This concern, it turns out, is hardly new. We hear it said with tiresome iteration that ours is a materialistic age, the main concern of which should be the wider distribution of material goods and worldly opportunities.
Mr. Flexner goes on to contend that the work of Hertz and Maxwell is exemplary of the motives underpinning all instances of monumental scientific discovery, bringing to mind Richard Feynman’s timeless wisdom. New clues on origins of Maya civilization unearthed. The Maya civilization is well-known for its elaborate temples, sophisticated writing system, and mathematical and astronomical developments, yet the civilization's origins remain something of a mystery.A new University of Arizona study to be published in the journal Science challenges the two prevailing theories on how the ancient civilization began, suggesting its origins are more complex than previously thought.
Anthropologists typically fall into one of two competing camps with regard to the origins of Maya civilization. The first camp believes that it developed almost entirely on its own in the jungles of what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. The second believes that the Maya civilization developed as the result of direct influences from the older Olmec civilization and its center of La Venta.
"We really focused on the beginning of this civilization and how this remarkable civilization developed," said Inomata, UA professor of anthropology and the study's lead author.
We all need X-Files. Yijing. Eastern. Western.