Crop Rotation Memory in the Brain [Interactive] Although most people think of memory as a vault for storing information, it is more like a seamstress who stitches together logical threads into scenes that make sense. In this view, a good memory is therefore not one that holds lots of data but that can deftly separate what is useful from what could distract or upset you. Getting rid of what is not necessary—forgetting—is thus an important part of memory and of thought. It is also critical to emotional wellbeing. To learn more about memory and the power of forgetting, see the January 2012 Scientific American Mind. More to Explore8 Ways To Forget Your TroublesLet It GoA Feeling for the PastTrying to ForgetTotaling Recall10 Novels That Will Sharpen Your Mind [Interactive]
How It Works: The Light-Driven Computer The speed of light is as fast as it gets, and IBM researchers are exploiting that fact to give supercomputers a boost. They've made the smallest-yet silicon chips that use light to transmit information. Most parts of the chip resemble those found on any other commercial chip. The parts that process or transform information—in other words, the parts that do the actual computing—still deploy electrons moving through semiconductor gates. One other benefit, says IBM engineer Will Green: The optical interconnects use significantly less power, making them cheaper to run. Click the image above to see inside IBM's optical microchip as it turns electrical pulses into light and back again. More How It Works: This month's How It Works section is brought to you by Digi-Key.
Writing Life – Self-publish eBooks with Kobo Kobo Writing Life is where it all begins Do you have a story to tell? Are you an author with a bestseller just waiting to be discovered? Want to reach out to millions of readers in over 190 countries? How does it work? Publish! The Kobo Ebookstore and you Once you hit publish, your eBook will be available to Kobo customers around the globe (or in the regions you've selected). Dashboard dynamics Kobo Writing Life makes monitoring your sales quick and easy. Track by region Track by eBook Beautiful visuals keep it all front and centre. Frequently Asked Questions Does Kobo Writing Life cost anything to join?
Attacked by Donald Trump — a PEOPLE Writer's Story Manage Push Notifications If you have opted in for our browser push notifications, and you would like to opt-out, please refer to the following instructions depending on your device and browser. For turning notifications on or off on Google Chrome and Android click here, for Firefox click here, for Safari click here and for Microsoft's Edge click here. Manage Push Notifications If you have opted in for our browser push notifications, and you would like to opt-out, please refer to the following instructions depending on your device and browser. For turning notifications on or off on Google Chrome and Android click here, for Firefox click here, for Safari click here and for Microsoft's Edge click here.
7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics Odds are pretty good that some of you are reading this on an LCD screen while the rest of us are trying to make it out on the 13-inch monochrome monitor that came with our garage sale Commodore 64. But even with the LCD, some laptops still weigh over 10-pounds. And while that doesn't seem like much, the level of muscle atrophy experienced by the average Warcraft addict makes that weight a thousand times heavier. However, elastic conductors could fix that and make smuggling your porn collection into church even easier. Also, oooohhh. Elastic conductors are made of "ionic liquid" mixed with carbon nanotubes. What the Hell is it Used For? In addition to making screens that can be rolled up and stuck in our back pocket, a lot of scientists and doctors want to use elastic conductors to make flexible-lensed cameras... to be fitted to the back of the eyeball. A non-Newtonian liquid, in practical terms, is a liquid that turns solid when sufficient stress is applied. Also, something with lasers.
Why Runners Need to Strength Train For most runners, the time spent on the road is very rarely in pursuit of big guns and a killer six-pack to match. But that doesn’t mean strength training shouldn’t complement all of those miles for other beneficial reasons. Experts say incorporating just 20 minutes of strength training a few times a week can help runners prevent injuries, aid recovery and reach their full athletic potential. So why don’t all runners strength train? “It’s a combination of feeling like you don’t have enough time and simply not valuing the non-running activities as much as you do the running activities,” says Jay Johnson, a former Division I track coach, expert on strength training for runners and founder of RunningDVDs.com. “With that in mind, I think runners of all abilities need to be doing some sort of general strength and mobility training every day.” The first step toward integrating strength training into a runner’s workout is to understand why it shouldn’t be viewed as something “extra.” 1. 2. 3.
Do we live in a computer simulation? | Mo Costandi In today’s New York Times, John Tierney discusses an argument by Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, that our existence could be nothing more than a computer simulation being run by posthumanists. Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems. Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. The article includes links to four others related to Bostrom’s argument, and there’s a lengthy discussion going on at the TierneyLab blog. Like this: Like Loading...
Technological singularity The technological singularity is the hypothesis that accelerating progress in technologies will cause a runaway effect wherein artificial intelligence will exceed human intellectual capacity and control, thus radically changing civilization in an event called the singularity.[1] Because the capabilities of such an intelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is an occurrence beyond which events may become unpredictable, unfavorable, or even unfathomable.[2] The first use of the term "singularity" in this context was by mathematician John von Neumann. Proponents of the singularity typically postulate an "intelligence explosion",[5][6] where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, that might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human. Basic concepts Superintelligence Non-AI singularity Intelligence explosion Exponential growth Plausibility
Free ePub Converter - PDF To ePub - Convert Books to ePub Format How Spatial Navigation Correlates with Language Cognitive neuroscientists from the Higher School of Economics and Aarhus University experimentally demonstrate how spatial navigation impacts language comprehension. The results of the study have been published in NeuroImage. Language is a complicated cognitive function, which is performed not only by local brain modules, but by a distributed network of cortical generators. Nikola Vukovic and Yury Shtyrov carried out an experiment at the HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making, which explains the relations between the systems responsible for spatial navigation and language. “When we read or hear stories about characters, we have to represent the inherently different perspectives people have on objects and events, and ‘put ourselves in their shoes’. Previous studies have shown that humans have certain spatial preferences that are based either on one’s body (egocentric) or are independent from it (allocentric). The participants of the experiment solved two types of tasks.
Controversial Ideas: Does Semen Act As an Antidepressant to the Recipient? Back in 2002, psychologists at the State University of New York at Albany published a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looking at the potential role of semen in alleviating depression in women. The researchers presented evidence supporting an earlier hypothesis that the hormones in semen have a mood-boosting effect on women. For any woman who has had sex -- and enjoyed it -- this may not come as a huge surprise. Cut to this past February. Greenfield's editorial sparked a controversy among ACS members, many of whom felt it was blatantly sexist. Setting aside the unfortunate politics of this story, I decided to look into the science behind "Semengate" for my first Sex Files column. In the 2002 study, 293 college women filled out questionnaires about their sexual histories and took the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), a widely used measure of depression symptoms. Semen is a complex mixture of different compounds, and sperm actually only makes up a small amount of it.
The ABCs of e-book format conversion: Easy Calibre tips for the Kindle, Sony and Nook By John Schember Welcome to TeleRead’s newest contributor, John Schember, a member of the team behind the wonderful Calibre program for managing e-book collections. His bio appears at the end. E-book readers are becoming more and more common. Unfortunately the two different brands don’t read the same kinds of e-books. If you are only buying from the store designed for your reader—for example, Amazon’s Kindle Store or Sony’s Reader Store—you don’t need to worry about any of this. But there are a very good reasons why you should know about the major formats, what you reader supports and how to convert between formats. Many Web sites offer legal and often free books. Often you can download these e-books in a variety of formats, but you won’t always find them in the format your e-book reader supports. Why are there different e-book formats? Just why do so many different formats exist? Another major reason is exclusivity. Tools for conversion Many easy-to-use tools exist for converting e-books.