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Category: Science Snippets

  • Hardwiring the Right and Left

    George Rebane In my technology newsletters I recently encountered some buzz about clinical evidence differentiating the brainbones of liberals and conservatives – in short, you may be one or the other because that’s the way you’re wired up.  There has been a flurry of articles posted on the original research done on this thesis at…

  • Pursuing Prediction

    George Rebane The latest global catastrophes – natural and manmade – again make us re-examine our ability to predict future events and what we are doing to improve those skills.  A current discussion of this is going on at Edge – The Third Culture.  Edge is one of those exclusive foundation think tanks for intellectuals…

  • Post-Singularity Science Has Arrived – sort of

    George Rebane Machines are being developed that can analyze realworld observables (think of it as data from experiments with real things) and come up with not only the mathematics that describes the data, but also the mathematics that describes the underlying principles at work.  By ‘underlying principles’ I mean things like conservation laws (energy, momentum,…

  • New AI Algorithmics – Probabilistic Programming

    George Rebane “GIVEN the choice between a flesh-and-blood doctor and an artificial intelligence system for diagnosing diseases, Pedro Domingos is willing to stake his life on AI. "I'd trust the machine more than I'd trust the doctor," says Domingos, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, Seattle.”  So starts Anil Ananthaswamy’s ‘I, algorithm: A…

  • Bet You Didn’t Know About this Tax

    George Rebane This year I promised to write more stuff on technology and finances.  In the winter I also start writing the year’s TechTest2011 which will be taken in the spring by a select cadre of Nevada County’s high school seniors and juniors.  Reviewing some of the problems from previous TTs, I came upon one…

  • New Robots in Manufacturing

    George Rebane This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas featured advances in robotics.  They are now coming out of the R&D pipeline in droves showing all kinds of capabilities in vision, manipulation, mobility, smarts, and even emotion.  One of the featured robots was the ‘Little Helper’ robot that is designed to work in manufacturing…

  • Politically Endorsed Science (updated 11jan2011)

    George Rebane The newly proposed lecture series ‘What’s Next in Science?’ is causing a dust-up in the local blogs, and as a former scientist who has worked on the frontiers of knowledge, I should weigh in.  At issue is how the Nevada County Board of Supervisors should respond to the lecture series that is being…

  • Scattershots – 20dec2010 (updated 21dec2010)

    George Rebane FCC commissioner Robert McDowell concludes his 20dec2010 WSJ piece on ‘net neutrality’ with – “On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of…

  • ‘The 70 Online Databases that Define Our Planet’

    George Rebane Well, maybe not, but here’s a compendium of databases and knowledge engines from the MIT Technology Review which everyone should consider putting into their online reference folder.  Enjoy.

  • Singularity Signposts – 3dec2010

    George Rebane This weekend (4,5 Dec) at Caltech’s Beckman Institute there will be a Humanity+ conference with the intriguing title ‘Redefining Humanity in the Era of Radical Technological Change’.  They plan to stream the presentations live.  Please check this site for conference information and streaming links. Two aspects of radical technological change were recently announced. …

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