| The Origin of the Mind (preview) Not too long ago three aliens descended to Earth to evaluate the status of intelligent life. One specialized in engineering, one in chemistry and one in computation. Turning to his colleagues, the engineer reported (translation follows): “All of the creatures here are solid, some segmented, with capacities to move on the ground, through the water or air. All extremely slow. Unimpressive.” The chemist then commented: “All quite similar, derived from different sequences of four chemical ingredients.” Next the computational expert opined: “Limited computing abilities. But one, the hairless biped, is unlike the others. It exchanges information in a manner that is primitive and inefficient but remarkably different from the others. It creates many odd objects, including ones that are consumable, others that produce symbols, and yet others that destroy members of its tribe.”“But how can this be?” the engineer mused. “Given the similarity in form and chemistry, how can their computing capacity differ?” “I am not certain,” confessed the computational alien. “But they appear to have a system for creating new expressions that is infinitely more powerful than those of all the other living kinds. I propose that we place the hairless biped in a different group from the other animals, with a separate origin, and from a different galaxy.” The other two aliens nodded, and then all three zipped home to present their report. [More] rss.sciam.com |
How Women Can Save the Planet At six billion plus today, the earth’s human population will reach more than nine billion by 2050, according to estimates. If this many people consume energy at the current rate in the developed world, the planet will need more than double the amount of power it consumes today. But energy is just one issue that humankind will have to tackle to create a sustainable future. The root cause of the looming energy problem--and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health--is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them.High fertility rates in areas of the developing world that can least cope put tremendous pressure on freshwater and sanitation needs and fuel economic and religious tensions. In response, these countries ramp up their energy production via the only means available to them based on their resources--means that tend to either pollute the environment or contribute to global warming. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Could Re-Wilding Avert the 6th Great Extinction? [Slide Show] Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Caroline Fraser's book Rewilding the World .Over the years, coyotes ate many of Michael Soulé’s cats. For most people, this might have been the end of the story, a nasty reminder of nature’s darker proclivities. But Michael Soulé is not most people. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Bye-Bye Bluefin Tuna Tuna steak. Tuna tartare. Toro , as the Japanese call it, or the fatty underbelly of the bluefin tuna served as sushi --a delicacy that became more common with the advent of cheap refrigeration in the 1960s. These are just some of the ways that humans consume one of the few warm-blooded fish. Unfortunately that love for bluefin tuna has led to overfishing , despite the fish's ability to swim as fast as 80 kilometers per hour. The Atlantic population of the giant fish that grows to an average of more than 360 kilograms has fallen by 90 percent. And the estimated global population is less than half what it was in 1970. [More] rss.sciam.com |
A Failed "War on Drugs" Prompts Rethinking on HIV Infections among Injection-Drug Users The "War on Drugs" has failed, particularly with regard to the spread of HIV in middle-income nations and some developing nations in Asia. The disease is now starting to bleed into Africa as well. [More] War on Drugs - Drugs - HIV - Health - Africa rss.sciam.com |