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The memtransistor as brainlike computing – with what outcome?

From ScienceDaily: In recent years, researchers have searched for ways to make computers more neuromorphic, or brain-like, in order to perform increasingly complicated tasks with high efficiency. Now Hersam, a Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, and his team are bringing the world closer to realizing this goal. The research team has developed a novel device called a “memtransistor,” which operates much like a neuron by performing both memory and information processing. With combined characteristics of a memristor and transistor, the memtransistor also encompasses multiple terminals that operate more similarly to a neural network. … Typical transistors and Hersam’s previously developed memristor each have three terminals. In their new paper, however, Read More ›

Mystery: How DO fish end up in isolated bodies of water?

From ScienceDaily: How do fish end up in isolated bodies of water when they can’t swim there themselves? For centuries, researchers have assumed that water birds transfer fish eggs into these waters — however, a systematic literature review by researchers at the University of Basel has shown that there is no evidence of this to date. … To objectively measure the lack of evidence, the Basel research team conducted a systematic literature review. The result shows that no in-depth scientific studies exist to prove that water birds disperse fish eggs. To rule out the possibility that the unsuccessful search was due to their method, the researchers also used the same approach to look for evidence of the dispersal of aquatic Read More ›

Laws of physics say you can’t escape old age

We’ve heard plenty from the transhumanists and the pillpushers who think we can medicate our way to eternity. But now this, from Peter Hoffmann at Nautilus: Nanoscale thermal physics guarantees our decline, no matter how many diseases we cure. There is a vigorous discussion inside the aging research community about whether to classify aging as a disease. Many researchers studying specific diseases, cellular systems, or molecular components would like to see their favorite research subject take the mantle of “the cause” of aging. But the sheer number of possibilities being put forward refutes the very possibility. They can’t all be the cause of aging. Leonard Hayflick, the original discoverer of cellular aging, pointed out in his provocatively titled article “Biological Read More ›

More scientists wanted in government – but only if they are Democrats (progressives)

Science journalists are actually fun— provided they are not just a flock of page boys for science boffins: This, for example, from Alex Berezow at ACSH: 314 Action’s stated mission is laudable. It includes, among other things, a desire to “elect more leaders… from STEM backgrounds” and to “strengthen communication among the STEM community, the public and our elected officials.” One would be left with the impression that the mission is bipartisan, which would be outstanding. Unfortunately, it is not. The leadership are all Democrats. All the candidates 314 Action has endorsed are Democrats. The site’s news page refers to Republicans as “anti-science denialists,” and one of the endorsed candidates refers to a GOP politician as “science’s public enemy number Read More ›

If science journals can’t solve their own problems, why are they dictating to Florida parents?

Read this and then ask yourself, why is historic journal Nature freaked out over American public school science classrooms – again? From Richard Harris at NPR: Another concern is that today scientists are judged primarily by which journal publishes their work. The greatest rewards tend to go to scientists who can get their papers into major journals such as Science, Nature and Cell. It matters less what the actual findings are. “To me that is one of the very biggest problems in the system today,” says Erin O’Shea, president of HHMI, “and it drives a lot of behavior — behavior that we don’t want.” And if a top journal reviews a paper and decides not to publish it, the scientist Read More ›

Historic journal Nature is freaked out over American public school science classrooms – again

It’s not like the United States put a man on the moon and then brought him back or supervised mapping the human genome or anything useful like that. So it stands to reason that anyone at all, including people who live in countries where witchcraft is a capital offense, are free to fret about Florida classrooms. The beauty of pomo (post-modernism) is that it never needs to make sense, just make complaints. From Giorgia Guglielmi at Nature: Education bills would allow people who live in the state to review and recommend instructional materials to be used in schools. That’s shocking, especially when you consider that the people who live in the state are forced to pay for the schools and Read More ›

My conclusion (so far) on the suggested infinite past, beginningless physical world: not plausible, likely not possible, here’s why

One of the more astonishing points of debate that has come out at UD is that at least some defenders of the evolutionary materialistic view are prepared to argue for or assume as default that we have had a beginningless past for the physical world.  This has come up several times in recent years and was again discussed last week. I will share my take-away conclusion so far. But first, why are such willing to put up such a spectacularly untestable, unobservable claim? Because, we first know that non-being has no causal powers so if there were ever utter nothing, such would forever obtain. That a world manifestly is implies that SOMETHING always was. The question is what, given that Read More ›

At Scientific American: Not sure when or how cooking originated but it was decisive in human evolution, says anthropologist

From anthropologist Alexandra Rosati at Scientific American: The shift to a cooked-food diet was a decisive point in human history. The main topic of debate is when, exactly, this change occurred. … But at what point in our evolutionary history was this strange new practice adopted? Some researchers think cooking is a relatively recent innovation—at most 500,000 years old. Cooking requires control of fire, and there is not much archaeological evidence for hearths and purposefully built fires before this time. The archaeological record becomes increasingly fragile farther back in time, however, so others think fire may have been controlled much earlier. Anthropologist Richard Wrangham has proposed cooking arose before 1.8 million years ago, an invention of our evolutionary ancestors. If Read More ›

Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: But it’s too late for enlightenment now

Readers will recall Steven Pinker, a Darwinian cognitive scientist, one of whose key concepts is “A…reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” He has a new book out, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Science, Reason, Humanism, and Progress. From professor of globalisation Ian Goldin at Nature: Pinker looks in some depth at the rise in scepticism about science, in society and in parts of academia such as the humanities. He gives shorter shrift to the erosion of faith in expertise elsewhere, even though this is justified in some notable instances. The financial sector, for example, is home to the biggest and most Read More ›

Shaking the horse family tree

Ah, start the day with fond memories. Most people who were kids in the mid-twentieth century grew up with the icons of horse evolution, starting with grubby little Eohippus and ending with Black Beauty. Of course, the story didn’t need to be true and as Jonathan Wells pointed out in Icons of Evolution, it wasn’t really true, at least not in a factual way. It was more the idea of evolution that was supposed to sink in for us. As CS Lewis has pointed out, Darwinian evolution was a great story, not necessarily to be confused with facts of nature. Meanwhile, at ScienceDaily: There are no such things as “wild” horses anymore. Research published in Science today overturns a long-held Read More ›

Researchers: Our new theory is that humans domesticated themselves

From ScienceDaily: Human ‘self-domestication’ is a hypothesis that states that among the driving forces of human evolution, humans selected their companions depending on who had a more pro-social behavior. Researchers have found new genetic evidence for this evolutionary process. Human ‘self-domestication’ is a hypothesis that states that among the driving forces of human evolution, humans selected their companions depending on who had a more pro-social behavior. Researchers from a team of the UB led by Cedric Boeckx, ICREA professor at the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics and member of the Institute of Complex Systems of the University of Barcelona (UBICS), found out new genetic evidence for this evolutionary process. The study, published in the science journal PLOS ONE, Read More ›

C. S. Lewis and J. R.R. Tolkien on science and authoritarianism

From Mike Kugler in Northwestern Review: Long before Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings and Lewis converted to “mere Christianity,” their suspicions of modern science, the heart of the modern worldview, and anxiety about Europe’s future were latent. The Great War illustrated terribly how well-grounded were their concerns. Later, in the 1930s, Europeans watched creeping authoritarian and fascist movements, further illustrating the danger from the Europe-wide threat of totalitarianism. Through the 1940s Lewis’ association of Darwinian evolution and science augmenting human power and arrogance deepened. His greatest concern was not evolution alone; I don’t know of evidence that Lewis dismissed Darwin’s argument or conclusions. Lewis’ concern, I think, was that the Darwinian account afforded rational permission to “Progressives” Read More ›

Americans don’t fear the discovery of alien life. So why do some commentators insist they do?

From Maria Temming at Science News: If alien microbes crash-land on Earth, they may get a warm welcome. When people were asked how they would react to the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, they give generally positive responses, researchers reported at a news conference February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This suggests that if microbial life is found on Mars, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus (SN: 5/13/17, p. 6) or elsewhere in the solar system, “we’ll take the news rather well,” said Michael Varnum, a social psychologist at Arizona State University in Tempe. What’s more, the tone of news reports announcing potential evidence for intelligent aliens suggests people would welcome that news, Read More ›

A theology question you may never have thought of: Is God an android?

From theologian Norman Geisler at Jonh Ankerberg Show: Persons have mind, will, and feelings. Androids have only mind and will, but no feelings. Open theists and others sometimes object to the classical view of God by claiming that if God is impassible then He cannot experience feelings like love and joy. In short, it makes God into an android, or more properly, a theandroid. However, classical theists, including Thomas Aquinas, do not believe that God is without feeling but only that He has no changing passions (feelings). God is a simple and unchanging Being and, as such, He experiences no changing passions. Hence, in his comments on Ephesians 4:30 (”Grieve not the Holy Spirit…”) Aquinas says, this phrase could be Read More ›

Max Planck Institute: Neanderthals thought like we do

From the Max Planck Institute: At least 70,000 years ago Homo sapiens used perforated marine shells and colour pigments. From around 40,000 years ago he created decorative items, jewellery and cave art in Europe. Using Uranium-Thorium dating an international team of researchers co-directed by Dirk Hoffmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, now demonstrates that more than 115,000 years ago Neanderthals produced symbolic objects, and that they created cave art more than 20,000 years before modern humans first arrived in Europe. The researchers conclude that our cousins’ cognitive abilities were equivalent to our own. … “Neanderthals created meaningful symbols in meaningful places”, says Paul Pettitt from University of Durham, also a team member and cave Read More ›