Information
Predictions, predictions: ID predicts overlapping codes, Darwinism predicts “junk DNA”
Karsten Pultz: Why random processes cannot produce information: A new approach to the argument
Do Jeffrey Shallit’s writings offer more information than a blank page?
Do you remember when IBM Watson (Jeopardy winner) was going to revolutionize medicine?
Pest insect gets plants to transmit false information to other plants
Researchers build public “library” to help understand photosynthesis
From ScienceDaily: It isn’t easy being green. It takes thousands of genes to build the photosynthetic machinery that plants need to harness sunlight for growth. And yet, researchers don’t know exactly how these genes work. Now a team led by Princeton University researchers has constructed a public “library” to help researchers to find out what each gene does. Using the library, the team identified 303 genes associated with photosynthesis including 21 newly discovered genes with high potential to provide new insights into this life-sustaining biological process. The study was published online this week in Nature Genetics. “The part of the plant responsible for photosynthesis is like a complex machine made up of many parts, and we want to understand what Read More ›
At Quanta: Cells find “optimal” solutions, not just good ones
Theorizing information out of a black hole
Paul Davies: Incorporating information into science as a physical quantity
Spiders mimic two different ant types while growing (but secretly signal spidery mates)
Yeah, the story does sound like as plotline from Saturday night with popcorn at the old Downtown Grand but… From ScienceDaily: Viewed from above, the mimics look like skinny, three-segmented ants to fool predators. But in profile, the adult mimics retain their more voluptuous and alluring spider figure to woo nearby mates. UC researchers presented their findings in January at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in Tampa, Fla. Most birds avoid ants and their painful stingers, sharp mandibles and habit of showing up with lots of friends. Try to eat one and you’re likely to get chewed on by 10 more. That’s why nearly every insect family from beetles to mantises has species that mimic ants. By Read More ›
Endangered languages: Efforts to save them sometimes involve questionable claims
Paul Davies and the “struggle to define life”
Paul Davies: Life’s defining characteristics “better understood as information”
An information theory argument for the value of human beings
From Eric Holloway, based on creativity: Because creativity is unique to humans and irreducible, all human beings have the ability in principle. The fact that a particular human being’s creativity is not in use or is perhaps unusable at present does not mean that that person does not have the ability. Consequently, all humans have at least latent intrinsic instrumental value. Eric Holloway, “The Creative Spark” at Mind Matters See also: Will artificial intelligence design artificial super-intelligence? and Human intelligence as a halting oracle Follow UD News at Twitter!