science Archives | Page 16 of 16

Beyond Belief 2006

November 23, 2006 / Brenden Simpson

Hours and hours of video from Beyond Belief 2006, featuring Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, V.S. Ramachandran, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stuart Hameroff, Terry Sejnowski… and piles of scientific sorts. From yon site:

After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers to explore answers to these questions. The conversation took place at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA from November 5-7, 2006.

(Thanks, Brenden Simpson!)

A factory of one’s own

November 9, 2006 / Fell

According to MIT’s Neil Gershenfeld, the digital revolution is over, and the good guys won. The next big change will be about manufacturing. Anyone with a PC will be able to build anything just by hitting ‘print.’

(Fortune Magazine) — Imagine a machine with the ability to manufacture anything. Now imagine that machine in your living room. What would you build first? Would you start a business? Would you ever buy anything retail again? According to MIT physicist Neil Gershenfeld, it’s not too early to think about these questions, because that machine, which he calls a personal fabricator, is not so far off – or so far-fetched – as you might think.

Gershenfeld is director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), an interdisciplinary outfit studying the intersection between information theory and industrial design. He also teaches a course called How to Make (Almost) Anything.

Five years ago the National Science Foundation awarded the CBA $14 million to build a manufacturing lab full of futuristic hardware. That includes a nanobeam writer that can etch microscopic patterns on metal, and a supersonic waterjet cutter that generates 60,000 pounds of water pressure, enough to shear through almost any material. The CBA factory can churn out anything, from the tiniest semiconductor to an entire building.

continue reading via money.cnn.com

E. O. Wilson and God vs Science

October 28, 2006 / Fell

I received the new issue of Seed today in the mail and in it is an interesting article on E. O. Wilson and his attempts to create a truce between science and religion. He is best known for his seminal work Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge – which I am definitely going to be picking up to read as it deals with some concepts I am hugely interested in, namely syncretism of knowledge – as well as his new book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. The whole November issue of Seed takes an interesting look at the religious right’s fight against science and evolutionary theory. It’s a good issue.

You crazy Americans. I just learned that out of a butt-load of developed nations on the planet, you rank at the bottom, along with Turkey, in believing in Darwin. I mean, hey, I have some esoteric theories I subscribe to. But c’mon, Darwin has something going on there. You guys…

This is officially an open invitation for everyone that thinks – just thinks in general – to move on up to Canada. Our doors are always open.

Mysterious case of death on the Nile, 4,000 years ago

November 11, 2005 / Klint Finley

The Guardian reports:

Donald Redford of Pennsylvania State University had begun to excavate the foundations of a huge temple linked to Rameses II, the pharaoh traditionally linked to the biblical story of Moses, when he found an earlier structure destroyed by fire, and evidence of a grisly episode of death on the Nile, he told a Bloomsbury Academy conference in London on Saturday. […]

Under the fire-scorched rubble, the scientists discovered the first of at least 36 bodies, victims of some brutal event 40 centuries ago. “We thought they had died where they were. But it has now become apparent that they were killed elsewhere and thrown in front of the podium. The mud brick of the burning temple cascaded over them. They were covered up and never retrieved. So there is a certain amount of foul play here.”

Guardian: Mysterious case of death on the Nile, 4,000 years ago

How to Make a Human

August 8, 2004 / Klintron

science art

The ‘Truth and Beauty’ exhibition focuses on the interaction between scientific evidence and imagery, and aesthetics.

The exhibition showcases work by contemporary artists, designers and filmmakers, including Heather Barnett, Richard Morris, Barbara Strasen and Tracey Holland – all of whose work draws inspiration from science.

Welcome Trust: Truth and Beauty

(via Dr. Menlo)