Prime Stream
thescian | January 17, 2007"For market economies, and the Western model of democracy with which they have been associated, the existential challenge for the foreseeable future will be global warming. Other threats like terrorism may well be damaging, but no other conceivable threat or combination of threats can possibly destroy our entire system. As the recent British official commission chaired by Sir Nicholas Stern correctly stated, climate change "is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen."
An essay titled The end of the West as we know it? at IHT.
thescian | January 16, 2007 The Science Blogging Anthology - collection of some of the finest science blogging in a book form edited by our very own sleepless blogger.
thescian | January 16, 2007Historians in future will be heartbroken as they won't find paper letters to recreate history. Apparently, everyone is going all emaily on them. No Instant messages, no blogs are mentioned in the essay. What?!! We are not making history with our blogs! D'oh!
thescian | January 15, 2007"He who rejects with scorn the belief that the shape of his canines, and their occasional great development in other men, are due to our early forefathers having been provided with these formidable weapons, will probably reveal, by sneering, the line of his own descent."
That's a quite hilarious jibe from someone I thought was a serious dude. Guess who. The quote is via a New Scientist article (subscription-only) on evolution running backwards (i.e, supposing it had a direction, which it doesn't). The propensity for organisms to go backwards on their evolutionary path is also known as…
thescian | January 13, 2007If you are a UK resident, I urge you to consider not dealing with ebuyer.com. Their website did not allow registrations to happen on Firefox (you can login with firefox after registering. I registered using Internet Explorer to give them a try. I should have known). They send you the wrong product (twice in my case, the same product. that's what I call anal) and charge you for the postage. When you return an incorrect product and ask for a replacement, they take in the returned product and go all quiet about it until you call them and urge them to send the correct product. Am sure there are…
thescian | January 11, 2007When I was young, I used to wonder why my father insisted on watching news channels on TV all the time instead of the wonderful sexless cartoon characters. I don't wonder anymore. I've started doing it myself now. The joys of gettin old.
News that caught my distracted eyes (I've been distracted by work, for those who are curious).
The "Ashley Treatment". Can harmonal intervention be used on a severely disabled child to limit her growth? It brings so many vexing questions to the fore. I admire the parents for coming out and educating us all. We may agree with their decision; we may not. That's…
thescian | January 9, 2007Sex helps with public speaking says a BBC report that talks about the research findings of Mr Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley. Apparently, harmless masturbating won't do. You have to really do it by having intercourse. Nature is a tough taskmaster - not that I am complaining.
The important learning to take away from the study is this: "... greater frequency of intercourse is associated with greater benefits." Alright! Am off, you say? Wait! I have some more to say.
Dr Peter Bull doesn't agree. Before a stressful activity - like public speaking, he recommends better…
thescian | January 7, 2007Yes. It's that plant that flowers every twelve years. Grows in the south of my beloved country. Once it flowers - after twelve years - what do you think it would do? Die. That's what. We are already killing it and now it has given up. Sukumar has a story for you.
thescian | January 4, 2007A girl in India watches the hanging of Saddam. She obsesses over it. Two days later her brother chides her for not studying. She locks herself up in her room and hangs herself. The Saddam connection is alleged as having been the influence. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whatever it is, it is unfortunate.
Someone commits suicide every five minutes in India (source). One suicide every forty seconds in the world (source: WHO). Someone near to you. Someone you never met. I've heard and known first-hand many cases of suicide. They all speak of a small misunderstanding taken too seriously.
The most…
thescian | December 29, 2006We've evolved with a craving for sugar because as hungry and starved hunters and gathereres it helped us gobble food sources rich in energy whenever they were available (which wasn't often). I like icecream - particularly the ones with the edible cone, because I've evolved to like it. Now, for the alleged saliva stopper question. I've evolved to enjoy sugar?! It's not really my free will?! Oh man! Does that mean my enjoyment of icecream diminishes in some way because I've realized this evolutionary reason?
Well, I do know the evolutionary reason and I stil enjoy icecream. So, hell no.…
thescian | December 20, 2006What has the world come to!
"...when a bride was chosen for a prince ready to sow his oats, the search would begin for a princess from a family that had a long line of sons. That was of critical importance, and people had observed that sons of families with many sons tended to have more sons."
sez Sunil where he discusses a recent research that delves into people's thumbrule for ensuring reproductive success.
This and more are featured in the newest edition of Tangled Bank at Salto sobrius which
"will not cease until lush rainforest grows up to the very foundations of St Nicholas's icy…
thescian | December 19, 2006I accidentally caught the program titled The Trouble With Atheism yesterday on Channel4. I was astonished to find the host Rod Liddle make so many factual errors, erraneous interpretations and misrepresentations. It felt like my brain was being fried constantly.
I am feeling very charitable today so let me just say the program is a piece of turd hurled in the general direction of thinking people by Rod Liddle. You better duck behind some furniture whenever it airs. Some discussions at the Channel4 forums. The first forum post goes like this:
Rod Liddle talks bollox about why he thinks…
thescian | December 18, 2006A reader posted a comment suggesting that I was fanaticaly irreligious. He said,
"I am not sure why you have such a fanatic view against religion. It is man's interpretation of it that has caused religion to be a cause of conflict. The concept itself does not have any reason for the conflict."
and went on to make the customary statement about my maturity and sense of direction. The question is an important one so let me wade through my thoughts to expose my immaturity and lack of direction to a even wider audience. Feel free to counsel me.
The first of the guiding thoughts that I use while…
thescian | December 16, 2006
Darfur. Four hundred thousand and still counting.
Poverty. So many lives in the margins moving from one disaster to another.
Climate change. Our own death sentence. Or an opportunity for greatness.
Global conflicts. Religion, politics, greed and human callousness. The photo above may not be enough to convey ground realities. Humans are easily desensitized. Try this or these. Reality is surely far worse.
thescian | December 13, 2006Wouldn't it be nice, you would think. But imagine the consequences. As a child, if you don't feel pain, you may eat your fingers. The beebs reports on families in Pakistan who have a genetic mutation that releives them of the sensation of pain.
"the Cambridge team found six people from the three related families all carried the same mutated gene.
None had experienced pain at any time in their lives.
Detailed neurological examinations revealed that there was no evidence of any sort of disease which could explain this deficit.
And they were able to perceive a number of sensations, such as…
thescian | December 13, 2006Smilack belongs to the group of one to four percent of people worldwide with synesthesia, the neurological mixing of the senses. No two synesthetes have exactly the same perceptual experiences. Many perceive each number, letter of the alphabet, or day of the week as a different color. For others, sounds from the environment are always accompanied by moving geometric patterns in their "mind's eye." -Seed Magazine
This blog entry by Smilack expresses what strange bedfellows sensory perception and meaning are. I am utterly fascinated.
I wonder if some of the technological advances and…
thescian | December 7, 2006Go read this at 3 Quarks Daily and come back because I have more.
The hand wringing by religious apologists has gotten desperate in the past weeks. Militant atheism is the name given and it is frowned upon. The fundamental reason boils down to what Dawkins has repeatedly pointed out. Religion has a special place in the society. While we will question and rigorously debate an economic or a political point we will not do the same for religious theologies. That, dear reader, is intellectually dishonest, to put mildly.
The real question you must ponder about if you are the intellectually honest…