How deluded we are. We believe that, with our seemingly all-knowing consciousness, we are masters of our own domain (as Jerry Seinfeld so colorfully put it). In reality, as you will learn in this s ...
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If our civilization should someday collapse, then-—with apologies to McDonald's—let this be its epitaph: "Billions and billions served." Humanity has come a long way from its hunter-gatherer roots. Thanks to industrial-age agricultural production, global commerce and the 20th century's green revolution in farming, the world can support billions of people who once would not have found enough to eat. But goodness, look what we're feeding them.
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ANY CIVIL WAR BUFF IS FAMILIAR with the technological advances of that era: the carnage caused when tactics failed to accommodate breech-loading rifled muskets and artillery pieces, the truly revolutionary introduction of armored ships and railroad networks, and the merely tantalizing deployment of submerged warships and reconnaissance balloons. Historians still argue about the extent to which the Civil War was the first "modern" war, but it is impossible to deny that the technology with which it was fought foretold the ways in which future wars would become bigger, bloodier and more devastating. Fewer people realize, however, that a similar explosion in technological creativity occurred away from the battlefield.
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Throw the word "health" at Google, and you will retrieve, as I write this, about 958 million results. Alternatively, if you feel up to reading them, you could directly consult the medical journals for information; the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE service indexes about 5,000 of them. If you are into health and fitness magazines, you probably have more than 100 of those to choose from.
Clearly, a world of health information is out there and readily available if you want it. The problem is one of navigating through it to worthy destinations. Finding your way to relevant, trustworthy information, presented in terms that are not only understandable but appealing to your interests, is still a challenge.
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It's quite a tale. Perhaps five million to 10 million years ago, a primate species diverged from the chimpanzee line. This was the forerunner of humanity—and a host of other beings who were almost but not quite human. For a time, a throng of hominid species shared the planet; at least four even coexisted in the same region. By around four million years ago, our progenitors and others had mastered the art of walking upright. Some two million years later they strode out of Africa and colonized entirely new lands. Certain groups learned to make sophisticated tools and, later, artwork and musical instruments. The various species clashed, inevitably. Modern humans, who entered Europe 40,000 years ago, may have slaughtered Neandertals (when they weren't interbreeding with them). Eventually only one species, Homo sapiens, was left. We thus find ourselves alone and yet the most numerous and successful primates in history.
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At the start of the new millennium, it is apparent that one question towers above all others in life sciences: How does the set of processes we call mind emerge from the activity of the organ we call brain? The question is hardly new. It has been formulated in one way or another for centuries. Once it became possible to pose the question and not be burned at the stake, it has been asked openly and insistently. Recently the question has preoccupied both the experts neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and philosophers and others who wonder about the origin of the mind, specifically the conscious mind.
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In this collection of Scientific American articles published at the turn of the last century, observations and reports about experiments with flying machines nearly vibrate with anticipation. The writers know that powered, controlled flight, "effected by means of an apparatus heavier than the air," will happen soon. What they don't know is who will do it, or how, or when.
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Black holes curve the fabric of spacetime so extremely that it rends. The superdense objects devour anything--even light--that strays too close, a trip from which there is no escape. Perhaps their most singular power, however, is their hold on our imagination. Learning more about these implacable gluttons offers the same shivery frisson as watching a stalking horror-movie creature while knowing we are safe in our cushioned seats.
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An era of breathless anticipation came to an end on March 7, 1912, when Roald Amundsen landed in Tasmania and sent telegrams announcing that he and his team of Antarctic explorers had reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911. Just weeks after that historic announcement on or about March 29, 1912 Amundsen's one-time rival for this feat of geographic primacy, Robert Falcon Scott, and the last surviving members of his five-man team perished on the windswept snow of the Ross Ice Shelf, although news of Scott's death did not reach the outside world until months later.
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One hundred years ago, during the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg, and in the small hours of the next day went down into the cold Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 1,517 lives.
There have been worse tragedies in history. Some were more violently spectacular, some still govern the daily routines of the survivors. Yet the Titanic disaster has strongly resonated with us for a century. Why? Because it is a tale of humanity as classic as a Greek tragedy. The story has been told and retold for the past century in movies, books, songs and magazine articles. Even James Cameron made a film using the Titanic saga as a backdrop.
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How deluded we are. We believe that, with our seemingly all-knowing consciousness, we are masters of our own domain (as Jerry Seinfeld so colorfully put it). In reality, as you will learn in this special issue, the imperatives and influences of sex, the sexes and sexuality all subconsciously shape our behavior in countless ways.
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ferrisjabr We've got a new host for The Countdown space news show - @sophiebushwick! http://t.co/Dc5p0p7f ferrisjabr This week's essay: Why We Need to Study the Brain’s Evolution in Order to Understand the Modern Mind http://t.co/zpGKK9tc
katherineharmon Arriving last PM for the San Antonio #ObesitySociety mtg, healthiest meal I could find in an easy walk was a dressing-drenched salad. #fail
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