Incidentally, this week I read a book on just-so Darwinian stories by Leo Grasset. But to return to the subject: why stripes? We need to clear up one thing: zebras’ stripes are, in fact, white, on a black background. The zebra embryo starts off completely black, before bands of white begin to appear, caused by an inhibition in the production of melatonin (the protein responsible for the black coloration). These bands eventually produce the stripes that will be unique to that individual throughout its life. Black on white or white on black, zebras are still wild and untameable, or so I thought until I was disabused by a historical fact in that same book about saddled-up zebra barouche of Lord Rothschild. Horse to zebra upgrade?
Rich men and their fanciful obsessions A pact between the father and son. You agree to be the financial protege I will build you an animal museum It was with reluctance that he went to work in his father’s bank at the age of twenty-one, dreaming of his museum. He was shy, and showed no ability in finance, but he persevered. As encouragement and compensation, his forward-thinking father set up the zoological museum he so dearly wanted. Parenting is much humane now. If you don't listen to me, I will send you to a rehabilitation camp.
Or can we transfer memories with the transfer of RNA. If empathy is to think in other's shoes then we might home in to that paradigm by reliving memories in other's RNA. The researchers then extracted ribonucleic acid (RNA) — the cellular messenger that carries out the genetic instructions of DNA — from the nervous systems of both the shock and non-shock groups. They took this RNA and injected it into a third set of slugs that hadn’t had to deal with any shocks or taps. Seven of these slugs got the shock group’s RNA, seven got the non-shock-group’s RNA. Next, the team tapped these RNA-injected slugs on their tails. Those that had received the shock group’s RNA responded almost exactly like the shock group: They recoiled for about 40 seconds. “It was as though we transferred the memory,” Glanzman said in a press release.
PETA has created a VR experience to help people empathize with animals! Eye to Eye lets the user engage in a conversation with a virtual rabbit and visit scenes including a serene, riverside forest and a slaughterhouse. A real-time VR dialogue system enables unique discussions between users and the creature.
Some old videos surfaced back today while searching my archives, thought to dump the links here. If you've got the eyes of a mathematician, you will find patterns — simple, elegant forms hiding in everything you see. Non-mathematicians miss all this. We see the flurry of what's happening, not the tight logic underneath. Lol. Truth. And, this is how computers see the world! Cool! "How do all the algorithms around us learn to do their jobs?" A dummy's guide! #FreakyFun! #XRayP@rn!
Can a quantum drum vibrate and stand still at the same time? (I don't know!) I enjoyed the explanation... So! + Failed Futures of Music! ...for every correct music-related prediction from the past, there have been just as many forecasts that have been wildly, even laughably, inaccurate. In fact, some of the technologies now foundational to the way we make and listen to music were once forecasted as being completely useless. While hindsight is of course 20/20, exploring old predictions about the future of music and technology demonstrate the dizzying advancements of the past century and beyond. Here, we explore some of the most significant of these failed predictions.
#FoodFuture The ability of global trade to feed the world is one of the great success stories of the past generation. More than 1 billion people faced hunger on a planet of 5.6 billion a quarter-century ago; that number has fallen to 800 million, even as the population has grown to 7.6 billion. Trade has brought much of that progress: Shippers and exporters have become better and better at getting affordable food from places of surplus to regions of scarcity. But the planet is at rising risk of choking on its good fortune. The shipping of farm commodities by road, rail and sea—the basics of how a harvest gets from Point A to Point B—remains concentrated on increasingly vulnerable trade routes that, when disrupted, become “chokepoints” in the global food supply, suddenly raising food prices and cutting off supplies when they fail. Of 14 potential chokepoints worldwide identified by research firm Chatham House, only one has been free of disturbance in the past 15 years. Increasing trade dependence, weather volatility from climate change, and underinvestment in infrastructure all place the world in greater danger of a humanitarian crisis brought on by a breakdown in the global food system. Trade will become only more important, especially as climate change makes weather more volatile and increases the need for different regions to shore each other up when harvests fail. These Are Global Shipping's Biggest Chokepoints! (informative!) (made sense to me!)
