Everything is Interesting
Bright green environmentalism is an ideology based on the belief that the convergence of technological change and social innovation provides the most successful path to sustainable development.
The term, first coined in 2003 by writer Alex Steffen, refers to the fast-growing new wing of environmentalism, distinct from traditional forms. Bright green environmentalism aims to provide prosperity in an ecologically sustainable way through the use of new technologies and improved design.
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‘The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal’ (1991) is a wide-ranging book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, which applies insights from biology, anthropology, and linguistics to questions such as why one species of big mammal (humans) came to dominate its closest relatives, such as chimpanzees, and why one group of humans (eurasians) came to dominate others (Indigenous peoples of the Americas).
It also examines how asymmetry in male and female mating behavior is resolved through differing social structures across cultures, and how first contact between unequal civilizations almost always results in genocide. The book ends by noting that technological progress may cause environmental degradation on a scale leading to extinction. Diamond expanded on these themes in subsequent books: ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ (1997), ‘Why Is Sex Fun? (1997), and ‘Collapse’ (2005).
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The Repository for Germinal Choice was a sperm bank that existed in Escondido, California from 1980 to 1999. The repository is commonly believed to have accepted only donations from Nobel Prize laureates, although in fact it accepted donations from non-Nobelists, also. Founded by Robert Klark Graham, the repository was dubbed the ‘Nobel prize sperm bank’ by media reports at the time.
The only contributor who became known publicly was William Shockley, Nobel laureate in physics. Other donors were recruited from among the ranks of scientists and academics Graham and his assistant, Paul Smith, considered to be ‘the future Nobel laureates.’
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The Hansa Carrier is a container ship. In 1990, en route from Korea to the United States, the ship encountered a storm which caused the loss of several 40-foot cargo containers south of the Alaska Peninsula. Five of these cargo containers contained 61,000 Nike shoes, all of which carried a unique serial number which later made it possible to clearly identify them as part of the spilled cargo.
The ‘Great Shoe Spill of 1990’ was one of the several occasions when shipping accidents have contributed to the knowledge of ocean currents and aided scientists and amateur researchers in their endeavours. After hearing of the accident, oceanic scientist Curtis Ebbesmeyer seized the opportunity: He established links with beachcombers and formed a network of people reporting the landfall of the contents of this and other spills.
Helmholtz [helm-hohlts] resonance is the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, such as when one blows across the top of an empty bottle. The name comes from a device created in the 1850s by Hermann von Helmholtz, the ‘Helmholtz resonator,’ which he, the author of the classic study of acoustic science, used to identify the various frequencies or musical pitches present in music and other complex sounds.
When air is forced into a cavity, the pressure inside increases. When the external force pushing the air into the cavity is removed, the higher-pressure air inside will flow out. However, this surge of air flowing out will tend to over-compensate, due to the inertia of the air in the neck, and the cavity will be left at a pressure slightly lower than the outside, causing air to be drawn back in. This process repeats with the magnitude of the pressure changes decreasing each time.
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The army ant genus Dorylus, also known as driver ants, safari ants, or siafu, is found primarily in central and east Africa, although the range also extends to tropical Asia. The term siafu is a loanword from Swahili. All Dorylus species are blind, though they, like most varieties of ants, communicate primarily through pheromones. As with their New World counterparts, there is a soldier class among the workers, which is larger, with a very large head and pincer-like mandibles. They are capable of stinging, but very rarely do so, relying instead on their powerful shearing jaws.
Such is the strength of the ant’s jaws, in East Africa they are used as natural, emergency sutures. Various East African indigenous tribal peoples (e.g. Maasai moran), when they suffer a gash in the bush, will use the soldiers to stitch the wound by getting the ants to bite on both sides of the gash, then breaking off the body. This seal can hold for days at a time, and if necessary, the procedure repeated – allowing sufficient time for natural healing to commence.
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The sun protection factor of a sunscreen is a laboratory measure of the effectiveness of sunscreen — the higher the SPF, the more protection a sunscreen offers against UV-B (the ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburn); it does not measure UV-A (the radiation that causes cancer).
The SPF is the amount of UV radiation required to cause sunburn on skin with the sunscreen on. Sunscreen in general is proven to slow the aging of skin, but not prevent skin cancer.
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David Eagleman (b. 1971) is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. He is also an internationally bestselling fiction writer.
An early experience of falling from a roof raised his interest in understanding the neural basis of time perception. Eagleman’s scientific work combines psychophysical, behavioral, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the timing of neural signals.
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The Brights Movement is a social movement that aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview (disbelief of the supernatural), including equal civil rights and acceptance for people who hold a naturalistic worldview. It was co-founded by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003.
The movement aims to create an Internet constituency that will pursue the following aims: Promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements. Gain public recognition that persons who hold such a worldview can bring principled actions to bear on matters of civic importance. Educate society toward accepting the full and equitable civic participation of all such people.
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Synesthesia [sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] is a condition where the brain mixes up the senses (e.g. sounds can have ‘colors,’ images can have ‘odors,’ etc.). People who have synesthesia are called synesthetes. Synesthesia is usually inherited (called congenital synesthesia), but exactly how people inherit it is unknown.
Synesthesia is sometimes reported by people using psychedelic drugs, after a stroke, or during an epileptic seizure. It is also reported to be a result of blindness or deafness. Synesthesia that comes from events unrelated to genes is called adventitious synesthesia. This synesthesia results from some drugs or a stroke but not blindness or deafness. It involves sound being linked to vision or touch being linked to hearing.
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Autodidacticism [aw-toh-dahy-dak-tuh-siz-uhm] is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is ‘learning on your own’ or ‘by yourself,’ and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. Self-teaching and self-directed learning are contemplative, absorptive processes. A person may become an autodidact at nearly any point in his or her life. While some may have been educated in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to educate themselves in other, often unrelated areas.
In the field of mathematics, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 – 1920) was an Indian autodidact who, with almost no formal training, made substantial contributions to number theory.
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‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’ is a book by Lebanese American, philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book focuses on the extreme impact of certain kinds of rare and unpredictable events (outliers) and humans’ tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events retrospectively, after the fact. This theory has since become known as the black swan theory. The book also covers subjects relating to knowledge, aesthetics, and ways of life, and uses elements of fiction in making its points.
Taleb, bestselling author of ‘Fooled by Randomness,’ treats uncertainty and randomness as a single idea. The main idea in Taleb’s book is not to attempt to predict Black Swan Events, but to build robustness into negative ones that occur and being able to exploit positive ones. Taleb contends that banks and trading firms are very vulnerable to hazardous Black Swan Events and are exposed to losses beyond those that are predicted by their defective models.
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The Daily Omnivore 