“Supercomputers are already used to predict weather and earthquakes, but there’s not currently enough computing power to model complex biological systems precisely enough to make endeavors like large-scale transitioning to wind energy, for example, feasible. An exascale computer would be powerful enough to uncover answers to questions about, say, climate change and growing food that can withstand drought. It could even predict crime (hopefully with more accuracy and fairness than current predictive policing systems).”
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Science Is Showing How Art Affects The Brain (And Our Lives)
“Some of the answers to art’s mysteries can be found in the realm of science. Art is considered the domain of the heart, but its transporting effects start in the brain, where intricate systems perceive and interpret it with dazzling speed. Using brain-imaging and other tools of neuroscience, the new field of neuroaesthetics is probing the relationship between art and the brain.”
What’s Wrong With This Picture? Nikon Chooses 32 Star Male Photographers (No Women) To Promote Its New Camera
“What is so obvious to me – a professional photographer – as well as colleagues, photography bloggers and social media users, was not obvious to Nikon. Instead, it seemed to have worked on the campaign, from the concept stage through to development, marketing and public relations, without a thought for its female clients.”
Darwin’s Theory About Aesthetics Over The Fittest
“A little over a decade after he published “On the Origin of Species,” in which he described his theory of natural selection shaped by “survival of the fittest,” Darwin published another troublesome treatise — “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relationship to Sex.” This expanded on an idea he mentioned only briefly in “Origin.” Sometimes, he proposed, in organisms that reproduce by having sex, a different kind of selection occurs: Animals choose mates that are not the fittest candidates available, but the most attractive or alluring. Sometimes, in other words, aesthetics rule.”
What Jane Austen’s Picture On The New £10 Note Tells Us About Money
“Tinkering with Austen’s image has a long history. According to Kathryn Sutherland and Freya Johnston in Teenage Writings, their new edition of her juvenilia, even writing that Austen never intended to publish didn’t escape others’ propensity to touch it up.”
How Color… Well… Colors The Way We Process The World
“It can remind us of a place, a smell, a time of year, a person; our memories and cultures are filled with colour associations. They can even have different meanings from one culture to another. For example, in Japanese culture, yellow represents bravery and wealth, whilst in France the same colour represents jealousy and betrayal. In many cultures, blue represents masculinity, whereas it is considered a feminine colour in China. And red – the colour of danger, passion, love and fear in countless western cultures – is actually symbolic of mourning in South Africa.”
Scientists: Blind People Re-Map Visual Processors Of The Brain To Analyze Vocal Language
Neurons in the part of the brain normally responsible for vision synchronise their activity to the sounds of speech in blind people, says Olivier Collignon at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium. “It’s a strong argument that the organisation of the language system… is not constrained by our genetic blueprint alone,” he says.
Artifical Intelligence Algorithms Can Now Diagnose Alzheimer’s Years Before It’s Obvious
“The AI distinguished between a healthy brain and one with Alzheimer’s with an accuracy of 86 per cent. Crucially, it could also tell the difference between healthy brains and those with MCI with an accuracy of 84 per cent. This shows that the algorithm could identify changes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s almost a decade before clinical symptoms appear.”
Ottawa’s National Arts Centre CEO Steps Down
“Peter Herrndorf, who joined the CBC in the mid-1960s, rose to become vice-president of the CBC’s English radio and TV operations. He went on to become publisher of Toronto Life magazine from 1983 to 1992 and then served as CEO of TVOntario from 1992 to 1999 before taking the job of running the NAC.”
This Year’s Longlist For The National Book Awards
Lisa Ko is one of four début writers on the list, along with Carmen Maria Machado, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, and Carol Zoref. Two of the writers on this year’s list have contended for the award before: Ward and Jennifer Egan, who was a finalist, in 2001, for “Look at Me.”
