MEDIA ROOTS– What is is that enhances and what is it that inhibits our empathic capacity? Matthew Taylor explores the concept of 21st century enlightment in this RSA animate video, suggesting that the new enlightenment should champion a more self-aware, socially embedded model of autonomy that recognizes the frailties and limitations of the human race and the planet in which … Read More
GUARDIAN– The desert plants used to distil tequila could cut emissions from transport by providing an important new biofuel crop, according to new research. “Agave has a huge advantage, as it can grow in marginal or desert land, not on arable land,” and therefore would not displace food crops, said Oliver Inderwildi, at the University of Oxford. Much of the … Read More
NPR– The letters O-C-D have become a punch line to describe people who make lists or wash their hands a lot. But for some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the intrusive thoughts and rituals are severely disabling and don’t respond to drugs or behavioral therapies. So doctors have been trying a new treatment for OCD: deep brain stimulation. Deep brain stimulation … Read More
POPULAR SCIENCE– A lot of the debate about when modern humans became modern humans has to do with the head–when our brains evolved into the functional equivalent of that of modern mankind. But while that particular argument continues, a team of UK researchers using a new kind of statistical technique have analyzed ancient footprints at a site in Tanzania and … Read More
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC– A blackspot tuskfish off Australia has its mouth full as it carries a cockle to a nearby rock, against which the fish was seen repeatedly bashing the shellfish to get at the fleshy bits inside. A recent study in the journal Coral Reefs says the picture—snapped at a depth of nearly 60 feet (18 meters) in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in 2006—is the first ever taken of … Read More
