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new interesting neuroscience article ... how can we learn from this for AI?

> how can we learn from this for AI? After reading the abstract only... it appears a bit too low-level to be relevant...

can't come at a better time with respect to SOCIS ....

Will they need humans anymore?

the coordinators of this FP7 are in Eindhoven ... might be nice to check where they are at one of their next consortium conferences: next one apparently in July but no date given. Guido: could you check?

A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).

As far as I know it's sort of like "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens"... i.e. a waste of taxpayer's money... Able to heal Alzheimer... Yeah... Actually I was on the conference the author is mentioning (FET 2011) and I have seen the presentations of all 6 flagship proposals. Following that I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about the existence of limits of the amount of bullshit politicians are willing to buy from scientists. Will there be a point at which politicians, despite their total ignorance, will realise that scientists simply don't deliver anything they promise? How long will we (scientists) be stuck in the viscous circle of have-to-promise-more-than-predecessors in order to get money? Will we face a situation when we'll be forced to revert to promises which are realistic? To be honest none of the 6 presentations convinced me of their scientific merit (apart from the one on graphene where I have absolutely no expertise to tell). Apparently a huge amount of money is about to be wasted.

It's not just "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens", it's worse! Also the simulation of the cosmological evolution is/was a little bit of this type, still the results are very interesting and useful. Why? Neither the whole cosmos nor the human brain at the level of single neurons can be modelled on a computer, that would last aeons on a "yet-to-be-invented-extra-super-computer". Thus one has to make assumptions and simplifications. In cosmology we have working theories of gravitation, thermodynamics, electrodynamics etc. at hand; starting from these theories we can make reasonable assumptions and (more or less) justified simplifications. The result is valuable since it provides insight into a complex system under given, explicit and understood assumptions. Nothing similar seems to exist in neuroscience. There is no theory of the human brain and apparently nobody has the slightest idea which simplifications can be made without harm. Of course, Mr. Markram remains completely unaffected of ''details'' like this. Finally, Marek, money is not wasted, we ''build networks of excellence'' and ''select the brightest of the brightest'' to make them study and work at our ''elite institutions'' :-). I lively remember the stage of one of these "bestofthebest" from Ivy League at the ACT...

Another great presentation at this conference!! Plus I always wanted to enter the numerical computations of orbit around black holes.... with Luzi we had a project on formation flying around black holes .... revolutionary idea (of course we did not do it!!!)

nice movie, and song :) we should definitely implement GR orbits in pagmo !

I agree Marek, yet was it practical for Apollonio to study conic sections more than 1500 years before Kepler found his three laws? And here is a good paper to start with: http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v77/i10/e103005, making an analogy between the periodic table and the taxomony of all orbits around a black hole.

blablabla

have not looked at them yet but the tiltle sounded intriguing ...

Nano and bio - A suggestion from Michael

can we go as ACT? we should ask Geraldine...

Three full days of compelling dialogue with the greatest minds of today about creating the civilizations of tomorrow.

The futures of space - an arts and humanities symposium. Organised in parallell with IAC

Aeptember 2008, Cape Town, ZA

Artificial life investigates the fundamental properties of living systems through simulating and synthesizing biological entities and processes in artificial media.

the currently official website of IRENA - the new international renewable energy agency just created in Bonn

nice list and discussion sent originally by Andrés ....