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"TEDtalksDirector | May 08, 2008 http://www.ted.com Mycologist Paul Stamets studies the mycelium -- and lists 6 ways that this astonishing fungus can help save the world."

includes a list of faculty at UMN affiliated with the program

With its expansive range and unprecedented potential for anonymity, (the Internet gives voice to our deepest urges and most uninhibited thoughts. Inspired by the wealth of unfettered expression available online, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, who met as Ph.D. candidates at Boston University, began plumbing a few chosen search engines (including Dogpile and AOL) to create the world's largest experiment in sexuality in 2009. Quietly tapping into a billion Web searches, they explored the private activities of more than 100 million men and women around the world. The result is the first large-scale scientific examination of human sexuality in more than half a century, since biologist Alfred Kinsey famously interviewed more than 18,000 middle-class Caucasians about their sexual behavior and published the Kinsey reports in 1948 and 1953. Building on the work of Kinsey, neuroscientists have long made the case that male and female sexuality exist on different planes. But like Kinsey himself, they have been hampered by the dubious reliability of self-reports of sexual behavior and preferences as well as by small sample sizes. That is where the Internet comes in. By accessing raw data from Web searches and employing the help of Alexa-a company that measures Web traffic and publishes a list of the million most popular sites in the world-Ogas and Gaddam shine a light on hidden desire, a quirky realm of lust, fetish, and kink that, like the far side of the moon, has barely been glimpsed. Here is a sampling of their fascinating results, selected from their book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

When you're setting up a home, an inverter is usually one of the top ten things on your list of must-haves. As compared to old-school generators, they're quiet, switch on and off instantly and require less maintenance. But, it's not like there's a single inverter that's the right choice for everyone. You need an inverter for your home that matches your power backup requirements and of course, fits your budget. ...contd.

Windows 8 system operates on a compendium of processes and services. Services specifically are vital to execute a login session, as the important drivers and components are loaded through them. In the relevant interface, you can view more than a hundred listings of services.

Business practice: The rise of American astrophysics, 1859-1919 Nisbett, Catherine Elaine. This dissertation takes seriously the production of astrophysical data by examining observatory practices through the lens of business models.

The founder of Palm, Jeff Hawkins, solves the mystery of Artificial Intelligence and presents his theory at the RSA Conference 2008. He gives a brief tutorial on the neocortex and then explains how the brain stores memory and then describes how to use that knowledge to create artificial intelligence. This lecture is insightful and his theory will revolutionize computer science.