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"About the Cafe Cafe Scientifique is a forum for discussing and debating science issues which are of concern to everyone. Our aim is to promote public engagement with science and to foster interesting, fact-based discussions in a fun and relaxed atmosphere. Our speakers are scientists or science journalists, ethicists, or related experts from the local community who donate their time to present and discuss their work with the public. We include a range of topics and disciplines. Cafe Scientifique started in France and Great Britain in the late 1990′s, and has now spread all over the world -including Vancouver!"

Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self" -- that a "self" is simply the content of a model created by our brain - part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves. But if the self is not "real," he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called "out-of-body experiences" in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body -- and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the "rubber-hand illusion" demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the "self" in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At

The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Rising living standards of a growing world population will cause global energy consumption to double by mid-century and triple by the end of the century. Even in light of unprecedented conservation, the additional energy needed is simply not attainable from long discussed sources these include nuclear, biomass, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. The global appetite for energy is simply too much. Petroleum-based fuel sources (i.e., coal, oil and gas) could be increased. However, deleterious consequences resulting from external drivers of economy, the environment, and global security dictate that this energy need be met by renewable and sustainable sources. The dramatic increase in global energy need is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the non-legacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half century. The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level personalized solar energy drives inextricably towards the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon neutral and plentiful energy. This talk will place the scale of the global energy issue in perspective and then discuss how personalized energy (especially for the non-legacy world) can provide a path to a solution to the global energy challenge. Daniel G. Nocera is the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of the Solar Revolutions Project and Director of the Eni Solar Frontiers Center at MIT. His group pioneered studies of the basic mechanisms of energy conversion in biology and chemistry. He has recently accomplished a solar fuels process that captures many of the elements of photosynthesis outside of the leaf. This discovery sets the stage for a storage mechanism for the large scale, distributed, deployment of solar energy. He has b

Seahorse - Male Endurance - Roles Swapped discusses the weirdest mode of reproduction in the animal kingdom, found in seahorses, along with beautiful poetry

Seahorse - Male Endurance - Roles Swapped discusses the weirdest mode of reproduction in the animal kingdom, found in seahorses, along with beautiful poetry

"Our ethos: We help people make sense of current discussions rather than taking them back to school We stand up for scientific inquiry, free from stigma, intimidation, hysteria or censorship We want everyone, whatever their experience, to stand up for evidence in public life"

K-NET - Knowledge-NET - is a play ground of knowledge management enthusiasts. We use this informal space to raise awareness on emerging technologies; to debate and discuss the impact of collaborative socialization on work and life; and to raise awareness of new agile forms of conducting business with knowledge management methodologies.

"Scientist Solutions Inc. was started in 2004 for the purpose of promoting the worldwide advancement of science and biotechnology. To achieve this goal we have developed an internet discussion site or "Board" to provide scientists a resource for the exchange of ideas and information. "

Pieter van Boheemen ‏@pietervboheemen This what we do @DutchDIYBio meetups: build, experiment, discuss and laugh https://vimeo.com/56906165 #DIYBio

The OCLC Developer Network is a community of developers collaborating to propose, discuss and test OCLC Web Services. This open source, code-sharing infrastructure improves the value of OCLC data for all users by encouraging new OCLC Web Service uses.

An open-source online learning platform that will feature teaching designed specifically for the web. Features will include: self-paced learning, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, assessment of learning as a student progresses through a course, and online laboratories. The platform will also serve as a ..

We use data provided by the World Bank to show the main economic indicators of all countries. Each indicator is presented in comparison to several other countries and in terms of changes over time. We discuss the definitions of the various indicators and provide information about the ways in which one can interpret them. See for example, data for the U.S. economic indicators

Through this website, we will continue, unify, and expand NASA's open source activities. The site will serve to surface existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects and processes, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release, and contribution.

Solve for X is a place where the curious can go to hear and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Radical in the sense that the solutions could help billions of people. Radical in the sense that the audaciousness of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction.

Welcome to the future! Here you will find a speculative timeline of future history. Part fact and part fiction, the timeline is based on detailed research that includes analysis of current trends, projected long-term environmental changes, advances in technology such as Moore's Law, future medical breakthroughs, and the evolving geopolitical landscape. Where possible, references have been provided to support the predictions. FutureTimeline.net is intended to be an ongoing, collaborative project that is open for discussion - we welcome ideas from scientists, futurists, inventors, writers and anyone else interested in the future of our world.

handbook introduces you to the legal, social and technical aspects of open data. It can be used by anyone but is especially useful for those working with government data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data - why to go open, what open is, and the how to do open.

We are offering this course on Natural Language Processing free and online to students worldwide, January - March 2012, continuing Stanford's exciting forays into large scale online instruction. Students have access to screencast lecture videos, are given quiz questions, assignments and exams, receive regular feedback on progress, and can participate in a discussion forum. Those who successfully complete the

Ai Research is a leading artificial intelligence research project. At Ai, we're creating a new form of life. Our expanding web site is an essential part of the emerging global discussion about artificial intelligence. On this website, we showcase the state of the art in pattern-matching conversational machines, demonstrated by Alan, and in reinforcement learning algorithms, demonstrated by HAL. Use our forums, original papers, online labs, demos and links to explore what's happening both at Ai (the project) and in AI (the field).

"The Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) is a forum for research and discussion about contemporary publishing practices, and the impact of those practices upon users."

The spacetime symmetries we discussed in the previous post can be expanded to include three discrete symmetries: parity, charge conjugation, and time-reversal. It turns out (rather surprisingly) that physics chooses not to obey these symmetries, and this act of rebellion allowed the universe to develop interesting things like galaxies and life.