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Lawrence Hrubes

Martha, My Dear: What De-Extinction Can't Bring Back : The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...xtinction-cant-bring-back.html

science TOK

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • There are a lots of potential problems with de-extinction, starting with the fact that, in any rigorous way, it’s probably impossible. Recent advances in paleogenetics have made it feasible to reassemble the genomes of recently extinct animals, like the passenger pigeon and even the mammoth. But the results are inexact—there will always be uncertainties. And even then things get really tricky.
  • The nearest living relative of the passenger pigeon is a bird called the band-tailed pigeon, which lives in the western United States and in Canada. The theory behind Revive & Restore’s resurrection effort—which, it should be noted, has a staff of one—is that, with some very sophisticated genetic slicing and dicing, a band-tailed pigeon embryo could be converted into a passenger pigeon embryo. This embryo could then be transferred to a band-tailed pigeon egg and raised by band-tailed pigeon parents.
Lawrence Hrubes

The Brilliance of a Stradivari Violin Might Rest Within Its Wood - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...stradivari-violin-wood.html

arts science music technology

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 30 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Over the years, he said, many hypotheses about the secret properties of Stradivari and Guarneri instruments have come and gone. Advertisement Continue reading the main story For a while, people suggested that luthiers had simply used trees that have since gone extinct — but in fact those trees still exist. In 2003, Dr. Grissino-Mayer and a colleague said Stradivari’s secret had to do with the fact that he had lived during an extremely cold period, known as the little ice age, and that the trees around him were growing differently. How exactly that may have produced better instruments, however, remains unclear. Another popular theory — that Stradivari was using a varnish with magical sound properties — has not been substantiated by any chemical analyses.
  • Lawrence Hrubes on 30 Dec 16
     
    scientists try to uncover the lost knowledge of how to make the best violins and cellos in history
markfrankel18

Scientific Pride and Prejudice - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tific-pride-and-prejudice.html

TOK psychology bias science arts

shared by markfrankel18 on 02 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The natural sciences often offer themselves as a model to other disciplines. But this time science might look for help to the humanities, and to literary criticism in particular.A major root of the crisis is selective use of data. Scientists, eager to make striking new claims, focus only on evidence that supports their preconceptions
  • Despite the popular belief that anything goes in literary criticism, the field has real standards of scholarly validity.
  • In his 1960 book “Truth and Method,” the influential German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer argues that an interpreter of a text must first question “the validity — of the fore-meanings dwelling within him.” However, “this kind of sensitivity involves neither ‘neutrality’ with respect to content nor the extinction of one’s self.” Rather, “the important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias.” To deal with the problem of selective use of data, the scientific community must become self-aware and realize that it has a problem. In literary criticism, the question of how one’s arguments are influenced by one’s prejudgments has been a central methodological issue for decades.
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  • Perhaps because of its self-awareness about what Austen would call the “whims and caprices” of human reasoning, the field of psychology has been most aggressive in dealing with doubts about the validity of its research.
Lawrence Hrubes

Aboriginal legends reveal ancient secrets to science - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-australia-32701311

religious knowledge systems language science

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 19 May 15 - No Cached
  • Scientists are beginning to tap into a wellspring of knowledge buried in the ancient stories of Australia's Aboriginal peoples. But the loss of indigenous languages could mean it is too late to learn from them.
  • "They describe this gigantic wave coming very far inland and killing everybody except those who were up on the mountaintops, and they actually name all the different locations where people survived," says Mr Hamacher. He and Mr Goff took core samples from locations between 500m and 1km (0.6 miles) inland, and at each spot, they found a layer of ocean sediment, about 2m down, indicating that a tsunami likely washed over the area hundreds, or possibly thousands, of years ago. The samples need further analysis but Mr Hamacher says it is a "very exciting" result that suggests the legend could be true.
  • They also employ a rigid kin-based, cross-generational system of fact-checking stories, involving grandchildren, parents, and elders, which Mr Reid says doesn't seem to be used by other cultures.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • But there is a problem - Indigenous languages are dying off at an alarming rate, making it increasingly difficult for scientists and other experts to benefit from such knowledge. More than 100 languages have already become extinct since white settlement.
Lawrence Hrubes

A world empire by other means - www.economist.com - 0 views

www.readability.com/...e1prrjxq

TOK language English globalization protectionism extinction

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 23 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Lawrence Hrubes on 23 Dec 13
     
    "IT IS everywhere. Some 380m people speak it as their first language and perhaps two-thirds as many again as their second. A billion are learning it, about a third of the world's population are in some sense exposed to it and by 2050, it is predicted, half the world will be more or less proficient in it. It is the language of globalisation-of international business, politics and diplomacy. It is the language of computers and the Internet. It is now the global language. How come? Not because English is easy."
Lawrence Hrubes

Behind the Scenes at 'Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...t-in-the-age-of-dinosaurs.html

science arts TOK paleontology dinosaurs museum models

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 01 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • “Most of the questions that we actually get from artists, the answer is, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Dr. Kellner said. But the more research that’s done, the closer their guess can be on an animal that’s been extinct for 66 million years.
  • “Occasionally,” said Dr. Kellner, “once you have it done, everything is fine, everyone is happy. But then a year later someone makes a new discovery.
  • Most people, he said, think art and science are two different worlds. “I used to think they were very separate, but they’re actually very similar. You have to be creative and you have to be observant.”
Lawrence Hrubes

BBC - Future - Languages: Why we must save dying tongues - 1 views

www.bbc.com/...y-we-must-save-dying-languages

TOK language indigenous knowledge systems culture diver

shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 10 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Just as ecosystems provide a wealth of services for humanity – some known, others unacknowledged or yet to be discovered – languages, too, are ripe with possibility. They contain an accumulated body of knowledge, including about geography, zoology, mathematics, navigation, astronomy, pharmacology, botany, meteorology and more. In the case of Cherokee, that language was born of thousands of years spent inhabiting the southern Appalachia Mountains. Cherokee words exist for every last berry, stem, frond and toadstool in the region, and those names also convey what kind of properties that object might have – whether it’s edible, poisonous or has some medicinal value. “No culture has a monopoly on human genius, and we never know where the next brilliant idea may come from,” Harrison says. “We lose ancient knowledge if we lose languages.”
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