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Contents contributed and discussions participated by dpittenger

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dpittenger

Senate Approves Bill to Rein In N.S.A. Surveillance - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...hurdle-but-showdown-looms.html

senate

shared by dpittenger on 02 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Senate voted on Tuesday to curtail the federal government’s sweeping surveillance of American phone records
  • take one more tool away from those who defend our country every day.
  • dpittenger on 02 Jun 15
     
    The measures of the Patriot Act are being reduced. Did it really help with national security in the first place?
dpittenger

We're Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...253821

extinction knowledge technology

shared by dpittenger on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • we humans will destroy ourselves.
  • I think the biggest existential risks relate to certain future technological capabilities that we might develop, perhaps later this century. For example, machine intelligence or advanced molecular nanotechnology could lead to the development of certain kinds of weapons systems. You could also have risks associated with certain advancements in synthetic biology.
  • all observations require the existence of an observer. This becomes important, for instance, in evolutionary biology
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It's hard to know what that might look like, because our human experience might be just a small little crumb of what's possible. If you think of all the different modes of being, different kinds of feeling and experiencing, different ways of thinking and relating, it might be that human nature constrains us to a very narrow little corner of the space of possible modes of being. I
dpittenger

Did climate change drive the Syrian uprising? | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...e-change-drive-syrian-uprising

climate change Syria

shared by dpittenger on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 09 Mar 15
     
    This is related to the sociology stuff that we are starting right now. It is possible that climate change was a cause for the Syrian uprising. Its a very interesting discovery and its not something that you would believe, but some scientists are showing that it could be true.
dpittenger

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking warn of artificial intelligence dangers - 0 views

mashable.com/...awking-artificial-intelligence

science technology research

shared by dpittenger on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Call it preemptive extinction panic, smart people buying into Sci-Fi hype or simply a prudent stance on a possible future issue, but the fear around artificial intelligence is increasingly gaining traction among those with credentials to back up the distress.
  • However, history doesn't always neatly fit into our forecasts. If things continue as they have with brain-to-machine interfaces becoming ever more common, we're just as likely to have to confront the issue of enhanced humans (digitally, mechanically and/or chemically) long before AI comes close to sentience.
  • Still, whether or not you believe computers will one day be powerful enough to go off and find their own paths, which may conflict with humanity's, the very fact that so many intelligent people feel the issue is worth a public stance should be enough to grab your attention.
  • dpittenger on 09 Mar 15
     
    Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk fear that artificial intelligence could become dangerous. We talked about this a bit in class before, but it is starting to become a new fear. Artificial intelligence could possibly become smarter than us, and that wouldn't be good.
dpittenger

Opinion: The disturbing consequences of ultra-connectivity - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

science social media technology

shared by dpittenger on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 09 Mar 15
     
    Today, most of the world is connected to the internet through their phones. Everyone's lives are on the internet and it can cause consequences. For one, the government uses this as a tool to spy, but so many other things can go badly with everyone being connected.
dpittenger

Opinion: World is not ready for Google 'right to be forgotten' decision - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

technology social media

shared by dpittenger on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 09 Mar 15
     
    This article is about how public figures have a very large online presence, but some don't want it to be like that. This is old, but there is debate as to whether people have "the right to be forgotten" or if it is just something that comes with technology.
dpittenger

We Got to See This Supernova Explode Four Times Simultaneously - 0 views

gizmodo.com/our-exploding-stars-1690102454

science technology

shared by dpittenger on 08 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • It's not every day we get to see a supernova, and a single exploding star split into four images is an absolute first.
  • The optical illusion of four exploding stars is produced by an effect known as gravitational lensing, wherein light from the explosion is bent, distorted, and dispersed to four separate points by the immense gravity of the galactic cluster itself.
  • Because each cosmic echo of the supernova is produced by light traversing a unique path, the different images appeared, and may fade out, at different times.
  • dpittenger on 08 Mar 15
     
    This is an article about a supernova that was captured blowing up 4 times. It was an optical illusion created b y space itself, but I thought it was interesting because it seems like something that is impossible,but it still happened and was explained by science.
dpittenger

Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Want to Ban AP US History -- NYMag - 0 views

nymag.com/...want-to-ban-ap-us-history.html

knowledge education

shared by dpittenger on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 27 Feb 15
     
    Oklahoma lawmakers want to ban AP US History because it has too negative of an outlook on the history of the US.
dpittenger

A little bias in peer review scores can translate into big money, simulation finds | Sc... - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...ate-big-money-simulation-finds

bias science psychology

shared by dpittenger on 10 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The scores peer reviewers award will play a big role in deciding which proposals NIH funds, and the process is extremely competitive
  • researchers from certain states, can fare unusually poorly in funding competitions, raising concerns that bias—conscious or unconscious—is skewing scores.
  • He found that bias that skews scores by just 3% can result in noticeable disparities in funding rates.
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  • In practical terms, the results meant that nonpreferred investigators had to submit higher quality grants to get money, whereas preferred investigators could get relatively lower quality grants funded. For instance, in a simulation that assumed that the top 10% of grants were funded, and that bias reduced the scores of nonpreferred applicants by an average of 3.7%, the preferred applicants got 118 funded grants, compared with just 82 from nonpreferred applicants.
dpittenger

Did The Past Really Happen? - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

science

shared by dpittenger on 10 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 10 Feb 15
     
    This video talks about science and how it is possible that history is incredibly recent. It talks about something called Last Thursdayism which is the theory that the universe was created last Thursday. He brings up Karl Popper and he says how Last Thurdayism cannot be falsified, but also that it cannot be proved.
dpittenger

'Stranger Danger' Makes People Less Empathetic - 0 views

www.livescience.com/9-stress-inhibits-empathy.html

empathy science brain science

shared by dpittenger on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Being around strangers can cause people stress and, in turn, make them less able to feel others' pain, new research suggests.
  • The study suggests that people's default response is to be empathetic toward others but that stress inhibits their ability to feel others' pain. The findings also underscore how deeply hardwired the fear of stranger danger is, in both mice and humans.
  • From an evolutionary standpoint, that makes sense, as every meeting with a stranger has a higher risk of resulting in violence
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  • also suggests an intriguing mechanism behind the regulation of empathy
dpittenger

Social Media Is Not Making You a Ball of Stress - 1 views

www.smithsonianmag.com/...king-you-ball-stress-180953900

stress science Technology brain science social media

shared by dpittenger on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • “This awareness and sharing can have positive impacts on our psychosocial lives," says Murthy. "Specifically, if we—in our very busy and increasingly individualized lives—become more social via social media, this could reduce our stress levels, as sharing and more communal behaviors have historically been tied to better mental health.”
  • However, the Pew report suggests that social media can make users more aware of negative events in the lives of friends and family. And when users learn about deaths, illness, job loss or other problems among their circle of friends, they in turn feel additional stress they might have otherwise avoided.
  • No matter the platform, though, the work supports the notion that stress can act like a contagion, and it seems social media can facilitate its spread: “Increased social awareness can of course be double edged,” Murthy says.
dpittenger

Create Your Very Own False Memories by Lying on Facebook - 1 views

www.smithsonianmag.com/...ories-lying-facebook-180953796

memories facebook Science brain science social media Technology

shared by dpittenger on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 16 Jan 15
     
    This article talks about false memories, like we talked about in class. It says that Facebook can actualyl create false memories when you lie on it. Facebook memories are easier to remember than anything else that you read.
dpittenger

The funny thing about wanting something badly - 0 views

sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/...caredit.a1500016

Science brain science

shared by dpittenger on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 16 Jan 15
     
    An article about how it is hard to detach yourself emotionally from things that you want. Once you do this, however, you are able to do things that aren't just for yourself, but other things.
dpittenger

3-D-printed organs are on the way - Nov. 4, 2014 - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...3d-printed-organs

science research technology

shared by dpittenger on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Add one more to the growing list of 3-D-printed products: human organs.
  • Within the next few years, Renard says 3-D-printed tissues could also be used in patient treatment, to replace small parts or organs or encourage cell regeneration.
  • Once the cells have been printed in the right arrangement, they begin to signal to one another, fuse and organize themselves into a collective system.
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  • That hasn't stopped scientists from trying, however. Harvard researchers are at work trying to print functioning human kidneys, while a team at the University of Louisville is trying to produce a 3-D-printed heart.
  • dpittenger on 15 Jan 15
     
    Scientists are creating organs using 3d printers. This is a big scientific breakthrough and changes how we think about biology.
dpittenger

Departing Leader of CERN Ponders Uncertainties That Lie Ahead - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ertainties-that-lie-ahead.html

science research knowledge technology

shared by dpittenger on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Dr. Heuer, born in Bad Boll in southern Germany in 1948, has spent his career in the trenches of particle physics, in which scientists emulate 3-year-olds by smashing bits of matter together to see what comes out.
  • He had an opportunity to put that philosophy to the test early in his term at CERN, when physicists reported in a seminar there that they had measured subatomic particles known as neutrinos streaming from Geneva to their detector in Italy faster than the speed of light, contrary to the laws of physics then known.
  • The neutrino controversy helped set a sort of dubious stage for the main event in particle physics so far this century: the Higgs boson.
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  • The Higgs boson completed the Standard Model, a suite of equations that agrees with all the experiments that have been done on earth. But that model is not the end of physics. It does not explain dark matter or dark energy, the two major constituents of the cosmos, for example, or why the universe is made of matter instead of antimatter.
  • For decades, theorists have flirted with a concept called supersymmetry that would address some of these issues and produce a bounty of new particles for CERN’s collider.
dpittenger

Four Demoted at Secret Service in Wake of Scandals - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...huffling-follows-scandals.html

secret service scandals

shared by dpittenger on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The Secret Service’s interim director has demoted four of the agency’s senior executives as part of a management shake-up after a series of scandals, the agency said Wednesday.
  • Julia Pierson, resigned amid criticism of the agency after a man with a knife climbed the White House fence, ran through the North Portico doors and into the East Room before he was tackled by agency officers.
  • “The Secret Service has suffered from a lack of leadership and that has had a detrimental impact on security, training, protocols, and overall culture,” said Mr. Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and an ardent critic of the Secret Service.
dpittenger

Your computer knows you better than your friends do - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...ows-you-better-your-friends-do

computer science research social media technology

shared by dpittenger on 14 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 14 Jan 15
     
    This article talks about how your phone and computer cache all of the things that you do and type on them. It collects data and it learns a lot about you and can predict many things about who you are.
dpittenger

How Many Things Are There? - 1 views

www.youtube.com/watch

science knowledge things

shared by dpittenger on 14 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 14 Jan 15
     
    This is a youtube video that discusses how many "things" there are. He defines the definition of things and then he eventually calculates how many things there are. This is related to TOK because it shows how "things" can be relative to a person, and it also shows that everything could possible be limited.
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