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Contents contributed and discussions participated by runlai_jiang

runlai_jiang

GE Power, in Need of a Lift, Chases Tesla and Siemens in Batteries - WSJ - 0 views

  • The giant platform called GE Reservoir is expected to store electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels for later use. The battery-storage market is expected to grow in coming years as some utilities look for less-expensive alternatives to the power plants that fire up during peak hours to meet power demand.
  • Siemens, one of GE’s biggest rivals in the power business, paired with AES Corp. last year to launch Fluence Energy LLC, a joint venture that is building what is expected to be the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in California. IHS Markit predicts the global market for batteries in the power sector will grow 14% annually through 2025.
  • The company tried making batteries using sodium-based technologie
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  • Success would be a needed boost for the struggling conglomerate, which is in the middle of restructuring and said last week it would overhaul its board. GE is seeking access to a market that Navigant Research predicts will generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue in the next decade or so.
  • Prices of lithium-ion batteries have dropped sharply in recent years, as they have become ubiquitous in products such as laptops and smartphones, improving the economies of scale of manufacturing. That is start
  • GE is hoping to change that with the Reservoir platform. GE says the Reservoir battery can last about 15% longer than the best batteries currently on the market and can be installed quicker.
runlai_jiang

Coca-Cola Plans Its First Alcoholic Drink - WSJ - 0 views

  • Coca-Cola Co.’s KO -0.68% Japan unit plans to introduce a fizzy alcoholic drink in the country, in what the company describes as the first alcoholic product it has ever developed.
  • Jorge Garduño, president of Coca-Cola’s Japan unit, said in an article posted on the company’s website that it is “going to experiment” with a canned drink that contains alcohol—a product category known as chu-hai in Japan.
  • Coca-Cola’s Japan unit has long sold many drinks that aren’t available elsewhere, including various teas and coffees and a laxative version of Coke called Coca-Cola Plus that was marketed as a health drink.
    • runlai_jiang
       
      Japan has always been innovative and creative in food industry
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  • A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Japan confirmed Wednesday that low-alcohol products are being “considered as an experimental approach.” She declined to give details of the proposed product, including when it might go on sale, and declined to make Mr. Garduño available for an interview.
  • Analysts and those in the drinks industry have long speculated that traditional divisions between alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage companies will fade as more stores and websites sell both types of drinks.
  • The Coca-Cola spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on whether the company is exploring alcohol sales outside of Japan.
  • “While I don’t think this represents a global shift in company strategy, I do think we can expect Coca-Cola and its competitors to continue looking for new opportunities as traditional category lines and beverage occasions blur,
    • runlai_jiang
       
      It might be a new strategy for companies to break through tradition and absorb and explore wider business aspects
  • Japan has a highly competitive beverage market, where companies can introduce as many as 100 new drinks a year.
  • According to Suntory, the total market in Japan for canned ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages has grown for 10 consecutive years. It grew 9% in 2017 to the equivalent of 183 million 24-can cases.
runlai_jiang

Amazon Targets Medicaid Recipients as It Widens War for Low-Income Shoppers - WSJ - 0 views

  • The online retail giant said Wednesday that it will extend its $5.99 monthly Prime membership to the roughly 20% of the U.S. population that is signed up for Medicaid. Last year, the company introduced the discount—Prime membership ordinarily costs $12.99 a month or $99 a year—by offering it to people who obtain government assistance with cards typically used for the food-stamp program, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
  • Amazon’s pursuit of more low-income shoppers comes as analysts estimate Prime membership has reached more than half of all U.S. households with internet and largely saturated the wealthier segment.
  • Walmart has more than 4,600 stores in the U.S. and Dollar General Corp. —which targets households earning $40,000 or less—has more than 14,000, many in low-income, rural areas.
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  • Walmart, the country’s largest retailer by revenue, is seeking to attract wealthier shoppers, ramping up efforts to better compete with Amazon online. It is wooing premium brands to walmart.com; late last year it announced plans to start selling products from department store Lord &
  • And last week it replaced many of its private-label clothing brands with new, slightly more expensive and fashion-forward versions.
  • Lower-income consumers have been the fastest-growing segment of online shoppers, analysts say, but still face potential impediments. They may lack internet access, banking resources like credit cards—SNAP cards can’t be used to pay online—and safe places to deliver a package.
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    Amazon's targets at low-income shoppers show its aim to popularize and expand online shopping in daily life.
runlai_jiang

Trump suggests arming teachers as a solution to increase school safety - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • "We need more security, we need more firearms on campus, we need better background checks, and we need to study more on mental health."Read MoreFred Abt, father of Parkland shooting survivor Carson Abt, said he had discussed with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over lunch that rather than waiting for first responders to arrive, it would be more efficient to have firearms locked on school campuses.
  • "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun," he wrote in his 2000 book, "The America We Deserve." "With today's Internet technology, we should be able to tell within 72 hours if a potential gun owner has a record."Trump disavowed those statements during the 2016 campaign.Polls have found, however, that most Americans blame Trump and Congress for not doing more on guns. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday found that 62% of respondents said Trump is not doing enough to prevent mass shootings and 77% say Congress is doing an inadequate job on the issue.
  • We're fighting hard for you and we will not stop... I just grieve for you, I feel so -- to me, there could be nothing worse than what you've gone through."
runlai_jiang

An Introduction to Dog Intelligence and Emotion - 0 views

  • The Science of Animal CognitionOver the past several years, one of the biggest advances in our human understanding of doggie cognition has been the use of MRI machines to scan dog brains. MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging, the process of taking an ongoing picture of what parts of the brain are lighting up through what external stimuli.Dogs, as any doggie parent knows, are highly trainable. This trainable nature makes dogs great candidates for MRI machines, unlike non-domesticated wild animals like birds or bears.
  • Through ongoing research, McGowan has found out a lot about animal cognition and feelings. In a study done in 2015, McGowan found that a human’s presence leads to increased blood flow to a dog’s eyes, ears and paws, which means the dog is excited.
  • As Smart as ChildrenAnimal psychologists have clocked dog intelligence at right around that of a two to two-and-a-half year old human child. The 2009 study which examined this found that dogs can understand up to 250 words and gestures. Even more surprising, the same study found that dogs can actually count low numbers (up to five) and even do simple math.
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  • Do you imagine they feel something like human jealousy? Well, there’s science to back this up, too.
  • Dogs have been studied for their empathy, as well. A 2012 study examined dogs’ behavior towards distressed humans that weren’t their owners. While the study concluded that dogs display an empathy-like behavior, the scientists writing the re
  • Numerous other studies on dog behavior, emotion, and intelligence have found that dogs “eavesdrop” on human interactions to assess who is mean to their owner and who isn’t and that dogs follow their human’s gaze.These studies may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our learning about dogs. And as for doggie parents? Well, they may know a lot more than the rest of us, just by observing their best canine companions every day.
runlai_jiang

What If Martin Luther King Jr. Was Never Assassinated? - 0 views

  • King’s contemporaries’ real lives can bridge the gap between reality and fiction—especially the life of Coretta Scott King, his wife and fellow activist. “The scope of her activism and the breadth of the issues she was working on are an indication of where [Martin Luther King] would be,” suggests Jeanne Theoharis, a Brooklyn College political science professor and author of A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History.
  • King, if he had lived, would very likely have taken up those same banners—perhaps even marching them into the White House, speculates Komozi Woodard, a professor of history, public policy, and Africana studies at Sarah Lawrence College. “Hopefully, White America would have matured to the point of decriminalizing Dr. King as time went on” just as Nelson Mandela’s image shifted from terrorist to savior in South Africa, Woodard tells National Geographic. “Dr. King may have successfully run for president as Mandela did.”
  • , was vastly unpopular among political leaders and white Americans at the time of his death. “FBI leadership at that time saw King’s stature as a ‘black messiah’ in criminal terms,” Woodard says, describing how King was “alienated, isolated and eliminated” by the Johnson administration.
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  • A Living King One difference is a little easier to imagine, though it speaks volumes: we might not celebrate Martin Luther King Day in a world where he wasn’t assassinated.
  • Woodard describes how King’s views were becoming more aligned with those of the more radical Malcolm X. “That doesn’t mean that King would have abandoned nonviolent protest,” he says, “but it means that King was increasingly militant in his anti-poverty agenda.”
  • a ladder of legacies Woodard traces from King through Stokely Carmichael, to whose youthful Black Power movement Woodard imagines King would have added “a core of stability.”
  • If King had lived, his presumed connection to—or involvement with—today’s polarizing racial justice activists would counter, as Theoharis puts it, America’s “fable that we’ve gotten past the race problem.”
runlai_jiang

You Asked About CES 2018. We Answered. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • You Asked About CES 2018. We Answered. By BRIAN X. CHEN At the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, thousands of tech companies showcased some of the hottest new innovations: artificial intelligence, self-driving car tech, the smart home, voice-controlled accessories, fifth-generation cellular connectivity and more.Curious about the new products and how they will affect your personal technology? Readers asked Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology writer who is attending the trade show, their questions about wireless, TV and the Internet of Things. 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  • At the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, thousands of tech companies showcased some of the hottest new innovations: artificial intelligence, self-driving car tech, the smart home, voice-controlled accessories, fifth-generation cellular connectivity and more.
  • Curious about the new products and how they will affect your personal technology? Readers asked Brian X. Chen, our lead consumer technology writer who attended the trade show, their questions about wireless, TV and the Internet of Things. (In addition,
runlai_jiang

The Big Tech Trends to Follow at CES 2018 - The New York Times - 0 views

  • magine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your house cleaner, it sends an alert to your phone. When you arrive home, a camera recognizes who you are and the door automatically unlocks.
  • Automated technologies like these will be at the forefront of CES, one of the world’s largest tech conventions, next week in Las Vegas. They underline one major trend: Increasingly, the innovations that are making their way into your personal technology aren’t physical electronics or gadgets at all.
  • he culmination of software, algorithms and sensors working together to make your everyday appliances smarter and more automated. It is
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  • Alexa and Her CounterpartsAlexa, Amazon’s intelligent assistant that listens to your voice commands to play music, order diapers and place a phone call, will be everywhere at CES.
  • Smart CitiesNowadays, it’s easy to shop for high-quality internet-connected home accessories, like light bulbs, thermostats and security cameras. At CES, Samsung is even planning to introduce a smart refrigerator at the electronics show that can listen to voice commands to control other home accessories.
  • Smarter CarsSelf-driving-car enthusiasts like Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, dream of a future where driverless cars eliminate traffic accidents while letting people do work on their commutes.They can keep dreaming: Autonomous vehicles still have a long way to go before they become safe and properly regulated.
  • Next-Generation Wireless TechnologyAs a growing number of devices rely on artificial intelligence, they will require faster bandwidth speeds. At CES, wireless companies like AT&T and Verizon are expected to give progress reports on so-called 5G, the fifth-generation network technology.With 5G, wireless carriers envision an era of incredibly fast speeds that let smartphone users download a movie in less than five seconds — roughly 100 times faster than the current network technology, 4G. Even more important, 5G is expected to greatly reduce latency to let devices communicate with each other with extremely fast response times.
runlai_jiang

In Some Countries, Facebook's Fiddling Has Magnified Fake News - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In Some Countries, Facebook’s Fiddling Has Magnified Fake News
  • SAN FRANCISCO — One morning in October, the editors of Página Siete, Bolivia’s third-largest news site, noticed that traffic to their outlet coming from Facebook was plummeting.The publication had recently been hit by cyberattacks, and editors feared it was being targeted by hackers loyal to the government of President Evo Morales.
  • But it wasn’t the government’s fault. It was Facebook’s. The Silicon Valley company was testing a new version of its hugely popular News Feed, peeling off professional news sites from what people normally see and relegating them to a new section of Facebook called Explore.
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  • Facebook said these News Feed modifications were not identical to those introduced last fall in six countries through its Explore program, but both alterations favor posts from friends and family over professional news sites. And what happened in those countries illustrates the unintended consequences of such a change in an online service that now has a global reach of more than two billion people every month.
  • The fabricated story circulated so widely that the local police issued a statement saying it wasn’t true. But when the police went to issue the warning on Facebook, they found that the message — unlike the fake news story they meant to combat — could no longer appear on News Feed because it came from an official account.Facebook explained its goals for the Explore program in Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bolivia, Guatemala and Serbia in a blog post in October. “The goal of this test is to understand if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content,” wrote Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook’s News Feed. “There is no current plan to roll this out beyond these test countries.”
  • The loss of visitors from Facebook was readily apparent in October, and Mr. Huallpa could communicate with Facebook only through a customer service form letter. He received an automatic reply in return.
  • ech giant may play in her country.“It’s a private company — they have the right to do as they please, of course,” she said. “But the first question we asked is ‘Why Bolivia?’ And we don’t even have the possibility of asking why. Why us?”
runlai_jiang

Taking On Adam Smith (and Karl Marx) - The New York Times - 0 views

  • “This sort of vaccinated me for life against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you see these empty shops, you see these people queuing for nothing in the street,” he said, “it became clear to me that we need private property and market institutions, not just for economic efficiency but for personal freedom.”
  • But his disenchantment with communism doesn’t mean that Mr. Piketty has turned his back on the intellectual heritage of Karl Marx, who sought to explain the “iron laws” of capitalism. Like Marx, he is fiercely critical of the economic and social inequalities that untrammeled capitalism produces — and, he concludes, will continue to worsen. “I belong to a generation that never had any temptation with the Communist Party; I was too young for that,” Mr. Piketty said, in
  • In his new book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (Harvard University Press), Mr. Piketty, 42, has written a blockbuster, at least in the world of economics. His book punctures earlier assumptions about the benevolence of advanced capitalism and forecasts sharply increasing inequality of wealth in industrialized countries, with deep and deleterious impact on democratic values of justice and fairness.
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  • Branko Milanovic, a former economist at the World Bank, called it “one of the watershed books in economic thinking.
  • “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” with its title echoing Marx’s “Das Kapital,” is meant to be a return to the kind of economic history, of political economy, written by predecessors like Marx and Adam Smith. It is nothing less than a broad effort to understand Western societies and the economic rules that underpin them.
  • he said, are his generation’s “founding experiences”: the collapse of Communism, the economic degradation of Eastern Europe and the first Gulf War, in 1991.
  • Those events motivated him to try to understand a world where economic ideas had such bad consequences. As for the Gulf War, it showed him that “governments can do a lot in terms of redistribution of wealth when they want.” The rapid intervention to fo
  • The reason that postwar economies looked different — that inequality fell — was historical catastrophe. World War I, the Depression and World War II destroyed huge accumulations of private capital, especially in Europe. What the French call “les
  • In 2012 the top 1 percent of American households collected 22.5 percent of the nation’s income, the highest total since 1928. The richest 10 percent of Americans now take a larger slice of the pie than in 1913, at the close of the Gilded Age, owning more than 70 percent of the nation’s wealth. And half of that is owned by the top 1 percent. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Piketty, father of three daughters — 11, 13 and 16 — is no revolutionary. He is a member of no political party, and says he never served as an economic adviser to any politician. He calls himself a pragmatist, who simply follows the data.
  • Net wealth is a better indicator of ability to pay than income alone, he said. “All I’m proposing is to reduce the property tax on half or three-quarters of the population who have very little wealth,” he said. Write A Comment Published a year ago in French, the book is not without critics, especially of Mr. Piketty’s policy prescriptions, which have been called politically naïve. Others point out that some of the increase in capital is because of aging populations and postwar pension plans, which are not necessarily inherited.More criticism is sure to come, and Mr. Piketty says he welcomes it. “I’m certainly looking forward to the debate.”
runlai_jiang

A Short History of the Soviet and Russian Space Program - 0 views

  • The modern age of space exploration includes more than 70 countries with research institutes and space agencies. However, only a few of them have launch capability, the three largest being NASA in the United States, Roscosmos in the Russian Federation, and the European Space Agency. Back in the early days of the Space Age, there were only two space agencies, both vying for supremacy in space: the U.S. and the Soviet Union (predecessor to today's Russian Federation).
  • Disaster in Soviet SpaceDisaster struck the Soviet program and gave them their first big setback. It happened in 1967, when cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the parachute that was supposed to settle his Soyuz 1 capsule gently on the ground failed to open. It was the first in-flight death of a man in space in history and a great embarrassment to the program. Problems continued to mount with the Soviet N1 rocket, which also set back planned lunar missions. Eventually, the U.S. beat the Soviet Union to the Moon, and the country turned its attention to sending unmanned probes to the Moon and Venus.
  • The Mir YearsThe most successful space station built by the Soviet Union flew from 1986 through 2001. It was called Mir, and assembled on orbit (much as the later ISS was). It hosted a number of crew members from the Soviet Union and other countries in a show of space cooperation.
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  • Regime ChangeThe Soviet space program faced interesting times as Union began to crumble in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Instead of the Soviet space agency, Mir and its Soviet cosmonauts (who became Russian citizens when the country changed) came under the aegis of Roscosmos, the newly formed Russian space agency. Many of the design bureaus that had dominated space and aerospace design were either shut down or reconstituted as private corporations. The Russian economy went through major crises, which affected the space program. Eventually, things stabilized and the country moved ahead with plans to participate in the International Space Station, plus resume launches of weather and communications satellites.
runlai_jiang

Elephant Seal Facts (Genus Mirounga) - 0 views

  • The elephant seal (genus Mirounga) is the world's largest seal. There are two species of elephant seals, named according to the hemisphere in which they are found. Northern elephant seals (M. angustirostris) are found in coastal waters around Canada and Mexico, while southern elephant seals (M. leonina) are found off the coast of New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina.
  • At sea, elephant seals range solo. They return to established breeding colonies each winter. Females become mature around 3 to 6 years of age, while males mature at 5 to 6 years.However, males need to achieve alpha status to mate, which is normally between the ages of 9 and 12. Males battle each other using body weight and teeth. While deaths are rare, scarring is common. An alpha male's harem ranges from 30 to 100 females. Other males wait on the edges of the colony, sometimes mating with females before the alpha male chases them away. Males remain on land over the winter to defend territory, meaning they don't leave to hunt.
  • Elephant seals have been hunted for their meat, fur, and blubber. Both northern and southern elephant seals were hunted to the brink of extinction. By 1892, most people believed the northern seals to be extinct. But in 1910, a single breeding colony was found around Guadalupe Island off Mexico's Baja California coast. At the end of the 19th century, new marine conservation legislation was put in place to protect the
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Human Microbiome and Microbiota - 0 views

  • The human microbiota consists of the entire collection of microbes that live in and on the body. In fact, there are 10 times as many microbial inhabitants of the body than there are body cells. Study of the human microbiome is inclusive of inhabitant microbes as well as the entire genomes of the body's microbial communities. These microbes reside in distinct locations in the ecosystem of the human body and perform important functions that are necessary for healthy human development.
  • Microbes of the BodyMicroscopic organisms that inhabit the body include archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists, and viruses. Microbes start to colonize the body from the moment of birth. An individual's microbiome changes in number and type throughout his or her lifetime, with the numbers of species increasing from birth to adulthood and decreasing in old age. These microbes are unique from person to person and can be impacted by certain activities, such as hand washing or taking antibiotics. Bacteria are the most numerous microbes in the human microbiome.
  • Human skin is populated by a number of different microbes that reside on the surface of the skin, as well as within glands and hair. Our skin is in constant contact with our external environment and serves as the body's first line of defense against potential pathogens. Skin microbiota help to prevent pathogenic microbes from colonizing the skin by occupying skin surfaces. They also help to educate our immune system by alerting immune cells to the presence of pathogens and initiating an immune response
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  • The human gut microbiome is diverse and dominated by trillions of bacteria with as many as one-thousand different bacterial species. These microbes thrive in the harsh conditions of the gut and are heavily involved in maintaining healthy nutrition, normal metabolism, and proper immune function. They aid in the digestion of non-digestible carbohydrates, the metabolism of bile acid and drugs, and in the synthesis of amino acids and many vitamins. A number of gut microbes also produce antimicrobial substances that protect against pathogenic bacteria.
  • Microbiota of the oral cavity number in the millions and include archaea, bacteria, fungi, protists, and viruses. These organisms exist together and most in a mutualistic relationship with the host, where both the microbes and the host benefit from the relationship. While the majority of oral microbes are beneficial, preventing harmful microbes from colonizing the mouth, some have been known to become pathogenic in response to environmental changes. Bacteria are the most numerous of the oral microbes and include Streptococcus, Actinomyces, Lactobacterium, Staphylococcus, and Propionibacterium.
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Reactivity Definition in Chemistry - 0 views

  • In chemistry, reactivity is a measure of how readily a substance undergoes a chemical reaction. The reaction can involve the substance on its own or with other atoms or compounds, generally accompanied by a release of energy. The most reactive elements and compounds may ignite spontaneously or explosively. They generally burn in water as well as the oxygen in air. Reactivity is dependent upon temperature.
  • Reactivity Trend in the Periodic TableThe organization of elements on the periodic table allows for predictions concerning reactivity. Both highly electropositive and highly electronegative elements have a strong tendency to react. These elements are located in the upper right and lower left corners of the periodic table and in certain element groups. The halogens, alkali metals, and alkaline earth metals are highly reactive.
  • How Reactivity WorksA substance reacts when the products formed from a chemical reaction have a lower energy (higher stability) than the reactants. The energy difference can be predicted using valence bond theory, atomic orbital theory, and molecular orbital theory. Basically, it boils down to the stability of electrons in their orbitals. Unpaired electrons with no electrons in comparable orbitals are the most likely to interact with orbitals from other atoms, forming chemical bonds. Unpaired electrons with degenerate orbitals that are half-filled are more stable, but still reactive. The least reactive atoms are those with a filled set of orbitals (octet).
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  • Stability Versus ReactivitySometimes a species with low reactivity is called "stable", but care should be taken to make the context clear. Stability can also refer to slow radioactive decay or to the transition of electrons from the excited state to less energetic levels (as in luminescence). A nonreactive species may be called "inert". However, most inert species actually do react under the right conditions to form complexes and compounds (e.g., higher atomic number noble gases).
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Impossible Colors and How to See Them - 0 views

  • Impossible Colors and How to See Them
  • How Impossible Colors Work Basically, the human eye has three types of cone cells that register color that work in an antagonistic fashion:Blue versus yellowRed versus greenLight versus darkThere is overlap between the wavelengths of light covered by the cone cells, so you see more than just blue, yellow, red, and green. White, for example, is not a wavelength of light, yet the human eye perceives it as a mixture of different spectral colors. Because of the opponent process, you can't see both blue and yellow at the same time, nor red and green. These combinations are so-called impossible colors.
  • Chimerical Colors Hyperbolic colors may be seen by staring at a color and then viewing the afterimage on the complementary color opposite it on the color wheel. Dave King / Getty Images
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  • While you can't ordinarily see both red and green or both blue and yellow, visual scientist Hewitt Crane and his colleague Thomas Piantanida published a paper in Science claiming such perception was possible. In their 1983 paper "On Seeing Reddish Green and Yellowish Blue" they claimed volunteers viewing adjacent red and green stripes could see reddish green, while viewers of adjacent yellow and blue stripes could see yellowish blue. The researchers used an eye tracker to hold the
  • The impossible colors reddish green and yellowish blue are imaginary colors that do not occur in the light spectrum. Another type of imaginary color is a chimerical color. A chimerical color is seen by looking at a color until the cone cells are fatigued and then looking at a different color. This produces an afterimage perceived by the brain, not the eyes.Examples of chimerical colors include:Self-luminous colors: Self-luminous colors appear to glow even though no light is emitted. An
  • Stygian colors: Stygian colors are dark and supersaturated. For example, "stygian blue" may be seen by staring at bright yellow and then looking at black. The normal afterimage is dark blue. When viewed against black, the resulting blue is as dark as black, yet colored. Stygian colors appear on black because certain neurons only fire signals in the dark.Hyperbolic colors:
  • Impossible colors like reddish green or yellowish blue are trickier to see. To try to see these colors, put a yellow object and blue object right next to each other and cross your eyes so that the two objects overlap. The same procedure works for green and red. The overlapping region may appear to be a mix of the two colors (i.e., green for blue and yellow, brown for red and green), a field of dots of the component colors, or an unfamiliar color that is both red/green or yellow/blue at once!
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5 Psychology Studies To Restore Your Faith in Humanity - 0 views

  • 5 Psychology Studies That Will Make You Feel Good About Humanity
  • When We're Grateful, We Want to Pay it Forward Caiaimage/Sam Edwards / Getty Images You may have heard in the news about "pay it forward" chains: when one person offers a small favor (like paying for the meal or coffee of the person behind them in line) the recipient is likely to offer the same favor to someone else. A study by researchers at Northeastern University has found that people really do want to pay it forward when someone else helps them — and the reason is that they feel grateful. This experiment was set up so that participants would experience a problem with their computer half way through the study. When someone else helped them fix the computer, they subsequently spend more time helping the next person with their computer issues. In other words, when we feel grateful f
  • When We Help Others, We Feel Happier
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  • Our Connections With Others Make Life More Meaningful
  • Supporting Others Is Linked to a Longer Life
  • 05 of 05 It's Possible to Become More Empathetic
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8 Infinity Facts That Will Blow Your Mind - 0 views

  • Infinity has its own special symbol: ∞. The symbol, sometimes called the lemniscate, was introduced by clergyman and mathematician John Wallis in 1655. The word "lemniscate" comes from the Latin word lemniscus, which means "ribbon," while the word "infinity" comes from the Latin word infinitas, which means "boundless."
  • Of all Zeno's paradoxes, the most famous is his paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles. In the paradox, a tortoise challenges the Greek hero Achilles to a race, providing the tortoise is given a small head start. The tortoise argues he will win the race because as Achilles catches up to him, the tortoise will have gone a bit further, adding to the distance.
  • Pi as an Example of Infinity Pi is a number consisting of an infinite number of digits. Jeffrey Coolidge / Getty Images Another good example of infinity is the number π or pi. Mathematicians use a symbol for pi because it's impossible to write the number down. Pi consists of an infinite number of digits. It's often rounded to 3.14 or even 3.14159, yet no matter how many digits you write, it's impossible to get to the end.
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  • Fractals and Infinity A fractal may be magnified over and over, to infinity, always revealing more detail. PhotoviewPlus / Getty Images A fractal is an abstract mathematical object, used in art and to simulate natural phenomena. Written as a mathematical equation, most fractals are nowhere differentiable. When viewing an image of a fractal, this means you could zoom in and see new detail. In other words, a fractal is infinitely magnifiable.The Koch snowflake is an interesting example of a fractal. The snowflake starts as an equilateral triangle. For each iteration of the fractal:Each line segment is divided into three equal segments.
  • Cosmology and Infinity Even if the universe is finite, it might be one of an infinite number of "bubbles.". Detlev van Ravenswaay / Getty Images Cosmologists study the universe and ponder infinity. Does space go on and on without end? This remains an open question. Even if the physical universe as we know it has a boundary, there is still the multiverse theory to consider. Our universe may be but one in an infinite number of them.
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What Is Synesthesia? Definition and Types - 0 views

  • The term "synesthesia" comes from the Greek words syn, which means "together", and aisthesis, which means "sensation." Synesthesia is a perception in which stimulating one sensory or cognitive pathway  causes experiences in another sense or cognitive pathway. In other words, a sense or concept is connected to a different sense or concept, such as hearing a color or tasting a word. The connection between pathways is involuntary and consistent over time, rather than conscious or arbitrary.
  • Types of SynesthesiaThere are many different types of synesthesia, but they may be categorized as falling into one of two groups: associative synesthesia and projective synesthesia. An associate feels a connection between a stimulus and a sense, w
  • There are at least 80 known types of synesthesia, but some are more common than others: Chromesthesia: In this common form of synesthesia, sounds and colors are associated with each other. For example, the musical note "D" may correspond to seeing the color green.Grapheme-color synesthesia: This is a common form of synesthesia characterized by seeing graphemes (letter or numerals) shaded with a color. Synesthetes don't associate the same colors for a grapheme as each other, although the letter "A" does appear to be red to many individuals. Persons who experience grapheme-color synesthesia sometimes report seeing impossible colors when red and green or blue and yellow graphemes appear next to each other in a word or number. Number form: A number form is a mental shape or map of numbers resulting from seeing or thinking about numbers.Lexical-gustatory synesthesia: This a rare type of synesthesia in which hearing a word results in tasting a flavor. For example, a person's name might taste like chocolate.Mirror-touch synesthesia: While rare, mirror-touch synesthesia is noteworthy because it can be disruptive to a synesthete's life. In this form of synesthesia, an individual feels the same sensation in response to a stimulus as another person. For example, seeing a person being tapped on the shoulder would cause the synesthete to feel a tap on
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  • How Synesthesia WorksScientists have yet to make a definitive determination of the mechanism of synesthesia. It may be due to increased cross-talk between specialized regions of the brain. Another possible mechanism is that inhibition in a neural pathway is reduced in synesthetes, allowing multi-sensory processing of stimuli. Some researchers believe synesthesia is based on the way the brain extracts and assigns the meaning of a stimulus (ideasthesia).
  • Who Has Synesthesia?Julia Simner, a psychologist studying synesthesia at of the University of Edinburgh, estimates at least 4% of the population has synesthesia and that over 1% of people have grapheme-color synesthesia (colored numbers and letters). More women have synesthesia than men. Some research suggests the incidenc
  • Can You Develop Synesthesia?There are documented cases of non-synesthetes developing synesthesia. Specifically, head trauma, stroke, brain tumors, and temporal lobe epilepsy may produce synesthesia. Temporary synesthesia may result from exposure to the psychedelic drugs mescaline or LSD, from sensory deprivation, or from meditation.
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Philosophy and Addiction - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Philosophy is one of the oldest areas of inquiry. Out of control behavior fueled by alcohol and other drugs is one of the world’s oldest problems. What could these old timers offer each other? Philosophy has a long, stable relationship with reason and more specifically, the relationship between reason, emotions and the will. Addiction seems to involve a total abdication of reason, a messy tangle of emotions and a lack of will.
  • In his pursuit of knowledge about the nature of virtues, Socrates first had to debunk popular opinions about them. The debunking took the form of a dialogue but in reality more closely resembled a cross examination. Socrates looked for the essence, necessary property or ineliminable trait that made particular acts pious or just. Socrates interrogated every definition offer
  • I introduce the notion of addiction as a subject of philosophical inquiry here for a reason. I am a philosopher, yes, but I am also an alcoholic who has been sober for more than 24 years ― only the last four of them as part of a recovery program. I am often a
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  • Now imagine that the prisoners are released from their chains. They look behind them and see the objects that caused the shadows. Most likely they will be confused and horrified and unwilling to accept that these objects caused the shadows. Imagine now that the prisoners start to leave the cave. They will be painfully blinded as soon as they encounter light. Once their eyes begin to adjust, they will be confronted by a harsh bright world with a whole host of
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Black Representation in Government - 0 views

  • Although the 15th Amendment passed in 1870 legally prohibited denying black men the right to vote, major efforts to disenfranchise black voters promoted the passage of the Voters Rights Act in 1965. Prior to its ratification, black voters were subject to literacy test, false voting dates, and physical violence.
  • Constance Baker Motley was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1921. Motley became interested in civil rights matters after she was banned from a public beach for being black. She sought to understand the laws that were being used to oppress her. At an early age, Motley became a civil rights advocate and was motivated to improve the treatment received by black Americans. Soon after she became the president of the local NAACP youth council.
  • Harold Washington was born on April 15, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois. Washington began high school at DuSable High School but did not receive his diploma until after World War II — during which time he served as first sergeant in the Air Army Corps. He was honorably discharged in 1946 and went on to graduate from Roosevelt College (now Roosevelt University) in 1949, and Northwestern University School of Law in 1952
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