Optimal Functioning

A brand new living cell and the beginning of an era for artificial life forms! It’s official, J. Craig Venter and his team have created the first self-replicating synthetic cell with a completely man-made set of genetic instructions—a never before existing bacteria species has joined the ranks of the living.

*new* Step by Step: How scientists created the first artificial life

Videos

• Dr Craig Venter Announces First Synthetic Living Cell [video]
• Full Length Press Release: Craig Venter unveils “synthetic life” (TED Talks in the Field) [video]
• The Journal Science Interviews J. Craig Venter About the first “Synthetic Cell” [video]
• Interview on BBC -- Are We Playing God? [video]
• Interview on AlJazeera -- Frost over the World (29.05.2010) [video]

Articles:

• *new* ScienceMag -- News of This Week [must read]
• *new* Original Science Journal Article [study]
• *new* Q&A on What Synthetic Life Actually Means
• *new* EDGE: Brief Summary & Thought by Edge Reality Club Members
• *new* Programming Life out of 4 Letters by Richard Dawkins

Other:

• *new* Science PodCast with J. Craig Venter on the first “Synthetic Cell”

Dr Craig Venter Announces First Synthetic Living Cell

Step by Step:

How scientists created the first artificial life

1. Decode DNA from a bacterium (single-celled organism), in this case Mycoplasma mycoides

2. Synthetically create the DNA of the bacterium in the lab and add a “watermark” to distinguish it from real DNA

3. Transplant the artificial DNA into a living bacterium (in this case Mycoplasma capricolum) with its own authentic DNA

4. Allow the bacterium, which now contains artificial and authentic DNA, to divide and create “daughter” bacteria, some of which contain artifical DNA and others that contain authentic DNA

5. Add an antibiotic that kills the bacteria with authentic DNA, but not the bacteria with artificial DNA

6. Allow the artifical bacteria to produce proteins

RESULT: The artificial DNA produce proteins from the original bacterium, the Mycoplasma mycoides, qualifying as the world’s first artificial cell

(source: news.com.au)

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We all have a theory of mind, of how our mind works, and how the minds of others work. Professor Robert Seyfarth from the University of Pennsylvania talks briefly on how the early years of child development are when we learn to form the basics of a theory of the mind. With time and age we change and refine our theory as we try to account for the complexity of social interactions.

Hidden dimensions may be all around us but they are too small for us to notice—for now. On paper the math behind string theory is making a strong case for these extra dimension. The next step is to find some experimental evidence to support the claims and predictions made by string theory.

The Large Hadron Collider is right now the best chance for testing these predictions about extra dimensions. What is also fascinating is when Brian Greene talks (5:45) about the possibility that the big bang was not the beginning or rather only the beginning for our little speck somewhere within a much larger universe where our big bang is one of many. Unfortunately he isn’t very optimistic about us ever being able to explore them but that is really getting ahead of ourselves.

Contaminated Without Consent is about “the hidden risks from chemical contaminants found in our homes, workplaces, the products we buy, and even our bodies.”

source: Contaminated Without Consent

Kennon M. Sheldon, PhD
Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
University of Missouri–Columbia

e-mail: SheldonK[at]missouri.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS: positive psychology, goal-striving, self-concordance model, development, need-satisfaction, well-being.

TEACHING: Professor Sheldon teaches Social Psychology at University of Missouri–Columbia undergraduate psychology program. Continue Reading

One of England’s most famous illusionists, Derren Brown, is doing his part in making it clear to people that what he and others do has nothing to do with any supernatural powers and have ordinary explainations. Before every performance he reminds us the viewers that he only uses “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship.”

To me there is a big difference between people like Derren Brown who claim to provide only entertainment value and those who profess to actually talk to the dead, see your future, reveal information from your horoscope, numerology, palm reading, or other forms of charlatanry. That is where plain old fun turns into exploitation. It is a big business with many takers and as long as the money flows, just like Spam emails, they won’t stop.

This is the full uncut interview filmed in 2007 for the Channel 4 TV program “The Enemies of Reason.”

You Won’t Believe What People Buy Into Continue Reading

This is the collection of tweets for every entry in the Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology (EoPP). In a nutshell, I started it back in 2009, stopped for a while, and now I am back onto it.

here are the latest tweets under the hash tag #EoPP

The list will be updated as I tweet new entries.
(The order is both alphabetical and by tweet date with a couple of hickups inbetween. ) Continue Reading

On this week’s episode of Food for Life TV, Dr. Barnard gives an overview of how insulin is made. He also explains that type 1 diabetes is caused when the body produces no insulin. Research shows that this may occur when antibodies in your body fight off proteins found in cows milk. Dr. Barnard also outlines how people already diagnosed with type 1 diabetes can cut down on diabetes complications by eating foods that are vegan, low in fat, and have a low gylcemic index.

A search on PubMed does confirm that Type 1 Diabetes is partly genetic, ranging between 30-60%, while the rest is attributed to environmental enablers and causes which are not well understood. From the quick overview I am not sure if cow milk is one of the enabler as Neil Barnard pointed out but then again cow milk during childhood has been link to greater amount of allergies and weakened immune systems.

One of the latest inventions by Dean Kamen is the Slingshot, a portable water purifier. What makes it unique is not the age old water distillation method but packing all the complexity of such a filtration system into something relatively portable.

By portable I mean it can easily transported, deployed, and maintained, which is something that cannot be said of traditional water distillation systems. At the size of a small fridge and the fact that it require a minimal amount of electricity make it a portable but stationary device. While another water purifier, the Lifesaver, is targeted for individuals and families, the Slingshot is more suitable as a clean water source for larger groups or small villages in need. Unfortunately it is not yet in production but if they can keep their target price of under $2000, this could even be an option for middle class families in the developed world.

You can read more how it works over at How Stuff Works -- Slingshot Water Purifier

It is to be seen if this can match the reversed osmosis (RO) filtration system’s ability to filter out anything larger than 0.1nm. How’s that possible you might ask, well RO filtering systems use a membrane as one of the steps in the filtration process. This “hyperfiltration” is more suitable for home usage than any other water filtering system on the market.

Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Engineer Michael Pritchard did something about it — inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can make the most revolting water drinkable in seconds. It can filter up to 6000 liters of water completely free of all viruses, bacteria, and heavy metals.

This makes it very well suited for saving lives in poor countries and providing clean water for disaster stricken areas. Plus it is a nice portable way to get some fresh clean water when camping, hiking, or for outdoor sports like long distance running and biking.

You can read more about the Lifesaver and order it over at www.lifesaversystems.com

At the same time it is no match to the reversed osmosis (RO) filtration system’s ability to filter out anything larger than 0.1nm. How’s that possible you might ask, well RO filtering systems use a membrane as one of the steps in the filtration process. This “hyperfiltration” is more suitable for home usage for two reasons: (1) It produces the cleanest water (2) the convenience of not having to pump manually to get water clean.

A collection of insightful debates and discussions between proponents of both theism and atheism. Among the theists are primarily Christians and Rabbis. Debating in opposition to religion, theism, and the supernatural are atheists, antitheists, and materialists such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins.

Missing altogether from these debates are for example Imams, representatives of non-theistic religions such as Buddhism, and polytheistic religions such as Hinduism. In case you find other debates you think I should add please leave a comment with the link to the video.

(I should mention that I am a materialist and my cosmogonical position is that of an agnostic pandeist, which does not impinge on my former ontological position.)

I will keep this post updated with the latest debates marked as *new*

Some Debates to Watch First:

Theists Vs. Atheists:
Hitchens, Harris, Dennett Vs. D’Souza, Boteach, Taleb. Neutral: Wright [11.2009]

Atheists on Atheism:
The Four Horsemen [09.2007]

Christianity Vs. Atheism:
Debate: Is Christianity Good for the World? [10.2008]

Judaism Vs. Atheism:
Wolpe Vs. Hitchens: The Great God Debate [03.2010]

New Age Theists Vs. Atheists:
The Nightline Face-Off: Does God Have a Future? [03.2010]

Atheist Exploring Morality (lecture):
Sam Harris @Google [2010]

Physicist on the Nature of the Universe (lecture)
‘A Universe From Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss [10.2009] Continue Reading

The Evidence:

• The evolution of the human brain was only possible because it provided survival advantages and they must have been great since it consumes over 20% of the oxygen we breath while it only weighs 1,5% – 3% of our body weight. If we were to use only 10% of our brain than it would be extremely wasteful and such a disadvantage would be something selected against.
• Brain damage to far less than 90% of our brain would render us either physically dead, brain dead, or severely impaired. This shouldn’t be if we only use 10% of our brain.
• Strokes and head traumas that affect much less than 90% of the brain leaves people with serious deficits in functioning.
• Brain scans show that we use most of our brain even while performing simple tasks.
• Brain areas that are unused due to injuries or disease either degenerate or are taken over by neighboring brain areas.

Bottom Line: If we have more brain mass, it will be used; if it is not used, it will be discarded; and if we don’t have more of it, natural selection might select for it.

Myth Origin: William James, an American psychologist from the 19th and 20th century, said the average person only achieves a fraction (10%) of their intellectual potential. Misinterpretations have transformed potential into actual physical brain usage.

Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., and Beyerstein, B. L. (2009). 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

We should teach more statistics & probability and earlier while we should teach less calculus and later.

Arthur Benjamin is a mathematician and in his pithy TED Talk, Formula for Changing Math Education (2009), he calls for this re-emphasis of math education. He argues that we as a society would greatly benefit from a better understanding of statistics and probabilities which would help us make better decisions about risks, rewards, randomness, and understanding and evaluating data in our everyday lives.

Take for example, few of us would use calculus on a daily bases but most of us are faced with making decisions about car insurance plans, student loans, mortgage rates, credit card interest rates, payment plan options, interpreting polls, planning our income investments and expenses, making decisions about bank loans and interest rates, stock market investments, interpreting results from scientific studies, analyzing trends, predicting the future, gambling, and so forth. This is just a short list I came up in the three minutes I watched Arthur’s presentation and I think it is fairly obvious that some of these are be very serious decisions that can have long lasting effects on our lives. They can mean the difference between unmanageable dept and a financially healthy lifestyle. And since education is supposed to prepare us for making the best possible decisions about our own lives, I think it only makes sense to include more of such important foundations for sound reasoning such as those that come with understanding statistics and probabilities.

I don’t know about the education you had but mine has not covered statistics or probabilities in any applicable way to the everyday life, nor do I know of any that does (please let me know if you do). The closest it got was in college and that was more geared towards understanding and conducting research, which isn’t necessarily everyday stuff. I think statistics and probabilities are one of the big missing ingredients of both primary and secondary education systems and should be a required educational component. And teaching these shouldn’t be too difficult since the very same reasons that make it so relevant can also make it easy and fun to teach to children.

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The inner emotional life of animals bundled into an adorable and unusual friendship between an orangutan and a hound dog. Very uplifting video!

This reminded me of the book Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals by Jonathan Balcombe that I came across last week and added to my reading list.

The Strengthspotting Scale measures your ability, frequency, and motivation to identify other people’s strengths, helping others with the application of their strengths, and the emotional satisfaction of doing so. There are twenty questions, four for each of the five categories, that have to be rated on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

• ability - to identify strengths in others
• emotional – satisfaction of identifying strengths in others
• frequency – of identifying strengths in others
• motivation – to identify strengths in others
• application – helping others to utilize their strengths
  

You can get a hold of The Strengthspotting Scale in The Strengths Book: Be Confident, Be Successful, and Enjoy Better Relationships by Realising the Best of You, where it is included as part of the book to be released on April 28th, 2010. For research purposes The Strengthspotting Scale is freely available (upon request, no link yet) but understandably not for commercial purposes since it is copyrighted.

The only official link for The Strengths Book is on the CAPPEU site (if I find a link to the PDF I’ll post it).

References:

Linley, A., Willars, J., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). The strengthspotting scale. In The strengths book: Be confident, be successful, and enjoy better relationships by realising the best of you. Coventry, UK: CAPP Press.