The virtual impossibility of observational astronomy has never been clearer. With astronomers having recorded so many events, now that they’ve used so many different instruments to wring all possible insight from what little information somehow makes it all the way to Earth, simply pointing telescopes at stars is providing diminishing returns. To keep moving forward we need to make use of the universe’s most unusual and, in many cases, violent events so we can see some truly novel data. It’s not just a matter of patience, since the the space industry can’t possibly set up enough telescopes to look everywhere at once. With so much depth through which to zoom, it would seem a lost cause to try to capture unexpected, short-lived events.
Thursday, 5 December 2013
How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong
“If we remembered everything we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.” ~William James
It’s often said that a person is the sum of their memories. Your experience is what makes you who you are.
Despite this, memory is generally poorly understood, which is why many people say they have ‘bad memories’. That’s partly because the analogies we have to hand—like that of computer memory—are not helpful. Human memory is vastly more complicated and quirky than the memory residing in our laptops, tablets or phones.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
30 things start doing youself
Our previous article, 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself , was well received by most of our readers, but several of you suggested that we follow it up with a list of things to start doing. In one reader’s words, “I would love to see you revisit each of these 30 principles, but instead of presenting us with a ‘to-don’t’ list, present us with a ‘to-do’ list that we all can start working on today, together.”
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Get the Doomsday
We have very imaginative and creative minds, we humans. Driving a great deal of our imagination is the desire to pick up on what’s coming, especially with regard to the biggie: survival. We believe that if we know, we can fall in line with the right action, make the right plan or choose the right religion or belief system and improve our chances, work it out or escape, or elevate ourselves up and out of a mess.
Humans don’t like feeling insecure, that much is clear. The tension of not knowing really serves to push us… one direction or another. We can learn to live comfortably with the tension,
The Mechanics and science of Prayer
Prayer means many different things to many different people. It is something that is so pervasive in our lives that it permeates fully through our societies and cultures. All cultures and religious traditions have their own practices when it comes to prayer, but let us acknowledge the similar theme. People all over the world right now are praying, to influence their world and the universe in myriad ways. But what factors determine the effectiveness of prayer, what is the fundamental basis of its function? How does it work to influence our daily lives and shape our world?
Prayer is our divine and innate connection with the fabric of reality, the way that we write our free will upon the world. To completely examine the nature of prayer we must look at it through various lenses and perspectives, involving spirituality and science, to find the common factors that describe this ancient tradition
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