Archive for the ‘futurism’ category: Page 559
May 27, 2019
Scientists Discover How Blind People Know So Much About Appearances
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
The philosopher John Locke, who believed that true knowledge of the world could only stem from sensory experiences, thought that blind individuals could never understand the concepts of light and color. Locke, it turns out, was wrong. In a recent PNAS study, blind people demonstrate that they do understand what sighted people process through vision, proving that “visual” ideas don’t actually require sight.
In the study published Tuesday, scientists demonstrated how blind people make visual sense of what they cannot see. While previous studies suggested that the most efficient way for a blind person to know that, say, a flamingo is pink, is to memorize that fact, this study demonstrates that blind people instead look at the world like scientists and make sense of the visual world through a catalogue of clues.
“First-person experience isn’t the only way to develop a rich understanding of the world around us,” co-author and Johns Hopkins doctoral candidate Judy Kim explains. “People often have the intuition that we can’t know what we can’t see.”
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May 27, 2019
A Volcano in Bali Along The ‘Ring of Fire’ Erupted on Saturday, And It Looks Terrifying
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
A volcano erupted on the Indonesian island of Bali Saturday, sending ash into the sky over surrounding villages and lava pouring down its sides.
The island’s Mount Agung put national agencies on notice, causing some flight cancellations but no reported casualties with the eruption, which reportedly spread lava and incandescent rocks over about two miles.
The national disaster agency said Mount Agung’s eruption lasted four minutes and 30 seconds, according to multiple reports.
May 27, 2019
Drug-resistant infections could be starved of nutrients using existing medicines
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, futurism
Microorganisms like bacteria and fungi are increasingly becoming resistant to our best drugs, which is hurtling us towards a terrifying future where once-easily-treated infections become potentially life-threatening again. In a new approach to this problem, researchers from the University at Buffalo and Temple University have tested an alternative to antibiotics that uses existing drugs to starve a fungal infection of vital nutrients.
In Japan people can expect to live beyond 84 years on average—yet in Lesotho life expectancy is just 53 years. The age at which people die still depends a lot on where they live.
May 26, 2019
Exercise And Wash Laundry With This Eco-Friendly Washer-Bike!
Posted by Victoria Generao in categories: futurism, health
Finding the time to exercise when you’ve got heaps of housework – and laundry – piling up can be difficult, but this piece of gym kit means you’ve got no excuse!
The Bike Washing Machine is a human-powered washing machine that encourages you to multitask and conserve water while boosting your fitness in a fun, efficient way.
A generator inside the bike also creates electricity which can be stored for future use.
Continue reading “Exercise And Wash Laundry With This Eco-Friendly Washer-Bike!” »
May 26, 2019
These Hidden Women Helped Invent Chaos Theory
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
Two programmers played a key role in developing chaos theory and the famous butterfly effect, but they’ve been left out of virtually all accounts of the work.
May 26, 2019
Researchers Find ‘Oldest Collection of Non-Fossil Meteorites’ in Chile’s Atacama Desert
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: futurism
An international team of scientists has found a wealth of well-preserved stony meteorites in the Atacama Desert that allowed them to reconstruct the rate of falling meteorites over the past two million years.
May 24, 2019
Stronger than aluminum, a heavily altered wood cools passively
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: futurism
May 24, 2019
How European scientists will spend €100 billion
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: futurism
The European Union has partially approved the shape of its next giant research-spending programme, but it faces political tensions.