Sentient Organizations: A Cryptozoological Approach. How much would legal marijuana cost? A new book says it would be nearly free. Photograph by Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images. It continues to be totally off the radar of prominent politicians, but polls indicate that large and growing numbers of Americans are open to the idea of legalizing marijuana. Gallup broke ground last fall with the first-ever poll showing 50 percent of respondents nationwide wanting to legalize, and a more precisely worded poll from Rasmussen in May had 56 percent in favor of “legalizing marijuana and regulating it in a similar manner to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are regulated today.”
Thus far those polls are outliers, and most surveys show more voter skepticism than that. But as elderly voters are more pot-phobic than the young, legalization’s support is likely to increase over time and surely it will work its way onto the national agenda sooner or later. There’s been relatively little analysis of what a legal marijuana industry might look like. How cheaply could pot be grown with advanced farming techniques?
World Economic Forum lists top 10 emerging technologies for 2012. The World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies has drawn up a list of the top 10 emerging technologies for 2012 (Image: Shutterstock) Our goal here at Gizmag is to cover innovation and emerging technologies in all fields of human endeavor, and while almost all of the ideas that grace our pages have the potential to enhance some of our lives in one way or another, at the core are those technologies that will have profound implications for everyone on the planet.
For those looking to shape political, business, and academic agendas, predicting how and when these types of technologies will effect us all is critical. Recognizing this, the World Economic Forum's (WEF's) Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies has compiled a list of the top 10 emerging technologies it believes will have the greatest impact on the state of the world in 2012. 1. Source: World Economic Forum Blog About the Author. The Lost Art of Thinking Before You Act. The Turing Test. First published Wed Apr 9, 2003; substantive revision Wed Jan 26, 2011 The phrase “The Turing Test” is most properly used to refer to a proposal made by Turing (1950) as a way of dealing with the question whether machines can think.
According to Turing, the question whether machines can think is itself “too meaningless” to deserve discussion (442). However, if we consider the more precise—and somehow related—question whether a digital computer can do well in a certain kind of game that Turing describes (“The Imitation Game”), then—at least in Turing's eyes—we do have a question that admits of precise discussion. Moreover, as we shall see, Turing himself thought that it would not be too long before we did have digital computers that could “do well” in the Imitation Game.
Majorana fermions – the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything? Physicists at the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, have achieved a milestone that might soon revolutionize the world of quantum computing, quantum physics, and perhaps shed new light on the mystery of the dark matter in our universe.
Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver a step closer to reality? A University of Dundee research team led by Prof.
Mike MacDonald has demonstrated that both levitation and twisting forces can be applied to an object by application of ultrasonic beams. This latest breakthrough is part of a wide-ranging U.K. research effort to develop a device not unlike the "sonic screwdriver" made famous by the TV series Doctor Who. The sonic screwdriver has been a favored tool of ten Doctors at this point in time (it was introduced by the second Doctor). It has evolved from a simple screwdriver and lock-pick to include such functions as repairing electronics, remotely controlling the Tardis, amplifying X-rays, and even converting a cellphone to truly universal roaming.
What is unacceptable speech? A Muslim clearly expresses his opinion about the Muhammad cartoons in a demonstration in Oslo.
(Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / Scanpix) Good democratic debate depends upon our ability to tolerate criticism of our speech, our beliefs and our culture. Horgan, Hayden, and the Last Word on Warfare. In 2008, I published a book about the evolutionary origins and cultural development of warfare throughout human history.
John Horgan, about as distinguished a science writer as one is likely to find, graciously invited me to share my thoughts on war’s deep past and possible futures on a web video show he hosted. It was an extremely pleasant experience, but that, apparently, was just because John is polite. It turns out he disagrees with me utterly about a key conclusion of Sex and War, namely that … oh, but why give it away? Pondering a universe without purpose. The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.
Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish. The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.
Meritocracy and measurement myths. The ‘Tacocopter’ Would Deliver Tacos Via An Unmanned Drone. Richard Dawkins & Neil deGrasse Tyson Talk About Science Together … FOR AN HOUR! (Video) McEwan on Darwin, Einstein, and Priority.