Tag: Grand Blueprint
-
C-tactile
Yasuko has produced a huge number of tutorials using acupressure and similar methods to improve mood and health. This one turned out to be surprisingly effective: Is C-Tactile proper science? Yes. Exactly. = = = = = START QUOTE: The human equivalent to the C-LTMRs are called C-tactile afferents. The C-tactile afferents, which exist exclusively…
-
Adding a tech gene
Last year I mused on tech genes and epigenes. I’ve tacked on a new item that seems appropriate. = = = = = START REPRINT: I just finished pulling together the Morse prototype and the Endicott experiment into a single Poser set, released on ShareCG. Gathering up and debugging a set always stirs thoughts. The…
-
Speaking of chickens
Speaking of chickens… A free-range Rhode Island Red videobombed one of the Youtubers specializing in the Philly fentanyl folks. Chickens are scavengers who will eat anything, so they certainly belong in the same niche as rats and seagulls and humans. How did it get there? Well, chickens can fly, though like quail they prefer walking.…
-
Nature came back
In previous item I linked a 2015 piece about sleep improving memory. At that time I was going through a ‘phase change’ without knowing it: = = = = = START QUOTE: Since the end of paid work project in early Feb, I’ve dropped into a bad broken sleep pattern, and can’t seem to pop…
-
Why did Endicott fail?
MindMatters reviews some newer research on brainwave resonance. This line of research is ‘controversial’ but seems pretty solid now thanks to MRI. The rule is: When intelligent critters are working ‘in sync’, whether in mating or hive activities, their brain waves are literally in sync. Telepathy unquestionably happens in some circumstances. Russian and American scientists…
-
Nature’s ledger
Thinking again about the peculiar self-liquidating scrip. A city issued the scrip with a series of boxes or punch locations. Each time the scrip changed hands, a new hole was punched and a small tax was paid to the issuer. When all the holes were punched, the scrip was simply discarded. It had served its…
-
Great line
Denyse at MindMatters turns out a couple of classic lines! But an overarching theme has been the need to promote the idea of a gradual development of human-like intelligence. As it happens, ancestors way stupider than their descendants are just not what paleontologists have been digging up. And histories that are made up rather than…
-
Ford is nature
Assembly-line work is supposedly an unnatural invention. In fact it’s far more natural than artisanal craftsmanship. Every cell includes dozens of factories, each turning out repetitive proteins and neurotransmitters. Our cerebellum is a library of repetitive routines. When deprived of daily assembly-line work, humans still need to run an assembly line. We see the result…
-
Wonderful concept
In this podcast Eric Anderson brings in a powerful concept, but he discusses it from an angle that seems unproductive to my tastes. His approach must be persuasive to some types of scientists, but it doesn’t hit the mark for my engineerish mindset. The concept: When organisms change over time, they’re not Innovatively Disrupting. They’re…
-
Using motion as a sense
This is fascinating! Nematodes charge their bodies to jump by repulsion. They seem to use a bee’s self-created charge as an attraction in the other direction! = = = = = START QUOTE: When some nematode species jump, they tend to bend their body and change their posture before take-off, but C. elegans worms stand…
-
The anti-lab organ?
Evolution News highlights a recently discovered organelle inside cells. A vault is found in nearly all cells, free-living and part of complex animals. Its function is unclear at the moment. Like most recent discoveries, it didn’t require an electron microscope or MRI; it’s visible with a good optical microscope but nobody noticed it before. The…
-
Palate cleanser…
I’m barnstorming the semifinal install and check of all courseware modules, mixing new ones, reprocessed old ones, and unprocessed old ones. As I run through each lesson, I’m reminded again of the remarkable engineering in our anatomy. Time for a break. Here’s a piece of engineering in the palate and pharynx. For orientation, this picture…
-
Delia’s gone, one more round
Sam Kahn writes in New Atlantis about Delia Bacon, a forgotten figure who was at the center of the American creative burst in the 1840s. She was taught by Beecher and influenced Emerson and Hawthorne and Poe. She wasn’t related to Francis Bacon, but spent her life trying to establish that Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s work…
Polistra's Mill 