January 2011
New Dietary Advice From Government: Just Eat Less
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/business/01food.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Lady Gaga parody takes on genetics
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/01/lady-gaga-parody-takes-on-genetics.html
The selfish metaphor: Conceits of evolution. Many...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927975.600-the-selfish-metaphor-conceits-of-evolution.html?full=true&print=true
The trouble with metaphors is that they don’t just mirror scientific beliefs, they also shape them. Our imagery is never just surface paint, it expresses, advertises and strengthens our preferred interpretations. It also usually carries unconscious bias from the age...
Astronomy often claims to be the oldest of the...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
Current data are all consistent with the expansion...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
Over the last two decades a standard paradigm has...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
IBMWatson
http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/
Astrophysics aims to understand the structure and...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
The pursuit of a deeper truth, of a fundamental...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
What Happens In the Dark: Most of the universe is...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754304576096530105958772.html#printMode
Fundamentalist physics: why Dark Energy is bad for...
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.2291v1.pdf
Astronomers carry out observations to explore the diverse processes and objects which populate our Universe. High-energy physicists carry out experiments to approach the Fundamental Theory underlying space, time and matter. Dark Energy is a unique link between them, reflecting deep aspects of the Fundamental Theory, yet apparently...
The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy,...
http://www.amazon.com/Percent-Universe-Matter-Discover-Reality/dp/0618982442
“A superior account of how astronomers discovered that they knew almost nothing about 96 percent of the universe. Science writer Panek (The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and the Search for Hidden Universes, 2005, etc.) points out that 50 years ago astronomers assumed they understood the cosmos and its...
One of the most interesting themes of the book is...
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3436
Barack Obama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barak_Obama
The Worlds of Their Grandkids, GGD
in preparation.
How Watson works: a conversation with Eric Brown,...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-watson-works-a-conversation-with-eric-brown-ibm-research-manager
Watson and the future of AI
http://www.kurzweilai.net/watson-and-the-future-of-ai
Are relationships good for your health?
http://student.bmj.com/student/view-article.html?id=sbmj.d404
Do you speak the language of love? According to...
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/01/do-you-speak-the-language-of-l.html
The reason men enjoy better health when married is their partner’s positive influence on lifestyle. The mental health bonus for women, the researchers say, may be because women place great value on the importance of the relationship.
Atomic disguise makes helium look like hydrogen
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20049-atomic-disguise-makes-helium-look-like-hydrogen.html
In the graphic below, urban areas are rated on the...
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/01/-innovation-in-america-dashboa.html
Time stretches if you keep busy
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927974.400-time-stretches-if-you-keep-busy.html
"Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than...
Kindle is mightier than the book, for Amazon at...
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/01/kindle-is-mightier-than-the-bo.html
I, algorithm: A new dawn for artificial...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927971.200-i-algorithm-a-new-dawn-for-artificial-intelligence.html?full=true&print=true
Back in the 1960s, AI systems started to show great promise for replicating key aspects of the human mind. Scientists began by using mathematical logic to both represent knowledge about the real world and to reason about it, but it soon turned out to be an AI ...
Stretchy DNA shows off its elastic qualities
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927973.500-stretchy-dna-shows-off-its-elastic-qualities.html?full=true&print=true
Maser to predict Milky Way's fate
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927974.100-maser-to-predict-milky-ways-fate.html?full=true&print=true
WHEN THIS COMMISSION began its work months ago,...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
We conclude the failures of credit rating agencies...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings, By...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/science/space/31planet.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
They thought risk had been diversified when, in...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
We conclude dramatic failures of corporate...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
Yet we do not accept the view that regulators...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
We conclude widespread failures in financial...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
There was an explosion in risky subprime lending...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable....
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
While the vulnerabilities that created the...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
CONCLUSIONS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY...
http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
Economists of varied ideological bents warned of...
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/30/was-the-financial-crisis-avoidable/the-financial-crisis-was-foreseeable-and-preventable
Was the Financial Crisis Avoidable?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/30/was-the-financial-crisis-avoidable?ref=opinion
Propositional Consequence Relations and Algebraic...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequence-algebraic/
George Boole was the first to present logic as a mathematical theory in algebraic style. In his work, and in that of the other algebraists of the algebraic tradition of logic of the nineteenth century the distinction between a formal language and a mathematically rigorous semantics for it was still not drawn. What the algebraists in...
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,...
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/voices-from-davos/?ref=business
Of Wealth and (Un)Happiness
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/of-wealth-and-unhappiness/?pagemode=print
According to Carol Graham of Brookings, author of “The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires,” there is no shortage of what she calls “frustrated achievers.” Stewart Wallis of the New Economics Foundation in Britain, said that the key to well-being is not just wealth but “flourishing and feeling...
In an interview with DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin...
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/does-the-u-s-have-a-competitiveness-problem/
Obama's State of the Union Speech
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/25/us/politics/201100125_OBAMA_SOTU.html
Science Saturday: Reasonable Skepticism
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/33899
Median-itis and The Great Stagnation
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01/median-itis.html#comments
America's Brain Drain President Obama devoted...
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7299140n
Hyperfunction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfunction
In mathematics, hyperfunctions are generalizations of functions, as a ‘jump’ from one holomorphic function to another at a boundary, and can be thought of informally as distributions of infinite order. Hyperfunctions were introduced by Mikio Sato in 1958, building upon earlier work by Grothendieck and others.
Davos Diary
