Edge 276 -- March 4, 2009
(10,400 words)
http://www.edge.org/
This online EDGE edition with streaming video is available at:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge276.html
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THE THIRD CULTURE
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"In a very pure sense you build the accelerator you need when you know what the
question is."
IS THERE A HIGGS? A Talk With Brian Cox Introduction by Martin Rees
EDGE VIDEO
We've been stuck at a particular point, which is the origin of mass in the
universe. This is what the Higgs Boson is supposed to fix. But to many people it
looks like classical physicists just looking for another particle, they spend
$10 billion and we look for another particle. It's not that at all. The question
of mass in the universe is dictated by the place where we've become stuck. It's
the door that is closed. I can go into some depth and detail about why that is,
but the point is that we know exactly where to look for the origin of mass.
We know what energy to look at and what energy of collisions we need. If you
want to think of it this way, we know how far to go back in time to the Big Bang
to look. Now, the LHC has plenty of energy to do that, so it will discover the
origin of mass in the universe, but that's not an end in itself. That's a door,
the door on the main road of physics, which we'll open when we discover it.
BRIAN COX is a Royal Society University Research Fellow based in the Particle
Physics group at the University of Manchester, where he holds a chair in
Particle Physics. He works on the ATLAS experiment at CERN in Geneva. A former
rock star, he has become a well-known public communicator of science to the
public through highly-regarded television and radio presentations on the BBC and
other networks.
[...MORE]
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"I've spoken to these eggs many times and they make it quite clear...they are
not a human being."
SERPENTINE~EDGE EXPERIMENT MARATHON Lewis Wolpert HOW OUR LIMBS ARE PATTERNED
LIKE THE FRENCH FLAG
EDGE VIDEO
In this EdgeVideo, embryologist Lewis Wolpert talks about how cells divide and
introduces the French Flag problem.
"What I'm concerned with is how you develop", he says. "I know that you all
think about it perpetually that you come from one single cell of a fertilized
egg. I don't want to get involved in religion but that is not a human being.
I've spoken to these eggs many times and they make it quite clear...they are not
a human being. The cells divide and the question I'm going to deal with a little
bit here...how do the cells know what to do. So, how do they end up looking like
... you? It is amazing that you come from one single cell. I'm sorry to give you
a lesson in embryology but you should know how you develop."
LEWIS WOLPERT is Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department
of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College, London. His research
interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He
has presented science on both radio and TV for five years, was Chairman of the
Committee for the Public Understanding of Science. His last book is Six
Impossible Things To Do Before Breakfast.
[...MORE]
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EDGE IN THE NEWS
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The wide appeal of the third-culture thinkers is not due solely to their writing
ability; what traditionally has been called "science" has today become "public
culture." --John Brockman, "The Third Culture" (1991)
GLOBAL ROUNDUP OF PRESS ON EDGE
Gazeteport.com (Turkey), Salzburger Nachtrichen (Austria), HP/D (Germany), Ohmy
News (Korea), Business Day (South Africa), Pagina|12 (Spain), La Repubblica
(Italy), La Stampa (Italy), Vrij Nederland (Netherlands), El Periodico.com
(Spain), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
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ARTICLES OF NOTE
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BOSTON GLOBE
March 3, 2009
LEARNING FROM SLUMS
...According toStewart Brand, founder of the Long Now Foundation and author of
the forthcoming book "Whole Earth Discipline," which covers these issues, "It's
a clear-eyed, direct view we're calling for - neither romanticizing squatter
cities or regarding them as a pestilence. These things are more solution than
problem.".,.
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AMERICAN SCIENTIST
March-April, 2009
Short takes on three books
WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything.
Edited by John Brockman. Harper Perennial, $14.95, paper.
...Last year's question, "What have you changed your mind about?," brought a
typically brilliant array of brief essays, by turns provocative, playful and
profound. Brockman has collected them into a volume with the question as its
title. ...
[...MORE]
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THE TIMES
A handy little guide to small talk in the Stone Age
By Mark Henderson, Science Editor
...Mark Pagel of the University of Reading, who leads the research, said that it
was nonetheless becoming possible to create a rudimentary Stone Age phrasebook
made up of the oldest known words. ...
[...MORE]
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BBC News
'Oldest English words' identified
"We use a computer to fit a range of models that tell us how rapidly these words
evolve," said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of
Reading.
[...MORE]
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
Scandanavian Nonbelievers, Which Is Not to Say Atheists
By Peter Steinfels
Phil Zuckerman spent 14 months in Scandinavia, talking to hundreds of Danes and
Swedes about religion. It wasn't easy.. ...
[...MORE]
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RICHARD DAWKINS.NET
The Four Horsemen HD (video)
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett
On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and
Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour
discussion...
[...MORE]
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THE ECONOMIST
Unfinished Business
Gregory Paul, an independent researcher on evolution, and Phil Zuckerman, a
sociologist at Pitzer College in California, have argued controversially that a
belief in God is inversely correlated with the level of what might be described
as the intensity of the struggle for existence.
[...MORE]
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THE SUN
COMPUTING THE COST: Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains
By Arnie Cooper
Nicholas Carr -- author of last July's Atlantic cover story, "Is Google Making
Us Stupid?" -- believes the distracted nature of Web surfing is reducing our
capacity for deep contemplation and reflection.
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TIME
Why Parents (Still) Don't Matter
By Kathleen Kingsbury
Dangerous. Misguided. Untenable. Those were just some of the criticisms leveled
at amateur psychologist Judith Rich Harris and the conclusions in her
controversial book The Nurture Assumption when it was first published a decade
ago.
[...MORE]
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WASHINGTON NOTE
The Obama Code
By George Lakoff
...The word "code" can refer to a system of either communication or morality.
President Obama has integrated the two. The Obama Code is both moral and
linguistic at once.
[...MORE]
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BOOKS FROM EDGE
Now Available in Bookstores and Online...
WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT (Harper Perennial)
Edited by John Brockman
With An Introduction By BRIAN ENO
http://www.amazon.com/What-Have-Changed-Your-About/dp/0061686549
"An intellectual treasure trove"
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
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This online EDGE edition with streaming video is available at:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge276.html
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Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section
501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
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EDGE
John Brockman, Editor and Publisher
Russell Weinberger, Associate Publisher
Karla Taylor, Editorial Assistant
Copyright (c) 2009 by EDGE Foundation, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Published by EDGE Foundation, Inc.,
5 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022
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