Junk thoughts of Curious Idiot

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/33361 Following are the ones which Interest me... The Mathematics of the Brain: Develop a mathematical theory to build a functional model of the brain that is mathematically consistent and predictive rather than merely biologically inspired. Capture and Harness Stochasticity in Nature: Address Mumford's call for new mathematics for the 21st century . Develop methods that capture persistence in stochastic environments. Biological Quantum Field Theory: Quantum and statistical methods have had great success modeling virus evolution. Can such techniques be used to model more complex systems such as bacteria? Can these techniques be used to control pathogen evolution? The Mathematics of Quantum Computing, Algorithms, and Entanglement : In the last century we learned how quantum phenomena shape our world. In the coming century we need to develop the mathematics required to control the quantum world. An Information Theory for Virus Evolution: Ca

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6307 I, you, our family, friends, and dogs—we all are machines. We are really sophisticated machines made up of billions and billions of biomolecules that interact according to well-defined, though not completely known, rules deriving from physics and chemistry. The biomolecular interactions taking place inside our heads give rise to our intellect, our feelings, our sense of self.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14694-superstitions-evolved-to-help-us-survive.html This is why we need to keep the list of false positives, though we will take some time to gather evidence to prove that they are indeed false.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/09/2211216

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=why-our-brains-do-not-intuitively-grasp-probabilities&sc=WR_20080909 Our senses evolved for perceiving objects of middling size—between, say, grains of sand and mountain ranges. We are not equipped to perceive atoms and germs, on one end of the scale, or galaxies and expanding universes, on the other end. We can detect objects moving at a walking or running pace, but the glacially slow movement of continents (and glaciers) and the mind-bogglingly fast speed of light are imperceptible. Our timescales range from the psychological “now” of three seconds in duration (according to Harvard University psychologist Stephen Pinker) to the few decades of a human lifetime, far too short to witness evolution , continental drift or long-term environmental changes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/science/05brain.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080830.html