Teleportation, cloaks of invisibility, smell-o-vision, 3D printing, and even holograms, were all ideas first imagined in science fiction—and now are real products and technologies in various stages of development by scientists. While this is common in fields like experimental physics, it isn’t as often that cognitive neuroscience and applied psychology score insights from this fantasy genre.
It wasn’t that long ago that listing transhumanism, human enhancement, the Singularity, technology-driven evolution, existential risks, and so on, as academic interests on one’s CV might result in a bit of embarrassment.
Wonder and curiosity. Those two simple words exquisitely describe what drives me in my work, and what keeps me readily tangled in my love affair with research.
Virtually all talk of cognitive enhancement focuses exclusively on the enhancement of individual intelligence. But what about enhancing group intelligence?
There is good reason for thinking that posthumans will, on the whole, be atheists. And there is good reason for thinking that widespread apostasy would, on the whole, be desirable.
If sex makes you smarter via changes in synaptic strength following the act, can you get the same benefit from virtual sex, as long as your brain is convinced it is real at the time?
While we tend to believe that more smarts would help us solve the formidable mass of problems we have created, the empirical data seems to disagree with us.
While Christmas shopping with my sister and my little three year-old niece, I noticed something that rather disturbed me. And as difficult as it is for me to say this - it was Barbie.
Could it be that there is no intelligence without a body? That there’s only computation? That cognition is the byproduct of biological processes, and never the driver of them?
With the aging of populations worldwide, increasing health care costs, and complexities inherent in conducting medicine in a data-rich era of genomics and personalized medicine, the understanding and potential re-engineering of human biological processes is critical.
Three new Program Directors, the appointment of three additional Fellows and nine Affiliate Scholars, a dozen new contributing writers, over 600 articles published - and we have still have another month to go in 2010!
Sexual images trigger chemical reactions in your brain, which in turn compel us to act in specific ways, or be drawn to certain things, or motivated to engage in particular behaviors.
There are a lot of things to be thankful for in this world, and I’ve got a pretty good list: A loving family, the glittering splendor of the cascading galaxies, Eddie Hinton’s guitar solo on the Staples Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” ... you know, the usual stuff. But here’s something you may not think warrants much gratitude this November: The wisdom and common sense of the American people.
A few weeks ago, The Science Cheerleaders grabbed headlines with their appearance at the USA Science and Engineering Festival, where they cheered for citizen science and science literacy as well as served to provide a new kind of role model for young girls, showing them they can be both cheerleaders and scientists.
I am writing this after having responded to a respected friend, a bioethicist with whom I am connected via Facebook. In his photo albums, he has a picture of a protected area for dogs in Thailand. This got me thinking.
Get this: Republicans on the Deficit Commission aren't just refusing to consider any tax increases. Now they're proposing tax decreases designed to help the rich while taking benefits from everyone else. Dealing with people like that is like negotiating with somebody who's high on drugs.
“In a world torn with strife and warfare, perhaps no problem is more important [than that of understanding and developing wisdom], as wisdom may be the only hope out of the bloodshed.” - Robert Sternberg
If we could identify a gene for creativity - let’s call it the “creativity gene” - you would be hard pressed to find many people who would consider it a negative gene or a hazard to possess or carry.
When you think of the ideal creative environment, what comes to mind? We may imagine a place where you have freedom of expression, a place that encourages breaking convention, somewhere that is abundant in resources that are readily accessible for innovative development of technology, and exposure to many different cultures for inspiration and collaboration.
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Melanie Swan, MBA, and Patrick Hopkins, PhD, as Affiliate Scholars of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
The concept of embodiment often does not offer a corresponding explanation for the variety of personalities that a human being expresses once within the Internet’s intricate social network.
When we last spoke about sex, we discussed the neurotransmitters involved in pleasure and attraction, namely dopamine and oxytocin. Now let’s look a little deeper into the action of those neurotransmitters and how we can manipulate their action - to extend the neurological orgasm for as long as possible.
Sexual images trigger chemical reactions in your brain, which in turn compel us to act in specific ways, or be drawn to certain things, or motivated to engage in particular behaviors.
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