http://www.tagtl.com The meaning of life is out there. Somewhere. We think. en-us http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1307Putting aside that cheery bit of news for a moment, another physicist recently said that even if that particular scenario didn't come to pass, the simple matter of traveling warp speed could kill you--all because of some stray hydrogen atoms.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:02:02 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1306So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1305We humans tend to think of communication as solely about formal language—preferably spoken. Instead, animals use things like movement, posture and even pee—as well as sounds—to share concepts like, "I want to play," or messages like, "There's food over here." As long it makes sense, communication has happened.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:02:02 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1304The correspondents know what life is all about, but it would be dangerous to impart that wisdom to the general public.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:02:01 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1303A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:02:00 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1302The good news is, we can now control a pinball machine's flippers with our brains, as this demo at Germany's ceBIT Technology Fair proves. The bad news is, it's not going to make aspiring pinball hustlers look cool in bars.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:02:01 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1301As she spoke, I realized why my instincts were so completely off. In my misguided empathy I had committed what William James called the psychologist�s fallacy, assuming incorrectly that one knows what someone else is experiencing. With this newly widowed patient I imagined that only a life of sadness and decrepitude remained, and I felt bad about it.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:00:09 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1300The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:02:02 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1299And now, just in time for Oscar junkies, comes a new statistical mincing of the movies that may someday yield an award category of its own: best fit between a movie�s tempo and the natural rhythms of the brain.

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:01:05 -0700 http://www.tagtl.com/index_blog_entry.php?id=1298The correlation exists not because smart people have necessarily rejected religion, but because religion is the “default” position for most of our society.

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