Science & Technology

Quantum Theory: Can it explain why jokes are funny?

Dr. Liane Gabora
Science Daily
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC

Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 789!

Whether this pun makes you giggle or groan in pain, your reaction is a consequence of the ambiguity of the joke. Thus far, models have not been able to fully account for the complexity of humor or exactly why we find puns and jokes funny, but a research article recently published in Frontiers in Physics suggests a novel approach: quantum theory.

Aiming to answer the question of what kind of formal theory is needed to model the cognitive representation of a joke, researchers suggest that a quantum theory approach might be a contender. In their paper, they outline a quantum inspired model of humor, hoping that this new approach may succeed at a more nuanced modeling of the cognition of humor than previous attempts and lead to the development of a full-fledged, formal quantum theory model of humor. This initial model was tested in a study where participants rated the funniness of verbal puns, as well as the funniness of variants of these jokes (e.g. the punchline on its own, the set-up on its own). The results indicate that apart from the delivery of information, something else is happening on a cognitive level that makes the joke as a whole funny whereas its deconstructed components are not, and which makes a quantum approach appropriate to study this phenomenon.

Neuroscience may be on the wrong track in understanding the brain, a radical rethink is needed

Henrik Jörntell
The Conversation
Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:30 UTC

Understanding the human brain is arguably the greatest challenge of modern science. The leading approach for most of the past 200 years has been to link its functions to different brain regions or even individual neurons (brain cells). But recent research increasingly suggests that we may be taking completely the wrong path if we are to ever understand the human mind.

The idea that the brain is made up of numerous regions that perform specific tasks is known as "modularity". And, at first glance, it has been successful. For example, it can provide an explanation for how we recognise faces by activating a chain of specific brain regions in the occipital and temporal lobes. Bodies, however, are processed by a different set of brain regions. And scientists believe that yet other areas - memory regions - help combine these perceptual stimuli to create holistic representations of people. The activity of certain brain areas has also been linked to specific conditions and diseases.

The reason this approach has been so popular is partly due to technologies which are giving us unprecedented insight into the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which tracks changes in blood flow in the brain, allows scientists to see brain areas light up in response to activities - helping them map functions. Meanwhile, Optogenetics, a technique that uses genetic modification of neurons so that their electrical activity can be controlled with light pulses - can help us to explore their specific contribution to brain function.

Planetary scientists are discovering volcanoes everywhere they look

Stephanie Margaret Bucklin
Astronomy Magazine
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 17:35 UTC

Jupiter’s moon Io is volcanically active

© NASA
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active place in the solar system thanks to a rough tug from mighty Jupiter that warps the planet’s interior structure.

Our closest planetary neighbor shares a surprising feature with Earth: volcanoes. A new study, published February 1st in the journal Science Advances, revealed interesting new details about the volcanic history of Mars. Thomas Lapen, first author of the paper and Professor of Geology at the University of Houston, told Astronomy that their analysis of Martian meteorites showed that volcanic activity on Mars has been ongoing since at least 2.4 to 0.15 billion years ago—and likely continues today.

Given that the meteorites Lapen and his group studied came from a single ejection site on Mars, they reveal over 2 billion years of stacked lava flows, Lapen said. The discovery could help scientists decipher more about how often volcanoes erupted on Mars, as well as time periods when they were most active.

Lapen explained that the type of volcanic activity that occurs on Mars is called basaltic volcanism, which is similar to the type of volcanism seen, for example, in volcanoes in Hawaii. These types of volcanoes produce fluid lava and are rarely explosive.

But Mars isn't the only extraterrestrial body with volcanoes. Volcanoes—in various forms—are also found on other planets, moons, and even asteroids. Take, for instance, Jupiter's moon Io, which has active volcanoes that spew gas and melted rock, or Venus, which is covered with over 1,000 volcanoes, according to NASA. It's not yet determined whether these venusian volcanoes are active or not.

Supernova spotted in constellation Lupus

Alison Klesman
Astronomy
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:04 UTC

When most people hear the word supernova, they envision a massive star reaching the end of its life and exploding outwards to leave a ghostly remnant in its place. This is called a Type II supernova — the spectacular Supernova 1987A, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, was a Type II.

Alternatively, a Type Ia supernova occurs when a white dwarf, the remnant of a Sun-like star, grows too massive after stripping a binary companion star of its outer layers. When the white dwarf reaches a critical mass, a runaway fusion reaction occurs in its core and the star explodes in a Type Ia supernova. Such a supernova has just been spotted occurring in a galaxy about 55 million light-years away.

Announced by Rachael Beaton at the the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, CA, and known as 2017cbv (though Beaton has nicknamed it Bob), the explosion was spotted in NGC 5643, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Lupus.

The area of the sky it inhabits is also part of the area covered by the Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey, a project aimed at gathering optical and near-infrared images of bright Southern Hemisphere galaxies. NGC 5643 was also the home galaxy of SN 2013aa, which occurred in early 2013.

Super humans that are sexier, stronger and smarter will arrive by 2029 as brains begin to fuse with machines

Phoebe Weston
Daily Mail
Thu, 16 Mar 2017 15:01 UTC

© 20th C Fox
Science fact? Harnessing the power of the mind was a favourite of science fiction, including Star Trek's Vulcan mind meld

Technological singularity will turn us into super humans some time in the next 12 years, according to a Google expert.

This might sound like science fiction, but Google's Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil has made 147 predictions since the 1990s and has an 86 per cent success rate.

Kurzweil says when we live in a cybernetic society we will have computers in our brains and machines will be smarter than human beings.

He claims this is already happening with technology - especially with our addiction to our phones - and says the next step is to wire this technology into our brains.

Tiny satellite with miniature laboratory helps scientists carry out remote experiments in space

Ari Rabinovitch
Yahoo News
Thu, 16 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC

© Amir Cohen / Reuters
Israeli-Swiss company SpacePharma's miniature laboratory is seen at their research and development site in Herzliya, Israel

Orbiting the earth at more than 500 kilometres (300 miles), a tiny satellite with a laboratory shrunk to the size of a tissue box is helping scientists carry out experiments that take gravity out of the equation.

The technology was launched into space last month by SpacePharma, a Swiss-Israeli company, which on Thursday announced that its first experiments have been completed successfully.

In space, with hardly any interference from earth's gravity, cells and molecules behave differently, helping researchers make discoveries in fields from medicine to agriculture.

Nestle turned to zero gravity - or what scientists refer to as microgravity - to perfect the foam in its chocolate mousse and coffee, while drugmakers like Eli Lilly have used it to improve drug designs.

Mind-controlled cats?! Incredible spy technologies that are real

Tia Ghose
Live Science
Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:49 UTC

Bond, James Bond

Killer umbrellas, stick-on fingerprints and lock-picking cellphones — James Bond and his nemeses certainly used their share of bizarre spy gadgets over the years.

But many of the most far-out devices seen in old movies have been made obsolete by incredible leaps in today's consumer technology, said Vince Houghton, a historian and curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

"A modern smartphone does more than most people could do 10 years ago on 10 different things," Houghton told Live Science.

For instance, nowadays, "wires," like those used to catch mobsters plotting on tape, are now entirely wireless, and they're so tiny that they can be concealed in earrings, buttons and even patches under the skin, Houghton said.

And although most of today's cutting-edge spy technology is classified, knowledge of a few bizarre techniques does get leaked. From eavesdropping techniques to programmed kitties, here are some of the most incredible real-world spy technologies.

Clean meat? Memphis Meats serves up chicken produced from cells in lab

Jacob Bunge
Wall Street Journal
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:53 UTC

'Clean meat' developers say it avoids towering costs of feeding, caring for livestock; Tyson Foods takes note

A Bay Area food-technology startup says it has created the world's first chicken strips grown from self-reproducing cells without so much as ruffling a feather.

And the product pretty much tastes like chicken, according to people who were offered samples Tuesday in San Francisco, before Memphis Meats Inc.'s formal unveiling on Wednesday.

Scientists, startups and animal-welfare activists believe the new product could help to revolutionize the roughly $200 billion U.S. meat industry. Their goal: Replace billions of cattle, hogs and chickens with animal meat they say can be grown more efficiently and humanely in stainless-steel bioreactor tanks.

Comment: Inside the meat lab: The future of food

Spiders eat astronomical numbers of insects keeping countless pests and disease-carriers at bay

Yahoo News
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:40 UTC

© David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina
A jumping spider Phidippus regius preying on a bush cricket (Tettigoniidae). There are some 45,000 known spider species, all of them meat-eating.

The world's spiders eat 400-800 million tonnes of insects every year -- equivalent to the amount of meat and fish that humans consume over the same period, a study said Tuesday.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers used data from 65 previous studies to estimate that a total of 25 million metric tonnes of spiders exist on Earth.

Taking into account how much food spiders need to survive, the team then calculated the eight-legged creatures' annual haul of insects and other invertebrates.

"Our estimates... suggest that the annual prey kill of the global spider community is in the range of 400-800 million metric tons," they wrote in the journal The Science of Nature.

This showed just how big a role spiders play in keeping pests and disease-carriers at bay -- especially in forests and grasslands where most of them live.

Comment: Scientist have discovered only one species of spider that feeds predominantly on plant food - the Bagheera kiplingi, a small Central American jumping spider that survives mostly on bits of acacia trees.

Conducting the Milgram experiment in Poland, psychologists show people still obey

Science Direct
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:08 UTC

© Andrey Kuzmin / Fotolia
The Milgram experiment tested people's willingness to deliverer electric shocks to another person when encouraged by an experimenter. While no shocks were actually delivered in any of the experiments, the participants believed them to be real.

The title is direct, "Would you deliver an electric shock in 2015?" and the answer, according to the results of this replication study, is yes. Social psychologists from SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland replicated a modern version of the Milgram experiment and found results similar to studies conducted 50 years earlier.

The research appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Comment:

Ruthless descendants of those who used obsidian daggers to cut the hearts out of live captives.

bbrebozo

How to beat a dead horse. Next up, Gay Bond? Gay Star Trek? Gay President? Oh right, we already had that sequel.

bbrebozo

Wonder what the implications are from this for both Southwest and the other airlines doing business in Texas: [Link] BK

Buffalo_Ken

Uummm, dude, maybe you need a better news feed: There is still no “hundred-employee” vaccine mandate Jon Rappoport Oct 13, 2018 [Link]

Good Optics

Fewtile of many. Time cannot be killed. It is fixed. It moves on on its own. It just is. It is time. tick-tock....time. So I reckon in the...

Buffalo_Ken

Science & Technology

Quantum Theory: Can it explain why jokes are funny?

Neuroscience may be on the wrong track in understanding the brain, a radical rethink is needed

Planetary scientists are discovering volcanoes everywhere they look

Supernova spotted in constellation Lupus

Super humans that are sexier, stronger and smarter will arrive by 2029 as brains begin to fuse with machines

Tiny satellite with miniature laboratory helps scientists carry out remote experiments in space

Mind-controlled cats?! Incredible spy technologies that are real

Clean meat? Memphis Meats serves up chicken produced from cells in lab

Spiders eat astronomical numbers of insects keeping countless pests and disease-carriers at bay

Conducting the Milgram experiment in Poland, psychologists show people still obey

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