Blogs

This is an interesting video. Notice how they break it down:

• Locomotion
• Locomotion on structures
• Autonomous navigation
• Manipulation

If CSI investigators thought like politicians and the voters who sent them to Washington, this is what criminal investigation would look like. Sigh...

When personal experience seems to contradict scientific findings, it's obvious that the science has to be wrong. Right?

Check out this post at Wired:

Under the auspices of keeping federal spending under control, Republican congressmen have launched yet another attack on the basic scientific research that could lead to useful, potentially job-creating discoveries.

Patti O'Brien just sent me this great TED talk by Dennis Dutton, a Philosophy Professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Dutton figures, since Humans have a Natural History, why shouldn't we ask the somewhat speculative but interesting question: How might our evolutionary history have helped shape our sense of aesthetics as a species? His talk identifies a number of these likely forces.

Patti O'Brien just sent me this great TED talk by Dennis Dutton, a Philosophy Professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. It's an awesome talk. Awesome. He figures, since Humans have a Natural History, why shouldn't we ask the somewhat speculative but interesting question: How might our evolutionary history have helped shape the phenomenon of aesthetics in Human Beings? His talk identifies a number of these forces.

Check this one out:

This TED video by Esther Duflo is a great example of how clear scientific thinking can be applied to complex social problems -- poverty in this case. In her hands, the scientific method becomes both a foundation to decide what social policies actually make sense, as well a method of communication to build support for these policies.