Saturday, May 24, 2014
Semantics
Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós, "significant")[1][2] is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotation.
Linguistic semantics is the study of meaning that is used for
understanding human expression through language. Other forms of
semantics include the semantics of programming languages, formal logics,
and semiotics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
The Safer Cigarette
I found the most fascinating article. The article
is about the elevated risk of lung cancer in American men compared to
Japanese men. It is interesting article because there is a higher
smoking prevalence in Japanese men, but they have a lower risk of lung
cancer compared to American men.
First thing the article addresses is genetics; perhaps Caucasians are genetically disposed to lung cancer compared to the Japanese men. This theory was wrong because rates of Japanese born Americans and Japanese immigrants were the same as American men, so genetics is not the main factor. The mean duration of smoking for the American and Japanese men was the same. The next thing that was evaluated was the age of smoking of the American and Japanese men...
http://islaslab.blogspot.nl/2011/05/safer-cigarette.html
First thing the article addresses is genetics; perhaps Caucasians are genetically disposed to lung cancer compared to the Japanese men. This theory was wrong because rates of Japanese born Americans and Japanese immigrants were the same as American men, so genetics is not the main factor. The mean duration of smoking for the American and Japanese men was the same. The next thing that was evaluated was the age of smoking of the American and Japanese men...
http://islaslab.blogspot.nl/2011/05/safer-cigarette.html
Is it possible to be dyslexic in Chinese?
Dear Cecil:
Is it possible to be dyslexic in Chinese? Surely someone with dyslexia
wouldn't be likely to misconstrue a word's meaning if that word were
represented as a distinctive symbol as in Chinese, right? I mean, if you
were to show a dyslexic a picture of a house, that person would still
easily recognize it, even though he might have trouble deciphering the
written word. Or am I totally in the dark about dyslexia?
— Rudy, Vallejo, California PS: Is it true
that the order of letters in a word is unimportant in reading, aside
from the placemen
...
People Can Draw Energy From Other People The Same Way Plants Do
A biological research team at Bielefeld University has made a
groundbreaking discovery showing that plants can draw an alternative
source of energy from other plants. This finding could also have a major
impact on the future of bioenergy eventually providing the evidence to
show that people draw energy from others in much the same way.
Members of Professor Dr. Olaf Kruse’s biological research team have confirmed for the first time that a plant, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, not only engages in photosynthesis, but also has an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. The research findings were released this week in the online journal Nature Communications published by the renowned journal Nature.
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/people-can-draw-energy-people-way-plants.html
Members of Professor Dr. Olaf Kruse’s biological research team have confirmed for the first time that a plant, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, not only engages in photosynthesis, but also has an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. The research findings were released this week in the online journal Nature Communications published by the renowned journal Nature.
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/people-can-draw-energy-people-way-plants.html
Study Shows We Work Harder If We’re Given Chocolate
“Under scientifically controlled conditions, making workers happier
really pays off,” said Professor Andrew Oswald, who led the research
team with Dr. Eugenio Proto and Dr. Daniel Sgroi from the Department of
Economics.
Sgroi added: “The driving force seems to be that happier workers use the time they have more effectively, increasing the pace at which they can work without sacrificing quality.”
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/study-shows-we-work-harder-if-our-boss-gives-us-chocolate/
Sgroi added: “The driving force seems to be that happier workers use the time they have more effectively, increasing the pace at which they can work without sacrificing quality.”
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/study-shows-we-work-harder-if-our-boss-gives-us-chocolate/
Clairvius Narcisse
Clairvius Narcisse (born c. 1922) is a Haitian man said to have been turned into a living zombie
by a combination of drugs. After investigating reports of "zombies"
(including Narcisse and a handful of others), researchers believed that
Narcisse received a dose of chemical mixture containing tetrodotoxin (pufferfish venom) and bufotoxin (toad venom) to induce a coma
which mimicked the appearance of death. He was then allowed to return
to his home where he collapsed, "died", and was buried. The Canadian ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who did the research on tetrodotoxin [1] explains how this would have been done. The bokor
(sorcerer) would have given Narcisse a powder containing the
tetrodotoxin through abraded skin. Narcisse fell into a comatose state,
closely resembling death, which resulted in his live burial.[2] His body was then recovered and he was given doses of Datura stramonium
to create a compliant zombie-like state and set to work on a
plantation. After two years, the plantation owner died and Narcisse
simply walked away to freedom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvius_Narcisse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvius_Narcisse
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