Simulacra and Simulations
As an undergraduate, I helped run a psychology lab for a professor where we did cognitive experiments on Psychology 101 students. My major was Cognitive Science and I spent most…
Category: Random Awesome
Row Your Boat
There were always those people that amazed me with their clarity of vision for their own futures. I’ve often wondered about those with such a clear vision. They always seemed…
What Exactly is in a Chicken McNugget?
From The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan: “The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn. Of the…
Tourists Flock to Jesus’s Tomb in Kashmir
There is talk of the missing years of Jesus, unmentioned in the gospels, when he was between the ages of 12 and 30. Some say he was in India, picking…
The Second Bill of Rights
Excerpt from President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union: “It is our duty now to begin to lay…
You Have Colorectal Cancer
This has been a rough week. After CT scans, PET scans, colonoscopies, and biopsies a close family member was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer. Three days later surgeons removed…
Photos From India
It’s hard to capture the reality of India the beauty, the animals, the poverty, and the smiling kids if you are a really crappy photographer like me. So, I’ve put…
The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana
The banana is a freakish and fragile genetic mutant; one that has survived through the centuries due to the sustained application of selective breeding by diligent humans. Indeed, the “miraculous”…
6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can’t Explain
We like to feel superior to the people who lived centuries ago, what with their shitty mud huts and curing colds by drilling a hole in their skulls. But we…
Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves
Science deserves to be challenged. After all, it is about questioning dogma and almost ceaseless scepticism. But there are those who want to go further, who believe that science deserves…
Quantum Physics Findings Are Put to Work in Encryption and Philosophy
One of quantum physics’ crazier notions is that two particles seem to communicate with each other instantly, even when they’re billions of miles apart. Albert Einstein, arguing that nothing travels…
India: A Land of Contradiction
I came to India to see how people here live – day to day. How important is commerce, religion, family? What I’ve found is that India is not that different…
India Itenerary Maybe
I’ve been given great advice from several friends that know India very well. Most question my sanity of even wanting to go. One friend said, “Why not a nice vacation…
Varanasi, Banaras, Kashi, and Ganga
After reading and wondering about India my whole life, I’m finally going. I will be there for about 6 weeks. My main destination is Varanasi and the many small villages…
Out of the Darkness
When I was in 9th grade a friend named David shot himself over a break up with a middle school girlfriend. 10 years ago Preston, a friend and a great…
How We Read The Minds of Others
Rebecca Saxe, a neuroscientist at MIT, studies how our brains consider and interact with other people’s minds. Using MRI, she discovered that we have a part of the brain specifically…
Fall / Winter 2009 Reading List
Here is what I’ve been reading. I’ve finished some of these already but I’ll go ahead and list them… NurtureShock by Po Bronson Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa…
A Quest Beyond the Limits of the Ordinary
Two amazing minds came together in Seattle, Washington in August 2007 to push the edge of history well beyond the limits of the ordinary. Blending science and spirituality into startling…
The New Blueprint
Watch this video of Rupert Sheldrake speaking about “The New Blueprint” at the Biology of Transformation Conference. Rupert Sheldrake is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Society, who has…
Glorious Accident Interview with Rupert Sheldrake
“Through no fault of our own, and by dint of no cosmic plan or conscious purpose, we have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the…