online archive

The Body, science and technology

From Janus Head, Stephen H. Watson (Notre Dame): Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Itinerary From Body Schema to Situated Knowledge: On How We Are and How We Are Not to “Sing the World”; Dorothée Legrand (CREA): Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness: On Being Bodily in the World; Evan Selinger and Timothy Engström (RIT): On Naturally Embodied Cyborgs: Identities, Metaphors, and Models (and a reply); Rob Harle (Stoney Chute): Disembodied Consciousness and the Transcendence of the Limitations of the Biological Body; Andrew C. Rawnsley (St. Andrews): A Situated or a Metaphysical Body? Problematics of Body as Mediation or as Site of Inscription; and Alexander Kozin (Berlin): The Uncanny Body: From Medical to Aesthetic Abnormality pdf.

A review of Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism? How we reflect on behavior: Mirror neurons, it seems, are of the utmost importance in human mind, and on the tip of the collective psychological tongue. A new study suggests that culture may shape the way our brains process visual information. I Chat, Therefore I Am: Can a smooth-talking robot initiate good conversation, generate witty responses, and reveal profound thoughts? See what happens when two chatbots speak to each other.

Scientists vs. Consumers: Thousands of consumers have voiced their opposition to cloned foods. Scientists dismiss them as "Luddites". Life at the Extremes: Some living species are able to thrive in inhospitable environments. How do they do it? More on the mathematical lives of plants: Scientists are figuring out why plants grow in spiral patterns that incorporate the "golden angle".

The X chromosome does much more than help specify an animal’s reproductive plumbing and behaves unlike any of the other chromosomes in the body. Like a column collapsing under the burden of a heavy roof, erectile dysfunction is a classical mechanical engineering problem, says a US urologist.

A split emerges as conservatives discuss Darwin: A dispute has cropped up on the right: Does Darwinian theory actually support conservative philosophy? But is it good for the conservatives? An article on Darwinism and its discontents. From Azure, The Gene Wars: What can science teach us about the validity of nationalist claims?

From Nanotechnology Now, an essay on Space Ethics: Look before taking another leap for mankind. From IEET, a look at why the discovery of a nearby Earth-like planet is bad news. Superhuman Imagination: An interview with Vernor Vinge on science fiction, the Singularity, and the state.

From Discover, Quantum Leap: The future of super-fast computing appears on the horizon. Many, especially historians, complain that e-mail is too ethereal and that communication is being lost to future generations. Now, the British Library is trying to do something about it. Down with Internet democracy: Why you don't want anonymous volunteers powering your search engine. A look at how you can understand the Internet. Would you like to see one of the landmarks you must pass on the road to Gootopia? Visit google.com/history. And Robert McHenry on how there is a limit to the amount of sheer noise we have to endure or learn to avoid