Nuclear Energy: Thorium Reactors

I recently discovered a small gap in my education in nuclear energy. It concerns LFTR reactors. They seem to be reconsidered after uranium based reactors were favored after world war 2 and the during the cold war due to their dual use in energy production as well as the generation of byproducs for nuclear weapons.

There are several videos on the google tech talk channlel, just two of those:

Contemporary Physics

Just some physics stuff from recent news: An article at wired about recent findings at lhc/cern regarding the charge party violation and a confirmation about the (too) fast neurino measurements at the lhc.

Machine Learning (lecture) Videos

I haven't watched them all yet, but since I have only little background in machine learning, I find this to be highly enjoyable: Link to Machine Learning Videos. The videos were taking during a summer school: Link to the Summer School Website

CogSci: The Role of Dreams in Great Discoveries

An article from scientific american about an "alternative state of consciousness" we enter when dreaming, allowing us to tackle problems we cannot understand consciously

CogSci: A Map of the Brain

Just a quick link to a short TED talk.

Patent wars

A recent interview with a google lawyer on the patent system.

And I added another link to the last post on CogSci...

CogSci: Embodied Cognition and Consciousness

Arguing against a Descartian dualism and for a interconnection between brain and body, the article at scientific american blogs gives nice pointers and references for an embodiment point of view of cognition. It's interesting to see if there is some "mind" kind of core in the biomachine that the human being actually is. The normal bio-chemic interconnection between mind and body seems to be quite natural as the mind needs the body to survive (and stay healthy) in order to do so itself.

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At the thoughts on thoughts blog you'll find a 3 part post on the possible functions of consciousness which is an interesting topic to think about, especially keeping in mind the aforementioned article:

• http://charbonniers.org/2011/10/20/possible-functions-of-consciousness-1-leading-edge-of-memory/
• http://charbonniers.org/2011/10/29/possible-functions-of-consciousness-2-gate-to-meaning/
• http://charbonniers.org/2011/11/04/possible-functions-of-consciousness-3-working-memory/

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[edit] Slightly related, there is another article on the work our subconscious does for us at the discovery magazine. [/edit]