- What are some of the great unanswered questions that neuroscientists are asking about hearing?
- 1. I've been told that young people can hear higher frequencies than adults can, so there has been an issue of kids setting cellphone ringers that older teachers _cannot_ hear. True?
2. What about animals that can move their outer ears independently of one another?
- Putting an earphone _in_ the ear, facing outward is what artist Janet Cardiff has done in a few of her works. The two I experienced were striking.
- Given the way I think, I have to ask what Seth Horowitz thinks of the use of sound as a weapon. The US blasted the Papal Nunciature in Panama City with music of Van Halen at deafening volumes to try to force Manuel Noriega out in 1989.
There have been reports of the US and Israel (among others) using sound weapons as part of the new generation of so-called "less-than-lethal" weapons.
- Sobering. When I see people moving carts full of bottles and cans, I find myself thinking of ragpickers — the people at the very bottom of the economic ladder in 19th century London and New York. They literally picked over the rags discarded by others.
- Sorry — posted in wrong section.
- Sobering. When I see people moving carts full of bottles and cans, I find myself thinking of ragpickers — the people at the very bottom of the economic ladder in 19th century London and New York. They literally picked over the rags discarded by others.
- If China, India and the rest Asia do as much damage, proportionately, as the US has _just to the environment_, our species will not survive. Plenty of biologists are talking about the possibility of extinction of Homo sapiens. Stephen Hawking has also speculated along these lines. Climate scientists are said that if atmospheric carbon concentrations hit 550 parts per million, there will be a global catastrophe. Not one of the emerging powers shows even the vaguest hint of deep concern over the environment (not that the US did either until it had the luxury to do so).
If Americans find it impossible to entertain the possibility of the US losing its "Number One" status, how difficult is it for people to consider human extinction?
(By the way, both the Bush and Obama administrations have expressed a determination in national defense reviews to sustain the US as the world's most powerful nation . . . whatever that means.)
Mr. Mahbubani's mention of the export of higher education points to something where the US really can remain #1 — education and high tech. But thanks to 'moderate' and conservative hostility to education, we're likely to lose this (just as the British have largely destroyed their higher education system.)
- The British demonstrate just how long a nation can preserve the myth of being "Number One". In the the 1960s, the British were still throwing their weight about as if they were the world's greatest something or other. Fortunately, they lacked even the semblance of sufficient power to do anything.
- A Times editor has just admitted that there would be diplomatic blow-back to openness. The editor 'justified' maintaining CIA secrets and lies because to do otherwise would risk popular opposition to drone bases in Saudi Arabia.
- More
