Sašo Dolenc's Blog, page 3
August 10, 2018
Thinking About Alternatives
There is no doubt that humans are significantly different from all other creatures that have ever inhabited the Earth. In a few thousand years of exponential growth, we have created a complex civilization that enables efficient global cooperation and a rapid exchange of ideas. But to what do we owe this advance? What is the essential characteristic that enabled us to become the most successful species of animal on the planet? The majority of experts tend to attribute this success to our abili...
How Old is Time? – book trailer
How Old is Time?: Short Stories from Science, History and Philosophy – Amazon.com
CONTENTS
ATOMS
How old is time? 11
Conquering absolute zero 16
In search of the perfect machine 21
Baby pictures of the universe 26
How the universe was made 30
The beginnings of quantum physics 35
The Tao of science 39
A particle that wasn’t there 44
BRAIN
The biology of ethics 51
How pleasure works 56
Thinking about alternatives 60
Why does digital music only make sense to a human ear? 64
Humans are co-operati...
CRISPR – Biotechnology of the Future
In 1987, Japanese scientists from Osaka University reported an unusual occurrence they had observed in a strand of E. coli bacteria. A strange part of the strand’s DNA contained five repetitions of the same sequence of 29 nucleotides (the basic building blocks of DNA), interrupted by divergent sections consisting of 32 nucleotides. Schematically, the sequence can be described as ABACADAEA, where A stands for the segment that repeats, while B, C, D, and E are the divergent parts. This was the...
April 23, 2018
How to Make a Hit?
As a rule, something becomes popular when people are able to recognize it quickly and without much effort. The effect of familiarity is important because it gives people comfort. But it is a fine balance because only repeating the familiar is not enough for success. The trick is finding the right blend of the familiar and the new.
Musicologist David Huron performed a series of animal testing, trying to establish the right ratio between repetition and originality, the two main ingredients i...
