Steven Strogatz on sync | Video on TED.com

Profesor Steven Strograz Muestra un metodo para replicar el comportamiento de enjambre.

Influencia oculta de las redes socialesHidden influence of Social Networks

Charla en TED de profesor Nicholas A. Christakis, sobre como las redes sociales influyen el desarrollo de fenomenos sociales. La importancia de las redes no es siempre obvia y esta charla promueve muy bien el interés por identificar esa importancia e ilustrar sus efectos, en especial con la caracterizacion de fenomenologias complejas como la obesidad.
En ingles.

TED talk by Nicholas A. Christakis on how social networks influence the development of social phenomena. The importance of networks is not always obvious, and this talk does a very good job in identifying this importance andd highlighting its effects, specially with regard to complex social phenomena such as obesity.



Investigador
El profesor Christakis enseña en la universidad de Harvard y mayor información sobre su trabajo se puede encontrar en: Professor Christakis teaches at Harvard University and more information on his work can be found at:
1.- Su pagina en Harvard / His harvard page
2.- Pagina EDGE sobre su biografía / EDGE article
3.- Wikipedia

Alerta: primera Celula Sintetica / Alert: first Synthetic cell

En un anuncio esperdo pero preocupante el 21 de mayo 2010, Craig Venter anuncia la creacion de la primera celula sintetica, cuyo DNA fue disenado por un computador.

In an expected but anyway unsettling announcement on 21 may 2010, Craig Venter informs on the successful creation of an synthetic Cell, whose DNA has been completely designed by a computer.

Arquitectura que se auto-repara? TED Talk

La forma de construir actual se basa en gran medida en metodos victorianos que resultan en una transferencia unidireccional de energia desde la naturaleza hacia nuestros hogares y ciudades. Esto no puede ser sustentable.

El presente video, muestra una idea aun en su etapa conceptual, sobre formas distintas en que podria organizarse esta transferencia de energia que conectara a las ciudades con la naturaleza en vez de aislarla de ella. Rachel Armstrong, medico, se encuentra actualmente trabajando en tecnologias de materiales metabolicos, buscando las caraceristicas que puedan convertirlos en auto-reparables.

The present form of construction is largely based on victorian methods, that result in a uni-directional transfer of energy from nature into our cities and homes. This is not sustainable.
The video presented here is an idea, still in its conceptual phase (with some laboratory research under way), on ways this energy transfer could connect the cities to the enviroment, instead of isolating them from it. Rachel Armstrong, Medical Doctor, is at present working on technologies relating to metabolic materials, that would render them auto-repairable, for instance.

Economia de Codigo Abierto

Yochai Benkler, profesor de derecho en la Universiad de Nueva York, comenta sobre el tema que lo ha apasionado desde hace ya varios años: la economia de codigo abierto y la forma como la sociedad ha cambiado bajo la influencia de nuevas capacidades de comunicacion y el rol que cada uno esta tomando en la generacion de conocimiento.

Susan Blackmore sobre los Memes

Susan Blackmore, autora del libro "The Meme Machine", y en respuesta y desarrollo del concepto de Meme indicado por Richard Dawinks en su influyente libro "El gen egoista", define estos procesos de transferencia cultural y su modelacion como verdaderas "infecciones" a traves de los seres humanos.

The secret, social lives of bacteria

This video above is called The secret, social lives of bacteria, by a very dynamic speaking and brilliant molecular biologist named Bonnie Bassler of Princeton.

Unless you need to study about bacteria in some way, this 18 minute talk is pretty much all you need to know about bacteria and their impact on us. However, this is not just basic fundamental Bacteria 101. It also has cutting edge science put in such basic terms we could all understand it and be amazed. So even if you did study bacteria, there is likely something you can still learn from this talk. They need to show this video in any introductory class having anything to do with bacteria!

The amazing parts about this talk show a simple but potent system in the way bacteria strategically work together, and how we can use that system to negate their potential harm to us rather than killing them with antibiotics. Bacteria have to strategically work together because they are so small it is only together that they can have any impact on us. Their communications system is a simple but brilliant system of determining how many bacteria are in some locale, and bacteria of each types around them, and if that is sufficient numbers to do something. So much for having no brains! We have brains and yet we couldn’t hope to organize ourselves so effectively most of the time!

The language of bacteria is also discussed, and what’s shocking is the molecules they use to send out and receive to detect their numbers and identities all have a common root. No exceptions! It’s like our languages stemming from a common family! This discovery then allows us to create similar molecules to fool the bacteria into not doing what we don’t want them to, without killing them like antibiotics does. The reason for this is because antibiotics, in killing the bacteria, allows the ones that survive to mutate and become stronger. We are facing a huge antibiotic resistance from bacteria right now due to our overuse of antibiotics. If we keep this up, we will not win this war.

However, if we just fool the bacteria by running interference with their communication systems, to the point they never know there are enough of themselves to attack, they won’t mutate nearly as quickly. And we can do this specifically for all kinds of bacteria because their language molecules are very simple to determine.

Behavioural Economics - Stealing

In this Video, DAn Ariely examines what are the probable bases for stealing. According to his experiments, there are several factors influencing the likelihood that someone will cheat or steal: "Distance" from money, Ingroup/Outgroup cheating incentive, anonimity, etc.

Apparently the capability to cheating is something endemic and widespread, albeit the cheating is normally small.

Stepping outside the Moral Matrix

In this Video Jonathan Heidt proposes al alternative for stepping "outside" the moral matrix (just as in the movie The Matrix) we are all constantly immersed. Several things are proposed here:

1.- Human beings are born with an innitial draft in regard with moral principles, which are modelled afterwards (amplified or diminshed) by the environment. This is reinfoced by several other researchers, whose books I will comment later.

2.- Cooperation is reinforced by punishing the freeriders, and what is more, people will spend resources in this punishment, aiming towards a state of "Fairness". Please consider Axelrod's book Evolution of Cooperation for other good example of this conclusion.

3.- Basic differences in regard with the innitial moral aspects are shown between Liberal, Libertarian and Conservative points of view,

"If you want the thrith to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease - Sent ts'an, 700CE

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity