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Your Brain, the CEO
Think of consciousness as essentially the company president that has to arbitrate all the different mechanisms.
Whenever a system becomes sufficiently complex, like a giant company, it needs a CEO, and that's essentially the role of consciousness in the brain. The brain is made up of many different subparts and systems that are always competing for control.
So what I suggest in my book is that consciousness is essentially the company president that has to arbitrate all the different mechanisms.
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LIVE ON MONDAY | "Lights, camera, activism!" with Judith Light
Join multiple Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress Judith Light live on Big Think at 2 pm ET on Monday.
11 July, 2020
Big Think LIVE
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<p>
In this Big Think Live session, multiple Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress Judith Light (
<em>Transparent, Ugly Betty)</em> and host, writer, and actor Winsome Brown will discuss the art of acting, the challenge of choosing the right roles, and why any career is made better by asking "How can I be of service?" instead of "How do I get more...?" From her work fighting for equality and dignity at the height of the AIDS epidemic (and long after) to advancing acceptance of the LGBTQ community through screen and stage, Light will share insight from her incredible career that can help you fine-tune your own goals toward a greater good.
</p><p>
Ask your questions for Judith Light during the live Q&A!
</p><p>
<strong>Join the stream 2 pm ET on Monday, July 13.</strong></p><p><strong>STREAMING LINKS:</strong></p><p>
<strong><a href="https://edge.bigthink.com/live_streams/100">Big Think Edge</a> | <a href="https://youtu.be/KY69l1pik9Y">YouTube</a> | </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom/posts/10157497938128527"><strong>Facebook</strong></a>
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Scientists see 'rarest event ever recorded' in search for dark matter
The team caught a glimpse of a process that takes 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.
24 April, 2019
Image source: Pixabay
Surprising Science
- In Italy, a team of scientists is using a highly sophisticated detector to hunt for dark matter.
- The team observed an ultra-rare particle interaction that reveals the half-life of a xenon-124 atom to be 18 sextillion years.
- The half-life of a process is how long it takes for half of the radioactive nuclei present in a sample to decay.
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<p>Scientists have observed an extremely rare particle physics event using a detector that's hunting for dark matter, the mysterious material that physicists have yet to observe.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1124-4" target="_blank">paper published in </a><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1124-4" target="_blank">the journal <em>Nature</em></a>, researchers with the XENON Collaboration said they'd observed the radioactive decay of a substance called xenon-124, an isotope of the element xenon — a colorless and odorless noble gas found in tiny amounts in the atmosphere. The event — a "two-neutrino double electron capture" — has eluded scientists for decades. </p><p>It happens when "two protons in a nucleus are simultaneously converted into neutrons by the absorption of two electrons from one of the atomic shells and the emission of two electron neutrinos." After this occurs, the event shoots out a predictable cascade of X-rays and Auger electrons that scientists look for using an ultra-sensitive detector, buried about 5,000 feet beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountain where it's shielded from cosmic rays.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We have shown that we can observe the rarest events ever recorded," Ethan Brown, a professor of physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-author of the study, told <em><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dark-matter-hunters-observe-rarest-event-ever-recorded-1404823" target="_blank">Newsweek</a></em>. "The key finding is that an isotope formerly thought to be completely stable has now been shown to decay on an unimaginably long timescale."</p><p>How long is that timescale? The team estimated that xenon-124's half-life is about 18 sextillion years — or 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years — which is than one trillion times the age of our universe, according to the team. It's the slowest process ever measured directly, the team wrote in a statement. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It's an amazing to have witnessed this process, and it says that our detector can measure the rarest thing ever recorded," Brown told <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/dark-matter-rarest-ever-event-xenon-half-life-radioactive-discovery-breakthrough-latest-science-a8884896.html" target="_blank"><em>The Independent.</em></a></p>
<div id="31261" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="F55APY1568274781"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1121097717781028864" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We are extremely excited to share with you that we have observed the rarest decay process ever measured! It is the… https://t.co/7ILxlSMGUf</div> — XENON1T (@XENON1T)<a href="https://twitter.com/Xenon1T/statuses/1121097717781028864">1556125499.0</a></blockquote></div><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We designed the XENON1T experiment to look for dark matter, a new kind of matter that makes up 85 percent of the mass of the universe, but interacts so rarely that it's never been observed," Brown said. "This experiment is so sensitive to very rare events that we can make all kinds of other rare physics measurements. One of those is this decay of xenon-124. Although our primary goal was always the discovery of dark matter, we knew there was a good chance we could see this rare decay, so we set out to do so."</p><p>To get that good chance, the team had to expose their detector to a huge amount of xenon atoms by stocking it with 3.2 tons worth of liquid xenon.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"XENON1T is a giant vat of liquid xenon surrounded by light sensors," Brown said. "When dark matter collides in the xenon, or when a radioactive decay occurs inside, we get a tiny flash of light and a little bunch of charge out of the xenon. We measure these with the light sensors and reconstruct everything we can about the original event that caused the light and charge."</p><p>Although the team didn't observe dark matter — which is the primary purpose of the detector — the recent observations could help scientists learn more about neutrinos, one of the least understood fundamental particles in the universe.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It proves that this XENON detector technology we use for dark matter is much more versatile," graduate student Christian Wittweg, Ph.D student at the University of Münster in Germany, told <em><a href="https://gizmodo.com/dark-matter-detector-makes-incredible-neutrino-observat-1834270148" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a></em>. "We get all these cool analyses... for free after having built an experiment sensitive enough to hunt for dark matter."</p><p>The team plans to use its newer XENONnT detector to continue hunting for dark matter, the elusive material that's estimated to comprise about <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/scientists-figure-out-how-to-trap-dark-matter" target="_blank">26.8 percent of all the content in the universe</a>.</p>
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The mind-blowing science of black holes
What we know about black holes is both fascinating and scary.
13 July, 2020
Videos
- When it comes to black holes, science simultaneously knows so much and so little, which is why they are so fascinating. Focusing on what we do know, this group of astronomers, educators, and physicists share some of the most incredible facts about the powerful and mysterious objects.
- A black hole is so massive that light (and anything else it swallows) can't escape, says Bill Nye. You can't see a black hole, theoretical physicists Michio Kaku and Christophe Galfard explain, because it is too dark. What you can see, however, is the distortion of light around it caused by its extreme gravity.
- Explaining one unsettling concept from astrophysics called spaghettification, astronomer Michelle Thaller says that "If you got close to a black hole there would be tides over your body that small that would rip you apart into basically a strand of spaghetti that would fall down the black hole."
Space travel could create language unintelligible to people on Earth
A new study looks at what would happen to human language on a long journey to other star systems.
12 July, 2020
Cylindrical space colony.
Credit: NASA Ames Research Center.
Surprising Science
- A new study proposes that language could change dramatically on long space voyages.
- Spacefaring people might lose the ability to understand the people of Earth.
- This scenario is of particular concern for potential "generation ships".
<p>Given the mounting crises of 2020, wouldn't it be nice to just get on a giant spaceship and leave this troubled planet behind? While we don't yet have a surefire candidate for the new Earth, and our tech is still probably decades if not centuries behind, proposals and achievements in interstellar travel are stacking up. A new study makes the fascinating case that if a group of humans was to venture out on a space journey that lasted generations, their language would likely change. It could evolve into something the people of the original Earth would not understand.</p><p>Let's say, a contingent of people boards a so-called "<a href="https://www.universetoday.com/144894/what-is-a-generation-ship/" target="_blank">generation ship</a>," a fully-stocked world-onto-itself spaceship that can sustain generations of humans in space, slowly traversing the heavens towards another possibly inhabitable planet like <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/" target="_blank">Proxima b</a> in the Proxima Centauri star system. We cannot yet build such a ship, which might have to fly for thousands of years, unless we invent some type of warp-drive or use antimatter, as has been imagined in science fiction, but there have been some initial <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/144894/what-is-a-generation-ship/" target="_blank">studies</a> on the subject. </p>
<p>Such a journey could be subject to a variety of dangers and unforeseen circumstances like viruses, asteroids, computer malfunctions, you name it. New research, carried out by linguistics professors <span style="background-color: initial;"><strong>Andrew McKenzie</strong> from the University of Kansas and <strong>Jeffrey Punske </strong>of Southern Illinois University</span>, shows what might also happen is that the language of the travelers would mutate. The study highlights the fact that when communities become isolated from each other, conditions are ripe for language to transform. Over time, the spacefaring colonizers would not be able to able to understand their original language.</p><p>In the study, the linguists use examples of effects from long-distance voyages on Earth, like the changing languages of Polynesian island explorers, to show how much language can change, even within one's lifetime.</p><p>Professor McKenzie described a likely (and somewhat sad) scenario in a <a href="http://news.ku.edu/2020/06/30/without-care-lost-space-could-mean-lost-translation" target="_blank">press release</a>:</p>
<blockquote>"If you're on this vessel for 10 generations, new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them," McKenzie explained, "and these will become the vocabulary particular to the ship. People on Earth might never know about these words, unless there's a reason to tell them. And the further away you get, the less you're going to talk to people back home. Generations pass, and there's no one really back home to talk to. And there's not much you want to tell them, because they'll only find out years later, and then you'll hear back from them years after that."</blockquote>
Generation Ships
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a1e6445c7168d293a6da3f9600f534a2"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H2f0Wd3zNj0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>What might also happen is that the language of people on Earth would change. So it's possible, given the distance, and the dwindling reasons to communicate, that both parties might simply not be able to speak each other as time passes.</p><p>One way to prevent this issue – have a member of the crew trained in linguistics or make other accommodations to remember the language of Earth. Thinking even further ahead, the professors propose that each new ship of people coming over to a faraway space colony would essentially contain "linguistic immigrants" and an effort would have to be made to train them in the changed language to help them avoid discrimination.</p><p>In case you're deadset on going to Proxima b, <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.03856.pdf" target="_blank">recent research</a> found that using currently-imaginable-tech such a trip would take <strong>6300</strong> years and would need to start out with a crew of at least <strong>98</strong> people.</p><p>Check out the study, "<a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3747353" target="_blank">Language Development During Interstellar Travel</a>" in Acta Futura, the journal of the European Space Agency's <a href="https://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/index.html" target="_blank">Advanced Concepts Team</a>.</p>
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Personal Growth
Your emotions are the new hot commodity — and there’s an app for that
Many of the most popular apps are about self-improvement.
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