The prison at the end of the universe…. human evolution and science is at a dead end, the sun is changing and forcing rapid evolution everywhere else. This book made an impression on me, twisting multiple times and adding yet another layer to the world building and the story. A gripping story in a highly oppressive setting. I appreciate Tchaikovsky’s SF a lot.
Tag: evolution
Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Most of what I’ve read by Adrian Tchaikovsky I’ve liked, and this book is no exception. The setting is very different, on earth in a future where the sun is dying, than his other books that play out in space on alien planets.
The prison at the end of the universe…. human evolution and science is at a dead end, the sun is changing and forcing rapid evolution everywhere else outside of the last remaining city. This book made an impression on me, twisting multiple times and adding yet another layer to the world building and the story. A gripping story in a highly oppressive setting.
Bookmarked Livewired (by Robin Rendle)
Robin Rendle mentions how David Eagleman’s Livewired posits cortical takeover (if you don’t use your eyes, other body-mapped brainfunctions will takeover that region of your brain) as a reason for dreaming. To prevent a hostile take-over of your visual cortex. Reminds me of a previous article I read that posits dreaming as a way of keeping your brain from overfitting. That last one by Erik Hoel of Tufts University, enables falsifiable hypotheses w.r.t. sleep shortages etc. Does Eagleman’s theory do too? Will need to read the underlying article.
..we dream so that the parts of our brain that control our legs or ears or nose don’t “override” our eyes during the night. That’s wild!
Robin Rendle w.r.t. David Eagleman’s Livewired
The tree of life is not a tree but shaped like this. Read this article which puts archaeons on the right hand branch, bacteria on the left, and us with all other eukaryotes as a result from a unexpected joining of a bacterium into an archaeon.
Lovelock mentions this in Novacene, where he basically uses this to support his thesis that on the known universe’s timescale there is too little time for alien species to have evolved. We are alone he says.
(found via Jeanie McGeehan)
Suggested Reading: DNA, Reboot, Decentralisation and more
Some links I thought worth reading the past few days
- I think E and I will need to visit Copenhagen in September for TechFestival. Thomas calls it ‘Reboot at Scale’: The time is right for a new conversation on tech. One that anchors tech in society with human answers for progress.
- An important point made by Cory Doctorow discussing GDPR, data breaches are cumulative, a breach today may be combined with a breach already out there: The harm created by merging breaches should be part of establishing damages
- A visual tool to create deep learning models faster: Lobe.ai
- It all depends on whether GDPR will be enforced from May 26th: Doc Searls says GDPR will pop the adtech bubble
- Refocusing on the decentralised nature of internet: DECODE, a European project
- One researcher’s noise is another’s signal, non-human DNA edition: Genghis Khan’s Mongol horde probably had rampant Hepatitis B
- UK schools are sharing personal data on pupils far and wide: End bad practices in Education says Defend Digital Me report
- Just as obfuscating as pretending the data you actively share with FB is the only personal data they have on you: The “FB is just a tool” narrative