Day's Headlines: Thought Monitor; Gilead Balm; Cleansing in South Sudan; Gambia's Defeat; Fly Me to Moon; and the Gig Economy

Friday, December 2, 2016

Thought Monitor; Gilead Balm; Cleansing in South Sudan; Gambia's Defeat; Fly Me to Moon; and the Gig Economy

Brain

Fast fMRI tracks brain activity during human thought for first time medicalxpress t

By significantly increasing the speed of functional MRI (fMRI), researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) nibib.nih.gov have been able to image rapidly fluctuating brain activity during human thought. fMRI measures changes in blood oxygenation, which were previously thought to be too slow to detect the subtle neuronal activity associated with higher order brain functions. The new discovery that fast fMRI can detect rapid brain oscillations is a significant step towards realizing a central goal of neuroscience research: mapping the brain networks responsible for human cognitive functions such as perception, attention, and awareness.

...standard fMRI can only detect the blood flow coming to replenish an area of the brain several seconds after it has performed a function. It was generally accepted that this was the limit of what could be detected by fMRI—identification of a region in the brain that had responded to a large stimulus, such as a continuous 30 second "blast" of bright light.

Third Temple

Balm of Gilead: Ancient Plants Revived in Time for Third Temple? www1.cbn

The Bible speaks of the Balm of Gilead [ex: Gen 37:25]. It was a real plant in the ancient Holy Land, used in medicine and cosmetics and even for worship in the Jewish Temple. Now a modern-day Israeli farmer is reviving that biblical agriculture, along with Frankincense and Myrrh, but he's also getting some resistance.

Africa

Ethnic cleansing going on in South Sudan: U.N. commission reuters

"There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing under way in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages; everywhere we went across this country we heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back," [U.N. commission of human rights] Yasmin Sooka said in a statement.

"There's no such thing in South Sudan. There's no ethnic cleansing," [president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir] told Reuters in the South African city of Johannesburg. Security guards prevented further questions.

Gambia’s President to Concede Defeat in Historic Elections time

Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup, is to concede defeat to real-estate businessman Adama Barrow, in a historic election that was marred with reports of threats and arbitrary arrests by the dictator’s administration.

Also see Yahya Jammeh the Worst Dictator You've Never Heard of ozy w!

Space

Moon Express: £8,000 [~$10,117] lunar flights on target to begin by 2026 telegraph.co.uk

So infectious is the enthusiasm of billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Naveen Jain naveenjain that just a few minutes in his company is enough to convince you that anything is possible. That’s just as well because - were it explained by someone lacking his unwavering confidence – his latest endeavour would sound entirely outlandish.

AI

Welcome To The Gig Economy - Consequences Of Artificial Intelligence forbes w!

Imagine you are a large corporation and you no longer need drivers to deliver your goods, no people in the warehouse to fulfill orders and your factory is just as clean as it is empty of people. As a company this is a rather attractive scenario – humans are complex whereas robots don’t get tired, don’t ask for a pay raise, don’t go on strike and have a more predictable output. As machines replace the workforce, your company becomes ever more competitive, delivering goods quicker and cheaper. However, there is an obvious dark side to this equation. Imagine now you are one of the workers – suddenly redundant and out of a job. Efficiency doesn’t sound so good then. Half of the workforce is expected to be replaced by robotics in the next 20 years. Some go further and predict 80% of jobs to disappear in the next 10 years. Such drastic change to the employment landscape is already starting to happen and is a real threat to the stability of the society.

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