Automatic Mechanical Self Replication

21-Nov-10

via vimeo.com

The notion that inanimate matter can self-replicate is counter-intuitive to many people. Using wooden mechanical machines, this video does a great job of explaining how it can happen.

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Is xenophobia an evolved response to disease/parasites?

21-Mar-08

Evolved Disease-Avoidance Mechanisms and Contemporary Xenophobic Attitudes

Ethnic outgroups are often blamed for outbreaks of epidemic diseases, and these outbreaks can inspire violently xenophobic reactions to outsiders (Goldhagen, 1996; Markel, 1999; Oldstone, 1998). Foreigners are also associated with semantic concepts that connote disease. This association is evident in xenophobic propaganda, in which ethnic outgroups are likened to non-human vectors of disease, such as rats, flies, and lice (Suedfeld & Schaller, 2002). The associative link between foreign peoples and disease shows up consistently in the social science literature on immigration.

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