Laboratory called Life

Wonderful video on how Science and Imagination has helped mankind uncover and understand the mysteries of universe and life -  Marie Curie rightly said " Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less"

Why do we pursue abstract forms of art ? More so when they appear meaningless for survival either from Darwinian viewpoint . Neither do they support the pursuit of altruism in making World a Better Place. Here's an answer from Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins. If that resonates, do watch this clip from the movie "Dead Poets Society" where Robin Williams presents a rather abstract but emotionally compelling case for pursuing Poetry.

I have been fascinated by the word "entrepreneurs", in some sense I find an instant connection with the spirit of viewing things from a different perspective which inspires entrepreneurs  to create new products and services or improve upon the existing ones.However the most interesting aspect is that although expert entrepreneurs are kindof hardwired (read Richard Branson :P), the underlying skills of entrepreneurship can be learnt.The subject is being taught as a specialised course in many Ivy league B-Schools.Saras Sarasvathy,prof at Darden,UVA specialises in this subject.Here's one of her lectures at TED.Very elegantly she presents a case why entrepreneurship can be taught to inspire people not only from Business but other domains to create a better world they believe in.

At a very fundamental level,the world is divided into schools of thoughts,whether you use your skills and position towards your own prosperity or do you invest them in the making world a better place.Now you can categorise this as  Republican vs Progressive ideology or whatever,nevertheless labeling won't change the essence :) If you could see through this lecture,not from a scientific perspective but from that of how science and innovation coupled with the thought of "making world a better palce",you'd realise these are the set of people im referring to.w e need to fix the problems of 21st century,and fix them now!it'll be too late if we rely on charity and govt.we need such innovates and scientists like these who can come up with efficient solutions which work,and not provide mere psychic satisfaction to donors. Is Michael Bloomberg listening?

Whether you decide by flipping a coin or after careful consideration, there's so much that goes inside your brain goes while you're doing so. And if you think about this further, you begin to decipher the patters of thoughts that go into decision making. Metacognition , as it is referred to, means thinking about how you think. As we ponder further, we delve into whether we make decisions by instinct or careful consideration of pros and cons. As unpleasant as it sounds,  Neuroscience has now well established that we tend to be intuitive in our decisions rather than deliberation. This is groundbreaking in some sense since for centuries, scientific community and philosophers have tried their best to support the "deliberation" argument which has also lead to prefer logical decisions over emotional or intuitive ones. In our quest for optimal decisions we try to force fit into different models and frameworks. This gives us a false notion that the decision we ...