Month: September 2022

DIGITAL IMPACT. "There is little doubt that the digital technology and social media has already a significant impact on culture." https://lnkd.in/d8-nHvR View in LinkedIn

SHRINKING AND CONNECTING THE PLANET. "The Internet is the latest in a series of technological breakthroughs in interpersonal communication, following the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. It combines innovative features of its predecessors, such as bridging great distances and reaching a mass audience." https://lnkd.in/dysEKym View in LinkedIn

NEOCORTEX. "However, the Internet has novel features as well, most critically the relative anonymity afforded to users and the provision of group venues in which to meet others with similar interests and values." These have permitted democratic uprisings as well as advancing terrorism. https://lnkd.in/dysEKym View in LinkedIn

BEHAVIORAL INFLUENCERS. "The Internet and social media are very powerful tools that can influence and shape human behavior." https://lnkd.in/d8-nHvR View in LinkedIn

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE. "Two of the things that make our species special is our collective intelligence and our cumulative culture. Our intelligence is collective because we live in large social networks. From avoiding the misery of boredom and isolation to solving complex problems, we actively seek to learn from others in important ways." https://lnkd.in/dwNsDzt View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes on the theme of the Cambrian explosion, this time focusing on some of the genetic findings that can help fill in the missing fossil record. View in LinkedIn

BILATERALISM. "Close to the period of animal diversification prior to the Cambrian, the major classes of bilaterian regulatory genes greatly expanded." https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn

PRIOR GENE EXPANSION. "Classes of transcription factors involved in animal development, such as HOX, SOX, POU, F-box, and T-box, emerged most likely before the divergence of the different bilaterian animals but after the split of the basal choanoflagellate lineage from the bilaterian lineage. These metazoan transcription factor classes greatly expanded through duplication in the bilaterian ancestor, just before the Cambrian “explosion”." https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn

EXPANDED GENE TOOLKIT. "At least part of the potential for developmental evolution during the Cambrian may therefore simply stem from the expansion of the repertoire of regulatory genes in the metazoan ancestor. An increase in regulatory proteins (that can act alone or in combinations) translates into a much bigger increase in possible regulatory network configurations (“topologies”)." https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn

TOOLKIT AMPLIFICATION MATHS. "To illustrate the point, a network of 2 genes that can activate, repress, or do nothing to each other or themselves, has 81 possible topologies, while a network of 3 such genes has 19,683 possible topologies (number of topologies = 3(n)(2), where there are n2 interactions between pairs of genes and each interaction can be positive, negative, or neither of the two)." https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn