Stereotaxis

[Humans] have different mechanoreceptors all throughout our skin and joints that relay information about position and pressure. It’s an unusual structure, and what’s really unusual about it is its position. But it’s not about temperature, it’s not taste, it’s really about movement and pressure. That’s probably the closest analogy we have.

Unknown senses, both human and whale…

Humans walk on two feet and (mostly) lack hair-covered bodies, but the feature that sets us furthest apart from other apes is a brain capable of language, art, science, and other trappings of civilisation. Now, two studies published online today in Cell1, 2 suggest that DNA duplication errors that happened millions of years ago might have had a pivotal role in the evolution of the complexity of the human brain. The duplications — which created new versions of a gene active in the brains of other mammals — may have endowed humans with brains that could create more neuronal connections, perhaps leading to greater computational power.

#brokenmachines

groupuscule:

The rank of the top go AI has shot up from 1-dan in 2009 (pretty good but I know some people who are better) to 5-dan (only a tiny elite are better) in January 2012. 

It all sounds a bit insane: people who like sweet foods are someone just generally nicer than people who don’t. It sounds like the latest example of dubious evolutionary psychology, but it’s actually about how language subtly shapes our behavior.