This is a new Edge conversation with Mark D Pagel.

A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we’ve seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What’s happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we’re being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We’re being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. (Show me more…)

I have been thinking rather long what to do with the extra Christmas money – and here is my choice.

These are two Kickstarter projects: The first one is from South Africa, a project on Bicycle Portraits but even more important a project by SF photographer Raul Guerrero, The Disposable Project in Tanzania ( we in Gröbenzell already have some good connections to Matema in Tanzania ).

(Show me more…)

A German newspaper ( Ärztezeitung ) reports that vitamin D deficiency apparently increases all-time death rate.

Ein Mangel an Vitamin D erhöht offenbar die Sterberate.
Eine Studie in den USA hat ergeben, dass 70 Prozent der knapp 11.000 untersuchten Erwachsenen einen Vitamin-D-Mangel hatten.
Das Sterberisiko war in dieser Gruppe dreimal so hoch wie bei Personen ohne einen Mangel an dem Sonnenvitamin.

Looking at the original paper it appears (Show me more…)