What if we removed our bad memories, would we keep repeating our futures? Would we become extreme risk takers?

• BBC NEWS | Health | Heart pill to banish bad memories
  “Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories. It may perhaps be beneficial in some cases, but before eradicating memories, we must reflect on the knock-on effects that this will have on individuals, society and our sense of humanity.”

DNA Testing articles

• DNA PLUS
• Internet DNA test kits could land you three years • The Register
• Unique DNA Gifts – Capture and Store Your DNA – See Your Unique Genetic Code
• - Genetics & Public Policy Center || Policy & Public Opinion || Issue Briefs || Surreptitious DNA testing -
• Special investigation: Who’s testing your DNA? – science-in-society – 21 January 2009 – New Scientist
• The DNA Age – A Series of Articles From The New York Times
• Knome, Inc. | Know Thyself
• Sequencing Your Genome – DNA – Genetics – Gene Map Becomes a Luxury Item – New York Times

Esoteric Predictions & Rad Religion

• BBC NEWS | Magazine | ‘Dear Blue Peter… I can save lives’
At the age of nine few children know what they will go on to do with their lives. But for a scientist involved in one of the most revolutionary medical operations of recent times, his destiny appears to have been spelled out in a letter written 35 years ago, to a BBC children’s programme.

• BBC NEWS | Magazine | Crystals versus Christ
“We think of it as our R&D department”, says Archdeacon Jackson. “We want church to be a verb not a noun,” is a favourite phrase from Fresh Expressions enthusiasts, who often talk of “emerging churches” Among the initiatives are “Rezurgence”, a Christian “extreme sport” ministry in Surrey, which describes itself as “a unique first that brings mountain biking, BMX and faith into one”, and a Christian skateboarding park in Essex.

Wife Carrying Competition in Finland

• Sonkajärvi
  The idea of the Wife Carrying Competition is Sonkajärvi’s very own and, in spite of its humorous aspects, it has deep roots in the local history. In the late 1800’s there was in the area a brigand called Rosvo-Ronkainen, who is said to have accepted in his troops only those men who proved their worth on a challenging track. In those days, it was also a common practice to steal women from the neighbouring villages.

Nanotech thinkers

• Soft Machines » Blog Archive » Will nanotechnology lead to a truly synthetic biology?

  “This piece was written in response to an invitation from the management consultants McKinsey to contribute to a forthcoming publication discussing the potential impacts of biotechnology in the coming century. This is the unedited version, which is quite a lot longer than the version that will be published.” – Richard Jones

• Metamodern — The Trajectory of Technology
  Eric Drexler blog about tech and nanotech

links for 2008-12-24

• Mosquito blood 'identifies thief'
  (tags: NSOP_DSL dna database)

Men who stare at goats

• George Clooney to ‘Stare at Goats’ – Entertainment News, Film Festivals, Media – Variety
  (tags: weird)
• Viddler.com – Jon Ronson: The Men Who Stare at Goats and Other Stories – Uploaded by frontlineclub
  (tags: weird psychology eccentric extreme/extremeobjects)
• the men who stare at goats | jonronson.com
  In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice – and indeed, the laws of physics – they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them.
  (tags: psychology eccentric extreme/extremeobjects conspiracy)

Quantifying & visualising your sexual satisfaction

• Bedpost: Bedpost is a personal web application that will give you some insight into your sex life



• MyBlackBook: You’re sexually active, so why not be responsible about it?
  By keeping track of your sexual history, you begin to put your sexual health into perspective – giving you the ability to assess your sexual behavior and make changes in your life.Keep track of your sex life.Securely record all of your sexual history – and use the real-time charts and graphs to see when you are most sexually active.Know if you are at risk.Learn if you are at risk for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases by using VDNote™ to calculate the risks involved based on your prior sexual history. more links

Nikolas Rose, BIOS, LSE

• Nikolas Rose – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Nikolas Rose — World Science Festival
• Nuffield Council on Bioethics
• SOCIOLOGY: Reflecting on the Surfaces of Life
  
• Project Biocultures

New Scientist: sci-fi special

• Science fiction special: The future of a genre – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Nick Sagan – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Kim Stanley Robinson – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Ursula K Le Guin – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: William Gibson – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Stephen Baxter – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Margaret Atwood – 12 November 2008 – New Scientist
• Sci-fi special: Your all-time favourite science fiction – 12 November …
• Sci-fi special: Is science fiction dying? – 12 November 2008 – New …
  Rather overawed by Sagan’s palatial suite and by meeting the man himself, I asked him which he preferred – science or science fiction? “Science,” he replied without hesitation. “Because science is stranger than science fiction.” That was two decades ago. Since then, we have discovered that 73 per cent of the mass-energy of the universe is in the form of mysterious “dark energy”, invisible stuff whose repulsive gravity is speeding up cosmic expansion; we have discovered micro-organisms surviving in total darkness kilometres down in solid rock and even around the cores of nuclear reactors; and we have seen the rise of superstring theory, which views the ultimate building blocks of matter as impossibly small “strings” that vibrate in a 10-dimensional space. If science was stranger than science fiction at the time Sagan spoke to me, it is even more strange now.