First: neurotransmitters have very short half lives because your body doesn't want them hanging around in synapses or the signalling would work because there wouldn't be bursts of signal. Second: Blood-brain barrier-- the NT aren't getting through that to get to the rest of the body-- even if they ...

Ok, but I was thinking that it might happen this way: It has been proven than when we often feel a certain way, more neurotransmitters responsible for triggering that feeling are produced, and thus the cells develop more receptors for those kind of neurotrasmitters (and receptors for other neurotras...

Ok...I hope this doesn't sound too crazy... I was thinking, if our personality is affected (partly) by our genes, can our genes be affected by our personality? For example, if I inherit the neurosis gene and I say to myself "Ok, I'm not going to be neurotic" I will be able to control this ...

Great application for medicine...nonetheless I'm frightened about our technology evolving so fast and our brain and ethics doing the contrary...

The superior man...does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.
- Confucius

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
- Karl Marx

A man's character is his fate.
- Heraclitus

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them" Isaac Asimov

Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?
Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.
- Contact

Rei, I think, Julius, the difference lies in our priorities. I do not believe that a univseral language is worth the loss of so many cultures. I fully agree that it has strong, unifying benefits. However, I do not believe them to be worth the amount that we would lose. In short, the greater good, in...

Sorry for not posting, I've been studying for some maths exams... Anthony said, The homogenization of earth, indeed, the confluence of many globalizing effects, will lead us to either continual unification, or the total destruction of civilization. I agree. EL, If you have said this, you have not sp...

Besides, many international porblems are due to lack of communication and lousy translation between parties. Each word can hold several meanings depending on the context, and any type of misinterpretation can lead to trouble or to a worse trouble than before. Hmm... I must admit this doesn't really...

“It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.” - Ender’s Game “Order and disorder,” said the Speaker, “they each have their beauty.” - Speaker for the Death “Ignorance and deception can’t save anybody. Knowing saves them.”...

Rei said: Even as a second language this would happen, because it would not likely remain a second language if it were necessary to know it for any international business or transaction. And if it could be assumed that everyone knows it, it would be used for anything that may be printed or available...

But this international language would be a second-language, it is not about sending to oblivion all the other languages. Nonetheless, as sad as it can be, I believe that some cultures have to be sacrified. What I mean is that many indians live in infrahuman conditions lacking of the very basic servi...

What are your views on an international language (Esperanto, for example)?

What gets me is that there was apparently an hourly count-down of sorts on the radio. I mean, how sick is that? Yeah...but remember that the media did not really care about Saddam Hussein-they just thought "yei! more rating!" Getting back to the death penalty...what about police shooting ...

Merry Christmas!

Yeah...that's true...although when it is the powerful and rich who blame an innocent, it will be difficult for him to get out...

Rei, (And let me warn you now, anything suggesting that some humans have lesser value than others, especially when it comes to a general societal perspective, implies that the mentally disabled are worth less than others and you do NOT want to suggest that anywhere where it might get back to EL. Tru...

EL, We do not have the right to kill people, no matter what they have done to deserve it. But in the case of those villains you may treat it as self-defence, because you are trying to protect society from their crimes, as well as doing justice for what they did. Not to mention that some of them can ...

The chance of a prison break is very small, especially with modern prisons. That is in the US. Here we have had several drug dealers who have been able to escape. Besides, I am not talking about the death penalty as a deterrent, but as a way to get rid once and for all of some very undesireable peo...

This punishment being applied to dangerous criminals who have not shown any respect whatsoever to society and could be accused of high treason to humanity. For instance, war criminals, pederasts, heads of drug traffic cartels, kidnappers, rapists, serial killers, grave cases of corruption (e.g. poli...