The Atlantic: Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness?

The mere mention of “quantum consciousness” makes most physicists cringe, as the phrase seems to evoke the vague, insipid musings of a New Age guru. But if a new hypothesis proves to be correct, quantum effects might indeed play some role in human cognition. Matthew Fisher, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, raised eyebrows late last year when he published a paper in Annals of Physics proposing that the nuclear spins of phosphorus atoms could serve as rudimentary “qubits” in the brain—which would essentially enable the brain to function like a quantum computer. [...]

Over the past decade, however, growing evidence suggests that certain biological systems might employ quantum mechanics. In photosynthesis, for example, quantum effects help plants turn sunlight into fuel. Scientists have also proposed that migratory birds have a “quantum compass” enabling them to exploit Earth’s magnetic fields for navigation, or that the human sense of smell could be rooted in quantum mechanics.

Fisher’s notion of quantum processing in the brain broadly fits into this emerging field of quantum biology. Call it quantum neuroscience. He has developed a complicated hypothesis, incorporating nuclear and quantum physics, organic chemistry, neuroscience and biology. While his ideas have met with plenty of justifiable skepticism, some researchers are starting to pay attention. “Those who read his paper (as I hope many will) are bound to conclude: This old guy’s not so crazy,” wrote John Preskill, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, after Fisher gave a talk there. “He may be on to something. At least he’s raising some very interesting questions.”

read the article 

Vox: Why more than 80 million Americans won’t vote on Election Day

Consider what happened in 2012. There were 241 million people of voting age, but only 129.1 million actually cast votes for president — a turnout rate of just 53.6 percent. There’s reason to think turnout could be slightly higher in 2016, given the surge of registrations and intense feelings around Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But America’s turnout rate has been remarkably stable for the past 40 years, and the betting markets don’t seem to think this year will be much different. [...]

So what gives? Why don’t more Americans vote? I put this question to two political scientists who study voter turnout: Donald Green of Columbia University and David Nickerson of Temple University. They pointed to a couple of broad factors at work: [...]

Plus, not all states are actually trying to make it easier to vote. In recent years, states like North Carolina have been going in the other direction and trying to suppress turnout. The ACLU has an interactive graph here showing all the new voter-suppression laws on the books since 2012, from Arizona to Wisconsin to Georgia.

There may be a few other offbeat ideas to try. In one 2006 study, Green and his colleagues found suggestive evidence that turning elections into giant festivals of a sort can boost turnout. Note that in 19th-century America, when turnout was much higher, elections had much more of a festive, whiskey-soaked atmosphere. The idea, presumably, is that throwing a giant party can help cement cultural norms around voting. It’s unclear if this would work on a large scale, but it might be worth exploring.

read the article 

The Atlantic: The Four Groups That Will Decide the Presidential Race

The cumulative effect may leave Republicans relying even more heavily on the voters and regions most uneasy about the United States’ cultural and demographic change, or what I’ve called the “coalition of restoration.” Conversely, the election could substantially expand the Democratic advantage among the groups and regions most comfortable with those social changes, what I’ve called the “coalition of transformation.” Whoever wins, the safest prediction is that this election will widen every divide that fractures American politics—along lines of race, education, generation, and geography.

A Clinton victory would mean that Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections, or since 1992. That would be unprecedented: No party has won the popular vote six times in seven tries since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. Conversely, a Trump win would measure just how much separates a major portion of the electorate from the leadership class in virtually every American institution, ranging from business to national security to media, in the form of newspaper editorial boards—all of which have coalesced in virtually unprecedented fashion against the tumultuous GOP nominee. [...]

Less clear is how college-educated white men will vote. Many of these ordinarily Republican-leaning voters—the GOP nominee has carried them by double digits in all but three elections since 1980—express skepticism toward both candidates, and polls have varied widely on their preferences. Some late surveys show more of them drifting back toward their usual Republican inclinations, though the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll as of Saturday showed them breaking about evenly between the two rivals. At the least, Trump appears likely to fall well short of margins of 20 percentage points or more that these men have given the GOP nominee in three of the past four elections.

read the article 

Salon: Winds of change: First offshore wind farm in U.S. is scheduled to open this month

he first offshore wind farm in the United States is scheduled to begin operations this month off the coast of Rhode Island — a small but notable step forward, given that other offshore projects have run into stiff headwinds this side of the Atlantic. The five turbines that make up the Block Island Wind Farm will generate 30 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 17,000 homes on average.

It is a surprise (and frustration) to many that the facilities have not cropped up sooner, considering the potential that offshore wind has to reduce long-term dependence on fossil fuels — and to add new power options for coastal cities with limited real estate. In fact, offshore wind has taken off in Europe, producing a total of 11.5 gigawatts a year. Analysts put the United States’ potential at more than 2,000 gigawatts, which is almost double the current electricity use in this country. Yet efforts to launch offshore wind power have fallen short for myriad reasons. For one, electricity distributors have had little reason to pay the higher costs compared with cheaper onshore power sources, such as natural gas and hydroelectric plants. “There is a graveyard of U.S. offshore wind projects that have died after failing to secure a contract for the purchase of its electricity,” said Alex Morgan, a wind energy analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It does not help that developers currently have to import expensive turbines from Europe or Asia because there is not a homegrown supply chain.

read the article 

Politico: Russia’s boom (farming) economy

Russia hasn’t eradicated foreign products from supermarket shelves, but it has moved toward greater self-sufficiency. The country imported 36 percent of its food in 2013, before the EU’s sanctions and Moscow’s retaliatory embargo. In 2015, that figure dropped to 28 percent. In 2016, according to preliminary data, that fell again to 24 percent in the first quarter and 22 percent in the second.

Where Russia struggles to make up the shortfall — in fruit and dairy, for example — it has scrambled to find new trading partners. Moscow has approved dairy imports from New Zealand and has opened up to Asian dairy investments from Vietnam and Thailand.

Despite the rosy spin from Putin and Tkachev, Moscow is adopting a high-risk strategy. Sanctions, coupled with plunging oil prices, have hit the currency and driven up food prices by 14 percent in 2015. Fruit and vegetables cost on average 22.8 percent more in June 2015 than a year earlier, according to Rosstat, the state statistics bureau.

With local supply available for just three months of the year due to climate and growing conditions, Russia relies on imports for 90 percent of its fruit, according to the country’s agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor. On average, fruit prices jumped between 30 percent and 50 percent over 2015. The price of oranges shot up 58 percent.

read the article 

Quartz: A lot of people in the US are suddenly identifying as “white”—and a lot of them support Donald Trump

In a study of white Americans’ attitudes and candidate preferences, we found that Trump’s success reflects the rise of “white identity politics”—an attempt to protect the collective interests of white voters via the ballot box. Whereas racial prejudice refers to animosity toward other racial groups, white identity reflects a sense of connection to fellow white Americans. [...]

Non-Hispanic whites are projected to become a minority in the year 2044. This increasing diversity across the country is making whites’ own race harder and harder to ignore. Political and social phenomena, from Barack Obama’s presidency to the Black Lives Matter movement, are making whiteness even more salient to white Americans.

As whites increasingly sense that their status in society is falling, white racial identity is becoming politicized. Trump’s promise to “make America great again” speaks to these anxieties by recalling a past in which white people dominated every aspect of politics and society. That’s why media outlets from New York Magazine to The National Review have dubbed Trump an “ethnonationalist” candidate. [...]

Recent research in social psychology suggests that when whites engage in discrimination based on their perceived collective interests, it’s hard to convince them that such discrimination is wrong. After all, doesn’t every group have a right to prioritize its own members? We believe our results portend increasing difficulty in achieving the democratic aim of getting race out of American politics.

read the article 

Politico: Orbán’s ‘war of attrition’ against churches

 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is fond of presenting himself as a defender of Christian civilization. But critics say he’s waging a crusade against religious institutions — including the church of the pastor who baptized his two eldest children.

The Hungarian government, which has historically subsidized churches, in 2011 stripped about 300 mostly smaller churches and religious groups of their legal status — and, as a result, of access to state-endorsed funding programs and subsidies. Only the institutions on a government-approved list are now eligible for such schemes, including one that lets Hungarians divert 1 percent of their income taxes to a church recognized by the state. [...]

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2014 that the law violates freedom of religion and should be amended, but the Hungarian government has done little to comply. To critics of the long-ruling prime minister, the pressure on the religious groups is part of an overall push to control and stymie independent institutions that pose a potential threat to his rule.  [...]

The refugee crisis highlighted the divergence between the political positions of some of the recognized churches and the churches that had lost their status.

At the height of the flow of migrants into Hungary last year, Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and the highest-ranking Catholic official in Hungary, said the Hungarian Catholic Church would not take in any refugees, arguing that providing shelter to them constitutes human trafficking.

Small unrecognized churches, meanwhile, took a leading role in both providing assistance and advocating on behalf of refugees. The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, for example, cooked 600-800 meals per day at its central Budapest compound and provided shelter for 80-200 refugees every night. Even now, with Hungary’s borders largely closed, the Fellowship provides temporary lodging to small numbers of refugees.

read the article 

BBC: Is Turkey still a democracy?

It was seen as an anchor of stability in the volatile Middle East - although critics here believe the perception from outside was already skewed.

This week, the World Justice Project's rule of law index placed Turkey 99th of 113 countries, just behind Iran and Myanmar. It has reclaimed its place as the world's main jailer of journalists. A couple of analysts who I asked to interview for this piece were unwilling to be quoted, for fear of speaking out.

"It is the end of democracy", the HDP's Deputy President Hisyar Ozsoy told the BBC. [...]

But the kind of democracy that was defended that night is still heavily contested. Unity against the coup did not equal unity in favour of this government. Elections are still relatively free here, but not fair. The governing AK party hugely dominates the media, and is accused of intimidating voters.

read the article 

Independent: 12 eerie images of huge Chinese cities completely empty of people

Throughout China, there are hundreds of cities that have almost everything one needs for a modern, urban lifestyle: high-rise apartment complexes, developed waterfronts, skyscrapers, and even public art. Everything, that is, except one major factor: people.

These mysterious — and almost completely empty — cities are a part of China's larger plan to move 250 million citizens currently living in rural areas into urban locations by 2026, and places like the Kangbashi District of Ordos are already prepped and ready to be occupied.

Photographer Kai Caemmerer became fascinated with these urban plans, and in 2015 he traveled to China to explore and document them. His series, “Unborn Cities,” depicts a completely new type of urban development. “Unlike in the US, where cities often begin as small developments and grow in accordance to the local industries, these new Chinese cities are built to the point of near completion before introducing people,” he told Business Insider.

See 12 eerie images from his series: