Hud Hudson has argued that with a few assumptions one can prove that superluminal objects exist. I argue that even if the assumptions are true that his argument, if sound, leads to a proliferation of movers packing given spaces. I further argue that his argument as it stands cannot in fact entail that objects moving at any speed exist.

The study of orders as a product of spiritual creativity has its long and rich history. In addition to ethnographers, religious scholars, psychologists, philosophers, as well as scientists who carried out their research on the brink of several sciences - M. Bachtin, J. Frezer, K. Levy Briul, worked on their analysis. The orders helped find the keys to the style of thinking of primitive tribes, the peculiarities of their worldview, language, remedies, regulation of social relations.

The institution of the principle of distribution in accordance with work performed in the process of the building of socialism and the consistent implementation of this principle under the conditions of developed socialism are powerful factors in the establishment and consistent implementation of the principle of the universality of work. In the course of the building of communism, payment in accordance with work done will remain the principal source of growth of incomes. Therefore, the completeness of satisfaction of people's requirements (...) and their prosperity depend predominantly on the amount and quality of the work given to society. However, a high level of communist consciousness presumes not merely participation in social labor but a perceived need to work as efficiently and productively as possible. (shrink)

Of course you know the movie, just by cultural assimilation if not by having seen it. There’s this young elephant, Dumbo, who has laughably big ears and has been pitiably separated from his mom. He’s aided by a friendly talking mouse[ii] into translating those otherwise hapless ears into the power of flight, which he eventually uses to rescue his mom and live happily ever after. The way the wily mouse gets Dumbo to believe that he could fly is to give (...) him a “magic feather” which, held in his trunk, demonstrably imparts the gift of flight. Naturally the mouse believes throughout all this that Dumbo can fly anyway, but he also knows that Dumbo needs the feather as a confidence-builder to do so. At the critical juncture of the tale Dumbo loses the feather after being pushed off a precipice, and he thus plummets perilously towards earth—only to find at the last moment that he can indeed fly on his own. (shrink)

In recent years, the phenomena of hormonal control, embryonic determination and pattern formation have been receiving intensive scrutiny from molecular biologists. In the following «Roots» contribution, Professor Sir Vincent B. Wigglesworth reviews some of the seminal work that he did on these subjects in the insect Rhodnius prolixus.

Open peer commentary on the target article “Who Conceives of Society?” by Ernst von Glasersfeld. First paragraph: Here I underline two features of radical constructivism that render it more difficult to “cross-over” into the “social.” Firstly, the fact that we, as observers, do not have any privileged access to “external objective reality,” and secondly, that we do not have any privileged access to what we call our “internal subjective reality” either.

Originally, the Church of the Caves was not a temple in the sense of an architectural building but a complex of caves. The word "church" is used here in its initial gospel sense of council, a gathering of the initiated. Thus, what we are talking about is a certain community that prefers life in a cave to a settled secular social order. A study of the symbolic aspects of the image of the cave and cave dwelling can be an interesting (...) contribution to the explication of certain essential features of Old Kievan monasticism. This article is an attempt at such an explication. (shrink)

A cut or crush injury to a peripheral nerve results in the degeneration of that portion of the axon isolated from the cell body. The rapid degeneration of this distal segment was for many years believed to be a process intrinsic to the nerve. It was believed that Schwann cells both phagocytosed degenerating axons and myelin sheaths and also provided growth factors to promote regeneration of the damaged axons. In recent years, it has become apparent that the degenerating distal segment (...) is invaded by monocytes from the blood. We will review the evidence that these recruited macrophages play a role in both degeneration and regeneration of peripheral nerve axons after injury and consider whether the slow degeneration and poor monocyte recruitment in the central nervous system may contribute to the poor regeneration there. (shrink)