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Thom's blog
Can Mass Extinction Lead to Something Better?
 Every day we hear more and more about the disasters that we face if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our main energy sources. And while we used to hear about the warnings as dangers far off in the future - now we know that the effects of climate change are happening today. And that the effects are more extreme than we originally predicted even two or three years ago. But what would happen in the worst case scenario - what would happen if - like Elizabeth Kolbert warns in her most recent book - climate change caused mass extinctions across the planet Earth? According to new research - it could actually accelerate evolution on Earth! New research from the University of Texas at Austin used simulated robot brains that were programmed to improve at a task from one generation to the next. In that way - the robot brains were designed to evolve to be better at a specific task. For the robots in the study - the task was to walk on two legs. After several robot "generations" - a number of different robot behaviors had evolved to achieve the goal of walking. But not all of those behaviors were useful to the goal of walking. So the researchers "killed" 90% of the robot populations to simulate a mass extinction. And they found that the robot brain survivors began adapting and evolving much quicker than any groups had before the event. Which makes a lot of sense according to modern evolutionary theory. |
Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Max Blumenthal (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)
 Be sure to check out our newest video: RESTORATION - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners / Visit GreenWorldRising.org to check out all the videos: CARBON, LAST HOURS & GREEN WORLD RISING - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners
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Friday's Daily Stack 
Hour One: Thom riffs on the news of the day!
Article: " Myrrh" by Wikipedia. Article: " Ida May Fuller" (first American to receive a monthly benefit Social Security check).
Hour Three: Anything Goes Friday! Book: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Speech: " I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. Quote: " My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action." - Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam speech, 4 April 1967. |
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Monday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET
I'll be talking with John W. Dean about his article, " Trump Is the Authoritarian Ruler Republicans-and Some Dems-Have Been Waiting For."
And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"
And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...
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