I did not know that the work of Sugata Mitra in the slums of India was an inspiration to the author behind the film Slum Dog Millionaire. Now when I look back one of the concept in the movie is how someone with out a formal education can still be knowledgable. Sugata Mitra talks about his experiement that started as an engineering effort to create a machine that weathered the outdoors and ended up teaching about how people learn things.

Can you imagine a group of kids who have never seen or used the computer when exposed to it could browse the internet in a few hours? The kids thought the computer was a TV with million channels ? He even goes as far as challenging the concept of education – He suggests that humans are capable of learning on their own and dont’ need teching unless the teachers help the kids to ask the right kind of questions.

The concept of group learning was also very interesting. He suggests that if you put a group of kids in a room and expose them to a new thing such as a computer they learn more as a group than they would have as individuals. I am going to try this at work

Very interesting podcast that explores the use of cognitive enhancement drugs. Would you pop a pill to be more creative, do well on your Math etc. ? Actually some folks are already doing this. The guest argues that it is better to let pharmaceuticals market such a drug to healthy ordinary individuals as people should have a choice.

The big question that I was left with was “If these drugs don’t have any side affects and all the benefits (better intelligence, insticts, creativity etc.), should we adopt it as healthy individuals?”

My personal opinion is to let humans evolve naturally and not allow such drugs to be available for normal individuals. I am perfectly for the use of these drugs for folks who are diagnosed to have some defects, but needs a doctors prescription.

Similar to this: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2009/02/stem-cells/ What are the long term impacts of using stem cell research to modify genetics and make us better individuals? Are we causing mutation? Are we affecting evolution?

Things that stood out for me:

• I was surprised to know annually around 10Billion animals are slaughtered in the US and 60Billion around the world. By 2050 this demand worldwide is expected to be 120 Billion. Right now we use 70% of all available farmland for raising these animals.
• If each American can replace 3 meals a week of meat (or Diary) with plant based meals, we could be saving C02 emissions equivalent to taking all the SUV’s of the roads in the US – Wow!
• The number one source of calories in american diet is Soda (7%) and french fries is the only vegetable in the top 10 sources of calories