3. A gene may increase fitness in some habitats, but not others. Its survival in the population is then balanced. An example is a bacterial gene which enhances glucose use at the expense of the ability to use other energy sources (such as lactose). This has positive effects when there is plenty of glucose, but can be lethal if lactose is the only available food source.
Empire of the Sun (band)
Empire of the Sun is an Australian electronic music group which started in 2007. The band is made up of two musicians, Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of Pnau. The pair achieved chart success with their first single, "Walking on a Dream", which got to number ten on the Australian charts, and reached 64 on the UK Singles Chart.
Their first album also called "Walking on a Dream", released in October 2008, won a platinum award in Australia. Another single from the album, "We Are the People" reached the top 25. Recently Empire of the Sun was in the news for getting to fourth position on the BBC’s annual Sound of Music poll 2009. They are currently signed to EMI Australia and Virgin UK. In November 2009, the band won four awards from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). They were given the award for the best group, the best pop release, the Album of the Year, and Single of the Year.
Empire of the Sun is very different, Luke Steele said that "...we are not a band. We're anything we want it to be..." The two musicians play a lot of instruments and dress in elaborate stage costumes.
Interrobang
An interrobang or interabang is a grammatical symbol which combines both the exclamation mark (!) and the question mark (?).
The basic purpose of is to put at the end an exclamatory sentence, such as one where we are in disbelief (ex. You did what‽)
It is a very uncommonly used symbol as most people would simply end their exclamatory questions with both of the symbols like this: !? or ?!
On a computer an interrobang looks like this: ‽
On a chromebook the unicode is: Ctrl+Shift+u+2+0+3+D
Altruism
Altruism (or selflessness) is concern for the well-being of others. A truly altruistic act is something done completely for the benefit of another, without concern for the self. It usually involves sacrificing something (time, effort or possessions), with no expectation of receiving anything in return (including recognition for the act of giving). It is considered a virtue in many cultures and a basic aspect of most religions. It is the opposite of selfishness.
Altruism is different from acts done out of responsibility, loyalty or moral obligation towards a specific individual (such as a god, a king or a government). Whether "pure" altruism is possible has been debated by scholars for thousands of years. One theory says that no act of giving, helping or sacrificing can be described as truly selfless, because the person will receive personal gratification from it (that is, a feeling of satisfaction that they have done something good for another). Whether this theory is correct depends on whether such feelings qualify as a 'reward' or 'benefit'.
The word "altruism" was given by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as "altruisme", for an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian "altrui", which in turn was derived from Latin "alteri", meaning "other people" or "somebody else".
Altruism in biological observations in field populations of the day organisms is an individual performing an action which is at a cost to themselves (e.g., pleasure and quality of life, time, probability of survival or reproduction), but benefits, either directly or indirectly, another individual, without the expectation of reciprocity or compensation for that action. Steinberg suggests a definition for altruism in the clinical setting, that is "intentional and voluntary actions that aim to enhance the welfare of another person in the absence of any quid pro quo external rewards". In one sense, the opposite of altruism is spite; a spiteful action harms another with no self-benefit.
The concept of altruism has long been studied in philosophy and ethics. The term was originally used in the 19th century by sociologist and philosopher of science, Auguste Comte. It has become an important topic for psychologists (especially those that study evolutionary psychology), evolutionary biologists and ethologists. The scholars of each field have developed different ideas about altruism. All agree that altruism is caring about the welfare of other people and acting to help them.
In the study of animal behaviour, altruism is seen in social animals when an individual willingly sacrifices itself for the better survival of the group. There are several theories about how this behaviour has come about under evolution by natural selection.
These theories try to explain how evolution has shaped psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, that encourage altruistic behaviour.
Most, if not all, of the world's religions promote selflessness as a very important moral value. It forms part of the central philosophies of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism and Sikhism, as well as many other religions.
Buddhism teaches love and compassion for all forms of life (ahimsa). Love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. It considers all living things to be equal. Unlike most other religions, Buddhists believe that the consequences of our actions come not from punishments based on moral judgment, but from the law of karma ("kamma"). Karma is the natural law of cause and effect. In this law, we experience the effects of what we cause: if you cause suffering, then as a natural consequence you will experience suffering; if you cause happiness, then as a natural consequence you will experience happiness. Most types of karmas, with good or bad results, will keep one in the wheel of samsāra; others will liberate one to nirvāna.
In Sufism, the idea of "īthār" (selflessness) is defined as preferring others over yourself. For Sufis, this means devotion to others and completely forgetting concern for oneself. It teaches sacrifice for the sake of the greater good. Islam considers those practicing "īthār" as abiding by the highest degree of virtue. In "īthār", attention is focused on everything that exists except for the self.
Visegrád Group
The Visegrád Group (also the Visegrád Four or V4) is a group of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It was created in 1991 in Visegrád, Hungary for the purposes of better cooperation among these countries.
Standard error
The standard error, sometimes abbreviated as formula_1, is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic. The term may also be used for an estimate (good guess) of that standard deviation taken from a sample of the whole group.
The average of some part of a group (called a sample) is the usual way to estimate the average for the whole group. It is often too hard or too costly to measure the whole group. But if a different sample is measured, it will have an average that is a little bit different from the first sample. The standard error of the mean is a way to know how close the average of the sample is to the average of the whole group. It is a way of knowing how sure one can be about the average from the sample.
In real measurements, the true value of the standard deviation of the mean for the whole group is usually not known. So the term "standard error" is often used to mean a close guess to the true number for the whole group. The more measurements there are in a sample, the closer the guess will be to the true number for the whole group.