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Kobian, a "humanoid" robot, which can express seven human emotions, has been unveiled by researchers at Waseda University in Japan. The Emotional Humanoid Robot can express seven different feelings, including delight, surprise, sadness and dislike. In addition to assuming different poses to match the mood, Kobian uses motors in its face to move its lips, eyelids and eyebrows into various positions, according to pinktentacle. To express delight, for example, the robot its hands over its head and opens it mouth and eyes wide. To show sadness, Kobian hunches over, hangs its head and holds a hand up to its face...

In the minds of his believers, Barack Obama has only to utter words and they become so. It is a phenomenon somewhere on the border between politics and religion. In the arena of Biblical scholarship called the New Hermeneutic, spoken words can become self-actualizing language events. This power, reinforced by media adoration, was an effective element of Obama's campaign speeches. And it continued to be effective into his first 100 some days in office. First, we'll review (aiming to be succinct) a school of Biblical criticism based on the notion of self-actualizing language. Then, apply it to how Barack Obama...

FOX News’ Glenn Beck is putting himself right in the crosshairs of the big liberal media by doing something relatively unique – teaching history to his viewers. Recently, the Obama administration joined with the MSM in an unsuccessful effort to make Rush Limbaugh the demonized personification of what it means to be a conservative. All it did was raise Limbaugh’s ratings. They’ve since backed off. You would have thought Rahm Emanuel would have learned after the beating Senator Harry Reid suffered when Limbaugh raffled off the complaint letter Reid send to Limbaugh’s radio network host and netted four million dollars...

ONE OF THE PUZZLING QUESTIONS likely to turn up sooner or later to vex the seeking Christian is how he can fulfill the scriptural command to love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. The earnest Christian, as he meditates on his sacred obligation to love God and mankind, may experience a sense of frustration gendered by the knowledge that he just cannot seem to work up any emotional thrill over his Lord or his brothers. He wants to, but he cannot. The delightful wells of feeling simply will not flow. Many honest persons have become discouraged...

Learning From The Dead: What Facial Muscles Can Tell Us About Emotion ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — Laugh and the world laughs with you, but wrinkle your nose and you could find yourself on your own. A new study by a scientist at the University of Portsmouth who examined the facial muscles in cadavers, has revealed that the muscles which control our facial expressions are not common to everyone. The Risorius muscle, which experts believe controls our ability to create an expression of extreme fear, is found in only two thirds of the population. Dr Bridget Waller has published a...

The truth is that many of the theories we come up with are bogus. They are based on the assumption that voters make cold, rational decisions about who to vote for and can tell us why they decided as they did. This is false. In reality, we voters — all of us — make emotional, intuitive decisions about who we prefer, and then come up with post-hoc rationalizations to explain the choices that were already made beneath conscious awareness. “People often act without knowing why they do what they do,” Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner, noted in an e-mail...

It takes a lot more integrity, character, and courage to be a conservative than it does to be a liberal. That's because at its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues. Going to war is mean, so we shouldn't do it. That person is poor and it would be nice to give him money, so the government should do it. Somebody wants to have an abortion, have a gay marriage, or wants to come into the U.S. illegally and it would be mean to say, "no," so we should let them. I am...

Studies show how the brain lets the emotions override common sense when reaching some tough decisions. Our correspondent reports on the 'ultimatum game' ...George Loewenstein, Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, and one of the pioneers of neuro-economics, said: “The new science of neuro-economics is lending support to a very ancient view of human behaviour. That is the idea that there is a conflict and interaction between passion, and reason and self-interest. “The now standard view of people as rational maximisers of self-interest is a very recent view. Neuroscience is telling us that that was...

"...What the researchers wanted to study was the contrast between rational and emotional appeals in political persuasion. The questionnaire's appeal was rational. It asked people who wanted a more egalitarian society to vote their views on policy matters. The letter's appeal was emotional: "We beg you in the name of those early memories and spring-time hopes to support the Socialist ticket in the coming elections!" it said. When the election was over, the Socialist vote increased by 35 percent over the previous election in the sections of the city that received the rational appeal. In the sections that received the...

A DEVICE that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed. One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Failure to notice that they are boring or confusing their listeners can be particularly damaging, says Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's sad because people then avoid having conversations with them." The...

Note: This article may seem pedantic, but it is aimed at those who are not “insiders” on the history of the Middle East.I keep hearing the phrase, “It’s their land,” regarding Palestinian claims to Israel. Terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad publicly assert that their aims are to reclaim every inch of Israel as part of a proposed Palestinian homeland. Unfortunately, these ownership claims are echoed by “activist” groups like the International Solidarity Movement and the Palestine Solidarity Movement, both with throngs of naïve followers on U.S. and European college campuses. The followers are too eager to take these...

Dyslexia, the learning disability thought to affect one in 10 Britons, does not exist and is no more than an emotional construct, education experts will claim in a television documentary to be aired next week. In the programme, which looks at the causes and treatment of poor reading, at least three academics call into question the value of separating those with difficulty in reading into dyslexics and "ordinary poor readers", when the treatment is the same for both groups. Experts say many children are being diagnosed with the condition to save embarrassment over their reading skills and in order to...

Principal John DiIorio of South Windsor High School (Connecticut) sent home four high school students who wore T-shirts on which they had written, "Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve."  The students say their constitutional right to free speech has been violated. The impetus for the T-shirts came earlier in the week, when gay students at the high school took part in the annual Day of Silence, a project orchestrated by the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.  The gay students wore signs showing their support for legislation that would recognize civil unions for same-sex couples in Connecticut....

"Conservatism is based on reason, whereas liberalism is based on emotion." I've lost count of how many times I've heard that fallacy repeated by top conservative icons and their devoted followers. It is based on the false assumption that emotion is inherently untrustworthy and distracts us from finding the right answers, and therefore has no place in political discourse. Conservatives should recognize that emotion always has and always will play a very important role in conservative ideology and argument because having and acting upon emotions is an inescapable part of being human. And rather than erroneously presuming that we conservatives...

The other day my eight-year-old son came home, took off his jacket and announced 'Daddy, I really hate Bush!' Until that point, this child had strong views on the subject of football (which he loves), school dinners (which he dislikes) and mobile phones (which he desperately desires). But this was his first statement of political preference. Why did he feel so strongly about the American president? 'Because he's so stupid', my son replied. As a proud father, I would like to boast that my young son and his classmates have developed a precocious interest in political affairs. Unfortunately, that is...

Hillsborough grief hollow, says report Feb 23 2004 By Alan Weston, Daily Post THE public outpourings of emotion after the Hillsborough disaster and the Jamie Bulger murder are examples of a culture of over-the-top caring where people indulge in "recreational grief" to feel better about themselves, a new report claims. The no-holds-barred analysis of 21st century Britain - published by social policy think-tank Civitas - said such "hollow expressions of public caring" had been triggered by the decline of institutions which once gave meaning to people's lives, such as the family, Church and neighbourhood. The national mourning at the death...

In his final "Sermon By the Sea" given in 1959 at Asilomar, California, Ernest Holmes shared with us his vision of the outcome of global well-being, the human species and Earth transformed by the consciousness that he had articulated as Science of Mind. His Sermon is a prescription for planetary resurrection, a prophetic, millennial assertion of the role of Religious Science in bringing about the world's rebirth: [Science of Mind] is the most direct impartation of Divine Wisdom that has ever come to the world, because it incorporates the precepts of Jesus, and Emerson, and Buddha, and all the rest...

Returning senators' day roils with emotion By W. Gardner Selby Express-News Austin Bureau Web Posted : 09/15/2003 4:38 PM AUSTIN — In the five minutes it took returning Democratic senators to walk to the Capitol from a nearby condominium tower today, Republican colleagues wrapped up official business and adjourned — avoiding personal confrontation on the Senate floor. “Kind of neat, wasn't it?” a GOP leader said later. Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the hasty show-and-go “eliminated the possibility of some ugly things happening. Sooner or later, all this emotion has got to diffuse itself.” But emotion rippled the first day...