The "intentional stance" is a philosophical concept introduced by the philosopher Daniel Dennett. It refers to an approach we adopt when trying to understand the behavior of others—be they humans, animals, or even artificial intelligences—by treating them as if they have beliefs, desires, and intentions. When we assume the intentional stance, we interpret actions and behaviors based on the premise that the entity in question has mental states that guide its actions.
Qualia (singular: quale) are often described as the subjective, individual experiences of perception and sensation. They refer to the internal and personal aspects of how we experience things, such as the redness of a ripe apple, the taste of chocolate, or the pain of a headache. Qualia are considered important in discussions of philosophy of mind, consciousness, and cognitive science, as they relate to the challenges of explaining how subjective experiences arise from physical processes in the brain.
"Vanishing islands" typically refers to islands that are disappearing due to a combination of factors, primarily climate change and rising sea levels. These islands are often low-lying and vulnerable to erosion and flooding, leading to their gradual disappearance. Some specific points about vanishing islands include: 1. **Climate Change**: As global temperatures rise, polar ice caps and glaciers melt, contributing to higher sea levels. This inundates low-lying coastal areas and islands.
A deflator is an economic measure used to adjust nominal economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to account for changes in price levels over time. It allows for the differentiation between real growth (adjusted for inflation) and nominal growth (not adjusted for inflation).
A **stationary distribution** is a concept primarily used in the context of Markov chains and stochastic processes. It refers to a probability distribution that remains unchanged as time progresses. In other words, if the system is in the stationary distribution, the probabilities of being in each state do not change over time.
A toroidal graph is a type of graph that can be embedded on the surface of a torus without any edges crossing. In other words, it can be drawn on the surface of a doughnut-shaped surface (a torus) in such a way that no two edges intersect except at their endpoints.
Figure painting is a hobby that involves the practice of painting miniature figures, often associated with tabletop games, dioramas, or collectibles. This pastime allows enthusiasts to express their creativity and artistry by bringing models to life through color and detail. Here are some key aspects of figure painting: 1. **Figures**: The figures can range from historical soldiers and fantasy characters to sci-fi models or humanoid figures. They can be made from various materials, including plastic, resin, or metal.
Group representation is a concept from the field of abstract algebra and representation theory, which studies how groups can be represented by matrices and how their elements can act on vector spaces. Essentially, a group representation provides a way to express abstract group elements as linear transformations (or matrices) acting on a vector space. ### Key Concepts: 1. **Group**: A set equipped with an operation that satisfies four properties: closure, associativity, the existence of an identity element, and the existence of inverses.
The absolute threshold of hearing refers to the minimum sound level that an average human ear can detect. It is the point at which a sound becomes audible and is typically measured in decibels (dB) relative to a standard reference level. The absolute threshold can vary based on several factors, including frequency and individual differences in hearing acuity.
Acoustic communication refers to the use of sound waves to convey information between individuals or systems. This form of communication can be observed in various contexts and across many species, including humans, animals, and artificial systems. Here are some key aspects of acoustic communication: 1. **Biological Communication**: In the animal kingdom, many species utilize acoustic signals for communication. For example, birds sing to attract mates, warn of predators, or establish territory.
Attenuation refers to the reduction in the strength or intensity of a signal as it travels through a medium. This concept is applicable in various fields, including telecommunications, acoustics, and optics. In general terms, attenuation can be described as the loss of energy or the decrease in amplitude of a signal due to factors such as: 1. **Distance**: As a signal travels further from its source, it typically loses strength.
Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane (2006) part 5 "Murder or suicide" mentions that the key events that leads to apoptosis is when certain proteins normally present in the inner mitochondrial membrane spill out, and that this often happens when free radicals are produced in excess: the cell is really not doing well in those cases. This point suggests that the initial mitochondrial endosymbiosis happened due to a parasite that lived inside another cell. It mentions that even today we see parasites kill the host cell when they feel that the cell does not have many nutrients. This frees the parasites to then infect other cells.
ATP is the direct output of all the major forms of "energy generation" in cells:
Protocols are the biologist term for "recipe".
I found that a lot of biology comes down to this: get the right recipe, follow it well even though you don't understand all the proprietary details, and pray.
Prime factor exponent notation is a way to express a number as a product of its prime factors, where each prime factor is raised to an exponent that indicates how many times that factor is used in the product. This notation is particularly useful in number theory for simplifying calculations, finding factors, and understanding the properties of numbers.
Genomics by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Study of the genome, one of the omics.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
    .
    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
    .
    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
    .
    Figure 5.
    Web editor
    . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact