technologia: Popular culture

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art [cf. pop art] or mass art, sometimes contrasted with fine art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. Mass media, marketing, and the imperatives of mass appeal within capitalism constitute the primary engines of Western popular culture—a system philosopher Theodor Adorno critically termed the 'culture industry'. Heavily influenced in modern times…

Evidence: 63 • authority: 72

Appearances of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967) in popular culture are common throughout the world. During his lifetime he was a highly politicized and controversial figure, in death his stylized image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem for an array of causes, representing a complex mesh of sometimes conflicting narratives. Che Guevara's image is viewed as everything from an inspirational icon of revolution, to a retro and vintage logo. Most commonly he is represented by a facial caricature originally by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick and based on Alberto Korda's famous 1960 photograph titled Guerrillero Heroico. The evocative simulacra abbreviation of the pho…

Evidence: 48 • authority: 72

Vampires are frequently represented in popular culture across various forms of media, including appearances in ballet, films, literature, music, opera, radio, theatre, paintings, and video games. Though there are diverse and creative interpretations and depictions of vampires, the common defining trait is their consumption of blood for sustenance. They are represented using different mediums, including comic books, films, games. Examples of notable vampire-themed works, span from classic films like Nosferatu, to modern franchises like Twilight and Underworld. The role of vampires in role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade, is noteworthy. Vampires appe…

Evidence: 41 • authority: 92

Identifying and investigating emergent behaviour in neural systems.. The concept of emergence is key to understanding much of neurophysiology, neurodevelopment, and neurodegeneration. Many brain functions are underpinned by behaviour that emerges from interactions of components such as neurons, synapses, and glia. Perturbations such as ion channel mutations or trauma can lead to new types of, often detrimental, emergent behaviour. Typical approaches to neuroscience involve studying neural behaviour in a range of in vitro, in vivo , and in silico models designed to capture the key components of the brain region under investigation. Translating from these models back to the brain requires tha…

Evidence: 41 • authority: 72

The Culture is a fictional interstellar post-scarcity society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks and features in a number of his space opera novels and works of short fiction, collectively called the Culture series. The Culture is composed primarily of humanoid aliens, artificial intelligences (A.I.), and a number of other sentient life forms. The A.I. intelligence covers a spectrum; simple programs performing a specific function (e.g. controlling spacesuits), human-equivalent drones and hyper-intelligent Minds who organise and oversee the society. Beyond scarcity, the Culture has no need for money; instead, Minds organise society to maximise the well-being of its citizenry. The p…