A people is a group of individuals who belong to and function within a particular society. In common usage, the term people may be synonymous with human, or otherwise may carry an exclusive meaning. In general, the word people is a collective noun used to define a specific group of humans. However, when used to refer to a group of humans possessing a common ethnic, cultural or national unitary characteristic or identity, "people" is a singular noun, and as such takes an "s" in the plural; (example: "the English-speaking peoples of the world").
The concept of personhood (who is a person within a society) is the fundamental component of any selective concept of people. A distinction is maintained in philosophy and law between the notions "human being", or "man", and "person". The former refers to the species, while the latter refers to a rational agent (see, for example, John Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding II 27 and Immanuel Kant's Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals).
MIT's new underwater robot can hover in place Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 MIT researchers have designed the Odyssey IV, a new robotic underwater vehicle that can hover in place like a helicopter and serve as an invaluable tool for deepwater oil explorers, marine archaeologists, oceanographers and others. Robot wheelchair finds its own way Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 MIT researchers are developing a new kind of autonomous wheelchair that can learn all about the locations in a given building, and then take its occupant to a given place in response to a verbal command. Memory capacity bigger than previously thought Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 A new study from MIT cognitive neuroscientists may overturn the widespread belief that human memory does not store the details of our experiences. They have shown, given the right setting, the human brain can record an amazing amount of information. Model helps computers sort data more like humans Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 In an advance that may impact the field of artificial intelligence, a new model developed at MIT can help computers recognize patterns the same way that humans do. The model can analyze a set of data and figure out which type of organizational structure best fits it.
MIT class asks: Fly me to the moon? Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 An MIT graduate class, aimed at figuring out whether MIT could, or should, mount an entry into the $20-million Google Lunar X-Prize competition announced last fall, has arrived at the bottom line: Yes, we can (technically)! Beaver-like robots face off in annual MIT contest Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Robots designed to toss pool-noodle trees into a river of ping-pong balls ruled over competitors focused on rescuing fuzzy toy beavers in this year's 2.007 contest, "Da (yes) MIT, or Save the Baby Beavers," held on Thursday, May 8, at MIT.
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