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Aug 27, 2024

SpaceX Starship Flotillas Could Outrace NASA To Create Moon Base Alpha

Posted by in categories: habitats, space travel

SpaceX, with its rapidly expanding squadron of Starship rockets and super-capsules, looks poised to dominate the creation of humanity’s first base camp on the Moon.

As it ramps up producing Starship upper stages that can double as Moon-orbiting space stations or as spectacular lunar resorts, SpaceX is positioned to speed past NASA’s plans for Spartan astronaut habitats on the orb’s South Pole.

Continue reading “SpaceX Starship Flotillas Could Outrace NASA To Create Moon Base Alpha” »

Aug 27, 2024

From Today To The Year 3000: Let’s Dive Into The Future!

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, climatology, Elon Musk, environmental, life extension, robotics/AI, supercomputing, transhumanism, virtual reality

What does the future hold? What will become of this planet and its inhabitants in the centuries to come?
We are living in a historical period that sometimes feels like the prelude to something truly remarkable or terribly dire about to unfold.
This captivating video seeks to decipher the signs and attempt to construct plausible scenarios from the nearly nothing we hold in our hands today.
As always, it will be scientific discoveries leading the dance of change, while philosophers, writers, politicians, and all the others will have the seemingly trivial task of containing, describing, and guiding.
Before embarking on our journey through time, let me state the obvious: No one knows the future!
Numerous micro and macro factors could alter this trajectory—world wars, pandemics, unimaginable social shifts, or climate disasters.
Nevertheless, we’re setting off. And we’re doing so by discussing the remaining decades of the century we’re experiencing right now.

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DISCUSSIONS \& SOCIAL MEDIA

Continue reading “From Today To The Year 3000: Let’s Dive Into The Future!” »

Aug 27, 2024

James Webb Space Telescope Uncovers Six Likely Rogue Worlds with Dusty Disks

Posted by in categories: evolution, space

“Those tiny objects with masses comparable to giant planets may themselves be able to form their own planets,” said Dr. Aleks Scholz.


What can rogue planets teach us about the formation and evolution of stars and planets? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated NGC 1,333, which is a star-forming cluster located just under 1,000 light-years from Earth. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of stars and planets while challenging previous hypotheses about these processes.

“We are probing the very limits of the star forming process,” said Dr. Adam Langeveld, who is an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study. “If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that it could have become a star under the right conditions? This is important context for understanding both star and planet formation.”

Continue reading “James Webb Space Telescope Uncovers Six Likely Rogue Worlds with Dusty Disks” »

Aug 27, 2024

A history of the electron: JJ and GP Thomson

Posted by in category: particle physics

J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1906 showing that the electron is a particle: ironically, his son, G.P. Thomson, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1937 showing that it is not (or rather that the electron can also behave as a wave)


A tale of two Thomsons.

Aug 27, 2024

Thought-to-text chip smaller than Neuralink achieves 91% accuracy

Posted by in categories: computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience

The brain-machine interface race is on. While Elon Musk’s Neuralink has garnered most of the headlines in this field, a new small and thin chip out of Switzerland makes it look downright clunky by comparison. It also works impressively well.

The chip has been developed by researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and represents a leap forward in the sizzling space of brain-machine-interfaces (BMIs) – devices that are able to read activity in the brain and translate it into real-world output such as text on a screen. That’s because this particular device – known as a miniaturized brain-machine interface (MiBMI) – is extremely small, consisting of two thin chips measuring just 8 mm2 total. By comparison, Elon Musk’s Neuralink device clocks in at comparatively gargantuan size of about 23 × 8 mm (about 0.3 x .9 in).

Additionally, the EPFL chipset uses very little power, is reported to be minimally invasive, and consists of a fully integrated system that processes data in real time. That’s different from Neuralink, which requires the insertion of 64 electrodes into the brain and carries out its processing via an app located on a device outside of the brain.

Aug 27, 2024

Xpeng releases mass-market EV with basic driver-assist for less than $20,000

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

Chinese electric car company Xpeng displays its mass-market Mona M03 coupe inside a headquarters’ showroom in Guangzhou, China, on Aug. 26, 2024.

CNBC | Evelyn Cheng.

Continue reading “Xpeng releases mass-market EV with basic driver-assist for less than $20,000” »

Aug 27, 2024

Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out How to Regenerate Knee Cartilage

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, employment

Scientists at Northwestern University say they’ve invented a goo — yes, a goo — that could open the door to regenerating human knee cartilage, a finding that could eventually lead to new clinical ways to rebuild knee joints and avoid invasive and expensive knee replacement surgeries.

Cartilage is the connective tissue that wraps around joints and bones, working to absorb shock, aid mobility, and protect against painful bone-on-bone friction. These are all tough — and important! — jobs, and yet cartilage doesn’t naturally regenerate on its own. As a result, those with worn-down or damaged cartilage often wind up turning to knee replacement surgery. While effective, that road can be expensive and generally requires a lengthy recovery period.

That’s where the goo might come in.

Aug 27, 2024

Is Intersectionality a Religion?

Posted by in category: futurism

Dr. Peter Boghossian, Dr. James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose discuss Intersectionality, and whether or not it has taken on characteristics of religions. Filmed 2/19/2018 at Portland State University.

Aug 27, 2024

Scientists Teach Gel To Play Iconic Video Game

Posted by in category: entertainment

A few nutty professors have figured out a way to teach a smart gel how to play a video game, but can it clear Elden Ring?

Aug 27, 2024

Brain clocks capture diversity and disparities in aging and dementia across geographically diverse populations

Posted by in categories: life extension, neuroscience

The brain undergoes dynamic functional changes with age1,2,3.


Analyses of neuroimaging datasets from 5,306 participants across 15 countries found generally larger brain-age gaps in Latin American compared with non-Latin American populations, which were influenced by disparities in socioeconomic and health-related factors.

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