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Lifeboat News #86

#86

Lifeboat News

This issue published on 09/01/09. Copyright 2009 Lifeboat Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

Media Sponsor Of The Singularity Summit 2009

The Lifeboat Foundation has joined organizations such as Scientific American and KurzweilAI.net as a Media Sponsor of the Singularity Summit 2009. You can see our listing at http://www.singularitysummit.com/
 
Our Itamar Arel, Gregory Benford, Ed Boyden, Bill Dickens, Ben Goertzel, Aubrey de Grey, Stuart Hameroff, Marcus Hutter, Randal Koene, Ray Kurzweil, Gary Marcus, Anders Sandberg, Jürgen Schmidhuber, and Eliezer Yudkowsky will be speaking at the Singularity Summit 2009 which will be held in New York on October 3-4 in Kaufmann Hall at the historic 92nd St Y.
 
Following is more information on this important event:
 
Over the past half a century, an increasing fraction of people who have thought seriously about the future have come to the conclusion that extrapolation of historical technological progress leads to extreme difficulties, as linear extrapolation of even old and established trends seems to imply radical emergent discontinuities which call those trends, or even their meaning, sharply into question. At first it was just Von Neumann and Lem, then I. J. Good, and by the time Vernor Vinge named this observation "The Singularity" in 1993, a critical mass of people had been talking about this for years and the name stuck.
 
Today, after a couple decades of serious discussion by a niche intellectual community, the Singularity is beginning to become the subject of mainstream investigation. In particular, the idea that radical human life extension should be achievable in the next few decades has attracted serious attention. With major life extension breakthroughs taking place in animals every few months, it has become unclear whether extending lifespans by three years by curing cancer or by 30 years by slowing aging is likely to be a more difficult research goal. This year, Google funded a $2M "Singularity University" in collaboration with NASA Ames, and two high exposure independent films were released focused on Ray Kurzweil.
 
The Singularity Summit is the world's only regular conference focused on the Singularity. Speakers will include some of the world's top researchers, futurists, and philosophers, including Ray Kurzweil, David Chalmers, Gregory Benford, Aubrey de Grey, Ed Boyden, Peter Thiel, and Jürgen Schmidhuber. They will cover a diverse range of topics related to the Singularity concept, including decision theory, AI, biotechnology, futurism, quantum computing, brain emulation, and many others. David Chalmers is known as the world's foremost philosopher on the topic of consciousness, Ray Kurzweil is widely regarded as the world's foremost (if not the most controversial) futurist, Ned Seeman is a leader on DNA nanotechnology, and Aubrey de Grey is known for his work on supporting research to fight human aging. If you are looking for a cutting-edge conference with a strong futurist bent, the Singularity Summit is for you.
 
This year, after three years in the Bay Area, the Singularity Summit will take place in New York for the first time next month. With thirty speakers all at the top of their fields and a two day speaker's workshop at the end, this looks like by far the best Summit yet for actually advancing the state of understanding of the future.
 
Learn more at http://www.singularitysummit.com/

International Journal of Green Nanotechnology

Our Kattesh Katti has launched the International Journal of Green Nanotechnology. This is the first journal to focus specifically on the crucial scientific, engineering, industrial, and logistical challenges of developing green nanotechnologies for applications in medicine, materials science, environmental science, and alternate energy production.
 
"Agricultural and medical sciences must connect with emerging areas of science and technology; the International Journal of Green Nanotechnology, edited by Professor Kattesh V. Katti, would be a means of establishing this important connection between nanotechnology and green science." — Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug, humanitarian, and Nobel Laureate.
 
Learn more at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/...0892.asp

Kattesh Katti

Our Kattesh Katti donates to our Website Redesign Fund and says "It is gratifying to be part of and donating to Lifeboat Foundation as the extraordinary group of members of this foundation operate in an 'out of the box' approach in bringing an awareness of the implications of science and technology to our day-to-day lives. This collective effort will take all of us into the next domain of science in terms of realization of the power of nanotechnology in medicine, agriculture, and environment restoration."
 
Kattesh was just bestowed with the highly coveted Doctor of Science (DSc) Honoris Causa by Karnataka University, India, in recognition of his contributions to nanoscience, nanomedicine, green nanotechnology and its application to medical and environmental research.
 
Learn about our Website Redesign Fund at https://lifeboat.com/ex/website.redesign
 
Learn about Kattesh at http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.kattesh.v.katti

NanoBioTech 2009

Our Raj Bawa is Chair of NanoBiotech 2009 which will be at the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY on October 19, 2009. This conference explores the global opportunities in nanobiotechnology and related science and engineering fields.
 
Learn more at http://www.alumni.rpi.edu/nanobio2009.html

Banners

Due to popular demand, we now have many banners available for public use at http://lifeboat.com/ex/banners

Bill Dickens

Bill Dickens joins our Economics Board. Bill is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Social Policy, Northeastern University; Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Non-resident Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution; Co-Director of the European Central Bank's International Wage Flexibility Project — a collaborative effort involving Brookings, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, and economists from 13 country teams; Board of Reviewers, Industrial Relations; and Consultant on labor, economics, and statistics.
 
Bill was previously Consultant, New York Federal Reserve Bank (Sep 2005 - Aug 2008); Director, National Community Development Policy Analysis Network (Jan 1996 - Oct 2001); and Senior Economist, President's Council of Economic Advisors (Jul 1993 - Jun 1994).
 
Learn more at http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.william.t.dickens

Growing Membership

Recent donations/pledges we have received since the last newsletter:
 
Donald Maclean: $1,000, Eric Klien: $500, Dan Stoicescu: $500, Bill Dickens: $100, Garth D. Ehrlich: $100, Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $85, Michael Anissimov: $85, Eric Bauswell: $85, Michael Dickey: $85, Jason Gaverick Matheny: $85, Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85, Matthew L. McGuirl: $75, Kenneth P. Weiss: $85, Kattesh V. Katti: $50, Frank C. Adamek: $25, C M Anderson: $25, Rick Hubbard: $25, Alan R. Light: $25, Dipanjan Pan: $25, Anonymous: $20, Ronald Amos: $10, Stephen Fleming: $10, Christopher Dilkus: $10, Thomas Dolphin: $10, Sylvia Engdahl: $10, George Garrett: $10, Joseph P. Jackson III: $10, Linus Petersson: $10, and John N. Philipps (Jack): $10.
 
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.