Lifeboat Foundation

Atish Dabholkar, a theoretical physicist from India, has been appointed as the new director of Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy.

He is currently the head of ICTP’s high energy, cosmology and astroparticle physics section. He joined the centre in 2014 on secondment from Sorbonne Université and the National Center for Scientific Research, where he has been a research director since 2007. Mr. Dabholkar will take up his duties as ICTP director with the rank of Assistant Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He will succeed Fernando Quevedo, who has led the centre since 2009.

“It’s an honour and a great responsibility to be chosen as ICTP’s next director. ICTP is a one-of-a-kind institution with a very high level of research and a unique global mission for international cooperation through science. It was envisioned as an international hub for excellence in science and as an anchor to build scientific capacity and a culture of science around the globe. This vision remains valid today even after five decades, but needs to be implemented keeping in mind changing realities and priorities,” he said in a statement.

Three New Jersey teens brought home two international awards for their artificial intelligence robot, who competed at the International Robocup Junior Championship in Sydney, Australia earlier this month.

The team — made up of high school juniors Julian Lee of Livingston and Jeffrey Cheng from Bridgewater, and senior Alexander Lisenko, also of Bridgewater — won the third place World Title for Individual Team Tournament, and the Judge’s Award for Best Rescue Engineering Strategy in the Rescue Maze League.

The trio belongs to Storming Robots, a New Jersey-based Robotics Learning Lab, and competed against teams of 14- to 19-year-olds from around the world in the July 4–9 contest.

Is this new law anti-kemetic and anti-pagan as it implies only one “God”? And why should atheists put up with this public brainwashing? A new state law that took effect this month requires all public schools in the state’s 149 districts to paint, stencil or otherwise prominently display the national motto.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP)- When students return to public schools across South Dakota this fall, they should expect to see a new message on display: “In God We Trust.”

A new state law that took effect this month requires all public schools in the state’s 149 districts to paint, stencil or otherwise prominently display the national motto.

Continue reading “‘In God We Trust’ signs going up in South Dakota public schools” »

Humans have proven themselves remarkably adept at learning to do what other animals can do naturally. We have taught ourselves to fly like birds, climb like monkeys and burrow like moles. But the one animal that has always proven beyond our reach is the fish.

The invention of scuba diving has allowed us to breathe underwater but only at very shallow depths.

Thanks to our inability to conquer the bends, diving below 70m still remains astonishingly dangerous to anyone but a handful of experts. Ultra-deep diving is so lethal that more people have walked on the moon than descended below 240m using scuba gear.

Fifty years after the Apollo 11 lunar landing proved that America could meet President John F. Kennedy’s challenge and beat Russia in the space race, man is walking on the moon once again. This time inside a Lunar Dome at the Rose Bowl.

“Apollo 11 — The Immersive Live Show,” which is in previews and officially opens Wednesday, promises a multimedia spectacle under a gigantic $5-million dome designed to tell a big story in a big way: with live actors, documentary footage, archival audio, 360-degree video projection and props that will simulate a rocket launch and include a life-size re-creation of the lunar landing module. Yes, the one with funny foil hanging around it.

The project is the brainchild of British producer Nick Grace, veteran of international tours of the musical “Mamma Mia!” and Blue Man Group. (Grace’s production is also at the center of an L.A. Times Ideas Exchange program on July 20.)

“If you rearrange the atoms in coal, you get diamond. If you rearrange the atoms in sand, you get silicon. How atoms are arranged is fundamental to all material aspects of life,” says Ralph Merkle, currently senior research chair at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. He’s a large, pear-shaped man who, as he speaks, waves his arms far more energetically than his physique would imply. He modulates his tone dramatically for effect, often humorous.

Those words kick off day 2 at the Singularity University Executive Program. The curriculum divides roughly into three days of intensive classroom introductions to critical tech domains, three days of visits to Silicon Valley companies, and two days of workshops devoted to specific industries, plus a final day to wrap up. On Saturday I settled gingerly into a lightly padded metal chair for highly compressed, sometimes super technical, up-to-the-minute overviews of artificial intelligence, robotics, networking, computing, and quantum computing. (Forecast: sunny! With patchy clouds and fog.) That took until dinner time with only a quick break for lunch, which was filled with presentations by graduates of SU’s nine-week summer program.

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The three-hour event was part marketing spectacle and part dry technical explainer. Musk and his team members described the brain-machine interface design they’re betting on, which will employ dozens of thin wires to collect signals in the brain, and which they want to try out on paralyzed people soon, so they can type with their minds. Their eventual aim is to connect those wires to a thought transmitter which tucks behind your ear like a hearing aid.

Well, it’s pretty cool. It seemed like maybe it will work the way they want down the road, but it probably doesn’t work that way now. A couple of years ago, when I heard he was working with a neural interface, I said I would be there in a heartbeat. I was joking, but it’s interesting to think about what I am going to do when I get explanted. I am coming up on my five years. Then the FDA says my implants may have to come out. Neuralink talked about longevity of the implant and also a large number of electrodes. I always say I wish they had put more electrodes into me.

Basically, the more electrodes you have, the more neurons you record from, so I would imagine higher-degree tasks would be easier. I am limited to thinking about my right arm and hand. I thought it would be good to have more control. I always want to play more video games.

Continue reading “Man with brain implant on Musk’s Neuralink: ‘I would play video games’” »

My mission is to drastically improve your life by helping you break bad habits, build and keep new healthy habits to make you the best version of yourself. I read the books and do all the research and share my findings with you!

This video is an interview of Dr. Aubrey de Grey @ SENS on July 17, 2019. My wife, Lauren Nally, was our camerawoman.

Continue reading “Brent Nally interviews Dr. Aubrey de Grey @ SENS on July 17, 2019” »

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon. Check out this rare documentary Apollo 11: First Steps on the Moon.

Featuring interviews with the astronauts and NASA officials. See why it was “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Streaming now & free http://bit.ly/Apollo11Doco #apollo11