Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: education – Page 201

USA Today story:

As co-writer for USA TODAY’S “For the Record,” I’ve been writing about the campaigns of Republican, Democratic, Libertarian and Green presidential candidates since the newsletter’s launch last summer. But the first presidential candidate to reach out to me was Zoltan Istvan, the Mill Valley, California-based Transhumanist Party candidate who foresees the merger of humans and technology in the very near future. I spoke by phone with Istvan last week.

Big promises are the hallmark of presidential campaigns.

Four years ago, Newt Gingrich said he’d make the moon the 51st state by 2020. Bernie Sanders has proposed free college education for every American. Donald Trump has promised to build a 1,900-mile wall on the border with Mexico.

Transhumanist Party candidate Zoltan Istvan wants to conquer death.

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Very cool.

According to NASA’s statement on the agreement, it included a formal “Implementing Arrangement” that outlines Mars exploration as the first field of cooperation between the agencies and establishes a steering committee to identify areas of mutual interest.

NASA was contacted for further comment clarifying the nature of the UAE agreement, but had not responded at the time of this writing. The agreement also entails working as a team on education, technology, safety and mission assurance as well as aeronautics and other areas in which the countries can potentially benefit.

Additionally, the two countries will aim to collaborate on education and public outreach programs and joint workshops, with the goal of facilitating the exchange of scientific data, scientists, engineers, and views and experiences on relevant regulatory frameworks and standards.

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My new Vice Motherboard article on increased social media use, trolling and what psychologically it might be doing to us:

The internet has turned us into belligerent critics.

The amount of growth Facebook has experienced in active users from 2012 to 2016 is staggering. An extra 650 million members joined worldwide in that election cycle. In the same years, Twitter—the ultimate blow-your-top-outlet-without-thinking—has grown from 340 million tweets a day to over 500 million (or 200 billion a year). In fact, many politicians and similar public personalities weren’t even on Twitter in 2012. Snapchat didn’t even exist until September of 2011.

One of the things that worries me most over this phenomenon is that capitalism allows us make to money off trolling. Lots of money. Like the unsavory consequences of cigarettes, Facebook wants you to get in endless heated discussions with people you don’t personally know and fight it out online. Every time you click and comment, their purse grows from ad sales.

Apart from the negativity of arguing with people endlessly, I’m constantly astonished by the things people say to me on social media—knowing well that I often read them. It’s not the death threats I worry about from the psychos or mentally deranged—it’s the normal people that scare me. Many have good jobs, college educations, and families, but they still say hair-raising stuff. And it’s the fact they espouse this vitriol regularly. Here’s a few:

Continue reading “Do We Really Hate Trump and Clinton So Much?” | >

Legendary master filmmaker Werner Herzog examines the past, present and constantly evolving future of the Internet in Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Working with NETSCOUT, a world leader in-real time service assurance and cybersecurity, which came aboard as a producer and led him into a new world, Herzog conducted original interviews with cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, and famed hacker Kevin Mitnick. These provocative conversatons reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships.

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Interesting concept; my only concern is to individuals with nuero diseases or prone through genetics to have neuro diseases. For Dystonia patients/ victims who have copper compounds in their systems can potentially develop a form of secondary dystonia which can be terminal. Also, my years in the labs at ORNL taught us a lot about heavy metal exposures (including copper compounds); so I am a bit taken back by this article.

A new study is further burnishing copper’s reputation as an essential nutrient for human physiology. A research team led by a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that copper plays a key role in metabolizing fat.

Long prized as a malleable, conductive metal used in cookware, electronics, jewelry and plumbing, has been gaining increasing attention over the past decade for its role in certain biological functions. It has been known that copper is needed to form red blood cells, absorb iron, develop connective tissue and support the immune system.

The new findings, to appear in the July print issue of Nature Chemical Biology but published online today, establishes for the first time copper’s role in .

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Change is coming; will you be ready?
I remember many decades ago when folks were trying to learn a new OS that changed businesses, governments/ educational institutions, and households around the world. That OS was called Windows; and hearing the stories as well as watching people try to use a PC and a mouse was interesting then.

Now, the world will again go through a large scale metamorphosis again when more and more QC is evolved and made available over the next 5 to 7 years in the technology mainstream. Change is often necessary and often can be good as well.

You might ask yourself, “What is quantum computing, and how do I get involved?”

Before we begin to explain quantum computing, a brief glimpse of the past is essential to understand how quantum computing came to be.

From our very first laptop to the laptops we have today, it is clear that technology is exponentially advancing faster than our expectations. Phones and computers get thinner and faster, but why? Thanks to the effects of Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors in a dense circuit will double approximately every two years, the amount of “stuff” needed to be put on a board is more densely packed.

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Oregon Health & Science University is currently seeking volunteers for human testing of its “promising” HIV vaccine. If that’s not enough, the Oregon university’s approach to its ground-breaking HIV vaccine is reportedly being used to develop vaccines for other diseases and infections, including tuberculosis. While many believe the TB is virtually eradicated, it actually kills almost 2 million people every year.

As Oregon Live reports, the Oregon university’s novel HIV vaccine could equate a huge step forward in the fight against HIV, as well as give the Oregon school the confidence and research it needs to pursue vaccinations against other deadly infections. In addition to being a stepping stone toward the prevention of HIV and TB, the current vaccine trials could open the door for vaccines that would prevent malaria and hepatitis C, among others.

“HIV is the poster child because it affects so many people, but there are many other conditions that are also extremely challenging to prevent or cure.”

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Click on photo to start video.

Legendary master filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams) examines the past, present and constantly evolving future of the Internet in Lo And Behold: Reveries Of The Connected World. Herzog conducted original interviews with cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, and famed hacker Kevin Mitnick. These provocative conversations reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships.

See it in theatres, On Demand, Amazon Video and iTunes August 19th.

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