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Category: existential risks – Page 17

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Reaching new worlds is a difficult task, but transplanting ecosystems and civilizations to them may be even harder.\
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Pancosmorio Paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/.…\
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Credits:\
The Fermi Paradox: Pancosmorio Theory\
Episode 428; January 4, 2024\
Produced, Written \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur\
Editor: Briana Brownell\
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Graphics:\
Jeremy Jozwik\
Ken York\
Mafic Studios\
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Music Courtesy of:\
Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

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2023 was a landmark year in space exploration for the European Space Agency (ESA), marked by significant missions like Juice’s journey to Jupiter, the launch of the Euclid space telescope for dark matter research, and the decommissioning of ESA’s Aeolus mission.

The year also saw advancements in Earth observation technologies, initiatives to address space debris, and collaborative efforts in asteroid impact studies. Notably, the Galileo satellite system’s new high-accuracy service and the first hardware tests for its second generation of satellites were significant milestones.

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The legendary former curator of the Museum of Modern Art, once described photography as “the act of pointing.” And for the nearly 200 years since its inception, photography has consisted of capturing a visual perspective from the physical world using light — first with…

A.I. generators can produce photorealistic images, which is either an extinction-level event for photographers or a fantastic opportunity. Or both.

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Resurrection biology — attempting to bring strings of molecules and more complex organisms back to life — is gaining traction in labs around the world.

The work is a far cry from the genetically engineered dinosaurs that escape in the blockbuster movie “Jurassic Park,” although for some scientists the ultimate goal is de-extinction and resurrecting animals and plants that have been lost.

Other researchers are looking to the past for new sources of drugs or to sound an alarm about the possibility of long-dormant pathogens. The field of study is also about recreating elements of human history in an attempt to better understand how our ancestors might have lived and died.

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The 2024 nuclear doomsday clock has been reset, but there is still time for final revisions.

The clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit that was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project. It began because of escalated fears of a potentially catastrophic nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It has been reset 25 times since its creation.

Viewed as a visual representation to warn the global populace about multiple factors that could negatively affect the planet, the clock was last changed on January 24 and moved forward to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. The reasoning cited the Russia-Ukraine war that, as of this February, will have lasted for two years and has led to nuclear threats from Russia.

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In the grandeur of the universe, the tapestry of life may be woven from stranger threads than we ever dared to dream, and spun from materials far different to our own.\
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Credits:\
Silicon-Based Lifeforms \
Episode 426; December 21, 2023\
Produced, Written \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur\
Graphics: Ken York / YD Visual\
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

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Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a modeling tool for assessing the potential use of a nuclear device to defend the planet against catastrophic asteroid impacts.

The research, published today in the Planetary Science Journal, introduces a novel approach to simulating the from a nuclear device on an asteroid’s surface. This new tool improves our understanding of the nuclear deflection’s radiation interactions on the asteroid’s surface while opening the door to new research on the shockwave dynamics affecting the inner asteroid.

This model will allow researchers to build upon the insights gained from NASA’s recent Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, where, in Sept. 2022, a kinetic impactor was deliberately crashed into an asteroid to alter its trajectory. However, with limitations in the mass that can be lifted to space, scientists continue to explore nuclear deflection as a viable alternative to kinetic impact missions.

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