Lifeboat Foundation

New gene-editing technology could be used to save species from extinction—or to eliminate them.

I think the larger the galactic population the more deterrence will be a factor of survival. IMO the key apparatus for survival is not only nanotechnology on a personal level but to become Dysonian so we have the energy for defense.

In this video, Unveiled takes a terrifying journey into the Dark Forest! Why don’t you come along??

Continue reading “Are We Living in the Dark Forest? | Unveiled” »

Each day this week, we will be providing updates on a fictional impact scenario playing out at the International Planetary Science Conference in College Park, Maryland. This scenario is designed to help key decision makers practice for a real asteroid impact. Currently, there is no known asteroid with a significant probability of impacting Earth in the next century. Day 5: What Was This Exercise All About? This week at the 2019 Planetary Defense Conference, conference participants were tasked with responding to a hypothetical asteroid impact scenario in which they have eight years to stop an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Every day, the audience heard updates — at one point, they weren’t sure whether the 140–260-meter-wide (500−850 feet) asteroid was actually going to hit Earth. Once they found out it was on a certain collision, NASA and space agencies around the world decided to send a fleet of kinetic impactors to deflect the asteroid. The kinetic impactors hit the asteroid…but ended up splitting off a chunk, which, on Day 4 (four years from impact), again was headed towards Earth.

While headlines routinely report on “close shaves” and “near-misses” when near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids or comets pass relatively close to Earth, the real work of preparing for the possibility of a NEO impact with Earth goes on mostly out of the public eye.

A new study is flipping the script on the effects of massive meteor impacts. While an ancient impact is commonly to the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, scientists are now starting to suspect that an earlier impact could have jumpstarted life on Earth in the first place.

Scientists have long suggested that meteorites carried the ingredients necessary for life to Earth, but new research suggests that meteor impacts also created the ideal conditions for life to emerge as well, The Weather Network reports. Because of that, the scientists suggest that space agencies ought to pay special attention to similar craters when hunting for life on the Moon, Mars, or beyond.

Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur is a YouTube channel which focuses on exploring the depths of concepts in science and futurism. Since its first episode in 2014, SFIA has considered topics ranging from the seemingly mundane, to the extremely exotic, featuring episodes on megastructure engineering, interstellar travel, the future of earth, and the Fermi paradox, among others. Yet regardless of how strange a subject may seem, Isaac always tries to ensure that the discussion is grounded in the known science of today.

Isaac Arthur joins John Michael Godlier on today’s Event Horizon to discuss these subjects, the future past 2020. Thoughts on life extension. Nanotechnology. Artificial intelligence. The Fermi paradox.

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DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid. DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. The DART mission is in Phase C, led by APL and managed under NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program at Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

NASA brings you images, videos and features from the unique perspective of America’s space agency. Get updates on missions, watch NASA TV, read blogs, view the latest discoveries, and more.

So we’ve had close calls before, huh?

In the early morning of June 30, 1908, a massive explosion flattened entire forests in a remote region of Eastern Siberia along the Tunguska River. Curiously, the explosion left no crater, creating a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since — what could have caused such a huge blast without leaving any remnants of itself?

Now Daniil Khrennikov at the Siberian Federal University in Russia and colleagues have published a new model of the incident that may finally resolve the mystery. Khrennikov and co say the explosion was caused by an asteroid that grazed the Earth, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and then passing out again into space.

Continue reading “Tunguska explosion in 1908 caused by asteroid grazing Earth” »

(Checks math.)

Scientists have new evidence that Earth’s many periodic mass extinctions follow a cycle of about 27 million years, connecting the five major mass extinctions with more minor ones occurring throughout Earth’s life-fostering timespan. The artificial intelligence analysis could also shift how evolutionary scientists think about the aftermath of mass extinctions.

Elon Musk has been a vocal critic of artificial intelligence, calling it an “existential threat to humanity”. He is wrong, right?

Musk is heavily invested in AI research himself through his OpenAI and NeuroLink ventures, and believes that the only safe road to AI involves planning, oversight & regulation. He recently summarized this, saying:

Continue reading “Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence and OpenAI” »