The world’s animals and wildlife are becoming extinct at a greater rate than at any time in human history. Could technology help to save threatened species?
Read our latest technology quarterly on protecting biodiversity: https://econ.st/3dqdkKN
Continue reading “Mass extinction: what can stop it? | The Economist” »
Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year cycle, giving the planet a ‘pulse,’ according to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers.
“Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time. But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random,” said Michael Rampino, a geologist and professor in New York University’s Department of Biology, as well as the study’s lead author.
Over the past five decades, researchers have proposed cycles of major geological events—including volcanic activity and mass extinctions on land and sea—ranging from roughly 26 to 36 million years. But early work on these correlations in the geological record was hampered by limitations in the age-dating of geologic events, which prevented scientists from conducting quantitative investigations.
NASA finally approves the launch of an infrared asteroid hunting space telescope able to locate threats 30M miles away…
NASA has approved the Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope to help the space agency be better prepared for future asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.
The 20-foot-long infrared telescope would help astronomers and planetary scientists find ‘most’ of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit, also known as near-Earth objects (NEOs).
Continue reading “NASA approved a space telescope that could save Earth from an asteroid” »
By knowing where meteorites come from, we can protect the Earth from asteroid collisions.
After examining 10000 kilograms of sedimentary rock, a new study suggests that meteorites come from an unidentified region in the asteroid belt.
Satellite images showing the expansion of large detention camps in Xinjiang, China, between 2016 and 2018 provided some of the strongest evidence of a government crackdown on more than a million Muslims, triggering international condemnation and sanctions.
Other aerial images—of nuclear installations in Iran and missile sites in North Korea, for example—have had a similar impact on world events. Now, image-manipulation tools made possible by artificial intelligence may make it harder to accept such images at face value.
In a paper published online last month, University of Washington professor Bo Zhao employed AI techniques similar to those used to create so-called deepfakes to alter satellite images of several cities. Zhao and colleagues swapped features between images of Seattle and Beijing to show buildings where there are none in Seattle and to remove structures and replace them with greenery in Beijing.
A new topic a new challenge for future civilizations.
I won’t write an introduction I will ask couple of questions to make you think about it.
Continue reading “Spermageddon: are humans going extinct?” »
DNA was personified in Jurassic Park, where the animated double helix that called himself Mr. DNA took you and a group of skeptical scientists through the oversimplified (and obviously fictional) steps to creating dino DNA — but there is some reality in this.
For all you dinosaur enthusiasts out there, synthesizing DNA can’t bring T.Rex and Brachiosaurus back from extinction. Though creating genes in a lab sounds like the original eureka moment of Jurassic Park, synthesizing human DNA has done everything from genetic sequencing and editing to detecting diseases like the current plague we are living through. There is just one step that has always been problematic.
An “Other” that poses an existential threat to Humanity or a collective enhancement to assure our survival?
On June 4th, 2021 leading researchers in AI, ASI and AGI will come together to discuss Collective Super-Intelligence in general and the world’s first human-mediated Artificial Super-Intelligence called Uplift in particular.
They suggest that over the past millennium, the human gut has experienced an “extinction event,” losing dozens of species and becoming significantly less diverse, says lead author and Harvard Medical School microbiologist Aleksandar Kostic. “These are things we don’t get back.”
First DNA from paleofeces show people 1000 years ago in U.S., Mexico had much more diverse gut microbes.
Large numbers of species are fleeing their usual habitats and becoming invasive species elsewhere.
