In our own not-so-distant future we’ll witness the emergence of synthetic superintelligence as a new kingdom of life. Whether that will happen in 5 or 50 years doesn’t really matter, we are firmly on the path of facilitating its emergence — synthetic intelligence is an extension of us, natural intelligence, the future version of ourselves. On a long billions-of-years evolutionary journey from the first primordial prokaryote to a Solaris-like planetary mind, we’re merely years away from this cardinal metamorphosis.
“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ―Erwin Schrödinger.
“You can do it quickly, you can do it cheaply, or you can do it right. We did it right.” These were some of the opening remarks from David Toback, leader of the Collider Detector at Fermilab, as he announced the results of a decadelong experiment to measure the mass of a particle called the W boson.
I am a high energy particle physicist, and I am part of the team of hundreds of scientists that built and ran the Collider Detector at Fermilab in Illinois – known as CDF.
After trillions of collisions and years of data collection and number crunching, the CDF team found that the W boson has slightly more mass than expected. Though the discrepancy is tiny, the results, described in a paper published in Science on April 7, 2022, have electrified the particle physics world. If the measurement is correct, it is yet another strong signal that there are missing pieces to the physics puzzle of how the universe works.
Architect Neri Oxman, creator of “material ecology,” explains how silkworms, shrimp shells and insect exoskeletons could help shape the city of the future.
Not a solution, but a positive and interesting step. 2 mins.
Researchers have rejuvenated a 53-year-old woman’s skin cells so they are the equivalent of a 23-year-old’s.
Scientists in Cambridge believe that they can do the same thing with other tissues in the body which could lead to treatments for age-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and neurological disorders.
The technology is built on the techniques used to create Dolly the cloned sheep more than 25 years ago.
Coming off multiple country approvals for his “patent free” Covid vaccine, Scientist, Researcher, Author, Science Explainer, Dr. Peter Hotez, MD, Ph.D. Baylor College of Medicine, drops by for an episode of Progress, Potential, And Possibilities.
Dr. Hotez is an internationally recognized physician-scientist with expertise in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development. He leads the only product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease, and is just coming off a major win for emergency use approval of his team’s Corbevax protein sub-unit COVID-19 vaccine, of which he, and previous guest to the show, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, were recently nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Dr. Hotez is the author of more than 400 original papers, as well as the books Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases — The Neglected Tropical Diseases and Their Impact on Global Health and Development, Blue Marble Health — An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad, and Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science.
Axiom Space’s first mission plans a hefty science agenda during eight days on the International Space Station.
Houston company Axiom Space has a huge science haul planned for its debut mission, including robots and filters that could assist with future space exploration at the moon or Mars.
Some diabetes therapies work by ramping up the body’s secretion of insulin to counteract high blood sugar levels. | Preserving insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells—rather than exhausting them—might be a better strategy in the treatment of diabetes. Following that thinking, scientists at the Karolinska Institute found a cancer drug by Seagen holds promise for the metabolic disease.
Geomagnetic storms occur when space weather hits and interacts with Earth. Space weather is caused by fluctuations within the sun that blast electrons, protons and other particles into space. I study the hazards space weather poses to space-based assets and how scientists can improve the models and prediction of space weather to protect against these hazards.
When space weather reaches Earth, it triggers many complicated processes that can cause a lot of trouble for anything in orbit. And engineers like me are working to better understand these risks and defend satellites against them.
This conference will take place at EMBL Heidelberg, with a live streaming option for virtual participants free of charge. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or recovery is required for on-site attendance. Please see EMBL’s COVID-19 terms and conditions.
Workshop registration is available only to EIROforum members. Please note the workshop is an on-site-only event and contact Iva Gavran for more information or use this link for registration.
