Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: space – Page 1,059

Why Artificial Intelligence Needs Some Sort of Moral Code

Whether you believe the buzz about artificial intelligence is merely hype or that the technology represents the future, something undeniable is happening. Researchers are more easily solving decades-long problems like teaching computers to recognize images and understanding speech at a rapid space, and companies like Google goog and Facebook fb are pouring millions of dollars into their own related projects.

What could possibly go wrong?

For one thing, advances in artificial intelligence could eventually lead to unforeseen consequences. University of California at Berkeley professor Stuart Russell is concerned that powerful computers powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, could unintentionally create problems that humans cannot predict.

Venus Before Mars? The Case For Real Time TeleRobotics From Venus Orbit

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter just before dawn over the southeastern Caspian sea. Credit: Babak A. Tafreshi (TWAN) http://twanight.org/

Aside from the attention it receives around one of its rare solar transits, Venus hardly makes headlines.

But before our warming sun turned Venus into a poster child for the dangers of a runaway greenhouse, our closest planetary neighbor may have once had oceans capable of harboring complex life.

The Science of a New Space Race

The future frontier for hackers is synthetic biology.

Landmark scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project can encourage international cooperation and bring nations together. However, when security interests and defence research align with the prestige of a landmark project—international competition is all but assured. Synthetic biology is a scientific discipline less than a decade old, and the potential defence and security applications may create a new space race, this time between the USA and China.

The larger concern is not that this race may happen, but that if it does it will politicise and militarise an ethically sensitive area of the life sciences at a time when this frontier technology is critical to maintaining a sustainable world.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) cost about US$300 million (A$394 million), involved 20 international institutions and sequenced the human genome in just over a decade. The draft sequence was published in February 2001 and has driven economic, health and social benefits the world over for the last 15 years. To a very large extent this research project underpins the modern life sciences and is the equivalent of landing on the moon.

Mysterious signal from space likely came from Earth: Russian scientists

That strange music/ noise that NASA thought they heard may have originated from earth according to Russian Scientists.

For anyone excited by recent reports of a mysterious radio signal possibly sent from extra-terrestrial life forms in deep space, Russian scientists have some sobering news.

It probably came from Earth, according to a group of researchers who detected the signal in May 2015.

The strange radio activity caused a stir after Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone pointed out in a recent presentation that Russian telescope RATAN-600 picked up a strong, unexplained signal believed to be coming from about 94 light years away.

Earth Is Outside Our Delivery Zone

Something different.

“The real task with dealing with extraterrestrials is to know when you’ve got one.

It’s completely silly to search the galaxy with radio telescopes for a radio civilisation. I mean to my mind that is as chuckle-headed as deciding you are going to search the galaxy for a decent Italian restaurant.” –Terence McKenna

Russia Plans Mission to Land a Rocket on Jupiter’s Ganymede, Only Moon with its Own Magnetic Field –“100-Kilometer-Deep Ocean a Hotspot for Life”

In a video uploaded to YouTube on August 3rd (below), engineers from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, proposed an orbiter and lander mission to Ganymede. The video suggests a launch could come in the next decade. Although the commentary is in Russian, the video appears to suggest that Ganymede may be as good a candidate or better for life than Europa.

NASA is Designing A Submarine To Explore Titan’s Largest Ocean

NASA is designing a submarine that will one day be deployed to Saturn’s moon Titan, and explore it’s largest hydrocarbon ocean Kraken Mare. The project is just in the conceptional phase with the mission beginning in 2038, at the earliest.

Despite being a moon, Saturn’s natural satellite Titan is remarkably planet-like. More notably, it has striking similarities to Earth such as clouds and a dense atmosphere.

It does, however, have oceans of liquid methane instead of water, since its temperature is far too cold for liquid water to exist. This would make is most uncomfortable for much of life on Earth. Still, scientists have reasons to believe that life could emerge under these harsh circumstances, since its thick atmosphere is rich in methane and other organic compounds—signs indicative of life from an Earthling’s perspective.

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