Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 10786

Advanced technological civilizations looking for efficient communication from one end of a galaxy to another would best be served by tapping into a network of transiting extrasolar earths. That is, extrasolar earths capable of being observed transiting across the face of their parent stars. Or so says an exoplanet researcher in the U.K.

Kepler-type space observatories out looking for transits of extrasolar earths, could also look for the telltale signatures of optical lasers or even alien macro-engineering projects that might be manipulated to signal another civilization.

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China today announced plans to become the global leader in AI research and development. It will increase government spending on core AI programs to $22 billion in the next few years, with plans to spend nearly $60 billion per year by 2025.

The announcement sends a clear message: this is the age of artificial intelligence. Reuters reports the Chinese government will soon put forth AI regulations in areas concerning safety, implementation, and control. The US issued a similar statement last year in a White House review of the future of AI.

The US and China lead the field in both private-sector and government spending on machine-learning, though experts have said China’s deep-learning programs have over-taken US-led research in scope and volume.

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If you’re at FreedomFest today, please come to the 2:30PM panel on AI I’m on (Vendome C). I’ll be partially discussing my Federal Land Dividend (#Libertarian #basicincome plan).Great line-up of panelists: Michael Shermer, Peter Voss, Edward Hudgins, Gennady Stolyarov, & Eric Shuss.

Of speaker https://freedomfest2017.sched.com/event/AzET/eric-shuss-ed-h…ee-markets #transhumanism

View more about this event at FreedomFest 2017.

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Re-engineered macrophages to treat cancer.

Today we have a new study where researchers have created immune cells that ignore the way cancer tries to hide from detection.

Hiding in plain sight

The Macrophages are one of the types of immune cell and are responsible for dealing with dangerous cells, such as those which have become cancerous. The problem is most cancer cells bypass the immune system by fooling the immune cells into leaving them alone. Cancer cells present certain molecules on their surface that act like a “do not eat me” signal to macrophages which would otherwise engulf and digest them.

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Aubrey de Grey’s famous ‘general answers’ to all concerns about rejuvenation.

Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, the father of SENS, always likes to answer to all objections to/concerns about rejuvenation with two general arguments. I think it is actually worth taking the trouble to answer each objection separately (which I did), but Aubrey’s answers are very good as well. I will discuss them here and add my own considerations. (If you’re interested in Aubrey’s pure thoughts, unpolluted by mine, you might want to try this short book.)

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It’s a technology looking for a new mission.

The technology is solar electric propulsion (SEP), which NASA has identified in recent years as a key enabler for eventual human missions to Mars. SEP, the agency argued, could be used to propel cargo missions to Mars in advance of crewed missions much more efficiently than conventional chemical propulsion systems.

High-power SEP was to be tested in interplanetary space on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), powering the robotic spacecraft that would travel to a near Earth asteroid, grab a boulder off its surface, and fly back to cislunar space. However, NASA announced earlier this year it planned to cancel ARM, and Congress, never much of a fan of the mission, has shown no signs of opposing it.

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