Lifeboat Foundation

Last weekend, an invite-only group of about 150 experts convened privately at Harvard. Behind closed doors, they discussed the prospect of designing and building an entire human genome from scratch, using only a computer, a DNA synthesizer and raw materials.

The artificial genome would then be inserted into a living human cell to replace its natural DNA. The hope is that the cell “reboots,” changing its biological processes to operate based on instructions provided by the artificial DNA.

In other words, we may soon be looking at the first “artificial human cell.”

Continue reading “Is the World Ready for Synthetic Life? Scientists Plan to Create Whole Genomes” »

“Airbus has filed a patent for the world’s fastest helicopter.”

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PlaNet, made by a team led by Google computer vision specialist Tobias Weyand, can determine the location of photos just by studying its pixels.

You can usually tell where a picture was taken by recognizing certain location cues within the photo. Major landmarks like the Great Wall of China or the Tower of London are immediately recognizable and fairly easy to pinpoint, but how about when the photo lacks any familiar location cues, like a photo of food, of pets, or one taken indoors?

People do fairly well on this task by relying on all sorts of knowledge about the world. You could figure out where a photo was taken by looking at any words found on the photo, or by looking at the architectural styles or vegetation.

Continue reading “Google’s Superhuman Computer Can Tell Where Nearly Any Photo Was Taken” »

Advances in microchips—particularly the graphics-processing units pioneered by Nvidia—are fueling growth in machine learning, a programming approach in which computers teach themselves without explicit instructions.

This week, Lockheed Martin revealed its Mars Base Camp concept, a space station that will orbit the Red Planet and help astronauts prepare for landing.

An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.

A modified version of the Drake Equation, and what it tells us.

My new story for Salon, which is about Christian Relativism and how it’s forcing religion to modernize to try to remain relevant. Lots of science and transhumanism in this article:

The impact of Christian relativism: To remain a dominant force, formal religion must bend and adapt.