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May 6, 2016
Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: drones, economics, military, neuroscience, surveillance
Nice; let’s hope they hit the right target.
“I need a stealth bomber that’s going to get close, and then it’s going to drop a whole bunch of smalls – some are decoys, some are jammers, some are [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] looking for where the SAMs are. Some of them are kamikaze airplanes that are going to kamikaze into those SAMs, and they’re cheap. You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles, but we’re going to hit you with 10,000 smalls, not 10,000 MQ-9s. That’s why we want smalls.”
SAMs stands for “Surface-to-Air Missile,” and they’re one of the reasons that the Air Force has invested so much in stealth technology over the years: if a missile can’t see a plane, it can’t hit it. The problem is that the economics don’t quite work that way: it’s easier to make a new, better missile than it is to make an existing airplane even stealthier, and modern Air Force fighters serve for around 30 years each—longer if they’re bombers. Missiles are generally cheaper than airplanes, so anyone who wants to protect against aerial attack just needs to invest in a lot of missiles.
Continue reading “Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles” »
May 6, 2016
IARPA funding brings ideas ‘from disbelief to doubt’
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: innovation, neuroscience
Hmmm;
The intelligence community’s research arm released its annual solicitation looking for the most innovative ideas the private sector has to offer.
May 6, 2016
Mobile phone use not causing brain cancer, University of Sydney study claims
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones, neuroscience
Cell phones do not cause brain cancer.
Mobile phone use has not caused a rise in brain cancer in Australia, says a new study led by the University of Sydney.
1100 Declassified U.S. Nuclear Targets from 1956 on the interactive NukeMap. How many nuclear weapons do you think are necessary for deterrence?
May 6, 2016
Bitcoin Pundicy: A Lifeboat Perspective
Posted by Philip Raymond in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, economics, encryption, government, internet
Here in the Lifeboat Blog, I have the luxury of pontificating on existential, scientific and technical topics that beg for an audience—and sometimes—a pithy opinion. Regular Lifeboat readers know that I was recently named most viewed Bitcoin writer at Quora under a Nom de Plume.
Quora is not a typical Blog. It is an educational site. Questions and numerous answers form the basis of a crowd-sourced popularity contest. Readers can direct questions to specific experts or armchair analysts. A voting algorithm leads to the emergence of some very knowledgeable answers, even among laypersons and ‘armchair’ experts.
During the past few weeks, Quora readers asked me a litany of queries about Bitcoin and the blockchain, and so I am sharing selected Q&A here at Lifeboat. This is my professional field—and so, just as with Mr. Trump, I must resist an urge to be verbose or bombastic. My answers are not the shortest, but they are compact. Some employ metaphors, but they explain complex ideas across a broad audience.
Continue reading “Bitcoin Pundicy: A Lifeboat Perspective” »
Tags: bitcoin, bitcoin halving, blockchain, Ellery Davies, halving, Quora
May 6, 2016
The transhumanist presidential candidate wants you to live forever
Posted by Zoltan Istvan in categories: geopolitics, life extension, transhumanism
New story and video on transhumanism from Vocativ:
His name is Zoltan Istvan, and he’s running on the Transhumanist ticket.
Continue reading “The transhumanist presidential candidate wants you to live forever” »
May 6, 2016
Luxembourg reaches for the stars with asteroid mining deal
Posted by Dan Kummer in categories: government, space travel
Still trying to figure out how Luxembourg got a space program.
(AFP) Luxembourg has staked its claim to the final frontier with an ambitious plan to profit from the mining of asteroids, the government said Thursday.
The Grand Duchy has joined forces with American company Deep Space Industries (DSI) to cash in on the wealth of natural resources thought to exist on asteroids.
Continue reading “Luxembourg reaches for the stars with asteroid mining deal” »
May 6, 2016
Facebook Loses Virtual-Reality Innovator — By Deepa Seetharaman | Wall Street Journal
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: business, virtual reality
May 6, 2016
A New Device Stimulates The Brain To Boost Athletic Performance — By Christina Farr | Fast Company
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: biological, neuroscience
“Daniel Chao, a Stanford-trained neuroscientist, and Brett Wingeier, a biomedical engineer, founded Halo Neuroscience in 2013. … Halo Sport uses electrodes to stimulate the brain’s motor cortex, which controls planning and voluntary movements. Energized motor neurons send stronger signals to athletes’ muscles, which Chao says allows them to reap greater rewards from every rep.”