The controversial laboratory tool known as CRISPR may have found a whole new world to conquer. Already the favored method of editing genes, CRISPR could soon become a low-cost diagnostic tool that could be used practically anywhere to determine if someone has an infectious disease such as Zika or dengue.
The controversial gene-editing tool may be able to identify infections reliably for pennies in places without electricity.
Posted in transhumanism
David Wood ‘s list would be a great syllabus for a 2017 Intro to Transhumanism course.
Antidotes to the six horsemen of the Trumpocalypse
Here’s one of my deeply held beliefs. We owe it to ourselves to take best advantage of the insights and experiences of those who have gone before us. Where researchers have seen more clearly or understood more deeply than their predecessors or contemporaries, we should pay special attention to their words and concepts. Where these researchers have written books that make accessible key aspects of their hard-won expertise, we should prioritise finding the time to read these books.
But in 2016, not everyone agreed that expertise is worth attention. Experts are over-rated, we heard. The elites deserve a comeuppance.
Inventors, major companies and venture capitalists will unite next week for the first Chicago Machine Learning Venture Capital Summit.
Representatives from Google, IBM Watson, Microsoft and some of Chicago’s top investment firms will be among the speakers at April 19 event.
Toyota is introducing a wearable robotic leg brace designed to help partially paralyzed people walk.
The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person’s leg from the knee down. The patients can practice walking wearing the robotic device on a special treadmill that can support their weight.
Toyota Motor Corp. demonstrated the equipment for reporters at its Tokyo headquarters on Wednesday.
NASA is funding Mach effect propulsion in the latest round of advanced concept projects.
Nextbigfuture has covered Woodwards Mach effect propulsion in dozens of articles.
They propose to study the implementation of an innovative thrust producing technology for use in NASA missions involving in space main propulsion. Mach Effect Thruster (MET) propulsion is based on peer-reviewed, technically credible physics. Mach effects are transient variations in the rest masses of objects that simultaneously experience accelerations and internal energy changes. They are predicted by standard physics where Mach’s principle applies – as discussed in peer-reviewed papers spanning 20 years and a recent book, Making Starships and Stargates: the Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes published recently by Springer-Verlag. These effects have the revolutionary capability to produce thrust without the irreversible ejection of propellant, eliminating the need to carry propellant as required with most other propulsion systems.
Traditionally, humans have five recognized senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound. In the strictest sense, our reality is defined by anything and everything we experience through those five senses, but today’s technology is allowing us to live in a world beyond them.
The idea that humans may have more senses isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. For example, our sense of balance and our body’s inherent pain monitoring capabilities would both be considered crucial sensory inputs. Not everyone experiences the traditional five senses in the same way, either. A small fraction of the population (around 4.4 percent) has synesthesia, a form of sensory perception that causes them to experience crosswired sensations such as “seeing” sounds or “feeling” tastes.
Almost half of our jobs will vanish by 2033 due to robotics and computer automation, according to an Oxford University study. Another study commissioned by the real-estate services company CB Richard Ellis predicts that half the occupations we have now will disappear by 2025.
So who can expect pink slips during the Rise of the Machines?
Predictably, people who work on assembly lines, plantations and construction sites will be replaced by robots that don’t sleep, get sick or take smoke breaks.
When it comes to future challenges, one of the biggest will be water scarcity — on a warming planet we’re going to have plenty of seawater, but not enough fresh, clean water in the right places for everybody to drink.
And while a lot of research has focussed on desalination, a team of scientists have now come up with another possible solution — a device that pulls fresh water out of thin air, even in places with humidity as low as 20 percent. All it needs is sunlight.
It might sound too good to be true, but so far the research is solid. Called the ‘solar-powered harvester’, the device was created by teams from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, using a special type of material known as a metal-organic framework (MOF).
