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This is a nice vid but there are two things to note.

1. he does not mention Callisto in place of Europa. Europa gets enough radiation to kill you in a day where on Callisto you would not even get the radiation you get here on Earth.

2. It might be possible to puff up a given asteroid by creating a cylinder within as he points out, but filling it with water and then heating it from outside and once it’s molten the water will expand and blow the asteroid to a larger size. It may be possible to turn a 1 mile wide asteroid into a ten mile wide habitat. I do not know how well it scales up to larger asteroids.


Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that mankind will not survive another millenia unless it makes a home beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

The celebrated physicist was addressing a lecture audience at the Oxford Union debating society on Monday evening when he gave the stark warning.

“Most recent advances in cosmology have been achieved from space where there are uninterrupted views of our Universe,” he said “but we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity.

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As the year moves on and we look back at the achievements this year we would be remiss to not mention the fantastic result we got for the OncoSENS fundraiser hosted on Lifespan.io. We raised an amazing $72,002 for ALT cancer research thanks to the amazing supporters we have. Thank you to everyone who helped and donated to OncoSENS to make it another victory for SENS Research and for Science!

#aging #sens

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This Tuesday, Microsoft announced it is partnering with OpenAI, the non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company founded and funded by Elon Musk and other industry luminaries. OpenAI seeks to develop AI to benefit all of humanity — a goal Microsoft isn’t foreign to, with its open-source deep learning software.

“It’s great to work with another organization that believes in the importance of democratizing access to AI,” reads OpenAI’s official blog announcement about the partnership. For their part, Microsoft sees a valuable partner in OpenAI. As one spokesperson said in an interview for TechCrunch: “Through this partnership, Microsoft and OpenAI will advance their mutual goal to democratize AI, so everyone can benefit.”

OpenAI will make Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform. “Azure has impressed us by building hardware configurations optimized for deep learning — they offer K80 GPUs with InfiniBand interconnects at scale,” says OpenAI. Azure is optimized for AI workloads, using its Azure Batch and Azure Machine Learning, coupled with Microsoft’s rebranded Cognitive Toolkit.

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