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Oct 10, 2013
There is this wonderful German-language Report on the Higgs Boson and the LHC
Posted by Otto E. Rössler in categories: existential risks, physics
http://www.ardmediathek.de/wdr-fernsehen/quarks-und-co/quark…d=17482362
I learned from it about the unfathomable degree of social coherence among the many thousand scientists and engineers whose synergy makes this largest constructive effort of humankind since the pyramids possible. And it also revealed the wonderful spirit of Peter Higgs who is a loving mind in the old sense of a devout scientist.
Ranga Yogeshwar here made it clear to me for the first time WHY this brave community could not respond to a novelty that would have destroyed their cohesion. The effort was too big to be disturbed even for a few days of “second thoughts.” For that it was too late from the beginning.
So CERN’s public refusal to update its “safety report” for more than 5 years is part and parcel of the beauty of the new pyramid (the word means “immortality”). Imagine the pyramids’ construction having been disturbed by a news that interfered with its political and divine purpose: This would have meant the end of the whole effort and the civilization behind it.
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Oct 9, 2013
Quantum Metamaterial and the Feasibility of Invisiblity Cloaks
Posted by Tom Kerwick in categories: engineering, futurism, humor, military, transparency
Meta-materials — materials that have been engineered to have properties that absolutely do not exist in nature — such as negative refraction — are unraveling interesting possibilities in future engineering. The discovery of negative refraction has led to the creation of invisibility cloaks, for example, which seamlessly bend light and other electromagnetic radiation around an object, though such are normally restricted to cumbersome laboratory experiments with split-ring resonators and/or restricted to an insufficient slice of spectrum.
A recent article in ExtremeTech drew attention to the world’s first quantum meta-material, created recently by a team of German material scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. It is believed such quantum meta-material can overcome the main problem with traditional meta-materials based on split-ring resonators, which can only be tuned to a small range of frequencies and not conducive to operate across a useful slice of spectrum. While fanciful applications such as quantum birefringence and super-radiant phase transitions are cited it is perhaps invisibility cloaks that until very recently seemed a forte of science fiction.
Breakthroughs at the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan have also made great strides in building quantum invisibility cloaks, and as the arXiv blog on TechnologyReview recently commented ‘invisibility cloaks are all the rage these days’. With such breakthroughs, these technologies may soon find mass take-up in future consumer products & security, and also have abundant military uses — where it may find the financial stimulus to advance the technology to its true capabilities. Indeed researchers in China have been looking into how to mass-produce invisibility cloaks from materials such as Teflon. We’ll all be invisible soon.
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Oct 8, 2013
A Reminder to every Citizen of a Planet including its Space Station
Posted by Otto E. Rössler in categories: existential risks, particle physics
Science is based on dialog. Not a single colleague including Hawking and his crew contradicts my safety-relevant finding for 5 years. This fact can only have one of two reasons:
(1) The finding is so embarrassingly stupid that to take it up would suffice to soil the respondent.
(2) The finding harks back so deeply to the young Einstein that it causes fear to tread upon.
One country – my own – singlehandedly left CERN in response (only to surreptitiously return under non-publicized pressure).
Obviously the offered result (“gothic-R theorem”) has historical dimensions. Everyone’s survival is affected by it probability-wise if it is valid. We “live in an interesting time” as the Chinese proverb goes.
800 newspapers reported on the theorem in 2008. Only Aljazeera remained four years later. There is a “curfew of silence” obeyed by my colleagues. Not a single counterargument is in the literature against my result published in 2008 and its many sequels.
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Oct 2, 2013
The book “The Human Race to the Future” is free today
Posted by Daniel Berleant in categories: futurism, human trajectories
The book “The Human Race to the Future” (pub. by Lifeboat Foundation) will be available FREE during the day *today* (Thurs. Oct. 3). Digital edition, of course! Feel free to spread the word… and happy reading.
- The author
Oct 2, 2013
Ruling the Rhetoric on North Korea: A Pedagogical Perspective
Posted by B.J. Murphy in categories: business, education, ethics, geopolitics, military, policy
As the Western media and governments continue poking fun and demonizing a very misunderstood country, there are a group of people who are taking it upon themselves in ignoring the propaganda and instead reaching out with compassion and understanding. These people are visiting and working in North Korea. They’re not North Koreans, but the love and connection they’ve gained with the North Korean people is real and deserve to have their stories told.
![DMZ Northern Commander and former American commander, Michael Bassett, hug during the April 2013 Period of Brinksmanship. (Photo credit Joseph Ferris)](https://lifeboat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1150856_10200923256820830_1974751060_n-300x300.jpg)
DMZ Northern Commander and former American commander, Michael Bassett, hug during the April 2013 Period of Brinksmanship. (Photo credit Joseph Ferris)
I’ve interviewed a few people of importance in gaining greater insight into the country, its people, its military, and its government. It is my goal in providing an open venue for them to speak out and hopefully gain enough attention for others to follow suit.
Here I’ve interviewed Michael Bassett and Felix Abt. Mr. Bassett is a decorated Army Veteran who holds a BA in International Communication from the American University in Washington DC, a graduate certificate in North Korean Affairs from Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul, South Korea, and is currently working on his MA in Public Diplomacy from the American University.
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Oct 1, 2013
H+ Poetry: A Cosmist’s Tale
Posted by B.J. Murphy in categories: life extension, media & arts, philosophy
This poem had originally appeared on Transhumanity.
Opt Not for Death
A cosmist’s cosmological comet is in correlation
with the connotational confrontation of dreams,
Dreams that are only dreamt by the dreary of death,
Death only dreamt when no dreams are left.
For what is left than the dichotomy of life and naught,
foretold by the whispers of our ancestors’ ancestors? (more…)
Sep 29, 2013
In a Jobless Economy we need Indemnification for Influence
Posted by James Felton Keith in categories: business, economics, futurism
Sep 26, 2013
Grindhouse Wetware — Support Open Source Transhumanism
Posted by Lucas Dimoveo in categories: biotech/medical, business, open source
Grindhouse Wetware is a collective of makers and engineers founded on a basic principle – human augmentation should be accessible and open. All of our devices are built off of open source platforms. This allows our users to peer into the hardware and code of their implanted device and truly control their augmented experience. Grindhouse Wetware’s devices are tailored to Makers and DIY Transhumanists that want to build a specific, unique augmentation. What do you want to be?
After three years of development, our flagship project – Circadia, is in its final stages. Grindhouse Wetware is seeking financial support from individuals or organizations to facilitate the production of this device.
The Circadia implant records bio-medical data and transmits it to the user’s phone via bluetooth. Instead of a snapshot of the user’s state of health, the Circadia records the up-to-date status of the their well being. Grindhouse Wetware firmly believes that once an implant has been installed in an individual, it becomes a part of their person. As such, the data generated by the Circadia belongs to the user.
If you are interested in supporting Grindhouse Wetware and the Circadia implant, please contact me at [email protected] or 631−715−9209
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Sep 22, 2013
Peer-to-Peer Science: The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima
Posted by Emanuel Yi Pastreich in categories: engineering, existential risks, nuclear energy, open access
Peer-to-Peer Science
The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima
Emanuel Pastreich (Director)
Layne Hartsell (Research Fellow)
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