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Dec 23, 2015

Airborne innovation | The Economist

Posted by in categories: big data, business, drones, governance, satellites

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“The most successful drone firms could be those that do not make them”

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Dec 22, 2015

These robots will handwrite your holiday cards

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

How bad is your handwriting? A startup from NYC has made a robot that can write your holiday cards — legibly.

Full video » http://cnnmon.ie/1S6oFhX w/ Bond.

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Dec 22, 2015

Could you pass Astronomy 101? Take the quiz!

Posted by in category: space

How much do you know about astronauts, meteorites, planets, stars, and galaxies?

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Dec 22, 2015

The Robot Cars Quietly Get Closer, The Noise They Make Will Change The World

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

With a reported tie-up between Google’s self-driving car efforts and the automaker Ford, the era of autonomous vehicles is getting closer. The impact is likely to shake up the balance of power in the global auto industry and among the technology elite. At stake is nothing less than trillions of dollars.

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Dec 22, 2015

HappyHolidays: Happy Holidays from Boston Dynamics

Posted by in category: futurism

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Dec 22, 2015

Inside the weird world of cryonics — By Courtney Weaver | Financial Times

Posted by in category: singularity

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“From the US to Russia, companies are freezing people hoping for a second shot at life”

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Dec 22, 2015

X-Ray Vision? New Technology Making It a Reality for $300

Posted by in categories: health, military

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – X-ray vision, a comic book fantasy for decades, is becoming a reality in a lab at MIT.

A group of researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dina Katabi has developed software that uses variations in radio signals to recognize human silhouettes through walls and track their movements.

Researchers say the technology will be able to help health care providers and families keep closer tabs on toddlers and the elderly, and it could be a new strategic tool for law enforcement and the military.

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Dec 22, 2015

Leaving Planet Earth: Zoltan Istvan talks human future

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, transhumanism

I’m excited to announce a 5-part series of short video interviews I did last week in New York City with the Daily Mail. Here’s one of them:


Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan from the Transhumanist Party speaks to Ellie Zolfagharifard from DailyMail.com.

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Dec 22, 2015

Giant comets may threaten Earth: astronomers

Posted by in category: asteroid/comet impacts

Can there be any doubt any more that colonizing, at minimum, the rest of the solar system is an existential species imperative!?


Most studies of potential Earth-smashers focus on objects in the asteroid belt roughly between Mars, Earth’s outside neighbour, and Jupiter on its other flank, said the researchers.

But they noted that the discovery in the last two decades of hundreds of giant comets dubbed centaurs, albeit with much larger orbits, requires expanding the list of potential hazards.

Continue reading “Giant comets may threaten Earth: astronomers” »

Dec 22, 2015

Unlocking the Brain a Healing Promise for Those Who Suffer

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, science

Controlling the brain, consciousness and the unconscious through artificial means has long been a staple plot of science fiction. Yet history has a way of proving the fictional to end up as possible, and the future of brain-machine interface appears to hold greater promise than ever before.

Image Credit: Society for Neuroscience (SFN)

Image Credit: Society for Neuroscience (SFN)

According to Neuroscience Researcher, Yale University Fellow, and the Director of Yale’s Clinical Neuroscience Imaging Center, Dr. Hal Blumenfeld, we can now therapeutically (and safely) go inside the brain. As he reflected on the recent advances in neuroscience, Blumenfeld cited the progress that’s been made in the last decade in understanding the relationship between brain activity and conscious thought as one of the biggest breakthroughs. The ability to find the switch in the brain that regulates consciousness, and turn it on and off, is a major step toward the treatment of epilepsy, brain injuries and more, and could have a profound effect on mankind, he said.

“I think the exciting advances are really looking in the network approach to understanding the brain, looking at the brain as a network, and understanding that, for something as wide reaching as consciousness to happen, you really need the whole brain network or most of the brain,” Blumenfeld said. “There’s a switch deep in the middle of the brain that can either be turned on or off. When that gets turned on, the whole rest of the brain network, including the cortex, all start to interact and create consciousness. When that switch gets flipped off, consciousness is turned down and we lose consciousness.”

Continue reading “Unlocking the Brain a Healing Promise for Those Who Suffer” »