Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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A new country called Asgardia, named after Norse mythology’s city in the skies, could be the first nation ever created in space. The hope is to embark on a mission to mine asteroids and defend Earth from dangerous meteorites, space debris, and other threats.

That is, if everything goes according to an uncertain, open-ended, and audacious plan put forth by its founders.

The group behind the Asgardia project includes space experts based out of Canada, Romania, Russia, and the United States, and they announced their sovereign ambitions from a press conference in Paris on Wednesday.

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The stability of a light sail riding on a laser beam is analyzed both analytically and numerically. Conical sails on Gaussian beams, which have been studied in the past, are shown to be unstable in general. A new architecture for a passively stable sail and beam configuration is proposed. The novel spherical shell sail design is capable of “beam riding” without the need for active feedback control. Full three-dimensional ray-tracing simulations are performed to verify our analytical results.

Arxiv — Stability of a Light Sail Riding on a Laser Beam (6 pages by Zachary Manchester, Abraham Loeb of Harvard)

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Canada’s favorite comedy show 22 Minutes of CBC (similar to The Daily Show) is out tonight with a new broadcast. My campaign and transhumanism is in it for a few minutes. Here’s a 4 minute YouTube clip from the TV broadcast that’s quite funny. Shows sometimes get a million views across Canada:

Is America ready for the first redneck, gun toting, mullet sporting, tiger tackling, gay polygamist president? Shaun Majumder investigates.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes airs Tuesdays at 8:30pm (9:00 NT) on CBC.

Watch full episodes online: http://bit.ly/watch22mins

Check out http://www.cbc.ca/comedy for more original comedy.

Continue reading “22 Minutes: The Independents” | >

Robotics and AI have “huge potential” to reshape the way people work and live, but the government needs to do more to address the issues raised by such technology, says a report.

MPs on the Science and Technology Committee have called for careful scrutiny of the probable ethical, legal and societal impact.

They want the government to establish a commission to look at the issues.

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The world of quantum computing is a minefield. The more scientists think they know about it, the more they realize there’s so much more to learn. But, with thanks to physicists in a laboratory in Canberra, we are that one step closer to seeing a real life working quantum computer as they managed to freeze light in a cloud of atoms. This was achieved by using a vaporized cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms to create a light trap into which infrared lasers were shone. The light was then constantly emitted and re-captured by the newly formed light trap.

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