Written By: Steven Kotler
It’s been a good month for miracles. And by miracles I mean our oldest miracle, that first miracle, the creation of life itself.
During these first weeks in May, two separate teams working at two separate institutions announced that when it comes to creating life from scratch, well, there are a couple of new gods in town.
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Rice Isn’t The Only Staple At Risk from Rising Temperatures http://www.21stcentech.com/rice-staple-risk-rising-temperatures/
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
A new way to beam power to medical chips deep inside the body http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-new-way-to-beam-power-to-medical…e-the-body
Glasses-free 3D projector http://www.kurzweilai.net/glasses-free-3d-projector
- @ClubOfINFO — A recent massive leap forward in synthetic life, recently published in Nature, is the expansion of the alphabet of DNA to six letters rather than four, by synthetic biologists – the technicians to whom we entrust the great task of reprogramming life itself.
Continue reading “VIRUS: Rebutting the fear of synthetic biology @HJBentham @IEET” »
— LA TImes
In a study published online Sunday in the journal Nature Photonics, three physicists from Imperial College London and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, propose a relatively straightforward method for witnessing the conversion of two photons into two particles. The trio came up with the idea and hammered out the key details in a single, coffee-fueled day, according to Imperial.
By Randy Rieland — Smithsonian.com
These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it’s developing ways to print entire meals or recreating facial features to repair a patient’s face.
But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He’s hoping 4D printing will be the thing of the not-so-far future.
The name for his concept, Tibbits admits, was a bit lighthearted at first. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tibbits and researchers from the firms Stratasys and Autodesk Inc were trying to come up with a way of describing the objects they were creating on 3D printers—objects that not only could be printed, but thanks to geometric code, could also later change shape and transform on their own.
The name stuck, and now the process they developed—which turns code into “smart objects” that can self-assemble or change shape when confronted with a change in its environment—could very well pop up in a number of industries, from construction to athletic wear.
By Ted Greenwald — MIT Technology Review
Most tech startups are silent spaces where earbud-clad engineers peer into monitors. Not Hampton Creek Foods. The two-year-old company’s office—a filled-to-bursting space in San Francisco’s South of Market tech hotbed—grinds, clatters, and whirs like a laundromat run amok. That’s the sound of industrial-strength mixers, grinders, and centrifuges churning out what the company hopes is a key ingredient in food 2.0: an animal-free replacement for the chicken egg.
Silicon Valley venture capitalists have funded several food-related startups in the past year, but Hampton Creek has gathered the most momentum. It has A-list investors including Founders Fund, Horizon Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, and two undisclosed industrial food companies are experimenting with its plant-based egg substitute. The prepared-food counter at Whole Foods began using the startup’s egg-free Just Mayo mayonnaise in September 2013, with four other mainstream grocery chains lined up for the first half of this year. And, thanks to a recent investment round that boosted Hampton Creek’s funding to $30 million and drew in Li Ka-shing, the wealthiest person in Asia, Just Mayo soon will be sold by a large online grocer in Hong Kong.
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
New algorithm shakes up cryptography http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140515163739.htm
Global Growth Worries Climb http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454770…21218.html
BBC
Two robotics experts, Prof Ronald Arkin and Prof Noel Sharkey, will debate the efficacy and necessity of killer robots.
The meeting will be held during the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). A report on the discussion will be presented to the CCW meeting in November. This will be the first time that the issue of killer robots, or lethal autonomous weapons systems, will be addressed within the CCW.
