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I truly love teleporting.

Teleporting the memories of an organism is possible, say scientists working on making the science-fiction phenomena come to life. They have come up with a theory that uses “quantum superposition” to place a microorganism in two places at once.

The Chinese physicists have drawn up a plan to use electromechanical oscillators and superconducting circuits to “teleport” the microbe. Its quantum state will be moved elsewhere, resulting in a big first step toward human teleportation.

Tongcang Li, co-author of the study from Purdue University, said: “We propose a straightforward method to put a microorganism in two places at the same time, and provide a scheme to teleport the quantum state of a microorganism.”

Continue reading “Teleportation of bacteria’s memories made possible” | >

Friends,

When Singularity Hypotheses was published, the technological singularity was (barely) a fringe academic topic. Three years later, and the singularity is in the headlines of every magazine and tabloid.

Yet the subject became even more controversial, with some very polarizing views confusing the public.

We’ve decided to help policy makers understand the technological singularity and publish this report. It is intended to clarify the debate, refute common misconceptions, and highlight the open questions.

Please comment below with your views!

Continue reading “The Singularity Controversy, Part I: Lessons Learned and Open Questions: Conclusions from the Battle on the Legitimacy of the Debate” | >

This is excellent news for Epilepsy.

Epilepsy, a disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures, is the fourth most common neurological problem, following only migraine, stroke and Alzheimer’s. There is no cure for epilepsy, but there are a variety of treatment options. The disease is estimated to affect 2.2 million people in the U.S., with 150,000 people developing the condition each year.

Personalized medicine Scientists at AES discussed how new technologies, such as gene editing using CRISPR-Cas9, and next-generation sequencing, are empowering them to take a new crack at the human genome and find new ways to diagnose and treat epilepsy.

“Recent advances in DNA sequencing and genomic technologies has facilitated a flood of discoveries in identifying genetic causes of epilepsy. Where we’ve been most successful is in the epileptic encephalopathies (EE),” lead author of one of the studies presented, Candace Myers, a senior at the University of Washington, said in a press conference.

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Gerd predicts that machines will have the same power of a human brain by 2025.

By the year 2025, machines will have the same power as the human brain and in 2051 they will have the power of the entire global population. Does is sound far-fetched? It is certainly a grand claim, but who better to make these kinds of observations than Gerd Leonhard, Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author and CEO of The Futures Agency.

This was one of the many observations Mr Leonhard spoke to The Malta Independent about ahead of his Keynote Address for The Economist at their ‘The World in 2016 Gala Dinner’ tonight at the Hilton, St Julian’s; where every year they invite experts and innovators from all over the world to share their ‘predictions’ for the coming year.

Mr Gerd Leonhard is a futurist, which means that his main role is to observe and deduce plausible scenarios for the future of an industry, an organization or even a country. He does not call his observations ‘predictions’, but ‘foresight’ which, according to Mr Leonhard, everyone can do but while everyone tends to look at “95% today, while [he looks] at 95% tomorrow.”

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It truly takes more than 10 year products and services roadmap to retain a company’s competitive edge these days especially with the current sophisticated and high demand consumers. Futurists truly are the NextGen Disrupters.

In the first quarter of 2015, Millennials finally overtook Generation X as the largest cohort in the workplace — there are more than 53.5 million of them working today. Their massive size and economic power has had marketers and business leaders tracking the “Millennial mindset” for years.

And yet, nipping at their heels, here comes Generation Z, the oldest of who are just starting to come of age. The U.S. Census estimates that Generation Z will include close to 80 million members — a number that eclipses the conversation-dominating Millennials.

It’s time to stop thinking in terms of generations; such thinking makes it too easy to buy into assumptions. For example, Millennials aren’t necessarily tech geniuses any more than anyone over the age of 40 is categorically a Luddite.

Continue reading “Think Like a Workplace Futurist” | >

The astrophysics project Space Warps offers a compelling example of why citizen science has become such a popular tool and how valuable it can be. In a roundtable discussion with the Kavli Foundation, citizen science leaders and astrophysicists Chris Lintott, Anupreeta More and Aprajita Verma discuss the tremendous impact these enthusiastic volunteers are having.

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A new theory from physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Stony Brook University, which will publish online on January 18 in Physical Review Letters, suggests a shorter secondary inflationary period that could account for the amount of dark matter estimated to exist throughout the cosmos.

“In general, a fundamental theory of nature can explain certain phenomena, but it may not always end up giving you the right amount of dark matter,” said Hooman Davoudiasl, group leader in the High-Energy Theory Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory and an author on the paper. “If you come up with too little dark matter, you can suggest another source, but having too much is a problem.”

Measuring the amount of dark matter in the universe is no easy task. It is dark after all, so it doesn’t interact in any significant way with ordinary matter. Nonetheless, gravitational effects of dark matter give scientists a good idea of how much of it is out there. The best estimates indicate that it makes up about a quarter of the mass-energy budget of the universe, while ordinary matter — which makes up the stars, our planet, and us — comprises just 5 percent. Dark matter is the dominant form of substance in the universe, which leads physicists to devise theories and experiments to explore its properties and understand how it originated.

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Well well well……

It looks like we just might have some neighbors after all!

Hopefully their idea of a good housewarming present DOESN’T include planetary extermination! wink

A star called KIC 8462852, or Tabby’s star, has been behaving oddly since 1890, not just recently as had been thought – and astronomers have no idea why.

Continue reading “Comets can’t explain weird ‘alien megastructure’ star after all” | >

This image shows how two microbots can be independently controlled when operating within a group. (Purdue University image/David Cappelleri)

Purdue University researchers have developed a method to use magnetic fields to independently control individual microrobots operating within groups.

The design allows for each microbot to work independently while operating in groups, similar to how ants work. Until now, it was generally only possible to control groups of microbots to move generally in unison, said David Cappelleri, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

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