We shall see…
The EM Drive has been laughed at by scientists in the past, but now it appears to actually work.
Learn about the advancements of a robot that will save lives. The plan? It’s going to produce 3D printed organs and even a fully functional human heart.
100 Year Starship (100YSS) today announced the establishment of the Canopus Award, an annual writing prize recognizing the finest fiction and non-fiction works that contribute to the excitement, knowledge, and understanding of interstellar space exploration and travel.
100YSS, led by former astronaut, engineer, physician and entrepreneur Dr. Mae Jemison, is an independent, long-term global initiative working to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100 years.
“Imagination, varied perspectives and a well told story are critical to advancing civilizations. In particular, beginning with the simple question ‘What if?’ pushes us to look beyond the world in front of us and to envision what could be, ought to be and other realities,” said Dr. Jemison. “Both science fiction and exploratory non-fiction have inspired discovery, invention, policy, technology and exploration that has transformed our world.”
The award is named for the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus, which connects humanity’s past, present and future through fact and fantasy. Over the millennia Canopus not only heralded planting seasons in the Rift Valley, but was a major navigation star for everyone from the Bedouin of the Sinai and the Maori of New Zealand to deep space probes like Voyager. Just as Canopus has helped explorers find their way for centuries, great writing —telling a story well ––is a guidepost for current and future interstellar achievement.
Canopus Award program manager and writer Jason D. Batt notes that, “100YSS is launching the awards at a particularly fortuitous time. The recent announcements of Kepler-452b exoplanet, major financial support of searches for extraterrestrial intelligence and the space probe New Horizons close encounter with Pluto and the amazing images it is generating highlight how we all look up and dream of what’s out there. The Canopus award celebrates that passion that is common to the public, researchers and science fiction fans alike.”
Canopus awards will be made in two categories. The first category is Previously Published Works of Fiction with an award made for Long Form (40,000 words or more) and one for Short Form (between 1,000 and 40,000 words). The second category is for Original Works based on this year’s 100YSS Public Symposium a theme “Finding Earth 2.0”. An award will be made for Short Form Fiction (1,000–5,000 words) and one for Short Form Non-fiction (1,000–5,000 words).
100YSS is currently accepting submissions for original works and nominations for previously published works July 28 through August 31, 2015. The Public is invited to nominate previously published works.
Winners will be announced and honored during 100YSS’s annual public symposium, October 29-November 1 in Santa Clara, California.
For more information about award criteria, nomination and submission, visit http://100yss.org/initiatives/canopusaward. To nominate or submit works to the Canopus Award, visit http://www.bit.ly/canopusaward.
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ABOUT 100 YEAR STARSHIP
100 Year Starshipâ (100YSS) is an independent, non-governmental, long-term initiative to ensure the capabilities for human interstellar flight exist as soon as possible, and definitely within the next 100 years. 100YSS was started in 2012 with seed-funding through a competitive grant from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for the purpose of fostering the type of explosive innovation and technology and social advances born from addressing such an incredible challenge. To foster such innovation, 100YSS engages in collaborative international programs and projects in research and innovation, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) capacity building, entrepreneurship and education projects with and between organizations, companies, universities and individuals. Based in Houston, TX, 100YSS recently opened an affiliate in Brussels, 100YSS@EU and is in the process of developing affiliates in Africa and Asia.
About the 100YSS 2015 PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM
The 100YSS Public Symposium is a powerful four-day event of global, transdisciplinary experience of imagination, hands-on programs, thought-provoking discussions and action on the frontiers of science, civilization, space, technology, society, music, art and our present and future. The Symposium brings together experts, enthusiasts, students, celebrities, innovators, educators, and thought leaders from around the world. 2015 is the fourth Symposium and is themed around “Finding Earth 2.0”—how both the process to discover and the definitive identification of a planet outside our solar system capable of supporting Earth-based life will be game changing across the spectrum of human activities.
100YSS is part of the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. For more information, visit www.100yss.org. To register for the 2015 Symposium, visit http://2015.symposium.100yss.org.
Find us on social media:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/100YearStarship
Twitter: @100YSS
PDFS:
Not long ago, schoolchildren chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.
Now, by my estimates, the half-life of a career is about 10 years. I expect that it will decrease, within a decade, to five years. Advancing technologies will cause so much disruption to almost every industry that entire professions will disappear. And then, in about 15–20 years from now, we will be facing a jobless future, in which most jobs are done by machines and the cost of basic necessities such as food, energy and health care is negligible — just as the costs of cellphone communications and information are today. We will be entering an era of abundance in which we no longer have to work to have our basic needs met. And we will gain the freedom to pursue creative endeavors and do the things that we really like.
More than 1,000 leading artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics researchers and others, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, just signed and published an open letter from the Future of Life Institute (FLI) today calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons.
FLI defines “autonomous weapons” as those that select and engage targets without human intervention, such as armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions.
Free Will Does Not Exist — Should it be a Transhumanist Enhancement?
Neverending Sex
Posted in life extension, sex | 3 Comments on Neverending Sex
Let’s formulate the task of life extension slightly differently. Something like this…How can we extend sex appeal?
Gyms and beauty salons are in charge of this question now. There is some success, but it’s mostly superficial. Plastic surgery only masks, but doesn’t delay the processes of aging.
Expanding sex appeal is a complex task. Its aspects include both beauty and the activity of the brain. To be sexually attractive we have to be smart and fun. One cannot solve the problem of dementia with makeup.
We have to be in an excellent physical shape to be sexually attractive, but also things should be running smoothly with our hormonal regulation.
The task of extending the period of sex appeal is extremely science-intensive. It is not only the Viagra, but a complex impact on the whole organism. It is obvious that molecular biology is responsible for sex in the modern world.
This death penalty story continuing to get coverage. This article below is nice as it mentions another idea I wrote about, which is that of death row prisoners and the possibility of cryonics.
He also suggests putting violent criminals in the Matrix for the rest of their lives.
UT Dallas scientists have constructed novel fibers by wrapping sheets of tiny carbon nanotubes to form a sheath around a long rubber core. This illustration shows complex two-dimensional buckling, shown in yellow, of the carbon nanotube sheath/rubber-core fiber. The buckling results in a conductive fiber with super elasticity and novel electronic properties. (credit: UT Dallas Alan G. MacDiarmid Nanotech Institute)
An international research team based at The University of Texas at Dallas has made electrically conducting fibers that can be reversibly stretched to more than 14 times their initial length and whose electrical conductivity increases 200-fold when stretched.
One of the most symbolic and substantively important examples of environmental conflict is over Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is the first national park in the world, and perhaps the most important natural treasure in the US. More recently it has become a site for bitter and long-lasting environmental conflict. And it has made me wonder how the scientific arguments around the issues sit with the emotional reactions inspired by the landscape and history.