Lifeboat Foundation

How often in Doctor Who does science fiction meet science FACT?

Over the 60 years Doctor Who has been on our screens, it’s fair to say the show has introduced us to a multitude of science, both fiction and fact. Aside from bio-electric dampening fields and reversing polarities, today we ask: What are some of the key bits of Doctor Who science that are relevant to life on earth today? What is the real science of Doctor Who?

Neurologists at a memory clinic in China have diagnosed a 19-year-old with what they believe to be Alzheimer’s disease, making him the youngest person to be diagnosed with the condition in the world.

The male teenager began experiencing memory decline around age 17, and the cognitive losses only worsened over the years.

Continue reading “Neurologists Diagnose The Youngest Case of Alzheimer’s Ever Reported” »

AirTag competitor Tile today announced a new Anti-Theft Mode for Tile tracking devices, which is designed to make Tile accessories undetectable by the anti-stalking Scan and Secure feature.

Scan and Secure is a security measure that Tile implemented in order to allow iPhone and Android users to scan for and detect nearby Tile devices to keep them from being used for stalking purposes. Unfortunately, Scan and Secure undermines the anti-theft capabilities of the Tile because a stolen device’s Tile can be located and removed, something also possible with similar security features added for AirTags.

“I think I’m probably just as guilty as everybody else,” Toyota Research Institute’s (TRI) senior vice president of robotics, Max Bajracharya, admits. “It’s like, now our GPUs are better. Oh, we got machine learning and now you know we can do this. Oh, okay, maybe that was harder than we thought.”

Ambition is, of course, an important aspect of this work. But there’s also a grand, inevitable tradition of relearning mistakes. The smartest people in the room can tell you a million times over why a specific issue hasn’t been solved, but it’s still easy to convince yourself that this time — with the right people and the right tools — things will just be different.

In the case of TRI’s in-house robotics team, the impossible task is the home. The lack of success in the category hasn’t been for lack of trying. Generations of roboticists have agreed that there are plenty of problems waiting to be automated, but thus far, successes have been limited. Beyond the robotic vacuum, there’s been little in the way of breakthrough.

Say you have a cutting-edge gadget that can crack any safe in the world—but you haven’t got a clue how it works. What do you do? You could take a much older safe-cracking tool—a trusty crowbar, perhaps. You could use that lever to pry open your gadget, peek at its innards, and try to reverse-engineer it. As it happens, that’s what scientists have just done with mathematics.

Researchers have examined a deep neural network—one type of artificial intelligence, a type that’s notoriously enigmatic on the inside—with a well-worn type of mathematical analysis that physicists and engineers have used for decades. The researchers published their results in the journal PNAS Nexus on January 23. Their results hint their AI is doing many of the same calculations that humans have long done themselves.

The paper’s authors typically use deep neural networks to predict extreme weather events or for other climate applications. While better local forecasts can help people schedule their park dates, predicting the wind and the clouds can also help renewable energy operators plan what to put into the grid in the coming hours.

00:00 Intro.
01:01 ChatGPT x Neuralink.
16:45 Inserting stents into blood vessels.
26:48 Pros & Cons of Neuralink’s architecture.
31:55 Neuralink clinics.
33:51 Downloading our minds onto a Tesla Optimus Bot.
52:30 If you get a Neuralink, will you lose free will?
1:04:16 AI helping Neuralink.
1:09:55 Everyone’s brain is unique.
1:23:16 Getting a Neuralink as a baby.
1:25:20 Sleep paralysis.
1:30:01 Nanotechnology x Neuralink.
1:31:59 James has an idea for Neuralink.
1:46:22 James’ favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox.
1:55:08 Haha smile

Neura Pod is a series covering topics related to Neuralink, Inc. Topics such as brain-machine interfaces, brain injuries, and artificial intelligence will be explored. Host Ryan Tanaka synthesizes informationopinions, and conducts interviews to easily learn about Neuralink and its future.

Continue reading “Learning about Neuralink w/ James Douma (ChatGPT x Neuralink)” »

‘Is AI Extending the Mind?’ is the second annual workshop by Cross Labs, this year held virtually from April 11 – 15, 2022. About the workshopThe extended mi…

To be a victim of change is to ignore its existence.

New research shows how a simple molecule called ortho-benzene helps form larger, more complex organic molecules at the core of frigid gas clouds in deep space.