Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 2935

In October 2020, Argentina approved the world’s first genetically engineered wheat for cultivation and consumption. Production expanded dramatically in 2021, and will continue to expand in 2022, after Argentina received regulatory approval in late 2021 for exports to Brazil, a major consumer of Argentina’s wheat.

The lessons from Argentina’s experience are important as other countries decide whether they want to follow suit. Argentina’s genetically engineered, drought-tolerant wheat — named HB4 — could have large environmental benefits, but other countries’ choices will determine their scale.

Argentina is increasingly struggling with drought and saw an opportunity for HB4 wheat to help stabilize production and revenue. Yields have been steadily decreasing since 2017, partially due to drought, with the 2020/21 season yields the second-lowest in ten years. Yields in the 2021/22 season bounced back thanks to sufficient rainfall at critical times. HB4 wheat, genetically engineered to be drought resistant, can help protect against such variability by maintaining high yields even under drought conditions. HB4’s drought resistance gene comes from sunflowers, so it qualifies as transgenic — containing genes from a different species — and therefore as bioengineered, genetically modified, or a GMO.

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This research topic consists of 148 articles on various aspects of brain augmentation contributed by more than 600 authors. At the time of writing, the articles have been viewed online more than 1.3 million times and received plentiful citations in the scientific literature. The topic won the 2017 Frontiers Spotlight Award.

The topic theme, “Augmentation of brain function,” is an umbrella term for the approaches from different disciplines, aimed at the improvement of brain performance in both healthy people and patients suffering from neurological disabilities. Functions of the brain that scientists hope to augment belong to sensory, motor and cognitive domains. Brain enhancements could be achieved pharmacologically or using neurostimulation. Functional improvements can be also achieved with brain training techniques that employ modern technologies like computer games and virtual reality. Furthermore, brain performance can be augmented using brain-machine interfaces (BMIs), the pathways that connect neuronal circuits to external assistive devices, such as limb prostheses, exoskeletons, and communication aids. In addition to sending commands to external devices, BMIs can enable bidirectional communications, where artificial sensory signals are delivered to the brain while information is being decoded from neural recordings.

Even though many of the brain-augmenting ideas sound like science fiction, the topic authors feel optimistic about most of them. The overall consensus is that brain performance can be improved with artificial components, and this approach will lead to practical applications in the not-too-distant future. Many of the techniques covered in the topic, for example BMIs and noninvasive stimulation, have already experienced an explosive development. While expectations are high for the augmentation approaches, philosophers are warning about the ethical issues related to technologies that interfere with the mind, possibly in unpredictable ways. Although some of these concerns seem far-fetched, it is important that ethical standards are kept high as these revolutionary brain-augmenting methods are being developed.

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Elon Musk claims that Tesla may have “figured out some aspects of AGI” as he believes that Tesla vehicles now have “a mind.”

The CEO has said several times that he believes most of Tesla’s value is attached to self-driving, ad he says Tesla could achieve it by the end of the year.

The Tesla community is divided between believers who think the automaker is indeed about to deliver on its long-stated promise, and people who have been burned too many times by missed timelines and think a robotaxi service from Tesla is still years away.

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Imagine walking into your local place of worship, finding your seat, and getting ready to hear a sermon. But instead of your familiar priest, minister, or rabbi, a robot steps up to deliver the day’s message. It might sound like science fiction, but it’s becoming a real possibility in some parts of the world.

Can a machine really lead a religious service? Would people accept a robot as a spiritual guide? A new study decided to find out, and the results might surprise you.

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Most algorithms need four images taken during a single night of a moving object to confirm whether it is space rock.

But new software developed by researchers at the University of Washington cuts the number to two images per night. This boosts the ability of observatories to identify these lithic projectiles fast.

The program is called HelioLinc3D, it has already found a near-Earth asteroid that older programs missed.

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While human beings have many living ancestors — bonobos, chimps, gorillas — our absence of fur immediately marks us as something different.

And though our big brains and bipedal posture have taken us to outer space, the reason our species transitioned to a mostly hairless body remains somewhat of a mystery.

Only a few other mammals share our genetic preference for sleek bodies, including rhinos, whales, elephants, and — everyone’s favorite — the naked mole rat.

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Gal Frenkel built a wooden deck and pool in the backyard of his home in central Israel the summer after he had sold luxury wedding/bar mitzvah event planner Sky Productions (opening price for an event: $1 million).

Frenkel hosted a few parties there, and after the summer he didn’t think much about his pool and deck. When he went out to look at it the following spring, he was shocked.

“The whole area looked old and ruined and faded. I was so disappointed,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “I called the guy who installed the deck and said, ‘Nadav, you really messed it up.’ He started laughing. ‘Decks need ongoing maintenance,’ he explained. So, I asked him, ‘Can you do that for me?’ ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘The price will be 10,000 shekels.’”

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