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Oct 29, 2022

Give peace a chance in Ukraine: The chorus rises, around the world and across the spectrum

Posted by in categories: ethics, existential risks, military

The escalating crisis exposes the weakness of Biden’s position. He is gambling with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, over which he has no moral claim, that Ukraine will somehow be in a stronger military position after a winter of war and power outages, with hundreds of thousands more Russian troops in the areas they control. This is a bet on a much longer war, in which U.S. taxpayers will shell out for thousands of tons of weapons and many more Ukrainians will die, with no clear endgame short of nuclear war.

#StopWar #NoWar #NuclearWar #WW3


Leaders in the global South, former U.S. diplomats and Henry Kissinger (!) agree: It’s time to negotiate for real.

Continue reading “Give peace a chance in Ukraine: The chorus rises, around the world and across the spectrum” »

Oct 29, 2022

The Day Technology Went Away

Posted by in category: futurism

An exploration of a strange phenomenon of solar flares that could reset technology and civilization to something close to the stone age overnight.

My Patreon Page:

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Oct 29, 2022

Solar eclipse archives show the Earth’s changing rotation

Posted by in category: futurism

WestTexasKen/Pixabay.

Upcoming solar eclipse.

Oct 29, 2022

In Defence of Strong AI: Semantics from Syntax

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

Next, you seem to assume that when I catch a ball, my mind solves equations unconsciously, brining together inertia, gravity, air resistance to calculate my response. You may be right, but I don’t think most neuroscientist agree with you. That’s another computationalist prejudice. Rather than solving equations, my nervous system uses experience and extrapolation through repeated trial and improvement to hone a skill in extrapolating paths; no equations involved. As I say, I could be wrong, it’s an empirical question. But as far as I know, the balance of evidence and theory supports my interpretation.

The meaning of semantics is not just that it means something, but that it can be used to make statements about the world, beyond the formal system used to express that meaning. That, too, is definitional.

Your main argument seems like a really desperate move to sustain the computationalist faith that you assert at the beginning in the face of huge, perhaps insuperable difficulties.

Oct 29, 2022

Fish Basket — Imaginarium (Official Music Video)

Posted by in categories: entertainment, media & arts, robotics/AI

The recipe for the Imaginarium is locked behind the ancient doors. Three brave hunters are sent on a mission to get the three mysterious scrolls needed to open them… but somebody doesn’t like it at all.

Official Music Video for “Imaginarium” by Fish Basket.

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Oct 29, 2022

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Posted by in category: policy

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Oct 29, 2022

Astrophysicists make observations consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity

Posted by in category: physics

An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton’s laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In their work, the researchers investigated open star clusters. These are formed when thousands of stars are born within a short time in a huge gas cloud. As they “ignite,” the galactic newcomers blow away the remnants of the gas cloud. In the process, the cluster expands considerably. This creates a loose formation of several dozen to several thousand stars. The weak gravitational forces acting between them hold the cluster together.

“In most cases, open star clusters survive only a few hundred million years before they dissolve,” explains Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa of the Helmholtz Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn. In the process, they regularly lose stars, which accumulate in two so-called “tidal tails.” One of these tails is pulled behind the cluster as it travels through space. The other, in contrast, takes the lead like a spearhead.

Oct 29, 2022

New Findings Rewrite the Evolutionary Story of “Fish to Human”

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences‘Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) have recently found two fossil repositories in the early Silurian strata of southwest Guizhou and Chongqing that are rewriting the “from fish to human” evolutionary story.

Four different papers describing their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

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Oct 29, 2022

The hunt for habitable planets may have just gotten far more narrow, new study finds

Posted by in category: alien life

The hunt for planets that could harbor life may have just narrowed dramatically.

Scientists had long hoped and theorized that the most common type of star in our universe — called an M dwarf — could host nearby planets with atmospheres, potentially rich with carbon and perfect for the creation of life. But in a new study of a world orbiting an M dwarf 66 light-years from Earth, researchers found no indication such a planet could hold onto an atmosphere at all.

Without a carbon-rich atmosphere, it’s unlikely a planet would be hospitable to living things. Carbon molecules are, after all, considered the building blocks of life. And the findings don’t bode well for other types of planets orbiting M dwarfs, said study coauthor Michelle Hill, a planetary scientist and a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside.

Oct 29, 2022

Evolution of central neural circuits: state of the art and perspectives

Posted by in categories: evolution, neuroscience

Understanding how brain circuits have been altered by evolution can provide insight into their development and function. Prieto-Godino and colleagues provide an overview of our current understanding of the principles of central circuit evolution, drawing on numerous examples from across the animal kingdom.