Lifeboat Foundation

What can heal can also be used to destroy?

MegaSyn is built to generate drug candidates with the lowest toxicity for patients. That got Urbina thinking. He retrained the model using data to drive the software toward generating lethal compounds, like nerve gas, and flipped the code so that it ranked its output from high-to-low toxicity. In effect, the software was told to come up with the most deadly stuff possible.

He ran the model and left it overnight to create new molecules.

Continue reading “AI drug algorithms can be flipped to generate bioweapons” »

Summary: Using chemogenetic technology to deactivate a small group of neurons in the claustrum made mice more resilient against chronic stress and reduced anxiety behaviors.

Source: Osaka University.

It is well known that long-term exposure to stress can lead to serious psychiatric problems. However, the precise mechanisms underpinning the stress response have remained elusive.

Brain and Consciousness at New York University, Dr. David Chalmers, about his book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy.

Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already.

Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis.

Continue reading “David Chalmers — Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy” »

The path back to the moon is long and fraught with danger, both in the real, physical sense and also in the contractual, legal sense. NASA, the agency sponsoring the largest government-backed lunar program, Artemis, has already been feeling the pain on the contractual end. Legal battles have delayed the development of a critical component of the Artemis program – the Human Landing System (HLS). But now, the ball has started rolling again, and a NASA manager recently reported the progress and future vision of this vital part of the mission to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at a conference.

Kent Chojnacki is the manager of NASA’s Systems Engineering & Integration Office. He recently gave a presentation entitled Human Landing System. While it only ran to six content slides, he provided some more details into how the agency is arranging its work with future contractors developing the part of the Artemis program that will take astronauts down to the lunar surface.

Continue reading “NASA Releases Details on how Starship Will be Part of its Return to the Moon” »

Trio appeared to get changed shortly before arrival at space station and one said every crew could choose their own suit.

A new theoretical study has revealed how sound waves transfer small amounts of mass as they travel. Angelo Esposito, Rafael Krichevsky and Alberto Nicolis at Columbia University in the US have calculated that the transfer occurs even when both quantum and relativistic effects are ignored. Their result implies that current interpretations of the properties of sound waves may need to be rethought.

Physicists still puzzled about how effect can occur in solids.

Steadicopter, a leader in the Rotary Unmanned Aerial Systems (RUAS) industry, and Smart Shooter, a world-class designer, developer, and manufacturer of innovative fire control systems that significantly increase the accuracy and lethality of small arms, have unveiled the Golden Eagle — the first-ever unmanned helicopter with precise hit capabilities. The two companies will present the solution at the ISDEF exhibition in Tel Aviv.

Based on the combat-proven Black Eagle 50E platform, the Golden Eagle incorporates AI-based technology and Smart Shooter’s SMASH Dragon system. The AI-based technology enables superior situational awareness and autonomous multi-target classification and tracking. The SMASH Dragon, a remotely-operated robotic weaponry payload, locks on the target, tracks it and ensures precise target hit. SMASH Dragon integrates a unique stabilization concept with proprietary target acquisition, tracking algorithms and sophisticated computer vision capabilities that allow accurate hitting of static and moving targets while mounted onto the Golden Eagle.

“Using artificial intelligence, the new system provides a field combat solution for the modern battlefield. Forces on the ground can now send a helicopter for autonomous intelligence gathering into the relevant area and, having identified and classified the targets, send in another helicopter with precise attack capabilities.”

Continue reading “Teadicopter and Smart Shooter unveil the Golden Eagle — a groundbreaking RUAS with precision hit capabilities utilizing the SMASH technology” »