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Sep 10, 2022

Frank Drake Has Passed Away, but His Equation for Alien Intelligence Is More Important Than Ever

Posted by in categories: alien life, information science

Drake’s equation may look complicated, but its principles are really rather simple. It states that, in a galaxy as old as ours, the number of civilizations that are detectable by virtue of them broadcasting their presence must equate to the rate at which they arise, multiplied by their average lifetime.

Putting a value on the rate at which civilizations occur might seem to be guesswork, but Drake realized that it can be broken down into more tractable components.

Continue reading “Frank Drake Has Passed Away, but His Equation for Alien Intelligence Is More Important Than Ever” »

Sep 10, 2022

Scientists Just Made Hydrogen Fuel With Nothing But Air and Solar Power

Posted by in categories: climatology, particle physics, solar power, sustainability

Even in the driest climates, though, there is a considerable amount of moisture in the air. The researchers note that even in places like the Sahel desert, relative humidity is still around 20 percent on average. So they set about finding a way to use this untapped water resource to produce hydrogen.

Their device consists of a water harvesting unit that houses a sponge soaked in a water-absorbing liquid that can pull moisture from the air. On either side of this reservoir are electrodes that can be powered by any renewable energy source. When a current runs through the circuit, the water is split via electrolysis into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen atoms, which can then be collected as gas.

The team showed that the device could run efficiently for 12 consecutive days and produced hydrogen with 99 percent purity. What’s more, the device continues to work in relative humidity as low as four percent.

Sep 10, 2022

NASA Can Now Reliably Produce a Tree’s Worth of Oxygen on Mars

Posted by in category: space

Astronauts on the space station may seem distant, but they’re only 248 miles from Earth: a little more than the drive from New York City to Washington DC. Everything they need can be delivered in relatively short order. Astronauts visiting Mars won’t have such easy access. The red planet’s average distance from Earth is 140 million miles.

We can plan supply missions, but taking everything along for the ride would be expensive and impractical. Like Mark Watney in The Martian, explorers will have to live off the land too.

There’ve been plenty of proposals for how astronauts might produce the essentials, but until recently no technology had been field tested. Now, thanks to a machine called MOXIE, built by MIT and stowed away on NASA’s Perseverance rover, we can definitively say humans will be able to make oxygen on Mars.

Sep 10, 2022

The 1,000 Chinese SpaceX engineers who never existed

Posted by in category: futurism

LinkedIn users are being scammed of millions of dollars by fake connections posing as graduates of prestigious universities and employees at top tech companies.

Sep 10, 2022

Ben Goertzel on AGI, Part II (Whole Brain Emulation and AI Safety)

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Genius.


March 2019 Workshop

Sep 10, 2022

Keith Wiley on Personal Identity (Topics in Successful Mind Uploading)

Posted by in category: futurism

An interview with Dr. Keith Wiley from the Carboncopies Foundation Winter 2020 Workshop held on March 15, 2020.

Sep 10, 2022

Tardigrades Can Survive Decades Without Water, And We Finally Know How

Posted by in category: life extension

Water is a key ingredient to all life on Earth, yet tardigrades with their near immortal-like powers can somehow endure being sapped of almost all their H2O.

Now, researchers have discovered another trick these chubby microscopic anomalies use to survive years of extreme dehydration.

“Although water is essential to all life we know of, some tardigrades can live without it potentially for decades,” says University of Tokyo biologist Takekazu Kunieda.

Sep 10, 2022

Peter Diamandis on Longevity Escape Velocity (clip from Rich Roll Podcast) (S/T en Español)

Posted by in categories: education, finance, life extension, Peter Diamandis, singularity

Excerpt from an interview by Rich Roll to Peter Diamandis, founder and executive officer of XPrize Foundation, co-founder of Singularity University in Silicon Valley, CA., three-time best selling author, public speaker, philanthropist, and prolific investor.

Peter Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education.

Continue reading “Peter Diamandis on Longevity Escape Velocity (clip from Rich Roll Podcast) (S/T en Español)” »

Sep 10, 2022

Randal Koene on Universal Darwinism and Pattern Survival

Posted by in category: electronics

Part 2 of the interview with Randal Koene that first aired on Critical Thought TV in March 2012.

Sep 10, 2022

Slowing of continental plate movement controlled the timing of Earth’s largest volcanic events

Posted by in categories: biological, climatology, existential risks

Scientists have shed new light on the timing and likely cause of major volcanic events that occurred millions of years ago and caused such climatic and biological upheaval that they drove some of the most devastating extinction events in Earth’s history.

Surprisingly, the new research, published today in Science Advances, suggests a slowing of continental plate movement was the critical event that enabled magma to rise to the Earth’s surface and deliver the devastating knock-on impacts.

Earth’s history has been marked by major volcanic events, called large igneous provinces (LIPs)—the largest of which have caused major increases in atmospheric carbon emissions that warmed Earth’s climate, drove unprecedented changes to ecosystems, and resulted in mass extinctions on land and in the oceans.