Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Their existence will no longer mystify us.

Identified in Namibia, fairy circles are circular regions of land devoid of vegetation that range in diameter from 7 to 49 feet (2 to 15 meters) and are frequently surrounded by a ring of promoted grass growth.

Until recently, these fairy circles were seen as a mystery. In 2020, in the Department of Ecosystem Modeling at the University of Göttingen in Germany, researchers tried to solve the mystery by using the Turing method — which explains how natural patterns like stripes and dots can emerge organically and independently from a homogeneous, uniform state.

Now, the team has officially sold the mystery, as reported in the release. The results of the research were published in Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics on October 20.

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Here is what the ECG reports of the first patient with the pig heart say.

In January this year, the heart of a genetically modified pig was transplanted into a human for the first time. The patient, David Bennett, managed to survive for two months with the pig heart, and this unique organ transplant operation led to various exciting findings and further research work.

One recently published research reveals that the electrical conduction system (network of cells, signals, and nodes in a heart that collectively controls heart functions and heartbeat) of the genetically modified pig heart differs from that of an ordinary pig’s heart.

David Bennett, the 57-year-old man who became globally known as the first human to receive a genetically modified pig’s heart as a transplant has died in the hospital where he underwent the transplant and was recovering, according to a press release.

Bennett was first admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in October last year with arrhythmia — the irregular beating of the heart, which in his case had become life-threatening. The doctors placed him on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), commonly known as a heart-lung bypass machine to keep him alive.

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The changes at Twitter have already begun. Those not falling in line might be fired.

Twitter, under its new CEO, Elon Musk, may begin charging $20 a month as subscription fees from its users who have verified accounts.

Getty Images.

Previously, a decision like this would lead to weeks of discussions at Twitter but with a new CEO in charge, it was done almost overnight. The move to increase subscription fees is also expected to be implemented soon enough but allegedly carries a rider of losing the job if not done.

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Times after the pandemic have not been good for tech giants.

The world’s 20 richest tech billionaires have lost close to half a trillion dollars in 2022 so far. Fears of a recession and increased interest rates have dipped revenues of tech companies in the U.S., and market valuations of their companies have tumbled thereafter, Wall Street Journal.

Mark Zuckerberg might be the poster boy for how falling revenues of tech companies also shrink the personal fortunes of the founders since most of their wealth is associated with stocks of the companies they have founded.

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Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between ‘then’ and ‘now’.

Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, ‘then’ can’t always be anticipated. Worse still, ‘now’ often blurs into a haze of uncertainty. A stopwatch simply isn’t going to cut it for some scenarios.

A potential solution could be found in the very shape of the quantum fog itself, according to researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden.

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There have been various papers and articles recently that discuss the ‘personality’ of GPT-3 and seek to identify its biases and perspectives. What I’m writing about today is the opposite of that. Rather than probe GPT-3 for its identity, some researchers are what is possible when GPT-3 is prompted to assume a specific identity and respond as a proxy for that identity, with all its biases.

It turns out that it can simulate another human’s perspective with sufficient fidelity that it can act as a proxy for a diverse population of humans in social experiments and surveys. This is accomplished by inventing a population of participants described by a backstory or a set of attributes including things like gender, race, income, occupation, age, political identity, etc. For each virtual person a prompt (or prompt chain) is created that establishes the identity and asks GPT-3 to effectively act as that person in a response to a question or scenario.

One example is the study “Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans” in which four different social experiments are recreated with virtual subjects modeled to mirror the real study’s participants. The experiments were the Ultimatum Game, garden path sentences, risk aversion, and the Milgram Shock experiments. The ultimatum game is a game theory scenario as follows: There is a sum of money and two subjects, let’s say Bob and Carol. Bob must offer Carol a portion of the money. If Carol accepts, then she gets that amount of money and Bob gets the rest. If instead the offer is rejected, neither get any money.

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AI tools are making their way into classrooms: even in schools today, students create texts, presentations, images and translations at the click of a button. How can teachers deal with AI’s new possibilities?

For many teachers, homework, papers and tests raise the question of autonomy. How should they grade exams if it’s not clear who did the work – the examinee or an AI? A common reflex to digital developments in education is to regulate these possibilities, to put digital devices into exam mode without network access, or to ban AI tools.

The Evangelisch Stiftische Gymnasium in Gütersloh, Germany, is taking the opposite approach: laptops and iPads have been widely used there for 20 years. GPT-3 and Co. are being tested in German lessons and are even required for class tests.

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Do you want to live a better, healthier and longer life? Me too.

Lets go back to 1937, when Albert Szent-Györgyi won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ascorbic acid—vitamin C—that enables the body to efficiently use carbohydrates, fats, and protein (I use it a lot during cold and flu season, you?). It was a massively consequential discovery, as it not only saved and extended countless lives, but it also contributed to the foundations of modern nutrition. Szent-Györgyi, himself, was blessed with a long life; he died in 1986 at the age of 93. But he might just as well be known for what he said on his 90th birthday: “I wish I could be 75 again!”

No doubt, that comment elicits more than a few eyerolls today. Especially since the CDC has recently downgraded American life expectancy to just 77 years. But could 75 someday be the new 40—an age by which, like Szent-Györgyi, we’re only hitting our stride? Well, if the burgeoning activity of the life extension industry is any indication, we may actually be on the cusp of making it so—and enjoying life to the fullest right up to the extended end. Which brings us to the morbid thought of mortality—that end state most of us seek to delay, if not dodge.

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