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Dec 14, 2020

Hubble Space Telescope Spots Enormous Einstein Ring

Posted by in category: space

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of GAL-CLUS-022058–38303, the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings known in the Universe.

Dec 14, 2020

New Deep Learning Method Helps Robots Become Jacks-of-all-Trades

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI, transportation

Put a robot in a tightly-controlled environment and it can quickly surpass human performance at complex tasks, from building cars to playing table tennis. But throw these machines a curve ball and they’re in trouble—just check out this compilation of some of the world’s most advanced robots coming unstuck in the face of notoriously challenging obstacles like sand, steps, and doorways.

The reason robots tend to be so fragile is that the algorithms that control them are often manually designed. If they encounter a situation the designer didn’t think of, which is almost inevitable in the chaotic real world, then they simply don’t have the tools to react.

Continue reading “New Deep Learning Method Helps Robots Become Jacks-of-all-Trades” »

Dec 14, 2020

Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence and OpenAI

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, existential risks, government, robotics/AI

https://youtube.com/watch?v=B-Osn1gMNtw

Elon Musk has been a vocal critic of artificial intelligence, calling it an “existential threat to humanity”. He is wrong, right?


Musk is heavily invested in AI research himself through his OpenAI and NeuroLink ventures, and believes that the only safe road to AI involves planning, oversight & regulation. He recently summarized this, saying:

Continue reading “Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence and OpenAI” »

Dec 14, 2020

Kris Verburgh | How to Live Longer? High-Tech and Low-Tech Approaches

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension, neuroscience

A bit of everything here from hallmarks of aging to epigenetic reprogramming(which effects telomeres, gene expression, etc) and even diet.


In this talk given at Ending Age-Related Diseases 2020, Dr. Kris Verburgh of the Free University of Brussels discusses the methods by which people might lead longer, healthier lives. While some of these methods involve the use of advanced rejuvenation biotechnology techniques, others are simpler to implement and require a minimum amount of technology, such as nutrition and exercise, along with health-monitoring technology that already exists in the public space.

Continue reading “Kris Verburgh | How to Live Longer? High-Tech and Low-Tech Approaches” »

Dec 14, 2020

Advances in supercomputing make DARPA confident about CRANE active flow control effort

Posted by in categories: supercomputing, transportation

Advances in supercomputing technology during the past 20 years are one of multiple reasons that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is confident that it can succeed in its Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) active flow control (AFC) programme.

Dec 14, 2020

This New Nuclear Battery Could Power Deep Space Missions for Decades

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, space

😃


A new method called lattice confinement fusion could be the compact, long-lasting energy source we’ve been searching for to power deep space missions 🤯 🚀.

Dec 14, 2020

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explains why he hasn’t received a vaccine yet Video

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks with CNN’s Sanjay Gupta as the company prepares to roll out doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines in the US.

Dec 14, 2020

Scientists build whole functioning thymus from human cells

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London have rebuilt a human thymus, an essential organ in the immune system, using human stem cells and a bioengineered scaffold. Their work is an important step towards being able to build artificial thymi which could be used as transplants.

The thymus is an organ in the chest where T lymphocytes, which play a vital role in the immune system, mature. If the thymus does not work properly or does not form during foetal development in the womb, this can lead to diseases such as severe immunodeficiency, where the body cannot fight infectious diseases or , or autoimmunity, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the patient’s own healthy tissue.

In their proof-of-concept study, published in Nature Communications today, the scientists rebuilt thymi using taken from patients who had to have the organ removed during surgery. When transplanted into mice, the bioengineered thymi were able to support the development of mature and functional human T lymphocytes.

Dec 14, 2020

Microsoft, FireEye confirm SolarWinds supply chain attack

Posted by in category: futurism

Known victims so far include the US Treasury, the US NTIA, and FireEye itself.

Dec 14, 2020

You’ve Never Seen The Moon Like This Before, But It’s a Real Image

Posted by in category: space

Blue Moon. Strawberry Moon. Supermoon. Snow Moon. Blood Moon. Earth’s favourite satellite buddy has a name for every occasion. Yet the most glorious view of the full Moon we’ve seen to date has no name.

That’s probably because it’s not indicative of an occasion, but a way of looking at our satellite. With your naked eyes, you would never see the rainbowy, soap-bubble-like view of the Moon as pictured above.

But that’s what it looks like to the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), an incredibly powerful radio telescope array located in the desert of Western Australia.