Lifeboat Foundation

Astronomers are hoping to use the wake of stars to test the existing theories of dark matter.

Innovation in Uganda.

Access to clean water may be a right, but it’s often hard to come by. Contaminated water kills. Henry Othieno and Saudah Birungi have developed eco-friendly filters for use in schools and homes. They turn dirty lake water into drinking water.

Continue reading “Uganda: Filters turn dirty lake water into drinking water | Global Ideas” »

“Programmable matter” technique could enable product designers to churn out prototypes with ease.

When was the last time you repainted your car? Redesigned your coffee mug collection? Gave your shoes a colorful facelift?

You likely answered: never, never, and never. You might consider these arduous tasks not worth the effort. But a new color-shifting “programmable matter” system could change that with a zap of light.

LumiLor is an electroluminescent coating system which allows anything coated with it to function as a light. Electroluminescence simply means that an object is capable of emitting light when an electrical current passes through it.

The lifespan of LumiLor is dependent on how much power is applied and the native LumiLor color used. More power equals brighter light but a shorter half life.

Continue reading “LUMILOR — Electric Paint That Lights Up at The Flip of a Switch” »

Computing experts thought they had developed adequate security patches after the major worldwide Spectre flaw of 2018, but UVA’s discovery shows processors are open to hackers again.

In 2018, industry and academic researchers revealed a potentially devastating hardware flaw that made computers and other devices worldwide vulnerable to attack.

Researchers named the vulnerability Spectre because the flaw was built into modern computer processors that get their speed from a technique called “speculative execution,” in which the processor predicts instructions it might end up executing and preps by following the predicted path to pull the instructions from memory. A Spectre attack tricks the processor into executing instructions along the wrong path. Even though the processor recovers and correctly completes its task, hackers can access confidential data while the processor is heading the wrong way.

Recently, scientists designed an AI agent that learns 60% faster than its peers by combining quantum and classical computing. 📈

This week, an international collaboration led by Dr. Philip Walther at the University of Vienna took the “classic” concept of reinforcement learning and gave it a quantum spin. They designed a hybrid AI that relies on both quantum and run-of-the-mill classic computing, and showed that—thanks to quantum quirkiness—it could simultaneously screen a handful of different ways to solve a problem.

The result is a reinforcement learning AI that learned over 60 percent faster than its non-quantum-enabled peers. This is one of the first tests that shows adding quantum computing can speed up the actual learning process of an AI agent, the authors explained.

Continue reading “Quantum Computing and Reinforcement Learning Are Joining Forces to Make Faster AI” »

After a decade of fighting for regulatory approval and public acceptance, a biotechnology firm has released genetically engineered mosquitoes into the open air in the United States for the first time. The experiment, launched this week in the Florida Keys — over the objections of some local critics — tests a method for suppressing populations of wild Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which can carry diseases such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

Biotech firm Oxitec launches controversial field test of its insects in Florida after years of push-back from residents and regulatory complications.

Hey guys — you might like this interview I did with Brent Nally (CEO — Longevity Plan) about why humans can and should strive towards biological immortality. Very grateful for any subs to support the channel!

I interview Brent Nally, host of Lifespan News and CEO/co-founder of Longevity Plan, about the longevity movement and why he believes humans can and should strive for biological immortality. Covers scientific progress, the evolving longevity movement, why some oppose radical life extension and a brief section on Bitcoin.

Continue reading “Can humans achieve biological immortality? Brent Nally (longevity) interview” »

SpaceX launched its own version of the “fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy,” the Falcon 9, on Star Wars Day (aka “May the Fourth”).