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Sep 30, 2019

An Interview with Dr. Michael West

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

At our 2019 Ending Age-related Diseases conference in New York City, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Michael West, the CEO of AgeX Therapeutics.

Dr. West can rightfully be called a pioneer in his field with a substantial background in biomedical and biotechnology corporations. After completing his PhD at Baylor College of Medicine, he founded Geron Corporation in 1990, where he launched and directed programs in telomere biology as it relates to cancer, aging, and human embryonic stem cell technology. He subsequently established the research group that went on to isolate human embryonic stem cells for the first time.

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Sep 30, 2019

Financial fraud detection systems get smarter with AI

Posted by in categories: finance, robotics/AI

Fintech risk management systems are getting a makeover. By adding machine learning technologies to their traditional rules-based fraud management systems, banks hope that they can do better at catching real criminals while declining fewer legitimate credit card transactions. ML technologies, though, have their own gotchas.

Here and there, although not necessarily everywhere, banks are introducing machine language technologies into their fraud detection systems. Essentially, the objective is twofold: to detect real incidents of fraud quickly and accurately, and to do so while preventing false positives, in which legitimate transactions are wrongly tagged as suspicious.

Large banks have led the way in spending on ML-enabled risk management, says Steven D’Alfonso, a research director at IDC responsible for compliance, fraud, and risk analytics strategies for IDC Financial Insights. Lots of bigger banks plan to expand the artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled fraud detection systems into enterprise-wide decision support systems. Many smaller banks that haven’t yet embarked on ML are expected to follow by signing on for ML managed services.

Sep 30, 2019

Elon Musk Unveils Starship to Take People to Mars, Colonize Other Planets

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

Click on photo to start video.

Elon Musk unveiled this 120-ton ‘Starship’ he plans to take people to Mars in 🚀 (via NowThis Future)

Sep 30, 2019

Graphene’s mechanical properties found to have similarities to graphite

Posted by in categories: materials, particle physics

A team of researchers from the U.K., China and Spain has found that graphene exhibits mechanical properties that are similar to those of graphite. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes testing flakes of graphene in a unique way, and what they found.

Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms just a single atom thick, sometimes called a two-dimensional material. In this new effort, the researchers questioned whether it truly is a by testing it to see if it has 3D mechanical properties.

Prior research has shown that graphene does behave as a 2-D material when looking at its . It also behaves like a 2-D material when testing its thermal properties. But until now, its mechanical properties had not been tested. The reason fis that graphene falls apart nearly instantly when not supported by a substrate, presenting difficulties in testing its mechanical properties without also including those of the substrate. To get around this problem, the researchers tested one of graphene’s by suspending graphene flakes in a viscous liquid, thereby preventing phonons from shaking it apart. The liquid also prevented the flakes from bonding and forming graphite. The team then carried out a common 3D test—applying , in this case, using a diamond anvil cell. Doing so showed (via Raman spectroscopy) that the energy shift that resulted from its phonons was closer to that exhibited by a 3D material (graphite) than a 2-D material.

Sep 30, 2019

How to dismantle a nuclear bomb: Team successfully tests new method for verification of weapons reduction

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, military, treaties

How do weapons inspectors verify that a nuclear bomb has been dismantled? An unsettling answer is: They don’t, for the most part. When countries sign arms reduction pacts, they do not typically grant inspectors complete access to their nuclear technologies, for fear of giving away military secrets.

Instead, past U.S.-Russia arms reduction treaties have called for the destruction of the delivery systems for nuclear warheads, such as missiles and planes, but not the warheads themselves. To comply with the START treaty, for example, the U.S. cut the wings off B-52 bombers and left them in the Arizona desert, where Russia could visually confirm the airplanes’ dismemberment.

It’s a logical approach but not a perfect one. Stored nuclear warheads might not be deliverable in a war, but they could still be stolen, sold, or accidentally detonated, with disastrous consequences for human society.

Sep 30, 2019

Linux Foundation exec believes edge computing will be more important than cloud computing

Posted by in category: computing

According to Arpit Joshipura, The Linux Foundation’s general manager of networking, edge computing will overtake cloud computing by 2025.

Sep 30, 2019

The NSA Makes Its Powerful Cybersecurity Tool Open Source

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, privacy

The National Security Agency develops advanced hacking tools in-house for both offense and defense—which you could probably guess even if some notable examples hadn’t leaked in recent years. But on Tuesday at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, the agency demonstrated Ghidra, a refined internal tool that it has chosen to open source. And while NSA cybersecurity adviser Rob Joyce called the tool a “contribution to the nation’s cybersecurity community” in announcing it at RSA, it will no doubt be used far beyond the United States.


No one’s better at hacking than the NSA. And now one of its powerful tools is available to everyone for free.

Sep 30, 2019

Why China is the perfect place for cloud gaming to succeed

Posted by in categories: entertainment, internet

While most of the attention has been on Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, Tencent has also been working on cloud gaming. China’s biggest gaming company has been talking about letting people go from viewing live streams to playing along with the same streamer with just a click — without ever having to download the game.

One of the big reasons China is perfect for cloud gaming? 5G.


Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud are pushing cloud gaming, but Tencent could be the real one to watch.

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Sep 30, 2019

‘Basically Holy Grail of Space’: Elon Musk Unveils New Mars Rocket Prototype, Expects Missions in Months

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has unveiled the latest iteration of his space company’s newly assembled Starship, outlining a speedy development timeline for the centerpiece vehicle of SpaceX’s quest to launch humans to the moon and Mars.

Musk showed a crowd of space enthusiasts and reporters at SpaceX’s rocket development site late on Saturday in the remote village of Boca Chica, Texas, animations of Starship landing on the moon and Mars and predicted that the rocket’s first orbital flight could come in the next six months, followed by missions to space with humans aboard the next year.

“This is basically the holy grail of space,” Musk said, standing between a towering, newly assembled Starship rocket and Falcon 1 — the company’s first vehicle whose debut orbital mission was celebrated by SpaceX 11 years ago.

Sep 30, 2019

Rethinking Drones As Autonomous Robotics

Posted by in categories: business, drones, military, robotics/AI

We hear it daily — “Launch your drone program!” Uninspired marketing campaigns littered across social media, websites and emails. A detrimental circle of brands mirroring brands, unwittingly stalling the rise of drones. The problem is, as an industry, they’re missing the damn point. Take for example a use case we see all too often — construction. When handheld drills started showing up on jobsites, we didn’t hear Black + Decker say, “launch your drill program!” Why not? Drills are just enablers. They allow workers to do what they were already doing — except better, faster and more efficiently. The breakthrough had little to do with the actual tool itself, and more the new ability to enable faster holes. Drones are no different.

The goal isn’t to “put a drone on every construction site.” Drones are promising new vehicles that have the potential to transform industry, but they also inherently introduce new costs and complexities. The thought of adding new tools, new responsibilities, new certifications and permits, and new burdens to an already complex operation is the exact opposite of what most project managers consider helpful. This might begin to explain why drone service providers today are collectively struggling to grow at any meaningful velocity. We’re creating “launch your drone programs” solutions that make it easier for businesses to own and operate drones, when we should be making the drone invisible, and become laser-focused on the data drones generate and an infrastructure that supports rapid spatial insights.

We need to stop putting drones on construction sites, and start giving the industry the very thing that drones enable — insight. Drones will be on every job site in the next few years, but not as another tool on the tool belt. The project manager isn’t adopting a drone program. They’re adopting a visual insights program that captures a new, historical perspective across their sites. They’re providing situational awareness holistically throughout their organization. They’re making decisions based on the actual state of projects, and the insights affordable by new perspectives and sensors.