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Oct 3, 2019

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon arrive at Cape Canaveral ahead of key test for crew flight

Posted by in category: space travel

SpaceX’s facility at Cape Canaveral just received a crucial new delivery: a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule that it will be using for an upcoming in-flight abort test. This test, which will demonstrate the spacecraft and launch system’s ability to abort the launch mid-flight in case of any emergencies, is an important and necessary step before SpaceX can fly Crew Dragon with any actual people on board.

This test will replicate a “worst-case scenario” of sorts, by staging a crew capsule separation at the point of “Max Q,” which is the part of the launch where the rocket is exposed to the most severe atmospheric forces prior to making it to space. At this point during the abort test, the Crew Dragon will show that it can detach from the Falcon 9 rocket and propel itself away to a safe distance in order to protect the astronauts on board.

Oct 3, 2019

First-Ever Image of the ‘Cosmic Web’ Reveals the Gassy Highway That Connects the Universe

Posted by in categories: space, transportation

A groundbreaking new image provides direct evidence of a ‘cosmic web’ of gas that links every galaxy in the universe.

Oct 3, 2019

Predicting the future is now possible with powerful new AI simulations

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

If you thought Cambridge Analytica had scary tech, wait until you see this. A new form of AI modelling promises accurate simulation of the behaviour of entire cities, countries and one day perhaps, the world.

Oct 3, 2019

Aubrey DE GREY, An overview of recent progress in projects of SENS Research Foundation, EHA 2018

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

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Oct 3, 2019

Loop Quantum Gravity

Posted by in category: quantum physics

The inability of scientists to create a theory of quantum gravity arises from long-standing tensions between general relativity and quantum mechanics. There have been few approaches with any success. In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln explains one of the few promising ideas, called loop quantum gravity.

Continue reading “Loop Quantum Gravity” »

Oct 3, 2019

Printed electronics open way for electrified tattoos and personalized biosensors

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, electronics

Electrical engineers at Duke University have devised a fully print-in-place technique for electronics that is gentle enough to work on delicate surfaces including paper and human skin. The advance could enable technologies such as high-adhesion, embedded electronic tattoos and bandages tricked out with patient-specific biosensors.

The techniques are described in a series of papers published online July 9 in the journal Nanoscale and on October 3 in the journal ACS Nano.

“When people hear the term ‘printed electronics,’ the expectation is that a person loads a substrate and the designs for an into a printer and, some reasonable time later, removes a fully functional electronic circuit,” said Aaron Franklin, the James L. and Elizabeth M. Vincent Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke.

Oct 3, 2019

Your Brain Chooses What to Let You See

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Beneath our awareness, the brain lets certain kinds of stimuli automatically capture our attention by lowering the priority of the rest.

Oct 3, 2019

This won’t end well. Microsoft’s AI boffins unleash a bot that can generate fake comments for news articles

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI, sustainability

Please no, we don’t need a machine-learning troll farm.

Oct 3, 2019

CRISPR flies have been gene edited so they can eat poison

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to give fruit flies an evolutionary advantage they’ve never had before. By making just three small changes to a single gene, the team gave the flies the ability to effectively eat poison and store it in their bodies, protecting themselves from predators in the process.

Milkweed is a common plant that’s toxic to most animals and insects – but the monarch butterfly flies in the face of that plant’s defenses. The bug has evolved the ability to not only thrive on the poisonous plant, but turn it to its own advantage. It stores the toxins in its body, making it poisonous to any predators that might try to eat it.

And now, the UC Berkeley researchers have given fruit flies that ability for the first time. CRISPR has been used to edit the genes of insects, mammals and even humans, but the team says this is the first time a multicellular organism has been edited to endow it with new behaviors and adaptations to the environment. In this case, that means a new diet and a new defense mechanism against predators.

Oct 3, 2019

Would You Survive a Merger with AI?

Posted by in categories: biological, Elon Musk, life extension, robotics/AI, transhumanism

The idea that humans should merge with AI is very much in the air these days. It is offered both as a way for humans to avoid being outmoded by AI in the workplace, and as a path to superintelligence and immortality. For instance, Elon Musk recently commented that humans can escape being outmoded by AI by “having some sort of merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence.”1 To this end, he’s founded a company, Neuralink. One of its first aims is to develop “neural lace,” an injectable mesh that connects the brain directly to computers. Neural lace and other AI-based enhancements are supposed to allow data from your brain to travel wirelessly to one’s digital devices or to the cloud, where massive computing power is available.

For many transhumanists, uploading is key to the mind-machine merger.

Perhaps these sorts of enhancements will turn out to be beneficial, but to see if this is the case, we will need to move beyond all the hype. Policymakers, the public, and even AI researchers themselves need a better idea of what is at stake. For instance, if AI cannot be conscious, then if you substituted a microchip for the parts of the brain responsible for consciousness, you would end your life as a conscious being. You’d become what philosophers call a “zombie”—a nonconscious simulacrum of your earlier self. Further, even ifmicrochips could replace parts of the brain responsible for consciousness without zombifying you, radical enhancement is still a major risk. After too many changes, the person who remains may not even be you. Each human who enhances may, unbeknownst to them, end their life in the process.