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Aug 2, 2019

Mass Surveillance: 1 in 2 Americans Are Already In A Government Facial Recognition Database

Posted by in categories: government, robotics/AI, surveillance, transportation

As well as Gait Recognition. (Go ahead and wear a disguise.)


The mass surveillance of innocent Americans continues as George Orwell’s 1984 becomes more of a reality with each passing day. “All told, we are barreling toward a future where every ritual of public life carries implicit consent to be surveilled,” writes Sidney Fussell for The Atlantic.

A new report from Georgetown Law‘s Center on Privacy & Technology (CPT) suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be using the rampant problem of illegal immigration as a type of cover to track and spy on Americans in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. Three years ago, the center revealed that nearly half of all U.S. adults are already in the FBI’s facial recognition database, which is largely sourced from DMV photos.

Continue reading “Mass Surveillance: 1 in 2 Americans Are Already In A Government Facial Recognition Database” »

Aug 2, 2019

The next step in AI? Mimicking a baby’s brain

Posted by in categories: biological, nanotechnology, robotics/AI

The phrase “positive reinforcement,” is something you hear more often in an article about child rearing than one about artificial intelligence. But according to Alice Parker, Dean’s Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a little positive reinforcement is just what our AI machines need. Parker has been building electronic circuits for over a decade to reverse-engineer the human brain to better understand how it works and ultimately build artificial systems that mimic it. Her most recent paper, co-authored with Ph.D. student Kun Yue and colleagues from UC Riverside, was just published in the journal Science Advances and takes an important step towards that ultimate goal.

The AI we rely on and read about today is modeled on traditional computers; it sees the world through the lens of binary zeros and ones. This is fine for making complex calculations but, according to Parker and Yue, we’re quickly approaching the limits of the size and complexity of problems we can solve with the platforms our AI exists on. “Since the initial deep learning revolution, the goals and progress of deep-learning based AI as we know it has been very slow,” Yue says. To reach its full potential, AI can’t simply think better—it must react and learn on its own to events in . And for that to happen, a massive shift in how we build AI in the first place must be conceived.

To address this problem, Parker and her colleagues are looking to the most accomplished learning system nature has ever created: the . This is where comes into play. Brains, unlike computers, are analog learners and biological memory has persistence. Analog signals can have multiple states (much like humans). While a binary AI built with similar types of nanotechnologies to achieve long-lasting memory might be able to understand something as good or bad, an analog brain can understand more deeply that a situation might be “very good,” “just okay,” “bad” or “very bad.” This field is called and it may just represent the future of artificial intelligence.

Aug 2, 2019

Using a diverse microbiome, scientists look to create a better lab mouse

Posted by in category: genetics

In a new paper, researchers describe their new model that is genetically a lab mouse, but has the microbiome of a wild mouse.

Aug 2, 2019

New Windows malware sets up proxies on your PC to relay malicious traffic

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

New SystemBC malware spotted in the wild helping other malware strains bypass firewalls, hide bad traffic.

Aug 2, 2019

Targeting a blood stem cell subset shows lasting, therapeutically relevant gene editing

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

In a paper published in the July 31 issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit long-lived blood stem cells to reverse the clinical symptoms observed with several blood disorders, including sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

It’s the first time that scientists have specifically edited the genetic makeup of a specialized subset of adult blood stem cells that are the source of all cells in the blood and immune system.

The proof-of-principle study suggests that efficient modification of targeted stem cells could reduce the costs of gene-editing treatments for blood disorders and other diseases while decreasing the risks of unwanted effects that can occur with a less discriminating approach.

Aug 2, 2019

The truth about Jeffrey Epstein and his fascination with transhumanism

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, geopolitics, sex, transhumanism

A solid clarification article in a major newspaper where I point out that the transhumanism movement is vastly different than how Epstein interpreted in in 2011. Transhumanists need to speak up about what their vision of transhumanism is so others and media know what it really is about.


The revelation that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein planned to impregnate 20 women with his sperm in a “DNA seeding” centre left the world feeling sick. But for patrons of a small, but growing, political movement it caused utter chaos.

“This is the largest media coverage we have ever experienced,” says Zoltan Istvan, former presidential candidate and founder of the Transhumanist Party. “But this is the worst type of coverage. Lots of damage control is being done right now.”

Continue reading “The truth about Jeffrey Epstein and his fascination with transhumanism” »

Aug 2, 2019

Multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome and porphyria. A note of caution and concern

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Arch Intern Med. 1997 Feb 10;157:281–5.

Growing numbers of patients suffering from many symptoms believe that they have a condition called multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MCSS). It has been suggested that this syndrome can be triggered by exposure to any of a large and usually incompletely defined number of natural and synthetic chemical substances. Major medical organizations, including the National Research Council and the American Medical Association, have not recognized MCSS as a clinical syndrome because of a lack of valid, well-controlled studies defining it and establishing pathogenesis or origin. Lately, some have proposed that many patients with MCSS suffer from hereditary coproporphyria. However, this purported association is based chiefly on results from a single reference laboratory of a fundamentally flawed assay for erythrocyte coproporphyrinogen oxidase.

Aug 2, 2019

We live in a warped and twisted galaxy

Posted by in categories: habitats, space

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Aug 2, 2019

7 Amazing Agriculture Technologies

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

Agricultural Revolution is one of the milestones of today’s civilization. It was driven by technological innovations and inventions thousands of years ago, and it is still a very crucial part of our species’ social construct. Engineers are developing tools and machines to make farmers’ job a lot easier by technologies like automation for sustainable productivity. Here are 7 innovative ways the technology is used for agriculture.

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Aug 2, 2019

NASA Satellite Discovers Planet That Could Potentially Support Life

Posted by in category: space

A NASA satellite has discovered a planet that could have the perfect conditions to host life.

The planet, which is about 31 light-years away from us, was picked up by the space agency’s TESS satellite and its conditions could support life, according to a bunch of scientists who have been researching it.

NASA has given the planet the name GJ 357 d, which isn’t very catchy, but researchers have given it the nickname ‘super-Earth’, due to the fact it has similar conditions to Earth but is much bigger.