Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 752

People genetically adapted to diving, 13 min. is a record, not average for them, they are exceptional anyway.

Picture yourself holding your breath. How long can you last underwater? A minute? Two? You probably imagined yourself sitting a foot or so beneath the surface of a pool during this exercise, but consider how long you can hold your breath actively swimming as deep below the surface of the ocean as you can go. This would probably look like maybe 30 seconds of swimming down followed by a rush to the surface. The Bajau people of the Philippines, though, according to reports, could quite confidently imagine swimming 200 feet below the ocean surface for up to 13 minutes.

These abilities aren’t merely the result of dedicated training. The Bajau people have lived their lives at sea for generations, so much so that they’ve developed special adaptations to their oceanic lifestyle.

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In collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya and with financial contributions from the British Council Cultural Protection Fund, ICCROM is engaged in a community-centred project focused on the long-term preservation of fossil footprints that date back to approximately 1.5 million years ago. The fossil was found in Ileret, a village on the northeastern shore of Lake Turkana, Kenya.

A quantum sensing experiment now has the potential to identify single gravitons — the particles that make up gravity — which was considered impossible until now. A team led by Stevens professor Igor Pikovski has recently proposed a method to detect individual gravitons, believed to be the quantum building blocks of gravity. They suggest that with advancements in quantum technology, this experiment could become a reality in the near future.

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Imagine being able to create incredibly tiny structures with the same ease and sustainability as printing on paper.

This is the frontier of microfabrication—the process of making microscopic structures that are crucial for the operation of everything from computer chips to medical devices.

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New, more sustainable process uses water instead of harmful chemicals.

Continue reading “A breakthrough by UChicago scientists enables greener microfabrication” | >

Lone Wolf rifle, with infrared and thermal vision, detects aerial threats using cutting-edge targeting tech.

Possibly equipped with an AR-15/M16-pattern rifle, the robot dog appears to be a Ghost Robotics Vision 60 quadrupedal-unmanned ground vehicle (Q-UGV).

The testing was conducted at Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center in Saudi Arabia.

The Q-UGV engaged several static ground targets during the trials, but results of the tests weren’t revealed, according to reports.

Continue reading “US military’s robot dogs with rifles can detect aerial threats at night” | >

With the recent release of the iPhone 16, which Apple has promised is optimized for artificial intelligence, it’s clear that AI is officially front of mind, once again, for the average consumer. Yet the technology still remains rather limited compared with the vast abilities the most forward-thinking AI technologists anticipate will be achievable in the near future.

As much excitement as there still is around the technology, many still fear the potentially negative consequences of integrating it so deeply into society. One common concern is that a sufficiently advanced AI could determine humanity to be a threat and turn against us all, a scenario imagined in many science fiction stories. However, according to a leading AI researcher, most people’s concerns can be alleviated by decentralizing and democratizing AI’s development.

On Episode 46 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond separate fact from fiction by speaking with Ben Goertzel, the computer scientist and researcher who first popularized the term “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI. Goertzel currently serves as the CEO of SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance, where he leads the projects’ efforts to develop the world’s first AGI.

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