Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 767

As an undergraduate he was drawn to theory, but he quickly switched to experiment.

“Theory was good, but I was driven to experimental particle physics because even if I write a theory, someone has to test it anyway,” says Gandrakota, who is now a postdoc at the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “I’d rather be the person who tests and finds stuff than the person who predicts it.”

But he never lost his soft spot for theoretical physics. Today, Gandrakota and his colleagues on the CMS experiment are developing a machine-learning tool that will allow theorists even more freedom and creativity.

Read more | >

A pen that can transform Braille into English text has been developed by experts at the University of Bristol.

Braille literacy is frequently reported as being in decline. This is despite visually impaired people often expressing a desire to learn it, and Braille literacy being a highly valued skill by those who are capable. This is often attributed to the lack of available learning resources, particularly away from large urban centers.

The handheld device, which includes a one-centimeter sensor with 19 channels programmed to read Braille, has demonstrated high accuracy in early trials.

Read more | >

MIT’s soft drone flies and grasps, swiftly picking up a bottle in a demo video:

Interestingly, the drone’s new capabilities allow it to catch objects that are moving at speeds of up to 0.3 meters per second.

Researchers have been developing drones that can perch on surfaces and perform tasks such as inspecting structures and collecting DNA samples from trees. Surprisingly, this drone can do this in the near future. The video shows the drone hovering over a table, reaching out with its gripper, and successfully gripping a bottle.

Continue reading “MIT’s new drone with flying claws grabs objects mid-air at high speed” | >

The use of the robot allows surgeries to be performed without opening the abdomen.

Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya says that a robot has been used for the first time in Israel to completely remove a patient’s pancreas.

The 78-year-old patient was diagnosed with multiple cystic tumors of the pancreas. Although this type of tumor is not considered cancerous, doctors say that left untreated, it could develop into a malignant pancreatic tumor in the future.

“The use of the robot allows surgeries to be performed without opening the abdomen,” says Dr. Eli Kakiashvili, head of the Department of Surgery A, who led the operation with the assistance of Dr. Gregory Bogoslavsky.

Continue reading “In Israel first, robot is used by doctors to completely remove patient’s pancreas” | >

SparkLabs — an early-stage venture capital firm that has made a name for itself for backing OpenAI as well as a host of other AI startups such as Vectara, Allganize, Kneron, Anthropic, xAI, Glade (YC S23) and Lucidya AI — is gearing up to double down on more startups in the space. The VC firm announced Tuesday that it has closed a new $50 million fund, AIM AI Fund, which will back AI startups out of its own AIM-X accelerator in Saudi Arabia as well as other AI startups across the globe.

SparkLabs’ new fund and its wider investment aims underscore the bigger trends that have swirled around artificial intelligence for the last few years. The explosion of interest in generative AI in particular has led to a surge of startups in the space, as well as a rush of investors looking for the next Open AI — or at the very least, a startup that a bigger company might snap up as it looks to sharpen its own AI edge.

It also points to how the AI opportunity continues to widen beyond Silicon Valley. AIM-X is an AI-focused startup accelerator that SparkLabs launched earlier this year in the kingdom as part of its AI Mission, a national initiative to bolster AI technology over the next five years.

Read more | >

When sensory input meets spontaneous brain activity’

https://cell.com/trends/neurosciences/fulltext/S0166-2236(24)00153-X

https://nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50102-9

Imagine your brain as a bustling city that never sleeps, constantly active even when you’re resting or not paying attention.

Continue reading “Network mechanisms of ongoing brain activity’s influence on conscious visual perception” | >

Here the notorious but eloquent transhumanism critic Wesley J. Smith takes a swipe at the quickly growing movement to overcome death with science. New story in Merion West!

“Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become paramount —that is, more important than avoiding acts ‘traditionally perceived as immoral.’ If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.”

“I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” – Woody Allen.

In 2016, transhumanism proselytizer Zoltan Istvan ran for president promising to defeat death while touring the country in a bus redesigned to look like a coffin. It was a great gimmick that made him, perhaps, the most famous transhumanist in the world.

Continue reading “Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral” | >