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Oct 3, 2019
Is the World Ready for Synthetic People?
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, computing, food, genetics
Drew Endy almost can’t talk fast enough to convey everything he has to say. It’s a wonderfully complex message filled with nuance, a kind of intricate puzzle box being built by a pioneer of synthetic biology who wants to fundamentally rejigger the living world.
Endy heads a research team at Stanford that is, as he puts it, building genetically encoded computers and redesigning genomes. What that means: he’s trying to engineer life forms to do useful things. Just about anything could come out of this toolkit: new foods, new materials, new medicines. So you are unlikely to find anyone who is more optimistic than he is about the potential for synthetic biology to solve big problems.
That’s what makes Endy so compelling when he worries about how the technology is being developed. Perhaps more than anyone else working in synthetic biology, Endy has tried to hold the community to account.
Oct 3, 2019
New ‘iron dragon’ pterosaur found in Australia
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: futurism
Um that’s not normal o.o
The exquisitely preserved remains make up the most complete flying reptile yet discovered on the continent.
Oct 3, 2019
Falling Fireballs Crashed in Chile Last Week. They Weren’t Meteorites, Experts Say
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: futurism
O.o.
Chilean officials are investigating a curious collection of burning objects that fell onto parts of the country last week.
Oct 3, 2019
Mysterious fireball that crashed and burned wasn’t a meteor
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: futurism
Something bright came in hot enough to spark several fires in Chile recently, and it looks like it wasn’t natural.
Oct 3, 2019
What if the world’s tyrants and dictators took life extension treatments and prolonged their regimes indefinitely?
Posted by Nicola Bagalà in category: life extension
Should we stop this whole life extension thing while we still can in order to prevent this potential problem? Yeah… no. Here’s why.
Oct 3, 2019
Would a robot pet enhance your life?
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: innovation, robotics/AI
We all know that dogs are a man’s best friend, but has the world really come to this?
On a particularly blustery day in New York City, I found myself (as one with the income bracket of a writer sporadically does) on the Upper East Side, amidst tribes of cooler-than-thou high school students, dedicated dog walkers and women wearing hats that looked like a Shar-Pei had potentially suffered in the making of it.
Nonetheless, I braved the chilly air and found solace in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the design institution that is part of the Smithsonian. Upon entering, visitors are greeted with a magic wand-looking pen tool, that serves as an interactive notekeeper for items you are interested in. “How innovative.” Perfect for a museum about innovation, am I right? With my magic wand in hand, I entered the Narnia of objects, with the first stop being an exhibition titled “Access and Ability.” Featuring “artifacts” designed for people with disabilities, I was surprised to find among the various innovations, a very cute-looking puppy that I instinctively wanted to pet. But I did not, for fear of being arrested, a la Ocean’s 12.
Oct 3, 2019
Major molten salt nuclear fuel test completed
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: engineering, nuclear energy
The Netherlands’ Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) has completed a major milestone irradiation test of molten nuclear fuel salts in its High Flux Reactor at Petten 37 mi (60 km) north of Amsterdam. The first test of its kind since the ones carried out at Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the 1960s, its purpose is to learn more about the safe operation of a future Molten Salt Reactor (MSR).
First developed in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s, MSRs differ from conventional light-water nuclear reactors in a number of significant ways that make them potentially a safer and more efficient alternative. This is because, though a light-water reactor and an MSR work on the same principle of nuclear fission, they have a fundamentally different engineering design.