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Oct 24, 2019

Scientists are trying to build a conscious machine — here’s why it will never work

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, robotics/AI, supercomputing

Many advanced artificial intelligence projects say they are working toward building a conscious machine, based on the idea that brain functions merely encode and process multisensory information. The assumption goes, then, that once brain functions are properly understood, it should be possible to program them into a computer. Microsoft recently announced that it would spend US$1 billion on a project to do just that.

So far, though, attempts to build supercomputer brains have not even come close. A multi-billion-dollar European project that began in 2013 is now largely understood to have failed. That effort has shifted to look more like a similar but less ambitious project in the U.S., developing new software tools for researchers to study brain data, rather than simulating a brain.

Some researchers continue to insist that simulating neuroscience with computers is the way to go. Others, like me, view these efforts as doomed to failure because we do not believe consciousness is computable. Our basic argument is that brains integrate and compress multiple components of an experience, including sight and smell – which simply can’t be handled in the way today’s computers sense, process and store data.

Oct 24, 2019

This ‘two-faced’ membrane can create electricity—from nothing but salty water

Posted by in category: particle physics

New membrane acts as one-way path for charged particles.

Oct 24, 2019

Blob-like brains created in lab could have ‘thoughts’ and are ‘suffering’, scientists warn

Posted by in category: neuroscience

MINIATURE brains which have been grown in the lab could have some form of consciousness and could be suffering as a result, scientists have worryingly claimed.

Oct 24, 2019

Liz Parrish conference at RAADfest 2019 (05-Oct-2019)

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

Hayley Harrison sent me this video taken-filmed by Andrés Grases and posted it to Youtube… I know for a certainty that Gene therapy will not increase Life span into 125 or beyond years due to the Animal Eukartyotic cell of the earth having a plague that infects all cells into mutation and early cell death.


This year I had the privilege to record in full Liz Parrish talk delivered at RAADfest 2019 (Revolution Against Aging and Death Festival 2019), which took place in Las Vegas, NV from 3 to 6 of October.

Continue reading “Liz Parrish conference at RAADfest 2019 (05-Oct-2019)” »

Oct 24, 2019

Surprising study shows reduced neuronal activity extends life

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension, neuroscience

Say this about the kinds of molecular mayhem that we know underlie aging: Mechanisms like whether the ends of chromosomes fray (bad) and whether genes’ on-off status breaks down (really bad) at least sound like plausible ways to impair vital organs, from skin to brains and hearts, and produce the whole sorry mess known as aging.

On Wednesday, scientists reported a driver of aging that, in contrast, even the lead researcher diplomatically calls “counterintuitive”: neuronal activity. Aging, of course, affects the brain. But the brain seems to affect aging, too, they found: In creatures from worms to mice to people, high levels of neuronal firing spell a shorter life span. Lower levels — naturally, or due to drugs that dampen neurons’ activity — increase longevity.

The discovery4 was so surprising that it’s taken two years to be published (in Nature) because of how much additional data the outside scientists reviewing the study requested. Geneticist Bruce Yankner of Harvard Medical School, who led the research, understood their skepticism. “If you say you have a cat in your backyard, people believe you,” he said. “If you say you have a zebra, they want more evidence.”

Oct 24, 2019

Edward Gerard Loniewski from Cellular Healing gives a brief overview of the upcoming conference at The Broadmoor, with American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics

Posted by in category: futurism

Read more

Oct 24, 2019

What’s the ultimate reason we die?

Posted by in category: futurism

In this video, science writer Michael Shermer discusses the universal laws that preside over why stars fade out — and we do, too.

Oct 24, 2019

To determine whether robots have a felt quality of experience

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

To determine whether robots have a felt quality of experience, we’ll have to ask them, and ourselves, several probing questions — i.e., “Can the mind existing separately from the body?” “Can the system exist without the computer?”

They’ll also need to possess the right “architectural features.” In this video, NASA’s Dr. Susan Schneider explains more.

Oct 24, 2019

Father and Son Build 50,000 New Beehive Colonies Around the World

Posted by in categories: habitats, innovation

These two men have increased the global honeybee population by 10 percent with their invention – a hive that lets humans harvest honey without harming bees.

The “Flow Hive” is a man made bee house, that bees can’t tell apart from their own hives, that allows honey to flow out of it without harming bees.

Oct 24, 2019

NASA Innovator Experiments with Force Fields for Moving Matter

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

On a metal workbench covered with tools, instruments, cords, and bottles of solution, Aaron Yevick is using laser light to create a force field with which to move particles of matter.

Yevick is an optical engineer who came to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, full-time earlier this year. Despite being in his current position with NASA less than a year, Yevick received funding from the Goddard Fellows Innovation Challenge (GFIC) — a research and development program focused on supporting riskier, less mature technologies — to advance his work.

His goal is to fly the technology aboard the International Space Station, where astronauts could experiment with it in microgravity. Eventually, he believes the technology could help researchers explore other planets, moons, and comets by helping them collect and study samples.