Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Matter-wave interference experiments provide a direct confirmation of the quantum superposition principle, a hallmark of quantum theory, and thereby constrain possible modifications to quantum mechanics1. By increasing the mass of the interfering particles and the macroscopicity of the superposition2, more stringent bounds can be placed on modified quantum theories such as objective collapse models3. Here, we report interference of a molecular library of functionalized oligoporphyrins4 with masses beyond 25,000 Da and consisting of up to 2,000 atoms, by far the heaviest objects shown to exhibit matter-wave interference to date. We demonstrate quantum superposition of these massive particles by measuring interference fringes in a new 2-m-long Talbot–Lau interferometer that permits access to a wide range of particle masses with a large variety of internal states. The molecules in our study have de Broglie wavelengths down to 53 fm, five orders of magnitude smaller than the diameter of the molecules themselves. Our results show excellent agreement with quantum theory and cannot be explained classically. The interference fringes reach more than 90% of the expected visibility and the resulting macroscopicity value of 14.1 represents an order of magnitude increase over previous experiments2.

Read more | >

30 years ago, scientist Carl Sagan asked NASA’s Voyager 1 to capture an iconic portrait of our world. This humbling view of Earth from 6.4 billion km away is known as the “Pale Blue Dot.”
➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe

About National Geographic:
National Geographic is the world’s premium destination for science, exploration, and adventure. Through their world-class scientists, photographers, journalists, and filmmakers, Nat Geo gets you closer to the stories that matter and past the edge of what’s possible.

Get More National Geographic:
Official Site: http://bit.ly/NatGeoOfficialSite
Facebook: http://bit.ly/FBNatGeo
Twitter: http://bit.ly/NatGeoTwitter
Instagram: http://bit.ly/NatGeoInsta

Pale Blue Dot – 30th Anniversary | National Geographic.

Continue reading “Pale Blue Dot – 30th Anniversary | National Geographic” | >

BEIJING—Clinical trials being conducted in Wuhan to test Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug, a promising remedy for the new coronavirus, are going more slowly than hoped for as the drugmaker struggles to recruit qualified patients, underscoring the challenges in quickly developing drugs during outbreaks.

The trials, aimed at testing more than 700 patients infected with the Wuhan coronavirus, have succeeded in recruiting fewer than 200 people after 10 days.

A total of 168 patients with severe symptoms, and 17 patients with mild and moderate symptoms, were recruited at 11 medical institutes across Wuhan, Zhang Xinmin, an official from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, said at a Saturday press conference.

https://www.wsj.com/…/gileads-coronavirus-drug-trial-slowed…

Read more | >

Addressing problems of bias in artificial intelligence, computer scientists from Princeton and Stanford University have developed methods to obtain fairer data sets containing images of people. The researchers propose improvements to ImageNet, a database of more than 14 million images that has played a key role in advancing computer vision over the past decade.

ImageNet, which includes images of objects and landscapes as well as people, serves as a source of training data for researchers creating machine learning algorithms that classify images or recognize elements within them. ImageNet’s unprecedented scale necessitated automated image collection and crowdsourced image annotation. While the database’s person categories have rarely been used by the research community, the ImageNet team has been working to address biases and other concerns about images featuring people that are unintended consequences of ImageNet’s construction.

“Computer vision now works really well, which means it’s being deployed all over the place in all kinds of contexts,” said co-author Olga Russakovsky, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton. “This means that now is the time for talking about what kind of impact it’s having on the world and thinking about these kinds of fairness issues.”

Read more | >

Moving ever closer to the Web v.5.0 – an immersive virtual playground of the Metaverse – would signify a paramount convergent moment that MIT’s Rizwan Virk calls ‘The Simulation Point’ and I prefer to call the ‘Simulation Singularity’. Those future virtual worlds could be wholly devised and “fine-tuned” with a possibility to encode different sets of “physical laws and constants” for our enjoyment and exploration.

We are in the “kindergarten of godlings” right now. One could easily envision that with exponential development of AI-powered multisensory immersive technologies, by the mid-2030s most of us could immerse in “real virtualities” akin to lifestyles of today’s billionaires. Give it another couple of decades, each of us might opt to create and run their own virtual universe with [simulated] physics indistinguishable from the physics of our world. Or, you can always “fine-tune” the rule set, or tweak historical scenarios at will.

How can we be so certain about the Simulation Singularity circa 2035? By our very nature, we humans are linear thinkers. We evolved to estimate a distance from the predator or to the prey, and advanced mathematics is only a recent evolutionary addition. This is why it’s so difficult even for a modern man to grasp the power of exponentials. 40 steps in linear progression is just 40 steps away; 40 steps in exponential progression is a cool trillion (with a T) – it will take you 3 times from Earth to the Sun and back to Earth.

This illustrates the power of exponential growth and this is how the progress in information and communication technologies is now literally exploding – by double-improving price-to-performance ratio roughly once a year. This is why you can see memory cards jumping regularly from 32MB to 64MB, then to 128MB, 256MB and 512MB. This is why your smartphone is as capable as a supercomputer 25 years ago. This is why telecommunication carriers are actively deploying 5G wireless networks, as you read this article.

Continue reading “Nearing the Simulation Singularity: What Would Immersive Computing Mean to the Human Mentality?” | >

At some point in their life almost everyone will develop a cavity in their teeth and about 70% of the global population will experience varying degrees of gingivitis. Regular brushing is the best way to prevent dental disease, but sometimes that is not enough as microscopic plaque can be left behind after brushing your teeth.

According to the Health 2000 Population Survey over half of Finns aged 30+ suffer from gum disease; and research indicates that undetected oral and chronic infections can contribute to the occurrence of many diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and lung cancer as well as increasing the risk of premature delivery.

Aalto University and Helsinki University Hospital researchers have founded Koite Health which is launching a method for home use in the coming weeks that can kill streptococcus mutans bacteria as well as the bacteria that can cause gingivitis, which has been shown to reduce the markers indicating early gingivitis and plaque formation.

Read more | >

After being blind for 16 years, scientists have plugged a bionic eye directly into Bernardeta Gomez’s brain, allowing her to see again without using her biological eyes after she had a computer port surgically embedded into her skull.

The vision system is being honed by neuriengineer Eduardo Fernandez in his lab at the University of Miguel Hernandez, and it is comprised of a few different parts according to the publication in MIT Technology Review.

There is a pair of glasses that are fitted with a camera that connects to a computer which translates the live video feed into electronic signals that are then sent via a cable to the port which has been surgically embedded into the back of Gomez’s skull and connects to an implant in the visual cortex of her brain.

Read more | >