Menu

Blog

Page 8518

Jul 20, 2018

Cloud brightening, ‘sun shields’ to save Barrier Reef

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

Australia announced plans Friday to explore concepts such as firing salt into clouds and covering swathes of water with a thin layer of film in a bid to save the embattled Great Barrier Reef.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed , about the size of Japan or Italy, is reeling from two straight years of bleaching as rise because of .

Experts have warned that the 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long area could have suffered irreparable damage.

Continue reading “Cloud brightening, ‘sun shields’ to save Barrier Reef” »

Jul 20, 2018

How to Make Your Wifi Router as Secure as Possible

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet

Though more router manufacturers are making routers easier to set up and configure—even via handy little apps instead of annoying web-based interfaces—most people probably don’t tweak many options after purchasing a new router. They log in, change the name and passwords for their wifi networks, and call it a day.

While that gets you up and running with (hopefully) speedy wireless connectivity, and the odds are decent that your neighbor or some random evil Internet person isn’t trying to hack into your router, there’s still a lot more you can do to boost the security of your router (and home network).

Read more

Jul 20, 2018

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States

Posted by in category: security

Remote-access software and modems on election equipment ‘is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.’

Read more

Jul 20, 2018

$800 Million Says a Self-Driving Car Looks Like This

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Zoox has jokingly dubbed its prototype robot taxis “vaporware horseshit.”

Read more

Jul 20, 2018

The Freedom of Life Extension

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Life extension would allow everyone to enjoy a higher degree of freedom.


Freedom is a rather big deal in this age. We want freedom of speech, political freedom, press freedom, religious freedom, and freedom of choice over anything that may concern us directly. Different kinds of freedom are available in different amounts in different areas of the world, and while many people tend to see the glass half empty and complain that freedom is not equally distributed everywhere, it’s undeniable that we enjoy far greater liberty than previous generations. It’s not always easy to act upon your choices, and sometimes you’re free to choose in theory but not in practice, but overall, we enjoy options that who came before us couldn’t even dream of.

Take health, for example. Two hundred years back, if you didn’t want to get the flu, or any other infectious disease, you didn’t have the option not to do so. The mechanism through which infectious diseases manifest and spread wasn’t even remotely understood, so you didn’t have any idea what you should or shouldn’t do to minimize your risk of falling ill; basic hygiene wasn’t exactly a standard, and drugs and vaccines were nowhere in sight. If you actively wanted to do something to prevent getting the flu—which, at the time, might have killed you—you simply didn’t have this option.

Continue reading “The Freedom of Life Extension” »

Jul 20, 2018

UK military aircraft technology

Posted by in categories: economics, government, military

We are immensely proud to continue a long tradition of aeronautical expertise that helps maintain security and defend nations as well as bringing significant economic, technological and skills benefits. The UK Government has launched its Combat Air Strategy at the 2018 Farnborough International Air Show with the aim of delivering the next generation of combat air capability by 2035.

Read more

Jul 20, 2018

Fitter Happier: Mattheiu Gafsou Investigates Transhumanism in New Book and Exhibition

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, transhumanism

Transhumanists aim to do just that: to transcend the limits of the human body through the use of technology. Swiss photographer Matthieu Gafsou’s new book, H+ (Kehrer Verlag), documents Transhumanism through portraiture, still lifes and documentary photographs of Tranhumanist people, facilities, tools and technology. In photographing surgical procedures, laboratories, conferences and the like, Gafsou employed a hard flash to add a “clinical aspect” to his pictures. “This was important to me because I think [Transhumanism] is quite cold and [it] is about, not necessarily killing death but working on living longer,” he tells PDN. “But we are forgetting the body, we are forgetting the flesh, we are forgetting desire.”


In “H+,” Gafsou uses the visual language of science and technology to explore Transhumanism, the belief that the human body needs to be enhanced, perhaps even overcome.

Read more

Jul 20, 2018

Future electronic components to be printed like newspapers

Posted by in categories: computing, futurism

A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.

The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses the speed and precision of roll-to-roll newspaper printing to remove a couple of fabrication barriers in making electronics faster than they are today.

Cellphones, laptops, tablets, and many other electronics rely on their internal metallic circuits to process information at high speed. Current fabrication techniques tend to make these circuits by getting a thin rain of liquid metal drops to pass through a stencil mask in the shape of a circuit, kind of like spraying graffiti on walls.

Continue reading “Future electronic components to be printed like newspapers” »

Jul 20, 2018

Making Machine Learning Robust Against Adversarial Inputs

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Click on photo to start video.

Nicholas Papernot discusses “Making Machine Learning Robust Against Adversarial Inputs” (cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/7/229030), a Contributed Article in the July 2018 CACM.

Read more

Jul 19, 2018

Potential new MS drug could regenerate myelin

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A study finds that blocking the M3R receptor improves myelination in mice implanted with human progenitor cells, maybe leading to clinical trials in MS.

Read more