Lifeboat Foundation

The only thing we can be sure of is our own awareness. That we exist. It is from this knowledge that we can infer that survival is important.

In the past I have written about a vision for human civilizational flourishing, and would like to follow up those thoughts briefly now. More to the point, I wish to offer a deeper or foundational basis for those previous ideas. One might consider this to be a simple philosophical basis for action in the 21st Century. These thoughts are also directly relevant to my most recent post, about The Singularity & Convergent Risk.

Assume Nothing

Continue reading “The Imperative & The Circle” »

A neuromorphic computer that can simulate 8 million neurons is in the news. The term “neuromorphic” suggests a design that can mimic the human brain. And neuromorphic computing? It is described as using very large scale integration systems with electric analog circuits imitating neuro-biological architectures in our system.

This is where Intel steps in, and significantly so. The Loihi chip applies the principles found in biological brains to computer architectures. The payoff for users is that they can process information up to 1,000 times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than CPUs for specialized applications, e.g., sparse coding, graph search and constraint-satisfaction problems.

Its news release on Monday read “Intel’s Pohoiki Beach, a 64-Chip Neuromorphic System, Delivers Breakthrough Results in Research Tests.” Pohoiki Beach is Intel’s latest neuromorphic system.

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring materials, and they are best known as materials for invisibility cloaks often featured in sci-fi novels or games. By precisely designing artificial atoms smaller than the wavelength of light, and by controlling the polarization and spin of light, researchers achieve new optical properties that are not found in nature. However, the current process requires much trial and error to find the right material. Such efforts are time-consuming and inefficient; artificial intelligence (AI) could provide a solution for this problem.

The research group of Prof. Junsuk Rho, Sunae So and Jungho Mun of Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering at POSTECH have developed a design with a higher degree of freedom that allows researchers to choose materials and design photonic structures arbitrarily by using deep learning. Their findings are published in several journals including Applied Materials and Interfaces, Nanophotonics, Microsystems & Nanoengineering, Optics Express, and Scientific Reports.

AI can be trained with a vast amount of data, and it can learn designs of various metamaterials and the correlation between photonic structures and their optical properties. Using this training process, it can provide a design method that makes a photonic structure with desired optical properties. Once trained, it can provide a desired design promptly and efficiently. This has already been researched at various institutions in the U.S. such as MIT, Stanford University and Georgia Institute of Technology. However, the previous studies require inputs of materials and structural parameters beforehand, and adjusting photonic structures afterwards.

A Sebastopol man is the first person to be diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition that was triggered by an earlier bout of cancer. The disease was identified by a team led by UCSF researchers using new technology to screen for autoimmune disorders.

Hidden underneath the Naryn-Kala fortress in Derbent, Russia, is a mysterious subterranean vault — a buried structure whose original purpose has been unknown for decades. Now, thanks to clever use of scanning technology, we might finally know what the building is.

This is what a Hyperloop commute could look like.

By Amanda Froelich The furniture retailer is looking at using biodegradable mycelium “fungi packaging” as part of its efforts to reduce waste and increase recycling. …

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All species of Datura are poisonous, especially their seeds and flowers which can cause respiratory depression, arrhythmias, hallucinations, psychosis, as well as death if taken internally.

All Datura plants contain tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine, primarily in their seeds and flowers as well as the roots of certain species such as D. wrightii.