Lifeboat Foundation

“UNISPACE+50 will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It will also be an opportunity for the international community to gather and consider the future course of global space cooperation for the benefit of humankind.

From 20 to 21 June 2018 the international community will gather in Vienna for UNISPACE+50, a special segment of the 61 st session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).”

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For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky or high-metal-content object. The new results appear in the journal Nature on 20 November 2017.

On 19 October 2017, the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai‘i picked up a faint point of light moving across the sky. It initially looked like a typical fast-moving small asteroid, but additional observations over the next couple of days allowed its orbit to be computed fairly accurately. The orbit calculations revealed beyond any doubt that this body did not originate from inside the Solar System, like all other asteroids or comets ever observed, but instead had come from interstellar space. Although originally classified as a comet, observations from ESO and elsewhere revealed no signs of cometary activity after it passed closest to the Sun in September 2017. The object was reclassified as an interstellar asteroid and named 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) [1].

“We had to act quickly,” explains team member Olivier Hainaut from ESO in Garching, Germany. “‘Oumuamua had already passed its closest point to the Sun and was heading back into interstellar space.”

You probably know the quote by Steve Jobs saying that death is life’s single best invention because it gets rid of the old and makes room for the new. This view is the core of another fairly common objection to rejuvenation, codename “cultural stagnation”.

Wouldn’t all those rejuvenated people, however physically young, be always old people “inside”, and drag everyone down with them into their anachronistic, surpassed ways of thinking, making it harder for fresh ideas to take hold, ultimately hindering social progress and our growth as a species? Maybe it’d be best not to take the risk, forget rejuvenation, and be content with old age as it is.

Well, try explaining to your grandfather that the reason he has to put up with heart disease is that we’re afraid people his age may all become troublemakers when you let them live too long.

Calling for a plastic deposit refund system https://virg.in/oa8

Millimeter waves, massive MIMO, full duplex, beamforming, and small cells are just a few of the technologies that could enable ultrafast 5G networks.

Today’s mobile users want faster data speeds and more reliable service. The next generation of wireless networks—5G—promises to deliver that, and much more. With 5G, users should be able to download a high-definition film in under a second (a task that could take 10 minutes on 4G LTE). And wireless engineers say these networks will boost the development of other new technologies, too, such as autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things.

Continue reading “Everything You Need to Know About 5G” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BDUh9X8PeBY

Way back in 1811 and 1812, a series of over 1,000 earthquakes rocked the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Memphis. One was so powerful that it caused the river to run backwards for a few hours. The infamous New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812 rang church bells in Boston, which is 1,200 miles from St. Louis. Today, scientists say that the 150-mile-long New Madrid Seismic Zone has a terrifying 40% chance to blast in the next few decades, impacting 7 states – Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi – with 715,000 buildings damaged and 2.6m people left without power.

Unlike California, which has been super-prepared since the last major earthquake hit hard enough to delay the World Series, the New Madrid fault area has been sitting blissfully by. In case the “40 percent” statistic didn’t bother you, this should: The New Madrid fault has an impact zone ten times as big as its more famous San Andreas cousin.

Continue reading “The New Madrid Fault may take out 150 miles of the Midwest” »

The European Union’s new ambitious approach to cyber challenges could be a game-changer for its cyber posture as well as for the transatlantic and neighbourhood relations, concludes this analysis by Tomáš Minárik and Siim Alatalu of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, the NATO-affiliated cyber defence think-tank. Nevertheless, the EU could make better use of existing expertise in NATO and individual Member States.

The following analysis does not represent the official views of NATO.

On 13 September 2017, the European Commission and the High Representative issued a Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council [JOIN(2017) 450 final], bearing the title Resilience, Deterrence and Defence: Building strong cybersecurity for the EU. It introduces an ambitious and comprehensive plan to improve cybersecurity throughout the EU. The Commission and the High Representative (HR) proposed a broad range of measures, divided into three areas – resilience, deterrence and defence:

Continue reading “EU Cybersecurity Package: New Potential for EU to Cooperate with NATO” »

Dr. Calos’s work has inspired us for over a decade: she has pioneered a radically novel approach to gene therapy that has the potential to overcome all the key obstacles that have held that field back for so long. We are delighted to welcome her to Berlin to discuss the latest advances in this technology.

https://www.undoing-aging.org/news/dr-michele-calos-to-speak…aging-2018

Furthermore, with advancements in quantum computing and machine learning, many notable public figures, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have indicated a growing concern with the imminent threat of AI surpassing human intelligence (Gosset, 2017). For instance, Darrell M. West, a political scientist, has proposed a protectionist framework that appeals to transhumanism, in which he restructures socioeconomic policy to account for changes in technology-induced unemployment. In particular, he posits that “Separating the dispersion of health care, disability, and pension benefits outside of employment offers workers with limited skills social benefits on a universal basis” (West, 2015). Expounding upon this equivocation, a more viable solution to potential unemployment is the realization of a multi-faceted policy which advocates the improvement of STEM-related education on a broad economic base, with habituation programs for the unskilled workforce. That is, with the implementation of appropriate and reformatory policies concerning the future development of AI technologies, this sector provides an economic incentive for new job creation, compatible with industrial development.

Prompt: What are the political implications of artificial intelligence technology and how should policy makers ensure this technology will benefit diverse sectors of society?

In recent years, the rapid development and mass proliferation of artificial intelligence have had various sociopolitical implications. It is a commonly held belief that the emergence of this technology will have an unprecedented impact on policies and political agendas. However, such discourse often lacks a geopolitical and social dimension, which limits the breadth of analysis. Further, little consideration has been given to potential employment and public policy reform. Growing concerns have been raised regarding the potential risk inherent in the evolution of strong AI, which provides the basis for transhumanism, whereby it is conjectured that AI will eventually be able to surpass human intelligence. As such, it is incumbent upon the upcoming generation of policymakers to implement and adopt necessary measures, which will provide a careful, multilateral framework, ultimately achieving market-oriented technological advancement with respect to employment and public policy.

Continue reading “The Policy Prognosis for AI: Winner of the SSUNS 2017 Essay Contest” »