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Nov 11, 2018

Quantum ‘compass’ could allow navigation without relying on satellites

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, satellites

The UK’s first quantum accelerometer for navigation has been demonstrated by a team from Imperial College London and M Squared.

Most navigation today relies on a system (GNSS), such as GPS, which sends and receives signals from satellites orbiting the Earth. The is a self-contained system that does not rely on any external signals.

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Nov 11, 2018

The US just elected 9 new scientists to Congress, including an ocean expert, a nurse, and a biochemist. Here’s the full list

Posted by in category: government

The faces of Capitol Hill are changing.

When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks — at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women.

There will be more scientists too.

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Nov 11, 2018

Meteor shower on Nov. 21–22

Posted by in category: futurism

By Ellalyn de Vera-Ruiz

The Leonids meteor shower, one of the most active meteor showers of the year, will be visible in most parts of the country in the late hours of November 21 until dawn of November 22.

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Nov 11, 2018

Are you close with your siblings?

Posted by in category: space

There is evidence that star clusters start out close, as giant collisions between massive molecular clouds, but then the stellar siblings scatter throughout our galaxy. Evidence was collected using SOFIA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy —which is The Boeing Company’s jetliner modified to carry a 106-inch diameter telescope.

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Nov 11, 2018

Living on ‘Mars 2’: The Real Tech Behind Nat Geo’s Martian Colony

Posted by in category: space travel

What will the first Mars colony look like? In National Geographic’s “Mars” series, a group of pioneers build the first colony on Mars, complete with rovers, helicopters and other tech inspired by NASA, SpaceX and other “big thinkers” in the space industry. How does the fictional tech in Nat Geo’s series match up to real-world ideas for how we’ll colonize Mars? Shown here is Mars 2’s fictional idea of a Mars base.

Next: SpaceX’s Mars Base Vision

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Nov 11, 2018

Sci-Fi Writer Greg Egan and Anonymous Math Whiz Advance Permutation Problem

Posted by in categories: innovation, mathematics

A debate over the most efficient way to watch a cult classic TV series’ episodes, in every possible order, lies at the heart of this mathematical breakthrough.

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Nov 11, 2018

After the Search: Journey to the Dark Side

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Just got these links: #Transhumanism is covered extensively in this hour long show from Discovery Channel that aired a few weeks ago. My 20-min interview in this program starts at 19 minutes: https://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/expedition-unknown/full-e…-dark-side & the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiigjw8enQ8


After drinking a mysterious drug concocted by Amazonian shamans, Josh shares exclusive footage and insights into his own life-changing journey to the brink of the afterlife. Josh meets the leader of a movement attempting to beat death through technology.

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Nov 11, 2018

Albert Camus and the Absurd — Life Extension and the Big Picture

Posted by in categories: existential risks, futurism, health, life extension, philosophy

This paper explores Albert Camus’s notions of the absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus and draws correlations with the movement for indefinite life extension and the big picture of existence.

Calorie vacuums playing in the mud, isn’t that what we are when it comes down to it? We guess our way through much of life, trying not to spend too much time thinking about how trivial it all may or may not be so as to see about keeping the levels of despair down, waiting for our turn on the chopping block… We try to make sense of this life but in the end, can never fully convince ourselves that we have because we never fully do. That challenge is a mountain whose top hasn’t been seen yet.

People are drawn to understand what the most sensible things to do with life are, or as Albert Camus writes “the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions”. It’s a ballpark question. People thirst to make sense of their being, to understand what’s going on, for meaning, to track down and engage the most profound implication. Is thirst proof that water exists, as Gaston Bachelard says? Even rocks mean profound things, and we are self-aware supercomputers in a space filled with variables and has no known walls. It is very improbable that there is not a fundamentally profound implication within such circumstances.

How might we ever make sense of our existence? Masses of people are desperate with this “hope of another life one must ‘deserve’” and often take an irrational “leap”, as Camus says, to “some great idea that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning, and betray it.” Many rest on the hope that they’ll land a job they really love and can shine in someday but don’t put serious effort into figuring out what that would specifically be let alone work to make it happen.

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Nov 11, 2018

Here’s a Close-Up Photo of the Swirling Clouds on Jupiter

Posted by in category: space

Whoa.


NASA just released this new close-up photo of the swirling clouds found on Jupiter. It was captured by the Juno spacecraft on October 29th, 2018, during its 16th close flyby of the gas giant.

The clouds in the photo were seen in Jupiter’s North-North Temperate Belt (NNTB), one of the distinct cloud bands.

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Nov 11, 2018

How Singles’ Day has helped Alibaba ascend on an AI-powered cloud in China

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

The technology and innovation that Alibaba has developed to serve the needs that arise from Singles’ Day have allowed Alibaba to expand into a variety of services, including Alibaba Cloud, logistics, and artificial intelligence.


Within minutes of the clock striking midnight on November 11 this year, consumers across China will be racking up billions in purchases on Alibaba’s e-commerce marketplaces. Alibaba engineers and employees watching the transaction numbers on big screens will whoop as the figure instantly crosses the hundred million yuan mark, then zooms into the billions.

As the orders start to roll in, the company’s proprietary cloud computing platform Alibaba Cloud will, at its peak, process hundreds of thousands in transactions and payments per second. Robots in the automated warehouses of Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao will begin sorting and packing the orders that come in, readying them for the battalion of trucks, scooters and millions of deliverymen that will send an estimated 1 billion packages to their rightful owners within days of November 11.

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