Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 9,606

The evidence is far less clear than popular media might lead you to believe.

By: richard roberts and roger kreuz

You may have heard that learning another language is one method for preventing or at least postponing the onset of dementia. Dementia refers to the loss of cognitive abilities, and one of its most common forms is Alzheimer’s disease. At this time, the causes of the disease are not well understood, and consequently, there are no proven steps that people can take to prevent it. Nonetheless, some researchers have suggested that learning a foreign language might help delay the onset of dementia.

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César Pelli, the architect whose firm designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia and other of the world’s most recognizable buildings, died on Friday at his home in New Haven. He was 92.

The Argentine state news agency Telam confirmed the death, as did Anibal Bellomio, a senior associate architect at Pelli’s firm in Connecticut, with news organizations. Mr. Pelli had been dean of the Yale School of Architecture there, from 1977 to 1984.

Mr. Pelli’s many distinctive works include the World Financial Center in New York (now Brookfield Place), famous for its glass-roofed Winter Garden; the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, known for its bright blue-glass facade; and a terminal at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. He won hundreds of awards, including the American Institute of Architects’ 1995 gold medal.

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As Mark O’Connell points out in his book To Be a Machine, the leading figures in our tech industry – from Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel to Google CEO Eric Schmidt – are resolute that we will live in “a future in which techno-capitalism will survive its own inventors”. Sooner rather than later, it seems, the next update to worry about will be which part of our body to integrate with the newest technology. Just ask Bethany Lyons.

A new study suggests the bridge between human and machine is closing faster than we thought.

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