Lifeboat Foundation

The mathematics of mind-time

The special trick of consciousness is being able to project action and time into a range of possible futures.

Karl Friston

Continue reading “Consciousness is not a thing, but a process of inference” »

Perhaps you read the stories last week (including the NYT piece linked to below) about the researchers at Johns Hopkins, led by Gul Dolen, who gave ecstasy (MDMA) to octopuses and found that they, like humans, became more social on the drug. Dr. Dolen talked about using the octopus as a model organism in neuroscience research during last Friday’s day-long workshop hosted by the NIH BRAIN 2.0 working group.

By dosing the tentacled creatures with MDMA, researchers found they share parts of an ancient messaging system involved in social behaviors with humans.

BrainNet allows collaborative problem-solving using direct brain-to-brain communication. The ability to send thoughts directly to another person’s brain is the stuff of science fiction. At least, it used to be.

We followed the recycling process from the bins to the plant to understand where our recycling actually goes.

The occurrence of geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) poses serious threats to modern technological infrastructure. Large GICs result from sharp variations of the geomagnetic field (dB∕dt) caused by changes of large-scale magnetospheric and ionospheric currents. Intense dB∕dt perturbations are known to occur often in high-latitude regions as a result of storm time substorms. Magnetospheric compressions usually caused by interplanetary shocks increase the magnetopause current leading to dB∕dt perturbations more evident in midlatitude to low-latitude regions, while they increase the equatorial electrojet current leading to dB∕dt perturbations in dayside equatorial regions. We investigate the effects of shock impact angles and speeds on the subsequent dB∕dt perturbations with a database of 547 shocks observed at the L1 point. By adopting the threshold of dB∕dt = 100 nT/min, identified as a risk factor to power systems, we find that dB∕dt generally surpasses this threshold when following impacts of high-speed and nearly frontal shocks in dayside high-latitude locations. The same trend occurs at lower latitudes and for all nightside events but with fewer high-risk events. Particularly, we found nine events in equatorial locations with dB∕dt 100 nT/min. All events were caused by high-speed and nearly frontal shock impacts and were observed by stations located around noon local time. These high-risk perturbations were caused by sudden strong and symmetric magnetospheric compressions, more effectively intensifying the equatorial electrojet current, leading to sharp dB∕dt perturbations. We suggest that these results may provide insights for GIC forecasting aiming at preventing degradation of power systems due to GICs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over his aborted bid to take the company private, with the billionaire remaining as the helm of the company but relinquishing his chairman title and getting slapped with a hefty fine.

Imagine what it can do for business.

The Germans removed virtually all essential components and put what’s left of the German aircraft into storage five years ago.

We want one of these dancing robots… NOW! 😂.