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Lifeboat News #125

#125

Lifeboat News

This issue published on 12/01/12. Copyright 2012 Lifeboat Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

2012 Guardian Award Winner

Our 2012 Guardian Award Winner is Jaan Tallinn. This award has been given to Jaan Tallinn in recognition of his long commitment to fighting existential risks. He has been a member of the Lifeboat Foundation advisory board since 2007, a top 10 donor of Lifeboat Foundation since 2007, a top 10 donor of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence since 2010, a speaker at the Singularity Summit since 2010, and is now cofounder of The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk which includes 2004 Guardian Award winner Sir Martin Rees.
 
Learn more at http://lifeboat.com/ex/guardian2012

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Our Kattesh Katti has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Kattesh was elected for his "distinguished contributions encompassing main group, transition metal and nanoscale chemistry, particularly for ground-breaking discoveries enabling application of chemical concepts for biomedical applications".
 
Learn more at http://medicine.missouri.edu/news/0175.php

Should We Live to 1,000?

Read "Should We Live to 1,000?" by our Peter Singer at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen...r-singer

Real Portuguese

Thanks to our Mafalda Dias, we now have an about Lifeboat translation in Portuguese as spoken in Portugal. (Before we only had an about translation in Portuguese as spoken in Brazil.) Learn more at http://lifeboat.com/ex/about.portuguese.portugal

Software Wars

Learn about "Software Wars: A movie about how we can all have cars that drive us around" at http://www.indiegogo.com/SoftwareWars/x/1858237

End of the Year Fundraiser Update

Our End of the Year fundraiser is going well, we have already exceeded our $25,000 goal. Learn more at https://lifeboat.com/ex/end.of.the.year.fundraiser

American Express Membership Reward Points

You can now donate American Express membership reward points to the Lifeboat Foundation. Learn more at https://lifeboat.com/amex

Facebook Contest

Anyone who posts to our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeboatfoundation by December 31, 2012 will be entered into a contest to win a free autographed DVD of "Orphans of Apollo" (thanks to our Michael Potter). You can learn about the DVD at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HJ...02HJHGUO
 
The following people have already entered this contest: Gerard Bain, Paul Battista, Joyce Bettencourt, Alex Michael Bonnici, Phil Bowermaster, Mark Carney, Roger Christenson, Nikola Danaylov, Patrick Das, Odd Edges, Eamon Everall, Sean Emery Flatt, Dariusz Gentek, Sirius Hallenberg, Tristan Hambling, Kevin George Haskell, Lola Heavey, Sean Henderson, Christian Holata, Syed Isa, Tom Kerwick, Cameron Keys, Szabolcs Kósa, Wes Kretzschmar, Alexander Kruel, Stephen Lang, Ron Langdon, John Lee, Jeremy Lichtman, Mike Lorrey, Alison B. Lowndes, Jřnathan Lyons, Christopher MacArthur, Richard Mallah, Jack Foster Mancilla, Chris Marti, Richard James Mcgirr, Thomas Munyon, Moana Nalu, Michael Nuschke, David Oker, Bakari A. Pace, Edward Pandemonium, Ira Pastor, Boris Petrovic, Charles F. Radley, Peter Rothman, Jessica RRichman, Esther Rudolph, Luis R. Saraiva, Eric Schulke, Cibi Selvam, Avinash Singh, Kim Solez, Kelly Starks, Sergio Tarrero, Reno J. Tibke, Pierre Turcotte, Yul Tolbert, Tereza Ullinovich, Nicolas Valentino, Jason Xu, Bruce Weaver, and Christine Williams.

Google+ Group

Our Jeremy Lichtman has launched our Google+ group at https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities...13385976

Videos

Watch "How the Entrepreneurial Mindset Can Change You: Henrik Scheel at TEDxSacramento" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjLhFdxnPJc

Articles

Read "Is 'Deep Learning' a Revolution in Artificial Intelligence?" by our Gary Marcus at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/n...nce.html

Blog

Asim Roy joins our blog team with the post "Response to Plaut and McClelland in the Phys.org story" at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/12/respon...rg-story
 
This is related to the article "A theory of the brain: localist representation is used widely in the brain" at http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/Full...12.00551 and the comments in "Do brain cells need to be connected to have meaning?" at http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-brain-cells.html
 
Other interesting blog posts include:
 
"The Fabulous Spaceport Colorado (Part 1)" by Benjamin T. Solomon at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/12/the-fa...o-part-1
 
"Solving Complex Problems" by Farooq Khan at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/12/solvin...problems

Growing Membership

Recent donations/pledges we have received since our last newsletter:
 
Brian R. Cartmell: $10,180.90, Peg Kay: $3,000, Charles Churchill: $1,000, Donald Maclean: $500, Colleen Murphy: $200, James Blodgett: $200, John Grencer: $120, Anonymous: $110, Wilfrid Nixon: $100, Catherine Asaro: $85, Michael Dickey: $85, Eva-Jane Lark: $85, Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $85, Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85, Kenneth P. Weiss: $85, Sam Gutterman: $60, Eric B. Baum: $50, Sarah A. Hoyt: $50, Roy Mitsuoka: $50, Calvin Tennant: $50, Mark F. Alley: $40, Joseph Pelton: $40, J. Broadbent: $25, James E. Gunn: $25, Rick Hubbard: $25, Just Loew: $25, Matthew L. McGuirl: $25, Allen G. Taylor: $25, Frank Sudia: $20, James Bracken: $10, Rebecca R. Cooper: $10, Thomas Dolphin: $10, Maria Entraigues: $10, Charles Hawk: $10, Alexander Macrae: $10, Aaron Mayzes: $10, Philip Morehead: $10, Roland Schiefer: $10, Benjamin T. Solomon: $10, and Ryan Witt: $10.
 
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.