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Archive for the ‘biological’ category: Page 183

Jul 14, 2017

Earth is on its way to the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs, scientists warn

Posted by in categories: biological, existential risks, habitats

Three scientists who have studied extinctions of thousands of species of vertebrates believe so, though others are skeptical of the doomsday-like findings.


“This is the case of a biological annihilation occurring globally, even if the species these populations belong to are still present somewhere on Earth,” Rodolfo Dirzo, the study’s co-author and a Stanford University biology professor, said in a news release.

The researchers analyzed 27,600 species of birds, amphibians, mammals and reptiles — about half of all known vertebrate species — and found that 8,851 (about 32 percent) have seen declining populations and shrinking areas of habitat. A more detailed analysis on 177 mammal species found that more than 40 percent have experienced significant drops in population. The findings, the study says, mean that billions of animal populations that once roamed the Earth are now gone.

Continue reading “Earth is on its way to the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs, scientists warn” »

Jul 14, 2017

Click Here for Happiness

Posted by in categories: biological, bionic, computing, electronics, entertainment, fun, internet, media & arts, mobile phones

Technology can be wonderful. But how do you keep track of yourself when technology allows you to be everywhere at once?

In this film Prof. Yair Amichai-Hamburger (director of the Research Center for Internet Psychology at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications) argues that even though technology allows us to reach out and connect more easily than ever before, if we don’t ever take a step back, we can lose track of our humanity in the process.

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Jul 9, 2017

Roadmap to human cortex scale neuromorphic hardware

Posted by in categories: biological, computing, neuroscience

It should be possible to build a silicon version of the human cerebral cortex with the transistor technology that was in production in 2013. The resulting machine would take up less than a cubic meter of space and consume less than 100 watts, not too far from the human brain. This article is summarizing the work of Jennifer Hasler and Bo Marr writing in Frontiers of Neuroscience – Finding a roadmap to achieve large neuromorphic hardware systems.

Computational power efficiency for biological systems is 8–9 orders of magnitude higher (better) than the power efficiency wall for digital computation. Analog techniques at a 10 nm node can potentially reach this same level of biological computational efficiency. Figure 1 show huge potential for neuromorphic systems, showing the community has a lot of room left for improvement, as well as potential directions on how to achieve these approaches with technology already being developed; new technologies only improve the probability of this potential being reached.

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Jun 29, 2017

‘Biological Teleportation’ Edges Closer With Craig Venter’s Digital-to-Biological Converter

Posted by in categories: alien life, biological, security

The year is 2030. In a high-security containment lab, scientists gathered around a towering machine, eagerly awaiting the first look at a newly discovered bacterium on Mars.

With a series of beeps, the machine—a digital-to-biological converter, or DBC—signaled that it had successfully received the bacterium’s digitized genomic file. Using a chemical cocktail comprised of the building blocks of DNA, it whirled into action, automatically reconstructing the alien organism’s genes letter-by-letter.

Within a day, scientists had an exact replica of the Martian bacterium.

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Jun 24, 2017

New research suggests problematic memories could be deleted

Posted by in categories: biological, neuroscience

June 22 (UPI) — In a series of experiments, neuroscientists were able to selectively delete different types of memories stored a single neuron belonging to a marine snail.

The feat, detailed in the journal Current Biology, suggests problematic memories — like those responsible for PSTD and anxiety — in the human brain could be excised without harming other memories.

When the brain stores a traumatic experience in its memory bank, the memory is actually stored in multiple forms. Each memory can include bits of incidental information from the experience. Years later, these incidental, or neutral, memories can trigger panic attacks and severe anxiety.

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Jun 22, 2017

Are Artificial Wombs the Future of Birth?

Posted by in categories: biological, biotech/medical, ethics, evolution, futurism, health, science, sex, transhumanism

In April, Scientists based in Philadelphia unveiled an artificial womb undergoing testing on fetal lambs. With a prediction from one of the researchers that the technology could be ready for human testing in three to five years, artificial wombs suddenly became the most unexpected rage of 2017. But what sort of artificial wombs might realistically be a part of healthcare in the near future?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

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May 17, 2017

CellAge Has Secured a Seed Fundraising Round

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biological, life extension

CellAge, the synthetic biology company are going from strength to strength thanks to the support of the community last year during their fundraiser at Lifespan.io.


CellAge is featured in Startup Lithuania. As many of you will recall, CellAge hosted a successful project with us at Lifespan.io and they are busy developing a new aging biomarker for researchers thanks to the support of the community.

Now they are going from strength to strength having just secured a seed round backed by Michael Greve’s Kizoo Technology Capital and other investors.

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May 16, 2017

Gigantic ‘alien megastructures’ built by an advanced civilisation could be orbiting dozens of nearby stars, boffin says

Posted by in categories: alien life, biological

My theory, alien life will either be nearly impossible to find and we will spend centuries just looking for microbes. Or aliens will turn out to be so common that they could care less who we are and where we came from, and we will just be a new backwards species that turns up at the alien bar.


The world was electrified last year when it was suggested that scientists had spotted an “alien megastructure” orbiting a distant star.

Now a space boffin has suggested huge extraterrestrial constructions could be relatively easy to spot, so long as we look in the right place using the correct tools.

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May 16, 2017

DARPA Wants Artificial Intelligence That Doesn’t Forget Everything It Knows

Posted by in categories: biological, military, robotics/AI

Biological systems don’t completely freeze up when they encounter a new situation, but computers often do.

Biological organisms are pretty good at navigating life’s unpredictability, but computers are embarrassingly bad at it.

That’s the crux of a new military research program that aims to model artificially intelligent systems after the brains of living creatures. When an organism encounters a new environment or situation, it relies on past experience to help it make a decision. Current artificial intelligence technology, on the other hand, relies on extensive training on various data sets, and if it hasn’t encountered a specific situation, it can’t select a next step.

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May 16, 2017

This Scientist Wrote the Ultimate Guide To Alien Weapons, Music, and Sex

Posted by in categories: alien life, biological, media & arts, sex

Robert Freitas wrote the ultimate guide to alien biology, culture, and more. The renowned researchers shares the story behind ‘Xenology.’

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