Lifeboat Foundation

The operator of Japan’s ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant began removing radioactive fuel rods on Monday at one of three reactors that melted down after an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011, a major milestone in the long-delayed cleanup effort.

Thousands of former residents have been barred from the area around the plant for years as crews carried out a large-scale radioactive waste cleanup in the aftermath of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The process of removing the fuel rods from a storage pool had been delayed since 2014 amid technical mishaps and high radiation levels.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said in a statement that workers on Monday morning began removing the first of 566 spent and unspent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s third reactor. A radiation-hardened robot had first located the melted uranium fuel inside the reactor in 2017.

Continue reading “Removing Fuel Rods, Japan Hits Milestone in Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup” »

In a major ethical leap for the tech world, Chinese start-ups have built algorithms that the government uses to track members of a largely Muslim minority group.

Today, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is following a similar roadmap. The UN has held several rounds of talks in Geneva, including a session at the end of March. But the CSKR has lost faith in that process, and is now focusing on individual western states.

Jody Williams and Mary Wareham were leading lights in the campaign to ban landmines. Now they have autonomous weapons in their sights.

Continue reading “The rise of the killer robots – and the two women fighting back” »

Scientists say our brains will connect to computers within decades to form an ‘internet of thoughts’ that will provide instant access to information…

Forward-leaning scientists and researchers say advancements in society’s computers and biotechnology will go straight to our heads — literally.

Continue reading “Experts say our brains and computers will form ‘internet of thoughts’” »

Imagine a future technology that would provide instant access to the world’s knowledge and artificial intelligence, simply by thinking about a specific topic or question. Communications, education, work, and the world as we know it would be transformed.

Writing in Frontiers in Neuroscience, an international collaboration led by researchers at UC Berkeley and the US Institute for Molecular Manufacturing predicts that exponential progress in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, AI, and computation will lead this century to the development of a “Human Brain/Cloud Interface” (B/CI), that connects brain cells to vast cloud-computing networks in real time.

Environmentalism and climate change are increasingly being pushed on us everywhere, and I wanted to write the transhumanism and life extension counter argument on why I prefer new technology over nature and sustainability. Here’s my new article:

On a warming planet bearing scars of significant environmental destruction, you’d think one of the 21st Century’s most notable emerging social groups—transhumanists—would be concerned. Many are not. Transhumanists first and foremost want to live indefinitely, and they are outraged at the fact their bodies age and are destined to die. They blame their biological nature, and dream of a day when DNA is replaced with silicon and data.

Their enmity of biology goes further than just their bodies. They see Mother Earth as a hostile space where every living creature—be it a tree, insect, mammal, or virus—is out for itself. Everything is part of the food chain, and subject to natural law: consumption by violent murder in the preponderance of cases. Life is vicious. It makes me think of pet dogs and cats, and how it’s reported they sometimes start eating their owner after they’ve died.

Continue reading “Environmentalists are Wrong: Nature Isn’t Sacred and We Should Replace It” »

Thanks to way cool new tech, Venus may no longer be such a longshot for robotic landers. Let’s hope that Brandon gets his additional Phase Two study out of NIAC and NASA will finally send a lander to Venus.

Thanks to innovative new technology, Venus may no longer be such a longshot for robotic landers.

Tesla announced today that it is launching a lease program for Model 3 and interestingly, it won’t let people buy the cars after the leases come to term as it plans to use them in its planned self-driving Uber-like service dubbed ‘Tesla Network’.

Along with a series of changes to its lineup today, Tesla also announced that it is launching its lease program for Model 3 today:

Continue reading “Tesla launches Model 3 leases, will keep cars for autonomous Uber-like service after term” »

Designed by AI trained on hundreds of sculptures.