Lifeboat Foundation

But a British PhD candidate has warned of the darker side of a transhumanist future.

Sociologist Alex Thomas of East London University believes that transhumanism will further enforce a societal obsession with “progress” and “efficiency” at the expense of social justice and environmental sustainability. In an article published this week in The Conversation, Thomas argues that unbridled technological progress, in which technology “become more intrusive and integrate seamlessly with the human body”, could lead to a loss of basic societal values such as compassion and a concern for the environment.

Transhumanism and advanced capitalism are two processes which value “progress” and “efficiency” above everything else. The former as a means to power and the latter as a means to profit. Humans become vessels to serve these values. Transhuman possibilities urgently call for a politics with more clearly delineated and explicit humane values to provide a safer environment in which to foster these profound changes.”

Continue reading “The risk of a transhumanist future” »

Breakthroughs in biometric science mean future troops will fight with weapons that understand them — inside and out.

Imagine a group of volunteers, their chests rigged with biophysical sensors, preparing for a mission in a military office building outfitted with cameras and microphones to capture everything they do. “We want to set up a living laboratory where we can actually pervasively sense people, continuously, for a long period of time. The goal is to do our best to quantify the person, the environment, and how the person is behaving in the environment,” Justin Brooks, a scientist at the Army Research Lab, or ARL, told me last year.

ARL was launching the Human Variability Project, essentially a military version of the reality- TV show Big Brother without the drama. The Project seeks to turn a wide variety of human biophysical signals into machine-readable data by outfitting humans and their environment with interactive sensors.

Continue reading “Tomorrow Soldier: How The Military Is Altering the Limits of Human Performance” »

It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell. By Stephen Buranyi.

Cyborgs have arrived and are living among us. From pacemakers to bionic eyes to cochlear implants, these are all examples of biohacking.

“MDZhB” has been broadcasting since 1982. No one knows why.

The Joint Chiefs’ vice chair says smaller-yield weapons are needed to deter the use of same.

The future of nuclear weapons might not be huge and mega destructive but smaller, tactical, and frighteningly, more common. The U.S. Air Force is investigating more options for “variable yield” bombs — nukes that can be dialed down to blow up an area as small as a neighborhood, or dialed up for a much larger punch.

The Air Force currently has gravity bombs that either have or can be set to low yields: less than 20 kilotons. Such a bomb dropped in the center of Washington, D.C., wouldn’t even directly affect Georgetown or Foggy Bottom. But a Minuteman III missile tipped with a 300-kiloton warhead would destroy downtown Washington and cause third-degree burns into Virginia and Maryland.

Continue reading “US Military Eyes New Mini-Nukes for 21st-Century Deterrence” »

An interesting new study has demonstrated a method to reprogram specific T cells. Much like researchers have been experimenting recently with macrophages and making them change into an anti-inflammatory rather than a proinflammatory type, the team here has achieved similar results with T cells.

As we age the immune system becomes dysfunctional, either due to immune cells become overactive and creating too much inflammation or by cells that suppress the immune system such as senescent cells that inhibit cell function.

A dysfunctional immune system leaves us vulnerable to diseases and chronic levels of inflammation from excessive immune responses prevent tissue regeneration and wound healing. The researchers here have discovered how to target pro-inflammatory T cells that increase the immune response and inflammation and change them into anti-inflammatory cells that suppress the immune response, and vice versa.

Tesla’s solar-powered house comes to life.

By David Hambling

The accidental discovery of a novel aluminium alloy that reacts with water in a highly unusual way may be the first step to reviving the struggling hydrogen economy. It could offer a convenient and portable source of hydrogen for fuel cells and other applications, potentially transforming the energy market and providing an alternative to batteries and liquid fuels.

“The important aspect of the approach is that it lets you make very compact systems,” says Anthony Kucernak, who studies fuel cells at Imperial College London and wasn’t involved with the research. “That would be very useful for systems which need to be very light or operate for long periods on hydrogen, where the use of hydrogen stored in a cylinder is prohibitive.”

Continue reading “Nano aluminium offers fuel cells on demand – just add water” »