Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 10320

Virtual assistants and chatbots don’t have a lot of common sense. It’s because these types of machine learning rely on specific situations they have encountered before, rather than using broader knowledge to answer a question. However, researchers at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) have devised a new test, the Arc Reasoning Challenge (ARC) that can test an artificial intelligence on its understanding of the way our world operates.

Humans use common sense to fill in the gaps of any question they are posed, delivering answers within an understood but non-explicit context. Peter Clark, the lead researcher on ARC, explained in a statement, “Machines do not have this common sense, and thus only see what is explicitly written, and miss the many implications and assumptions that underlie a piece of text.”

The test asks basic multiple-choice questions that draw from general knowledge. For example, one ARC question is: “Which item below is not made from a material grown in nature?” The possible answers are a cotton shirt, a wooden chair, a plastic spoon and a grass basket.

Read more

Scientists have discovered 15 new planets, including a “super-Earth” that may have liquid water on its surface.

The planets are orbiting small, cool stars near our solar system that are known as “Red Dwarfs.”

One of the brightest Red Dwarfs, K2-155, has three “super-Earths,” one of which, K2-155d, could be within the star’s habitable zone. K2-155d, which has a radius 1.6 times that of Earth, may harbor liquid water, according to three-dimensional global climate simulations.

Read more

Spending an extended period of time in outer space takes a toll on the human body. And while NASA was aware of some physical changes that astronauts needed to be prepared for upon coming back to Earth, they were curious to learn further about how extended space time would affect a human body on a molecular level. After one astronaut spent a year in space, NASA was able to determine that the prolonged spaceflight actually altered his DNA.

Astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark Kelly took part in NASA’s twin study, a means to compare the human body on Earth to its counterpart following a year in space. While Scott spent a year in space, Mark stayed behind, and upon Scott’s return, NASA was able to track and monitor the ways that spaceflight had altered Scott’s body.

via GIPHY

Read more

The difference between traditional radiation and proton therapy is in how the radiation is delivered.

Traditional therapy irradiates tumors with X-ray waves, and all tissue along the beams’ path gets a similar dose of radiation.

Proton therapy instead uses beams of protons, charged subatomic particles that can be controlled with magnets. A small amount of radiation is deposited on the way into the body, most of it goes directly into the tumor, and none passes through the other side.

Read more

This major religious site suggests I’m part of a group of mad scientists, but Quantum Archaeology is a very interesting idea that more people should ponder. The article also highlights the challenge of #transhumanism vs. religion and conservative attitutes: http://www.lifenews.com/2018/03/12/mad-scientists-want-to-3-…k-to-life/ #transhumanism

But the self-described secular transhumanist is perfectly serious in his posturing about the future of technology, life and death. Within 50 years, he believes scientists may be able to bring back people from the dead.

“After all, everything is matter and energy. And human life, human thoughts and human existence are mathematical, determinable calculations of that subatomic world of matter and energy,” Istvan writes.

“As a secular transhumanist—someone who advocates for improving humanity by merging people with machines—I don’t believe in death anymore,” he continues. “Most transhumanists’ number one goal is to become immortal through science.”

Continue reading “Mad Scientists Want to 3D Print Every Dead Person Back to Life” | >

The genomes of the long dead are turning up all sorts of unexpected and controversial findings.

Geneticist David Reich used to study the living, but now he studies the dead.

The precipitating event came in the form of 40,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found in a Croatian cave. So well-preserved were the bones that they yielded enough DNA for sequencing, and it became Reich’s job in 2007 to analyze the DNA for signs that Neanderthals interbred with humans—a idea he was “deeply suspicious” of at the time.

Read more

Such an amazing mind!

Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest minds of our lifetime, has passed away — leaving behind a lot of heartbroken science fans.

While he was publishing papers right up until the months before his death, it was in 2016 that he released one of his most talked about journal articles — a long-awaited solution to his black hole information paradox.

In other words, he’d come up with a potential explanation for how black holes can simultaneously erase information and retain it.

Continue reading “Here’s Stephen Hawking’s Incredible Solution to His Black Hole Information Paradox” | >