Lifeboat Foundation

I did a 10-min interview on Radio Columbia today, one of the largest stations in Latin America. We talked about robots taking jobs and the possibility of #robot politicians. It’s a combo of English and Spanish.

Aunque expertos advierten que las máquinas podrían dejar sin empleo a la mitad de la población en 30 años, Zoltan Istvan explica los beneficios de esta iniciativa.

Robot encuentro. Foto: Getty Images.

Continue reading “¿Los robots serían mejores políticos que los humanos?” »

Meanwhile, the Hubble image offered a clue about what dislodged the black hole from its galaxy’s centre. The host galaxy bore faint, arc-shaped features called tidal tales, which are produced by the gravitational tug-of-war that takes place when two galaxies collide. This suggested that galaxy 3C 186 had recently merged with another system, and perhaps their black holes merged too.

What happened next, scientists can only theorize. Chiaberge and his colleagues suggest that as the galaxies collided, their black holes began to circle each other, flinging out gravity waves “like water from a lawn sprinkler,” as NASA described it. If the black holes had unequal masses and spin rates, they might have sent more gravitational waves in one direction than the other. When the collision was complete, the newly merged black hole would have then recoiled from the strongest gravitational waves, shooting off in the opposite direction.

“This asymmetry depends on properties such as the mass and the relative orientation of the back holes’ rotation axes before the merger,” Colin Norman of STScI and Johns Hopkins University, a co-author on the paper, said in the NASA news release. “That’s why these objects are so rare.”

PWC predicts 30% of jobs to be automated by 2030s.

You’ve been warned before—robots are coming for your job. The speed of technological advancement, particularly in smart automation, has sprung countless economic studies and political warnings about how many people are likely to lose their jobs to this rise of the machines. But it’s not an easy number to peg down; estimates range from 5% to 50%.

The latest predictions from PricewaterhouseCoopers (pdf) survey the damage for specific countries. Analysts at the consulting firm said that by the early 2030s, 38% of US jobs are at a high risk of automation, more than in Germany, the UK, and Japan.

Continue reading “Why American jobs are more at risk of automation than jobs in Germany or the UK” »

A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered a key molecular process in DNA repair that could stop cells from ageing and help DNA to reverse damage.

Nice summary from Wired on Liz.

After her son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Elizabeth Parrish began researching gene therapy treatments. She then started testing them on herself.

These flying saucers could take over the sky.

What have you accomplished this week? Did you have a productive work meeting? Make a healthy dinner? Match your socks?

Continue reading “Scientists have grown heart tissue on a spinach leaf” »

Theoretical physicists have put forward a new hypothesis that aims to connect the world of visible physics to the hidden forces of our Universe: what if there’s a portal that bridges the gap between the standard model to dark matter and dark energy?

The idea is that the reason we struggle to understand things such as dark matter and dark energy isn’t because they don’t exist — it’s because we’ve been oblivious to a portal through which regular particles and these ‘dark particles’ interact. And it’s something that could be tested experimentally.

The idea of portals in the Universe might sound pretty crazy, but let’s be clear for a second: we’re talking portals on the quantum, teeny-tiny scale here — nothing that you could drive a spacecraft through.

Continue reading “Theoretical Physicists Suggest There’s a Portal Linking the Standard Model to Dark Physics” »

Maybe the only way isn’t up after all: newly released concept drawings by a Greek architect for a skyscraper in Manhattan bend more than just minds.

According to architect Ioannis Oikonomou, New York’s zoning laws are prompting developers to explore new ways to maximize a building’s height. To that end, his studio is exploring substituting height with length.

Apart from being a novel addition to Manhattan’s impressive skyline, the structure — dubbed The Beg Bend — could essentially become a viable architectural solution that addresses the height limitations of buildings in the city. It could even be an answer to the city’s expensive housing — giving the building the prestige of a high-rise while maximizing the limited space.

Continue reading “New U-Shaped Skyscraper in NYC Could Become World’s Longest Building” »