Jul 28, 2015
‘Impossible’ EM Propulsion Engine Confirmed
Posted by Sean Brazell in category: space travel
We shall see…
The EM Drive has been laughed at by scientists in the past, but now it appears to actually work.
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Jul 28, 2015
3D Printed Organs Are a Heartbeat Closer to Reality
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical, robotics/AI
Learn about the advancements of a robot that will save lives. The plan? It’s going to produce 3D printed organs and even a fully functional human heart.
Jul 28, 2015
100 Year Starship Announces the Canopus Award for Interstellar Writing
Posted by Jason Batt in categories: futurism, space, space travel
100 Year Starship (100YSS) today announced the establishment of the Canopus Award, an annual writing prize recognizing the finest fiction and non-fiction works that contribute to the excitement, knowledge, and understanding of interstellar space exploration and travel.
100YSS, led by former astronaut, engineer, physician and entrepreneur Dr. Mae Jemison, is an independent, long-term global initiative working to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100 years.
Continue reading “100 Year Starship Announces the Canopus Award for Interstellar Writing” »
Jul 28, 2015
When Machines Can Do Most Jobs—Passion, Creativity, and Reinvention Rule
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: employment, energy, health, robotics/AI
Not long ago, schoolchildren chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.
Now, by my estimates, the half-life of a career is about 10 years. I expect that it will decrease, within a decade, to five years. Advancing technologies will cause so much disruption to almost every industry that entire professions will disappear. And then, in about 15–20 years from now, we will be facing a jobless future, in which most jobs are done by machines and the cost of basic necessities such as food, energy and health care is negligible — just as the costs of cellphone communications and information are today. We will be entering an era of abundance in which we no longer have to work to have our basic needs met. And we will gain the freedom to pursue creative endeavors and do the things that we really like.
Jul 27, 2015
AI and robotics researchers call for global ban on autonomous weapons
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: drones, Elon Musk, robotics/AI
More than 1,000 leading artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics researchers and others, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, just signed and published an open letter from the Future of Life Institute (FLI) today calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons.
FLI defines “autonomous weapons” as those that select and engage targets without human intervention, such as armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions.
Jul 27, 2015
Free Will Does Not Exist — Should it be a Transhumanist Enhancement?
Posted by Sean Cusack in categories: neuroscience, transhumanism
Free Will Does Not Exist — Should it be a Transhumanist Enhancement?
Let’s formulate the task of life extension slightly differently. Something like this…How can we extend sex appeal?
Gyms and beauty salons are in charge of this question now. There is some success, but it’s mostly superficial. Plastic surgery only masks, but doesn’t delay the processes of aging.
Expanding sex appeal is a complex task. Its aspects include both beauty and the activity of the brain. To be sexually attractive we have to be smart and fun. One cannot solve the problem of dementia with makeup.
Jul 27, 2015
Futurist Wants to Replace the Death Penalty with Behavioral Modification Brain Implants
Posted by Zoltan Istvan in categories: law, neuroscience
This death penalty story continuing to get coverage. This article below is nice as it mentions another idea I wrote about, which is that of death row prisoners and the possibility of cryonics.
He also suggests putting violent criminals in the Matrix for the rest of their lives.
Jul 27, 2015
Super-elastic conducting fibers for artificial muscles, sensors, capacitors
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: electronics, nanotechnology
UT Dallas scientists have constructed novel fibers by wrapping sheets of tiny carbon nanotubes to form a sheath around a long rubber core. This illustration shows complex two-dimensional buckling, shown in yellow, of the carbon nanotube sheath/rubber-core fiber. The buckling results in a conductive fiber with super elasticity and novel electronic properties. (credit: UT Dallas Alan G. MacDiarmid Nanotech Institute)
An international research team based at The University of Texas at Dallas has made electrically conducting fibers that can be reversibly stretched to more than 14 times their initial length and whose electrical conductivity increases 200-fold when stretched.
Jul 27, 2015
How to save the planet: environmental conflicts in a new light — By Justin Farrell | Financial Times
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: environmental, science
One of the most symbolic and substantively important examples of environmental conflict is over Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is the first national park in the world, and perhaps the most important natural treasure in the US. More recently it has become a site for bitter and long-lasting environmental conflict. And it has made me wonder how the scientific arguments around the issues sit with the emotional reactions inspired by the landscape and history.
