Lifeboat Foundation

FUTURISM UPDATE (November 19, 2014) — Mr. Andres Agostini, Amazon

FINANCIAL TIMES: Object 2014-28E – Space junk or Russian satellite killer? It is a tale that could have come from the cold war. A mysterious object launched by the Russian military is being tracked by western space agencies, stoking fears over the revival of a defunct Kremlin project to destroy .… http://lnkd.in/d-YWkfx

ZDNET: Data science: ‘Machines do analytics. Humans do analysis’ http://lnkd.in/dzfvjdp

TIME: New York Is Transforming Its Old Payphones into Wi-Fi Hotspots http://lnkd.in/dqHpQUW

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NBCNews

Though it’s existed for decades, the swirling collection of debris particles and trash adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is attracting renewed attention from scientists and environmental experts with the return of a research vessel that has been collecting data from the gyre — a circular system of rotating ocean currents — for the past several months. Charles Moore, who is credited with discovering the gyre on a yachting race in the North Pacific, led a team of scientists on a two-month expedition to the heart of the Garbage Patch beginning in July, and what they saw shocked them.

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FUTURISM UPDATE (November 18, 2014) — Mr. Andres Agostini, Amazon

The Economist: Genetically modified crops. The biggest study so far finds that GM crops have large, widespread benefits The biggest study so far finds that GM crops have large, widespread benefits http://lnkd.in/diqjQp4

The Economist: What next for retail banks? http://lnkd.in/dahXnmU

Bank of Canada: Money in a Digital World http://lnkd.in/dnwMD4p

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Preamble: Bitcoin 1.0 is currency — the deployment of cryptocurrencies in applications related to cash such as currency transfer, remittance, and digital payment systems. Bitcoin 2.0 is contracts — the whole slate of economic, market, and financial applications using the blockchain that are more extensive than simple cash transactions like stocks, bonds, futures, loans, mortgages, titles, smart property, and smart contracts

Bitcoin 3.0 is blockchain applications beyond currency, finance, and markets, particularly in the areas of government, health, science, literacy, culture, and art.

Read the article here » http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20141110

By Rebecca Morelle — BBC

“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” says Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

He shows me recent footage captured by spacecraft that have their sights trained on our star. The Sun is revealed in exquisite detail, but its face is strangely featureless.

Continue reading “Is our Sun falling silent?” »

FUTURISM UPDATE (November 17, 2014) — Mr. Andres Agostini, Amazon

Huffington Post UK: The Technological Revolution Is All Well and Good — But We Must Ensure That the Digital Skills Gap Is Bridged http://lnkd.in/dPN_AyC

Alberta Express: The next farm technology revolution. Rob Saik says big data will soon be a fact of life on farms, and producers will have to find ways to deal with it all http://lnkd.in/dNxbkBt

WALL STREET JOURNAL: How Is Our Digital Revolution Doing? http://lnkd.in/dn2-p4q

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By Justin Huggler, Berlin — The Telegraph

Continue reading “Radioactive wild boar roaming the forests of Germany” »

FUTURISM UPDATE (November 16, 2014) — Mr. Andres Agostini, Amazon

REUTERS: Western leaders confront Putin at G20 with threat of more sanctions. Western leaders warned Vladimir Putin at a G20 summit on Saturday that he risked more economic sanctions if he failed to end Russian backing for separatist rebels in Ukraine. Russia denied any involvement in an escalation of the separatist war in eastern Ukraine, where more than 4,000 people have been killed since April, but faced strong rebukes from leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine,” Harper told Putin at the summit in Brisbane, Australia, according to his spokesman Jason MacDonald. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/15/us-g20-summit-idUSKCN0IZ03C20141115

FORBES: IBM Signs $325 Million Supercomputing Deal With Dept. Of Energy http://lnkd.in/drkeJ8E

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by Arjun Walia — Collective Evolution

The cause of autism is still unknown, but we are definitely closer to figuring it out. A new study published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, from researchers at the University of Chicago revealed that autism and intellectual disability (ID) rates are linked with exposure to harmful environmental factors during congenital development.

“Essentially what happens is during pregnancy… there are certain sensitive periods where the fetus is very vulnerable to a range of small molecules – from things like plasticisers, prescription drugs, environmental pesticides and other things. Some of these small molecules essentially alter normal development. Autism appears to be strongly correlated with rate of congenital malformations of the genitals in males across the country, this gives an indicator of environmental load and the effect is surprisingly strong. The strongest predictors for autism were associated with the environment; congenital malformations on the reproductive system in males.” (1) - Andrey Rzhetsky, professor of genetic medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago

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