Lifeboat Foundation

How do you balance openness and responsibility?

Many people in Hawaii faced that very question on Jan. 13, 2018. That morning, at 8:07 a.m. local time, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sent out an alert advising residents to seek shelter from an incoming ballistic missile.

Unbeknownst to just about everyone at the time, however, the alert was a false alarm. Even the operator who sent out the alarm, issued over text messages and on TV and radio stations, thought it was real. But it was accidentally sent out during a shift change, and the incoming operator didn’t realize that the alert was part of a preparedness drill.

An erroneous alert about a nuclear attack was sent to Hawaii residents. The ensuing confusion and hysteria revealed that Americans are not prepared.

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The Hayabusa2 probe is designed to fire a bullet at Ryugu to retrieve rocks from the asteroid’s surface.

by

• Jackson Ryan

Introduction

The rise of https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/”>the https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/silicon-brains/”>silicon brain that can give rise to thought, emotion and behavior in a machine seems to be on the way. This is mainly due to rapid advances in software and hardware that are paving the way for next generation computational systems with cognitive abilities modeled after the human brain. This will prove to be a significant evolutionary development and especially important to enhancing https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning…id/1331480” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning…id/1331480”>machine intelligence for the complex problems that need to be solved for the future of humanity. So, as we envision a rapidly evolving silicon brain taking in the data from its surroundings in cyberspace, geospace, space (CGS) and run the data through some known/unknown computing processes and then tell the computer/machine to act, feel or behave in a certain way seems to bring humanity a lot more questions than answers. This is mainly because it is not known how the information on the silicon brain will be processed, stored or recalled; how the computer commands will emerge and become effective, and even how the silicon brain will experience the sensory world around it in CGS, and how it will think, feel or empathize.

As we evaluate all these emerging questions surrounding the rise of the silicon brain, there is an intense effort already going on to create neuromorphic chips that can mimic the human brain. There is also an initiative emerging to create a neuromorphic chip based on an octopus brain. While the emerging neuromorphic chips are still nowhere near as capable as a human brain or octopus brain, much is expected to change for machine intelligence very rapidly in the coming years, as these chips begin learning to process available sensory data from CGS to evolve their abilities in real time for the goals defined for them.

Continue reading “The Rise Of The Silicon Brain” »

When astronomers search the skies for signs of alien life, they tend to focus on planets that are relatively similar to Earth. But while looking for the kinds of life we know exist is a good place to start, different conditions on different planets could have led life down paths that are completely … well, alien. To demonstrate, a NASA-funded study has successfully created a new synthetic genetic system that’s a viable alternative to DNA, made with twice as many “ingredients.”

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The test will show Orion’s Launch Abort System can carry a crew to safety in case of an emergency during launch.

An ice-penetrating robotic system to transport an exploration AUV.

TheTeredo IceShuttle is a robotic probe which is capable to transport a payload through an ice-shield towards an environment located beneath the ice. The System is developed in context of the project Europa-Explore r. For that project, a set of robots are developed to model the exploration of the hypothesized ocean on Jupiters icy moon Europa by an analog mission on earth. Within the scenario the IceShuttle transports an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) as its payload. (image below)

The question, “Are we alone?” has been a subject of speculation for centuries. The answer may soon lie within the grasp of science.

Decades of research have led scientists to look deeply into the nature of life itself — what it is, how it began on Earth, and what other worlds might also support it. A shift in focus is now emerging as scientists recognize that with a strategic push the possibility of detecting life beyond Earth could be on the horizon.

To support NASA’s growing emphasis on detecting life beyond Earth, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley has established the Center for Life Detection Science. CLDS brings together a diverse group of researchers at Ames and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland to tackle the next set of challenges science must overcome to be able to one day detect life beyond Earth.

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