Lifeboat Foundation

The Pentagon’s research arm is looking for teams to build an artificial intelligence tool that can automatically generate, test and refine its own scientific hypotheses.

By essentially automating steps of the scientific process, the tool would let top decision-makers take discoveries from the lab and rapidly apply them to the real world, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

“Automation of model-based inference procedures could increase the speed and accuracy with which these models can be used to address key questions of national security by orders of magnitude,” officials wrote in a request for information published Aug. 17. They said the system could be used to verify the results of scientific studies and monitor “fragile economic, political, social or environmental” events.

Continue reading “The Pentagon Wants AI to Take Over the Scientific Process” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ESsgQgnR3ZE

On an early spring morning, a humming drone hovered over a small town in Bahia, Brazil. Three hundred feet above ground, a small canister clicked open, ejecting its contents into the mouth of the release mechanism below. For a moment, there was silence. Then, a swarm of mosquitoes, freshly awoken from icy slumber, stretched their wings and took flight.

Each specimen was male, single and ready to mingle—and if all went as planned, the buzzing horde of eager virgins would steadily infiltrate the local mosquito population, coupling up with thousands of lucky ladies in the days to come.

Continue reading “Do Not Fear the Drones Air-Dropping 50,000 Mosquitoes From Above” »

Jason Padgett grew up struggling in school — until one night in 2002 when he was attacked in a bar and everything changed. Padgett said after the incident, he was using areas of the brain he didn’t previously have access to; he experienced choppy vision, was drawing intricate shapes and was seeing complex mathematical objects everywhere. Dr. Darold Treffert, a world renowned expert on savants, later diagnosed Padgett with acquired savant syndrome, which explained Padgett’s new skills. Padgett joins Megyn Kelly TODAY to share his story.

Alphabet’s self-driving car subsidiary, Waymo, has kicked off speculation about its ambitions for the Chinese market by creating a small outpost in Shanghai.

What’s it mean?: If Waymo is aiming to break into China, then this would be a very preliminary step. The new office might also be something less exciting: a means of working with Chinese hardware suppliers for instance.

Auto revolution: T hat said, it would make a lot of sense for Waymo to target China. It is the world’s largest auto market and a hotbed of technology and market innovation. And while Google’s plans to re-enter the Chinese market have proven controversial, the truth is that China cannot be ignored by any tech company that wants to a global force.

Continue reading “Waymo takes a tiny step into China” »

The habitat is designed to form one module of NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway, a miniature space station that would orbit the moon and serve as a way station for lunar missions or journeys deeper into the cosmos.

Lockheed’s prototype is the refurbished Donatello cargo container that was originally designed to fit inside the space shuttle’s cargo bay and ferry supplies to and from the ISS. Donatello never flew in space, but its two sister modules made several trips aboard the shuttle. One, dubbed Leonardo, is now a permanent “space closet” attached to the space station.

Continue reading “Mars will be the longest human road trip. This space ‘motel’ will help them get there” »

Not true lice, the stinging organisms are thought to be jellyfish larvae, scientists say.

Scientists have recently discovered pieces of bone from an ancient female that include genetic evidence that her parents are two different species related to modern humans.

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Moon? Mars? A trillion over 25 years? Lunar space station? Lunar resources? It’s gonna be interesting to see where this goes. It’s kind of a mess. But a good mess, a driven mess. A mess that is leading to real space exploration.

Space exploration is the latest partisan divide, as the Trump administration backs a moon mission and others, including Elon Musk, push for a trip to Mars. Here’s why it all matters.