Lifeboat Foundation

Not everyone is convinced. Critics point out that one of the points of exponential growth is that it cannot carry on forever. After a 50-year run, Moore’s Law is stuttering. Singularitarians retort that the laws of physics define a limit to how much computation you can cram into a given amount of matter, and that humans are nowhere near that limit. Even if Moore’s Law slows, that merely postpones the great day rather than preventing it. Others say the Singularity is just reli…gion in new clothes, reheated millenarianism with transistors and Wi-Fi instead of beards and thunderbolts. (One early proponent of Singularitarian and transhumanist ideas was Nikolai Federov, a Russian philosopher born in 1829 who was interested in resurrecting the dead through scientific means rather than divine ones.) And those virtual-reality utopias do look an awful lot like heaven. Perhaps the best way to summarise the Singularity comes from the title of a book published in 2012: the Rapture of the Nerds.

And will it lead to the extermination of all humans?

Continue reading “What is the Singularity?” »

Realizing Majorana bound states (MBS) in condensed matter systems is a key challenge on the way toward topological quantum computing. As a promising platform, one-dimensional magnetic chains on conventional superconductors were theoretically predicted to host MBS at the chain ends. We demonstrate a novel approach to design of model-type atomic-scale systems for studying MBS using single-atom manipulation techniques. Our artificially constructed atomic Fe chains on a Re surface exhibit spin spiral states and a remarkable enhancement of the local density of states at zero energy being strongly localized at the chain ends. Moreover, the zero-energy modes at the chain ends are shown to emerge and become stabilized with increasing chain length. Tight-binding model calculations based on parameters obtained from ab initio calculations corroborate that the system resides in the topological phase. Our work opens new pathways to design MBS in atomic-scale hybrid structures as a basis for fault-tolerant topological quantum computing.

Majorana fermions —particles being their own antiparticles—have recently attracted renewed interest in various fields of physics. In condensed matter systems, Majorana bound states (MBS) with a non-Abelian quantum exchange statistics have been proposed as a key element for topological quantum computing (2–4). One of the most promising platforms to realize MBS are one-dimensional (1D) helical spin systems being proximity-coupled to a conventional s-wave superconductor (5–9). In such a surface-confined system, the MBS can directly be investigated by local probe techniques such as scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS). Previously reported experiments aiming at the direct visualization and probing of the MBS have focused on self-assembled magnetic chains on superconducting Pb substrates (10–15).

In the heart of San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood, which not long ago was dirt lots and warehouses, Emily Leproust is cooking up what she — and $209 million worth of investor cash — believes is the future of DNA production.

Leproust is CEO of Twist Bioscience, a 5-year-old biotech company striving to make the production of synthetic DNA — which is used in fragrances, genetically modified foods and pharmaceutical drugs — cheaper, faster and smaller.

The same lab-manufactured DNA, Leproust hopes, could also transform the way data, from music to medical records, is stored.

Continue reading “Data storage on DNA: Where Silicon Valley meets biotech” »

A technique to manipulate electrons with light could bring quantum computing up to room temperature.

A team of researchers in Germany and at the University of Michigan have demonstrated how infrared laser pulses can shift electrons between two different states, the classic 1 and 0, in a thin sheet of semiconductor.

Continue reading “Light could make semiconductor computers a million times faster or even go quantum” »

To sustain the growth of the power of microchips and keep Moore’s Law going, semiconductor engineers are exploring the path of “valleytronics”.

Moore’s Law may be coming to an end due to the physical limitations of silicone and other elements, but a research team may have found a solution: valleytronics.

A Purdue University-affiliated startup that seeks to redefine “farm-to-table” when it comes to garden vegetables by delivering its first orders of an appliance that fits under a kitchen counter and grows produce year-round.

Heliponix LLC, founded by two Purdue University graduates, has begun taking orders on its GroPod, a dishwasher-sized device its creators believe will disrupt the landscape of how food is produced in the face of looming worldwide food shortages and increasing concerns about chemical runoff polluting water sources, rampant food waste and water supplies diminishing on a global scale.

“It’s great for consumers and for the environment,” said Scott Massey, CEO of Heliponix.

Continue reading “Computer-controlled ‘greenhouses’ in kitchens grow fresher, healthier produce” »

How did your smartphone end up in your hands? The microchips that help power our smartphones and computers start out as sand. Explore how microchips come to live in our phones, with the help of IoT technologies.

On a recent BBC World Service program (News Hour Extra, 12.18.15), a group of space scientists were gathered to discuss these and other aspects of the post-human era. “What about the human soul”, the moderator asked, wondering whether or not these post-humans would still be human. None of the participants were particularly troubled by the question, since they all had assumed that the soul was no more than the particular configurations of DNA which resulted in varying degre…es of insight, intelligence, creativity, and sensitivity. Post-humans will be no different, they all agreed. Only their individual genomes will have been altered to produce a very different human reality – in other words a different human soul.

Once the human genome was completely sequenced; once efforts to recombine DNA had become a reality; and once a mind-computer interface had been realized, there was never any doubt that a post-human era was coming.

Continue reading “The Post-Human Generation–An Engineered Evolution” »