Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: entertainment

This week, researchers uncovered the negative pressure mechanisms plants use to communicate stress. Linguists found that the melody of spoken language in English functions as its own, distinct language. And there was also depressing news! Like the Trump administration slashing NASA’s budget, which could scrap the James Webb Space Telescope right at the beginning of its operational life (they’re also pushing to scrap the completed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope before its launch).

Additionally, researchers found that the video game Dark Souls has positive psychological effects on players; a physicist made a new contribution to the theory that the universe is a computational process; and scientists in Spain mapped the brain connectivity patterns of psychosis patients:

Read more | >

A team of scientists used the popular video game Minecraft to explore how humans combine individual instincts with social cues when learning in complex environments.

By tracking players’ actions and visual focus in a simulated foraging task, they discovered that success depends not on using just one strategy, but on being flexible, adapting between solo exploration and social observation. This novel experiment bridges a long-standing gap between traditional studies and real-world learning, revealing that human intelligence thrives on adaptability, especially in uncertain environments.

The uniquely human edge: social learning across generations.

Read more | >

03/14/56, episode 42
This episode provided by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group.
www.otrr.org.

I’ve had bad mornings, but not like this. Guy Berkhart wakes up screaming on June 15. He dreams of an explosion and something hitting his head. The same thing happens again the next day, and the next day, and the next. IEEEEEE. Only two people aren’t affected by this “deja vu all over again.” (Quoting Yogi Berra, not the writer of this story, Frederik Pohl.) A combination of Halloween III, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, and Groundhog Day. You’re led to think one thing, then another, then another twist. (from “The Critical X Minus One” by Jim Fanisher)

Credits (Goldin): Frederick Pohl (author), Fred Collins (announcer), George Lefferts (adaptor), John Larkin (narrator), Daniel Sutter (director), Les Damon, Ginger Jones, Bob Hastings, Connie Lembcke, Stan Early, Kermit Murdock, William Welch (producer)

Read more | >

A study has shown that a dangerous game of “brinkmanship” between rival genes in mammals could help explain why many fertilized eggs don’t result in a new life.

Within the genome, genes can be in conflict, where opposing chromosomes act in their own evolutionary interest. Although this tussle between male and female genes is commonly understood, what determines the winner—or if there even is one—has long proven elusive.

Biologists from the University of Bristol and University of Exeter have demonstrated that a dangerous game of “brinkmanship” could provide the answer, where the stakes are increasingly raised resulting in either the boldest being triumphant or mutual self-destruction. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Read more | >

Imagine the tiniest game of checkers in the world—one played by using lasers to precisely shuffle around ions across a very small grid.

That’s the idea behind a recent study published in the journal Physical Review Letters. A team of theoretical physicists from Colorado has designed a new type of quantum “game” that scientists can play on a real quantum computer—or a device that manipulates small objects, such as atoms, to perform calculations.

The researchers even tested their game out on one such device, the Quantinuum System Model H1 Quantum Computer developed by the company Quantinuum. The study is a collaboration between scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and Quantinuum, which is based in Broomfield, Colorado.

Read more | >

A trio of AI researchers at Google’s Google DeepMind, working with a colleague from the University of Toronto, report that the AI algorithm Dreamer can learn to self-improve by mastering Minecraft in a short amount of time. In their study published in the journal Nature, Danijar Hafner, Jurgis Pasukonis, Timothy Lillicrap and Jimmy Ba programmed the AI app to play Minecraft without being trained and to achieve an expert level in just nine days.

Over the past several years, computer scientists have learned a lot about how can be used to train AI applications to conduct seemingly intelligent activities such as answering questions. Researchers have also found that AI apps can be trained to play games and perform better than humans. That research has extended into , which may seem to be redundant, because what could you get from a computer playing another computer?

In this new study, the researchers found that it can produce advances such as helping an AI app learn to improve its abilities over a short period of time, which could give robots the tools they need to perform well in the real world.

Read more | >

All episodes of Common Side Effects available on Max.

Watch Adult Swim on Max: http://bit.ly/3Gy0aXA
SUBSCRIBE: https://youtube.com/adultswim1?sub_confirmation=1

About Adult Swim:
Watch Adult Swim on Max, www.adultswim.com or by downloading the Adult Swim app. Binge marathons or watch selected episodes of many of your favorite shows including Rick and Morty, SMILING FRIENDS, The Boondocks, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and many more.

Connect with Adult Swim Online:
Download the APPS: http://www.adultswim.com/apps/
Visit Adult Swim WEBSITE: http://www.adultswim.com.
Like Adult Swim on FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/adultswim.
Follow Adult Swim on TWITTER: https://twitter.com/adultswim.
Follow Adult Swim on INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/adultswim.

Watch Adult Swim in your country:
United Kingdom: https://bit.ly/AS_GB
Republic of Ireland: https://bit.ly/AS_GB
USA: https://bit.ly/AS_US
France: https://bit.ly/AS_FRA
Germany: https://bit.ly/AS_GER
Italy: https://bit.ly/AS_IT
Central and Eastern Europe: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Denmark: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Finland: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Hungary: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Netherlands: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Norway: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX
Poland: https://bit.ly/AS_HBOMAX

Read more | >

Many players question the choice, especially considering the games that come after Shenmue in the poll. We have DOOM, Super Mario Bros., Half-Life, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Minecraft following the winner, which all seem reasonable until you see who took the 7th place.

Apparently, a couple of months is enough for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to get influence in the industry, at least according to gamers. I mean, it’s a great game, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it’s enough to make it influential. As it usually is, it looks like some people took this opportunity to simply vote for their favorite recent games.

Read more | >