Extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States…
“It would be nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science.”
Category: existential risks
The Future of Human Evolution: AI, Genetic Engineering, and the Rise of Post-Human Civilization
Posted in bioengineering, biological, education, existential risks, genetics, life extension, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism | Leave a Comment on The Future of Human Evolution: AI, Genetic Engineering, and the Rise of Post-Human Civilization
Interstellar material has been discovered in our solar system, but researchers continue to hunt for where it came from and how it got here. A new study led by Western astrophysicists Cole Gregg and Paul Wiegert recommends Alpha Centauri—the next closest solar system to ours—is a great place to start, highlighting how and why it’s a prime target.
The findings were published March 6 in The Planetary Science Journal.
Interstellar objects are astronomical material, like asteroids or comets, not gravitationally bound to a star. They can come from other solar systems and be thrown into interstellar space by collisions or be slingshotted by a planet or star’s gravity.
Asteroids that orbit close to the Earth inevitably cause us some anxiety due to the even remote possibility of a collision. But their proximity also offers ample opportunities to learn more about the universe. Ryugu, a 900-meter diameter asteroid in the Apollo belt, has recently proven useful in our search for signs of life’s precursors elsewhere in our solar system.
A team of researchers at Kyoto University have found evidence of salt minerals in samples recovered from Ryugu during the initial phase of Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission. The discovery of these deposits, containing sodium carbonate, halite, and sodium sulfates, suggest that liquid saline water once existed within a parent body of Ryugu.
Before examining the samples, the team expected that sample grains returned from the asteroid might contain substances not generally found in meteorites. They anticipated that these could be highly water-soluble materials, which readily react with moisture in Earth’s atmosphere and are difficult to detect unless examined in their pristine state as preserved in the vacuum of space.
Technology may one day grant us a Utopia in which virtually all tasks are performed by robots and artificial intelligence. In such a post-scarcity civilization, people may have difficulty finding a purpose to existence. Today we will explore how this may come about, what the consequences of this existential threat might be, and what purposes people may find for themselves in such a future.
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/ purpose-narration-only Credits: Post-Scarcity Civilizations: Purpose ep 140 Season 4, Episode 26 Writers: Isaac Arthur Editors: A.T. Long Darius Said Dillon Olander Jerry Guern Justin Dixon Mark Warburton Matthew Acker Matthew Campbell Producer: Isaac Arthur Cover Artist: Jakub Grygier https://www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier Graphics Team Jeremy Jozwik Justin Dixon Ken York Kristijan Tavcar Narrator Isaac Arthur Music Manager: Luca De Rosa — lucaderosa2@live.com Music: Dracovallis, “Cynthia” https://dracovallis.bandcamp.com/ Stellardrone, “Breathe In The Light” https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com Kai Engel, “Endless Story About Sun and Moon” https://www.kai-engel.com/ Chris Zabriskie, “A New Day in a New Sector” http://chriszabriskie.com Kai Engel, “Morbid_Imagination” https://www.kai-engel.com/ Aerium, “The Islands moved while I was asleep”
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Credits: post-scarcity civilizations: purpose. ep 140 season 4, episode 26
Humanity came close to extinction 800,000 years ago. Only 1,280 of our ancestors survived.
A recent study published in Science suggests that a catastrophic “ancestral bottleneck” reduced the global population to just 1,280 breeding individuals, wiping out 98.7% of the early human lineage.
This population crash, lasting about 117,000 years, likely resulted from extreme climate shifts, prolonged droughts, and dwindling food sources.
Using a groundbreaking genetic analysis method called FitCoal, researchers analyzed modern human genomes to trace this dramatic decline, potentially explaining a gap in the African and Eurasian fossil record.
Despite the near-extinction, this bottleneck may have played a crucial role in shaping modern humans. Scientists believe it contributed to a key evolutionary event—chromosome fusion—which may have set Homo sapiens apart from earlier hominin species, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. The study raises intriguing questions about how this small population survived, possibly through early fire use and adaptive intelligence. Understanding this ancient crisis helps scientists piece together the story of human evolution and the resilience that allowed our species to thrive against all odds.
2024 YR4 is no longer a danger for Earth, and a (small) chance of a lunar impact could provide great science data.
“We are all rooting for the Moon!” Richard Binzel (MIT) is referring to the asteroid 2024 YR4, which for a few weeks had remained at the second-highest-rated probability of potential Earth impact of any asteroid discovered. Now, although its impact probability has fallen to virtually zero for Earth, it still has a slight chance of impacting the Moon on December 22, 2032.
