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Apr 9, 2017

All Systems Go: China Spearheads New AI With Chip That Simulates Human Brain

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Chinese researchers are developing an advanced artificial intelligence processor that is expected to help China launch its foray into the global chip market; a whopping 1.4 million dollars has already been earmarked for the purpose by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to Xinhua.

Tianhe-2 in National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou

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Apr 9, 2017

Innovation in the Bay Area: Q&A with Nidhi Kalra

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, drones, education, life extension, policy, robotics/AI, satellites

For people in that area, and it may be worth while to try reaching out to them for funding for anti aging stuff.


Why is RAND opening a Bay Area office?

The San Francisco Bay Area is really at the center of technology and transformation. That’s also been a focus at RAND since our very first report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, in 1946, which foretold the creation of satellites more than a decade before Sputnik.

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Apr 9, 2017

Big asteroid to whiz (safely)

Posted by in category: space travel

And how close is “very close”? NASA says this rock will come about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Earth. That’s about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The moon, by the way, is about 239,000 miles (384,400 kilometers) from Earth.


A large asteroid is hurtling toward Earth — but there’s no need to duck and cover.

The space rock, known by the very dull name of 2014 JO25 will safely fly by Earth on April 19, according to NASA. The chances of it pounding our planet and leaving us for the dead? Zero, experts say.

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Apr 9, 2017

These Species Can Recode Their Own Genetics

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Technically, an animal could use RNA editing to change the nature of its proteins without completely altering the underlying DNA instructions. This makes the cephalopods’ ability to do it a very interesting phenomenon, but it’s unclear as to why the species requires this much RNA editing. Many of the edited proteins were found in the animals’ brains, which is why scientists think the editing and their brainpower could be linked.


More than any other species on earth, octopuses are particularly smart—they can solve puzzles, use tools, and communicate using color. Now scientists are saying they’re also capable of editing their RNA.

A team of scientists led by Joshua Rosenthal at the Marine Biological Laboratory and Noa Liscovitch-Braur and Eli Eisenberg at Tel Aviv University have discovered that octopuses and squid are capable of a type of genetic alteration called RNA editing. The process is rare among other species, leading scientists to believe that the cephalopods have evolved to follow a special kind of gene recoding.

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Apr 9, 2017

The Cybernetic Messiah: Transhumanism and Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, Elon Musk, ethics, existential risks, robotics/AI, space travel, transhumanism

Some weird religious stories w/ transhumanism Expect the conflict between religion and transhumanism to get worse, as closed-minded conservative viewpoints get challenged by radical science and a future with no need for an afterlife: http://barbwire.com/2017/04/06/cybernetic-messiah-transhuman…elligence/ & http://www.livebytheword.blog/google-directors-push-for-comp…s-explain/ & http://ctktexas.com/pastoral-backstory-march-30th-2017/


By J. Davila Ashcroft

The recent film Ghost in the Shell is a science fiction tale about a young girl (known as Major) used as an experiment in a Transhumanist/Artificial Intelligence experiment, turning her into a weapon. At first, she complies, thinking the company behind the experiment saved her life after her family died. The truth is, however, that the company took her forcefully while she was a runaway. Major finds out that this company has done the same to others as well, and this knowledge causes her to turn on the company. Throughout the story the viewer is confronted with the existential questions behind such an experiment as Major struggles with the trauma of not feeling things like the warmth of human skin, and the sensations of touch and taste, and feels less than human, though she is told many times she is better than human. While this is obviously a science fiction story, what might comes as a surprise to some is that the subject matter of the film is not just fiction. Transhumanism and Artificial Intelligence on the level of the things explored in this film are all too real, and seem to be only a few years around the corner.

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Apr 8, 2017

Lab-grown meat may save a lot more than farm animals’ lives

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

Keeping up with the demand for meat worldwide could one day ruin the planet. But teams of scientists are hard at work growing animal-free burgers, chicken, turkey, and fish that are sustainable, healthy, and, some say, pretty delicious.

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Apr 8, 2017

Scientists Might Have Just Discovered a New Use For Sperm

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A group of German scientists have discovered a way to use sperm in fighting cancer.

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Apr 8, 2017

A temporary tattoo that brings hospital care to the home

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, habitats, health, wearables

What if doctors could monitor patients at home with the same degree of accuracy they’d get during a stay at the hospital? Bioelectronics innovator Todd Coleman shares his quest to develop wearable, flexible electronic health monitoring patches that promise to revolutionize healthcare and make medicine less invasive.

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Apr 8, 2017

Disney seeks patent for a ‘humanoid robot’ that can play a character

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Could costumed robots one day roam the streets of Walt Disney World?

A new patent application from Disney (DIS) suggests it’s something the company has considered.

The document says Disney is developing robots, including “humanoid robots,” that have been “adapted for soft contact and/or interaction with a human.”

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Apr 8, 2017

California is getting so much power from solar that wholesale electricity prices are turning negative

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

The spikes also have a big effect on wholesale energy prices, which dipped to zero or even to negative territory this spring during certain hours in California, the EIA said.


The extraordinary success of solar power in some pockets of the world that combine sunshine with high investment in the technology mean that governments and energy companies are having radically to rethink the way they manage—and charge for—electricity.

California is one such a place.

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