Lifeboat Foundation

The possible levels of information mastery in the future of technology.

This series focus will be on the Information Mastery version of the Kardashev scale. In his book, The Cosmic Connection, Carl Segan proposed an alternative approach to the Kardashev Scale. He added another dimension to the original scale in addition to the pure energy usage that was first used to characterize different civilizations. Sagan believed that the amount of information available to a civilization should be an important criterion when trying to come up with a useful metric to measure different types of civilizations. So he assigned a lettered scale from A-Z where each letter meant an order of magnitude increase in the volume of information a civilization can hold. This information, he proposed, could be described in terms of bits, the number of yes or no statements concerning different civilizations, and the universe that such civilizations occupy.

Last time, we talked about the concept of Speed Superintelligence as proposed by philosopher Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford. If you haven’t seen the previous videos on this topic, do check them out, the link is in the description below. Today, we will be looking at a different kind of superintelligence known as Collective Superintelligence and some of its defining characteristics!

A collective superintelligence according to Bostrom is a form of superintelligence that is a system achieving superior performance by aggregating large numbers of smaller intelligences. So, he formally defines collective superintelligence as “a system composed of a large number of smaller intellects such that the system’s overall performance across many very general domains vastly outstrips that of any current cognitive system.” Now, Collective superintelligence may be less conceptually clear-cut than speed superintelligence, however, it is more familiar empirically. For example, firms, work teams, academic communities, countries, and even humankind as a whole, can fall under collective superintelligence. Since these loosely defined “systems” are capable of solving classes of intellectual problems by breaking them into parts that can be pursued in parallel and verified independently. Tasks like building a space shuttle or operating a hamburger franchise offer many opportunities for division of labor: different engineers work on different components of the spacecraft, and different staff members operate different restaurants for the smooth operation of the whole franchise.

The Big Bang Theory is widely accepted as the explanation for the origin of the universe, but it doesn’t tell us what came before it. The idea of a universe before the Big Bang may seem impossible, but recent scientific discoveries suggest otherwise. In this article, we’ll explore the strongest evidence for a universe before the Big Bang.

The Big Bang Theory is the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe. According to this theory, the universe began as a singularity, a point of infinite density and temperature. But what caused the Big Bang? And what came before it? These questions have puzzled scientists and philosophers for centuries.

An international team led by scientists at the University of Sydney has demonstrated nanowire networks can exhibit both short-and long-term memory like the human brain.

The research has been published today in the journal Science Advances (“Neuromorphic learning, working memory, and metaplasticity in nanowire networks”), led by Dr Alon Loeffler, who received his PhD in the School of Physics, with collaborators in Japan.

Photograph of nanowire network (left), network’s pathways changing and strengthening (right). (Image: Alon Loeffler)

The gargantuan artificial construct enveloping your local star is going to be rather difficult to miss, even from a few light years away. And given the literally astronomical costs of resources needed to construct such a device — the still-theoretical-for-humans Dyson Sphere — having one in your solar system will also serve as a stark warning of your technological capacity to ETs that comes sniffing around.

Or at least that’s how 20th century astronomers like Nikolai Kardashev and Carl Sagan envisioned our potential Sol-spanning distant future going. Turns out, a whole lot of how we predict intelligences from outside our planet will behave is heavily influenced by humanity’s own cultural and historical biases. In The Possibility of Life, science journalist Jaime Green examines humanity’s intriguing history of looking to the stars and finding ourselves reflected in them.

Excerpted from The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green, Copyright © 2023 by Jaime Green. Published by Hanover Square Press.

Plants that glow under ultraviolet (UV) light aren’t just inventions of science fiction TV and movies. Roots of a traditional medicine plant called the orange climber, or Toddalia asiatica, can fluoresce an ethereal blue hue. And now, researchers have identified two coumarin molecules that could be responsible. These natural coumarins have unique fluorescent properties, and one of the compounds could someday be used for medical imaging. Their study is published in ACS Central Science.

Fluorescent substances take in UV light that is directed on them and release vibrantly colored visible light. And some glow even more brightly when they are close together, a phenomenon seen in compounds called aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens). They are key components in some optical devices, cellular imaging techniques and environmental sensors. However, these molecules are usually made in a lab, and many are toxic. Some plants already have this ability, so, Ben Zhong Tang, Zheng Zhao, Xiao-Dong Luo and colleagues turned to nature to find naturally occurring and safer AIEgens.

The researchers dried orange climber roots, crushed them into a powder, and then isolated and identified coumarin compounds with aggregation-induced emission properties: 5-methoxyseselin (5-MOS) and 6-methoxyseselin (6-MOS). When dissolved in an organic solvent, 5-MOS exhibited a blue-green glow and 6-MOS had a slightly dimmer blue glow. In addition, both AIEgens had low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility.

The first-ever feature film shot in space has premiered on April 20, 2023 and Moscow is celebrating the achievement, considering it a victory over a rival Hollywood project amid rising tensions with the West. In October 2021, Russia dispatched an actor and a film director to the International Space Station to shoot scenes for a movie titled “The Challenge.” The plot of the film revolves around a surgeon who is sent to the ISS to save an injured cosmonaut. The filming took place during a 12-day stint onboard the orbiting laboratory. In a competition to produce the first feature film shot in space, the Russian crew emerged as the winners, surpassing a Hollywood project that was announced in 2020 by Tom Cruise in collaboration with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

#TheChallenge #FirstMovieShotinSpace #Filmmaking #SpaceExploration #cosmonautics #InternationalSpaceStation #Roscosmos

Astronomers have discovered two new black holes that are the closest ones to Earth known, and also represent something that astronomers have never seen before.

The black holes, designated Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2, were discovered in data collected by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia spacecraft.