Lifeboat Foundation

Using health care data, researchers trained artificial intelligence to predict premature death in middle-age people.

Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2019 is in the books.

The spaceflight startup’s Electron rocket rose off a pad on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula today (March 28) at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT; 12:27 p.m. local New Zealand time on March 29).

Like, don’t even bother reading the article.

In Nordic countries, where cold winters can keep people indoors, buildings often feature what are known as “displacement ventilation” systems. A Spanish study now suggests that such technology may also help keep patients from acquiring infections while in hospitals.

Pain is something that the vast majority of us just have to deal with, and sometimes on a daily basis. Not being able to feel pain is almost unimaginable, but that’s the life one woman in Scotland has been living for 66 years. She doesn’t feel cuts, burns, and even surgery doesn’t register with her, and she’s lived her entire life thinking that was perfectly normal.

Her case, which was published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, only caught the attention of doctors after she recovered from orthopedic hand surgery with no reported pain. As with all patients, she was given a suite of pain-numbing meds while the operation was carried out, but even after the drugs wore off she reported absolutely no pain whatsoever. That’s when doctors realized something was amiss.

The ABRACADABRA experiment sounds like magic but it may help uncover an elusive, invisible particle.

by

• Jackson Ryan

As the artificial brain races towards the singularity, what we often forget is the boost to human brainpower that will accompany it. As we increase our senses and perceptions, humans have a choice what to do with these new superpowers, that can be used to reinforce one’s tunnel vision of life or to ignore it.

This story is part of What Happens Next, our complete guide to understanding the future. Read more predictions about the Future of Fact.

Not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Whether it’s how you react to the results of an election or what tones you hear in a sound clip, observable reality is often not as objective as you think it is.

Emerging technologies such as augmented reality will further blur this line. With AR on mobile devices and head-mounted displays, we’re well within the start of what it means to live an augmented life. Humans are doing a lot of fun things right now, like integrating playful games into our world and painting ourselves with digitally applied effects and makeup. We’re also starting to find utility for AR in the workplace and with hardware designed specifically for the enterprise market.

Continue reading “VR and AR will expand the limits of human perception” »

The Futurists (1967), a panel talk by diverse experts on the future in the 21st century.

How close were they? What did they miss?

Continue reading “The Futurists (1967) | Scientists Predict The 21st Century” »

Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience.