Lifeboat Foundation

Have we just been buzzed by ET?

Green Bank telescope in West Virginia will listen for radio signals from ‘Oumuamua, an object from another solar system.

According to a French physiologist, humans have reached the peak of our height, lifespan and physical fitness.

I suspect that from our vantage point (a narrow snapshot of human evolution), we lack sufficient data to arrive this sweeping conclusion. Nevertheless, mainstream media is taking this research seriously.

http://www.newsweek.com/humans-reached-peak-height-lifespan-fitness-741816

With machine learning algorithms evolving at an incredibly fast pace, concerns are mounting whether artificial intelligence (AI) is the logical continuation of human history or its demise. RT talked to three experts in the field about the benefits and dangers of AI.

Three AI experts engaged in a debate on RT about the benefits and dangers of rapidly-developing technology and AI.

In an experiment with science fiction implications, neurologists say they taught monkeys to play a game by stimulating their brains with electrodes.

In an April 2014 article, I demonstrated how one might approach a fair Bitcoin valuation.

• Original Methodology: What fraction of the daily float
  needed to support daily global commerce will Bitcoin capture?

My methodology was based on the demand that Bitcoin would generate if it displaced a small fraction of cash and credit used for retail and commercial payments around the world. At the time, Bitcoin had a value of USD $450. I estimated that if it captured 5% of global payments, it would have a fair value of about $10,000/BTC (I didn’t complete the calculation—I left that up to the reader. That’s because I was concerned that publishing such a prediction would cause me to lose credibility as an economist and blogger. For what it is worth, I also predicted that a rise to $10,000 would take 5~8 years.

As you might imagine, my friends and family urged me to unload my BTC investment. The April 2014 price of $450/BTC seemed very high to most armchair analysts. After all, thirteen months earlier, it had been just $45.

Continue reading “Bitcoin Fair Value Calculation” »

Humanity has reached its peak and is now probably in its downfall, according to major new research.

People have long thought of human development as one long process of improvement, going on forever. But we are now running up against the limits of how good we can be, say scientists – and most likely we’ll now just begin to fall again.

The major research review looked at 120 years of data and found that there appears to be limits on our characteristics, like when we die, how tall we can be and how strong we are. We are pushing up against those limits now, the research suggests.

Continue reading “The human race has peaked and will now get worse, scientists confirm” »

Machine learning drove the breakthrough.

Ray Kurzweil discusses how biotechnology is rapidly and radically changing our lives, which will improve our health and longevity.