February 2014 – Lifeboat News: The Blog

In Preparation For The Singularity, Tomorrow Is Future Day

Seb — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:21:04 +0000

By Carolyn Cox — Geekosystem

Tomorrow is apparently “Future Day,” and not just in the same way that today is present day. March 1st is an unofficial holiday for transhumanists, designed to “elevat[e]the human condition” and maybe help us prepare for the robot uprising.

Started in 2012, “Future Day” was created Ben Goertzel and Adam A.Ford of the transhuman nonprofit Humanity+ to engender conversations about humanity’s role in a rapidly changing world. Future Day’s website states,

Are we already living in the technological singularity?

Seb — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:15:28 +0000

The Guardian — Damien Walter

The news has been turning into science fiction for a while now. TVs that watch the watcher, growing tiny kidneys, 3D printing, the car of tomorrow, Amazon’s fleet of delivery drones – so many news stories now “sound like science fiction” that the term returns 1,290,000 search results on Google.

The pace of technological innovation is accelerating so quickly that it’s possible to perform this test in reverse. Google an imaginary idea from science fiction and you’ll almost certainly find scientists researching the possibility. Warp drive? The Multiverse? A space elevator to the stars? Maybe I can formulate this as Walter’s law – “Any idea described in sci-fi will on a long enough timescale be made real by science.”

New partnership could produce a 3D printer that prints objects 500 times faster and 10 times larger

Seb — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 04:26:41 +0000

By Signe Brewster - Gigaom

3D printing is slow; so slow that printing an object several feet long is an arduous task that can take days. As a result, most 3D printers are tailored to printing small objects that take a few hours at most.

That could change for industrial-sized printers after the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and machine tool manufacturer Cincinnati Incorporated signed an agreement this month, 3Dprint.com reported today. The partnership will focus on creating a 3D printer capable of printing objects at 200–500 times the speed and 10 times the size of most current printers.

A Telepresence RoboCop Piloted by Oculus Rift and Sensored Gloves

Seb — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 03:19:19 +0000

Written By: Jason Dorrier

Legal Heroin: Is Virtual Reality Our Next Hard Drug?

Seb — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:31:47 +0000

Steven Kotler — Singularity Hub

So video games are addictive—this we know.

It comes down to dopamine, one of the brain’s basic signaling molecules. Emotionally, we feel dopamine as pleasure, engagement, excitement, creativity, and a desire to investigate and make meaning out of the world. It’s released whenever we take risks, or encounter novelty. From an evolutionary standpoint, it reinforces exploratory behavior.

More importantly, dopamine is a motivator. It’s released when we have the expectation of reward. And once this neurotransmitter becomes hardwired into a psychological reward loop, the desire to get more of that reward becomes the brain’s overarching preoccupation. Cocaine, widely considered the most addictive drug on the planet, does little more than flood the brain with dopamine and block its reuptake (sort of like SSRI’s block the reuptake of serotonin).

Drones to Deliver Government Docs in the United Arab Emirates Next Year

Seb — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:26:44 +0000

Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub

Remember when Jeff Bezos said Amazon would deliver packages using drones at some point in the next few years? Bezos and Amazon may be beat to the punch by a government in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently launched a million dollar contest to develop and implement a fleet of delivery drones within a year.

Competitors will design drones to deliver government documents. The drone’s cargo compartment would be secured biometrically—requiring a finger print or retina scan to release the paperwork inside. The UAE plans to announce a winner in May, and after six months of testing in the dust and heat, begin regular service.

Star Trek Technology

Seb — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:18:10 +0000

Future Wow

Star Trek really did foretell much of the technology we use today. The fertile imagination of Gene Roddenberry and his writing team gave us many ideas for technologies that we now use or will in the near future.

Predicting lifespan in a flash … at least in worms

Roy — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 21:44:39 +0000

By Avi Roy, University of Buckingham and Sven Bulterijs, Yale University

The complexity in biology is astounding. That is why biologists are thankful that model organisms, like the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, can be used to breakdown biological processes into simpler units.

C. elegans is a particular favourite. It grows in the exact same way from a single fertilised egg cell to 959 cells as an adult. Its body is transparent which has allowed scientists to map its growth and study internal changes to great detail.

In a paper published in Nature recently, En-Zhi Shen at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing and colleagues have used C. elegans to make an intriguing discovery. Based on a process that occurs in each cell’s power house, mitochondria, they claim to be able to predict the lifespan of that organism.

In nature, electrons are found in pairs in orbit around the atom’s nucleus. A free radical is created when an atom has an unpaired electron whizzing around the nucleus. Inside mitochondria, there is formation of such free radicals called reactive oxygen species.

The mitochondria produces many types of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as by-products of the normal metabolic process, including superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, and nitric oxide. These free radicals propelled by their unpaired electrons seek to find other molecules in the cells from whom they can steal an electron and thereby damage them. Thus, free radicals can damage DNA and stop proteins and lipids from performing their functions in the cell. This process of stealing electrons from functional molecules by reactive oxygen species and its resulting damage is known as oxidative stress.

Shen thought that if they were able to measure the amount of oxidative stress in the worms they may be able to predict how long they would live. Shen had previously discovered that the mitochondria in cells produce sudden short bursts of free radicals which could be counted.

When Shen studied C. elegans with added proteins that glow in the dark because of oxidative stress, she could detect levels of oxidative stress by measuring the flashes of light, termed mitoflash, emitted by proteins which detect free-radicals produced by the mitochondria. The more mitoflashes that happen within a certain window of time, the higher the amount of free radicals produced by the mitochondria.

Using the mitoflash method, an individual worm can be observed during the entirety of its 21-day lifespan. These worms are at the peak of their reproductive ability during the second and third day of their lives. Soon after this, the worms start their steady decline towards old age and by about the fifteenth day most of them are considered old.

Shen discovered that there were two periods in the lifespan of the worm when oxidative stress increased. The first was around the third day, when the worms are laying their eggs and the other was around the fifteenth day when the worms were old.

They then compared these finding using other worms who were engineered to have longer or shorter lifespans. Consistently, they found that worms with low amounts of mitoflashes during the third day of their lives lived longer compared to worms with higher mitoflashes. Interestingly, the number of mitoflashes on ninth day was not predictive of lifespan. Shen, therefore, thinks that oxidative stress levels of a worm during early life can determine how long they can live.

Telling age in a flash

Shen’s work improves on previous worm studies by hinting that free radicals produced by mitochondria especially in early life may be a central mechanism driving the decline during ageing.

Also, the results of this study agree with the free radical theory of ageing, which assumes that the diseases of ageing result due to the increasing inability of cells to repair damage caused by oxidative stress. This theory predicts that organisms that have long lives must lower their oxidative stress by producing more antioxidants.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in real life. Human beings live much longer lives in spite of producing much fewer antioxidants compared to rats, hamsters, mice and rabbits. And studies involving dietary supplementation of antioxidants show an inverse relationship between antioxidant levels and life span. The claim that oxidative stress in early life may be a predictor of lifespan may work in some worms but it will certainly be of no use in humans.

The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

The Future of Scientific Management, Today!

Andres Agostini — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:57:48 +0000

LIST OF UPDATES (FEBRUARY 24 THROUGH MARCH 02/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Brain signals from a primate directly move paralyzed limbs in another primate ‘avatar’
http://www.kurzweilai.net/brain-signals-from-a-primate-direc…ate-avatar

Rice’s carbon nanotube fibers outperform copper
http://www.kurzweilai.net/rices-carbon-nanotube-fibers-outperform-copper

Single-chip device to provide real-time ultrasonic 3D images from inside the heart and blood vessels
http://www.kurzweilai.net/single-chip-device-to-provide-real…od-vessels

Researchers create powerful muscles from fishing line, sewing thread
http://www.kurzweilai.net/researchers-create-powerful-muscle…ing-thread

The Future of World and Technology in 2030
http://vivatechnics.com/global/the-future-of-world-and-technology-in-2030/

Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes
http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences…wueOYVUOHd

Q&A with Martin Whist: Designing RoboCop’s Reboot
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/march/18-the-man-behind-robocops-reboot

Scientists Bring Extinct Mouth-Brooding Frog Back to Life After 30 Years
http://inhabitat.com/scientists-bring-extinct-mouth-brooding…-30-years/

Computer robots will outsmart humans within 15 years, Google director claims (and a giant laboratory for artificial intelligence is already planned)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2565948/Compu…anned.html

Microsoft Said to Cut Windows Price 70% to Counter Rivals
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-22/microsoft-s…ivals.html

Are the robots about to rise? Google’s new director of engineering thinks so…
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-goo…telligence

5 Reasons Why Big Data Will Crush Big Research
http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2013/12/03/5-reasons…-research/

Scientists ‘freeze’ light for an entire minute
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/02/scientists-freeze-light-…ign=buffer

Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-p…us-disease

Stanford’s New Pomegranate Super Batteries Could Store 10 Times More Juice
http://inhabitat.com/stanfords-new-pomegranate-super-batteri…ore-juice/

Web Analytics Trends for 2014
http://www.atomrain.com/it/it/web-analytics-trends-2014

Bitcoin is not just digital currency. It’s Napster for finance.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/01/21/bitcoin-platform/

Did A Russian Scientist Really ‘Cure Aging’ or Is It Just a Fluke?
http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/21/did-a-russian-scientist…uke-video/

Map of the World key to full immersion in geospatial data
http://fcw.com/articles/2014/02/18/map-of-the-world-key-to-f…-data.aspx

When Will My Car Fix Istelf Using Wireless Uploads?
http://www.21stcentech.com/fix-car-uploads/

The lie detector for your TWEETS: Scientists develop system that can tell fact from fiction in 140 characters or less
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2562919/A-lie…-less.html

Don’t read War & Peace with your Google Glass…yet
http://www.publishingtechnology.com/2014/02/dont-read-war-pe…-glassyet/

Henry Ford Gave Innovators The Wrong Message About The Value Of History
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnowrid/2014/02/21/henry-ford-…f-history/

The Office Of The 21st Century Will Be Your Self-Driving Car
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026652/the-office-of-the-21st-c…riving-car

An Amazing Village Designed Just For People With Dementia
http://gizmodo.com/inside-an-amazing-village-designed-just-f…1526062373

Scientists Turn Off Pain Using Nothing But Light
http://gizmodo.com/scientists-turn-off-pain-using-nothing-but-light-1526906564

UA Researchers Use 3D Printing to Help Fight Cancer
http://3dprint.com/1000/ua-researchers-use-3d-printing-to-help-fight-cancer/

Concrete and Climate Change – the Greening of Infrastructure
http://www.21stcentech.com/concrete-climate-change-greening-infrastructure/

Stephen Hawking: Humanity Must Colonize Space to Survive
http://www.space.com/20657-stephen-hawking-humanity-survival-space.html

Stephen Hawking: “Why We Should Go Into Space“
http://www.nss.org/resources/library/spacepolicy/hawking.htm

Incredible Technology: How Future Space Missions May Hunt for Alien Planets
http://news.yahoo.com/incredible-technology-future-space-mis…33845.html

Exoplanets: New missions hunting for alien worlds
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130829-the-new-hunt-for-alien-worlds

Five alien worlds with water detected by Hubble Space Telescope
http://www.sott.net/article/269546-Five-alien-worlds-with-wa…-Telescope

Drake equation: How many alien civilizations exist?
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist

DARPA Seeking Automated Decision Aids for Pilots and Battle Managers in Contested Environments
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/02/21.aspx

Radiation-free cancer scans may be on the horizon
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57619153-76/ra…e-horizon/

3 Ways Social Media Is Driving A Business Revolution
http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2014/02/25/3-ways-…evolution/

Your Twitter Search Results Will Now Feature Promoted Accounts
http://www.fastcompany.com/3026918/fast-feed/your-twitter-se…Company%29

Apple Doesn’t Need a Mega-Acquisition to Think Bold
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/02/25/apple_mega_acquisition.html

How Millennials Are Changing the Face of Consumer Marketing
http://www.v3im.com/2014/02/how-millennials-are-changing-the…z2uNRMOFdc

Not Your Typical Hackathon: Symantec’s Cyberwar Simulation Transforms Employees Into Criminals
http://www.fastcompany.com/3026749/not-your-typical-hackatho…-criminals

How Cloud Computing is Changing Many Job Descriptions
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2011/12/26/cloud-c…criptions/

Are We Measuring Methane Accurately in Calculating GHG Emissions?
http://www.21stcentech.com/measuring-methane-calculating-ghg-emissions/

An Artificial Hand with Real Feeling
http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/524676/an-artific…l-feeling/

The Dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/the-dawn…ce/283730/

Monetizing the Internet of Things : 4 key areas of focus
http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/02/24/monetizing-the-inter…-of-focus/

25 maps and charts that explain America today
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/02/24/25…ica-today/

Newest Air Force One aircraft to arrive in 2017
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/17880/newest_air_force_on…rrive_2017

Lie detector on the way to test social media rumours
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26263510

Future green technology concept
http://itechfuture.com/future-green-technology-concept/

The Google Smartwatch Is Real, And It’s Coming Soon (But Maybe Not Too Soon)
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/22/the-google-smartwatch-is-re…-too-soon/

Self-forming liquid metal just like a TERMINATOR emerges from China lab
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/21/liquid_metal_breakth…ep_closer/

Fear of Being Different Stifles Talent
http://hbr.org/2014/03/fear-of-being-different-stifles-talen…tm_medium=

Researchers hijack cancer migration mechanism to ‘move’ brain tumors
http://www.kurzweilai.net/researchers-hijack-cancer-migratio…ain-tumors

New wireless tech may radically transform mobile video streaming
http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-wireless-tech-may-radically-tr…-streaming

Graphene found to efficiently absorb radio waves
http://www.kurzweilai.net/graphene-found-to-efficiently-absorb-radio-waves

Will plug-in electric cars crash the electric grid?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/will-plug-in-electric-cars-crash-the-electric-grid

The Future of the News Business: A Monumental Twitter Stream All in One Place
http://a16z.com/2014/02/25/future-of-news-business/

Exiles on Main Street: When Ordinary People Resist the Oil-pocalypse
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reverend-billy/resisting-the-o…um=twitter

PM/AM: Citizen Science Goes Mobile
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/pmam-citizen-sci…=pm_latest

The Missed Opportunity in STEM Education
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/the-missed-op…32030.html

‘Space-Based’ Astronomy From Antarctica
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2014/02/25/space-b…ntarctica/

Two Explorers Just Completed A Polar Expedition That Killed Everyone The Last Time It Was Attempted
http://www.businessinsider.com/british-explorers-make-world-…2014-2

NASA to launch satellite in collaboration with ISRO
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/nasa-to-launch-satellite-i…sro-488328

Dad May Join Two Moms for Disease-Free Designer Babies
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/dad-may-joi…abies.html

Tiny Blobs and Tunnels in Meteorite Revive Debate Over Life on Mars
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/tiny-blobs-tunnels-mete…ars-n38431

How Millennials Can Better Prepare For Today’s Workforce: 10 Critical Steps
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2014/02/22/how-mill…cal-steps/

Average Chinese Getting Richer
http://linkis.com/dlvr.it/Hzx4C

Swiss Company Turns Human Ashes Into Diamonds
http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/swiss-company-turns-human-ashes-into-diamonds/

Why China can’t take over the world
http://qz.com/162690/why-china-cant-take-over-the-world/

How to Get a Job at Google
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-ho…pe=article

Nanopatterned natural biological scaffold for stem cells may allow for softer engineered tissues
http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanopatterned-natural-biological-s…ed-tissues

Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land, Stanford-led study says
http://www.kurzweilai.net/offshore-wind-farms-could-tame-hur…study-says

Major enigma solved in atmospheric chemistry
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-major-enigma-atmospheric-chemistry.html

Pine forest particles appear out of thin air, influence climate
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-forest-particles-thin-air-climate.html

Local Motors to Debut 3D Printed Car in September
http://www.engineering.com/3DPrinting/3DPrintingArticles/Art…ember.aspx

Rossetta’s Portrait Above Mars
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles…-Mars.aspx

There is no Engineer in CAD!
http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArti…n-CAD.aspx

Lotus Debuts its First Motorbike — The C-01
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles…-C-01.aspx

Fastest Wire Bending in the World
http://www.engineering.com/Videos/VideoPlayer/tabid/4627/Vid…World.aspx

Braigo — the Lego-made Braille printer built by a twelve year old
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles…r-old.aspx

Stretchable Optical Circuits Have Futuristic Possibilities
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles…ities.aspx

10 ways mobile technology will save your life in the future
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/business/10-ways-mobile-techno…?hpt=hp_c1

Boundless Natural Gas, Boundless Opportunities: Interview with EIA Chief
http://blog.cleantechies.com/2014/02/24/boundless-natural-ga…eia-chief/

Brain Scans Show Striking Similarities Between Dogs and Humans
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/dog-brains-vocal-processing/

Record number of test tube babies born in the U.S.
http://www.impactlab.net/2014/02/19/record-number-of-test-tu…n-the-u-s/

A Solar Energy Breakthrough:

A new breed of research is trying to Moneyball the least logical of all human endeavors: love.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/02/the_s…_time.html

Wearable computers could act like a sixth sense
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246582/Wearable_comp…geNumber=1

3D printing takes on metal at Amsterdam lab (w/ video)
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-3d-metal-amsterdam-lab-video.html#ajTabs

QUOTATION(S): “…To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour…”

AND

“…Change is not merely necessary to life ─ it is life…”

AND

“…The mind is a terrible thing to waste…”

CITATION(S): “…If you like where events seem to be headed, you may want to take timely action to preserve their positive trajectory. If you do not like where they appear to be going, you will have to develop and implement policies to change their trajectory…”

AND

“…Because time is real, and the future unpredictable, the challenge of carving a path into the future calls for a different way of thinking than the old, mechanical methods of strategic planning. In order to anticipate wholly new industries like the personal computer industry, it’s not enough to make predictions based on old assumptions. You need to imagine alternative scenarios based on new assumptions. You need to imagine alternative scenarios based on new assumptions. Those new assumptions need more than new numbers…”

NEWEST, PRACTICAL PRINCIPALS (TENETS) TO SEIZE SUSTAINABLE PROFESSIONAL, MANAGERIAL AND BUSINESS SUCCESS TENTES: (24) Don’t copy Nature and Biology, don’t even copy Universe. Just copy the Omniverse.

BOOK(S): The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: “On Robustness and Fragility… by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (ISBN-13: 978–0812973815).

N.B.: Quotations, Citations and Success Tenets are by the Futuretronium Book.

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini
Risk-Management Futurist and Success Consultant
http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Soldiers, machines and the rise of battlefield robotics

Seb — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 16:49:29 +0000

Kyle Chayka — The Sydney Morning Herald

For a glimpse at the future of human-robot interactions, it might be better to look at what’s happening in the United States military than analysing Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with an OS voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

Throughout every department of the US armed forces, autonomous robots are playing a larger role in every aspect of warfare than ever before, and soldiers are developing some unorthodox relationships with their machines.

Just ask Danielle.