Lifeboat Foundation

“The vast majority of space technology being developed is dual-use, and so serves Chinese security interests as well,” says Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program and a professor at the US Naval War College. “China understands the military advantages reaped by US space capabilities for many years, and wants those same capabilities”.

Whether you believe the buzz about artificial intelligence is merely hype or that the technology represents the future, something undeniable is happening. Researchers are more easily solving decades-long problems like teaching computers to recognize images and understanding speech at a rapid space, and companies like Google goog and Facebook fb are pouring millions of dollars into their own related projects.

What could possibly go wrong?

For one thing, advances in artificial intelligence could eventually lead to unforeseen consequences. University of California at Berkeley professor Stuart Russell is concerned that powerful computers powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, could unintentionally create problems that humans cannot predict.

Continue reading “Why Artificial Intelligence Needs Some Sort of Moral Code” »

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter just before dawn over the southeastern Caspian sea. Credit: Babak A. Tafreshi (TWAN) http://twanight.org/

Aside from the attention it receives around one of its rare solar transits, Venus hardly makes headlines.

But before our warming sun turned Venus into a poster child for the dangers of a runaway greenhouse, our closest planetary neighbor may have once had oceans capable of harboring complex life.

Continue reading “Venus Before Mars? The Case For Real Time TeleRobotics From Venus Orbit” »

China has unveiled plans for a futuristic $1.5-billion theme park with links to its high-altitude balloon project that could one day take tourists on leisurely rides to near-space.

The future frontier for hackers is synthetic biology.

Landmark scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project can encourage international cooperation and bring nations together. However, when security interests and defence research align with the prestige of a landmark project—international competition is all but assured. Synthetic biology is a scientific discipline less than a decade old, and the potential defence and security applications may create a new space race, this time between the USA and China.

The larger concern is not that this race may happen, but that if it does it will politicise and militarise an ethically sensitive area of the life sciences at a time when this frontier technology is critical to maintaining a sustainable world.

Continue reading “The Science of a New Space Race” »

Hoverbike.

That strange music/ noise that NASA thought they heard may have originated from earth according to Russian Scientists.

For anyone excited by recent reports of a mysterious radio signal possibly sent from extra-terrestrial life forms in deep space, Russian scientists have some sobering news.

It probably came from Earth, according to a group of researchers who detected the signal in May 2015.

Continue reading “Mysterious signal from space likely came from Earth: Russian scientists” »

Something different.

“The real task with dealing with extraterrestrials is to know when you’ve got one.

Continue reading “Earth Is Outside Our Delivery Zone” »

In a video uploaded to YouTube on August 3rd (below), engineers from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, proposed an orbiter and lander mission to Ganymede. The video suggests a launch could come in the next decade. Although the commentary is in Russian, the video appears to suggest that Ganymede may be as good a candidate or better for life than Europa.