Dec 3, 2015
Antidepressant may help prevent memory loss, dementia
Posted by Dan Kummer in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience
The prescription antidepressant escitalopram (trademarked as Lexapro) shows promise as a deterrent to dementia.
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Dec 3, 2015
Russia Is Planning To Build A Permanent Manned Base On The Moon
Posted by Dan Kummer in category: space
Dec 3, 2015
This Short Movie About An Endless Future War Looks Unspeakably Great
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: entertainment, futurism
Check out the trailer for The Shaman, a new short film debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival. As with a lot of short films we’ve seen lately, this has top-notch visual effects — but more than that, it looks like a thing of pure beauty. And it has an original story, with a concept I haven’t come across before.
Basically, in The Shaman, it’s 2204, and the world has been at war for 73 years. And the main character isn’t a soldier — he’s a Shaman, one of a group of people who used to be healers. But now, instead, he uses his supernatural powers to “heal” the souls of the enemy, basically helping them cross over into the afterlife. That’s what I get from the trailer, in any case. This is the work of writer/director Marco Kalantari (Ainoa).
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Dec 3, 2015
You Can Finally Watch One of This Year’s Best Shorts Online
Posted by Sean Brazell in category: entertainment
We were really impressed with the trailer for The Shaman when it came out in March. And now, after a successful run at film festivals, you can finally see it for yourself.
At seventeen minutes, The Shaman is a bit longer than many other shorts, but that’s not to its detriment. It just contributes to the overall sense that what you’re actually seeing is a full cinematic feature film—which makes sense, since it was originally conceived as one. Marco Kalantari (Ainoa) uses every second he has to full effect. We have would-building, effective exposition, action scenes, and a confrontation that’s all about willpower.
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Dec 3, 2015
The future of intelligence: Cambridge University launches new centre to study AI and the future of humanity
Posted by Andreas Matt in categories: futurism, robotics/AI
The University of Cambridge is launching a new research centre, thanks to a £10 million grant from the Leverhulme Trust, to explore the opportunities and challenges to humanity from the development of artificial intelligence.
Dec 3, 2015
Discovery Provides Hope Of More Effective, Safer Cryopreservation
Posted by Robert James Powles in categories: cryonics, innovation, life extension, materials
Cryogenics are an old science fiction dream, but today we still struggle to store large tissues without harming them. Now a breakthrough could lead to a safer, more reliable approach.
” This could be an important step toward the preservation of more complex tissues and structures”
Overcoming past challenges
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Dec 3, 2015
Australian Physicists Prove Time Travel is Possible
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, time travel
Scientists from the University of Queensland have used photons (single particles of light) to simulate quantum particles travelling through time. The research is cutting edge and the results could be dramatic!
Their research, entitled “Experimental simulation of closed timelike curves “, is published in the latest issue of Nature Communications. The grandfather paradox states that if a time traveler were to go back in time, he could accidentally prevent his grandparents from meeting, and thus prevent his own birth.
However, if he had never been born, he could never have traveled back in time, in the first place. The paradoxes are largely caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the solution to it, the Gödel metric.
Dec 3, 2015
Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World’s Exit from Fossil Fuels — By Kirsten Korosec | Fortune
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: Elon Musk, environmental
“[O]nly a carbon tax—not innovation, conservation, or renewable energy—will accelerate the transition from carbon-producing fossil fuels to sustainable energy.”
Dec 3, 2015
Junk-Eating Rocket Engine Could Clear Space Debris
Posted by Andreas Matt in category: space
The risks associated with space debris are rising. An efficient way to clear the skies of junk is desperately needed, and a team of Chinese engineers think they have the answer.
Dec 3, 2015
Cambridge University launches £10 million AI research centre, to ‘move away from science fiction’
Posted by Amnon H. Eden in categories: futurism, robotics/AI
What will happen when machines become smarter than us?
It used to be a question purely for science fiction writers, but with experts predicting human-level AI could become a reality within this century, it’s become a pressing issue for scientists and philosophers, as they try to predict how our world will change.
Keen not to be left behind, Cambridge University has been at the forefront of the issue, and today announced the launch of a brand new centre, dedicated to answering the very real questions once seen solely as the preserve of Doctor Who or Stanley Kubrick’s HAL.
