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Oct 20, 2017
PBS’s Documentary ‘The Gene Doctors’ Arrives Amid A Gene Therapy Boom
Posted by Dan Kummer in categories: biotech/medical, education
Oct 20, 2017
China breaking all solar power records, aiming for 50GW in 2017
Posted by Dan Kummer in categories: climatology, solar power, sustainability
China is leading the world in solar power installations by a long run. ASECEA is predicting that 50GW of solar power is well within reach of being installed this year. In June and July of 2017, China installed 25GW of solar power – and they’ll push the globe past 100GW total for the year.
At China’s ‘State of the Union address’ equivalent, just yesterday, president Xi Jinping said, “Any harm we inflict on nature will eventually return to haunt us… this is a reality we have to face.”
“Taking a driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change, China has become an important participant, contributor, and torchbearer in the global endeavor for ecological civilization,” said President Xi Jinping, and that China must “develop a new model of modernization with humans developing in harmony with nature.”
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Recorded, October 11, 2017
Pieter Abbeel is a professor at UC Berkeley.
Oct 20, 2017
The AI That Has Nothing to Learn From Humans
Posted by Sean Cusack in category: robotics/AI
DeepMind’s new self-taught Go-playing program is making moves that other players describe as “alien” and “from an alternate dimension.”
It was a tense summer day in 1835 Japan. The country’s reigning Go player, Honinbo Jowa, took his seat across a board from a 25-year-old prodigy by the name of Akaboshi Intetsu. Both men had spent their lives mastering the two-player strategy game that’s long been popular in East Asia. Their face-off, that day, was high-stakes: Honinbo and Akaboshi represented two Go houses fighting for power, and the rivalry between the two camps had lately exploded into accusations of foul play.
Little did they know that the match—now remembered by Go historians as the “blood-vomiting game”—would last for several grueling days. Or that it would lead to a grisly end.
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Oct 20, 2017
Your computer has no idea what you’re feeling—that needs to change
Posted by Gerard Bain in category: robotics/AI
A View from Rana el Kaliouby
We Need Computers with Empathy
An emerging trend in artificial intelligence is to get computers to detect how we’re feeling and respond accordingly. They might even help us develop more compassion for one another.
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Oct 20, 2017
Why Eradicating Age-related Disease Could Benefit You and Your Family
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
The benefits of rejuvenation biotechnology to end age-related diseases could go beyond just the individual.
As I wrote in a different article, rejuvenation biotechnology promises a range of benefits for individuals. Lest anyone thinks that’s all rejuvenation has to offer, I reckon it’s worth discussing other ways that this technology would benefit larger groups of people—namely, your friends and family. If you are rejuvenated, that’s all good for you, but is there anything good coming out of it for your dear ones? Oh, yes.
Two burdens relieved with a single shot
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Oct 20, 2017
Bootstrapping the Solar System Economy
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: economics, robotics/AI, space travel
Centauri Dreams returns with an essay by long-time contributor Alex Tolley. If we need to grow a much bigger economy to make starships possible one day, the best way to proceed should be through building an infrastructure starting in the inner Solar System and working outward. Alex digs into the issues here, starting with earlier conceptions of how it might be done, and the present understanding that artificial intelligence is moving at such a clip that it will affect all of our ventures as we transform into a truly space-faring species. Under the microscope here is a company called SpaceFab, as Alex explains below, and the potential of ISRU — in situ resource utilization. Emerging out of all this is a new model for expansion.
by Alex Tolley
Oct 20, 2017
The scientists trying to find the “cure” for old age
Posted by Derick Lee in categories: biotech/medical, cryonics, life extension
Izpisúa, Blasco, De Grey, and Magalhães meet in Madrid at the end of summer at the first “International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit.” The conference lasts two days and is held in the CSIC, attracting prominent scientists, futurists and freaks, as conference organizer and Vidaplus President Txetxu Mazuelas, refers to them. The scientific world and the futuristic world inevitably clash. One of the most heated debates is on the cryopreservation of human beings – a kind of plan B that puts humans on ice while they work out the secret to eternal life.
Could we live to 140? 1,000? Is there a limit? Scientific research into extending the human lifespan is being backed by Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Facebook.
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Oct 20, 2017
Stevia Kills Lyme Disease Pathogen Better Than Antibiotics (Preclinical Study)
Posted by Ian Hale in category: biotech/medical
Lyme disease is exceedingly difficult to treat, due to its well-known shape-shifting (pleomorphic) abilities, with conventional antibiotics often failing to produce a long-term cure. Could the commonly used natural plant Stevia provide a safer, and more effective means to combat this increasingly prevalent infection?
A promising new preclinical study has revealed that whole stevia leaf extract possesses exceptional antibiotic activity against the exceedingly difficult to treat pathogen Borrelia Burgdorferi known to cause Lyme disease. The study found.
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