Lifeboat Foundation

Brendan I. Koerner at Wired, explores the ramifications of the authorities requesting DNA from ancestry sites:

Mitch Morrissey, Denver’s district attorney and one of the nation’s leading advocates for familial DNA searching, stresses that the technology is “an innovative approach to investigating challenging cases, particularly cold cases where the victims are women or children and traditional investigative tactics fail to yield a solid suspect.” Familial DNA searches have indeed helped nab people who might otherwise have evaded justice. In the most celebrated example, Los Angeles police arrested a man believed to be the Grim Sleeper serial killer after discovering that the crime scene DNA shared a significant number of genetic markers with that of a convicted felon—who turned out to be the man’s son.

But the well-publicized success stories obscure the fact that familial DNA searches can generate more noise than signal. “Anyone who knows the science understands that there’s a high rate of false positives,” says Erin Murphy, a New York University law professor and the author of Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA. The searches, after all, look for DNA profiles that are similar to the perpetrator’s but by no means identical, a scattershot approach that yields many fruitless leads, and for limited benefit. In the United Kingdom, a 2014 study found that just 17 percent of familial DNA searches “resulted in the identification of a relative of the true offender.”

Continue reading “Cops are asking Ancestry.com and 23andMe for their customers’ DNA” »

In the last few years, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been thrust into the mainstream. No longer just the domain of sci-fi fans, nerds or Google engineers, I hear people discussing AI at parties, coffee shops and even at the dinner table: My five-year-old daughter brought it up the other night over taco lasagna. When I asked her if anything interesting had happened in school, she replied that her teacher discussed smart robots.

The exploration of intelligence — be it human or artificial — is ultimately the domain of epistemology, the study of knowledge. Since the first musings of creating AI back in antiquity, epistemology seems to have led the debate on how to do it. The question I hear most in this field from the public is: How can humans develop another intelligent consciousness if we can’t even understand our own?

It’s a prudent question. The human brain, despite being only about 3 pounds in weight, is the least understood organ in the body. And with a billion neurons — with 100 trillion connections — it’s safe to say it’s going to be a long time before we end up figuring out the brain.

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While walking along the Jersey Shore, a woman recently stumbled upon a rare spearhead about 10,000 to 11,000 years old, according to experts who believe the ancient artifact may hold clues into prehistoric life in the Americas.

The projectile point was examined this past Tuesday by curators at the New Jersey State Museum after Audrey Stanick — a 58-year-old resident of Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey — made the discovery on Oct. 6 while walking along a Seaside Heights beach with her sister looking for sea glass after a recent storm.

“I noticed it because it was very dark and shiny, and my sister from Florida who likes to collect sharks’ teeth taught me to always look out for dark and shiny things at the beach,” Stanick said. “Then, I remembered a boy made a similar discovery last year, so I got in contact with the museum.”

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Country: Nepal
Site: Durbar Square
Caption: View of site
Image Date: May 5, 2015
Photographer: René Fan/World Monuments Fund
Provenance: Site Visit during earthquake
Original: email from Lisa Ackerman

“World Monuments Fund (WMF) President Bonnie Burnham has announced the 2016 World Monuments Watch, presenting a diverse group of cultural heritage sites at risk from the forces of nature and the impact of social, political, and economic change. Marking 20 years of the Watch, the 2016 list features 50 sites in 36 countries, dating from prehistory to the twentieth century.”

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Professor Nick Bostrom briefed political representatives from around the world on the national and international security risks posed by artificial intelligence and other future technologies at a UN event last week.

Professor Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Martin School, was invited to speak at a special side event examining the challenges posed by chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) materials and weapons, held during the UN’s 2015 General Assembly meeting.

The event was organised by Georgia’s UN representatives, in collaboration with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), with the aim of understanding the implications of new technologies, ensuring responsible development and mitigating against misuse.

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Liz Parrish is the Founder and CEO of BioViva Sciences USA Inc. BioViva is committed to extending healthy lifespans using gene therapy. Liz is known as “the woman who wants to genetically engineer you,” she is a humanitarian, entrepreneur and innovator and a leading voice for genetic cures. As a strong proponent of progress and education for the advancement of gene therapy, she serves as a motivational speaker to the public at large for the life sciences. She is actively involved in international educational media outreach and sits on the board of the International Longevity Alliance (ILA). She is an affiliated member of the Complex Biological Systems Alliance (CBSA) whose mission is to further scientific understanding of biological complexity and the nature and origins of human disease. She is the founder of BioTrove Investments LLC and the BioTrove Podcasts which is committed to offering a meaningful way for people to learn about and fund research in regenerative medicine. She is also the Secretary of the American Longevity Alliance (ALA) a 501©(3) nonprofit trade association that brings together individuals, companies, and organizations who work in advancing the emerging field of cellular & regenerative medicine with the aim to get governments to consider aging a disease. I am not a medical doctor or scientist. I can not answer details of therapy. I would like to discuss my experience of creating BioViva, organizing the gene therapies, and then finally being able to administer it to the first human.

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“Here’s a collection of ideas and resources to encourage the next generation of women into Stem, just in time for Ada Lovelace Day.”

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“Solve is a cross-disciplinary program led by MIT to convene the people and organizations that are addressing the world’s most pressing challenges in healthcare, energy, the environment, education, food & water, civil infrastructure and the economy.”

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