Lifeboat Foundation

Neil Gershenfeld is the director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Neil’s Website: http://ng.cba.mit.edu/
MIT Center for Bits and Atoms: https://cba.mit.edu/
Fab Foundation: https://fabfoundation.org/
Fab Lab community: https://fablabs.io/
Fab Academy: https://fabacademy.org/
Fab City: https://fab.city/

Continue reading “Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380” »

Security researchers have detailed the inner workings of the commercial Android spyware called Predator, which is marketed by the Israeli company Intellexa (previously Cytrox).

Predator was first documented by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) in May 2022 as part of attacks leveraging five different zero-day flaws in the Chrome web browser and Android.

The spyware, which is delivered by means of another loader component known as Alien, is equipped to record audio from phone calls and VoIP-based apps as well as gather contacts and messages, including from Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram.

JIUQUAN — China sent three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Tuesday, putting a civilian into orbit for the first time as it pursues plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade.

The world’s second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space program in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.

Continue reading “China launches mission with first civilian to space station” »

The 1st atomic bomb was nicknamed “gadget.”

Does this say something about who we are? Or does it say something about the nature of technology and the power to do good or evil?

Today we live in a universe of ever-more-powerful gadgets and humanity has never wielded more technological power because we live in the most scientifically advanced century in the history of our civilization. The paradox, however, is that ours is also the most dangerous century not only for countless other species going extinct but also for our own existence.

A decent vid concerning the current space ideas. There are just a few misconceptions (You do not need the Moon to get to Mars) and generalities (There are many more than thousands of asteroids), but otherwise not bad.

Modern space exploration and the global competition to Mars sparks civil and military innovation.

Continue reading “The race to Mars” »

The AI “arms race” commences. Silicon Valley is looking to capitalize on AI’s big moment, and every tech Goliath worth its salt is feverishly looking to churn out a new product to keep pace with ChatGPT’s 100 million users. Microsoft kicked things off nicely earlier this month with its integration of ChatGPT into Bing, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella proclaiming, “The race starts today.” The OG tech giant says it wants to use the chatbot to “empower people to unlock the joy of discovery,” whatever that means. Not to be outdone, Google announced that it would be launching its own AI search integration, dubbed “Bard” (Google’s tool already made a mistake upon launch, costing the company a stock slump). In China, meanwhile, the tech giants Alibaba (basically the Chinese version of Amazon) and Baidu (Chinese Google) recently announced that they would also be pursuing their own respective AI tools.

Do the people actually want an AI “revolution”? It’s not totally clear but whether they want it or not, it’s pretty clear that the tech industry is going to give it to them. The robots are coming. Prep accordingly!

This device is a pulse magneto-fusion power system whose successors could produce electricity from the first commercial fusion reactor as early as 2028.

Creating a continuously controlled fusion reaction and not a thermonuclear bomb requires a confined environment where high densities and high temperatures can turn hydrogen gas into plasma. The luxury the Sun enjoys as a big ball of hydrogen comes from its enormous size and immense gravitational forces which serve to confine the ongoing nuclear fusion within it. But here on Earth, we need powerful magnets to replace the gravity confinement that the Sun provides. And it was thought until recently that our confinement efforts to create dense plasma faced a speed limit barrier that caused the field to break. We now know that what was called the Greenwald Limit no longer exists after experiments done at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. So now the conditions to generate positive energy yields from controlled fusion means we are getting close to the first fusion reactors.

Enter Helion Energy and Pulse Fusion

Continue reading “The First-to-Fusion Power Wars Are On” »

Creating the nuke bomb scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. In this video essay, I discuss how Christopher Nolan will film the atomic bomb scene in Oppenheimer, a biopic film on the real-life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie will change the movie landscape through its source material and also its filmmaking potential.

Oppenheimer is an upcoming American biographical film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It is based on American Prometheus, a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The film is a co-production between Syncopy Inc. and Atlas Entertainment; Nolan produced the film alongside Emma Thomas and Charles Roven. Cillian Murphy leads an ensemble cast as Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who is among those credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The film stars Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, David Dastmalchian, Olli Haaskivi, Jason Clarke, James D’Arcy, Michael Angarano, Guy Burnet, Danny Deferrari, Matthias Schweighöfer, Gary Oldman, Harrison Gilbertson, Emma Dumont, Devon Bostick, Trond Fausa, Christopher Denham, Josh Zuckerman, Josh Peck and Olivia Thirlby.

Continue reading “OPPENHEIMER — Creating The Nuke Scene” »

Polynesians exposed to fallout from France’s nuclear tests in the South Pacific have a slightly increased risk of developing thyroid cancer, a study suggested on Monday that used declassified military data for the first time.

France carried out 41 atmospheric nuclear weapon tests in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1975, exposing residents to fallout which has been a source of lasting friction between Paris and residents of the Pacific archipelago.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, used risk modeling to estimate that the nuclear tests were associated with between 0.6 percent and 7.7 percent of thyroid cancers in French Polynesia.