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Archive for the ‘policy’ category: Page 25

Aug 30, 2022

Dr Asha M George, DrPH — Building Defenses Against Bio-Terrorism And (Re)Emerging Infectious Disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government, health, military, policy, terrorism

Dr. Asha M. George, DrPH (https://biodefensecommission.org/teams/asha-m-george-drph/) is Executive Director, Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, which was established in 2014 to assess gaps in and provide recommendations to improve U.S. biodefense. The Panel determines where the United States is falling short of addressing biological attacks and emerging and reemerging infectious diseases.

Dr. George is a public health security professional whose research and programmatic emphasis has been practical, academic, and political. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a senior professional staffer and subcommittee staff director at the House Committee on Homeland Security in the 110th and 111th Congress. She has worked for a variety of organizations, including government contractors, foundations, and non-profits. As a contractor, she supported and worked with all Federal Departments, especially the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Continue reading “Dr Asha M George, DrPH — Building Defenses Against Bio-Terrorism And (Re)Emerging Infectious Disease” »

Aug 26, 2022

SpaceX Chopsticks Lift Booster 7 with 33 Raptor Engines

Posted by in categories: policy, space travel

SpaceX is lifting Booster 7 onto the orbital launch mount via the Chopsticks. All 33 Raptor engines are installed on the Super Heavy prototype. Booster 7 will be conducting static fire tests at the orbital launch pad in Starbase, Texas.

If you are interested in using footage captured by this stream, please review our content use policy: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content-use-policy/

Aug 24, 2022

California Announces A 2035 Ban on the Sales of New Gasoline Powered Cars

Posted by in categories: policy, transportation

When California announces anything to do with automobiles we tend to sit up and take notice.


New policy along with the federal Inflation Reduction Act should accelerate the production and adoption of EVs in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Aug 21, 2022

How Scientists Revived Organs in Pigs an Hour After They Died

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, neuroscience, policy

Yes, it does. Although OrganEx helps revitalize pigs’ organs, it’s far from a deceased animal being brought back to life. Rather, their organs were better protected from low oxygen levels, which occur during heart attacks or strokes.

“One could imagine that the OrganEx system (or components thereof) might be used to treat such people in an emergency,” said Porte.

The technology could also help preserve donor organs, but there’s a long way to go. To Dr. Brendan Parent, director of transplant ethics and policy research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, OrganEx may force a rethink for the field. For example, is it possible that someone could have working peripheral organs but never regain consciousness? As medical technology develops, death becomes a process, not a moment.

Aug 21, 2022

Watchdog groups call review at US nuclear lab ‘sham’ process

Posted by in categories: government, military, policy

The U.S. government is planning to review the environmental effects of operations at one of the nation’s prominent nuclear weapons laboratories, but its notice issued Friday leaves out federal goals to ramp up production of plutonium cores used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The National Nuclear Security Administration said the review—being done to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act—will look at the potential environmental effects of alternatives for operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 15 years.

That work includes preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide and other projects related to national security and global stability, the notice said.

Aug 16, 2022

China surpasses the US in scientific research volume and quality, study claims

Posted by in category: policy

China produced an average of 407,181 scientific publications annually, overtaking the US’s 293,434 journal articles, says research.


China has overcome the US to take the top spot globally for “high impact” studies and volume of scientific research, according to a report published by Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTP).

China currently publishes the most scholarly papers each year, followed by the US and Germany, reported The Guardian.

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Aug 16, 2022

New-and-Improved Content Moderation Tooling

Posted by in categories: education, open access, policy, robotics/AI

To help developers protect their applications against possible misuse, we are introducing the faster and more accurate Moderation endpoint. This endpoint provides OpenAI API developers with free access to GPT-based classifiers that detect undesired content — an instance of using AI systems to assist with human supervision of these systems. We have also released both a technical paper describing our methodology and the dataset used for evaluation.

When given a text input, the Moderation endpoint assesses whether the content is sexual, hateful, violent, or promotes self-harm — content prohibited by our content policy. The endpoint has been trained to be quick, accurate, and to perform robustly across a range of applications. Importantly, this reduces the chances of products “saying” the wrong thing, even when deployed to users at-scale. As a consequence, AI can unlock benefits in sensitive settings, like education, where it could not otherwise be used with confidence.

Aug 14, 2022

Lethal Drones: A Long Way From the Wright Brothers

Posted by in categories: drones, military, policy, robotics/AI

In 1903, the Wright brothers invented the first successful airplane. By 1914, just over a decade after its successful test, aircraft would be used in combat in World War I, with capabilities including reconnaissance, bombing and aerial combat. This has been categorized by most historians as a revolution in military affairs. The battlefield, which previously included land and sea, now included the sky, permanently altering the way wars are fought. With the new technology came new strategy, policy, tactics, procedures and formations.

Twenty years ago, unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) were much less prevalent and capable. Today, their threat potential and risk profile have increased significantly. UASs are becoming increasingly more affordable and capable, with improved optics, greater speed, longer range and increased lethality.

The U.S. has long been a proponent of utilizing unmanned aircraft systems, with the MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator excelling in combat operations, and smaller squad-based UASs being fielded, such as the RQ-11 Raven and the Switchblade. While the optimization of friendly UAS capability can yield great results on the battlefield, adversarial use of unmanned aircraft systems can be devastating.

Aug 14, 2022

Hyundai Motor Group Launches Boston Dynamics AI Institute to Spearhead Advancements in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

Posted by in categories: ethics, policy, robotics/AI

Boston Dynamics gets into AI.


SEOUL/CAMBRIDGE, MA, August 12, 2022 – Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) today announced the launch of Boston Dynamics AI Institute (the Institute), with the goal of making fundamental advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and intelligent machines. The Group and Boston Dynamics will make an initial investment of more than $400 million in the new Institute, which will be led by Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics.

As a research-first organization, the Institute will work on solving the most important and difficult challenges facing the creation of advanced robots. Elite talent across AI, robotics, computing, machine learning and engineering will develop technology for robots and use it to advance their capabilities and usefulness. The Institute’s culture is designed to combine the best features of university research labs with those of corporate development labs while working in four core technical areas: cognitive AI, athletic AI, organic hardware design as well as ethics and policy.

Continue reading “Hyundai Motor Group Launches Boston Dynamics AI Institute to Spearhead Advancements in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics” »

Aug 14, 2022

Russia leaving the ISS could put the station’s future in jeopardy

Posted by in categories: law, policy, space

Over its 23-year lifetime, the station has been an important example of how Russia and the United States can work together despite being former adversaries. This cooperation has been especially significant as the countries’ relationship has deteriorated in recent years. While it remains unclear whether the Russians will follow through with this announcement, it does add significant stress to the operation of the most successful international cooperation in space ever. As a scholar who studies space policy, I think the question now is whether the political relationship has gotten so bad that working together in space has become impossible.

Russia operates six of the 17 modules of the ISS — including Zvezda, which houses the main engine system. This engine is vital to the station’s ability to remain in orbit and also to how it moves out of the way of dangerous space debris. Under the ISS agreements, Russia retains full control and legal authority over its modules.

It is currently unclear how Russia’s withdrawal will play out. Russia’s announcement speaks only to “after 2024.” Additionally, Russia did not say whether it would allow the ISS partners to take control of the Russian modules and continue to operate the station or whether it would require that the modules be shut down completely.

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