Lifeboat Foundation

A new planet that bears striking similarities to our own planet prompts remarkable inroad into the study of space. This also brings a new area to search for the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Back in 2013, the first signs of a planet over four light-years from our solar system were spotted. Since then, the scientific community has been working to gather more information via further observations, primarily with the help of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

To study and observe the red dwarf star, which was named Proxima Centauri, the Pale Red Dot campaign was started. Scientists used the HARPS spectograph on the ESO’s 3.6 meter telescope at La Silla in Chile. Combined with data gathered from other telescopes around the world, astronomers, led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé, observed a wobbling star that was apparently caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet.

Continue reading “ESO Confirms: Earth-Sized Planet Found Around the Closest Star to Earth, Proxima Centauri” »

SINGAPORE (AP) — The world’s first self-driving taxis will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday.

Select members of the public will be able to hail a free ride through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy says it will be the first to offer rides to the public. It will beat ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.

The service will start small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy says.

http://democracynow.org — A new article in the medical journal The Lancet has concluded much of the Northern Hemisphere will be too hot by 2085 to host the Summer Olympics. Researchers are projecting only eight cities in the hemisphere outside of Western Europe would be cool enough to host the Games. This includes just three cities in North America: Calgary, Vancouver and San Francisco. The list of cities where it could be too hot is staggering: Istanbul, Madrid, Rome, Paris, Budapest, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles—and the list goes on. Extreme high temperatures have already impacted the athletic world. In 2007, high heat forced the cancellation of the Chicago Marathon. At this year’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials in Los Angeles, 30 percent of the runners dropped out of the race due to the heat. For more, we speak with Kirk Smith, lead author of the article and professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: http://democracynow.org

Continue reading “Climate Study: By 2085 All U.S. Cities Except San Francisco Will Be Too Hot to Host Summer Olympics” »

Fantastic news! (for once)

Paris (AFP) — Scientists Wednesday announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting the star nearest our Sun, opening up the glittering prospect of a habitable world that may one day be explored by robots.

Continue reading “Habitable planet found in solar system next door” »

I’m super excited to share my first fiction since writing “The Transhumanist Wager” four years ago. Vice Motherboard has published this short story of mine on the challenge of AI becoming religious—and what that might mean for humanity. It’s a short read and the story takes place just a few years into the future. And yes, the happenings in this story could occur.

For the second installment of our series exploring the future of human augmentation, we bring you a story by the Transhumanist Party’s presidential candidate (and occasional Motherboard columnist), Zoltan Istvan. Though he’s spent most of the last year traveling the nation in a coffin-shaped bus, spreading the gospel of immortality and H+, he’s no stranger to fiction. His novel, The Transhumanist Wager, is about the impact of evolving beyond this mortal coil. This story is even bolder. Enjoy the always provocative, always entertaining, Zoltan Istvan. –the editor.

Continue reading “​The Jesus Singularity” »

I’m guessing you’d be like: surprised .

So, here’s the deal. My biohacker friends led by Peter Fedichev and Sergey Filonov in collaboration with my old friend and the longevity record holder Robert Shmookler Reis published a very cool paper. They proposed a way to quantitatively describe the two types of aging – negligible senescence and normal aging. We all know that some animals just don’t care about time passing by. Their mortality doesn’t increase with age. Such negligibly senescent species include the notorious naked mole rat and a bunch of other critters like certain turtles and clams to name a few. So the paper explains what it is exactly that makes these animals age so slowly – it’s the stability of their gene networks.

What does network stability mean then? Well, it’s actually pretty straightforward – if the DNA repair mechanisms are very efficient and the connectivity of the network is low enough, then this network is stable. So, normally aging species, such as ourselves, have unstable networks. This is a major bummer by all means. But! There is a way to overcome this problem, according to the proposed math model.

Continue reading “What would you say if I told you that aging happens not because of accumulation of stresses, but rather because of the intrinsic properties of the gene network of the organism?” »

“There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.”

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Fraud detection technology is in high demand and growing thanks to areas such as India. However, there is a huge growing demand for synthetic diamonds in their use in technology, medical, synthetic biology as well.

It takes billions of years to produce a natural diamond, but a laboratory can grow one in days and to the untrained eye they look the same. In an attempt to protect its reputation, De Beers has developed technology that can spot the difference. Ivor Bennett reports.

When dealing with diamonds, one can never be too sure. That’s why at De Beers, it’s not just humans checking the gems anymore, but machines too. SOUNDBITE (English) JONATHAN KENDALL, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DIAMOND GRADING AND RESEARCH, SAYING: “A synthetic is a man-made product. It’s not a gem, it’s not a beautiful product. It’s not about love and affection and emotion. And it’s not unique and it’s not mysterious. And that’s everything that a diamond is.” It takes about 3 billion years to make a natural diamond. but just three weeks for a synthetic one. To the naked eye though, they look the same. So how do you tell the difference? SOUNDBITE (English) IVOR BENNETT, REUTERS REPORTER, SAYING: “It’s all to do with how the stone looks under UV light. A natural diamond for example will appear dark blue in colour with a regular structure. But if i click on the synthetic one, you can see it’s much lighter with these block-like structures, which is down to its irregular growth.

Continue reading “Why De Beers is spending on diamond technology” »

I am ready to go any time.

An earth-like planet has been discovered orbiting the closest star to our solar system, according to CNN.

Continue reading “Scientists Discover New Earth-Like Planet” »