Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: computing

Using scintillating fiber to detect particles

After five years of work, EPFL’s physicists, together with some 800 international researchers involved in the LHCb project, have just taken an important preliminary step towards significantly enhancing their experimental equipment. They have decided to build a new detector — a scintillating fiber tracker dubbed SciFi.

Construction of the tracker, which incorporates 10,000 kilometers of scintillating fibers each with a diameter of 0.25mm, has already begun. When particles travel through them, the fibers will give off light signals that will be picked up by light-amplifying diodes. The scintillating fibers will be arranged in three panels measuring five by six meters, installed behind a magnet, where the particles exit the LHC accelerator collision point. The particles will pass through several of these fiber ‘mats’ and deposit part of their energy along the way, producing some photons of light that will then be turned into an electric signal.

Read more

A Stanford team has launched a new challenge on the Eterna computer game. Players will design a CRISPR-controlling molecule, and with it open the possibility of new research and therapies.

A team of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has launched a new challenge for the online computer game Eterna in which players are being asked to design an RNA molecule capable of acting as an on/off switch for the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9.

Molecular biologists will then build and test the actual molecules, based on the most promising designs provided by the players.

Read more

The 4th International Conference on Quantum Technologies held in Moscow last month was supposed to put the spotlight on Google, who were preparing to give a lecture on a 49-qubit quantum computer they have in the works.

A morning talk presented by Harvard University’s Mikhail Lukin, however, upstaged that evening’s event with a small announcement of his own – his team of American and Russian researchers had successfully tested a 51-qubit device, setting a landmark in the race for quantum supremacy.

Quantum computers are considered to be part of the next generation in revolutionary technology; devices that make use of the odd ‘in-between’ states of quantum particles to accelerate the processing power of digital machines.

Read more

By 2045, we’ll have expanded the intelligence of our human machine civilization a billion fold. That will result in a technological singularity, a point beyond which it’s hard to imagine…

“Well, by 2020 we’ll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain, but we won’t be finished yet with reverse engineering the human brain and understanding its methods.”

Read more

My new Op-Ed for The San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Chip-implants-make-humans-more-efficient-12003194.php #transhumanism

Wisconsin company Three Square Market recently announced it will become the first U.S. company to offer its employees chip implants that can be scanned at security entrances, carry medical information and even purchase candy in some vending machines. A company in Europe already did this last year.

For many people, it sounds crazy to electively have a piece of technology embedded in their body simply for convenience’s sake. But a growing number of Americans are doing it, including me.

I got my RFID implant two years ago, and now I use it to send text messages, bypass security codes on my computer, and open my front door. Soon I’ll get the software to start my car, and then my life will be totally keyless.

The type of chip implants in humans varies depending on the manufacturer or purpose of the device. A few hundred thousand people around the world have cochlear implants, which allow deaf people to hear. Others have implants to help with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or even depression. A growing number of transhumanists — people who want to use radical technology in their bodies — have the $60 implant I have. It’s tiny, about the size of a grain of rice, and is injected into the body by a syringe. The injection process — usually in the hand near the thumb — is often bloodless and takes seconds to complete.

Read more

It’s a common saying that elephants never forget. But the more we learn about elephants, the more it appears that their impressive memory is only one aspect of an incredible intelligence that makes them some of the most social, creative, and benevolent creatures on Earth. Alex Gendler takes us into the incredible, unforgettable mind of an elephant.

It’s a common saying that elephants never forget, but these magnificent animals are more than giant walking hard drives. The more we learn about elephants, the more it appears that their impressive memory is only one aspect of an incredible intelligence that makes them some of the most social, creative and benevolent creatures on Earth.

Read more