40% of the world’s insect species are in decline, and scientists believe that a third are threatened with extinction. From pesticides to invasive species, there are various reasons, but any losses could have a major impact on our food systems.
Category: existential risks
We would like to thank the many people who provided comments to our last coronavirus update at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeboatfoundation/permalink/10158676889983455/.
You can comment on this update at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeboatfoundation/permalink/10158683233098455/.
Here’s a lot of new information:
WATCH THE CORONAVIRUS EVOLVE!
Hit play at https://nextstrain.org/ncov to watch the coronavirus evolve in near realtime. (The play button is on the geography part.)
CORONAVIRUS HAS EVOLVED INTO TWO MAJOR LINEAGES AND IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE INFECTED WITH BOTH, A NEW STUDY SHOWS
Read https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2020/03/04/coronavirus-has-mutated-aggressive-disease-say-scientists/ to learn how there are two main lineages of this virus and that the less dangerous version seems to be gaining on the more dangerous version.
I quote: “The Chinese scientists, who analysed the viral DNA from 103 infected people, said it appeared the less dangerous ‘S-type’ was now taking over, possibly because of aggressive public health lockdown measures in China, which had stopped the more virulent disease in its tracks.”
So my current theory of how China is getting the infection under control is that the quarantines are being helped by the weaker version of the disease being a buffer giving the more dangerous version less victims to target. So countries that initially get a handful of people with the more dangerous version likely get an initial explosion of cases because there is no buffer for them. (The more dangerous version is called the ‘L-type’.) Note that I expect that many/most with the weaker version of the virus will never be counted in the official numbers.
For a full scientific article about this, read “On the origin and continuing evolution of SARS-CoV-2″ at https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463. If you can’t find it, the full 24 page PDF is at https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/32757241/nwaa036.pdf. An Excel file containing detailed information about the sequences and acknowledgement used in this study is at the bottom of https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463. (I can’t direct link to the Excel file because they keep updating the URL.) I’m laying it on thick here with scientific references since one person told me that saying there was a less dangerous strain of the virus was “fake news”.
WATCH THE CURRENT CASES
You can see a dashboard of the current cases at https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6.
This dashboard includes the total recovered which is currently encouraging as China is doing well. Until all countries are doing extensive testing, we will have bursts in the cases over time. (Most countries are not doing extensive testing yet.)
Learn about new cases/new deaths at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus.
Look at 17 responsible live visualizations about the coronavirus at https://blog.datawrapper.de/coronaviruscharts.
VIDEOS
There are some excellent coronavirus videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ_IRFkDInv-NvRRUN0aqe51sMs188k8z. Also watch “Joe Rogan Experience #1439 — Michael Osterholm” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw.
DEATH RATE OF CORONAVIRUS IS HIGHLY EXAGGERATED
The death rate of the coronavirus is likely much lower than initially reported. You can learn more at https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html.
I quote: “Allow me to be the bearer of good news. These frightening numbers are unlikely to hold. The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest. Even some lower estimates, such as the 1 percent death rate recently mentioned by the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, likely substantially overstate the case.”
Luckily, children have nearly a 100% survival rate with this virus. As of March 3, there have been no deaths reported so far in children. Read https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/we-simply-do-not-understand-why-coronavirus-sparing-children-puzzling-n1147951. Even newborns are successfully fighting off the coronavirus!
In general, the coronavirus is mostly killing the elderly and those with serious health problems. It does get enough people really sick to make the quarantines worth it, though. (Both China and Italy have had their hospitals get overwhelmed.)
The fight against the coronavirus is a good dry run for when a truly wicked pathogen appears, and with biological engineering, that is only a matter of time. Perhaps we will learn something here that will save humanity when a true planet killer arrives.
TESTING
The coronavirus is on the march worldwide and there will not be a vaccine in the foreseeable future. So our main line of defense is the quarantine.
A quarantine CAN NOT be properly implemented if you don’t know who has the virus, so countries must follow South Korea’s example and do massive testing for the virus. This would also end up calming the populace as people would no longer have to guess how bad the pandemic was in their neighborhood.
Another benefit of massive testing is that the true case fatality rate (CFR) will be revealed as people with mild forms of the virus will be included in the totals. The actual CFR rate is likely between 0.1% and 0.3%. This lower CFR will also calm the public. Here’s info on a test that takes less than an hour to get results: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488807-fda-authorizes-first-rapid-point-of-care-coronavirus-test
ZINC TREATMENT
If you get a serious case of the coronavirus and/or are old or have underlying conditions with serious symptoms, you may wish to ask your doctor to give you 400mg of hydroxychloroquine per day. This enables more zinc to enter your cells and interferes with coronavirus replication. If your country doesn’t have hydroxychloroquine, 500mg of chloroquine can be used instead. You should not combine this treatment with the lopinavir 400mg/ritonavir 100mg treatment as this can cause heart problems. Read “In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” at https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa237/5801998.
The anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are being used to fight the coronavirus in many countries, including South Korea. Read http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=7428 to learn how South Korea is using hydroxychloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine has less side effects than chloroquine.
Also, read Breakthrough: “Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies” at https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/advpub/0/advpub_2020.01047/_article and “Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture” at https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1001176. The second article is from 2010 which is a bit interesting.
Watch “Coronavirus Epidemic Update 34: US Cases Surge, Chloroquine & Zinc Treatment Combo, Italy Lockdown” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M.
U.S. UPDATE
Expect known cases to explode in the U.S. in the next week as the U.S. learns from South Korea and starts doing real testing. We have to know who is exposed for quarantines to make a difference. Many other countries will have the same situation. Countries that are already doing a lot of testing such as South Korea and China will continue to get the virus *UNDER CONTROL*.
You can sign a petition for more U.S. transparency at http://chng.it/RpcbpW9VGH?fbclid=IwAR03XTtAAabpZID3Tawckon8LqdwEEMbEX49AsAQJ3eIVYBjYYq2ACbD23Y.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Besides bothering your government to increase testing if you live in a country which is faltering on testing, you can:
1) Engage in social distancing. Read “Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now” at https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca.
2) Take Vitamin D as described at https://youtu.be/gmqgGwT6bw0?list=PLQ_IRFkDInv-NvRRUN0aqe51sMs188k8z. This video shows how regular supplementation can reduce your chance of infection by 50%. (Many studies are referenced including studies that show that taking a single megadose of Vitamin D will temporarily disrupt the immune system and is not helpful.)
Here’s information about a Vitamin D study including 11,000 participants: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170216110002.htm. I quote, “Overall, the reduction in risk of acute respiratory infection induced by vitamin D was on a par with the protective effect of injectable ‘flu vaccine against ‘flu-like illnesses.”
It is likely that the increased Vitamin D that people get in the summer is a factor in the flu fading away during the summer months!
3) Get at least a month’s supply of basic necessities as there will be food runs, quarantines, and other disruptions in the near future. You don’t want to run out of toilet paper!
4) Remember to wash your hands and don’t touch your mouth, nose, and eyes a lot. Watch https://twitter.com/i/status/1235252608845197314 to learn more. (This 14 second video is very funny.)
5) Here’s a list of some products that you can use to kill coronavirus: https://cfpub.epa.gov/wizards/disinfectants/. (Bleach and peroxide are especially useful.)
6) Get a thermometer and realize you don’t have a fever unless your temperature goes above 100.4℉/38.0℃.
7) Don’t go to the hospital unless you have severe symptoms. Hospitals will soon have many coronavirus victims and you want to avoid them if you can.
8) If you get really sick, call ahead so the hospital can prepare to isolate you as soon as you arrive.
9) And please self-quarantine for 2 weeks if you believe you have been exposed to the coronavirus.
Anders Sandberg — Freeman Dyson, Galactic Megastructures, Physical Eschatology & the Fermi Paradox
Posted in alien life, bitcoin, computing, cryptocurrencies, engineering, existential risks, transhumanism | Leave a Comment on Anders Sandberg — Freeman Dyson, Galactic Megastructures, Physical Eschatology & the Fermi Paradox
Many of you know the sad news that theoretical physicist & mathematician Freeman Dyson has passed away, so in celebration of his life and achievements, Anders Sandberg (Future of Humanity Institute) discusses Freeman Dyson’s influence on himself and others — How might advanced alien civilizations develop (and indeed perhaps our own)?
We discuss strategies for harvesting energy — star engulfing Dyson Spheres or Swarms, black hole swallowing tungsten dyson super-swarms and other galactic megastructures, we also discuss Kardashev scale civilizations (Kardashev was another great mind who we lost recently), reversible computing, birthing ideal universes to live in, Meinong’s jungle, ‘eschatological engineering’, the aestivation hypothesis, and how all this may inform strategies for thinking about the Fermi Paradox and what this might suggest about the likelihood of our civilization avoiding oblivion. though Anders is more optimistic than some about our chances of survival…
Anders Sandberg (Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford) is a seminal transhumanist thinker from way back who has contributed a vast amount of mind blowing material to futurology & philosophy in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Sandberg
Happy Future Day (march 1st) : http://future-day.org
Freeman Dyson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
Dyson Sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
Aestivation Hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestivation_hypothesis
Reversible Computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing
Kardashev Scales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Nikolai Kardashev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kardashev
Many thanks for watching!
Consider supporting SciFuture by:
a) Subscribing to the SciFuture YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=TheRationalFuture b) Donating
- Bitcoin: 1BxusYmpynJsH4i8681aBuw9ZTxbKoUi22
- Ethereum: 0xd46a6e88c4fe179d04464caf42626d0c9cab1c6b
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scifuture c) Sharing the media SciFuture creates: http://scifuture.org
Kind regards.
Adam Ford
- Science, Technology & the Future.
NASA has contracted SpaceX to carry out the launch for its upcoming Psyche mission to a strange metal asteroid in our solar system. The launch will use one of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets, for a cost of $117 million.
“The Psyche mission will journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter,” NASA explained in a statement. “The asteroid is considered unique, as it appears to largely be made of the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet — one of the building blocks of our solar system.” Astronomers believe that studying this unusual asteroid could help us to understand how planets develop, including planets like Earth.
“Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets, including Earth, scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planet’s rocky mantles and crusts,” NASA said. “Because we cannot see or measure Earth’s core directly, the mission to Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.”
Four years ago, Todd Rider was on top of the world. The MIT-trained bioengineer had developed a radical idea for killing viruses. Initial test results showed that his therapy, called DRACO, could kill every virus he threw it at: 15 viruses were killed in human cells, and two in mice.
It seemed like there was a chance it could be the biggest discovery in medicine since the invention of antibiotics. Enthusiastic headlines praised the potentially world-changing panacea. “Todd Rider Has a Kill Switch for Viruses,” wrote Bloomberg Businessweek. The Verge: “Killing sickness: is DRACO a doomsday device for viruses?” Time magazine declared it one of the top 50 inventions of the year.
Yet over the next few years, things started going wrong. Rider moved from lab to lab and says he couldn’t raise the money to continue testing DRACO, despite, he claims, the continued promise of the concept.
A team of scientists at MIT have developed a computer program that will help humans decide how to best deal with the end of the world, so long as that comes in form of a catastrophic asteroid collision.
Experts say there as many as two or three new asteroids, sometimes called ‘Near Earth Objects,’ discovered every night.
It’s inevitable that one of these asteroids will eventually end drifting into a collision course with Earth.
In this post, you’ll find why I think SENS Research Foundation (SRF) is great to finance from an EA perspective along with the interview questions I want to ask its Chief Science Officer, Aubrey de Grey. You are welcome to contribute with your own questions in the comments or through a private message. Here is a brief summary of each section:
Introduction: Aging research looks extremely good as a cause-area from an EA perspective. Under a total utilitarian view, it is probably second or third after existential risk mitigation. There are many reasons why it makes sense to donate to many EA cause-areas, such as to reduce risk, if there are particularly effective specific interventions, or if some cause-areas are already well funded.
SRF’s approach to aging research: SRF selects its research following the SENS general strategy, which divides aging into seven categories of damage, each having a corresponding line of research. This categorization is very similar to the one described in the landmark paper The Hallmarks of Aging. This sort of damage repair approach seems more effective and tractable than current geriatrics and biogerontology that are aimed at slowing down aging, as it enables LEV and many more QALYs. It makes rejuvenation possible instead of just slowing down aging as a best-case scenario, and it doesn’t require an in-depth knowledge of our metabolism, which is extremely complicated and full of unknown-unknowns.
Making its first flight in over a year, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ H-IIA rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Centre on Sunday with a reconnaissance satellite for the Japanese government. Liftoff occurred at10:34 local time 01:34 UTC, during a five-minute launch window.
Sunday’s launch deployed the IGS Optical 7 satellite for the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Centre, an agency of the Japanese government responsible for space-based surveillance. IGS Optical 7 is part of the Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) or Joho Shushu Eisei (JSE) system, consisting of spacecraft collecting optical and radar images of the Earth.
Japan began development of IGS in the late 1990s, following North Korea’s attempted satellite launch in 1998. Although the North Korean launch failed to reach orbit, the rocket carrying it crossed Japan during its ascent, sparking fears that North Korean missiles would be able to target the islands. With IGS, Japan aimed to develop an independent reconnaissance capability to monitor future threats. The constellation can also be used for disaster monitoring and other civilian applications by the Japanese government.
O.o!
Some 4,000 years ago, a tiny population of woolly mammoths died out on Wrangel Island, a remote Arctic refuge off the coast of Siberia.
They may have been the last of their kind anywhere on Earth.
To learn about the plight of these giant creatures and the forces that contributed to their extinction, scientists have resurrected a Wrangel Island mammoth’s mutated genes. The goal of the project was to study whether the genes functioned normally. They did not.
