Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians’ bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare.

The new single-payer system would be funded mostly by existing US government funding. The physicians point out that the US government already pays for two-thirds of all healthcare spending in the US, and a single-payer system would cut down on administrative costs, so a transition to a single-payer system would not require significant additional spending.

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Excellent story; glad that this bank in Australia is getting prepared for Quantum now instead of later which will be too late for some. Good news is that Wall Street as well as the US Government are getting educated on Quantum Computing. I do hope more and more businesses and institutions start developing their own internal QC expertise so that they are prepared for the switch that is coming across all industries.

The Commonwealth Bank’s decision to contribute millions of dollars to quantum computing research is not just about the significant commercial potential of the technology itself but also about developing its own in-house expertise in the area, according to chief information officer David Whiteing.

The bank last year committed to contributing $10 million over five years to UNSW’s Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T). That was in addition to $5 million it announced in December 2014 that it would put towards the centre.

(Telstra last year announced it would also invest $10 million in the centre. The government’s $1.1b Innovation Agenda included $26 million for UNSW’s quantum computing research efforts.)

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My new article for Vice Motherboard on extreme biohacking that compares the Uncanny Valley to Speciation Syndrome:

Transhumanism tech like CRISPR, 3D printing, and coming biological regeneration of limbs will not only change lives for those that have deformities, but it will change how we look at things like a person with a three-foot tail and maybe even a second head.

At the core of all this is the ingrained belief that the human being is pre-formed organism, complete with one head, four limbs, and other standard anatomical parts. But in the transhumanist age, the human being should be looked at more like a machine—like a car, if you will: something that comes out a particular way with certain attributes, but then can be heavily modified. In fact, it can be rebuilt from scratch.

In the future, there may even be walk-in clinics where people can go to have various gene treatments done to affect their bodies. Already, we have IVF centers where people can use radical tech to privately get pregnant—and also control and monitor various stages of a child’s birth. Eventually, if government allows it, gene editing centers will also offer a multitude of designer baby traits, some which also would come via CRISPR. We might even eventually use artificial wombs for the whole process.

Economically, a trillion dollar industry could be created by the burgeoning genetic editing industry—one that greatly benefits human health and science innovation. But of course, first we must get over our fears of modifying the human body and the effects of speciation syndrome.

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America’s Department of Defense (DOD) “coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces with a 1970s computer system that uses 8-inch floppy disks” says a report by the United States Government Accountability Office.

On January 13, US President Barack Obama, speaking at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), addressed the issue of cybersecurity, one day after the official Twitter account for the US Central Command (Centcom) was hacked by supporters of the Islamic State.

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Enough said; China officially makes Quantum communications available via Satellite in July. Now, what does this mean to government funded hackers and the US and Europe?

The launch of the world’s first quantum space satellite developed by China is scheduled for July, according to the project’s chief scientist Pan Jianwei.

BEIJING (Sputnik) — According to the physicist, cited by the People’s Daily Online, the quantum network will connect Beijing, Jinan, Hefei and Shanghai among other cities spanning a 2,000-kilometer (1,243 miles) area.

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So, the US Military has developed a way to eliminate bad memories/ PTSD and another method to restore memories. Wish the US Government would make their minds up on this one — LOL.

A scientist in DARPA’s biological technologies offices explains how the agency is developing implants that could bring back memories.

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US Government may have discovered a new method of safely getting rid of old chemical and other old stockpile weapons.

Getting rid of chemical weapons is one of the military’s most unpleasant duties. But in the future, it may be no more difficult than incinerating garbage, thanks to a team of DARPA-funded scientists who think they can turn some of the world’s deadliest poisons into harmless dirt.

Chemical weapons, including nerve agents and mustards, have been banned under international law since the 1990s, but many countries still harbor large stockpiles. In 2013, a horrific chemical weapons attack in Syria—called the Ghouta attack —claimed hundreds of civilian lives, prompting the international community to intervene and eliminate the country’s chemical weapons reserves. By August 2014, 600 metric tons of deadly weapons had been destroyed (in the military parlance, “demilitarized”) aboard the US Navy vessel MV Cape Ray.

The Ghouta attack highlighted two things: one, that the world would be a better place if we could annihilate all chemical weapons. Two, that we really don’t have a safe method of doing so. “The Cape Ray did a great job achieving its objective, which was to demilitarize Syria’s chemical weapons,” said Dr. Tyler McQuade, a chemist and program manager at DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “The downside is, the weapons had to be transported a long distance, and we did the demilitarization on the Mediterranean. If anything had gone wrong, it could have been really horrible for the local environment.”

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Coming clean on the story around the XS-1 Spaceplane. Hmmm; US Government coming clean; really?

ORLANDO, Fla. – Here’s a phrase that’s not repeated everyday in the space community:

“You’ve heard Elon’s comments … we want to go beyond that,” Brad Tousley, the head of the tactical technology office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said May 15.

Elon, of course, is Elon Musk, the optimistic, and some say visionary, founder of SpaceX with plans of eventually colonizing Mars. After landing three first-stage rockets, Musk has said SpaceX would inspect the rockets with plans to later re-fly most of them. [DARPA’s XS-1 Military Space Plane Concept in Pictures].

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