Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: innovation

Frequently reported advances in artificial intelligence make some people curious, and others nervous. While some people picture their next smart appliance purchase being an AI robot, others wonder if an AI robot will take their job. The truth is, neither of those scenarios will be a reality anytime soon.

There’s a misunderstanding about artificial intelligence (AI), and it’s a big deal. True AI doesn’t exist yet, and it’s not a likely near future, either. Despite analysis of science fiction movies and scientific reports that claim otherwise.

People get excited when new breakthroughs in machine learning are publicized, like the CNBC interview with a robot named Sophia. Sophia’s ability to answer the interviewer’s questions and stay on point is jaw-dropping for many. The truth is, Sophia isn’t any closer to true AI than the last robot. She’s programmed to provide better responses, and her lifelike appearance makes her impressive, but even Sophia isn’t demonstrating true AI. She’s not autonomous, and can’t make her own decisions.

Read more

In the rare books collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, a large tome tied with string sits in an ivory box that looks like it came from a bakery. At one point, the book belonged to Edwin Hubble, who revealed that galaxies exist beyond our own and that the universe is expanding, among other things, at nearby Mount Wilson Observatory. Between the well-worn leather cover boards, I find some of the first detailed maps of the lunar surface, illustrated and engraved in the 17th century. As I delicately place the volume back in the box, the covers leave a light brown residue on my fingertips—a small remnant of one man’s quest to tame the moon.

The book, titled Selenographia, was created by perhaps the most innovative Polish astronomer since Copernicus. But Johannes Hevelius, as we call him in the English-speaking world, has been somewhat more forgotten among history’s great scientists. Selenographia was the first book of lunar maps and diagrams, extensively covering the moon’s various phases. More than 300 years before humans stepped onto the moon’s surface, Hevelius was documenting every crater, slope and valley that he could see with his telescope. He conducted these observations, as well as others for a comprehensive star catalog, using his own equipment in a homemade rooftop observatory.

Published in 1647, Selenographia made Hevelius a celebrity of sorts. The Italian astronomer Niccolo Zucchi even showed a copy of the book to the pope. Of course, like Copernicus before him, Hevelius believed that that the Earth orbited the sun. And according to Johannes Hevelius and His Catalog of Stars, published by Brigham Young University Press, Pope Pius IX said Selenographia “would be a book without parallel, had it not been written by a heretic.”

Read more

Scientists have long known that synthetic materials—called metamaterials—can manipulate electromagnetic waves such as visible light to make them behave in ways that cannot be found in nature. That has led to breakthroughs such as super-high resolution imaging. Now, UMass Lowell is part of a research team that is taking the technology of manipulating light in a new direction.

Read more

  • Scientists at the University of Brisbane may have found a simple way of detecting the early stages of cancer.
  • The method is inexpensive, takes 10 minutes, and can work for all types of cancer.
  • The test uses gold particles to detect cancerous DNA.

According to Nature, researchers at the University of Brisbane may have developed a simple test that’s able to detect the early stages of cancer.

Not only that but the method is inexpensive, takes a mere 10 minutes, and works for all types of cancer — and the central component used for identifying cancer cells is gold particles.

Read more

An initiative called Breakthrough Starshot wants to explore another star system using ultra-powerful laser beams and wafer-thin spaceships.

It’s a goal that sounds so fantastic, you’d be forgiven for dismissing it as science fiction. But it’s no joke, and the project’s chief engineer says millions of dollars’ worth of work is moving along without any major snags.

Starshot’s founders and collaborators include the late Stephen Hawking, Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb, and Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner. The concept is based on more than 80 scientific studies about interstellar travel.

Read more

Seneca Valley virus sounds like the last bug you’d want to catch, but it could be the next breakthrough cancer therapy. Now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and the University of Otago have described exactly how the virus interacts with tumors—and why it leaves healthy tissues alone.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 29, 2018, provides the first detailed images of how the complex Seneca Valley forms with its preferred receptor. The researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to capture images of over 7000 particles and rendered the structure in high resolution. They predict their results will help scientists develop the virus, and other viral drug candidates, for clinical use.

“If you have a virus that targets cancer cells and nothing else, that’s the ultimate cancer fighting tool,” said Prof. Matthias Wolf, principal investigator of the Molecular Cryo-Electron Microscopy Unit at OIST and co-senior author of the study. “I expect this study will lead to efforts to design viruses for .”

Read more

Scientific study looks at how an open minded people think differently and how it influences their information processing. The study found this switch in thinking occurs on a pre-concious level. Read about the link between creativity, innovation and open mindedness.

Read more

The idea of a cancer vaccine is something researchers have been working on for over 50 years, but until recently they were never able to prove exactly how such a vaccine would work.

Now, a team of researchers at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) at Université de Montréal has demonstrated that a vaccine can work. Not only that, it could become an extremely effective, non-invasive and cost-effective -fighting tool.

The team’s work was published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine.

Read more