Rees explained how his astronomy background meshes with his concern for humanity’s fate:
People often ask does being an astronomer have any effect on one’s attitude toward these things. I think it does in a way, because it makes us aware of the long-range future. We’re aware that it’s taken about 4 billion years for life to evolve from simple beginnings to our biosphere of which we are a part, but we also know that the sun is less than halfway through its life and the universe may go on forever. So we are not the culmination of evolution. Post-humans are going to have far longer to evolve. We can’t conceive what they’d be like, but if life is a rarity in the universe, then, of course, the stakes are very high if we snuff things out this century.
Bottom line: From nuclear weapons to biowarfare to cyberattacks, humanity has much to overcome. Martin Rees and Frederick Lamb discuss the obstacles we face as we look forward to humanity’s future on Earth.
There is no putting the genie back in the bottle. The AI arms race is well underway and leading militaries worldwide do not want to be in second place or worse. Where this will lead is subject to conjecture. Clearly, however, the wars of the future will be fought and determined by AI more than traditional “military might.” The ethical use of AI in these applications remains an open-ended issue. It was within the mandate of the NSCAI report to recommend restrictions on how the technology should be used, but this was unfortunately deferred to a later date.
The AI arms race is speeding ahead in militaries around the world.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about drones as a huge military asset. But, since everybody seems to be doing the same thing, the question becomes: how do we counteract them? The U.S. military is also focusing on drones as a threat and what are the best ways to tackle this threat. Aerial Dragnet has the answers.
DARPA announced it has increased Lockheed Martin’s contract for satellite integration work for the Blackjack program by $27.3 million.
WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency increased Lockheed Martin’s contract for satellite integration work for the Blackjack program by $27.3 million, the agency announced April 22.
DARPA a year ago selected Lockheed Martin as the satellite integrator for Blackjack, a project to demonstrate a network of small satellites in low Earth orbit for military communications, missile warning and navigation.
The company had previously received a $13.1 million contract for Blackjack satellite integration work. The $27.3 million modification for Phase 2 of the program brings the total value of the contract to $40.4 million.
As expected, various samples of fruits, nuts, and other foods revealed very faint traces of cesium-137 when measured with a gamma detector, but even Kaste wasn’t prepared for what happened when he ran the same test with a jar of honey from a North Carolina farmer’s market.
Traces of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s can still be found in American honey, new research reveals.
The radioactive isotope identified, cesium-137, falls below levels considered to be harmful – but the amounts measured nonetheless emphasize the lingering persistence of environmental contaminants in the nuclear age, even a half-century after international bomb tests ended.
“There was a period in which we tested hundreds of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere,” lead researcher Jim Kaste, an environmental geochemist at William & Mary university in Williamsburg, Virginia, explained last year in comments about the research.
In a new video released by jetpack maker Gravity Industries, a jetsuit-wearing special ops soldier from the Netherlands Maritime Special Operations Force can be seen boarding a ship — by flying there from a nearby pursuit vessel.
It’s a spectacular demonstration of Gravity Industries’ flying technology. Rather than having to pursue and approach the ship in the tailing vessel, the jetpack-enhanced soldier simply takes to the skies and effortlessly lands on the deck of the ship — in a fraction of the time boarding would have taken otherwise.
Gravity has quickly emerged as one of the biggest players in the jetpack field over the last few years, offering its jetsuit technologies to first responders and military forces around the world. It has even allowed journalists to give the suit a test drive, albeit with safety tethers.
The Art Of Human Care For Covid-19 — Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh MD, Health Mission Chief, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, The Pentagon.
Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, is the Health Mission Chief, at the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, serving to advance the objectives of the DoD AI Strategy, and improve war fighter healthcare and readiness with artificial intelligence implementations.
Dr. Tetteh is also an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine, a Thoracic Staff Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, where his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives.
In the past, Dr. Tetteh has served as Chief Medical Informatics Officer, United States Navy, and Division Lead for Futures and Innovation at Navy Medicine’s Headquarters, a Command Surgeon for the National Defense University, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, assigned to the U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO).
Dr. Tetteh served as Ship’s Surgeon and Director of Surgical Services for the USS Carl Vinson, deployed as a trauma surgeon to Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimroz provinces, and has supported special joint forces missions to South America, the Middle East, the South Pacific, Australia, and Africa. He earned both the Surface Warfare Medical Department Officer and Fleet Marine Force Qualified Officer designations, and his military honors include two Meritorious Service Medals and the Joint Service Commendation Medal.
Dr. Tetteh is also an accomplished author, including the novel “Gifts of the Heart”, “Star Patrol” (co-authored with his son Edmund Tetteh), as well as “The Art of Human Care” and “The Art of Human Care for COVID-19″ (illustrated by his daughter Ella Bleue), and has published numerous articles on surgical innovation, health information technology, ethics, wounded warriors, and process improvement. He also serves on the board of directors for the Brooklyn, New York based Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, Fayetteville, Arkansas based Champions for Kids, and Miriam’s Kitchen, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that works to end chronic homelessness.
Dr. Tetteh received his B.S. from State University of New York (SUNY), his M.D. from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and M.S. in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Tetteh is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management, board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Indeed, AFRL last Thursday held a classified stakeholder meeting to discuss research and development needed to underpin future military operations beyond the traditional near-Earth orbits used today, according to DoD officials. Neither AFRL nor Space Command would provide any details whatsoever about the meeting — not even a list of participants.
Sean Kirkpatrick, who represents the DNI at Space Command’s Joint Task Force-Space Defense (JTF-SD), said last Tuesday the “summit” was focused not just on R&D needed to counter potential adversary activities in cislunar space, but also “all around the sphere of the Earth, not necessarily in the direction of the Moon.”
The Space Development Agency is considering buying its next 150 satellites from three different vendors.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is considering buying its next 150 satellites from three different vendors, but that could change after the agency evaluates companies’ bids, SDA director Derek Tournear said April 14.
Speaking at the Washington Space Business Roundtable, Tournear said a request for proposals will be issued in August for the agency’s Transport Layer Tranche 1 — a network of hundreds of communications satellites in low Earth orbit projected to start launching in late 2024.
The request will be for 150 satellites but SDA has not yet decided how that order will be divvied up. “There is probably three awards for those 150 satellites, but we’re not wed to three,” Tournear said. “Three is not a magic number. I’m really interested in industry feedback when they see our acquisition strategy.”
