Toggle light / dark theme

The deadlines set for “singularity” are also seen by some as an attempt to scare and coerce governments into implementing the movement’s social and technological “agenda”. However, when the names of major tech corporations of the world like Google, Nokia and Tesla are associated with the transhumanist ideology, it is difficult to dismiss the premise and prospects of this new revolutionary socio-technological movement.


For several centuries, political movements have emanated from nationalist or religious convictions, socio-political and economic theories or even environmental concerns. However, issues of science and technology have rarely driven mainstream socio-political discourse as scientists have hardly ever indulged in propounding societal constructs for the future.

However, a technology-oriented intellectual movement may soon become the focus of political debate as 21st century science stands at the brink of reshaping human identity itself.

By the turn of the millennium, Transhumanism rose as a futurist social movement, led by some of the leading researchers and heads of global tech corporations (mostly based in the super-rich Silicon Valley), but has only recently gained greater media coverage and popularity apart from inspiring the plotlines for many Hollywood films.

Read more

Ever wish you could visit other planets in our solar system without launching on a deep-space mission? Now you can embark on an interplanetary adventure right from the palm of your hand, thanks to gorgeous, 3D-printed planet models and an augmented-reality (AR) app.

Brought to you by AstroReality, the same company that created the “Lunar” AR moon model and its new Earth counterpart, this set includes miniature models of all eight planets and one model of the dwarf planet Pluto. Each model is 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) in diameter and color-printed with a resolution of 0.1 millimeter per pixel.

Without the AR app, you can admire detailed features such as Pluto’s “heart” and Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. But the real extraterrestrial adventure begins when you open the AstroReality app (available for iOS and Android) on your mobile device and point the camera at any of the nine models. [Our Solar System: A Photo Tour of the Planets].

Read more

Chemical innovation plays a key role in developing cutting-edge technologies for the military. Research chemists design and synthesize new molecules that could enable a slew of next-generation military products, such as novel propellants for spacecraft engines; new pharmaceuticals and medicines for troops in the field; lighter and longer-lasting batteries and fuel cells; advanced adhesives, coatings and paints; and less expensive explosives that are safer to handle. The problem, however, is that existing molecule design and production methods rely primarily on experts’ intuition in a laborious, trial-and-error research process.

DARPA’s Make-It program, currently in year three of a four-year effort, is developing software tools based on machine learning and expert-encoded rules to recommend synthetic routes (i.e., the “recipe” to make a particular molecule) optimized for factors such as cost, time, safety, or waste reduction. The program seeks to free chemists so that they may focus their energy on chemical innovation, rather than testing various molecular synthesis pathways. The program also is developing automated devices that uniformly and reproducibly create the desired chemical based on the software-generated recipe – this one-device, many-molecules concept is a departure from the traditional dedicated reactors in chemical production. Make-It research teams have recently demonstrated significant progress toward fully automated rapid molecule production, which could speed the pace of chemical discovery for a range of defense products and applications.

“A seasoned research chemist may spend dozens of hours designing synthetic routes to a new molecule and months implementing and optimizing the synthesis in a lab,” said Anne Fischer, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “Make-It is not only freeing chemists to expend brain power in other areas such as molecular discovery and innovation, it is opening chemical synthesis and discovery to a much broader community of scientific researchers who will benefit from faster development of new molecules.”

Read more

https://youtube.com/watch?v=phaonMhOC8Q

Within 4–5 years Made In Space believes their Archinaut space manufacturing robot and manufacturing mini factory will be making large structures like trusses and reflectors in space.

The Archinaut has an industrial-sized 3D printer, cartridges full of plastics and alloys, and robotic arms programmed to assemble the big items extruded by the printer without any human supervision. All Archinaut parts are able to survive in microgravity and harsh conditions like lunar dust storms and extreme temperatures.

Read more

Self-driving cars have gone from DARPA project to roaming our streets much faster than anyone predicted, but if you bring the topic up with a grouchy truck nuts-owning uncle, the response is probably going to be “Yeah, but when can I buy one?”

Volvo is making a more concrete (and realistic!) pledge than most of its competitors: to have a Level 4 autonomous car in showrooms, buyable and usable, by 2021. Level 4 doesn’t mean full autonomy, but what it does mean is that you can have the bulk of your commute completely automated.

Don’t Miss : Get the wireless charger that should’ve come with your phone for $13.

Read more

The famous psychologist Timothy Leary once referred to himself as a “surfer,” envisioning a future where, “[t]o study biology, you can press a button and make yourself part of the human body. You can become a white blood cell and learn about the circulatory system by traveling through an artery. You can call up the Prado Museum in Madrid and study Goya’s paintings.”


When I think about the future, I envision mass technological disruptions across the entire landscape. Artificial intelligence (AI) being embedded into the very fabric of our architecture and institutions, 3D printing transforming our socio-economic system from scarcity to abundance, and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) unleashing infinite potential in shaping our perceptions of reality.

One could argue that we’ve already been experimenting with VR/AR via the use of psychedelic drugs, like psilopsybin, DMT, etc. But for many, the perception of these drugs tend to carry an unfortnate negative connotation. When people think of someone doing shrooms, a lot of them think of a person going mad in the middle of the woods. When people think of someone doing LSD, a lot of them think of a person believing they’re Peter Pan as they hoist themselves off the top of a skyscraper.

The devil may be in the details, but for those who actually experiment with psychedelics, the devil isn’t this terrible thing which results in their immediate death or psychological disruption; the devil is the infinite potential of their mind overcoming the many obstacles of reality.

Read more