Maybe we can join the military when we turn 70 and get rejuvenated, like in Old Man's War.
We are investing billions into a super soldier program, which is seeking to achieve transhumanism within a few decades. Gene therapy also holds some great promise to enable average people to gain the ability to perform at or above human maximum.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Augmented Reality
Imagine a world that can be overlayed on the existing reality - the possibilities are nearly endless.
Augmented Reality from Wikipedia
Augmented Reality discussion
Augmented Reality from Wikipedia
Augmented Reality discussion
Friday, August 8, 2008
Everybody Dies!
Continuing in the vein of global catastrophic risk, here a list of top 10 world ending disasters, apparently written by some guy who didn't want his name associated with it.
Will Robots Replace Humans?
Video from HowStuffWorks with a phd from Georgia Tech, basically stating that we are just emerging from the infancy of robotics to the toddler stage and that huge advances will come in the reasonably near future.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Material that is 200 Times Stronger than Steel!
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms attached to each other in a honeycomb pattern.
According to Columbia Professor James Hone, “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.” It is approximately 200 times stronger than steel and is the strongest material know to man at this moment.
This is a true sci-fi material that has the potential for all sorts of real world applications, assuming that scientists can find a way to actually manufacture it at sizes greater than the microscopic.
A story about graphene-enhanced plastics can be found here.
, and a Next Big Future post about Graphene is here.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Global Catastrophic Risks Conference
It won't be the Dark Overlord of the Universe, or Galactus, Y2K or even rap music that will wipe out life as we know it. No, it's most likely that we will do ourselves in as a race with our own technology. A group of "experts" (not sure how one can be an expert on this topic) got together in London had some interesting discussions and was reported by CNN.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A group of experts from around the world will Thursday hold a first of its kind conference on global catastrophic risks.
Some experts say humans will merge with machines before the end of this century.
They will discuss what should be done to prevent these risks from becoming realities that could lead to the end of human life on earth as we know it.
Speakers at the four-day event at Oxford University in Britain will talk about topics including nuclear terrorism and what to do if a large asteroid were to be on a collision course with our planet.
On the final day of the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference experts will focus on what could be the unintended consequences of new technologies, such as superintelligent machines that, if ill-conceived, might cause the demise of Homo sapiens.
"Any entity which is radically smarter than human beings would also be very powerful," said Dr. Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, host of the symposium. "If we get something wrong, you could imagine the consequences would involve the extinction of the human species."
Bostrom is a philosopher and a leading thinker of transhumanism -- a movement that advocates not only the study of the potential threats and promises that future technologies could pose to human life but also the ways in which emergent technologies could be used to make the very act of living better.
"We want to preserve the best of what it is to be human and maybe even amplify that," Bostrom told CNN. Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate a coming era where biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being.
The end result would be a new form of "posthuman" life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans.
"We will begin to use science and technology not just to manage the world around us but to manage our own human biology as well," Bostrom told CNN. "The changes will be faster and more profound than the very, very slow changes that would occur over tens of thousands of years as a result of natural selection and biological evolution."
Bostrom declined to try to predict an exact time frame when this revolutionary biotechnological metamorphosis might occur. "Maybe it will take eight years or 200 years," he said. "It is very hard to predict."
Other experts are already getting ready for what they say could be a radical transformation of the human race in as little as two decades.
"This will happen faster than people realize," said Dr. Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and futurist who calculates technology trends using what he calls the law of accelerating returns, a mathematical concept that measures the exponential growth of technological evolution.
In the 1980s Kurzweil predicted that a tiny handheld device would be invented sometime early in the 21st century allowing blind people to read documents from anywhere at anytime -- earlier this year such a device was publicly unveiled. He also anticipated the explosive growth of the Internet in the 1990s.
Now Kurzweil is predicting the impending arrival of something called the Singularity, which he defines in his book on the subject as "the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots."
"There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality," he writes.
Don't Miss
Just Imagine: 2020
Waste not, watt not
Curing diseases with nature
Animal inspired robots
Singularity will approach at an accelerating rate as human-created technologies become exponentially smaller and increasingly powerful and as fields such as biology and medicine are understood more and more in terms of information processes that can be simulated with computers.
By the 2030s, Kurzweil tells CNN, humans will become more non-biological than biological, capable of uploading our minds onto the Internet, living in various virtual worlds and even avoiding aging and evading death.
In the 2040s, Kurzweil predicts non-biological intelligence will be billions of times better than the biological intelligence humans have today, possibly rendering our present brains as obsolete.
"Our brains are a million times slower than electronics," said Kurzweil. "We will increasingly become software entities if you go out enough decades."
This movement towards the merger of man and machine, according to Kurzweil, is already starting to happen and is most visible in the field of biotechnology.
As scientists gain deeper insights into the genetic processes that underlie life, they are able to effectively reprogram human biology through the development of new forms of gene therapies and medications capable of turning on or off enzymes and RNA interference, or gene silencing.
"Biology and health and medicine used to be hit or miss," said Kurzweil. "It wasn't based on any coherent theory about how it works."
The emerging biotechnology revolution will lead to at least a thousand new drugs that could do anything from slow down the process of aging to reverse the onset of diseases, like heart disease and cancer, Kurzweil said.
By 2020, Kurzweil predicts a second revolution in the area of nanotechnology. According to his calculations, it is already showing signs of exponential growth as scientists begin test first generation nanobots that can cure Type 1 diabetes in rats or heal spinal cord injuries in mice.
One scientist is developing something called a respirocyte -- a robotic red blood cell that, if injected into the bloodstream, would allow humans to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time.
Other researchers are developing nanoparticles that can locate tumors and one day possibly even eradicate them.
And some Parkinson's patients now have pea-sized computers implanted in their brains that replace neurons destroyed by the disease -- new software can be downloaded to the mini computers from outside the human body.
"Nanotechnology will not just be used to reprogram but to transcend biology and go beyond its limitations by merging with non-biological systems," Kurzweil told CNN. "If we rebuild biological systems with nanotechnology, we can go beyond its limits."
The final revolution leading to the advent of Singularity will be the creation of artificial intelligence, or superintelligence, which, according to Kurzweil, could be capable of solving many of our biggest threats, like environmental destruction, poverty and disease.
"A more intelligent process will inherently outcompete one that is less intelligent, making intelligence the most powerful force in the universe," writes Kurzweil.
Yet the invention of so many high-powered technologies and the possibility of merging these new technologies with humans may pose both peril and promise for the future of mankind.
"I think there are grave dangers," said Kurzweil. "Technology has always been a double-edged sword."
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A group of experts from around the world will Thursday hold a first of its kind conference on global catastrophic risks.
Some experts say humans will merge with machines before the end of this century.
They will discuss what should be done to prevent these risks from becoming realities that could lead to the end of human life on earth as we know it.
Speakers at the four-day event at Oxford University in Britain will talk about topics including nuclear terrorism and what to do if a large asteroid were to be on a collision course with our planet.
On the final day of the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference experts will focus on what could be the unintended consequences of new technologies, such as superintelligent machines that, if ill-conceived, might cause the demise of Homo sapiens.
"Any entity which is radically smarter than human beings would also be very powerful," said Dr. Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, host of the symposium. "If we get something wrong, you could imagine the consequences would involve the extinction of the human species."
Bostrom is a philosopher and a leading thinker of transhumanism -- a movement that advocates not only the study of the potential threats and promises that future technologies could pose to human life but also the ways in which emergent technologies could be used to make the very act of living better.
"We want to preserve the best of what it is to be human and maybe even amplify that," Bostrom told CNN. Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate a coming era where biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being.
The end result would be a new form of "posthuman" life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans.
"We will begin to use science and technology not just to manage the world around us but to manage our own human biology as well," Bostrom told CNN. "The changes will be faster and more profound than the very, very slow changes that would occur over tens of thousands of years as a result of natural selection and biological evolution."
Bostrom declined to try to predict an exact time frame when this revolutionary biotechnological metamorphosis might occur. "Maybe it will take eight years or 200 years," he said. "It is very hard to predict."
Other experts are already getting ready for what they say could be a radical transformation of the human race in as little as two decades.
"This will happen faster than people realize," said Dr. Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and futurist who calculates technology trends using what he calls the law of accelerating returns, a mathematical concept that measures the exponential growth of technological evolution.
In the 1980s Kurzweil predicted that a tiny handheld device would be invented sometime early in the 21st century allowing blind people to read documents from anywhere at anytime -- earlier this year such a device was publicly unveiled. He also anticipated the explosive growth of the Internet in the 1990s.
Now Kurzweil is predicting the impending arrival of something called the Singularity, which he defines in his book on the subject as "the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots."
"There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality," he writes.
Don't Miss
Just Imagine: 2020
Waste not, watt not
Curing diseases with nature
Animal inspired robots
Singularity will approach at an accelerating rate as human-created technologies become exponentially smaller and increasingly powerful and as fields such as biology and medicine are understood more and more in terms of information processes that can be simulated with computers.
By the 2030s, Kurzweil tells CNN, humans will become more non-biological than biological, capable of uploading our minds onto the Internet, living in various virtual worlds and even avoiding aging and evading death.
In the 2040s, Kurzweil predicts non-biological intelligence will be billions of times better than the biological intelligence humans have today, possibly rendering our present brains as obsolete.
"Our brains are a million times slower than electronics," said Kurzweil. "We will increasingly become software entities if you go out enough decades."
This movement towards the merger of man and machine, according to Kurzweil, is already starting to happen and is most visible in the field of biotechnology.
As scientists gain deeper insights into the genetic processes that underlie life, they are able to effectively reprogram human biology through the development of new forms of gene therapies and medications capable of turning on or off enzymes and RNA interference, or gene silencing.
"Biology and health and medicine used to be hit or miss," said Kurzweil. "It wasn't based on any coherent theory about how it works."
The emerging biotechnology revolution will lead to at least a thousand new drugs that could do anything from slow down the process of aging to reverse the onset of diseases, like heart disease and cancer, Kurzweil said.
By 2020, Kurzweil predicts a second revolution in the area of nanotechnology. According to his calculations, it is already showing signs of exponential growth as scientists begin test first generation nanobots that can cure Type 1 diabetes in rats or heal spinal cord injuries in mice.
One scientist is developing something called a respirocyte -- a robotic red blood cell that, if injected into the bloodstream, would allow humans to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time.
Other researchers are developing nanoparticles that can locate tumors and one day possibly even eradicate them.
And some Parkinson's patients now have pea-sized computers implanted in their brains that replace neurons destroyed by the disease -- new software can be downloaded to the mini computers from outside the human body.
"Nanotechnology will not just be used to reprogram but to transcend biology and go beyond its limitations by merging with non-biological systems," Kurzweil told CNN. "If we rebuild biological systems with nanotechnology, we can go beyond its limits."
The final revolution leading to the advent of Singularity will be the creation of artificial intelligence, or superintelligence, which, according to Kurzweil, could be capable of solving many of our biggest threats, like environmental destruction, poverty and disease.
"A more intelligent process will inherently outcompete one that is less intelligent, making intelligence the most powerful force in the universe," writes Kurzweil.
Yet the invention of so many high-powered technologies and the possibility of merging these new technologies with humans may pose both peril and promise for the future of mankind.
"I think there are grave dangers," said Kurzweil. "Technology has always been a double-edged sword."
Respirocytes: A Mechanical Articificial Red Blood Cell
Respirocytes are hypothetical robotic red blood cells that, if injected into the bloodstream, would allow humans to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time. Abstract: Molecular manufacturing promises precise control of matter at the atomic and molecular level, allowing the construction of micron-scale machines comprised of nanometer-scale components. Medical nanomachines will be among the earliest applications. The artificial red blood cell or "respirocyte" proposed here is a bloodborne spherical 1-micron diamondoid 1000-atm pressure vessel with active pumping powered by endogenous serum glucose, able to deliver 236 times more oxygen to the tissues per unit volume than natural red cells and to manage carbonic acidity. An onboard nanocomputer and numerous chemical and pressure sensors enable complex device behaviors remotely reprogrammable by the physician via externally applied acoustic signals. Primary applications will include transfusable blood substitution; partial treatment for anemia, perinatal/neonatal and lung disorders; enhancement of cardiovascular/neurovascular procedures, tumor therapies and diagnostics; prevention of asphyxia; artificial breathing; and a variety of sports, veterinary, battlefield and other uses.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Walking robot video
Check out this video of a robot that can walk in deep snow, ice, steep hills, etc. If a method to power it for long periods of time can be developed, I could see these things following soldiers around carrying extra ammo, etc. Add some camera's and a weapon mount, and it could be used as an armed scout.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Battle Robots
Noah Schachtman from Wired writes a very interesting story about a Defense Department robot acquisition program that led to some underhanded activity.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
How much does US Airways suck?
This is difficult to quantify, but I can give a subjective account of their degree of suckitude. This happened back in March, but I am still pissed.
I was in New Hampshire with 2 colleagues participating in and leading portions of a fairly large meeting/seminar. This was on Good Friday (who scheduled that?) and I received a message from my travel agent about 3:00 that my 5:00 flight out of Manchester was cancelled.
I called US Air and waited on the phone for 10 minutes, finally got through to a human, and was immediately disconnected. At this point, I was cursing phone ACD systems, but wasn't overly teed-off at US Air. I call back, wait another 10 minutes, and finally get through to someone.
This person's native language clearly wasn't English, and I don't think that you could even say that her 2nd language was English as she couldn't understand anything that I said, and could barely utter a handful of English terms herself.
Every single time I said something, she would say "hold please", put me on hold, and then make me wait anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. After about 4 or 5 times of this crap, she finally told me very clearly that she couldn't help me any further because I had a "paper ticket".
I told her that not only did I not have a paper ticket, that I haven't had a paper ticket in many years and didn't know what the heck she was talking about. Her immediate response was "hold please".
She came back a minute two later and repeated her previous assurance about my alleged paper ticket. I insisted that I indeed did not have a paper ticket, and as a result received the dreaded "hold please".
By this time I was fuming. Fortunately for me, our travel agent had been busy actually trying to help us (actual customer service) and called my colleague back. She said that US Airways had booked us for a return trip the following Tuesday!
She changed the flight to the following day from Boston instead of Manchester, which began another ordeal. That flight also ending up being cancelled as well for mechanical reasons, and we ended up flying to DFW and renting a car.
I arrived home finally at 3:30 AM Easter morning, about a 1 1/2 days late.
This is clearly a business that has lost its way, and needs to be closed or taken over by a more competent organization.
I was in New Hampshire with 2 colleagues participating in and leading portions of a fairly large meeting/seminar. This was on Good Friday (who scheduled that?) and I received a message from my travel agent about 3:00 that my 5:00 flight out of Manchester was cancelled.
I called US Air and waited on the phone for 10 minutes, finally got through to a human, and was immediately disconnected. At this point, I was cursing phone ACD systems, but wasn't overly teed-off at US Air. I call back, wait another 10 minutes, and finally get through to someone.
This person's native language clearly wasn't English, and I don't think that you could even say that her 2nd language was English as she couldn't understand anything that I said, and could barely utter a handful of English terms herself.
Every single time I said something, she would say "hold please", put me on hold, and then make me wait anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. After about 4 or 5 times of this crap, she finally told me very clearly that she couldn't help me any further because I had a "paper ticket".
I told her that not only did I not have a paper ticket, that I haven't had a paper ticket in many years and didn't know what the heck she was talking about. Her immediate response was "hold please".
She came back a minute two later and repeated her previous assurance about my alleged paper ticket. I insisted that I indeed did not have a paper ticket, and as a result received the dreaded "hold please".
By this time I was fuming. Fortunately for me, our travel agent had been busy actually trying to help us (actual customer service) and called my colleague back. She said that US Airways had booked us for a return trip the following Tuesday!
She changed the flight to the following day from Boston instead of Manchester, which began another ordeal. That flight also ending up being cancelled as well for mechanical reasons, and we ended up flying to DFW and renting a car.
I arrived home finally at 3:30 AM Easter morning, about a 1 1/2 days late.
This is clearly a business that has lost its way, and needs to be closed or taken over by a more competent organization.
Government's War on the Internet
Randall Rothenberg writes an interesting piece that is publsished on the Interactive Adverstising Bureau's website as "Governments's War on the Web" and in somewhat different form for a much broader audience at the Huffington Post as "War against the Web".
This is well worth reading, a snippet is below:
"With barely an acknowledgement of the myriad ways in which the Internet has revolutionized economic development, information access, and communications diversity, an increasingly organized coalition of anti-business groups is mobilizing to get the Government to shut it down.
And the scary thing is: They are succeeding. I’ve detailed this “break-the-Web” effort in an article in yesterday’s Huffington Post. I urge you to print it out, circulate it, and oppose the forces that would force you under. (More on that later.)"
This is well worth reading, a snippet is below:
"With barely an acknowledgement of the myriad ways in which the Internet has revolutionized economic development, information access, and communications diversity, an increasingly organized coalition of anti-business groups is mobilizing to get the Government to shut it down.
And the scary thing is: They are succeeding. I’ve detailed this “break-the-Web” effort in an article in yesterday’s Huffington Post. I urge you to print it out, circulate it, and oppose the forces that would force you under. (More on that later.)"
Monday, April 21, 2008
Internet's effect on transaction costs and the size of firms
Below is a snip from a very interesting article in Wikipedia regarding Coase's Theorem, which describes the economic efficiency of an economic allocation or outcome in the presence of externalities.
The theorem states that when trade in an externality is possible and there are no transaction costs, bargaining will lead to an efficient outcome regardless of the initial allocation of property rights. In practice, obstacles to bargaining or poorly defined property rights can prevent Coasian bargaining.
A key point when applied in the Internet age
The theorem states that when trade in an externality is possible and there are no transaction costs, bargaining will lead to an efficient outcome regardless of the initial allocation of property rights. In practice, obstacles to bargaining or poorly defined property rights can prevent Coasian bargaining.
A key point when applied in the Internet age
This is one of the reasons why, in the past, companies used to grow more and more: it was better to make something in house since the cost of the transaction to buy it was high.
In the internet era, Coase's theorem became even more up to date, but under a slightly different version. The concept is the same, but the way of reading it is the opposite. We could say: "the size of a company will decrease until the cost of doing something inside the company will be lower than doing it outside".
In other words, since in the internet era the cost of the transactions became very small, as a consequence, the size of the companies is decreasing. An example of this phenomenon is the increasing pace of the outsourcing and off-shoring businesses
In the internet era, Coase's theorem became even more up to date, but under a slightly different version. The concept is the same, but the way of reading it is the opposite. We could say: "the size of a company will decrease until the cost of doing something inside the company will be lower than doing it outside".
In other words, since in the internet era the cost of the transactions became very small, as a consequence, the size of the companies is decreasing. An example of this phenomenon is the increasing pace of the outsourcing and off-shoring businesses
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World
From MIT's Technology Review:
Technology Review unveils its annual selection of hot new technologies about to affect our lives in revolutionary ways-and profiles the innovators behind them.
With new technologies constantly being invented in universities and companies across the globe, guessing which ones will transform computing, medicine, communication, and our energy infrastructure is always a challenge. Nonetheless, Technology Review's editors are willing to bet that the 10 emerging technologies highlighted in this special package will affect our lives and work in revolutionary ways-whether next year or next decade. For each, we've identified a researcher whose ideas and efforts both epitomize and reinvent his or her field. The following snapshots of the innovators and their work provide a glimpse of the future these evolving technologies may provide.
10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World:
Universal Translation
Synthetic Biology
Nanowires
T-Rays
Distributed Storage
RNAi Interference
Power Grid Control
Microfluidic Optical Fibers
Bayesiam Machine Learning
Technology Review unveils its annual selection of hot new technologies about to affect our lives in revolutionary ways-and profiles the innovators behind them.
With new technologies constantly being invented in universities and companies across the globe, guessing which ones will transform computing, medicine, communication, and our energy infrastructure is always a challenge. Nonetheless, Technology Review's editors are willing to bet that the 10 emerging technologies highlighted in this special package will affect our lives and work in revolutionary ways-whether next year or next decade. For each, we've identified a researcher whose ideas and efforts both epitomize and reinvent his or her field. The following snapshots of the innovators and their work provide a glimpse of the future these evolving technologies may provide.
10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World:
Universal Translation
Synthetic Biology
Nanowires
T-Rays
Distributed Storage
RNAi Interference
Power Grid Control
Microfluidic Optical Fibers
Bayesiam Machine Learning
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Great sites for mobile phone surfing
From Mequoda
- Computerworld - (http://mobile.computerworld.com) - Not only do they offer a clean uncluttered look, but if you go to their search engine you'll find an ad for their freemium. Just hand over your email address and they'll send you a link for the case study. Bravo Computerworld.
- Facebook - (http://m.facebook.com)- Facebooks mobile interface is by far in the lead in terms of functionality. Usability experts and users alike constantly praise it. Every aspect of the website was well thought out in order to make all tasks easy to complete, view, and search.. with serious bandwidth optimization.
- PC Magazine (http://mobile.pcmag.com): Complete with ads, font-sizing buttons and a sleek design, PC Magazine's mobile site is one of the best.
- MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com): Automatically detected by your mobile device, and easy to use. No clicking "next", just everything you want and need right away. A very intelligently designed mobile site.
- Forbes - (http://mobile.forbes.com) - Easy to look up quotes from the main screen and access all articles. Complete with external advertising as well as internal ads embedded in articles for users to subscribe to Forbes' mobile alerts.
- Car and Driver - (http://m.caranddriver.com) - Perfectly balanced text and graphics that show up with ease and works on a huge variety of handsets.
- The New York Times (http://mobile.nytimes.com): The site wouldn't be used to do any kind of research, but if you're just looking to read the latest stories, it's adequate and easy to use. It even offers social functions like the ability to email the story.
- Internet Movie Database (IMDb) (http://www.imdb.com): IMDb is one of those websites that NEEDS a mobile presence, and movie fans are very happy with their mobile edition that self-detects.
- Google - (http://www.google.com/m) - Even with an easy to use interface, users still like optimized websites, especially search engines. The mobile Google homepage has no ads unlike the Yahoo!
- Amazon
- Marie Claire (http://m.marieclaire.com): It's simplistic design is perfect for mobile, which identifies categories first, then headlines, and then dives into the tip.
- Time (http://mobile.time.com): Time doesn't offer all of its content for mobile, but what it does offer is complete and lengthy, if that's what you're looking for.
- Wapedia (Mobile Wikipedia) - (http://wapedia.mobi) - Think mobile Wikipedia. Wikipedia does have it's own lightweight version, but it was created by a 3rd party and is not as widely used or
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Gammy-ray Annhilation Lasers Kick Ass
Perhaps the missing piece that will enable fusion reactors? OK, probably not, fusion seems to destined to remain "40 years off" forever, but its a nice thought.
Fragile particles rarely seen in our Universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to make a new form of matter.
Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science. Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.
The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers. "The difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion," said Dr David Cassidy of the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper.
It would have an incredibly high power density." As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor
Fragile particles rarely seen in our Universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to make a new form of matter.
Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science. Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.
The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers. "The difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion," said Dr David Cassidy of the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper.
It would have an incredibly high power density." As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor
Coolest Extinct Animals
A fun story from Wired, althought I don't necessarily agree with their list.
My additions to the list:
Biggest, baddest bear ever
Terror bird
Sabre-toothed tigers
Dire wolves
23 foot long/4000 pound dragons
even more here
Wired article below
My additions to the list:
Biggest, baddest bear ever
Terror bird
Sabre-toothed tigers
Dire wolves
23 foot long/4000 pound dragons
even more here
Wired article below
The Best: Extinct Animals, From an Elephant Bird to a 10-Foot-Long, Four-Eyed Spider
1) Carcharodon megalodon
Description A shark twice the length of a great white, this 50-foot killing machine had serrated teeth the size of bowie knives. You would definitely need a bigger boat.
Last seen 1.6 million years ago.
2) Arthropleura armata
Description Creeped out by centipedes? You never would've made it in the Carboniferous era. This 7-foot-long insect was like an even more horrifying and unspeakable version of the Rockettes.
Last seen At the beginning of the Permian period (290 million years ago) — and in your nightmares.
3) Meganeura monyi (Not shown)
Description Dragonflies are already cool. Add a 3-foot wingspan? Awesome.
Last seen The Permian extinction (250 million years ago).
4) Aepyornis maximus
Description The elephant bird stood taller than a basketball hoop, and you could make more than 40 omelets from one of its foot-long eggs. Brunch!
Last seen In the 16th century. Couldn't adjust to the Gregorian calendar?
5) Elasmotherium sibiricum
Description This 20-foot-long Eurasian rhino could run like a horse and gore its enemies with a 6-foot horn. That is one badass unicorn.
Last seen 800,000 years ago.
6) Gigantopithecus blacki
Description Known mostly by the fossilized teeth it left behind, this king of Kongs stood roughly 9 feet tall and weighed around half a ton.
Last seen 300,000 years ago — or possibly in Harry and the Hendersons.
7) Jaekelopterus rhenaniae (Not shown)
Description Don't panic. The so-called giant sea scorpion was actually an arthropod — more like a spider, really. It was 10 feet long, had four eyes, and, in addition to swimming, could walk on land. So that's ... pretty horrible.
Last seen 248 million years ago. Phew!
8) Shonisaurus sikanniensis
Description What's not to love about an aquatic reptile the size of a yacht?
Last seen At the end of the Norian stage (204 million years ago).
9) Doedicurus clavicaudatus
Description Imagine a Volkswagen Beetle with teeth and an enormous spiked tail.
Last seen 15,000 years ago.
10) Ceratogaulus rhinoceros
Description It was a rodent. It had twin tusks growing from its nose. And it burrowed. This explains why there were no good golf courses in the Pliocene epoch.
Last seen 5 million years ago.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Nature of Human Nature
Michael Shermer's response to the www.edge.org annual question which this year was:
What have you changed your mind about?
When I was a graduate student in experimental psychology, I cut my teeth in a Skinnerian behavioral laboratory. As a behaviorist I believed that human nature was largely a blank slate on which we could impose positive and negative reinforcements (and punishments if necessary) to shape people and society into almost anything we want.
As a young college professor I taught psychology from this perspective and even created a new course on the history and psychology of war, in which I argued that people are by nature peaceful and nonviolent, and that wars were thus a byproduct of corrupt governments and misguided societies.
The data from evolutionary psychology has now convinced me that we evolved a dual set of moral sentiments: within groups we tend to be pro-social and cooperative, but between groups we are tribal and xenophobic.
Archaeological evidence indicates that Paleolithic humans were anything but noble savages, and that civilization has gradually but ineluctably reduced the amount of within-group aggression and between-group violence. And behavior genetics has erased the tabula rasa and replaced it with a highly constrained biological template upon which the environment can act.
I have thus changed my mind about this theory of human nature in its extreme form. Human nature is more evolutionarily determined, more cognitively irrational, and more morally complex than I thought.
More posts on this question at the Edge.org
Michael Shermer is among other things editor of the Skeptic magazine
What have you changed your mind about?
When I was a graduate student in experimental psychology, I cut my teeth in a Skinnerian behavioral laboratory. As a behaviorist I believed that human nature was largely a blank slate on which we could impose positive and negative reinforcements (and punishments if necessary) to shape people and society into almost anything we want.
As a young college professor I taught psychology from this perspective and even created a new course on the history and psychology of war, in which I argued that people are by nature peaceful and nonviolent, and that wars were thus a byproduct of corrupt governments and misguided societies.
The data from evolutionary psychology has now convinced me that we evolved a dual set of moral sentiments: within groups we tend to be pro-social and cooperative, but between groups we are tribal and xenophobic.
Archaeological evidence indicates that Paleolithic humans were anything but noble savages, and that civilization has gradually but ineluctably reduced the amount of within-group aggression and between-group violence. And behavior genetics has erased the tabula rasa and replaced it with a highly constrained biological template upon which the environment can act.
I have thus changed my mind about this theory of human nature in its extreme form. Human nature is more evolutionarily determined, more cognitively irrational, and more morally complex than I thought.
More posts on this question at the Edge.org
Michael Shermer is among other things editor of the Skeptic magazine
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Canada Could Supplant the Middle East as the Primary Supplier of Oil to the US in the Future
World Oil Reserves by Country
Notes:
1. Estimated reserves in billions (10**9) of barrels. (Source: Oil & Gas Journal, January, 2007)
2. Production rate in millions (10**6) of barrels per day (Source: US Energy Information Authority, September, 2007)
3. Reserve life in years, calculated as reserves / annual production. (from above
Country Reserves Production Reserve life 3
(10**9bbl) (10**6 bpd) (years)
Saudi Arabia 260 8.8 81
Canada 179 2.7 182
Iran 136 3.7 101
Iraq 115 2.2 143
Kuwait 99 2.5 108
United Arab Emirates 97 2.5 107
Venezuela 80 2.4 91
Russia 60 9.5 17
Libya 41.5 1.8 63
Nigeria 36.2 2.3 43
United States 21 4.9 12
Mexico 12 3.2 10
Notes:
1. Estimated reserves in billions (10**9) of barrels. (Source: Oil & Gas Journal, January, 2007)
2. Production rate in millions (10**6) of barrels per day (Source: US Energy Information Authority, September, 2007)
3. Reserve life in years, calculated as reserves / annual production. (from above
Monday, January 28, 2008
A "Saudi Arabia" Worth of Oil under Dakotas, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba
The Bakken oil formation is possibly the largest conventional oil discovery in Canada since 1957. If this oil formation plays out toward the higher end of size and recoverability then it will change the geopolitics of oil and the economies of the United States and Canada. If a lot of the oil proves difficult to recover now, new technologies could still drastically improve the percent recoverable. The motivation to pull out another 100 billion barrels would be $9 trillion at todays prices.
Estimates are anywhere from a conservative 25 billion barrels of oil in place, to a high estimate by the United States Geological Survey of 400 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation. Not only is the oil plentiful, but it's high quality too, 41 degree light sweet crude. The Bakken formation is a formation of black shale, siltstone, and sandstone. The formation lies beneath the Mississippian formation, Saskatchewan's current source of light sweet crude. The Bakken formation is situated beneath southeastern Saskatchewan, southwestern Manitoba, and North Dakota.
In 2007, EOG Resources out of Houston, Texas reported that a single well it had drilled into an oil-rich layer of shale below Parshall, North Dakota is anticipated to produce 700,000 barrels of oil.The resources of the Bakken Formation are defined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as unconventional “continuous-type” oil resources. This means the hydrocarbons within the Bakken have not accumulated into discrete reservoirs of limited areal extent. With new horizontal drilling and completion technology taken into account, the technically recoverable resource base for the entire Bakken Formation is potentially much larger.
Full story from Next Big Future here
Full story from Next Big Future here
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