The search for a new home, and robot A.I. takes a big step

two stories I just loved...
Finding more planets like earth will be commonplace in 2012, when Google and Nasa put up a space telescope that will be able to find hundreds, if not thousands of earthlike planets within it's first TWO YEARS! Not only are they earthlike but close... my favorite kind of planet...
Combining the top down and bottom up approach to AI has led to the smartest robot yet... They estimate it's as intelligent as a 2 to 3 year old.. The manl who makes it says you won't see one as smart as an adult human in our lifetime, while sources i trust more have made the guess of 5 to 12 years.... hmmm, care to bet on that one? you know he didn't think about technologies exponential growth...
Chew on those to stories, and i'll leave you with a quote.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
Arthur C. Clarke
16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008

faster, faster....

It never takes a break....
First off, i have been reading science friction, by michael shermer, and in it he talks about coming up with a label for "godless heathens" like me. The term they came up with was the Brights. Overwhelming disapproval followed. what would you name atheist, agnostics, etc.? my favorites are rationalist, or skeptic... secular progressive is a good one too...
OK three super sweet stories.........
A room temperature superconductor? your talking about something that carries electricity with NO LOSS! are you kidding me? this is great....
2. scientists have made a material that transfers electricity to heat, or visa versa, 40% better than ever before using nanotech! this will find it's way into everything real quick. (Thermodynamics!!!)
3. designer enzymes? we have looked at nature for answers long enough. Soon after Venter's synthetic organisms comes man made enzymes doing things nature has never done before!
TAKE THAT GOD!

hmmmm... keep up grandpa

the rare weekend post...
All the time i see articles that talk about when some sort of tech is supposed to reach us, whether it's something simple like a holographic hard drive capable of carrying terabits of information, swarm robots that think and work and share information and energy together, or an AI as smart as you or I. one thing they seem to underestimate is the exponential growth of tech and information. Keep in mind that if you look at the rise of the robots article i linked to about AI (above), you'll see that in '99 (and this was reprinted in a recent special report on robotics somehow) they thought that it would be another 50 years before human level intelligence, while various recent estimates go anywhere from only 5 (SEED article on blue brain) to 12 years away (computerworld poll of tech experts).

super eyes, super robots, super scientists, super bad!

If you've know someone who wasn't born blind, and doesn't have glaucoma, then they might soon be able to see again with this eye. Right now this is to help people who are blind, but when the technology gets better, goddamnit i'll rip my own eyes out for this....
Scientists are working on swarm robots that could, among other things find people in wreckage, or become a robot's immune system (???). wow.
You all know my co-pilot, and it seems he ain't the only one who wants to play god. Scientists at the University of Groningen just opened a synthetic biology department. I'd want to make a half monkey, half lizard....
Carbon Nanotubes are going to be used to make even more computer parts, and it makes me wonder if these will be THE material of the next twenty years.... There are billions of nanocompounds out their yet to be found, but that should get way easier now that they can design and test them in cyberspace....
And finally. not only are we in a wet universe, but the amino acids that made life were seeded by meteors that were formed at the creation of the solar system. IF.... this is something that happens everywhere, and not just here, then you are talking about a universe that is far more wet and organic than anyone could have dreamed or hoped for....
people.... science rocks. crack doesn't.

future.....

It's hard to tell where everything's going. according to Ray Kurzweil, if we dodge war we will become the next evolutionary step. Something else could slow us down... I mean even if we become super intelligent, where do we go? I saw in last months Scientific American that at the end of the the universe it will be cold and dark with black holes scattered throughout the void. do those lead to white holes? would we even be able to use them? would we have to leave or could we set up an artificial area in the universe that we could continue to live in? I am an atheist, and yet even I have to say that within 100 years, we will have far more virtual universes than the one real one we live in. who is to say that ours isn't in some computer of an advanced race??? would it matter? would we still be able to escape the universe? could a sentient program escape one of our computers and into our world? there are so many questions, and as the organism farthest up evolutions ladder, i believe its our duty to find out. support the grandest scientific projects you can, and get the word out about them.... support peace, happiness and health.
and have a good day

mind over matter? Nuclear comeback?

It appears that the days of true cyborgs are upon us. 5 years in development, european scientists are close to letting parapalegics control their wheelchairs, artificial limbs, or computers with their minds.
I think that nuclear is pretty safe to use, so i am happy that they have reached a new milestone in how efficient it is.... hopefully soon we can use this more to get off fossil fuels. i have been trying to buy a house, so i have been a little busy, but i will try to keep you all up to date, thanks!

potential cures for diabetes and toxoplasmosis

Maybe it isn't the pancreas' inability to produce insulin, but part of the small intestine, that's responsible for diabetes. simple surgery to fix that...
Also a new drug made to fight malaria seems to fight that whole family of parasites, even effectively being a cure for toxoplasmosis.
The book that made me see how organics were good for the planet, and proved to me definitively where technology was going in the near term was Pulse. If you want a hard one to read that shows how we will be able to play Dr. Moreau, then try this.....
short and sweet.....