Group items tagged

"The Italian magazine WIRED asked us to draw a map based on the scenarios developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto to help the reader in the net of ideas and hypothesis built by 7000 influencers from all over the world." Think Leo will like...

nice ideas ...

Some interesting future projects from NASA's IAC. (June 2014) NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts awards: "These proposals have been selected based on the potential of their concepts to transform future aerospace missions, enable new capabilities, or significantly alter and improve current approaches."

Galactic Cosmic Radiation consisting of high-energy, high-charged (HZE) particles poses a significant threat to future astronauts in deep space. Aside from cancer, concerns have been raised about late degenerative risks, including effects on the brain. In this study we examined the effects of 56Fe particle irradiation in an APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We demonstrated 6 months after exposure to 10 and 100 cGy 56Fe radiation at 1 GeV/µ, that APP/PS1 mice show decreased cognitive abilities measured by contextual fear conditioning and novel object recognition tests. Furthermore, in male mice we saw acceleration of Aβ plaque pathology using Congo red and 6E10 staining, which was further confirmed by ELISA measures of Aβ isoforms. Increases were not due to higher levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP) or increased cleavage as measured by levels of the β C-terminal fragment of APP. Additionally, we saw no change in microglial activation levels judging by CD68 and Iba-1 immunoreactivities in and around Aβ plaques or insulin degrading enzyme, which has been shown to degrade Aβ. However, immunohistochemical analysis of ICAM-1 showed evidence of endothelial activation after 100 cGy irradiation in male mice, suggesting possible alterations in Aβ trafficking through the blood brain barrier as a possible cause of plaque increase. Overall, our results show for the first time that HZE particle radiation can increase Aβ plaque pathology in an APP/PS1 mouse model of AD.

Quite ambitious russian version of the future. Immortality is quite on the edge in the next 15 years! Don't miss the superheroic Youtube-video on that page! :)

winners of the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagship competition (informally) announced

Hopefully the money wasted on the brain project will be offset by the gains on graphene... When I heard the proposals presentations on fet11 conference back in 2011, the graphene project was my bet.. Although its motivations were mostly political ("everyone else is working on graphene so if Europe won't do something, we'll soon be far behind"), in contrast to other projects it appeared to have well defined tangible objectives and gave hope of actually delivering something.

"The forecasts were the product of a series of "summer studies" led by NASA's Ames Research Centre and Stanford University, at which top academics, scientists, and engineers gathered to imagine how future space colonies could look. Artists gave life to the blueprints, producing a stunning series of images that look like a cross between CGI real-estate models (complete with would-be residents smugly sipping wine) and the fantastical worlds of Isaac Asimov."

did not know about this ....

The future of education? I will defnitely have a look to the reusability of the open source platform ....

We are living in the future when live broadcasts are being censored by AI programs in real-time. I'm sure dictators everywhere are looking forward for these technologies to mature. Having a firewall over reality is so convenient.

Oh, and look - the copyright AI doesn't likes Democrats as well: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/youtube-flags-democrats-convention-video-on-copyright-grounds/

What this tells is that we should not take AI seriously until smart Luis's (or his son) managed to make something decent out of it ... "This was, of course, absurd. First of all, the clips had been provided by the studios to be shown during the award ceremony. The Hugo Awards had explicit permission to broadcast them. But even if they hadn't, it is absolutely fair use to broadcast clips of copyrighted material during an award ceremony. Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on Ustream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law. And then, it got worse. Amid more cries of dismay on Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere, the official Worldcon Twitter announced: Chicon 7@chicon_7 We are sorry to report that #Ustream will not resume the video feed. #chicon7 #hugos #worldcon 3 Sep 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite And with that, the broadcast was officially cut off. Dumb robots, programmed to kill any broadcast containing copyrighted material, had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards. Sure, we could read what was happening on Twitter, or get the official winner announcement on the Hugo website, but that is hardly the same. We wanted to see our heroes and friends on that stage, and share the event with them. In the world of science fiction writing, the Hugo Awards are kind of like the Academy Awards. Careers are made; people get dressed up and give speeches; and celebrities rub shoulders with (admittedly geeky) paparazzi. You want to see and hear it if you can. But Ustream's incorrectly programmed copyright enforcement squad had destroyed our only access. It was like a Cory Doctorow story crossed with RoboCop 2, with DRM robots going crazy and shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of perfectly innocent broadcasts."

any idea how this works - who wants to have a closer look at it?

Wouldn't it be worth having a closer look?

it's still not clear to me how to get electricity in and out of this thing?

hmmm, I was wondering how many ESA employees do know that ACT does exist....

And my son studying at Stanford (he just sent me the same link !) follows the courses this semester of two of the teachers mentioned in the article, Thrun - very good and Ng - excellent

a bit of an overstatement. the trial is only at mice stage, but nevertheless interesting for its future application.

the examples shown there are not overly impressive but we should probably have a closer look at the whole list to see what might be of interest to space - Lionel? Duncan?

Worth following for inspiration?

Yes, definitely!

"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com." In other words, UK is not part of the world...

surprised that I do not see ACT members on this list talking about FUTURE ;-)

future of reading on mobile devices? probably not but still nice

A worrying future looms as scientist predict the iconic great barrier reef is at a turning point and could experience irreversible damage before 2030 if nothing is done right now. Well actually, I am not sure if anything can be done as the two degree rise (and changes in ocean temperature/acidity probably?) will likely happen in any case due to delayed effects of decades of pollution, whether or not we stop now with emissions will probably not make much difference. :(