Via Singularity Hub.
Obviously (as the article notes), stopping plastic pollution in the first place is an important part of the solution, not just cleaning it up after it gets into the ocean. But another key point is that by taking out large amounts of plastic waste before it breaks down into microplastics, this project is preventing a much worse problem than the one we’re already facing.
Interesting. Dickens envisaged something similar to Westworld (or Grand Theft Auto): a place where wealthy young men could behave badly without inconveniencing society at large. The satirical twist is that along with automatons, the poor would be recruited as victims that nobody cared about, and there would be a mock trial at the end in which the privileged young men would get off scot-free.
Sound familiar?
Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette
Charles Dickens imagined a Westworld-like robot park filled with “violent delights” https://quartzy.qz.com/1257896/charles-dickens-imagined-a-westworld-like-robot-park-filled-with-violent-delights/
At this time we are beginning our descent into a world without pilots.
Possibly.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
Your Next Pilot Could Be Drone Software https://suhub.co/2K2auLF
Now, apply this to people living in some other unusual circumstance, like a planet with different gravity or air pressure.
Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh
Fascinating adaptation. “Bajau divers been observed plunging more than 200 feet underwater, their only protection a pair of wooden goggles — a physiological marvel.
In 2015, Melissa Ilardo, then a graduate student in genetics at the University of Copenhagen, heard about the Bajau. She wondered if centuries of diving could have led to the evolution of traits that made the task easier for them.
“It seemed like the perfect opportunity for natural selection to act on a population,” said Dr. Ilardo.
[…]
When people plunge into water, they respond with the so-called diving reflex: the heart rate slows and blood vessels constrict as a way to shunt blood to vital organs. The spleen also contracts, squirting a supply of oxygen-rich red blood cells into the circulation.
[…]
When Dr. Ilardo compared scans from the two villages, she found a stark difference. The Bajau had spleens about 50 percent bigger on average than those of the Saluan.
Yet even such a remarkable difference might not be the result of evolution. Diving itself might somehow enlarge the spleen. There are plenty of examples of experience changing the body, from calloused feet to bulging biceps.
Only some Bajau are full-time divers. Others, such as teachers and shopkeepers, have never dived. But they, too, had large spleens, Dr. Ilardo found. It was likely the Bajau are born that way, thanks to their genes.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/science/bajau-evolution-ocean-diving.html
Contributor to fads, or actual useful tool?
Having studied nutrition and health, I can tell you it’s extraordinarily complicated, not least because food is so bound up with our culture and our psychology. I’ll be watching this with wary interest.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
This Tiny Tooth Sensor Tracks What You Eat, and It Could Help You Be Healthier https://suhub.co/2qzV5Jj
Some real story seeds in this one.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610681/human-cloning-just-got-a-little-bit-closer-heres-why/
Via Winchell Chung.
Provides a great opportunity for a Princess Bride reference: “Eocene Layers of Mysterious Origin? I don’t believe they exist.”
Originally shared by Michael Nestler
Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans? – The Atlantic
An important advance in integrating human bodies and electronics.
Originally shared by Neuroscience News
Researchers Build Smallest Volume, Most Efficient Wireless Nerve Stimulator
The device, called StimDust, short for stimulating neural dust, adds more sophisticated electronics to neural dust without sacrificing the technology’s tiny size or safety, greatly expanding the range of neural dust applications.
What Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai are up to.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
How do we forecast for the cities of the future?
Why would AI only model humans?
Originally shared by Arduino
Researchers trained an AI system to make dog-like decisions.
(via Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610775/this-ai-thinks-like-a-dog/