Lifeboat Foundation

Kurweil AI

“It seems highly unlikely that we are alone.”

There are some 100 million other places in the Milky Way galaxy that could support life above the microbial level, reports a group of astronomers in the journal Challenges (open access), based on a new computation method to examine data from planets orbiting other stars in the universe.

“This study does not indicate that complex life exists on that many planets; we’re saying that there are planetary conditions that could support it, according to the paper’s authors*. “Complex life doesn’t mean intelligent life — though it doesn’t rule it out or even animal life — but simply that organisms larger and more complex than microbes could exist in a number of different forms,” the researchers explain.

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Ian Sample — The Guardian

It was hailed as one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century, the birth of a new era in physics and a shoo-in for a Nobel prize.

The claim from Harvard University that it had discovered gravitational waves – and thereby evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation and the existence of a multiverse – caused a worldwide sensation in March. But the celebrations are now looking decidedly premature.

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100 Year Starship announces a Call for Papers for the 100YSS 2014 Public Symposium. The Symposium will be held September 18–21 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, United States.

You’re invited to submit your abstract for one of the eight Technical Tracks or Poster Session and be a part of our transdisciplinary scope to include the broadest swath of ideas and people for our mission. Abstract deadline is 20 June, 2014.

The Pathway to the Stars, Footprints on Earth theme still guides the focus of 100YSS’s Public Symposium. It compels us to continue our journey and maintain our mission. Last year, our participants explored different avenues of fundamental research, technology development, societal systems, and capacities that facilitate ready access to our inner solar system. This year we move that focus forward with more in-depth access to emerging and cutting edge topics – expanding our view of design, creating new pathways in education, discovering psychology, and cutting edge transportation methods. Using a collaborative and Transdisciplinary approach to capability and capacity building, our mission will continue to support our efforts to enhance life here on earth…today. Join us as we log another year in our 100-year mission at the 100YSS 2014 Public Symposium.

Below are the tracks for our 2014 Call For Papers.

Continue reading “100 Year Starship Call for Papers // 2014 Public Symposium” »

The Daily Galaxy

“There have been hints for a while now that maybe something else is going on,” says Stanford’s Kavli Foundation Deputy Director John Carlstrom, who leads two other experiments that study the universe’s first light. “Maybe we need to… allow some new physics in there. Maybe there are more neutrinos. Maybe they’re more massive than we thought. Or maybe it’s something none of us have thought of yet.”

Last month, scientists announced the first hard evidence for cosmic inflation, the process by which the infant universe swelled from microscopic to cosmic size in an instant. This almost unimaginably fast expansion was first theorized more than three decades ago, yet only now has “smoking gun” proof emerged when the world was stunned by announcement that a telescope at the South Pole (image above) had detected a cosmic fossil from the earliest moments of creation.

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TED

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