How did the monstrous giant squid—reaching school-bus size, with eyes as big as dinner plates and tentacles that can snatch prey 10 yards away—get so scarily big?
Today, important clues about the anatomy and evolution of the mysterious giant squid (Architeuthis dux) are revealed through publication of its full genome sequence by a University of Copenhagen-led team that includes scientist Caroline Albertin of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole.
Giant squid are rarely sighted and have never been caught and kept alive, meaning their biology (even how they reproduce) is still largely a mystery. The genome sequence can provide important insight.
How will learning and development cope with the growing trend of humans augmenting their basic capabilities with chemical, electronic, physical, and genetic enhancements?
We’ve been entertained by a never ending stream of Marvel and DC Comics characters with super powers ranging from x-ray vision to mind control. Many of us have also spent time fantasising about the additional capabilities we’d like to help see us through the day. But what happens when those boundaries blur between science fantasy and everyday reality?
The practice of human enhancement or augmentation is a phenomena well underway across society – although the concept may be new to many of us. Over the next 25 years, the integration of information and communications technologies (ICTs), cognitive science, new materials, and bio-medicine could fundamentally improve the human condition and greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. As a result, the notion of the “transhuman” could emerge. For example, we are well underway with the process of augmenting human beings’ cognitive and intellectual abilities through technological implants, such as memory storage. These enhancements mean humans could achieve heightened senses and biological capabilities that are largely the prerogative of other species (e.g. speed, resistance, adaptation to extreme conditions, etc.).
The speed of development is truly mind blowing. Advances in cognitive enhancement drugs and “nootropic” supplements, electronic brain stimulation techniques, genetic modification, age extension treatments, 3D printed limbs and organs, and body worn exoskeletons, have given rise to the notion of enhancing the human brain and body well beyond the limits of natural evolutionary processes. Indeed, many leaders in the field of AI are fierce advocates of Transhumanism as the next stage of human evolution—arguing that if humans want to keep up with AI, we ourselves will have to become machines—embedding technology in our brains and bodies to give us similar levels of processing power.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s search for a girlfriend to join him on a voyage around the moon will be the subject of a new documentary program, in the latest attention-grabbing stunt by the entrepreneur.
44-year-old Maezawa, who sold his online fashion retailer Zozo Inc to SoftBank Group Corp, is seeking single females aged over 20 for the show, which will be shown on streaming service AbemaTV.
How can we tackle gender imbalance in the personalities of AI learning tools?
The Gendering of AI
The expected growth in use of artificial intelligence (AI) in learning applications is raising concerns about both the potential gendering of these tools and the risk that they will display the inherent biases of their developers. Why the concern? Well, to make it easier for us to integrate AI tools and chatbots into our lives, designers often give them human attributes. For example, applications and robots are often given a personality and gender. Unfortunately, in many cases, gender stereotypes are being perpetuated. The type of roles robots are designed to perform usually reflect gendered over generalizations of feminine or masculine attributes.
Feminine personalities in AI tools such as chatbots and consumer devices like Amazon’s Alexa are often designed to have sympathetic features and perform tasks related to care giving, assistantship, or service. Many of these applications have been created to work as personal assistants, in customer service or teaching. Examples include Emma the floor cleaning robot and Apple’s Siri your personal iPhone assistant. Conversely, male robots are usually designed as strong, intelligent and able to perform “dirty jobs”. They typically work in analytical roles, logistics, and security. Examples include Ross the legal researcher, Stan the robotic parking valet and Leo the airport luggage porter.
Steven L. Kwast is a retired Air Force general and former commander of the Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a degree in astronautical engineering, he holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a past president of the Air Force’s Air University in Montgomery, Alabama, and a former fighter pilot with extensive combat and command experience. He is the author of the study, “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost Space Access for 21st Century Challenges.”
Whenever someone refers me to a story with alarming facts that should surprise or outrage any thinking human, my spider-sense is activated. Does the story make sense? Is it plausible? If the message contains evidence of being repeated (or forwarded to more than two friends), then whatever is claimed is almost certain to be false.
If the subject is important to me—or if there is any chance that it might influence my view of the world, I check it at Snopes. The reputable web site confirms or debunks many urban legends and all sorts of viral web hype.
You never know what you might learn at Snopes. You can easily be lured into a rabbit hole, digging into the site beyond whatever prompted your visit in the first place.
It’s no secret that the average smart phone today packs an abundance of gadgets fitting in your pocket, which could have easily filled a car trunk a few decades ago. We like to think about video cameras, music playing equipment, and maybe even telephones here, but let’s not ignore the amount of measurement equipment we also carry around in form of tiny sensors nowadays. How to use those sensors for educational purposes to teach physics is presented in [Sebastian Staacks]’ talk at 36C3 about the phyphox mobile lab app.
While accessing a mobile device’s sensor data is usually quite straightforwardly done through some API calls, the phyphox app is not only a shortcut to nicely graph all the available sensor data on the screen, it also exports the data for additional visualization and processing later on. An accompanying experiment editor allows to define custom experiments from data capture to analysis that are stored in an XML-based file format and possible to share through QR codes.
Dr Shima Beigi BSc, MSc, MSc, Ph.D. founder of Mindfulness Engineering™️ and ideaXme Rich Connectedness™️ ambassador interviews Dr Jon Finn founder Tougher Minds.
On September 20, the initial designs for the complex were presented at an event at the New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan. British firm Adjaye Associates won the contract to design the center, which will consist of three large buildings arranged around a central garden, under which will sit a museum and education center.
“We were led towards these powerful plutonic forms with a clear geometry, three cubes sitting on a plinth — though not aligned, they each have different orientations,” Sir David Adjaye told designboom. Each of the three buildings share a similar silhouette, but the facades have different architectural design and detailing, communicating the shared origins of the three religions, as well as their cultural and historical differences.
This is the fourth instalment in a four-part series examining the brewing US-China war over the development and deployment of artificial intelligence technology.
China has had success with AI and surveillance, but when it comes to social issues such as education, health care and agriculture, there is still a ways to go.
