Lifeboat Foundation

We developed a robot that creates robots.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have built a mother robot that independently builds its own children and then tests their performance to inform the design of the next generation. By analyzing the data it collects from observing the child, the mother robot ensures that preferential traits are passed down to the next iteration, while letting weaknesses fall by the wayside.

“We developed a robot that creates robots. And basically we have a mother robot that combines active and passive modules using glue to make other children robots. And these robots, as the mother creates them and puts them to work, she evaluates how they’re behaving and she uses the data from this behavior to create the next generation of robots,” explained Andre Rosendo, who worked on the project at the University’s Department of Engineering.

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The human being — especially in so-called “advanced civilizations” — is the animal that molds itself into its own pet.

Peter Sloterdijk is Germany’s most controversial thinker and media theorist. He has dared to challenge long-established divisions in traditional philosophy of body and soul, subject and object, culture and nature. His 1999 lecture on “Regulations for the Human Park,” in which he argued that genetic engineering was a continuation of human striving for self-creation, stirred up a tempest in a country known for Nazi eugenics. At the same time, he himself has concluded that “the taming of man has failed” as civilization’s potential for barbarism has grown ever greater. His seminal books include “Critique of Cynical Reason” and his trilogy, “Spheres.”

At a recent Berggruen Center on Philosophy and Culture symposium on humans and technology at Cambridge University’s St. John’s School of Divinity, The WorldPost discussed with Sloterdijk the end of borders between humans and technology, the cloud, singularity and identity in the age of globalization.

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Intel today announced plans to invest $50 million over the next ten years as part of a quantum computing push to help solve problems such as “large-scale financial analysis and more effective drug development.”

But despite the ambitions and huge cost of the project, company vice president Mike Mayberry admits that “a fully functioning quantum computer is at least a dozen years away.”

The money will be channeled through QuTech, the quantum research institute of Delft University of Technology, and TNO, with Intel additionally pledging to commit its own “engineering resources” to the collaborative effort.

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Advances in 3-D printing have led to new ways to make bone and some other relatively simple body parts that can be implanted in patients. But finding an ideal bio-ink has stalled progress toward printing more complex tissues with versatile functions. Now scientists have developed a silk-based ink that could open up new possibilities toward that goal.

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NASA Glenn Research Center, GRC, currently has several programs to advance near-term photovoltaic array development. One project is to design, build, and test two 20 kW-sized deployable solar arrays, bringing them to technology readiness level (TRL) 5, and through analysis show that they should be extensible to 300 kW-class systems (150 kw per wing). These solar arrays are approximately 1500 square meters in total area which is about an order-of-magnitude larger than the 160 square meters solar array blankets on the International Space Station (ISS).

The ISS has the four (pair) sets of solar arrays that can generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity. Each of the eight solar arrays is 112 feet long by 39 feet wide and weighs 2400 pounds. There were space missions involving astronauts working in space to install and deploy the ISS solar panels.

Continue reading “NASA developing megawatt solar power arrays and will be used with solar electric propulsion” »

Engineers at the University of Toronto just made assembling functional heart tissue as easy as fastening your shoes. The team has created a biocompatible scaffold that allows sheets of beating heart cells to snap together just like Velcro™.

“One of the main advantages is the ease of use,” says biomedical engineer Professor Milica Radisic, who led the project. “We can build larger tissue structures immediately before they are needed, and disassemble them just as easily. I don’t know of any other technique that gives this ability.”

Growing heart muscle cells in the lab is nothing new. The problem is that too often, these cells don’t resemble those found in the body. Real heart cells grow in an environment replete with protein scaffolds and support cells that help shape them into long, lean beating machines. In contrast, lab-grown cells often lack these supports, and tend to be amorphous and weak. Radisic and her team focus on engineering artificial environments that more closely imitate what cells see in the body, resulting in tougher, more robust cells.

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Scientists including one of Indian origin have developed a new highly efficient and low cost light emitting diode that could help spur more widespread adoption of the LED technology.

“It can potentially revolutionise lighting technology. In general, the cost of LED lighting has been a big concern thus far. Energy savings have not balanced out high costs. The new discovery could change that,” explained Zhibin Yu, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at Florida State University.

Yu developed this technology with a team that included post-doctoral researcher Junqiang Li and graduate students Sri Ganesh Bade and Xin Shan.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=c_YV_omTtAg

But the ultimate goals of the project are nothing short of amazing: “The best possible outcome is to map the entirety of existing cache of neural network algorithms and applications to this energy-efficient substrate,” said Modha. “And, to invent entirely new algorithms that were hereto before impossible to imagine.”

IBM scientists are advancing toward “neuromorphic” computing — digital systems that process information like the brain — and launching a complete ecosystem for brain-like computing, with important near-term applications and visionary long-term prospects.

Continue reading “IBM Scientists Advance Toward Brain-Like Computing, Develop 'Digital Mouse Brain'” »

July, 2015; as you know.. was the all systems go for the CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC). On a Saturday evening, proton collisions resumed at the LHC and the experiments began collecting data once again. With the observation of the Higgs already in our back pocket — It was time to turn up the dial and push the LHC into double digit (TeV) energy levels. From a personal standpoint, I didn’t blink an eye hearing that large amounts of Data was being collected at every turn. BUT, I was quite surprised to learn at the ‘Amount’ being collected and processed each day — About One Petabyte.

Approximately 600 million times per second, particles collide within the (LHC). The digitized summary is recorded as a “collision event”. Physicists must then sift through the 30 petabytes or so of data produced annually to determine if the collisions have thrown up any interesting physics. Needless to say — The Hunt is On!

The Data Center processes about one Petabyte of data every day — the equivalent of around 210,000 DVDs. The center hosts 11,000 servers with 100,000 processor cores. Some 6000 changes in the database are performed every second.

Continue reading “Exotic Pentaquark Particle Discovery & CERN's Massive Data Center” »