Lifeboat Foundation

The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.

Stanislaw Lem’s forgotten masterwork Summa Technologiae, now in English half a century after publication, is a heady mix of prescience, philosophy and irony.

By Simon Ings

„Summa Technologie is a „mother-essay from which most of Lem’s later essayistic books stem. It was written in times when most of the discussed issues – today sometimes quite obvious ones – belonged to the world of fantasy. The ambition behind this project still amazes, especially if we take into consideration that Lem tried to set up a secular edifice of knowledge, competing in its universalism with Saint Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica.

At the same time the book rivals world futurology — in the domain of foreseeing future ways of science and technology. Current generation, interested in biotechnology and informatics, shall find in Lem’s “Summa” the project and prophecy of todays’ successes of these disciplines.

The English translation (University Of Minnesota Press, 2013) is the work of Joanna Zylinska, professor of new media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

A coronal mass ejection will trigger a geomagnetic storm, which can impact technology and cause the Northern Lights to be seen further south.

Freudian Psychology.

Updating Freud’s Psychology.

Let’s take Freud’s core models and update them based on modern science.

Join the discussion on this paper page.

A tragedy in the making.

How Lake Kivu became a ticking time bomb

Lake Kivu sits along the East African Rift Valley, dotted with hot springs that feed carbon dioxide and methane into its depths.

Continue reading “This African lake may literally explode—and millions are at risk” »

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A new technique could allow researchers to distinguish the swimming motion of a species of microorganisms without the need to track individuals within a population.