Lifeboat Foundation

Collaboration to spur innovation in fields ranging from quantum to AI to data science.

The prized materials could be transformative for research — but only if they have other essential qualities.

AI specialist Jürgen Schmidhuber on Kurt Gödel, meta learning and fundamental limitations of computability.

Read the full text on our website: http://serious-science.org/godel-machine-10426

Continue reading “Gödel Machine — Jürgen Schmidhuber / Serious Science” »

Learn about Regeneron’s Spectacular Science and home-grown technologies accelerating drug discovery and development such as VelociGene®, VelociMouse®, VelocImmune® and more.

A new study exemplifies how the strides made in quantum computing are now being harnessed to unlock the secrets of fundamental science.

Scientists at Duke University have harnessed the power of quantum-based methods to unravel a puzzling phenomenon related to light-absorbing molecules, according to a new study published in Nature Chemistry.

Continue reading “Quantum simulator helps to unlock a major science mystery” »

I’m excited to share my new opinion article for Newsweek. It advocates for transforming America from a military-industrial complex into a science-industrial complex! Give it a read!

America spends 45 percent of its discretionary federal spending on defense and wars, while around us, the world burns in ways that have nothing to do with fighting or the military. Global warming has escalated into an enormous crisis. A fifth of everyone we know will die from heart disease. And an opioid crisis is reducing the average lifespans of Americans for the first time in decades. There’s plenty of tragedy, fear, and hardship all around us, but it has nothing to do with the need to make more bombs. It does, however, have to do with science.

It seems obvious America should do something different than spend so much of its tax dollars on defense. We should consider halving that money, and directing it to science, transforming America from a military-industrial complex into a science-industrial complex. Despite science and technological progress being broadly responsible for raising the standard of living around the world over the last 50 years, America spends only 3 percent of its GDP ($205 billion) on science and medical research across the federal government. Notably, this is dramatically less than the $877 billion the U.S. will spend on defense this year.

Continue reading “Could We Transform America Into a Science-Industrial Complex?” »

Human Immortality — If you thought Human Immortality was just a concept in science fiction, this episode reveals how it will become science fact. For some scientists featured in this program, achieving Immortality is not a question of ‘If’. The real question is ‘When?’.

Human Immortality (2022)
Director: Emma Watts.
Writers: Kyle McCabe, Christopher Webb Young.
Stars: Samantha Brady, Aubrey DeGrey, Leonard Guarente.
Genre: Documentary.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Release Date: August 31, 2022 (United States)

Continue reading “Human Immortality | Life Extension | Advancements in Science” »

WASHINGTON — NASA selected Rocket Lab to launch a pair of cubesats in 2024 to monitor energy entering and exiting the polar regions of the planet.

NASA announced Aug. 14 it awarded a task order through its Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract to Rocket Lab for the launch of two 6U cubesats for the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment, or PREFIRE mission.

The NASA announcement did not disclose the value of the task order. The agency stated in past awards done under VADR that the pricing is considered “proprietary” because the awards are competed in a closed environment, with only companies on the VADR contract eligible to bid on launches of taxpayer-funded missions.

In science, the simplest explanations often hold the most truth, a concept known as “Occam’s Razor.” This principle has shaped scientific thought for centuries, but when dealing with abstract ideas, how do we evaluate them?

In a new paper, philosophers from UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine discuss how to weigh the complexity of scientific theories by comparing their underlying mathematics. They aim to characterize the amount of structure a theory has using symmetry — or the aspects of an object that remain the same when other changes are made.

After much discussion, the authors ultimately doubt that symmetry will provide the framework they need. However, they do uncover why it’s such an excellent guide for understanding structure. Their paper appears in the journal Synthese.