Clipmarks | wildcat's futurism collection

Michael Phelps: ‘Naturally’ transhuman

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:37:25 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: * He has proportionately short legs relative to his long, powerful trunk; this large upper body is the engine that powers his long arms. Moreover, his unique physique reduces drag through the water and allows for maximum propulsion.
* Phelps has a greater-than-average lung capacity allowing him to execute his underwater dolphin kicks longer than the competition.
* He has a genetic advantage that cause his muscles to produce 50% less lactic acid than other athletes. This means he can work at higher work loads for longer periods.
* With a low body fat of 4%, he is better able to convert his effort into speed.

Looking at this list it’s as if Phelps was designed to swim.

Which leads to an interesting question: Given the potential for genetic modification and gene doping, should it be acceptable for other athletes to acquire the same physiological endowments through artificial means?

If not, what makes it so acceptable to come by these traits ‘naturally?’ And how

Clip Source: ieet.org

Watching Michael Phelps swim you quickly realize that he’s not like the others. He’s clearly in a league of his own.

Or more accurately, he’s swimming in a genetic pool of his own. Phelps has a number of fortuitous physical endowments that have enabled him to dominate like no other. Simply put, he is the perfect swimmer.

Here’s what Phelps has going for him:

Most people have a wingspan that matches their height. Not Phelps. He may be 6’4” tall, but his arms extend outward to a total of 6’7”.

The average shoe size for a person the size of Phelps is 12; he wears a size 14 which gives him a 10% advantage over the competition.

He also has a larger than average hand size which allows him to move more water.

Phelps is double-jointed in the chest area; this enables him to extend his arms higher above his head and pull down at an angle that increases his efficiency through the water by as much as 20%; this also allows him to have quicker starts and turns.

Tags: natural, transhuman

The Mind Ball

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:10:21 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.techeblog.com

Mind Ball, by NovelQuest, is essentially a "two person game controlled by players' brain waves." Video after the break.

To win at Mindball, however, you need to produce theta waves (4-8 Hz) which are associated with drowsiness and alpha waves (8-12 Hz) which are associated with being relaxed.

[Video]

Tags: mind, ball, game, brain

Where Is Human Evolution Heading?

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:21:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The race's DNA is changing faster than ever; what it means for our descendants

Clip Source: www.usnews.com

If you judge the progress of humanity by Homer Simpson, Paris Hilton, and Girls Gone Wild videos, you might conclude that our evolution has stalled—or even shifted into reverse. Not so, scientists say. Humans are evolving faster than ever before, picking up new genetic traits and talents that may help us survive a turbulent future.

Much remodeling has gone on since the dawn of agriculture about 10 millenniums ago. "People who lived 10,000 years ago were much more like Neanderthals than we are like those people," says John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. "We've changed."

Hawks is among a growing number of scientists who are using whole-genome sequencing and other modern technologies to zero in on just how we've changed. Their research is helping illuminate not only how humans became what we are but also where we might be headed

Humans will continue to change to cope with new diseases, if history is any guide

Tags: dna, mutations, evolution

Surge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:09:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Davies quoted David Rejeski of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, who advocates a U.S. investment of $150 million a year in such research by 2010, to benefit from an industry that will involve “15 percent of globally manufactured goods, worth $2.6 trillion, by 2014.”

Clip Source: www.findingdulcinea.com

As more foods produced by nanotechnology are making their way to the public, some consumers worry about the health implications of the largely unregulated industry.

Companies say that so-called nanofoods could be more flavorful and healthier than regular food. There’s even indication that a juicy hamburger could taste the same minus the fat and cholesterol, and peanuts could one day provide an innocuous snack for those with peanut allergies, for example.

Nanotechnology alters the characteristics of materials by manipulating their atoms and molecules, which generally measure only about 1–100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, and a single human hair measures 100,000 nanometers wide.

Nanotechnology has already brought advances in medicine, weaponry, construction, and consumer products, including lightweight tennis rackets, bicycles, certain sunscreens, washing machines and containers for food

Tags: nanotech, food, future

The Anonymity Experiment

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:19:06 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Technology is way ahead of our ability as a society to think about the consequences.”

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

During a week of attempting to cloak every aspect of daily life, our correspondent found that in an information age, leaving no trace is nearly impossible

In 2006, David Holtzman decided to do an experiment. Holtzman, a security consultant and former intelligence analyst, was working on a book about privacy, and he wanted to see how much he could find out about himself from sources available to any tenacious stalker. So he did background checks. He pulled his credit file. He looked at Amazon.com transactions and his credit-card and telephone bills. He got his DNA analyzed and kept a log of all the people he called and e-mailed, along with the Web sites he visited. When he put the information together, he was able to discover so much about himself—from detailed financial information to the fact that he was circumcised—that his publisher, concerned about his privacy, didn’t let him include it all in the book.

I’m no intelligence analyst, but stories like Holtzman’s freak me out

Tags: anonymity, experiment, information age

The Role of Meaning in Human Thinking

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:50:56 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: jetpress.org

The creation of meaning to interpret and communicate perceived phenomena is a fundamental trait of human intelligence. This article explains some major ways in which this is achieved, focusing on language and the perception of embodiment. It examines the representational aspects of natural language, which account for the ambiguity of linguistic signs, and describes how these manifest in metaphor, connotation and emotive expression. The article argues that the human propensity to create meaning lies largely in this representational ambiguity, which underlies all forms of symbolism. However, the ambiguity of natural language has a paradoxical side, since it is also at fault in many shortcomings of human communication, such as misunderstanding and prejudicial stereotyping. This article argues that any attempt to emulate human ways of thinking, for example in Artificial Intelligence research, should take this paradoxical factor into account.

Tags: ai, ambiguity, language

Gordon Moore's Next Act

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:27:21 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The man behind Moore's Law is tackling biodiversity, the future of engineering education, and the secrets of the galaxies

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

“ANYTHING BUT MOORE’S LAW”: Semiconductor pioneer Gordon E. Moore hopes his philanthropic work will have an enduring impact.

Gordon E. Moore, cofounder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corp., the world’s 288th richest man, and the eponymous soothsayer of one of technology’s most famous “laws,” sits across from me, eating a turkey sandwich.

Moore was a 36-year-old research physicist at Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. when he wrote his famous forecast, in the 35th anniversary issue of Electronics magazine. He predicted that the number of transistors manufacturers would be able to put on a chip would double every year. At the time, a state-of-the-art chip had about 50 transistors. In 1975, Moore revised the doubling period to two years, thinking that the pattern would last at most a decade longer. To his surprise, it still holds true today, as a new Intel chip, code-named Tukwila, hits the market with 2 billion transistors.

Tags: gordon moore

Building 'The Matrix'

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:57:09 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Feynman envisioned, a general purpose, programmable quantum computer could itself carry out quantum simulations. But such machines are still decades away, most researchers say, while machines designed only for quantum simulations may become available sooner.

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Simulating the complexity of quantum physics would quickly overwhelm even the most advanced of today’s computers.

If The Matrix really existed, it would probably have to be a quantum simulator. The fictional computer in that story can create virtual worlds indistinguishable from the real one and project them into people’s minds. But the real world includes quantum phenomena, something ordinary computers can’t fully simulate.

Now physicists have created a rudimentary prototype of a machine that simulates quantum phenomena using quantum physics, rather than using data kept in a classical computer. While the new device can't make people fly like the Matrix does, it demonstrates a technique that could enable physicists to create, in the virtual world, materials that don't yet exist in nature and perhaps figure out how to build, in the real world, superconductors that work at room temperature, for example.

Tags: complexity, quantum mechanics, matrix

Toward a Type 1 civilization

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:59:25 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Along with energy policy, political and economic systems must also evolve.
Michael Shermer, one of the most trusted voices in todays world.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

By Michael Shermer
July 22, 2008

Our civilization is fast approaching a tipping point. Humans will need to make the transition from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy to renewable energy sources that will allow us to flourish into the future. Failure to make that transformation will doom us to the endless political machinations and economic conflicts that have plagued civilization for the last half-millennium.

We need new technologies to be sure, but without evolved political and economic systems, we cannot become what we must. And what is that? A Type 1 civilization. Let me explain.

Type 1 can harness all of the energy of its home planet; Type 2 can harvest all of the power of its sun; and Type 3 can master the energy from its entire galaxy.

Based on our energy efficiency at the time, in 1973 the astronomer Carl Sagan estimated that Earth represented a Type 0.7 civilization on a Type 0 to Type 1 scale. (More current assessments put us at 0.72.)

Tags: michael shermer, civilization, transformation

They're Putting Anti-Aging Enzymes in the Water

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:42:41 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

Within about 10 years, you might be drinking anti-aging enzymes with your bottled water. California biochemists have a plan to keep the world younger and healthier by using nanotech to deliver an enzyme called CoQ10 to our drinking water. This coenzyme is naturally produced by the body, but in smaller and smaller amounts as we age. And yet it's vital for the body's basic functioning, as it helps our cells convert sugars to energy. Perhaps if we boost its presence in our bodies as we age, our organs will remain productive and healthy for much longer.

Chemists like UC Santa Barbara's Bruce Lipshutz, who studies CoQ10, hope that in the future we will also accept the idea that CoQ10 comes in drinking water, perhaps along with several other vital vitamins and enzymes. So even if you want to grow old and die in the old-fashioned way, you may not be able to — at least, if you plan to drink water.

Nanotechnology Adds Vital Enzyme to Drinking Water [via ZDNet]

Tags: anti-aging, enzymes, water

Europe, Japan join forces to map out future of intelligent robots

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:19:42 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

The field of robotics could be poised for a breakthrough, leading to a new generation of intelligent machines capable of taking on multiple tasks and moving out of the factory into the home and general workplace. The great success of robots so far has been in automating repetitive tasks in process control and assembly, yielding dramatic cuts in production, but the next step towards cognition and more human-like behaviour has proved elusive.

It has been difficult to make robots that can truly learn and adapt to unexpected situations in the way humans can, while it has been equally challenging trying to develop a machine capable of moving smoothly like any animal. There is still no robot capable of walking properly without jerky slightly unbalanced movements.

The future of cognitive robotics lies in combining the techniques discussed at the ESF/JSPS conference to develop true humanoid machines capable of assisting in homes, offices, and public places

Tags: europe, japan, future, intelligent, robots

HYPERPOLITICS (AMERICAN STYLE) A Talk By Mark Pesce

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:21:06 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The power redistributions of the 21st century have dealt representative democracies out. Representative democracies are a poor fit to the challenges ahead, and 'rebooting' them is not enough. The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him.

Clip Source: www.edge.org

Introduction

In his well-received talk at this year's Personal Democracy Forum (organized by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry), "digital ethnologist" Mark Pesce makes the point that "we have a drive to connect and socialize: this drive has now been accelerated and amplified as comprehensively as the steam engine amplified human strength two hundred and fifty years ago. Just as the steam engine initiated the transformation of the natural landscape into man-made artifice, the 'hyperconnectivity' engendered by these new toys is transforming the human landscape of social relations. This time around, fifty thousand years of cultural development will collapse into about twenty.

"we may have had great hardware, but it took a long, long time for humans to develop software which made full use of it"

"where sharing had been a local and generational project for fifty thousand years, it suddenly became a geographical project across nearly half the diameter of the planet".

Tags: hyperpolitics, talk, digital ethnology

The Implications of Robot Cars and Taxis

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:07:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.templetons.com

Or how geeks can save the planet and millions of lives using near-term A.I. to make taxis and trucks deliver, park, recharge and drive themselves.

For some time people have dreamed of a car that drives itself safely on the highway and city streets. While driving can often be a fun experience, Americans spend about 50 billion hours per year behind the wheel -- around 10% of our working hours -- and much of that is not productive or particularly pleasant.

This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of a computer driving a man to lunch at noon and returning him safely to work.

Indeed, I came to the conclusion that making self-driving "robot" cars, taxis and trucks ("robocars") is the most compelling short-term engineering problem on our current horizon, and easily the computer engineering project with the greatest potential near-term benefit. It is well worth an "Apollo" project -- to make it happen in a decade.

Tags: ai, robot cars, taxis, self-driving

Thought control: it's the computer world's latest game plan

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:44:22 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible,” said Tan Le, another of Emotiv's co-founders, during a recent press demonstration. “There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface - the Holy Grail is the mind.”

Clip Source: technology.timesonline.co.uk

First came the joystick. Then came the motion-sensing Wii remote. Now get ready for another radical and rather unsettling leap in video games technology: thought control.

Satoru Iwata, the president and chief executive of Nintendo - which is expected to sell about 25million units of its successful Wii video games console this financial year - has no doubts about the next gaming boom. “As soon as we think something in our brain, it will appear within a video game,” he told The Times in an exclusive interview.

“You'll probably need to wear some kind of hat or helmet or something.”

As far-fetched as it sounds, Mr Iwata's claim - which brings to mind the plot of Craig Thomas's bestselling 1977 novel Firefox, about a mind-reading Soviet fighter aircraft - is already coming true: the world's first thought-controlled game is expected to be launched by the Sydney company Emotiv by the end of this year.

Tags: gaming, neuroscience, mind, emotiv

Solar Sailing in Space

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:40:09 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The concept of solar sailing was invented in the 1920s by two Russian scientists, and it has been the subject of a few projects over the years, says Louis Friedman, the executive director of the Planetary Society, a public space organization based in Pasadena, CA

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

NASA prepares to test a satellite that can be propelled by light particles from the sun.

For the first time, NASA is preparing to send into orbit a small satellite that can be propelled by solar sails. When light particles from the sun strike the surface of the sail, the energy is transferred to it, providing a propulsive force that moves the satellite through space.

NASA's goal is to test the complex deployment mechanism of the 10-square-meter sails, says Dean Alhorn, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, AL, and the lead engineer on the project. "A successful flight will not only make for a unique historical event, but will show that we have a reliable mechanism to deploy a solar sail in space for future missions," says Alhorn.

The satellite, called NanoSail-D, is scheduled to launch from Omelek Island, in the Pacific Ocean, on July 29 onboard the Falcon 1 rocket

Tags: nasa, sattelite, light particles, solar sails