Category Archives: Futurism

A New COIN

JP Morgan Chase & Co. is the biggest bank in the United States. It is one of the largest employers in the American banking sector, with more than 240,000 employeesserving millions of customers. Some of those employees are lawyers and loan officers who spend a total of 360,000 hours each year tackling a slew of rather mundane tasks, such as interpreting commercial-loan agreements. Now, the company has managed to cut the time spent on this work down to a matter ofsecondsusing machine learning.

In June, JP Morgan started implementing a program called COIN, which is short for Contract Intelligence. COIN runs on a machine learning system thats powered by a new private cloud network that the bank uses. Apart from shortening the time it takes to review documents, COIN has also managed to help JP Morgan decrease its number of loan-servicing mistakes. According to the programs designers, these mistakes stemmed from human error in interpreting 12,000 new wholesale contracts every year.

COIN is part of the banks push to automate filing tasks and create new tools for both its bankers and clients. Automation is now a growing part of JP Morgans $9.6 billion technology budget. In fact, over the past two years, technology spending in JP Morgans consumer banking sector has totaled about $1 billion. We have invested heavily in technology and marketing and we are seeing strong returns, the bank said in a presentation prior to its annual investor day.

Over the coming years and decades, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to usher in a new era of automation. Accordingly, the increase in automated systems will bring with it job displacement in a number of industries, including finance, transportation, manufacturing, information technology, and even law. In total,one study projected that 57 percent of the worlds jobs are at risk of being replaced by automated systems.

This is due, in part, to growing access to technology and cheaper computing systems. Automation can increaseefficiency and limit or altogether eliminate human error, as JP Morgans COIN program has demonstrated. Were starting to see the real fruits of our labor, said Matt Zames, the banks CTO. This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff.

The bank, however, doesnt see their move toward better automated systems as a cause of unemployment. People always talk about this stuff as displacement. I talk about it as freeing people to work on higher-value things, which is why its such a terrific opportunity for the firm, said Dana Deasy, Chief Information Officer at JP Morgan.

Whatever the case may be, automation will cause a job disruption in the years to come. In some places, like JP Morgan, its already begun. Institutions, both private and public, have to be ready to adjust to the economic future automation will bring with it.

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An AI Completed 360,000 Hours of Finance Work in Just Seconds - Futurism

Mind Control

One reasonhumans fear robots and autonomous technologies in general is the potential for them to spiral out of our control (perhaps taking over the world while theyre at it). Since wedont yet know exactly how technological singularity would play out, for now, robots taking over the world remains just science fiction.

To that end, heres something that might appease those who worry a lot about machines taking over the world. Technology currently in development at Massachusetts Institute of Technologys (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), together with researchers from Boston University, is working on a way to give robots command using brain signals.Essentially, this letspeople control robots using onlytheir minds.

Researcherscreated a feedback system that allows robots to correct their mistakes easily. This system uses brain activity data from an electroencephalography (EEG) monitor, scanning for brain signals called error-related potentials (ErrPs). ErrPs are generated whenever the brain notices a mistake.

This feedback mechanism works in real time, thanks to the teams machine-learning algorithms that makes the system capable of classifying brain waves in just 10 to 20 milliseconds. As you watch the robot, all you have to do is mentally agree or disagree with what it is doing, explained CSAIL director Daniela Rus, senior author of the teams research paper which was accepted for the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) which will take place in May. You dont have to train yourself to think in a certain way the machine adapts to you, and not the other way around.

Of course, monitoring ErrPs is just one piece of the puzzle.To be able to control a robot fully using the human brain, it would take more than than just reading a couple of brain signals. But this research on more intuitive human-robot interaction opens up possibilities for application in real-world setups that require a person to control robots. For example, managing robot assembly lines in factories or autonomous driving systems.

Imagine being able to instantaneously tell a robot to do a certain action, without needing to type a command, push a button or even say a word, Rus said. A streamlined approach like that would improve our abilities to supervise factory robots, driverless cars, and other technologies we havent even invented yet.

University of Freiburg computer science professor Wolfram Burgard commented onthis technologys potentialfor developing effective tools for brain-controlled robots and prostheses. Burgard, who wasnt part of the study, also added, Given how difficult it can be to translate human language into a meaningful signal for robots, work in this area could have a truly profound impact on the future of human-robot collaboration.

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MIT Tech Lets You Control Robots With Your Thoughts - Futurism

Building Mars

At the forefront of modern space exploration looms the possibility of manned missions to Mars. From the ambitious schemes of Elon Musk, to NASAs hopeful plan,to the collaborative endeavor of the ESA and Russia, it seems as though every major space agency is making strides towards putting humans on Mars. But, on a cold and desolate planet whose minuscule atmosphere is severely lacking, how do you sustain human life for long periods of time?

Many scientists and science fiction enthusiasts have, over the years, speculated at the possibility of terraforming Mars. Finding innovative ways to make the surface of the red planet gradually more conducive to human living. There have been many ideas and models created in the hopes of successful terraforming. Engineers designed a shell that could be placed around a small planet which could protect the planet from radiation and help to facilitate an atmosphere over time. Others thought that by breaking apart the martian crust they could release enough CO2 to build up an atmosphere. There have been many attempts, but the issues of cosmic and solar radiation paired with the unsurvivable atmosphere and dry terrain are always too much.

And, while the concept of terraforming Mars isnt completely impossible, to successfully do it you would need to protect against cosmic radiation, solar radiation and solar winds, increase planet temperature, add oxygen and nitrogen to the atmosphere, and do all of this in a way that could be self-sustaining. Not impossible, but currently posing serious obstacles.

Despite all of these hurdles, scientists have not stopped trying to find inventive ways to terraform Mars. NASA recently proposed a unique strategy that shows a promising solution that could address some of these issues: a magnetic shield. Sincethe current scientific consensus is that Mars atmosphere was lost because of solar winds and the disappearance of the planets magnetic field, this solution shows promise. Mars magnetic field once protected the red planet while supporting an atmosphere (and moisture), and NASA scientists think it can be artificially restored.

According to Dr. Jim Green, Director of NASAs Planetary Science Division, In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind.

The research team working on this idea recently conducted a simulation with their artificial magnetosphere, thanks to the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC). They found that their dipole shield would be able to protect against solar wind and help to balance the Martian atmosphere. Because the shield would work as an artificial magnetic field, the atmosphere would actually continue to thicken over time.

This could be just another stepping stone in a long line of terraforming concepts, but this solution holds concrete possibility. Because it could help to actually create a better atmosphere over time and can actually be simulated within a lab, it is possible that the future of terraforming will begin with magnets.

Continued here:
NASA Has Plans to Give Mars a Magnetic Shield to Enable Human Colonization - Futurism

Creating Cold Atom Lab

This summer, a box the size of an ice chest will journey to the International Space Station (ISS). Once there, it will become the coldest spot in the universemore than 100 million times colder than deep space itself. The instruments inside the box an electromagnetic knife, lasers, and a vacuum chamber will slow down gas particles until they are almost motionless, bringing them just a billionth of a degree above absolute zero.

This box and its instruments are called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL). CAL was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is funded byNASA. Right now at JPL, CAL is in the final assembly stages, and getting ready for its trip to space which is set for August 2017. CAL will be hitching a ride on SpaceX CRS-12.

Once in space on the ISS, five scientific teams plan will use CAL to conduct experiments. Among them is the team headed by Eric Cornell, one of the scientists who won the Nobel Prize for creating Bose-Einstein condensates in a lab setting in 1995.

Atoms that are cooled to extreme temperatures can form a unique state of matter: a Bose-Einstein condensate. This state is important scientifically because in it, the laws of quantum physics take over and we can observe matter behaving more like waves and less like particles. However, these rows of atoms, which move together like waves, can only be observed for fractions of a second on Earth because gravity causes atoms to move towards the ground. CAL achieves new low temperatures for longer observation of these mysterious waveforms.

Although NASA has never observed or created Bose-Einstein condensates in space, ultra-cold atoms can hold their wave-like forms longer while in freefall on the International Space Station. JPL Project Scientist Robert Thompson believes CAL will render Bose-Einstein condensates observable for up to five to 10 seconds. He also believes that improvements to CALs technologies could allow for hundreds of seconds of observation time.

Studying these hyper-cold atoms could reshape our understanding of matter and the fundamental nature of gravity, said Thompson. The experiments well do with the Cold Atom Lab will give us insight into gravity and dark energysome of the most pervasive forces in the universe.

These experiments could potentially lead to improved technologies, including quantum computers, sensors, and atomic clocks for navigation on spacecraft. CAL deputy project manager Kamal Oudrhiri of JPL cites dark energy detection applications as especially exciting. Current physics models indicate that the universe is about 68 percent dark energy, 27 percent dark matter, and 5 percent ordinary matter.

This means that even with all of our current technologies, we are still blind to 95 percent of the universe, Oudrhiri said. Like a new lens in Galileos first telescope, the ultra-sensitive cold atoms in the Cold Atom Lab have the potential to unlock many mysteries beyond the frontiers of known physics.

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NASA is Going to Create The Coldest Spot in the Known Universe - Futurism

In Brief

SpaceXs well-known competitor in the private space industry, Blue Origin, is making strides in its efforts forprivate citizens to breach the final frontier. While SpaceX pushes forward to its lunar missionin 2018, Blue Origins founder, Jeff Bezos, is confident in his companys plan to send two astronauts to space by the end of 2017. Now, Bezos has revealed the engine that will propel his company to its next stage the BE-4 rocket.

The rocket was finally unveiledafter six long years of development. The engine is expected to be ready for take off by 2019. Seven of these engines will powerthe upcoming New Glenn rocket. The New Glenn is similar to its predecessor, the New Shepard, in that it willbe a reusable space vehicle with a first stage that can return to the launch site standing upright upon each flight. There will be two New Glenn rockets a 2-stage and a 3-stage version. The New Glenn is expected to be 7 meters (23 feet) in diameter and range from 82 meters (270 feet) to 95 meters (313 feet).

So where do the BE-4 engines come in? The first and second stages will have boosters made up of the BE-4 engines, while the third stage will incorporate an older BE-3 engine. A distinction between the New Glenn and the New Shepard is that the former will be equipped with enough power to carry heavy cargo payloads and astronauts into orbit around the Earth.

While the New Glenn has yet to be made, its expected that the New Glenn sporting the BE-4 engine will be delivering goods and people by the end of the decade. In the meantime, the BE-4 engine will undergo certification at Blue Origins West Texas-based site.

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Blue Origin Just Unveiled an Enormous Engine for Manned Missions - Futurism

Today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will no longer ask fossil fuel companies to reveal their emissions of certain greenhouse gases. The decision bears the mark of new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has fought the agency on behalf of oil and gas companies for years.

Last year, pursuant to the Clean Air Act, the EPA sent letters to more than 15,000 oil and gas companies. The letters requested information about methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) sources to inform future industry standards. This data wouldve helped the agency to fight climate change, protect air quality, and safeguard human health across the nation.

As if the need for emissions reporting was ever questionable, Pruitt has given companies free reign to pollute with plausible deniability. Several attorneys general from fossil fuel-producing states sent a letter to Pruitt yesterday, urging him to withdraw the EPAs request. Today he made the change.

Its absurd that one of Scott Pruitts first acts is to refuse information on a dangerous pollutant, said Melinda Pierce, legislative director at the Sierra Club.

The public process around the draft request was lengthy, and involved two commentperiods before a final request was made. Ironically, many from the oil and gas industry supported the need for more transparency in this space.

But now, it appears the EPA will be flying blind when it comes to fighting atmospheric pollution. Its unclear whether the agency has a contingency plan for monitoring the thousands of fossil fuel projects within the United States.

Its telling oil and gas companies to go ahead and withhold basic information about pollution from the public. It erodes the confidence of the American people that the EPA is prepared to fairly oversee the oil and gas industry, Mark Brownstein, vice president of the Environmental Defense Funds Climate and Energy Program, told me.

The EPA currently collects emissions stats under its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, but notes there is a reporting threshold, and the reporting requirements do not currently cover certain emission sources. This means its data isnt necessarily representative of the entire universe of emissions, and also doesnt include insights on equipment, facility design, or performance of operations.

I reached out to EPA representatives asking how it will acquire this data in the future, but did not receive an immediate response.

In a statement today, Pruitt said: By taking this step, EPA is signaling that we take these concerns seriously and are committed to strengthening our partnership with the states. Todays action will reduce burdens on businesses while we take a closer look at the need for additional information from this industry.

Methane, which has a more significant warming effect than other greenhouse gases, is especially concerning to climate scientists. Its been skyrocketing due to an increase in domestic natural gas production. Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered that methane emissions were 60 percent higher than previous estimates.

The EPA has been one of the Trump administrations most vulnerable targets when it comes to reform. So far, the agency has undergone a gag order, political vetting, and threats of major staffing cuts.

Just because he doesnt want to hear the truth on the dangers of methane from oil and gas operations, doesnt make it any less dangerous to the millions of Americans that are forced to breathe this pollutant in on a daily basis, Pierce added.

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EPA: Fossil Fuel Companies No Longer Need to Report Emissions - Futurism

Anti-Aging Effects

Researchers from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and colleagues have discovered the anti-aging effects of two compounds. One is naturally occurring and found in red grapes and red wine, while the other is a drug commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes. The former, known as resveratrol, has been previously regarded for its health benefitsand has even been called an elixir of youth. The latter, a drug called metformin, has also been researchedfor its anti-cancer effects.

The team found that resveratrol can preserve muscle fibers and protect synapses from agings crippling effects. To reach this conclusion, they conducted a study of two-year-old mice treated with resveratrol for a year (two years is generally considered old for mice). The team paid particular attention to how resveratrol affected synapses called neuromuscular junctions. These are crucial for voluntary movement, relaying motor commands from spinal cord neurons to muscles.The team published their study today in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.

Neuromuscular junctions are known to benefit from optimum diet and exercise, which protect these special synapses from agings wear and tear. Valdez and his team discovered that resveratrol can have similar effects, but the researcher clarified that these neuroprotective benefits wont be achieved by drinking red wine. In wine, resveratrol is in such small amounts you could not drink enough of it in your life to have the benefits we found in mice given resveratrol, Valdez explained. These studies are in mice and I would caution anyone from blasting their bodies with resveratrol in any form.

On the other hand, tests involving metformin revealed no significant effect on neuromuscular junctions. However, it slowed the rate of muscle fiber aging. Metformin is an FDA-approved drug to treat diabetes, but our study hints it may also serve the purpose of slowing the motor dysfunction that occurs with aging, Valdez said.

He added that the anti-diabetes drug may protect synapses depending on dosage amounts: There could be an opportunity for researchers and medical doctors to look at the patient population using this drug and ask whether metformin also has a positive effect on motor and cognitive function in humans.

The study expands the potential uses for the two compounds. Because metformin already has FDA approval, it may be easier to manufacture it as an anti-aging drug. As for resveratrol, the researchers plan to further study what exactly allows for these neuroprotective effects. The next step is to identify the mechanism that enables resveratrol to protect synapses, Valdez said. If we know the mechanism, we can modify resveratrol or look for other molecules that are more effective at protecting the synapses.

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Two Compounds Revealed to Slow Age-Induced Degeneration - Futurism

Whats In An Apple?

Apples are a staple in most peoples homes and, it seems, in science. There was Newtons apple, and the proverbial daily apple to keep your doctor away. Now, biophysicist Andrew Pellingof University of Ottawa wants to add an apple of his own into the mix and this one might bring with it the future of biomaterials and human tissue repair.

Many scientists thought the idea of this apple itself was a little fruity. Pelling said that his team did not have many cheerleaders when they startedto look for ways to grow human cells by biohackingfruits.

Nobody else is doing this. In fact, in the early days people thought Id lost my mind, Pelling said during a TED Talk earlier in 2016. What Im really curious about is if one day it will be possible to repair, rebuild, and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen.

How Pellingsteam achieved this was rather simple, he said. To remove the apples cellular material, they bathed it in boiled water and liquid dish soap. As a result, the apples cells popped open. After the apple was washed clean of all its disgorged cellular material, what was left of it was a rigid cellulose scaffolding like an apples skeletal structure, so to speak. The spaces that once contained apple cells were then filled with mammalian cells.

Pelling demonstrated the success of the technique on several occasions, and in some playful ways. For instance, his teamcarved apples into the shape of human ears and then infused them with skin cells. The apple-ears were remarkably life-like.

Pellings method is, of course, still in its early developmental stages. At this point, it cant be tested on human beings. The team did test it on mice, though. Pelling injected cellulose scaffolding under the skin of lab mice. Amazingly, the mice didnt show any adverse immune reactions to the infusion. Within a few months, the animals body had populated the scaffolding with their own cells. The scaffoldhad become part of the tissue, Pelling said.

These studies have spurred two doctors from hospitals in Ottawato expressed their interests in Pellings work. The doctors are brainstorming possible medical applications of this technique with Pelling. One potential is for regenerative medicine, particularly as scaffolds to graft skin and bone. The scaffolds currently used these procedures are derived from collagen harvested from human cadavers, which can be cost-prohibitive.

A toonie-sized piece of traditional scaffolding material costs $1,000. Weve developed a material that could be just as good for a fraction of a penny, Pelling said. Plus, would you want a piece of cadaver in you, or a piece of apple?

But why stop at just apples? Pelling and his team are also looking at the potential of cellulosescaffolding derived from asparagus or even rose petals to be used as biomaterials to repair bone or nerve damage. And thisjust one way that biohacking can revolutionize our lives.

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Meet the Revolutionary Apple That Grows Human Skin - Futurism - Futurism

Water for Fuel

Over the past decades, fossil fuelshave become the backbone of the worlds industries. They have also been the number one cause of man-made climate change. Fortunately, things are beginning to change, as fossil fuels are on the decline thanks to the rise of renewable energy sources.

An alternative energy source with great potential is solar power. One variant of solar energy is solar fuel, which is produced by using sunlight to convert water or carbon dioxide into combustible chemicals. Because of the relative abundance of solar fuel components, its considered a desirable goalfor clean-energy research. However, these reactions, such as producing hydrogen by splitting water, arentpossible by using just sunlight. Materials to efficiently facilitate the process arenecessary.

Scientists have been working on creating practical solar fuels by developing low-cost and efficient materials to serveas photoanodes. Photoanodes are similar to the anodes in a battery and activatethe production of solar fuel by aiding the flow ofElectronsduring the process. Scientists from the Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have successfully doubled the number of potential photoanodes in just two years.

Now, researchers led by Caltechs John Gregoire and Berkeley Labs Jeffrey Neaton have developed a new, faster method to identify new materials to use as photoanodes, and theyve found 12 promising candidates. They published their research in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neaton, director for the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab, said that the study advanced this field of research by not only providing an improved method to look for photoanodes, but also by giving researchers insight into the new photoanodes.

What is particularly significant about this study, which combines experiment and theory, is that in addition to identifying several new compounds for solar fuel applications, we were also able to learn something new about the underlying electronic structure of the materials themselves, Neaton said in a Caltech press release.

To discover these new photoanodes, the team combined computational and experimental approaches. AMaterials Project database was mined for potentially useful compounds. Hundreds of theoretical calculations were performed using computational resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), together with software and expertise from the Molecular Foundry. Once the best candidates for photoanode activity were identified, it was time to test those materials in the laboratory.

The materialswere simultaneously tested for anode activity under different conditions using high-throughput experimentation. This was the first time these kinds of experiments had been run this way, according to Gregoire.

The key advance made by the team was to combine the best capabilities enabled by theory and supercomputers with novel high throughput experiments to generate scientific knowledge at an unprecedented rate, Gregoire said in the press release.

They found that compounds with vanadium, oxygen, and a third element had highly tunable electronic structure that made them uniquely favorable for water oxidation.

Importantly, we were able to explain the origin of their tunability, and identify several promising vanadate photoanode compounds, Neaton said in the press release.

This research has provided us with more ways to make use of water one of the worlds most abundant resource as an energy source.As advancements like this allow us to develop renewable energy cheaply and more efficiently, governments, investors, and individuals alike will have more reasons to leavefossil fuels in the past.

Originally posted here:
New Research Could Turn Water Into the Fuel of Tomorrow - Futurism

In Brief

China wants to take a shortcut in sending their rockets into space. Instead of the usual take off from the ground, Chinese engineers are working on designing a space rocket that canbe launched from an aircraft, according to a senior official talking to state-run newspaper China Daily.

Li Tongyu, the head of carrier rocket development at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, explained that the rockets are meant to send hundreds of low-orbit satellites into space for military and research purposes. The academys designers already have a ready-for-production model for a solid-fuel rocket thats capable of carrying a 100-kilogram (220-pound) payload into low Earth orbit. The designers, however, intend to develop a heavy-duty version of the rocket, capable of carrying a 200-kilogram (440-pound) payload.

The Y-20 strategic transport plane will be the carrier of these rockets. The jet will hold a rocket within its fuselage and release it at a certain altitude. The rocket will be ignited after it leaves the plane, Li explained. The country will only consider launching solid-fuel rockets from aircraft,as land-based rockets relying on liquid fuel require days of preparation,according to Chinese experts, and China will continue to rely on conventional rockets for heavier satellites, as well.

If successful, China may be pioneeringa new method for the country to fly space missions. Air-launched rockets can be deployed more quickly than their ground-launched counterparts, so the method couldsave valuable time when sending a crew to repair satellites or when launching observation satellites that could assist in relief efforts during disasters. They also arent beholden to launch range schedules and susceptible to weather-related delays.

Recently, China has been beefing up its space program. Just last year, the country sent its second space station into orbit, as the Tiangong-1 retired with a crash into the Earth. By April 2017, the Chinese plan to launch their first cargo spacecraft into space with a goal to maintain a permanently crewed space station by 2022. China has also expressed intentions to send a mission to Mars.

Any countrys dedication of funds and resources into space exploration is good for humanity as a whole, so having China making space a priority is great news for anyone interested in expanding our understanding of the cosmos.

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China Is Making Futuristic Space Rockets That Launch From Planes - Futurism