Category Archives: Transhuman News

In Brief Flooding due to the melting of permafrost surrounding the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has put the seed bank to the test. The seeds were not harmed, but the event stands as an example of the dire circumstances in which global warming places us. Not So Permafrost

Its a sad state of affairs when a structure designed to withstand the apocalypse cant handle the current condition of our planet. The Svalbard Global Seed Vaultis supposed to withstandend of the world-caliber events, but it seems that the Earths current condition is already too much for it to handle as water from melting permafrost spilled into the entrance tunnel last week.

The flooding did not reach any of the seeds stored for safekeeping, so the vault has passed that major test. Cary Fowler, a figure instrumental in the creation of the seed vault, is confident in its ability to withstand this threat. He told Popular Science, If there was a worst case scenario where there was so much water, or the pumping systems failed, that it made its way uphill to the seed vault, then it would encounter minus 18 [degrees celsius] and freeze again. Then theres another barrier [the ice] for entry into the seed vault.

The vault has already proven its usefulness when researchers in the Middle East made the first withdrawal from the backups stored at Svalbard back in 2015. They would traditionally retrieve their needed specimens from a facility in Aleppo, but instability in the city made those seeds impossible to extract. The vault provided the researchers with116,000 samples so they could continue their research on drought-resistant crops.

Science has been warning of the dangers of global climate change for decades, and we are beginning to see the widespread results of years of inaction. Last year was the hottest on record, and 2017 looks like it will also be one for the record books.

The area housing the doomsday vault is particularly vulnerable. As Ketil Isaksen from Norways Meteorological Institutetold Norwegian newspaperDagbladet, The Arctic and especially Svalbard warms up faster than the rest of the world. The climate is changing dramatically, and we are all amazed at how quickly it is going.

Truly, this breach says more about the state of the planet than it does the vaults construction.The structure is meant to be a stronghold to protect plant life in their seed form to ensure the survival of crop diversity, and even it cant keep up with global warming.

To mitigate these effects, Norway is working on making some improvements to the area surrounding the vault to ensure proper drainage away from it. As smund Asdal at the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre told The Guardian, We have to find solutions. It is a big responsibility and we take it very seriously. We are doing this for the world. This is supposed to last for eternity.

Systemic changes across the entire globe are the only real way to not only ensure the safety of the stored seeds but also lessen the probability that well need to call upon the vaults services.

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Melting Permafrost Threatens The Doomsday Seed Bunker - Futurism

In Brief A prototype car took home the top trophy for a fuel efficiency competition organized by Shell: it gets an incredible 2,713 miles per gallon. Extreme Fuel Efficiency

While electric vehicles (EVs) are steadily gaining ground, the majority of the cars on the road todayare still gas-powered. Gas prices, however, arent exactly getting cheaper. So, while we work towards transitioning from fossil fuel-based vehicles tocleaner alternatives, it certainly helps to find ways to make the cars we have now more fuel efficient. Students from the Universit Laval might just have a solution.

As an entry for this years Shell Eco-marathon Americas, the Laval students developed a prototype vehicle that could run for 2,713 miles per gallon (mpg) on a Detroit, Michigan test track. Their vehicles outstanding performance landed them this years top trophy. The competition gives students a chance to design vehicle concepts that maximizes efficiency using various fuels, including everythingfrom gasoline to hydrogen fuel cells.

In winning the overall competition, Universit Laval defeated 114 other rivals vying to see whose vehicle could travel the farthest distance on the equivalent of a gallon of gas, according to a press release for the event. While the Laval teams achievement was no small feat, it wasnt able to outperform last years champion car from the University of Toronto which covered an astounding 3,421 mpg.

Better fuel efficiency could translate to less fossil fuel vehicle consumption. While this could count as a win for the environment, fossil fuels remain one of the leading contributors to climate-warming emissions. As such, doing away with them completely is athe ultimate goal.

While it may feel like it, its not an impossible task: over the past months, fossil fuels are losing valuein terms of price, and seeing reducedefficiency compared to their renewable counterparts. EVs, while still only covering a relatively small share of the automobile industry, are set for a major take over. The increased interest from veteran automakers likeVolkswagen, Chevrolet, and Honda is a testament to the future of EVs. And soon, they may not evenbe the only alternatively fueled vehicles available: one automaker in China is working on a car that runs on solar power.

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Students Made a Car That Gets a Staggering 2,713 Miles per Gallon - Futurism

In Brief

On Wednesday, May 24, Dubai will launch a new police robot that marks the first phase of the integration of robots into the police force. Thismodified version of the REEM robot (Designed by PAL robotics and unveiled in 2011) is capable of feeding video to a command center, forwarding reported crimes to police, settling fines, facial recognition, and speaking nine languages. It will operate at most malls and tourist attractions.

Dubai hopes robots will constitute 25percent of its police force by 2030, with the next stage being to use them as receptionists in police stations. Brigadier Khalid Nasser Alrazooqi, General Director of Dubai Polices Smart Services Department, told CNN that they eventually want to release a fully-functional robot that can work as [a] normal police officer.

Robotic police officers or soldiers are old sci-fi idea, but they arebecoming more and more of a reality. In February, China started using the AnBot that uses facial recognition to identify criminals and is capable of following them until the police arrive. The Russian robot, Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research (FEDOR), has prompted comparisons to Robocop when a video showed it shooting with deadly accuracy, lifting dumbbells, and walking.

The biggest ethical concern raised by these developments concerns who is culpable if a robot makes the wrong decision and hurts someone in a criminal situation. Elon Musk, Steven Hawking, and other prolific scientists have identified AI as a serious existential risk, arguing that robots should never be allowed to kill people.

Alan Winfield,professor of robot ethics at the University of West England, writes about this issue on his Blog. The problem is that you cant make a machine responsible for its mistakes, Winfeild said in an interview with CNN. How do you punish it? How do you sanction it? You cant.

Disclosure: The Dubai Future Foundation works in collaboration with Futurism and is one of our sponsors.

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Dubai Wants Robots to Make up 25% of Its Police Force by 2030 - Futurism

Improving the Odds

Swipe right. Match. Meet over coffee.

No, we arent talking about Tinder. Introducing Shapr,a free app thathelps people with synergistic professional goals and skill sets easily meet and collaborate.

Shapris a completely free tool for building your professional network.Whether looking to grow your network in a new industry, seeking cofounders and investors for your startup idea or just hoping tograb acoffee with someone new, Shapr introduces professionals who are equally interested in expanding their networks.The companystates that their goal is ultimately to encourage professionals to learn from each other and find ways to work together.

The appuses an algorithm to parse the profiles of users and provide you with possible matches based on professional experience, location,and, tagged interests. Each day, Shapr produces a personalized selection of 10-15potential opportunities.

Users swipe right if theyre interested, and they swipe left if theyre not. Once the interest is mutual, you can message with your match and set up a time to meet. That conversation could take place over coffee, Skype, or whatever communication you prefer but the point is to get people meeting face to face.

In the modern age, we tend to spend a lot more time living in the digital world than living in the real world. In a number of ways, this is great, as it makes communication and collaboration faster than everafter all, it takes only a few seconds to send a text. However, the age of the Internet also has its problems. Its really easy to network and communicate, but difficulties arise when one considers whether or not they are actually networking with valuable individuals and whether a social media connection is worth much.

This is where Shapr comes in.

The company has shared hundreds ofsuccess stories,and they assert that they have already made 1.5 million matches this year. For example, an Atlanta-based user named Sarah found a skilled collaborator on Shapr in just three days after spending a staggering three years of unsuccessful searching. Jessica, a New-York-based journalist looking for mentoring and advice, found two more senior journalists to advise her, thanks to the app.

To be clear, there are plenty of existing ways to put yourself out there online and network with LinkedIn being one of the most notable examples. So what makes this app different from AngelList orMeetup? To begin with, Shapr is meant to be more active. The appis full of relevant professionals who want to actually take a conversation offline.

In addition, the algorithm does the work for you on Shapr there is no sourcing or endless browsing of profiles. You can check your daily batch of 10-15 connections in less than two minutes a day. The app focuses on quality matches, so that you spend time speaking to the right people and taking those conversations offline rather than just collecting business cards.

This mindful networking approach is an efficient way to hack networking and make it moremeaningful, inspiring and fun. Technology has already drastically altered the way we search for jobs. Why shouldnt it impact the way we make meaningful, professional connections?Test it out for yourself Shapr is free for iOS and Android.

Futurism curates the products that could help reshape our world. This post has been sponsored by theteam behind Shapr.

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LinkedIn Meets Tinder in This Mindful Networking App - Futurism

In BriefOver the weekend, the so-called "alien megastructure" star orTabby's Star resumed its unusual behavior. Astronomers hope thatnew data from this recent dips in light would help explain thisbizarre phenomenon. A Series of Excited Tweets

When astronomers turn to Twitter to ask everyone who has access to a big enough telescope to look at the sky, you know something is up. Indeed, something was up this past weekend, as one of the Universes most mysterious stars reignited some baffling behavior. Tabbys Star, also known as KIC 8462852, once again started the unusual pattern of dimming its lights, a behavior first observed in 2015.

As far as I can tell, every telescope that can look at it right now is looking at it right now, Tennessee State University astronomer Matt Muterspaugh told Loren Grush at The Verge. Mutterspaugh, like fellow astronomer Jason Wright from Penn State University, noticed the dip in KIC 8462852s light emissions this past weekend.

[W]e are officially on alert and we are asking astronomers on telescopes to please take spectra (light measurements) of the star, Wright told CNet. As early as Friday, he already observed that Tabbys Star had dimmed by three percent in just a couple of days.

Discovered in 2009, KIC 8462852 came to be known as Tabbys Star because a team of astronomers, led by Tabetha Boyajian from Yale University, noticed the unusual way its light dims. Its not uncommon for a stars light to dim when planets orbiting around it pass in front of it relative to Earth. Tabbys Star, however, didnt follow the usual pattern of such dips in light, suggesting no periodic orbiting of planets or other cosmic bodies.

Naturally, such a phenomenon tugged on the curiosity of astronomers, and a number of possible explanations have been suggested. The most common, and perhaps popular among these you guessed it is that something alien is the cause. One astronomer thinks that a Dyson Sphere is causing the strange dips, thereby nicknaming Tabbys Star as the alien megastructure star.

However, as much as wed (maybe) love to find aliens at the root of this strange obvservation, other astronomers have found, and are developing, other explanations. Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, Wright told The Atlantic back then. Though, it doesnt hurt to be on the lookout.

Some think that comet swarms,debris from a devoured planet, or possibly even space dustfloating around the star are causing the unusual light emissions. Still, others suggest that it could all just be flawed data, which is why nothing conclusive has been said yet about Tabbys Star. Simply, there wasnt enough data from two years ago to say anything definitively.

We were kind of stuck in a spot where we couldnt do anything, Boyajian told The Verge. We had all the data we could, and to learn anything more, we needed to catch it in action again.

Now, there is now a lot more data to use, but it would take timefor researchers to fully consider what the information could tell us about Tabbys Star. Its also possible that the new data wont result in anything definitive, but its worth a shot. Some data is better than no data at all. At the very least, itll help us to better understand curiosities in the cosmos like KIC 8462852.

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Alien Megastructure Star Resumes Its Bizarre Behavior After 2-Year Hiatus - Futurism