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Aug 22, 2015

Introducing the World’s First Electronic Ink Tattoo

Posted by in category: futurism

Imagine having a tattoo in your body that you can control from your own smartphone. Change up your tattoo art, show important messages, or just erase your tattoo altogether for that important job interview. Well, the future has arrived… thanks to groundbreaking subdermal E Ink technology, we have been able to develop the world’s first E Ink tattoo.

Electronic Ink is an incredible technology. Prior to E Ink’s development, a dynamic image display required a constant current of electricity, inevitably tying the longevity of the display to the power source. Like any other implantable wearable technology, adding a display to our body has been limited by the requirement on battery power. E Ink changed this by providing a medium that consumes energy only when the content of the display changes, not requiring a current to maintain the image on its display. The result is that we can create a screen on our skin that displays information with very little energy usage.

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Aug 22, 2015

Fridge caught sending spam emails in botnet attack

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet

In the first documented attack of its kind, the Internet of Things has been used as part of an attack that sent out over 750,000 spam emails. .

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Aug 22, 2015

Citi’s Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income

Posted by in categories: economics, employment, robotics/AI

It’s becoming clear that increased automation as well as the rise of artificial intelligence is threatening ever more jobs. Now economists are starting to seriously consider a universal basic income.

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Aug 22, 2015

The_Singularity_trailer

Posted by in categories: computing, entertainment, neuroscience, singularity

Within the coming decades we’ll have the ability to create computers with greater than human intelligence, bio-engineer our species and redesign matter through nanotechnology, what will it mean to be human? Acclaimed as “a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas” and “the best documentary on the Singularity to date,” THE SINGULARITY is rich with insight, while remaining accessible to mainstream audiences. Some of the world’s leading thinkers, futurists and counter-futurists are interviewed, including Ray Kurzweil, Leon Panetta, Bill McKibben and Richard A. Clarke. THE SINGULARITY is an engaging tool for critical thinking about future technologies.

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Aug 22, 2015

Samsung, MIT say their solid-state batteries could last a lifetime

Posted by in category: energy

Researchers from Samsung and MIT have developed a new solid electrolyte that they say will enable batteries to last indefinitely. They see it as a power storage “game changer.”

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Aug 22, 2015

Out Of This World: ‘Triton Oxygen Respirator Extracts Air Underwater’

Posted by in category: innovation

A new invention looks set to change Scuba and diving in general. It’s shocking task lies in the idea of microscopic, nano scale ‘artificial Gills’, can effectively separate the Oxygen from the water while diving, on demand. A series of tiny threads or strands have microscopic holes along their width, which are smaller than water molecules.

It’s called the ‘Triton Oxygen Respirator‘ (Image Below), a miniature but incredible device that will do away for the need to move bulky tanks on dives, and allow the dives to last much, much longer than can be had with current equipment.

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Aug 22, 2015

Transhumanist Party Brings Life Extension Front and Center — an Interview with Zoltan Istvan

Posted by in categories: life extension, policy

It’s not every day you get to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with a United States presidential candidate, let alone one who is also a Transhumanist. TechEmergence recently had the opportunity to do just that during an interview with Zoltan Istvan, the 2016 presidential candidate for the newly formed Transhumanist party and author of the 2013 published The Transhumanist Wager.

If you follow the emerging trends in artificial intelligence, then you have already likely heard of “Transhumanism.” Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, in his 2003 book Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, defined Transhumanism as “a loosely defined movement…that promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology.”

This philosophy could be a turning point in human evolution. But like all great movements, this one is seemingly slow to pick up a serious following (though perhaps in retrospect, we will comment on how quickly this direction moved society forward). Regardless, Zoltan Istvan is determined to usher in this transitional philosophy as a political player and advocate for human enhancement.

Fighting for Our Lives

How do you get the populace, and other governments, to listen to ideas that, by mainstream standards, buck tradition and fall on the extreme side of the socially-acceptable spectrum?

Continue reading “Transhumanist Party Brings Life Extension Front and Center — an Interview with Zoltan Istvan” »

Aug 22, 2015

Rise Of The Organoids: Miniature Human Brain Most Complete To Date

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension, neuroscience

As regenerative medicine expands, our ability to engineer organs is growing with it. Researchers can now grow a number of so called ‘organoids’ — mini-organs which can teach us more about developmental biology and enable vastly improved testing. In the latest addition to the bunch, a team from Ohio State University has successfully engineered the most complete model yet of a human brain, with a similar maturity to a 5 week old fetus.

Containing 99% of the genes present in the human fetal brain, and about the size of an eraser, the organoid was developed from transformed adult human skin. This method could allow more ethical and precise clinical trials, both speeding up and enabling more rigorous, personalized testing. As animal testing frequently fails to predict varied human responses, these organoid models offer an alternative approach which could revolutionize clinical trial methodology.

“It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain. We’ve struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering. The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.”

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Aug 22, 2015

The Longevity Reporter: The Weekly Newsletter on Aging (22nd August, 2015)

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, life extension

Checkout the latest Longevity Reporter Newsletter (22nd August, 2015), covering this week’s top news in health, aging, longevity.

This week: An Entire Nervous System Captured On Film; 10 Enduring Health Myths, Debunked By Science; Peto’s Paradox: Why Don’t Larger Animals Get Cancer More Often?; Antioxidants: Separating Myth From Reality; And more.

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Aug 22, 2015

Alzheimer’s Disease: Is It Time To Look Beyond Amyloid?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

While billions have now been spent on researching dementia in its various forms, progress is still limited and the underlying triggers are still not clear. The majority of research over the past 30 years has revolved around targeting the amyloid plaques that build up in the disease, but this has resulted in limited success. Is it time to focus resources on other hypotheses instead?

The real problem with tackling these conditions is the sheer complexity of the brain and biology. Research is usually a trial and error process filled with intelligent guesswork, but this means it can often take a great deal of time to establish what’s actually going wrong. The cause or effect conundrum is a significant roadblock in research and working out which aspects drive a disease and which are a result of another malfunction can take serious resources and time. When researchers first began analysing Alzheimer’s patients, perhaps the most obvious feature was the now famous amyloid plaque, but while amyloid may seem like a clear culprit because it’s so clearly out of place, it could easily be a smokescreen; the reason why it appears at all may be far more relevant than the plaque itself.

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