Lifeboat Foundation

You may have forgotten about the nucleolus since you took biology class, but scientists think this structure inside every cell in your body may play an important role in aging.

Machine-learning technology is growing ever more accessible. Let’s not have a 9/11-style ‘failure of imagination’ about it.

There is a general tendency among counterterrorism analysts to understate rather than hyperbolize terrorists’ technological adaptations. In 2011 and 2012, most believed that the “Arab Spring” revolutions would marginalize jihadist movements. But within four years, jihadists had attracted a record number of foreign fighters to the Syrian battlefield, in part by using the same social media mobilization techniques that protesters had employed to challenge dictators like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Qaddafi.

Militant groups later combined easy accessibility to operatives via social media with new advances in encryption to create the “virtual planner” model of terrorism. This model allows online operatives to provide the same offerings that were once the domain of physical networks, including recruitment, coordinating the target and timing of attacks, and even providing technical assistance on topics like bomb-making.

Continue reading “Terrorists Are Going to Use Artificial Intelligence” »

The development of Israel-based Urban Aeronautics’ Cormorant prototype is well underway, with hopes of launching a full-scale development of the aircraft in the near future.

Artificial intelligence and automation stand poised to put millions out of work and make inequality even more pronounced. Is it possible to solve one problem with another?

Efforts to connect human brains to computers have taken big leaps forward in recent years. Melding our minds with machines could provide the biggest single upgrade to human intelligence since our species evolved. But are we ready?

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Continue reading “When Thoughts Control Machines” »

After a massive explosion puts everything at risk, workers at Kodiak Island’s spaceport prepare to launch a new rocket into orbit.

IS CHINA’S SPACE LASER FOR REAL? IT’S NOT A DEATH STAR SUPER LASER. IT’S A SPACE BROOM.

Google has built a multibillion-dollar business out of knowing everything about its users. Now, a video produced within Google and obtained by The Verge offers a stunningly ambitious and unsettling look at how some at the company envision using that information in the future.

“Within five years, I have no doubt there will be robots in every Army formation.”

From the spears hurled by Romans to the missiles launched by fighter pilots, the weapons humans use to kill each other have always been subject to improvement. Militaries seek to make each one ever-more lethal and, in doing so, better protect the soldier who wields it. But in the next evolution of combat, the U.S. Army is heading down a path that may lead humans off the battlefield entirely.

Over the next few years, the Pentagon is poised to spend almost $1 billion for a range of robots designed to complement combat troops. Beyond scouting and explosives disposal, these new machines will sniff out hazardous chemicals or other agents, perform complex reconnaissance and even carry a soldier’s gear.

Continue reading “The U.S. Army Is Turning to Robot Soldiers” »