“Out of more than 1,900 proposals submitted, the foundation’s judges chose eight with goals that include eliminating river blindness in Nigeria, educating displaced children in countries like Syria, and caring for children in orphanages.”
Category: ideas
A Case For “Slow” Science (Think Slow Food)
“The gap between identifying a problem to be solved, devising a technique and then putting it to work – a step often not even on the radar of those who initiated the process – can last a century or more. That poses a challenge to policymakers keen to evince the returns that money spent on R&D will generate. Although everyone knows they will come, no one knows how long they will take.”
Greece Is Having A Moment
That is, ancient Greece: “The times we are living in have forced us to acknowledge that there is a darkness in humanity. … The Greek tragedies, those stories of darkness and obsession and revenge, resonate because we’re living in dark times and these are dark stories.”
One Neuroscientist Wants To Understand Why People Who See UFOs Seem To Feel Really, Really Good
Wait, what? Instead of becoming hostile or paranoid or more like Fox Mulder, 85 percent of people who believe they’ve encountered UFOs or aliens “become more humane, experience a oneness with the world. They become less interested in organized religion, they become more spiritual, they have less interest in monetary values, and become more sensitive to the ecological welfare of our planet, among many other psychospiritual outcomes.”
How Would We Act If We Knew We Would Live Forever? [VIDEO]
Would living forever make people happier or more generous? “It’s worth asking, ‘Should we die?'”
Our Cells Can Tell Left From Right, And That Actually Makes A Difference In Cancer Recovery
Each cell has a preference – a “handedness,” they call it, and that may make a difference in cell repair, in cancer, and in survival. “Ramsdell and a cadre of other developmental biologists are trying to unravel why the organisms can tell their right from left. It’s a complex process, but the key orchestrators of the handedness of life are beginning to come into clearer focus.”
Soon Machines Will Be Able To Tell When Something Goes Wrong Just By Listening
“We’re developing an expert mechanic’s brain that identifies exactly what is happening to a machine by the way that it sounds,” says Amnon Shenfeld, founder and CEO of 3DSignals, a startup based in Kfar Saba, Israel, that is using machine learning to train computers to listen to machinery and diagnose problems at facilities like hydroelectric plants and steel mills.
Is Science Moral?
“To label science as moral or immoral completely misses the point. Science is amoral. Science is a collection of facts about the natural world painstakingly carved out by a community of scientists who engage in detailed quantitative research and data analysis. This is true even for computer simulations of detonation shock fronts of explosive devices, for example, and even of engineers and technicians putting bombs together in an assembly line.”
Our Bots, Ourselves: How Digital Assistants Could Change Our Lives – And Even Change Us
Matthew Hutson: “In the coming decades, artificial intelligence will replace a lot of human jobs, from driving trucks to analyzing X-rays. But it will also work with us, taking over mundane personal tasks and enhancing our cognitive capabilities. … Here’s what to expect.”
In The Age Of Personalized AI, Are Teachers Becoming Obsolete?
“Developments in education technology promise to assist teachers and school systems in supporting struggling students by providing individualized instruction. But at what cost? As a teacher, it’s difficult to adapt to and embrace a machine that—at least for part of the time—takes over for me. The processes of teaching and learning are complex and innately human; I value the time I take to develop relationships with my students. But it’s hard not to wonder if that time could better be spent with adaptive learning technology.”