To claim your matching donation with Givewell, go to https://www.givewell.org/isaac. In the future, humanity may embrace genetic engineering and cybernetic augmentation of mind and body, but what does this Transhuman future look like? And should we embrace or resist these paths?
Credits: Transhumanism & Humanity’s Future. Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur. Episode 375, December 29, 2022 Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur.
Editors: Briana Brownell. Donagh Broderick. Keith Blockus. Lukas Konecny.
Although genetically modified foods still get a bit of a bad rap, there are actually many good reasons why modifying an organism’s genetics may be worthwhile. For example, many breeds of genetically modified foods have made them more resistant to disease.
It’s also possible to modify foods to make them more nutritious. Take, for example, golden rice. This grain was engineered to have higher levels of vitamin A in order to tackle deficiencies of this nutrient in impoverished countries.
A purple tomato, created using genetic modification, may be available to buy in the U.S. as soon as 2023.
Scientists have labored for decades to understand how brain structure and functional connectivity drive intelligence. A new analysis offers the clearest picture yet of how various brain regions and neural networks contribute to a person’s problem-solving ability in a variety of contexts, a trait known as general intelligence, researchers report.
They detail their findings in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
The study used “connectome-based predictive modeling” to compare five theories about how the brain gives rise to intelligence, said Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology, bioengineering and neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the new work with first author Evan Anderson, now a researcher for Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. working at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
In April 2016, Waseem Qasim, a professor of cell and gene therapy, was intrigued by a new scientific paper that described a revolutionary way to manipulate DNA: basic gene editing. The articlepublished by David Liu’s lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, described a version of Crispr gene editing that allowed for more precise changes than ever before.
It’s not clear what, explicitly, human intelligence is or even how it originates. Ethics aside, there’s no way to decide who to save and who to throw away.
Researchers in Spain have developed a new porous material capable of regenerating bones and preventing infections at the same time.
The scientists are from the Bioengineering and Biomaterials Laboratory of Universidad Católica de Valencia (UCV).
Tailor-made for each case using 3D printing, the biotech creations contain a bioactive alginate coating. This coating induces bone regeneration and destroys the bacteria that sometimes prevent bone formation from being completed.
40 SpaceX Starships are terraforming Mars. Slowly transforming the Martian atmosphere, water begins to flow on the surface. Building the foundation for long term Mars colonization.
Going beyond the ‘First 10,000 Days on Mars’ and 2050, this is a timelapse look into the future.
Humans are surviving on Mars underground, in a crater habitat. A deep crater is enclosed, creating a mini Earth that is open and breathable. Tunnel diggers dig into the sides of the crater, creating more space and connecting other craters, landing pads, and lava tubes to form an underground Mars colony network… In part, inspired by: Mars garden quote: The Expanse — Chrisjen Avasarala Living on Mars — TED Talk by Stephen Petranek • https://youtu.be/t9c7aheZxls Andy Weir (The Martian) — Conversations With Joe • https://youtu.be/4dgwnhFf_6Y — Building on Mars — Articles Join the newsletter to read my new articles about “Building on Mars.” Or you can view them at my website: www.vx-c.com. • From Dust to Structures: How to Create Concrete and Metal on Mars • The (Not So) Simple Act of Building on Mars: The Engineering Challenges of Constructing on the Red Planet — A terraforming sci-fi documentary, and a timelapse look into the future of Mars colonization. — Book recommendations from Elon Musk on artificial intelligence, Mars, future technology and innovations, and sci-fi stories (affiliate links): • Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies https://amzn.to/3j28WkP • Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence https://amzn.to/3790bU1 • Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era https://amzn.to/351t9Ta • The Foundation: https://amzn.to/3i753dU • The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: https://amzn.to/3kNFSyW — Other videos to watch: • TIMELAPSE OF FUTURE SPACECRAFT: 2025 — 3000+ https://youtu.be/RL74Jb4OU9U • NASA 1958 — 2100 (Timelapse of past & future technology) https://youtu.be/2qaDEt7PCMI • MOON BASE — THE FIRST 10,000 DAYS (Timelapse) https://youtu.be/XOhz7ZBZ_1U …
In part, inspired by: Mars garden quote: The Expanse — Chrisjen Avasarala.
A Kent team, led by Professors Ben Goult and Jen Hiscock, has created and patented a ground-breaking new shock-absorbing material that could revolutionise both the defence and planetary science sectors.
This novel protein-based family of materials, named TSAM (Talin Shock Absorbing Materials), represents the first known example of a SynBio (or synthetic biology) material capable of absorbing supersonic projectile impacts. This opens the door for the development of next-generation bullet-proof armour and projectile capture materials to enable the study of hypervelocity impacts in space and the upper atmosphere (astrophysics).
Professor Ben Goult explained: ‘Our work on the protein talin, which is the cells natural shock absorber, has shown that this molecule contains a series of binary switch domains which open under tension and refold again once tension drops. This response to force gives talin its molecular shock absorbing properties, protecting our cells from the effects of large force changes. When we polymerised talin into a TSAM, we found the shock absorbing properties of talin monomers imparted the material with incredible properties.’
