Articles

Michio Kaku

http://bigthink.com/ideas/48030
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RzgVWpa4fzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzgVWpa4fzU

Abstract

Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opposed brain networks. First, most attention-demanding cognitive tasks activate a stereotypical set of brain areas, known as the task-positive network and simultaneously deactivate a different set of brain regions, commonly referred to as the task negative or default mode network. Second, functional connectivity analyses show that these same opposed networks are anti-correlated in the resting state. We hypothesize that these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of which is directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging one mode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other. We test this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently associated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. Social and mechanical reasoning tasks were presented to neurologically normal participants during fMRI. Each task type was presented using both text and video clips. Regardless of presentation modality, we observed clear evidence of reciprocal suppression: social tasks deactivated regions associated with mechanical reasoning and mechanical tasks deactivated regions associated with social reasoning. These findings are not explained by self-referential processes, task engagement, mental simulation, mental time travel or external vs. internal attention, all factors previously hypothesized to explain default mode network activity. Analyses of resting state data revealed a close match between the regions our tasks identified as reciprocally inhibitory and regions of maximal anti-correlation in the resting state. These results indicate the reciprocal inhibition is not attributable to constraints inherent in the tasks, but is neural in origin. Hence, there is a physiological constraint on our ability to simultaneously engage two distinct cognitive modes. Further work is needed to more precisely characterize these opposing cognitive domains.

Wie zijn brein analytisch gebruikt, onderdrukt zijn sociale vermogens en vice versa. Dat verklaart waarom ook heel intelligente mensen gemakkelijk zijn op te lichten en waarom bij complexe vraagstukken de menselijke kant vaak onderbelicht blijft.

Bioprinting overview at Economist Ideas

An introduction to 3D bioprinting for regenerative medicine
and consumer applications from the Economist Ideas Conference at Berkeley on March 28, 2012.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=khZFR9rcIEA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkhZFR9rcIEA&gl=NL

http://www.iter.org/
http://www.iter.org/video/26 !

http://www.iter.org/proj

http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/11/08/microsoft-research-shows-a-promising-new-breakthrough-in-speech-translation-technology.aspx#.UJxWs3y9KSP

YOUTUBE:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Nu-nlQqFCKg

Why Can’t We Stop A Hurricane Before It Hits Us?
Some methods that people have suggested for preventing, or stopping, a hurricane--and why they might not work

YOUTUBE:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eOsNOmUJjtI

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/nov/HQ_12-391_DTN.html

For more information about DTN, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/SxV9QS

For more information about SCaN, visit:

https://www.spacecomm.nasa.gov

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Mars One is a private spaceflight project led by Dutch entrepreneur, Bas Lansdorp,
to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. Announced in June 2012,
the plan is to send a communication satellite to the planet by 2016 and after several stages, finally land humans on Mars for permanent settlement in 2023.      A new set of four astronauts will then arrive every two years.
The project is endorsed by Nobel Prize winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft.
On August 31, 2012, company officials announced that funding from its first sponsors had been received.

Mission plan

Mars One plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars.
According to their schedule, the first crew of four astronauts would arrive on Mars in 2023, after a seven month journey from Earth. Further teams would join their settlement every two years, with the intention that by 2033 there will be over twenty people living and working on Mars.

The mission plan is as follows:

2013: The first 40 astronauts will be selected;[10] a replica of the settlement will be built for training purposes.
2014: The first communication satellite will be produced.
2016: A supply mission will be launched with 2500 kilograms of food in a modified SpaceX Dragon.

2018: An exploration vehicle will launch to pick the location of the settlement.
2021: Six additional Dragon capsules and another rover will launch with two living units, two life support units and two supply units.
2022: A SpaceX Falcon Heavy will launch with the first group of four colonists.
2023: The first colonists will arrive on Mars in a modified Dragon capsule.
2025: A second group of four colonists will arrive.
2033: The colony will reach 20 settlers.

See website http://mars-one.com/

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

http://www.simulation-argument.com/computer.pdf

The original paper presenting the simulation argument:
Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? ORIGINAL
Nick Bostrom. Philosophical Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.

ABSTRACT.
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.
A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/press.html

9 October 2012

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2012 to

Serge Haroche
Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

and

David J. Wineland
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA

"for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems"

Particle control in a quantum world

Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland have independently invented and developed methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were previously thought unattainable.

A newly discovered effect of general relativity means that rotating black holes should be visible to the current generation of telescopes, say astronomers.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1104.3099: Twisting Of Light Around Rotating Black Holes

Een groep Chinese onderzoekers is er in geslaagd kwantumteleportatie over bijna 100 km te bereiken. Hiermee komt grootschalige vrijwel onkraakbare communicatie binnen bereik.

In 2010 is een Chinees team er in geslaagd fotonen over een afstand van 16 km te teleporteren. Nu kondigt hetzelfde team aan dat ze dit record hebben verbroken.
Juan Yin van de University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai meldt in een artikel dat hij en een aantal collega’s er in geslaagd zijn, verstrengelde fotonen over een afstand van 97 km, over de oppervlakte van een meer op 4000 m hoogte, te teleporteren.

Opmerkelijk is dat ze hierbij slechts een zwakke laser van 1,3 watt gebruikten,
met wat optische hulpmiddelen om het licht te bundelen en te ontvangen.
Het grootste probleem is hier niet het verlies van kwantumverstrengeling,
maar het uitwaaieren van de bundel. Veel van de fotonen missen hierdoor het doel.
Dit losten ze op door een stuurmechanisme te ontwerpen, dat de laserbundel precies op het doel gericht houdt. Met resultaat: ze slaagden er in meer dan 1100 fotonen in 4 uur te teleporteren over een afstand van 97 km.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2024

Teleporting independent qubits through a 97 km free-space channel

(Submitted on 9 May 2012)
With the help of quantum entanglement, quantum communication can be achieved
between arbitrarily distant places without passing through intermediate locations by quantum teleportation. In the laboratory, quantum teleportation has been demonstrated over short distance by photonic and atomic qubits.
Using fiber links, quantum teleportation has been achieved over kilometer distances.
Long distance quantum teleportation is of particular interest and has been one of the holy grails of practical quantum communication.
Most recently, quantum teleportation over 16 km free-space link was demonstrated.
However, a major restriction in this experiment is that the unknown quantum state
cannot directly come from outside.
Here, based on an ultra-bright multi-photon entanglement source, we demonstrate quantum teleportation, closely following the original scheme, for any unknown state created outside, between two optical free-space links separated by 97 km.
Over a 35-53 dB high-loss quantum channel, an average fidelity of 80.4(9) % is achieved for six distinct initial states.
Besides being of fundamental interest, our result represents an important step
towards a global quantum network.
Moreover, the high-frequency and high-accuracy acquiring, pointing and tracking (APT) technique developed in our experiment can be directly utilized for future satellite-based quantum communication.

Summary

Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. Variability in political attitudes reflects genetic influences and their interaction with environmental factors. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event-related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex. Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.

Radio Nederland Wereldomroep gaat stoppen na plm. 65 jaar bestaan:
270 van de 350 medewerkers worden de straat op gestuurd wegens bezuinigingen.

Vanaf donderdagavond 10 mei 2012 om 22:00u tot vrijdag avond 11 mei 2012 22:00 houden zij een 24 uurs afscheids marathon uitzending, die door SciTechTalk
integraal zal worden overgenomen.

3-D printing:some proclaim that it will trigger
a new Industrial Revolution.
The Atlantic Council, an industry consulting firmbased in Washington, D.C.,
says the technology is "transformational."
Those working in the field call it "additive manufacturing."

3-D printing allows designs impossible to make with conventional manufacturing techniques.

The technology is now used to print aircraft landing gears, dresses, car parts,
individualized tooth crowns, artificial hips and knees, and more.

Scientists are experimenting with human cells to print organs.
An Airbus contractor is working on printing an entire aircraft wing using titanium powder. Parts of the fuselage of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner were printed.

The technology introduces serious issues for the world economy.

Most finished products now are the result of many parts manufactured in various places around the world, coming together for assembling into one product.
They are then shipped to customers around the world.
With 3-D printing, in theory, the entire product would be made at one site, at one time, in one machine, anywhere. Economies of scale would be irrelevant.