Category Archives: Futurism

A Solar Scope

Each day we get closer to exploring farther reaches of our solar system and universe. We have come incredibly far and seem to make progress with each day. However, our ability to survey the outer corners of the cosmos is limited by our current telescopic technology. Now, modern telescopes are nothing to scoff at. As the iconic Hubble Telescope is phased out, the James Webb Space Telescope will continue to capture the beauty of outer space. But scientists have figured out a way to push the boundaries of telescopic technology even further: by turning the Sun (yes, that sun) into a telescope.

To use the sun as some sort of massive magnifying glass, scientists have deferred to Einsteins Theory of Relativity. According to the theory, large objects (like the Sun) bend the space around them, and so anything traveling in that space (even light) bends as well. In a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, if light is bent around an object in a particular way, it can magnify the space (quite literally, space) behind it.

Scientists have previously used gravitational lensing to help telescopes to be more effective, but now, researchers aim to use this distribution of matter as a telescope. This new approach certainly has its pros and cons. In order to harness this lensing, the necessary instruments would need to approach pretty close to the sun, in order to reach a target 550 AU away. While humans and probes have traveled much closer to the sun than this, and plan to do so in the future, this difficult journey would take a long time and the equipment would have to be somehow placed into the middle of space.

However, if this is pulled off, it would be a massive leap forward in imaging technology. We could finally get a closer, clearer look at Trappist-1, and would be that much closer to discovering life outside of Earth.

As mentioned previously, this sun scope is not the only highly advanced space-imaging technology thats surfacing. The James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in October of 2018, will hopefully continue and advance the incredible work of the Hubble Telescope. In fact, this telescope is so powerful that Lee Feinberg, an engineer and James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element Manager at Goddard, was quoted as saying. The Webb telescope is the most dynamically complicated article of space hardware that weve ever tested.

The technology that we use to capture the incredible images of space isimproving every day. Modern telescopes will continue to advance, becoming more powerful, more precise, and more detailed. So, while the idea of a sun-based telescope is incredible and could yield unprecedented images and information, even if it doesnt pan out, we will most certainly continue to find improved ways to look at the Universe.

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NASA Plans To Turn The Largest Object in Our Solar System into a ... - Futurism

Drug Combination

A new clinical trial demonstrated positive effects caused by the drug combination lapatinib and trastuzumab againstHER2 positive breast cancer in a treatment period of just 11 days.

Led by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, the University of Manchester, and University Hospital of South Manchester, the study comprised257 women with HER2 positive breast cancer who were split into groups and treated for 11 days prior to surgery. Women who were treated with the drug combination were compared to women who received only one the drugs or no drugs before undergoing surgery. To assess results, samples of the tumor tissue were taken from an initial biopsy and once again during surgery, to determine if there was a drop in Ki67 protein, which indicates cell proliferation.

Results showed that not only was there a marked drop in Ki67 among subjects who received the combination drug treatment, but 11 percent of those women wereclassified as having pathological complete response meaning no active cancer cellswere found. An additional 17 percent of the women treated with the drug combination hadminimal residual disease.

Judith Bliss, lead researcher from the Institute of Cancer Research, London, emphasized at a EBCC-10 press conference that the short time frame during which this kind of effect wasachieved had not been seen before.

These results show that we can get an early indication of pathological response within 11 days, in the absence of chemotherapy, in these patients on combination treatment, Bliss said, who co-led the trial. Most previous trials have only looked at the pathological response after several months of treatment.

Despite the positive results, researchers assert that further study and confirmation has to be done to support the current findings.

Our results are a strong foundation on which to build further trials of combination anti-HER2 therapies prior to surgery which could reduce the number of women who require subsequent chemotherapy, which is also very effective but can lead to long-term side effects, Bliss said at the press conference.

The drugs trastuzumab and lapatinib are preferable to traditional chemotherapies because they specifically target and kill cancer cells that over express HER2. Traditional chemotherapy generally targets any rapidly growing cells including healthy cells which can cause side effects such as hair loss and nausea.In other similar studies, the drug combination of trastuzumab and lapatinib has also demonstrated impressive response rates, but only after several months of therapy, not in less than two weeks.

Given that this treatment is administered within the two week window between diagnosis and surgery, it could potentially identify patients whose disease is more responsive to the drugs, allowing individualization of therapy. This treatment could allow patients to avoidgoing through chemotherapy post surgery, lowering their risks ofadverse side effects and giving thema better quality of life.

Approximately one in five womenwho are diagnosed with breast cancer are found to have HER2 cancer, which is one of the more aggressive forms of the disease. While is not a cure, this breakthrough serves asa strong basis for further research towards defeating HER2 positive cancers.

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A New Treatment Destroyed Breast Cancer Tumors in 11 Days ... - Futurism

In Brief

The laws of thermodynamics, a cornerstone of modern physics, help to explain how physical quantities act under certain conditions and in certain circumstances. These laws have mostly gone unchallenged, except for the third law. It was developed by chemist Walther Nernst between 190612. Scientists have long questioned the validity of this law, which states:

The entropy of any pure substance in thermodynamic equilibrium approaches zero as the temperature approaches zero (Kelvin), or conversely, the temperature (Kelvin) of any pure substance in thermodynamic equilibrium approaches zero when the entropy approaches zero.

And, in a recent development, researchers from the University College London (UCL) published a paper in nature communications that proves that absolute zero cannot be reached (in a finite number of steps) in a system where entropy cannot reach zero. According to one member of the research team, Lluis Masanes, We show that you cant actually cool a system to absolute zero with a finite amount of resources and we went a step furtherWe then conclude that it is impossible to cool a system to absolute zero in a finite time, and we established a relation between time and the lowest possible temperature. Its the speed of cooling.

These and other scientists are hopeful that this research will make people take the third law of thermodynamics more seriously. They also hope, and believe, that this progress could have seriously incredible implications. Understanding cooling and the rate at which we can actually cool could help to further current quantum computing research.

Quantum computing has advanced immeasurably in recent months and years. Some, like IBM, even have their sights set on commercializing quantum computing (something many have seen as more of a sci-fi fantasy than a possible reality). Understanding the third law of thermodynamics and how (and the rate at which) cooling occurs could help to advance this quantum research even further, since overheating is a main concern in such high-level computing.

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It's Official. Cooling to Absolute Zero Is Mathematically Impossible - Futurism

In Brief

If you ever got into an accident and needed a transfusion, its important that you receive the right blood type, or it can lead to serious, potentially fatal, consequences.

Right now, it takes about 10 to 20 minutes to verify someones blood type using available methods. To avoid possible mismatches, its typical for emergency departments to keep a steady supply of type O, which is known as the universal donor blood. However, this produces extreme demand for this particular blood type.

A more efficient solution has been developed by researchers from the Third Military Medical University in China. Using a paper-based test, the team is able to verify a patients blood type without using specialized equipment or training in just 30 seconds. This means hospitals can easily determine specific blood types in life-or-death situations and ease the demand for type O.

The test relies on chemical reactions between blood serum proteins and common dye. Once it is applied on a test strip that contains antibodies that can recognize blood types, the strip changes colorteal if a blood group antigen is present in the sample and brown if not. The method was tested on3550 samples of human blood and was returned more than 99.9% accurate results.

Apart from finding use in emergency units, the test could be very useful in war zones or other remote areas where there are no labs to test patient blood types.

via New Scientist

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A New Paper-Based Test Can Determine Your Blood Type in Just ... - Futurism

In Brief

If youre familiar with HBOs comedy series Silicon Valley, then you might know a thing or two about the importance of shrinking file sizes. Google clearly understands the value of file compression as they havedeveloped a new algorithm that takes it to the next level.

Guetzli is an open source JPEG encoder developed by Google Research, and the algorithm it employs can produce JPEGs that are 35 percent smaller while retaining the same level of clarity. To accomplish this,Guetzli trades visual quality for a smaller file size at the quantization stage of image compression.

According to Google, the psychovisual modeling of Guetzli approximates color perception and visual masking in a more thorough and detailed way than what is achievable in existing methods. Ultimately, that means these smaller images will look just as good to the average person. In fact, in experiments comparing compressed images, human raters preferred the Guetzli-produced images over those created by libjpeg, even when the latters images were a larger file size.

Guetzlis files are smaller, yes, but it takes the encoder a bit longer than other compression methods to shrink images. However, were left with smaller-sized images that dont sacrifice quality, and these compressed images will shrink the time it takes Google to load websites and services, which is a good thing for both internet users and Google.

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Google Has a New Algorithm That Shrinks JPEGs by 35% - Futurism

Kurzweils Predictions

Ray Kurzweil, Googles Director of Engineering, is a well-known futurist with a high-hitting track record for accurate predictions. Of his 147 predictions since the 1990s, Kurzweil claimsan 86 percent accuracy rate. Earlier this week, at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas, Kurzweil made yet another prediction: the technological singularity will happen sometime in the next 30 years.

In a communication to Futurism, Kurzweil states:

2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the Singularity which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.

By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence, Kurzweil saidin an interview with SXSW.

The singularity is that point in time when all the advances in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI), willlead to machines that are smarter than human beings. Kurzweilstimetable for the singularity is consistentwith other predictions, notably those of Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who predicts that the dawn of super-intelligent machines will happen by 2047. But for Kurzweil, the process towards this singularity has already begun.

That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, thats not just a future scenario, Kurzweil said. Its here, in part, and its going to accelerate.

We all know it is coming sooner or later, but the question in the minds of almost everyone is: should humanity fear the singularity? Everyone knows that when machines become smarter than human beings, they tend to take over the world. Right? Many of the worlds science and technology bigwigs like Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and even Bill Gates warn about this kind of future.

Well, Kurzweil doesnt think so. In fact, he isnt particularly worried about the singularity. It would be more accurate to say that hes been looking forward to it. What science fiction depicts as the singularity at which point a single brilliant AI enslaves humanity is just that: fiction.

Thats not realistic, Kurzweil said during hisinterview with SXSW. We dont have one or two AIs in the world. Today we have billions.

For Kurzweil, the singularity is an opportunity for humankind to improve. He envisions the same technology that will make AIs more intelligent giving humans a boost as well.

Whats actually happening is [machines] are powering all of us, Kurzweil said during the SXSW interview. Theyre making us smarter. They may not yet be inside our bodies, but, by the 2030s, we will connect our neocortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud.

This idea is similar to Musks controversial neural laceand to XPRIZE Foundation chairman Peter Diamandis meta-intelligence concept.Kurzweil expounded on how this technology could improve human lives.

Were going to get more neocortex, were going to be funnier, were going to be better at music. Were going to be sexier, Kurzweil said during the SXSW interview. Were really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.

To those who view this cybernetic society as more fantasy than future, Kurzweil pointing out that there are people with computers in their brains today Parkinsons patients. Thats how cybernetics is just getting its foot in the door, Kurzweil said.And, because its the nature of technology to improve, Kurzweil predicts that during the 2030s some technology will be invented that cango inside your brain and help your memory.

So, instead of the machines-taking-over-the-world vision of the singularity, Kurzweil thinks itll be a future of unparalleled human-machine synthesis.

Ultimately, it will affect everything, Kurzweil said during the SXSW interview. Were going to be able to meet the physical needs of all humans. Were going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.

Editors note: This article has been updated to correct errors. A previous version of this article stated that Kurzweil predicted the singularity by 2029, rather than the date an AI will pass a valid Turing test.

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Kurzweil Claims That the Singularity Will Happen by 2029 - Futurism - Futurism