I got a lot of squinty looks.

But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression."

If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life.

<< What he's talking about in layman's terms (speaking to the dumbed down U.S. population here) is downloading your brain into a computer. That will be the next evolution of mankind. A lot of people are afraid of this becoming a reality. I welcome it. >>


Hello, I'm a Mac..
And I'M a PC..

Dr. Gerardine Botte, an Associate Professor from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at Ohio University, extracting hydrogen
from urine--using electrolysis--will cost less than extracting hydrogen from water.

An unseen comet or possibly an icy asteroid apparently crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere near the giant planet's south pole sometime during the last few days, creating a "gargantuan" blemish easily visible from Earth.

Bov beat me there. Intelligence isn't any apex of evolution. Whether or not it's even beneficial cannot be said. Beneficial equals survival and compared to many species who are no longer around but lasted much longer we're just blips on the radar.

Stephen Pinker in one of his books has a section where he talks about our bias towards intelligence and frames it instead as bias towards a 'trunk' so we can view it outside of ourselves to see how silly it is.

Personally, I think we're more than a bit stupid when recognizing intelligence in other species. I love using ants as an example, because by many standards that we would consider something a 'people'...ants qualify. They war. They take slaves. They farm (both growing crops, and raising other animals!). The list can go on. They're fascinating, but their form of 'intelligence' is about as alien as it can get from ours. So much so that most people wouldn't view them as 'intelligent' despite their achievements.

The system is based on work by physicist Marin Soljacic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It exploits "resonance", whereby energy transfer is markedly more efficient when a certain frequency is applied.

When two objects have the same resonant frequency, they exchange energy strongly without having an effect on other, surrounding objects.

For example, it is resonance that can cause a wine glass to explode when a singer hits exactly the right tone.

But instead of using acoustic resonance, Witricity's approach exploits the resonance of low frequency electromagnetic waves.

1. Magnetic coil (Antenna A) is housed in a box and can be set in wall or ceiling.
2. Antenna A, powered by mains, resonates at a specific frequency.
3. Electromagnetic waves transmitted through the air.
4. Second magnetic coil (Antenna B) fitted in laptop/TV etc resonates at same frequency as first coil and absorbs energy.
5. Energy charges the device.

Intelligence does give adaptability, which certainly helps survival, wether it is apex or not ...

How about "current apex of all known adaptive traits"? =p I agree though, apex might be too strong of a word for it.

From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet.

The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s a puzzle for scientists who’ve never seen anything quite like it.

In a world of rapidly evolving threats, every branch of the military is looking for a way to respond as quickly as possible. But whereas the Air Force, Army and Marines can simply fly to whatever hot spot flares up next, the Navy, by its very nature, still needs to sail. That's where the Underwater Express comes in.

Currently, the Navy's fastest submarine can only travel at 25 to 30 knots while submerged. But if everything goes according to plan, the Underwater Express will speed along at 100 knots, allowing the delivery of men and materiel faster than ever.

The DARPA program, first announced in 2006, has finally reached the testing phase. Electric Boat, the company contracted to design the Underwater Express, is producing a quarter-scale model of the speedy sub, to be tested next year off the coast of Rhode Island.

The sub utilizes the phenomenon known as supercavitation. Supercavitation is the process wherein an object moves so fast through the water that it creates a gas bubble around itself, nearly eliminating drag. Unencumbered by the high drag of water, the object is free to speed along at much higher speeds than otherwise possible. Supercavitation has been known since the end of World War Two, and the Soviets succeeded in creating a torpedo that utilizes supercavitation for high-speed travel, but so far no one has succeeded in scaling the effect up to the size of a whole submarine.

If next year's tests work out, Electric Boat will begin assembly on a full-sized, 100-foot-long Underwater Express.

I'm saying if things go right, there is more potential there for perpetual existence than any other species has seen.

(CNN) -- Ancient man may have started global warming through massive deforestation and burning that could have permanently altered the Earth's climate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

In a mere 50 virtual generations, swarm bots (remember them?) using genetic software evolved the capacity to lie to other robots about the location of a source of food. Initially, the robots were programmed as a group to search for an object that represented food, and they gradually learned to emit a blue light when they found the food to show other robots where it was. Researchers at EPFL in Switzerland evolved and mixed the programming of the most successful foragers until they had a bunch of robots who were very good at finding food, and then gave the virtual genes of each individual robot control over their blue light that signified food.

You might expect that the robots would learn not to signal when they found the food to reduce competition, which is passive deception, but they also evolved an actively deceptive behavior, where some robots would deliberately travel away from the food and signal their blue light, drawing other robots in the wrong direction. Crafty little buggers. Interestingly, this deceptive behavior didn’t make much of a difference to the overall fitness of the group strategy of following blue lights… Some robots always tell the truth with their blue lights, which means it’s always advantageous for a clueless robot to follow a blue light as opposed to just wandering randomly.

“If you want to describe in one sentence what this planet is, it’s a big, hot ocean,” said Harvard University astronomer David Charbonneau. “We can even study its atmosphere. This planet will occupy us for years. That’s part of what’s so exciting about it.”

I'm taking classes at UMBC; I'll walk over and slap them.

The science behind quantifying extrasolar planets is pretty neat. That's going to be a hot area for a while now that we have the tools to do it. It's a very approachable topic if you've watched Cosmos. There was a big article on it in Scientific American earlier this year.

And yup, I'm a crab-picking Marylander. I'm finishing up my degree in photonics there this semester in fact.

As far as machines go...why do people always jump to Skynet and the like, instead of Mycroft (Mike) in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Not bad if you stay hydrated..