Almost half of today’s American jobs could be automated in the next two decades, according to new research.
Biotechnology startup will begin testing CRISPR gene editing on humans in 2017
Editas CEO Katrine Bosley
Editas Medicine, a biotechnology startup, will begin tests of a powerful new form of gene repair in humans within two years. Speaking this week at the EmTech conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Editas CEO Katrine Bosley said the company hopes to start a clinical trial in 2017 to treat a rare form of blindness using CRISPR, a groundbreaking gene-editing technology.
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Researchers develop new test that detects all viruses that infect people and animals
There are some 320,000 unique mammalian viruses, according to estimates by virologists, and likely exponentially more existing on the planet today. Determining an accurate number would require billions more dollars and a great deal more manpower than is currently given to the study of viruses. Though a handful of viruses live in and on our bodies at all times—known as the virome—not all of them make us ill; just as often, they lie dormant. Many virus functions remain mysterious to scientists, such as how they enter a cell or replicate, though existing test advances, like the VirScan blood test, can tell you any infection you’ve ever had.
The future of humans plus machines
Humans plus machines will drive society forward. This was the central message conveyed by Dr. John Kelly, senior vice president of IBM Research, at the Augmenting Human Intelligence Cognitive Colloquium, which took place in San Francisco.
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The future of human swarming and collective intelligence
Whether it’s the birds and the bees, the fish, or even slime molds, it goes back to all social creatures that use their collective intelligence to form real-time synchronous systems. We have many names for these natural assemblages, including flocks, schools, shoals, blooms, colonies, herds, and swarms. Whatever we call them, one thing is clear – millions of years of evolution produced these highly coordinated behaviors because of the survival benefits they provide to a great many species. (Video)
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Will robot brains catch up to human-level intelligence in 25 years?
Computers are improving at an exponential rate.
Futurists started predicting that in just a few decades machines would be as smart as humans soon after computers evolved in the 1940’s. Every year, the prediction seems to get pushed back another year. The consensus now is that it’s going to happen in … you guessed it, just a few more decades.
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Progress in technology is driven by our growing addiction to ‘cognitive ecstasy’
“Cognitive ecstasy” is one reason humans persevere in science, art, and invention.
Humans are curious because discovery is pleasurable. In Jason Silva’s latest video. he says humans don’t care about spectacle—what we care about is ecstatic understanding: “In other words, cognitive ecstasy defined as an exhilarating neurostorm of intense intellectual pleasure.” (Video)
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When it comes to jobs, why is this time different?
Futurist Thomas Frey: In 1964, and open letter was drafted and sent to President Johnson, warning him of the coming Triple Revolution.
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Humans need not apply for most jobs in the future
The robots are here.
Robots are here now. There is proof of this concept in the amount of working automation in labs and warehouses right now. The video below combines two thoughts that reach an alarming conclusion: “Technology gets better, cheaper, and faster at a rate biology can’t match” + “Economics always wins” = “Automation is inevitable.”
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How humans have changed over the past 100 years
(Some) people have grown taller
People are getting taller and they are also fatter than ever and live longer than at any time in history. And all of these changes have occurred in the past 100 years, scientists say.
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How isolated people and animals die sooner
Single people have as high as twice the mortality rate of married people.
A trend that has held true in studies across the world and time periods is that single, widowed, and divorced people have as high as twice the mortality rate of married people. The tendencies for unmarried people to die seems to tell us about the relative strength of social bonds, which is supported by similar trends seen among ants, bees, and even cells, described in a fascinating paper in Cornell’s quantitative biology archive.
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Humans are getting smarter
Don’t be surprised when your toddler can operate your laptop. There’s a rise in IQ levels all around.
James R. Flynn explains how he came to understand how our minds have gained in cognitive skills during the 20th century in an excerpt from his new book, Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century.
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