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Closer encounter: Nasa plans landing on 40m-wide asteroid travelling at 28,000mph NASA plans to use Orion, the Space Shuttle replacement, for a three to six month round-trip to an asteroid, with astronauts... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] NASA's new supercomputer aims for 10 PFLOPS by 2012 SGI and Intel Corp. are teaming up to build a supercomputer for NASA that they expect will hit 10 PFLOPS by 2012. A petaflop is... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Climate scientists call for their own 'Manhattan Project' The world's climate modellers are drawing up plans for a global supercomputing center with computing power of 100 petaflops... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Cable Driven Robot Assists Patients With Neurological Disorders Florida Atlantic University scientists have invented a unique robotic device to assist with the physical rehabilitation process... (May 9, 2008) [Read more] Catalytic nanotransporters for nanotechnology applications outside biological systems Pennsylvania State University chemists have built micro/nanofluidic pumps that transduce energy catalytically. The catalytic... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Scientists demonstrate method for integrating nanowire devices directly onto silicon Scientists at Harvard University and the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen have developed a new technique for... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Is quantum Internet search on the way? MIT researcher Seth Lloyd believes that a new architecture for low-energy quantum access memory (QRAM) could be used to reduce... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Biologists Enlist Online Gamers Players of a new online game called Foldit will help design three-dimensional protein structures for HIV vaccines, and enzymes... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] WiMAX promises to transform wireless Internet world A WiMAX network to be deployed across the United States by a joint venture between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire dubbed... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Do antidepressants enhance immune function? University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia researchers found that taking the SSRI antidepressant citalopram improves natural... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] New Cancer Gene Discovered Researchers at the Oklahoma University Cancer Institute have identified a new gene that causes cancer. The gene and its... (May 9, 2008) [Read more] Surprising discovery: Multicellular stress response is 'all for one' Northwestern University researchers have found that in the worm C. elegans, specialized neurons organize and control how cells... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Molecular response of cartilage to injury An international team led by scientists at the Arthritis Research Campaign has profiled how injuries change gene expression in... (May 9, 2008) [Read more] Brain imaging may improve anxiety treatment University of Wisconsin, Madison and Dartmouth College researchers found that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)... (May 9, 2008) [Read more] Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn't Better In trying to understand why some animals have evolved to be better at learning than others, Dr. Tadeusz Kawecki, an... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Harnessing sunlight on the cheap MIT students are developing a prototype for a low-cost concentrating solar power system they think could revolutionize the... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Mind Control by Cell Phone Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre researchers found that delta waves (in the range of one to four Hz) remained... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Tiny Blood Pumps for Failing Hearts CircuLite, an Australian company, is developing an implantable pump that weighs just one-sixth as much as its smallest... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Building the Zero-Emissions City Construction has started on a city in Abu Dhabi that will house 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses but use extremely little... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Nanoworms target tumors Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized "nanoworms" that can cruise through the... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Superbug genome sequenced University of Bristol and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute researchers have sequenced the genome of a newly emerging superbug... (May 8, 2008) [Read more] Seven genetic types of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) found St. George's Hospital researchers have identified specific genetic patterns that account for seven different subtypes of... (May 5, 2008) [Read more] Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? To catch up on lost sleep, add on an extra hour or two of sleep a night, rather than attempt an extended sleep session,... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Nanowires for Displays Researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign have developed a simple process to grow upright copper nanowires... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Focusing on Solar's Cost Solar startup Sunrgi says that it will soon be able to produce electricity from the sun at costs that are competitive with... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Lab in a Drop Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore have developed a rapid test for genetic... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Artificial mouth takes on a chewy problem An artificial mouth that can reproduce the mush created by a human munching on an apple has been created by French researchers.... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Delaying data could cut net's carbon footprint Researchers at University of California in Berkeley and Intel Research have worked out how to create energy savings of around... (May 5, 2008) [Read more] Stomach hormone turns hungry people into junkies When volunteers received a dose of a natural hunger-inducing hormone called ghrelin, their brains responded to pictures of food... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Melting glaciers release toxic chemical cocktail Decades after most countries stopped spraying DDT, frozen stores of the insecticide are now trickling out of melting Antarctic... (May 7, 2008) [Read more] Nanotube production leaps from sooty mess in test tube to ready formed chemical microsensors University of Warwick chemists have produced single-walled carbon nanotubes that instantly form ultramicroelecrodes that could... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Redefining Disease, Genes and All Just as they once mapped the human genome, scientists are trying to map the "diseasome," the collection of all diseases and the... (May 5, 2008) [Read more] Pentagon Wants Cyberwar Range to 'Replicate Human Behavior and Frailties' DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has released a request for proposals to develop a National Cyber Range,... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] Piecing Together The Next Generation Of Cognitive Robots The European Cognitive Systems for Cognitive Assistants artificial cognitive systems (CoSy ACS) project incorporates a range of... (May 6, 2008) [Read more] 'Technology Is at the Center' Bill Joy's recommendation that we relinquish artificial intelligence, biotech, and nanotechnology because they're just too... (May 2008) [Read more] [Click here to check out all News items] Openness and the Metaverse Singularity By Jamais Cascio The four worlds of the Metaverse Roadmap could also represent four pathways to a Singularity. But they also represent potential dangers. An "open-access Singularity" may be the answer. The people who ... (November 7th 2007) What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen? By Vernor Vinge It's 2045 and nerds in old-folks homes are wandering around, scratching their heads, and asking plaintively, "But ... but, where's the Singularity?" Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge--who originated... (March 14th 2007) Foreword to The Intelligent Universe By Ray Kurzweil The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublim... (February 2nd 2007) [Click here to check out all The Singularity articles] BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists By Richard A. Clarke Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. "Globegrid," a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combi... (May 18th 2007) Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III By William B. Scott Space Wars by Willliam Scott, Michael Coumatos, and William Birnes, Forge Books (April 17, 2007) describes how the first hours of World War III might play out in the year 2010. While fiction, it's bas... (April 17th 2007) The Moon as backup drive for civilization By KurzweilAI.net Imaginative new ideas for using space to protect civilization against existential risks, such as killer asteroids, nuclear war, and global terrorism, are in the works. The public increasingly sees NAS... (September 24th 2006) [Click here to check out all Dangerous Futures articles] Why Language Is All Thumbs By Chip Walter Toolmaking not only resulted in tools, but also the reconfiguration of our brains so they comprehended the world on the same terms as our toolmaking hands interacted with it. With mirror neurons, some... (March 15th 2008) AI Meets the Metaverse: Teachable AI Agents Living in Virtual Worlds By Ben Goertzel Online virtual worlds have the power to accelerate and catalyze the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). As AGIs involved in this metaverse become progressively more intelligent from ... (October 18th 2007) The Age of Virtuous Machines By J. Storrs Hall In the "hard takeoff" scenario, a psychopathic AI suddenly emerges at a superhuman level, achieving universal dominance. Hall suggests an alternative: we've gotten better because we've become smarter,... (June 1st 2007) [Click here to check out all How to Build a Brain articles] Gelernter, Kurzweil debate machine consciousness By Rodney Brooks, Ray Kurzweil, and David Gelernter Are we limited to building super-intelligent robotic "zombies" or will it be possible and desirable for us to build conscious, creative, volitional, perhaps even "spiritual" machines? David Gelernter ... (December 6th 2006) Cyber Sapiens By Chip Walter ...We will no longer be Homo sapiens, but Cyber sapiens--a creature part digital and part biological that will have placed more distance between its DNA and the destinies they force upon us than any o... (October 26th 2006) Why We Can Be Confident of Turing Test Capability Within a Quarter Century By Ray Kurzweil The advent of strong AI (exceeding human intelligence) is the most important transformation this century will see, and it will happen within 25 years, says Ray Kurzweil, who will present this paper at... (July 13th 2006) [Click here to check out all Will Machines Become Conscious? articles] Bootstrapping our way to an ageless future By Aubrey de Grey Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey expects many people alive today to live to 1000 years of age and to avoid age-related health problems even at that age. In this excerpt from his just-published,... (September 19th 2007) Press ignores bias in study of multivitamins and prostate cancer By Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman In a recent paper reporting on the National Cancer Institute study of multivitamin use and the risk of prostate cancer, the NCI authors cited several possible bias factors. An analysis by Ray Kurzweil... (May 25th 2007) Strategic Sustainable Brain By Natasha Vita-More The human brain faces a challenging future. To cope with accelerating nanotech- and biotech-based developments in an increasingly complex world, compete with emerging superintelligence, and maintain i... (March 31st 2006) [Click here to check out all Living Forever articles] How to Build a Virtual Human By Peter Plantec Virtual Humans is the first book with instructions on designing a "V-human," or synthetic person. Using the programs on the included CD, you can create animated computer characters who can speak, dial... (October 20th 2003) Remarks about Tod Machover In Presenting the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music By Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil presented the 2003 Ray Kurzweil Award of Technology in Music to Tod Machover at the Fourth Annual Telluride Tech Festival (August 8-10, 2003). The award was in recognition of Machover's p... (August 11th 2003) Glitches Reloaded By Peter B. Lloyd In Matrix Reloaded, how can Neo fly and use telekinesis if the Matrix is supposed to a physics simulation? Peter Lloyd decodes this and other technical enigmas--reverse-engineering the design of the M... (June 2nd 2003) [Click here to check out all Virtual Realities articles] EGOGRAM 2007 By Sir Arthur C. Clarke The Golden Age of space travel is still ahead of us. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will gain access to the orbital realm -- and then, to the Moon and beyond, says Sir Arthur, 89.... (February 7th 2007) I'm Confident About Energy, the Environment, Longevity, and Wealth; I'm Optimistic (But Not Necessarily Confident) Of the Avoidance Of Existential Downsides; And I'm Hopeful (But Not Necessarily Optimistic) About a Repeat Of 9-11 (Or Worse) By Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil responds to John Brockman's The Edge Annual Question - 2007: WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY? ... (February 4th 2007) What the Future Will Bring By Ray Kurzweil "Follow your passion," Ray Kurzweil advised graduates in a commencement address on May 21 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, one of the nation's earliest technological universities. "Creating knowled... (June 15th 2005) [Click here to check out all Visions of the Future articles] Response to 'The Singularity Is Always Near' By Ray Kurzweil In "The Singularity Is Always Near," an essay in The Technium, an online "book in progress," author Kevin Kelly critiques arguments on exponential growth made in Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity I... (May 4th 2006) Wolfram and Kurzweil Roundtable Discussion By Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram "The most dramatic possibility is the universe started from a simple initial condition that had some simple geometrical symmetry. It might be the case that if we turn our telescope off to the west, an... (February 24th 2006) Ray Kurzweil Responds to Richard Eckersley By Ray Kurzweil "Eckersley bases his romanticized idea of ancient life on communication and the relationships fostered by communication. But much of modern technology is directed at just this basic human need."... (February 3rd 2006) [Click here to check out all Point/Counterpoint articles] Engines of Creation 2.0: Molecular Engineering: An Approach to the Development of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation By K. Eric Drexler Developing the ability to design protein molecules will make it possible to construct molecular machines. These can then build second-generation machines that can perform extremely general synthesis o... (March 20th 2007) Engines of Creation 2.0: Advice To Aspiring Nanotechnologists By K. Eric Drexler It makes no practical sense to try to build a molecular assembler today. But we can build enabling technologies today, including protein engineering, general macromolecular engineering, and micromanip... (March 15th 2007) Engines of Creation 2.0: Letter From Author By K. Eric Drexler Engines of Creation in 1986 inspired an explosion of interest in nanotechnology. Version 2.0 updates this classic book, including new concepts for molecular manufacturing and new uses for nanotech, s... (March 15th 2007) [Click here to check out all Nanotechnology articles]