The World Transformed

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Better Living Through Brainwaves Mar 17, 2018

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Transformation Today How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s, improve memory and more Neuroscientists are getting excited about non-invasive procedures to tune the brain’s natural oscillations. In March 2015, Li-Huei Tsai set up a tiny disco for some of the mice in her laboratory. For an hour each day, she placed them in a box lit only by a flickering strobe. The mice — which had been engineered to produce plaques of the peptide amyloid-β in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — crawled about curiously. When Tsai later dissected them, those that had been to the mini dance parties had significantly lower levels of plaque than mice that had spent the same time in the dark1. Now, a growing body of evidence, including Tsai’s findings, hint at a meaningful connection to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. A non-intrusive path into the brain is a holy grail of sorts. If these treatments are even moderately or minimally successful, or they lead to treatments that are, it could be the start of a revolution in preventing and treating the whole range of disorders associated with aging. What other effects are possible? Might there be a set of oscillations to treat depression? To improve sleep? To build confidence? To generate state of euphoria or enlightenment? This is what “Binaural beats” claim to be able to do. But what if there is really something to it? WT 414-727 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

How Old Are You, Really? Mar 15, 2018

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Phil and Stephen discuss how artificial intelligence might help to add years to our lives. AI Scientists Via Their 'Aging Clock' May Have Discovered How To Rewind Our Biological Clocks https://goo.gl/tsYor6 A group of scientists who study Artificial Intelligence (AI) say they’ve come up with a process that can not only measure biological age, but tell you whether you will live longer or die younger than other people your age, and how to increase your odds that you will do the former. Early days, but this is an important step towards detaching chronological age from biological age. One day there will be little or no correspondence. Someone apparently in their 20’s may be chronologically older than someone who looks like and has all the aging markers of someone in their 80’s. Like in Cory Doctorow, people will have a preferred “apparent” age --- Today, the only real options for slowing these numbers down are lifestyle choices In the near future there will be serious, significant interventions Interventions may come from unexpected sources Next time: Better Living Through Modified Brainwaves How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s, improve memory and more WT 413-726

Outlawyering the Lawyers Mar 13, 2018

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Whose jobs are the robots going to take away? It doesn't look like lawyers are safe... An AI just beat top lawyers at their own game Feb 25, 2018 A new study, conducted by legal AI platform LawGeex in consultation with law professors from Stanford University, Duke University School of Law, and University of Southern California, pitted twenty experienced lawyers against an AI trained to evaluate legal contracts. The human lawyers achieved, on average, an 85 percent accuracy rate, while the AI achieved 95 percent accuracy. The AI also completed the task in 26 seconds, while the human lawyers took 92 minutes on average. The AI also achieved 100 percent accuracy in one contract, on which the highest-scoring human lawyer scored only 97 percent. In short, the human lawyers were trounced. So will this cost lawyers their jobs? The linked article says no: "So does this spell the end of humanity? Not at all. On the contrary, the use of AI can actually help lawyers expedite their work, and free them up to focus on tasks that still require a human brain." On the Other hand… Yes these tools will make existing lawyers more productive, but that doesn’t mean it won’t cost lawyers’ jobs. How many billable hours have already been lost to LegalZoom? We see something similar happenning with AI's outdiagnosing doctors. Will we soon live in a world where we receive some or all of our medical care and legal advice from machine? Computers are already better than doctors at diagnosing some diseases Dec 12, 2017 Next time: how computers might play a role in diagnosing and treating the biggest killer of them all: aging. WT 412-725

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 2 Mar 01, 2018

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Phil and Stephen continue discussing the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 2, we look at: Babel Fish Earbuds Zero-Carbon Natural Gas Perfect Online Privacy Genetic Fortune-Telling Materials’ Quantum Leap What will be the biggest game-changer for 2018? Tune in and explore. WT 410-723 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 1 Feb 27, 2018

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Phil and Stephen discuss the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 1, we look at: 3-D Metal Printing Artificial Embryos Sensing City AI for Everybody Dueling Neural Networks What will be the biggest game-changer for 2018? Tune in to Parts 1 and 2 to find out. WT 409-722 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Welcoming Our Mutant Crayfish Overlords Feb 24, 2018

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Phil and Stephen discuss major disruptions in biotech -- and in biology! New Pill Kills the Flu Virus in 24 Hours The Shionogi compound and Tamiflu take around the same time to entirely contain flu symptoms, but the former provides immediate relief more quickly.Now, a Japanese drugmaker claims to have developed a pill capable of killing of the virus in just one day. Find drugs that delay many diseases of old age In the future we won’t edit genomes—we’ll just print out new ones Think of the project as something like Henry Ford’s first automobile—hand built and, for now, one of a kind. One day, though, we may routinely design genomes on computer screens. Instead of engineering or even editing the DNA of an organism, it could become easier to just print out a fresh copy. Imagine designer algae that make fuel; disease-proof organs; even extinct species resurrected. This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe Over the past five years, Dr. Lyko and his colleagues have sequenced the genomes of marbled crayfish. In a study published on Monday, the researchers demonstrate that the marble crayfish, while common, is one of the most remarkable species known to science. GEEKOUT Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Plus: Black Panther -- we haven't seen it yet! WT 408-721 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

School Daze: New Approaches to Education Feb 22, 2018

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Phil and Stephen discuss massive disruptions taking place in education. What students know that experts don't: School is all about signaling, not skill-building Is it possible that students are on to something? There is a massive gap between school and work, between learning and earning. A new study shows that students learn way more effectively from print textbooks than screens Across the studies, the texts differed in length, and we collected varying data (e.g., reading time). Nonetheless, some key findings emerged that shed new light on the differences between reading printed and digital content. After 100 Years of the Same Teaching Model It’s Time to Throw Out the Playbook It’s time to change the direction of the arrow by for once and for all turning it around and allowing it to originate from the student. Imagine a classroom where students are the ones driving the learning and are empowered to pursue things that matter to them. DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills In the future, university education will be a coffeeshop We’re faced with an education bubble. Tuition and other costs associated with a college education have been outpacing inflation for decades. WT 407-720 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Signs of the Times Feb 20, 2018

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Phil and Stephen ask whether current developments make the Singularity more plausible. The “Father of Artificial Intelligence” Says Singularity Is 30 Years Away At the World Government Summit in Dubai, I spoke with Jürgen Schmidhuber, who is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at AI company NNAISENSE, Director of the Swiss AI lab IDSIA, and heralded by some as the “father of artificial intelligence” to find out. Intel just put a quantum computer on a silicon chip Dutch quantum computing company QuTech, in conjunction with chip-maker Intel, yesterday unveiled a programmable two-qubit quantum computer running on a silicon chip. The researchers used a special type of qubit (the quantum version of a classical computer’s bits) called spin qubits to run two different quantum algorithms on a silicon chip. Japanese tour firm offers virtual reality holidays – with a first-class seat Fasten your seatbelts for a flight departing to Paris – and never leave the ground. That’s exactly what 12 passengers did at First Airlines in central Tokyo this week, where they relaxed in first and business-class seats and were served four-course dinners, before immersing themselves in 360-degree virtual reality (VR) tours of the City of Light’s sights. WT 406-719 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Cloverfield Paradigm Feb 17, 2018

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Phil and Stephen discuss the latest entry in the Cloverfield series. Is it a fun addition or a major disappointment? Plus we look at the whole movie franchise phenomenon. Someday soon will all movies be part of some extended universe, or has this thing just about played out? We explore the phenomenon of sub-franchises as played out in the Star Trek and James Bond movies (and on a grander scale in the Marvel cinematic universe.) Most importantly: has the time come at last for a Howard the Duck reboot? Join us. WT 405-718 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Renaissance Cyborg Feb 15, 2018

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Specialization Is for Insects, Part 2 This is a follow-up to our discussion on Realizing Possibilities ...Fast back in December. What kind of knowledge and skills will we need to thrive in a world where everything is a coffee shop? Rationally it would seem that there are advantages to possessing specialized knowledge and general knowledge. But are we becoming too focused on the former? Rather than letting technology make us ever more specialized, we should use it to broaden our horizons. At one time, the Renaissance Man was the model of the widely adept human being. Maybe now it's time for the Renaissance Cyborg. R. Buckminster Fuller was a fierce advocate of human beings as generalists. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual’s leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which in turn leads to war. Bucky explained why he thought U. S. Navy officer training was the perfect generalist education in his book Utopia or Oblivion? WT 404-717 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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