In the 1950-1970s there were some crazy ideas about space exploration and technology. There was a man (who's name I can't remember) who had some ideas that were more radical than others. Although many of his predictions came true, his idea for colonizing the Solar System has yet to happen, thankfully. His idea was to use nuclear bombs to push planets into the right orbit for habitability around the sun. Additionally, we could use atomic weapons to strip away gas from Jupiter to make it more habitable. Crazy, but maybe also creative.
Bill Clinton sent out and interesting warning about recent develops with Russia. I don't usually talk too much about politics but for some reason I found this interesting, if not worrying. Clinton thinks that due to some comments Vladimir Putin has made recently, that Russia is looking to the past to expand their country - pre WWI past. That's right, Putin is talking like he wants to restore Russia to its former glory of the Czar years. This could spell bad news for everyone.
I read a very interesting article on the possibility of uploading a human brain to a computer. The idea is not new, science fiction has played with it before such as in the recent movie Transcendence. But even though it's not a new idea, is it even possible? The article outlines 8 reason why it could be very difficult. Without going into the details of each point it basically comes down to our understanding of consciousness. We simple don't know what truly makes up sentience. We don't know why I subjectively like chocolate so much when someone else (receiving essential the same stimulus input) would hate it.
On top of that, if we did come to understand consciousness it may be that the very nature of consciousness is incomputable. In addition to the spiritual metaphors that explain consciousness our sentience may be a higher form of matter, or a consequence of quantum mechanics. It may even be a simple force of nature that simply exists, like mass or gravity. It's interesting to think on. I believe that the human mind is much more complex than we currently understanding and that consciousness is much vaster and deeper than we think and certainly can't be simply "uploaded" to a computer - technological constraints or not.
Bees have been dying all over the country and scientists might finally know why. Bees are essential to crop production, being responsible for over 30% of the worlds food supply. Obviously, bees dying out in mass quantities over the past 10 years is very troubling. They now believe that this is linked to a certain kind of pesticide used in many crops across the US. Although the pesticide may not be inherently lethal, it causes the bees to abandon their hive and damages their health.
After an awesome request for funding from artists at The Oatmeal, Elon Musk has agreed to help fund a Nikola Tesla museum and park. The cost will be $8 million, but that's small change compared to the kind of projects Musk has invested in previously. It's great to see a good cause come to fruition. A Telsa museum will be something to see indeed.
The US military thinks it would be able to destroy Godzilla in a couple of days -so rest easy.
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