Free Republic

“See you in the Supreme Court!” President Donald Trump tweeted last week, responding to lower court holds on his national security policies. But is taking cases all the way to the highest court in the land a good idea? Artificial intelligence may soon have the answer. A new study shows that computers can do a better job than legal scholars at predicting Supreme Court decisions, even with less information. Several other studies have guessed at justices’ behavior with algorithms. A 2011 project, for example, used the votes of any eight justices from 1953 to 2004 to predict the vote of...

Iran is an artificial country which includes a large number of ethnic groups: Persians, Azars, Kurds, Turkmen, Baloch, Arabs and more.... Southwestern Iran, the Khuzistan region, is home to the Arab minority group, but that is where most of the oil and gas resources are to be found underground, right under the feet of that Arab minority. They are Shiites, exactly like the majority Persians, but are treated with disdain by the government. In the past, the region was called Arabistan to allude to the ethnic group living there, but after the 1925 Persian Conquest, the Persians changed its name...

The Swedish government is taking an extremely bizarre commitment to fighting climate change by spending large sums of taxpayer money to develop 'meat' made from mealworms and crickets. Vinnova, the Swedish government agency that distributes money for research and development, is spending some 2.7 billion kronor ($261 million) to replace conventional meat with 'climate-friendly' insect 'meat' and other strange alternatives. Yum… Breitbart News reports: Green activists and the United Nations are behind such political initiatives as 'Meat Free Mondays' — a gateway to full vegetarianism — which are based on the premise that meat consumption is driving man-made climate change....

Are Robots are Coming of Age? “New robot shows off human-like qualities” says the headline. The media think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. My dearest is excited too: finally, she will no longer have to remind me of my chores, that the (yet to be acquired super-duper) robot with its well-programmed memory and a mind of its own will perform without being asked—and even without any snarky comments on the side. And here comes the latest news: “Artificial intelligence, human brain to merge in the 2030s, says futurist Kurzweil.” I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work but...

An Ohio woman's lawsuit alleging a Downers Grove sperm bank error that led to the birth of her biracial daughter has been thrown out of court. A DuPage County judge Thursday dismissed the lawsuit against Midwest Sperm Bank, saying the woman's wrongful birth claim and breach of warranty were not viable claims under state law. The suit, originally filed last November in Cook County, was refiled in DuPage County in March. Judge Ronald Sutter then gave attorneys for Jennifer Cramblett of Uniontown, Ohio, 14 days to refile the lawsuit as a negligence claim. Thomas Intili, a Dayton, Ohio attorney representing...

The only way to get gravity is with mass. The more mass, the more gravity you get. Without mass, you can’t have gravity. ... The force of gravity that we feel is actually just an acceleration towards the center of the Earth at 9.8 meters per second squared, or 1G. If you were in a spacecraft and it was accelerating away from Earth at a rate of 1G, it would feel exactly the same if you were standing on the ground. ... Want to fly to Jupiter? It would only take about 80 hours of acceleration, and then 80 hours...

The ZuckerBorg has assimilated yet more humans from academia and industry into its Facebook Artificial-Intelligence Research Team (FART). Facebook claims their work will focus on several aspects of machine learning, with applications to image, speech and natural language understanding. The free global ad platform announced that it had "bolstered" the team eam with some of the world's leading researchers from Microsoft and academia. Among those assimilated is the award-winning Leon Bottou, whose long-term goal "is to understand how to build human-level intelligence". Also on board are Laurens van de Maaten and Anitha Kannan, who will continue their research into deep...

Choosing diet drinks and artificial sweeteners instead of high-calorie treats may increase your craving for sugar, a study has found. It is because sugar substitutes tickle the taste buds, but can’t fool the brain. The pleasure we get from sweet treats is the result of a chemical called dopamine, which is released in the brain when sugar is consumed and is linked to a feeling of reward. Artificial sweeteners and other low-calorie options do not cause the same reaction, leaving dieters with their craving—and making them far more likely to binge on sugar later on. …

Researchers at the University of Waterloo, Canada, have built the world’s most sophisticated artificial brain to date. Known as ‘Spaun’, (short for Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network), the model is able to simulate complex brain behaviour and is capable of thinking remembering, seeing and interacting with its environment using a mechanical arm. Although Spaun currently exists in the simulated world inside a computer, it is one of the most advanced models ever created by scientists to understand how the human brain functions. Unlike previous brain models, such as the 'million processor computer', which feature large networks of neurons with generally...

ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) — A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf -- a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy -- appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes.Daniel G. Nocera points out that the artificial leaf responds to the vision of a famous Italian chemist who, in 1912, predicted that scientists...

The theoretical physicist and author of 'Physics of the Future' talks about how nanotechnology will change our lives.Will the future bring us the teleportation devices of "Star Trek" or the sinister machines of "The Matrix"? Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku of the City College of New York says that many of the things that were once the domain of science fiction — cars that navigate rush-hour traffic on their own, wallpaper that can switch colors when you remodel, an elevator that takes you into outer space — are already here, or well on their way. His book "Physics of the Future,"...

Seth Shostak, a top astronomer at SETI has recently suggested that instead of trying to listen for standard transmissions from advanced alien biological lifeforms like ourselves, we should probably be listening for AI transmissions. This is based on our own experience, we as humans developed radio transmissions only a short while ago, considering the length of time our civilization has been advancing. And if we're any indication of the general route technologically capable life evolves, the galaxy is probably full of sentient AI collectives, not biological lifeforms. In an interview with the BBC, Dr Shostak said:"If you look at the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. researchers have created a primitive artificial lung that rats used to breathe for several hours and said on Tuesday it may be a step in the development of new organs grown from a patient's own cells. The finding, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, is the second in a month from researchers seeking ways to regenerate lungs from ordinary cells. In the latest study, Harald Ott and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston removed the cells from rat lungs to leave a scaffolding or matrix. They soaked these in a bioreactor...

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. - Fishermen often brag about catching one as long as your arm. Sam Newton caught the arm. Newton, 66, was throwing his cast net off the St. Simons Island pier last week when he pulled up an artificial arm. "It scared the heck out of me,'' he said. "Hell, I'm hoping the rest of the person ain't coming up."

Live video feed from Key West of the sinking of former USNS Vandenberg to form an artificial reef

A newly made synthetic ribosome is an important step in the quest to create artificial life forms. By Emily Singer Researchers at Harvard University have built a functional ribosome--the cell's protein-making machine--from scratch, molecule by molecule. The creation represents a significant step toward making artificial life, and it could ultimately fill a major gap in our understanding of the origins of life. But the scientists who made the ribosome are most interested in its industrial applications. They plan to genetically tinker with the molecular machinery so that it can make proteins more efficiently, as well as proteins that are the...

A new molecule that performs the essential function of life - self-replication - could shed light on the origin of all living things. If that wasn't enough, the laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly. "Obviously what we're trying to do is make a biology," says Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He hopes to imbue his team's molecule with all the fundamental properties of life: self-replication, evolution, and function. Joyce and colleague Tracey Lincoln made their chemical out of RNA because most researchers...

Scientists develop artificial heart that beats like the real thing Adam Sage in Paris An artificial heart that beats almost exactly like the real thing is to be implanted in patients within three years in a trial that may offer hope to heart disease sufferers unable to receive a transplant. The device, which uses electronic sensors to regulate the heart rate and blood flow, was developed by Alain Carpentier, France's leading cardiac surgeon, and engineers from the group that makes Airbus aircraft. Presented yesterday, it was described by its inventors as the closest thing yet to the human heart. “If...

SACRAMENTO -- Iris and Joseph Kievernagel disagreed about having children during their 10-year marriage, and their argument moved into the courts - and the casebooks of legal precedent - after his death in a helicopter crash. In a ruling made public Friday, a state appeals court said the Sacramento County woman has no right to use her husband's frozen sperm to become pregnant because he had made it clear he did not want to father a child posthumously. If only one spouse has contributed genetic material, "the intent of the donor" must control its disposition after death, said the Third...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates artificial reproduction could take place with a capsule inside a woman's body rather than using traditional treatment at a fertility clinic. Pro-life groups are concerned that the "progress" in fertility treatment continues to commodify human life. The Invocell technique involves the mixing of eggs and sperm in a pill-like container that is placed inside a woman's vagina for three days. Full Story at http://www.lifenews.com/bio2414.html