News Bits About Qubits: Scientists Store and Retrieve Data Inside an Atom

In a paper entitled: “Solid-state quantum memory using the 31P nuclear spin,” published in the October 23 issue of the journal Nature, the team described an experiment in which exceptionally pure and isotopically controlled crystals of silicon were precisely doped with phosphorus atoms. Quantum information was processed in phosphorus electrons, transferred to phosphorus nuclei, then subsequently transferred back to the electrons. This is the first demonstration that a single atomic nucleus can serve as quantum computational memory.

Source: LBL.

Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Terrorism

An attack on one of the great cities of the world is almost inevitable. But with better detection technologies, a new international alliance could still prevent catastrophe.

Source: Technology Review.

Moving the Earth: a planetary survival guide

 Elementary physics tells us that we actually can move the planets. Launching a rocket into space pushes the Earth a bit in the opposite direction, like the recoil from a gun.

Science-fiction author and trained physicist Stanley Schmidt exploited this fact in his novel The Sins of the Fathers, in which aliens built giant rocket engines at the South Pole to move the Earth. (Read about other sci-fi novels and films that have tackled the problem of moving worlds.)

In real life, however, the Earth is so massive that a rocket would have little effect on its motion. Launching a billion 10-tonne rockets in exactly the same direction would change the Earth’s velocity by just 20 nanometres per second – peanuts compared to the planet’s current speed of 30 kilometres per second.

A few astronomers have tackled the problem of moving planets, but not for dealing with emergencies on human time scales. They’re actually devising thought experiments to understand the dynamics of planetary systems, says Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. So processes that occur on geologic time scales work perfectly well.

Read more about moving the planet on New Scientist.

Superstruct: The Final Threat

Check out videos of megadisasters facing the planet at Superstruct.

H+ Magazine

The new transhumanist ezine H+ Magazine (with RU Sirius as editor) is now available. Get the free PDF.

Humanity Plus (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) – in collaboration with former Mondo 2000 editor RU Sirius — is pleased to present h+. A web-based quarterly magazine, h+ covers the scientific, technological, and cultural developments that are challenging and overcoming human limitations.

Recently, there has been a growing and evolving public discourse about new technological trends and possibilities. Scientists and edge thinkers are talking about — and working on — slowing or ending aging; body and brain enhancement; biological control of the genome and the evolutionary process; and the possibility of a technological singularity brought on by AI… to name just a few of the interests and obsessions of this new edge tech culture.

Molecular computer runs calculations inside living cell

There are many computers in California, but only one of them is running inside a living yeast cell.

Future models of the living computer, made from the DNA-like molecule RNA, could be used to run calculations in vivo – that is, inside human cells – to release drugs or prime the immune system at the first hint of illness.

DNA shares its essential features with computers – it stores, processes and communicates information. And in the late 1990s, researchers successfully created a set of DNA molecules – a DNA computer – able to solve simple mathematical problems.

DNA computers since have since proved unbeatable at tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses), but they are not really suited to high-speed number crunching like a conventional computer.

The real strength of these molecular devices is in working and computing inside biological systems, where DNA has evolved to be at home.

Read the entire article on New Scientist.

New edition of Journal of Evolution and Technology

Transhumanism (or Human Plus, H+) is a social and philosophical movement that explores the uses of technology for the positive transformation of human capacities, and the social, political and ethical implications that such a transformation would carry. Its ideological uniqueness lies in an almost existentialist interpretation of science: while acknowledging the value of the scientific method – based on the principles of precision, objectivity and falsifiability – it foregrounds its relevance for social justice, self-determination and personal fulfilment, in other words, for improving the human condition. In transhumanism, therefore, science is “owned” differently than in humanism, where it was a symbol of human intellect, ingenuity and a key to the “truth.” The transhumanist perspective, generally, begins with the question of human experience and then takes an activist approach, looking to science to find how it can alleviate suffering and thereby improve this experience.

Read the latest edition here. Also check out the World Transhumanist Association and “Biotech Enhancement and Natural Law” in The New Atlantis.