In this week's Abundance Insider: IBM's open-source cancer-fighting AI tools, India's Moon-bound Chandrayaan-2, and a newly approved driverless parking system.

P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. Want to learn more about exponential technologies and home in on your MTP/ Moonshot? Abundance Digital, a Singularity University Program, includes 100+ hours of coursework and video archives for entrepreneurs like you. Keep up to date on exponential news and get feedback on your boldest ideas from an experienced, supportive community. Click here to learn more and sign up.

IBM Just Made its Cancer-Fighting AI Projects Open-Source

What it is: IBM has just decided to make open-source three newly developed AI tools that could assist medical researchers in the battle against cancer. Now available for widespread use, IBM’s tools range from predicting the efficacy of new drugs to treatment personalization. While PaccMann, for instance, uses deep learning to predict the viability of certain compounds for anticancer drugs, INtERAcT can parse tomes of medical journals to identify critical updates in the field, and PIMKL helps doctors tailor care regimens to individual patients’ needs.

Why it’s important: Intended to streamline cancer drug development, IBM’s tools will be far more powerful in the hands of many, allowing medical practitioners and scientists to keep up with newly published research and develop treatments far more quickly. Part of a larger open-source movement, the release of IBM’s AI tools and similar others is poised to multiply innovation in a number of medical fields, accelerating iteration rates, algorithm feedback and improvement, and the development of highly effective drug therapies. Welcome to an era of AI- and crowd-driven medical discovery.

India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO) has just successfully launched its first Moon-bound spacecraft.

What it is: Early this week, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) — India’s equivalent of NASA — confirmed its successful launch of Moon-bound Chandrayaan-2. A 142-foot-tall rocket, Chandrayaan-2 is set to achieve the first-ever soft landing near the Moon’s South Pole, making India the fourth country to achieve a successful lunar landing. Beyond breaking records, however, Chandrayaan-2 is remarkably cost-efficient, with a mission budget of just $141 million (less than half the budget of the most recent Avengersmovie, for reference). This follows India’s previous launch of its Mars orbiter on a mere $74 million budget (compared to NASA’s $671 million budget for a Mars mission the same year).

Why it’s important: Next up: India is now planning its first manned mission to space, set for 2022, and construction of the nation’s own space station. By honing low-cost space exploration, the ISRO could spur a wave of development in democratized, affordable spaceflight, equalizing opportunity for developing nations, young engineers and future astronauts, regardless of geography. As explained by ISRO’s Chairman Dr. Sivan, “[It] is missions such as Chandrayaan [...] that excite the youth, unite the nation, and also pave a technological seed for the future.” | Share on Facebook.

In a bid to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Microsoft is investing $1 billion in OpenAI.

What it is: This week, Microsoft announced a $1 billion investment in startup OpenAI. While part of a parent non-profit organization dedicated to research in safe AGI, the company’s for-profit arm has developed AIs such as Dactyl (optimizing robot dexterity) and the Dota 2 AI gaming champion. In partnership, Microsoft provides OpenAI the needed capital to scale its R&D, while OpenAI offers a competitive edge in the popular pursuit of complex, brain-like machines. In effect, their partnership involves the joint development and training of new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, whereby Microsoft serves as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider.

Why it’s important: Co-founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI aims to promote A(G)I’s responsible and inclusive development while avoiding the technology’s ethical and existential risks. Beyond its research and long-term stewardship role, however, OpenAI has made tremendous strides in both AI-driven hardware and new software applications. Now boosted by Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and new capital availability, OpenAI’s mission could play a vital role in our collective design, regulation and risk mitigation of AI development over the next decade. | Share on Facebook.

Bosch and Daimler’s driverless valet service has now received a green light for automated parking use.

What it is: Over the past two years, Bosch and Daimler have collaboratively developed a push-button, fully automated, and newly approved parking system. Achieving Level 4 automation (meaning true hands-off functionality in controlled environments), the parking system has just been implemented at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Entering the sensor-laden parking deck, drivers can simply pull into the garage, exit their vehicles, and initiate autonomous parking remotely through a smartphone. Sensors embedded in the garage then help to guide self-driving cars to open spots, around detected obstacles, and back to initial drop-off spots at the end of a driver’s visit.

Why it’s important: Legal approval of autonomous parking systems such as that of Bosch and Daimler helps to validate the safety of tomorrow’s proliferating driverless networks. Whether in valet parking, interoffice delivery, household cleaning appliances, or in-home aid to the elderly, we are quickly witnessing the addition of an intelligence layer to countless environments via sensors and AI. At a fundamental level, this shift will soon allow all our transportation vessels — whether for passengers or goods — to communicate instantaneously with their environment and make far more efficient routing decisions in real time, independent of human input. | Share on Facebook.

Microsoft used mixed reality and AI to build a personal hologram that can speak any language in any voice.

What it is: Just last week, Microsoft executive Julia White presented at the company’s Inspire conference with a nearly indistinguishable full-size hologram. Most remarkably, however, White’s hologram presented her speech in fluent Japanese while maintaining the executive’s voice tones and inflections. To achieve this groundbreaking demo, Microsoft harnessed two key technologies: (1) a mixed reality capture studio that recorded White’s speech in English and (2) neural text-to-speech AI that established her “personalized voice signature.” Viewers wearing Microsoft HoloLens 2 glasses could then experience White’s speech with vocal translation in real time, no intermediary translators needed.

Why it’s important: Translation AIs and next-generation hologram technologies will soon enable the next world leaders, influential executives, and performers to connect with global audiences in real time, rendering distance and language barriers immaterial. Renowned professors will be able to teach any classroom. Executives will address international company offices directly. Local broadcasters will share their stories globally. As AR headsets like the HoloLens 2 and AI translation become increasingly mainstream consumer products, we are about to witness a surge in information access across newly web-connected users. | Share on Facebook.

Facebook will release its AI tool to the OpenStreetMap community, allowing anyone to add unmapped areas across the globe.

What it is: Aiming to map the world’s millions of miles of uncharted roads, Facebook has just announced the release of its Map with AI tool to the OpenStreetMap (OSM) community. Currently, Facebook relies on computer vision to spot roadway patterns in satellite imagery. The company’s deep neural network model can even distinguish unpaved roads and pedestrian walkways from walls or riverbeds in satellite images with a resolution of two square feet per pixel. Yet it is volunteers on OSM’s platform that will now be able to verify AI-mapped roads, collaboratively cataloguing uncharted areas across rural and infrastructurally developing regions. In one instance, local Thai and Indonesian communities worked with Facebook and its AI tool to map all of Thailand and 90% of Indonesia in under just 18 months.

Why it’s important: While often taken for granted, digitized mapping is an unsung hero of today’s hyper-connected world. Mobile maps and instantaneous routing provide us freedom of movement and — perhaps most importantly — ease of access to nodes of opportunity. Yet millions of miles of roads remain obscured from mobile users. While satellite imagery can assist in digital mapping efforts, AI-crowd collaboration has often proved the most robust method of achieving high-accuracy, low-cost, and rapid-fire results. As Facebook aims to “map the entire world,” identifying areas for rural internet access expansion, we are quickly approaching an era of eight billion web-connected minds. | Share on Facebook.

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by my team of entrepreneurs and technology scouts, including contributions from standout technology experts and innovators.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, a Singularity University program, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. We're looking for CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here. 

Abundance Digital, a Singularity University program, is an online educational portal and community of abundance-minded entrepreneurs. You’ll find weekly video updates from Peter, a curated newsfeed of exponential news, and a place to share your bold ideas. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

In this week's Abundance Insider: "Smart" glass, an "EpiPen" for spinal cord injury, and the first-ever image of quantum entanglement.

P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. Want to learn more about exponential technologies and home in on your MTP/ Moonshot? Abundance Digital, a Singularity University Program, includes 100+ hours of coursework and video archives for entrepreneurs like you. Keep up to date on exponential news and get feedback on your boldest ideas from an experienced, supportive community. Click here to learn more and sign up.

AI Beats Professionals In Six-Player Poker

What it is: Achieving the next frontier in AI game-playing prowess, an AI system developed by Carnegie Mellon researchers has now defeated the most skilled professional players at Texas hold ‘em poker. Developed in collaboration with Facebook AI, Pluribus’ core was constructed through competition against copies of itself. In success, five copies of Pluribus then played 5,000 hands of poker, proving formidable against both World Poker Tour record-holder Darren Elias and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, six-time winner at the World Series of Poker.

Why it's important: Having graduated from chess to the complex game of Go, AI has just hit an extraordinary new milestone. Particularly given poker’s involvement of complex human interactions and expression, Texas hold ‘em has been a far more challenging coup for AI than any previous game. Take chess, for instance. It has now been 21 years since IBM’s Deep Blue beat then-world chess champion Gary Kasparov in a six-game series. According to Moore’s Law, Pluribus’ victory therefore required 2^23 times the amount of computing power to achieve the same world record in poker. As AI continues to thrive on this surge in computing power, what other games or strategic mazes might AI overcome? Share on Facebook

A new immersive classroom uses AI and VR to teach Mandarin Chinese

What it is: Introducing VR to the classroom, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is now using a 360-degree virtual environment to teach its summer students Chinese. Partnering with IBM Research, two RPI faculty members initiated the project to replicate the benefits of language immersion in social interactions and role-playing games, maximizing language retention. In VR restaurant simulations, for instance, students can order food, ask about a dish’s history by pointing at it, or pose culinary questions to the narrative-generating AI. While integrating various commercially available products into the experience, the researchers have even developed their own tone analysis algorithm that detects student pronunciation and provides audiovisual correction in real time.

Why it's important: In a 2017 pilot of the program, researchers noted a significant qualitative improvement in engagement, inducing students' social investment in linguistic mastery. Beyond language learning, however, immersive virtual experiences could teleport students to the inside of a cell, the surface of the Moon, or hyper-realistic historic events. As AI simulations explode in quality — responding to user inputs from sensors, microphones and cameras — learning by doing will become an educational norm through personalized AI output and VR immersion. From professional skill sets, to language fluency, to engineering prowess, the love of learning will be available to all.  Share on Facebook

Scientists Create An AI From A Sheet Of Glass

What it is: Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created “smart” glass that can recognize images without any sensors, electrical circuits, or even a power source. The researchers first placed tiny bubbles and light-absorbing impurities into a piece of glass, causing light to bend in association with specific images. Their first iteration, for instance, was designed to identify handwritten numbers. In this case, the glass’s impurities scattered lightwaves reflected off of written numbers onto one of 10 spots on the other side of the glass, each corresponding to an individual digit. Aiming to scale the technology beyond number identification, the researchers even posit “smart” glass’s potential in facial recognition and security applications.

Why it's important: While incredibly powerful, today’s facial recognition systems (powered by AI and its subset deep learning) consume massive computational and energy resources. If scaled in complexity, however, “smart” glass might one day become embedded in your personal cybersecurity system, no battery or power source required. Moreover, “smart” glass could multiply the speed of recognition, from traditional computing timeframes to (literally) the speed of light. Whether in quantum computing, optical computing, or even more peripheral biological computing schemes, “smart” glass and its coming successors could render failsafe and lightning-fast information transfer across countless use cases.  Share on Facebook

Scientists Capture First-Ever Image Of Quantum Entanglement

What it is: By rigging a camera to capture 40,000 frames per second at -30 degrees Celsius, physicists at the University of Glasgow have now captured the first-ever image of two photons linked through quantum entanglement. A bizarre and fundamental phenomenon, quantum entanglement allows particles to remain connected, responding to each other’s physical properties and changes, even if separated by vast physical distances. While physicists have tested and confirmed quantum entanglement, applying the phenomenon in applications like quantum computing and cryptography, photographic proof has been a long-awaited feat.

Why it's important: Far beyond validating quantum entanglement with visual evidence, this breakthrough could serve to advance numerous emerging fields, from quantum computing to new imaging methods. As explained by senior author Miles Padgett, the experiment “shows that quantum effects do change the types of images that can be recorded.” As quantum mechanics continues to birth novel technologies, our ability to photograph underlying phenomena could prove a boon for new discoveries and computational platforms.  Share on Facebook

This solar-powered device produces energy and cleans water at the same time

What it is: Scientists have constructed a water purification system that utilizes heat waste from solar panels to distill clean water. As solar cells generate electricity, solar panels’ otherwise unused heat drives evaporation in the water distiller below. This vapor then travels through several porous polystyrene membranes, resulting in the condensation of drinkable water on the other side. Working in symbiosis, the distillation system thereby solely exploits wasted heat, leaving solar panels’ electrical production capacity untouched.

Why it's important: Some of the world’s most brilliant minds, investors, and engineers have invested decades of R&D, capital, and energy to crack the code of clean water abundance. Yet the question still remains: how can we deliver low-cost, excess drinkable water to those who need it? By deriving value from waste, this low-cost contraption helps meet two vital human needs at once — energy and clean water — in a single elegant solution.  Share on Facebook

An 'EpiPen' for spinal cord injuries

What it is: Our immune system’s response after spinal cord injury can be the difference between walking ability and paralysis. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan has developed an “EpiPen” of sorts, capable of preventing paralysis in the aftermath of trauma to the central nervous system. The injection uses nanoparticles to reprogram aggressive immune cells — thereby preventing the immune system from overreacting — to reduce inflammation and promote a therapeutic response.

Why it's important: Rather than attempting to overcome the body’s immune response, the researchers’ novel approach reprograms this response to aid in the healing process. By co-opting the immune system, this treatment marks a tremendous improvement over prior methods that attempt to offset the effects of inflammation (across the blood-brain barrier) after the fact. Given the immune system’s critical role in countless age-related diseases and chronic conditions, future iterations of this treatment could prove invaluable in mitigating immune response and managing disease. What applications would be most consequential? How might this impact our human healthspan?   Share on Facebook 

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by my team of entrepreneurs and technology scouts, including contributions from standout technology experts and innovators.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, a Singularity University program, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. We're looking for CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here. 

Abundance Digital, a Singularity University program, is an online educational portal and community of abundance-minded entrepreneurs. You’ll find weekly video updates from Peter, a curated newsfeed of exponential news, and a place to share your bold ideas. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

In this week's Abundance Insider: AI-powered "aging clocks," VR in professional testing, and the first "solar sailing" spacecraft.

P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. Do you meditate? I do. I use Sam Harris’ Waking Up app, and think of him as my meditation coach. He’s also a neuroscientist, philosopher, author, blogger, and podcast host. On July 17th at 2:00pm PDT, Sam and I will be sitting down for a LIVE conversation about meditation, the brain, and how to improve your productivity. You can register for the live conversation at this link.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Is Set To Launch The First-Ever 'Solar Sailing' Spacecraft Powered Purely By Light

What it is: Just last month, SpaceX launched its third Falcon Heavy rocket, deploying 24 satellites into orbit and unleashing a novel type of spacecraft: the LightSail 2. The first successfully deployed “solar sailing” spacecraft, LightSail 2 leverages tiny amounts of force exerted by the Sun’s emitted photons, which transfer some of their momentum upon contact. While far more negligible than forces on Earth, this “solar radiation pressure” adds up in the zero gravity of space, providing continuous acceleration without any pre-loaded fuel.

Why it's important: One of the most significant obstacles for the future of long space missions is the (seemingly) insurmountable constraint of fuel. LightSail 2 and its upcoming iterations, however, could soon change how vehicles propel themselves through space, capable of self-orienting and driven by the Sun’s constant beams at zero cost. Now that the Planetary Society’s mission is proving successful, we are fast approaching an era in which spacecrafts will set sail on cross-galactic journeys or pursue nearby solar systems, guided indefinitely by the “fuel” of our own star.  Share on Facebook

With Little Training, Machine-Learning Algorithms Can Uncover Hidden Scientific Knowledge

What it is: Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now developed an AI algorithm that can learn outside its training parameters. Scanning scores of articles, the AI system analyzes the relationships between words, effectively teaching itself the subject. In application, the algorithm “read” 3.3 million abstracts of research articles within materials science, successfully learning complex concepts, from the periodic table of elements to the crystal structure of metals. The AI even demonstrated an unprecedented ability to identify gaps in materials science research, accurately predicting the discovery of entirely new thermoelectric materials.

Why it's important: In success, algorithms such as this one could soon plug into any subject material, instantaneously becoming an expert, identifying existing research limitations, and proposing new ideas for expansion. Over a lifetime, human researchers can probe only a tiny fraction of what AI is now capable of devouring in a day. Streamlining the time-intensive process of cross-referencing articles, however, AIs could free human scientists to pursue open gaps and outstanding research questions. Driven by a newfound ability to digest tomes of research spanning decades and disciplines, scientific knowledge and resulting innovation are about to explode in scale. How can you use AI to ride this wave of data-driven innovation?  Share on Facebook

Cooling/Heating Window Film Captures And Releases Solar Energy

What it is: A research team led by Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen at Sweden’s Chalmers University has developed a window film capable of absorbing solar energy during the day and releasing it as heat into building interiors at night. A novel iteration on the same team’s MOlecular Solar Thermal (MOST) system, developed a few years ago, the clear film adapts the technology whereby solar energy is stored in a liquid medium, embedding a norbornadiene-quadricyclane molecule. When exposed to sunlight, this incorporated molecule absorbs the majority of solar energy emitted by the rays that bathe it, soon releasing the energy as heat once no longer in direct daylight.

Why it's important: Beyond the obvious application of energy-efficient materials to skyscraper exteriors and home windows, similar materials science breakthroughs stand to transform the energy industry in numerous other settings. Moreover, while popular debate often targets solar energy in the context of the environment, innovative films and coating materials could have tremendous economic impacts, meeting global demands at a fraction of current prices. Long-term, how might we utilize energy-efficient materials in spacecrafts, clothing, or even smart city infrastructure?  Share on Facebook

South Korean Tech Breakthrough Could Change Biofuels Forever

What it is: Scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have engineered a novel method of more efficiently (and abundantly) producing biofuels. As standard biodiesel requires the transistorizing of vegetable oils or animal fats, a key obstacle to production is the need for large amounts of organic material and agricultural products. The KAIST team may have largely nullified this problem, however, developing an engineered bacterium that can produce greater volumes of fatty acids than ever before — a potential boon for biofuel cultivation.

Why it's important: Fuels from biomass could one day surpass petroleum-based fuels as the world’s most ordinary combustible fuel source. To achieve this, however, significant innovations are needed to make biodiesel cost-competitive with petroleum-based fuels, and the ratio of biomass to cultivated energy has proved a major barrier (i.e., optimal efficiency = deriving the maximum amount of energy from as minimal an amount of biomass as possible). By dramatically reducing the amount of biomass needed to achieve the same fuel density, KAIST’s breakthrough could chart a new future for biofuels, unleashing energy abundance renewably and more cheaply than ever before. Share on Facebook

Deep Aging Clocks: The Emergence Of AI-Based Biomarkers Of Aging And Longevity

What it is: Advances in deep learning have now begun to converge with a renaissance in longevity research, helping us identify new biomarkers of age and pharmaceutical discovery methods. By treating age as a dataset feature correlated with other biomarkers, deep learning algorithms can now glean much more from photographs, population-level blood chemistry, transcriptomic data (such as RNA sequencing), and wearables-tracked activity. When probed correctly, these new markers of aging — dubbed “deep aging clocks” — are now manifesting tremendous value in pharmaceutical applications. A new form of deep neural net architectures, generative adversarial networks (GANs) can now create synthetic patient data sets, age-specific immunotherapies and vaccines, or even the bases of novel, life-saving drug therapies.

Why it's important: Countless AI startups are now rushing to leverage today’s renaissance in longevity research, while others, like Y Combinator, jump on the bandwagon to provide seed funding. Among new contenders, AI methods such as GANs can vastly accelerate progress in target identification and drug discovery for a broad spectrum of age-related diseases. As a result, personalized medicine and low-cost drug development could soon add an additional 20 to 40 healthy years on our lifespan — what are the implications as 100 becomes the new 60?  Share on Facebook

Walmart Is Using VR To Help Decide Who Should Get Promotions

What it is: Walmart is now employing virtual reality to assess its employees and identify outstanding candidates most qualified for management promotion. Already, 10,000 of Walmart’s 1.5 million employees have undergone the VR assessment, testing their knowledge of the store’s departments and how they react in simulated sales scenarios. A key component of the company’s initiative to enhance employee efficiency, VR’s roll-out at scale aims to identify high performers from the crowd and reduce management overstaffing across store branches.

Why it's important: As simulated virtual environments and VR hardware skyrocket in quality, this technology is rapidly permeating the professional training and hiring sphere. We might still be years away from AI simulations of human-like virtual customers, or brain-computer interfaces that augment our management and communication abilities. Yet Walmart’s wide-scale deployment of VR is a testament to its extraordinary present-day value in dematerializing and democratizing professional (and even psychological) skills training. What problems could you solve right now by deploying virtual simulation in your business?  Share on Facebook 

What is Abundance Insider?

This email is a briefing of the week's most compelling, abundance-enabling tech developments, curated by my team of entrepreneurs and technology scouts, including contributions from standout technology experts and innovators.

Want more conversations like this?

At Abundance 360, a Singularity University program, we teach the metatrends, implications and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs enabled by breakthroughs like those featured above. We're looking for CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to change the world. The program is highly selective. If you'd like to be considered, apply here. 

Abundance Digital, a Singularity University program, is an online educational portal and community of abundance-minded entrepreneurs. You’ll find weekly video updates from Peter, a curated newsfeed of exponential news, and a place to share your bold ideas. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Know someone who would benefit from getting Abundance Insider? Send them to this link to sign up.

In this week's Abundance Insider: A 3D bioprinter goes to space, this year's World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers, and an AI that can simulate the universe.

P.S. Send any tips to our team by clicking here, and send your friends and family to this link to subscribe to Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. Want to learn more about exponential technologies and hone in on your MTP/ Moonshot? Abundance Digital, a Singularity University Program, includes 100+ hours of coursework and video archives for entrepreneurs, like you. Keep up to date on exponential news and get feedback on your boldest ideas from an experienced, supportive community. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Happy July 4th weekend to our U.S. readers!

A BFF In Space! Bioprinter Will 3D-Print Human Tissue On The Space Station

What it is: Just this month, a new bioprinter will be launched aboard a SpaceX cargo mission, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). Dubbed the 3D BioFabrication Facility (or BFF), the 3D printer will initially use human cells and adult tissue-derived proteins (amino acid chains) as its source material for viable tissue. Eventually, BFF is intended to pave the way for spacefaring 3D printers that can create entire human organs for use on Earth and, perhaps, beyond. For now, BFF’s next planned phase will involve manufacturing heart patches in space for performance evaluation in small animals on Earth.

Why it's important: It might seem laughably expensive to bioprint human tissue in space just so that it can be put to use back on Earth. However, tissues produced on Earth typically collapse under their own weight as a result of our planet’s gravitational pull, rendering them unusable. In microgravity, on the other hand, 3D-printed tissues can remain highly stable, growing far stronger in a cell-culturing system than they would if Earthbound. As microgravity conditions enable BFF and its future iterations to generate healthy tissue in space, today’s severe shortage of donor organs might soon give way to an abundance of personalized, printed ones. While still years away, assembling fully functional human organs is now a dream within reach.  Share on Facebook

Machine Learning Has Been Used To Automatically Translate Long-Lost Languages

What it is: Researchers from MIT and Google’s AI Lab have now developed a machine learning system capable of deciphering lost languages. While machine translation between even obscure languages has been commonplace for some time, accurate output typically requires massive, annotated data sets. By instead targeting the ways in which languages evolve, however, the team has achieved successful translations using far less data. To do so, the researchers applied a constraint to their translation system, setting “rules” by which languages change over time (such as the order of characters). Provided an earlier progenitor language is known, the system can then decipher a successor language without annotated data. When applied to the long-lost language of Linear B (which encodes an early version of ancient Greek), for instance, the team’s translation system achieved 67.8 percent accuracy.

Why it's important: This new machine translation approach marks a major victory on two fronts. Helping us decipher and restore long-lost languages with decimated data requirements, the team’s system could one day give way to a universal translator, à la Star Trek. Within the humanities, however, this development could be invaluable in helping us quantify and better understand our own communication methods and the way language maps our complex psychology. By addressing the evolution and methodology of our scripts, AI is now empowering us to read between the lines and even better glimpse our own humanity.  Share on Facebook

New Analysis Techniques Unearth a Trove of Unusual Minerals

What it is: Rapid advances in imaging technology have given rise to a boom in new mineral discovery, enabling researchers to log previously unidentified minerals at an unprecedented rate. According to a database affiliated with the International Mineral Association, over 100 new minerals have been reported every year since 2009, on average. To offer perspective: of the 5,477 known minerals, more than 1,000 were discovered in the past decade alone. Much of this increase can be credited to technologies that enable observation of increasingly small specimens. As seen in some cases, today’s pure mineral chunks can be as miniscule as 50 microns wide and still be studied by new techniques such as x-ray Laue microdiffraction.

Why it's important: Not only are exponential technologies enabling the creation of countless new synthetic materials, but they are helping us unearth an abundance of naturally occurring minerals long hidden from view. As exclaimed by geologist Isabel Barton, “There are, gosh, nearly an uncountable number of possible combinations of elements, in a variety of different structures [...] We’ve barely scratched the surface at this point.” The age of Earth minerals discovery is far from over; quite the contrary, it is only speeding up.  Share on Facebook

Physicists Use Light Waves To Accelerate Supercurrents, Enable Ultrafast Quantum Computing

What it is: Led by physics and astronomy professor Jigang Wang, a research team has just discovered that light waves can be used to tune some of the quantum properties of superconducting states. Superconductivity is the movement of electricity without resistance, which most typically occurs at extremely low temperatures (below -400 degrees Fahrenheit for “high-temperature” superconductors, for instance). Using terahertz light, the researchers have shown that such high-frequency light can control properties like macroscopic supercurrent flowing, and access high-frequency quantum oscillations once thought forbidden by symmetry.

Why it's important: As the researchers note, terahertz light-wave tuning of supercurrents is a universal tool, “key [to] pushing quantum functionalities to reach their ultimate limits in many cross-cutting disciplines.” Applications range from new sensors, quantum computing, modeling, and communications. More fundamentally, this discovery unlocks the possibility of controlled quantum manipulation with potentially far less energy required. As we edge ever closer to quantum supremacy, new tooling could soon extend the benefits of quantum control to use cases beyond supercomputers and modeling. What opportunities might this create?  Share on Facebook

AI And Machine Learning Dominate World Economic Forum’s List Of 2019 Technology Pioneers

What it is: Early this week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced its selection of 56 Technology Pioneers, targeting everything from natural disasters and cybersecurity to smart cities and the legal system. A true testament to AI’s applicability in any industry, at least 20 of the WEF’s Technology Pioneers heavily employ AI or machine learning.

Highlighted Pioneers: While Bright Machines applies machine learning and computer vision to newly intelligent manufacturing facilities, ImpactVision leverages AI in food supply chains, using hyper-spectral imaging technology to improve food quality and reduce waste. Democratizing medicine, DabaDoc connects millions of patients with doctors across Africa, employing machine learning in health education alongside its telehealth initiative. Addressing mental health, 7 Cups uses adaptive machine learning for smartphone-based emotional support, while Holmusk works to build today’s largest real-world evidence (RWE) platform to research and reform best practices. Or take the legal realm: on the back end, Luminance Technologies utilizes machine learning for legal language understanding, while Marinus Analytics uses AI to guide law enforcement in better protecting our most vulnerable community members. Showcased by this range of pioneers, AI can empower any firm with acute perception and smarter decisions.  Share on Facebook

World’s First AI Universe Simulator Knows Things It Shouldn’t

What it is: A team of international research scientists has created an AI system capable of constructing three-dimensional simulations of the universe. Dubbed the Deep Density Displacement Model (D3M), the technology was originally developed to model the ways in which gravity has shaped our universe. In a groundbreaking feat, D3M produced its own simulated model of a cube universe 600 million light-years across in a mere 30 milliseconds. Even more notable, however, D3M demonstrated the ability to create simulations within parameters on which it was not even trained. As explained by researcher Shirley Ho, “It’s like teaching image recognition software with lots of pictures of cats and dogs, but then it’s able to recognize elephants.”

Why it's important: The monumental impact of D3M is two-fold: holding scientific significance in its understanding of our universe’s evolution, and technological import through the “learning capability” of its AI. Given its grasp of gravity’s role in shaping the universe, D3M could help chart numerous discoveries regarding the origins of our universe through sheer simulation. In the software realm, D3M’s ability to learn outside of a granted training set loosely resembles the human ability to make inferences, indirect connections, and extrapolate across disciplines. As AI grows increasingly independent in learning capacity and decision-making, this exponential technology could play ever more consequential roles across business, healthcare, policy, and now, space exploration. Share on Facebook

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