DNA origami as a viable path to true nanotech. The first molecular motor made of DNA https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04910-y
What should you change in response to an "emergency"? And AI risk https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mmHctwkKjpvaQdC3c/what-should-you-change-in-response-to-an-emergency-and-ai
Geothermal energy update: Past efforts to coax geothermal energy from hot, dry rock deep underground have faltered. But new techniques could crack the problem https://www.science.org/content/article/utah-researchers-trying-unlock-earths-heat-make-geothermal-energy-reality (archived version: https://archive.ph/KtUQI)
Thorium and the Prospect of Limitless Clean Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLfhCLuuZQY
Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems: "While computer science course take-up had gone up by over 90 percent in the past 50 years, electrical engineering (EE) had declined by the same amount." https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/18/electrical_engineers_extinction/
In Senescent Cells, a Promising Route to Slowing Brain Aging https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2022/07/18/in-senescent-cells-a-promising-route-to-slowing-brain-aging/
Sony’s racing AI destroyed its human competitors by being nice (and fast) [MIT Technology Review] https://archive.ph/RFmpU
Both sexes reacted less positively to research findings showing a sex difference favoring males rather than females, and they judged male-favoring research to be lower in quality. https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12580
“…are we turning the kids gay? Or are they just more likely to come out of the closet, or even identify as queer when they are in fact not? … National acceptance of homosexuality correlated with the percentage of porn searches that are for gay porn at r = 0.55, p < 0.001. The data is very much consistent with the acquired homosexuality hypothesis!” https://georgefrancis.substack.com/p/are-we-turning-the-kids-gay
"~50% of the U.S. population is loss tolerant, with many participants accepting negative-expected-value gambles. This is counter to earlier findings … and expert predictions that 70-90% of participants are loss averse." https://www.nber.org/papers/w30243
Here is a reminder of the *obvious* actions we should be taking against climate change:
1. Immediately start building as many nuclear power plants as possible and massively invest in next-generation nuclear power research.
2. Researching and creating plants that are genetically modified to be drought and heat-resistant.
3. Building lots of dikes to protect infrastructure and people from rising sea levels.
4. Making cities resistant to flooding by improving drainage systems, creating flood barriers, and equipping buildings with backflow prevention devices and watertight doors.
5. Preventing wildfires by removing underbrush and building camera masts protruding above the treetops which automatically detect smoke and warn the local fire departments so any fire can be suffocated before it gets out of control.
6. Building and subsidizing air conditioning in buildings to protect old and vulnerable people.
And here is what we should be doing, in addition, if climate change actually turns out to be an existential risk:
7. Researching and then mass-producing wearable air conditioning.
8. Massively investing in geoengineering research.
9. Massively investing in research on how to cheaply build huge numbers of [underground] vertical farms [powered by geothermal energy] and genetically engineered crops optimized for such an environment.
Very little of the above is advocated by people who claim to believe that climate change could endanger human civilization. Ask yourself why this is the case.
Lol, it's always funny what you deem obvious and then imply that others who don't find such to be obvious must be ill-motivated. You know what seems neat obvious to me? Some self deception going on