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nevver:

1. The proliferation of Chinese eugenics. – Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist.
2. Black swan events, and the fact that we continue to rely on models that have been proven fraudulent. – Nassem Nicholas Taleb
3. That we will be unable to defeat viruses by learning to push them beyond the error catastrophe threshold. – William McEwan, molecular biology researcher
4. That pseudoscience will gain ground. – Helena Cronin, author, philospher
5. That the age of accelerating technology will overwhelm us with opportunities to be worried. – Dan Sperber, social and cognitive scientist
6. Genuine apocalyptic events. The growing number of low-probability events that could lead to the total devastation of human society. – Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society
7. The decline in science coverage in newspapers. – Barbara Strauch, New York Times science editor
8. Exploding stars, the eventual collapse of the Sun, and the problems with the human id that prevent us from dealing with them. — John Tooby, founder of the field of evolutionary psychology
9. That the internet is ruining writing. – David Gelernter, Yale computer scientist
10. That smart people—like those who contribute to Edge—won’t do politics. –Brian Eno, musician
11. That there will be another supernova-like financial disaster. –Seth Lloyd, professor of Quantum Mechanical Engineering at MIT
12. That search engines will become arbiters of truth. —W. Daniel Hillis, physicist

more

dohanews:

A 42-story Waldorf Astoria hotel is planning to open in Doha’s West Bay area within the the next three years, Arabian Business reports.

The Waldorf, which is managed by Hilton Worldwide, is one of some 21 hotels that the Ministry of Business and Trade has said will be erected in Qatar by 2017. The majority of those hotels are expected to be four- or five-star.

Arabian Business reports:

The (Waldorf) will be in the heart of the modern business and diplomatic district, close to Qatar Stock Exchange and near to the upcoming Doha Convention Centre, due to open later this year.

Waldorf Astoria Doha West Bay will feature 250 rooms and suites as well as 80 large serviced apartments.

Thoughts?

Credit: Photo by Anthony

tacanderson:

Bio-computing is coming. 

Scientists in Britain have announced a breakthrough in the quest to turn DNA into a revolutionary form of data storage that could fit the world’s entire three billion terabytes of stored data into the palm of your hand.

They said a speck of man-made DNA could hold mountains of data that could be freeze-dried, shipped and stored, potentially for thousands of years. The contents are “read” by sequencing the DNA - as is routinely done today, in genetic fingerprinting and so on - and turning it back into computer code.

This is just brilliant! Who knows where this will take us…

unfitto:

We have personal computing, why not personal biotech? That’s the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where amateurs can go and tinker with biotechnology. Far from being a sinister Frankenstein’s lab (as some imagined it), Genspace offers a long list of fun, creative and practical uses for DIYbio.

Can I get a hell yes

This is cool stuff