I just got through giggling and smirking thanks to an interesting "science" article on the possible future of the planet Earth and the life on it.
www.ndtv.com
Apparently, the best modern minds have come to question the long-accepted theory that Sol will expand into a Red Giant stage, at which point it will be so vast as to encompass the inner planets, Earth included, within itself. This was pencilled-in on the calendar for about 6 billions years into the future. But now, there's speculation that the Goldilocks zone will be shifted outward into larger, more-distant orbits that will still keep them from being too thoroughly toasted, allowing us to live on the moons of the gas giant planets. Naturally, people who live entirely within their own skulls are now wondering what this will mean for life on Earth, and particularly for Homo sapiens. They now seem to feel that a "runaway" greenhouse effect will make our planet uninhabitable in a mere 1 billion years.
Now, even a billion years ago, Earth had just the earliest little blobs of multiple cells who had the misfortune of smashing into each other and forming the first multicellular life. Look at how much has changed in that billion years. And yet we now have folks who think that we will still exist as human beings in another billion?
Okay, fine, if they say so; I'm having a tough time caring much about it. But what really caught my eye was the reference to one of the brainiacs behind this startling idea:
"...Keming Zhang, the lead author and a former doctoral student at the UC Berkeley, who is now an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral fellow at UC San Diego..."
What the hell does that even mean? He was formerly a doctoral student at Berkeley...but is now an "AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow" at another university.
My simian brain is envisioning a guy who is so incapable of living in reality that he has somehow transformed into an AI.
I know I can't be correct in that, but...really, what does that description of him mean in words of no more than 3 syllables?
Newly Found Earth-Like Planet May Hold Key To Humanity's Survival
A team of astronomers has uncovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a star located 4,000 light years away from the solar system, potentially offering insights into Earth's distant future.
www.ndtv.com
Apparently, the best modern minds have come to question the long-accepted theory that Sol will expand into a Red Giant stage, at which point it will be so vast as to encompass the inner planets, Earth included, within itself. This was pencilled-in on the calendar for about 6 billions years into the future. But now, there's speculation that the Goldilocks zone will be shifted outward into larger, more-distant orbits that will still keep them from being too thoroughly toasted, allowing us to live on the moons of the gas giant planets. Naturally, people who live entirely within their own skulls are now wondering what this will mean for life on Earth, and particularly for Homo sapiens. They now seem to feel that a "runaway" greenhouse effect will make our planet uninhabitable in a mere 1 billion years.
Now, even a billion years ago, Earth had just the earliest little blobs of multiple cells who had the misfortune of smashing into each other and forming the first multicellular life. Look at how much has changed in that billion years. And yet we now have folks who think that we will still exist as human beings in another billion?
Okay, fine, if they say so; I'm having a tough time caring much about it. But what really caught my eye was the reference to one of the brainiacs behind this startling idea:
"...Keming Zhang, the lead author and a former doctoral student at the UC Berkeley, who is now an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral fellow at UC San Diego..."
What the hell does that even mean? He was formerly a doctoral student at Berkeley...but is now an "AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow" at another university.
My simian brain is envisioning a guy who is so incapable of living in reality that he has somehow transformed into an AI.
I know I can't be correct in that, but...really, what does that description of him mean in words of no more than 3 syllables?
