Personalized Medicine, Voyager 1, and Augmenting Human Intelligence: Lux Recommends #109
Welcome to Lux Recommends #109, the newest edition of what we at Lux are reading and thinking about (and want to receive this by email? Sign up here).
Articles
Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment Human Intelligence: “By creating user interfaces which let us work with the representations inside machine learning models, we can give people new tools for reasoning.” Exceedingly mind-expanding.— Sam
Space out with planets in Google Maps: “Explore the icy plains of Enceladus, where Cassini discovered water beneath the moon’s crust. Peer beneath the thick clouds of Titan to see methane lakes. Inspect the massive crater of Mimas — while it might seem like a sci-fi look-a-like, it is a moon, not a space station.” And more! — Sam
Twenty-six words we don’t want to lose: “After academics picked out 30 words that have been ‘lost’ from the English language, self-confessed ‘word geek’ Paul Anthony Jones reveals obscure yet delightful terms that also need to be saved from falling into disuse.” — Sam
A.I. bots just dropped a death metal album that will make your head explode: “Coditany of Timeness seems like an average entry in the black metal genre, until you consider its source. It was created by a neural network algorithm without a single guitar, without any drums, without even a vocalist.” — Adam G
Bitcoin Mining Guzzles Energy — And Its Carbon Footprint Just Keeps Growing: “In just a few months from now, at bitcoin’s current growth rate, the electricity demanded by the cryptocurrency network will start to outstrip what’s available, requiring new energy-generating plants.” — Zack
Why Waiting for Perfect Autonomous Vehicles May Cost Lives: “Some people think autonomous vehicles must be nearly flawless before humans take their hands off the wheel. But RAND research shows that putting AVs on the road before they’re perfect improves the technology more quickly — and could save hundreds of thousands of lives over time.” — Shahin
Fighting Cancer One Patient At A Time: Towards personalized medicine: “medicines that are targeted to a protein made by a particular gene, often discovered by sequencing the cancer’s DNA” — Adam G
Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years: “If you tried to start a car that’s been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use.” — Adam K
I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor: “With the help of fake reviews, mystique and nonsense, I was going to do it: turn my shed into London’s top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor.” This is amazing. — Sam
A Map to the Celestial Bodies: “a poster map of over two thousand stellar systems with known planets” — Sam
And Can you hear this silent gif bouncing? Here’s why — Sam
Television
Star Trek: Discovery: Set ten years before the original series, this newest Star Trek follows the adventures of the U.S.S. Discovery. It’s long-form story arcs, combined with some very interesting characters (and some fun bits for die-hard fans). Excited to see where the show continues to go. — Sam
Movies
Conor McGregor: Notorious: “filmed over the course of 4 years, is a gripping access-all- areas account of McGregor’s personal and professional journey from claiming benefits and living in his mum’s spare room with his girlfriend to claiming multiple championship belts and 9-figure pay packets. Featuring exclusive interviews, unprecedented access and fight footage, this is the ultimate behind-the- scenes look at a sporting icon and his meteoric rise.”— Adam G
Mad Dogs: “In mid 90’s, with no money and no English, Danilo, Marcio and Yuri left Brazil and everything behind to live in Hawaii and surf the world’s most famous waves.” — Adam G
Videos
These hypnotic sculptures are made from Lego blocks — Adam K
Drone-Shot Surfing Rescue —Adam G
Video Captures the Mesmerising Wonder of a Murmuration of Starlings — Adam K
After not scoring 5 games in a row, fans show their players where to score — Adam K
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