/ News
Hot water flows on Enceladus, which could harbor life
The search for life in our solar system has pointed us in many directions like Mars and Europa. Now, a new study in Nature just made another candidate look even more promising: Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, likely has an active hydrothermal system.
Enceladus has been a popular target for the existence of life ever since Cassini first saw plumes of water vapor coming from its south pole back in 2005. Until now, however, it was unclear how those plumes were connected to the potential subsurface ocean. The icy surface is estimated to be over 25 miles thick, and there was little evidence of hydrothermal activity.
But a team led by the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics found tiny grains of rock — just 2–8 nm in radius, not much bigger than a strand of human DNA — with the Cassini spacecraft they believe were formed by hydrothermal vents in the ocean of Enceladus. The grains are rich in silicon and are like what is found in sand and quartz here on Earth, which are commonly formed by hydrothermal processes. /cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3494444/Hydrothermal_activity_on_Enceladus.0.jpg)
The existence of these grains can only mean that there is an active hydrothermal system working on Enceladus, according to the authors of the paper. Here's how the process starts: The gravitational tug of Saturn helps heat the ocean below Enceladus's surface to at least 90 degrees Celsius, or about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. That helps dissolve minerals from the moon's rocky core. That water cools on its way towards the surface, and those minerals get trapped in larger grains of ice as they push through vents and out into space. There, the ice erodes, and the tiny silicon-rich grains are left bare, where the scientists were able to detect them with Cassini's dust analyzer. Hot water wicks minerals away from the core, similar to here on Earth
The paper's authors spent four years studying data from the Cassini spacecraft and performing computer simulations and experiments to reach their conclusions. "We methodically searched for alternative explanations for the nanosilica grains, but every new result pointed to a single, most likely origin," says Frank Postberg in the ESA's release on the study. Postberg is a scientist who works with Cassini's dust analyzer data at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and is a co-author on the paper.
The news is both exciting and important because hydrothermal vents are believed to have spawned life on Earth. Before today we knew that Enceladus had water. Now it looks like that water is heated and has minerals. Those are the most basic ingredients for life as we know it, and it means that Enceladus is about to become a more popular place to explore.
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/11/8192989/saturn-water-enceladus-moon-hot-ocean-esa
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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