The poster for “Voyage of Time” emphasizes the film’s cosmic subject matter. (Credit: IMAX)
The video trailer for “Voyage of Time” provides a trippy taste of a movie that’s been more than 30 years in the making – and tells the story of a universe that’s been billions of years in the making.
Make that two movies: The big-screen IMAX version of Terrence Malick’s film, narrated by Brad Pitt with a running time of 40 minutes, is due for release on Oct. 7. There’ll also be a 90-minute version narrated by Cate Blanchett.
What’s the difference? That’s not exactly clear. The longer version is described as a “poetic and provocative ride full of open questions,” while the IMAX experience “immerses audiences directly into the story of the universe and life itself.”
The University of Washington says that an internal investigation has found virus researcher Michael Katze violated sexual harassment policies – and that disciplinary action is currently under consideration.
The University of Washington says virologist Michael Katze has violated university sexual harassment policies. (Credit: UW)
“His conduct was inappropriate and not in any way reflective of the university’s values,” UW spokesman Norm Arkans said today in a statement posted online. “This is why the matter is now in the faculty disciplinary process, through which an appropriate outcome will be adjudicated.”
Buzzfeed quoted Katze’s attorney, Jon Rosen, as saying that Katze will “continue to vigorously defend against the false and salacious charges pending before the University of Washington adjudication panel.”
British physicist Stephen Hawking chats with Larry King. (Credit: Ora.TV)
British physicist Stephen Hawking says the potential threat from artificial intelligence isn’t just a far-off “Terminator”-style nightmare. He’s already pointing to signs that AI is going down the wrong track.
“Governments seem to be engaged in an AI arms race, designing planes and weapons with intelligent technologies,” Hawking told veteran interviewer Larry King. “The funding for projects directly beneficial to the human race, such as improved medical screening, seems a somewhat lower priority.”
It’s not surprising that Hawking is worried about AI – he’s been issuing warning for years. But the concern over an AI arms race adds a short-term spin to the long-term concern.
There’s certainly an AI race going on, spanning a spectrum from Microsoft’s vision of AI-enhanced applications to the self-driving cars that so many companies seem to be working on. Hawking has joined forces with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and thousands of other techies in expressing deep concern about the military side of AI.
In the “Larry King Now” online interview, available via Ora.TV, Hawking acknowledged that AI can bring lots of benefits to humanity. “Imagine algorithms able to quickly assess scientists’ ideas, catch cancer earlier and predict the stock markets,” he said.
But Hawking said AI’s reach will have to be strictly regulated.
The heavily encrusted bow of the Andrea Doria is dimly visible in this image captured from OceanGate’s Cyclops 1 submersible. (Credit: OceanGate)
A crew of undersea explorers from Everett, Wash., has gotten the best look in decades at the Andrea Doria, an Italian ocean liner that sank 60 years ago off Nantucket.
The hard-to-reach shipwreck has been called the “Mount Everest of scuba diving.” But this Everest is crumbling more quickly than expected, the OceanGate crew reported.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told reporters at a Monday news conference in Boston that the ship looks “dramatically different” from images captured during previous dives. More than a dozen sonar images reveal that a significant portion of the ship’s hull has decayed, 240 feet beneath the Alantic Ocean’s surface. A large section of the bow appears to have broken off.
“Imagine it as a collapsing cave,” the Boston Globe quoted Rush as saying. “Once the cave loses its basic structure, it deteriorates very quickly.”
A visualization shows T-cells communicating via the immune synapse. (Credit: Alpine BioVentures)
Seattle’s Alpine Immune Sciences says it has closed a $48 million Series A financing round, to fund the development of next-generation therapies that tweak the body’s immune system to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Immunotherapy ranks among the hottest topics in cancer research nowadays. The company’s executive chairman and acting CEO, Mitchell Gold, said in a statementthat the new infusion of investment “recognizes the tremendous potential” for the field and for Alpine Immune Sciences.
“AIS is taking a unique approach to modulating the immune system through the directed evolution of naturally occurring ligands – creating the next generation of cancer and autoimmune therapeutics with our vIgD platform,” Gold said.
The company is working on drugs that can activate the immune system to attack cancer cells, or keep the immune system from attacking healthy cells. The stand-down effect could ease such autoimmune disorders as Crohn’s disease, lupus and arthritis.
An AI-enabled system called Project Emerge helps health-care providers head off medical errors. (Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine via YouTube)
Someday soon, your physician may be second-guessed by an artificial intelligence program – and you’ll probably be healthier for it, according to Microsoft Research’s Eric Horvitz.
The workshop in Washington, D.C., was the second in a series of four sessions aimed at helping the Office of Science and Technology Policy formulate future initiatives on artificial intelligence.
Microsoft Research is pursuing projects in more than 60 areas of computer science, including AI, but Horvitz focused on two projects in particular that brought AI tools to bear on health care challenges.
One project targets medical errors, which Horvitz said are thought to cause more than 400,000 deaths annually in the United States.
“It’s kind of like a city the size of Oakland or Miami going away quietly every year, due to avoidable deaths,” Horvitz said. “It’s the third-leading cause of death in the United States.” (Heart disease and cancer are No. 1 and No. 2.)
Microsoft has been working with partners including the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality to develop software that scans for potential medical errors. Horvitz said such programs can serve as “safety nets” for health care providers.
“You learn to recognize anomalies,” he said. “You learn to recognize acts of omission and commission and flag them.”
Can humans and machines get along? (Credit: Imperial College London)
Experts on artificial intelligence are following up on the first White House workshop on artificial intelligence, presented last month in Seattle, with a session that addresses a central question about the technology: What good can it do for humanity?
Whenever folks talk about AI, the discussion usually turns to the dark side. Will machines surpass us, even rule over us? Researchers point out that although computers can be programmed to outdo unassisted humans in specialized tasks, such as playing the game of Go, artificial general intelligence still lags far behind human capabilities.
But if there’s even a minuscule risk that robot overlords will prevail, as claimed by luminaries such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, why take the chance? At Tuesday’s White House workshop, the second in a series of four, the spotlight focuses on why we should turn to the bright side of AI.
“AI has been successfully applied to societal challenge problems, and it has a great potential to provide tremendous social good in the future,” the Computing Community Consortium’s Helen Wright says in a blog post advancing the session.
Sensors that are part of the Cabled Array monitor the El Gordo hydrothermal vent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon coast. (Credit: NSF / OOI / UW / ISS; V15)
Imagery and readings from the initiative’s network of undersea platforms and sensors have been flowing over the Internet for months, and the data flow is still on the increase. But the NSF is highlighting the project’s progress this week to celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8.
“The OOI is placing as much ocean data online as possible, and making it available in real time,” Roger Wakimoto, the NSF’s assistant director for geosciences, said in a news release. “In addition to scientific discovery, we hope to spark the public’s interest in the sea, and contribute to the safety of those who make their living on the water or vacation along the coast.”
The OOI Data Portal provides free access to the raw data from more than 830 instruments, spread across 83 platforms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The offerings include seismic data, temperature readings, chemical measurements – and regularly scheduled real-time HD video feeds from the Mushroom, a 14-foot-tall, active hydrothermal vent located 250 miles off the Oregon Coast on Axial Seamount.
In 1972, Physio-Control’s Lifepak 2 was the first portable defibrillator to allow ECG signal transmission by telephone. (Credit: Physio-Control)
Six medical pioneers were inducted into the newly created Washington Life Science Hall of Fame today, and although some of them have passed away, all of them have contributed to lifesaving technologies that are still works in progress.
Take Karl William Edmark, for example: The founder of Redmond-based Physio-Control invented a direct-current heart defibrillator that was first used to save the life of a 12-year-old girl in Seattle in 1961. Edmark, who was a cardiovascular surgeon as well as a lifelong inventor, died in 1994. But the devices he developed have been repeatedly improved and miniaturized since then.
The improvements were an important factor behind the advent in 1970 of Seattle’s Medic One, a pioneering emergency medical service. Just today, the Medic One Foundation and the Seattle Fire Department announced the city’s official launch of PulsePoint, a smartphone app that alerts citizen responders when someone needs CPR in their vicinity.
“If you’re going to have a cardiac arrest, do it right here in Seattle,” said Cam Pollock, Physio-Control’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, who accepted the Hall of Fame honors on Edmark’s behalf.
The Hall of Fame was established this year by Life Science Washington (which was previously known as the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association) to honor the state’s pioneers in biotech and biomedicine.
Genetics pioneer Leroy Hood is furthering his agenda for what he calls P4 medicine through a commercial venture called Arivale as well as a collaboration between his Institute for Systems Biology and Providence Health & Services. (Credit: ISB)
Good news: Arivale co-founder Leroy Hood says he can “almost guarantee” there’ll be ways to keep yourself physically and mentally fit into your 90s.
“You’re going to have to decide on your own what to do after that,” he jokes.
That near-guarantee was one of the predictions Hood delivered today as the keynote speaker for Life Science Innovation Northwest, an annual biotech conference presented this week by Life Science Washington at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.
About 800 attendees are getting acquainted with the latest ventures in the life sciences – including Arivale, which was named Startup of the Year at last month’s GeekWire Awards.
