General AI today

Adaptive AI just announced their (and humanity's) first commercial general AI product:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16560-innovation-artificial-brain-for-sale.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

If you Adaptive guys read this, I'm planning to attend the Burning Man :-).

Genomic sequencing for US$ 5000

I haven't been writing on this blog for some time, basically because it made me sad to report all the awful things that I feel will son happen, so I go for a good piece of news: the price for the sequencing of a genome just fell to 5000 US$:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16552-genome-sequencing-falls-to-5000.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Russian Professor predicts break-up of the U.S.

...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

Viruses: The unsung heroes of evolution

Very interesting article on the advances in virus research by New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926711.600-viruses-the-unsung-heroes-of-evolution.html

Frankenstein's time has come

This very interesting article reports on advances in synthetic life:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fmensch%2F0%2C1518%2C596579%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en

Peter Schiff on the US Government

Peter Schiff is the president of http://www.europac.net/.

It's 5 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapZx0bJiRU&feature=related

Peter Schiff on Madoff and the US Government

Scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUv8rjBAdbk.

Chrysler to idle all factories for at least a month

It's beginning...

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B20EA3667%2D4149%2D4E76%2DAF74%2DF873264CACA4%7D

Brain image scanning

What for many years sounded like science fiction has just become reality:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scientists-extract-images-directly-from-brain/

Thanks to Nick Westgate for this great article.

US Dollars are for free (meaning they are worthless?)

The U.S. Federal Reserve just announced that the US Dollar rate was dropped from 1.0 % to 0 to 0.25 %...

this is horrible news...

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1550484520081217

Evolution and Islam

Very interesting to read:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16258-how-to-stop-creationism-gaining-a-hold-in-islam.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Russia's military build-up

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4B03QA20081201

UN team warns of hard landing for dollar

Financial Times reports on a possible dollar scenario. I personally believe this is going to happen after mid january and before mid march. Main reason: companies' announcements of exceptionally poor results.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/12eab3b4-bf06-11dd-ae63-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

30' Genome

Pacific BioSciences in Menlo Park, California, has found a way to sequence a genome in 30 minutes for a price under 1000$:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026846.800-molecular-fireworks-could-produce-30minute-genomes.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news