Why Humans Will Never Understand AI to CIA’s Quest to Decode Consciousness

Today’s stories include: Inside the 3D-printed box in Texas where humans will prepare for Mars, The hunt for dark matter is in crisis, and it’s time for radical new ideas to explain our universe, and more.

Can Intelligence Be Separated From the Body?--Some researchers question whether A.I. can be truly intelligent without a body to interact with and learn from the physical world, reports Oliver Whang for The New York Times. “The body, in a very simple way, is the foundation for intelligent and cautious action,” said Joshua Bongard, a roboticist at the University of Vermont.

Why humans will never understand AI, explores BBC Future. "Many of the pioneers who began developing artificial neural networks weren't sure how they actually worked - and we're no more certain today."

Why atoms are the Universe’s greatest miracle--With a massive, charged nucleus orbited by tiny electrons, atoms are such simple objects. Miraculously, they make up everything we know, reports Ethan Siegel for Big Think.

CIA’s Quest to Decode Consciousness and Unlock Time Travel--The goal? , reports Susan Lahey for Popular Mechanics. "The goal was to 'gain access to the … intuitive knowledge which the universe offers,' as well as travel in time and commune with other-dimensional beings."

Einstein: ""Imagination is more important than knowledge"--Although many Einstein quotes that appear on the internet are complete fabrications or misattributions, "Imagination is more important than knowledge" is totally real.

Inside the 3D-printed box in Texas where humans will prepare for Mars, reports The Guardian. "As we move from low Earth orbit, from moon to Mars, we’re going to have a lot more resource restrictions than we have on the International Space Station and we’re going to be a lot further from Earth or any help from Earth,” said Dr Grace Douglas, the principal investigator for the Crew Health Performance Exploration Analog, or Chapea for short.

Dark Matter Hunters Need Fresh Answers--The hunt for dark matter is in crisis, and it’s time for radical new ideas to explain our universe, reports Joseph Howlett for Scientific American.

Lightning strike creates new phosphorus material found on Earth for the first time, reports Interesting Engineering. "We have never seen this material occur naturally on Earth – minerals similar to it can be found in meteorites and space, but we've never seen this exact material anywhere."

Primitive Asgard Cells Show Life on the Brink of Complexity--As researchers race to cultivate more of the intriguing cells from the deep seafloor, the few cells now growing in labs are giving us our best glimpses of the forerunners of all complex life, reports Joshua Sokol for Quanta.

An ancient gene stolen from bacteria set the stage for human sight. More than 500 million years ago, early vertebrates acquired bacterial DNA that made possible their evolution of vision, reports Science.com. "The eye is so complex that even Charles Darwin was at a loss to explain how it could have arisen."