Smiling camel image courtesy of Hendrik Dacquin under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License (the image has been cropped)

Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil said at a CIO Network conference that we will develop “human-level” artificial intelligence by the year 2029. Kurzweil—who argued in his book The Singularity Is Near that advances in artificial intelligence will lead to runaway technological progress in the near future—predicted that artificial intelligence systems would also be used to enhance human intelligence. Kurzweil also suggested we will be able to “reprogram human biology” to cure major diseases and reverse the effects of aging by 2029. Google is reportedly establishing an ethics board to create rules governing the development and use of artificial intelligence as a condition of acquiring artificial intelligence research company DeepMind Technologies. Shane Legg, one of DeepMind’s founders, said in a 2011 interview that artificial intelligence may pose the greatest threat to human survival in this century.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data shows that the average temperature of the top 2,000 meters (about 6,562 feet) of the ocean rose dramatically in 2013. Over the past 55 years, the oceans have warmed by an average of 136 trillion joules a second. That’s roughly the same amount of energy each second as in two nuclear bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the oceans absorb 90% of rise in heat associated with global warming. A study in Oceanography found increases in ocean acidity consistent with the absorption of carbon dioxide produced as a result of human activity at each of seven independent locations. The surface concentration of hydrogen ions increased from 20-35% at the different measurement sites. Acidic water makes it difficult for shellfish and coral to produce the shells and skeletons they need to survive. Rising ocean acidity may be responsible for the recent death of millions of scallops in the waters off British Columbia, where the pH has been measured to be as low as 7.2.

In a speech in Jakarta, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that climate change may be “the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Kerry said that the window to manage the threat of climate change is closing, but there is still time for us to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop new fuel efficiency standards for heavy trucks by March 2015. Last August, the EPA issued new rules requiring car manufacturers to double the average fuel efficiency of their fleets of passenger cars. Chris Field, who co-chairs the working group drafting the IPCC’s upcoming report on adapting to climate change, said that there is “a big, big difference” between a world in which high emissions continue and one in which we manage to lower emissions substantially.

The European Space Agency (ESA) hosted the first meeting of the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG). SMPAG—pronounced “same page”—is an international group of space agencies that will coordinate global efforts to protect the planet from near-Earth objects like asteroids that might hit the planet. It is generally believed that an impact from a large asteroid triggered the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientists have discovered more than 10,000 near-Earth objects, but so far none seem to pose a major threat to the planet within the next 100 years.

There were almost as many new cases of the H7N9 bird flu in January as there were in all of 2013. The number of confirmed new cases slowed in the second half of February, possibly because China has closed live-bird markets in areas where the disease has been found. A comprehensive study of the H7N9 virus in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the disease rarely spreads among humans. Vietnam placed itself on high alert after the virus was found in poultry in the Chinese border province of Guangxi. Vietnam has banned the import of poultry from China and is monitoring live-bird markets near the Chinese border. According to FluTrackers’ unofficial count, there have been 379 human cases of the H7N9 bird flu since the disease emerged last year. More than 30% of the people known to contract the disease have died.

Two people in China died from a novel strain of the H10N8 bird flu virus. A third person known to have contracted the disease is in serious condition. All three patients had contact with live poultry before contracting the disease. There have been so far been no reports of the disease spreading among humans, but a study in Lancet found that the virus carries a gene associated with adaptation to mammals. A separate essay in Lancet argued that we need greater surveillance to be sure that the disease doesn’t have the potential to be pandemic.

Ahram Online reported that a woman in upper Egypt who recently returned from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia has died of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). If the report is confirmed, Egypt would become the 12th country where the disease has been found. An mBio study found that the MERS virus has been circulating in dromedary camels throughout Saudi Arabia since at least 1992. Around 95% of the adult camels surveyed showed signs of infection. The study found no evidence of MERS infection in domestic sheep or goats, and it is still not clear how humans contract the disease. A separate mBio paper found little evidence that MERS is becoming more contagious in humans. An analysis of 32 genetic isolates from Saudi Arabia found only one site on the virus’ genome that shows adaptation to human hosts. The paper concluded that because the virus has not yet adapted for sustained human-to-human transmission, we may be able to contain it by quickly diagnosing and isolating anyone who contracts the disease.

A Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper reconstructed the spread of the Black Death through China in the 19th and 20th centuries. The researchers found that the disease spread along established transportation routes like roads, rivers, and coastlines. They also found that heavy rains and flooding that displaced people and rodents were connected with the disease spreading faster. The authors said their findings suggested that if climate change caused an increase in extreme weather events it might accelerate the spread of new diseases. Paper co-author Zhibin Zhang said that “monitoring and prevention measures should be taken in regions facing an obvious increase in precipitation or flooding events.”

The US announced a new “Global Health and Security Agenda” to improve the world’s ability to respond to emerging diseases. The program would coordinate the efforts 30 countries to improve disease prevention, detection, and response. An official press release said the program would aim “to slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance, establish national biosecurity systems, reduce zoonotic disease transmission, increase routine immunization, establish and strengthen national infectious disease surveillance and laboratory systems, and develop public electronic reporting systems and emergency operations centers.” Officials also noted that 80% of countries had failed to meet a 2012 World Health Organization (WHO) deadline for preparing for the threat of infectious diseases. “Microbes and diseases are moving faster and farther than ever,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said. “And one thing we know for certain: they do not recognize or stop at national borders. A threat anywhere is indeed a threat everywhere.”

This news summary was put together in collaboration with Anthropocene. Thanks to Seth Baum, Kaitlin Butler, and Grant Wilson for help compiling the news.

For last month’s news summary, please see GCR News Summary January 2014.

You can help us compile future news posts by putting any GCR news you see in the comment thread of this blog post, or send it via email to Grant Wilson (grant [at] gcrinstitute.org).