The search for'another Earth' has been a staple of science fiction for decades, and now a group of astronomers hope to discover one on our galactic doorstep. Alpha Centauri is a triple star system just over four light years from the Earth, split into a pair of sun-like stars known as AB, and a red dwarf called Proxima Centauri. So far planets have only been found orbiting Proxima Centauri, but experts from the University of Sydney and Breakthrough Initiatives believe they will find a world orbiting the larger binary pair using a new privately funded telescope. Known as the Toliman mission, it will launch in 2023 and scan Alpha Centauri AB for worlds in the habitable zone, where liquid water can flow on the surface. The team hope to be able to say whether there are habitable worlds orbiting either or both of the binary stars by the middle of this decade.

Scientists have launched an ambitious campaign to capture the first direct images of an Earth-like planet outside of our solar system. It's thought that our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system known as Alpha Centauri, may be home to rocky'sister Earth' planets, making it a key target in the search for alien life. Now, the initiative known as Project Blue is hoping to raise $175,000 for its engineering design phase, which will allow them to create a'blueprint' for the spacecraft that will one day scour Alpha Centauri for other'pale blue dots.' Project Blue plans to launch a specially-designed telescope into low-Earth orbit. This will allow the craft to operate without any distortion from Earth's atmosphere. An artist's impression of the telescope is pictured The Alpha Centauri star system is 25 trillion miles (4.37 light years) away.

An illustration shows what a visitor might see if they could stand on the surface of the Earth-size planet Proxima b. Just a few months ago, astronomers revealed that there is an Earth-size world orbiting Proxima Centauri, the next star over. Now, a team of astrophysicists thinks there's a way to pay that planet a nice long visit sometime in the not-so-distant future. The method involves something similar to the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a plan unveiled last year that would send a fleet of small spacecraft toward the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, which includes Proxima. Propelled by a giant laser, those tiny spacecraft would zip through the system in a matter of moments, furiously snapping photos, gathering data, and somehow relaying that information back to Earth.

Gamasutra is now providing full transcripts of selected Gamasutra podcasts featuring interviews and lectures with key game industry figures, this time with a GDC 2004 lecture from Big Huge Games head Brian Reynolds, which looks at how the game design process and how the creation of AI overlaps in today's game business. The official panel abstract read: "Whether you're a programmer who's always wanted to work on the game design or a designer who thinks there might be something to this'programming' thing, here's your chance to talk with someone who has worked both sides of the fence. We'll focus on AI and the ways in which AI development does (or should) overlap with the game design process, drawing case studies from the presenter's experiences as Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, and Civilization II. We'll talk about why delaying AI development'until the design docs are final' is a wasted opportunity, and how both AI and Design benefit from simultaneous prototyping.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have announced they are going to heal the world and make it a better place. Except we all know those two dance like your dad. Looking like two humanoids from a snazzy Artificial Intelligence launch, Zuckerberg and Chan announced their plan to'cure, prevent or manage all human disease by the end of the century'. Looking like two humanoids from an AI launch, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife announced last Tuesday their 3billion plan to'cure, prevent or manage all human disease by the end of the century' They may need to cure my scepticism first. I wouldn't trust a guy with 365 identical grey t-shirts to cure a hangover.

The views expressed below are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or its clients. The underlying assumption is that the main objective of science and technology is to help solve the biggest challenges faced by humans, to name a few; climate change, cancer, incompetent rulers, etc. The objective is not necessarily the creation of maximum economic value (the two are not mutually exclusive in theory at least). The movement of science and technology is towards the shores of artificial intelligence (AI) coupled with the hope that it might unlock some of the biggest mysteries of our world. We can all agree that there is a lot of hype about AI.

When viewed on a cosmic scale, humanity lives on a tiny grain of sand floating in an unimaginably-deep ocean. Huge expanses of space separate even the closest stars, ensuring that, should any sufficiently intelligent life form want to spread across the galaxy, it would take a momentous effort to launch across the interstellar seas. As we look toward the stars, hoping that we may visit them some day, many would argue that interstellar travel is impossible. After all, the nearest-known star system is over 4 light-years away. Let's think about that for a moment: It takes light 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the sun's surface to our planet's atmosphere.

A new research initiative could provide the building blocks for a program that would send robots trillions of miles into space to better understand our neighboring star system. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Starshot project, the latest in Mr. Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives started in 2015. Breakthrough Starshot aims to send data-seeking nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the solar system, using laser propulsion. While the Breakthrough board of Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg just announced Starshot on Tuesday, they say it may not launch for 20 years, conservatively – and wouldn't reach Alpha Centauri for another 20 after that, despite traveling at one-fifth the speed of light. "We came to the conclusion it can be done: interstellar travel," Milner told The New York Times.