The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
25-09-2022
GOOGLE SAYS IT'S CLOSING IN ON HUMAN-LEVEL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
GOOGLE SAYS IT'S CLOSING IN ON HUMAN-LEVEL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
"THE GAME IS OVER!"
Too Smart
Artificial intelligence researchers are doubling down on the concept that we will see artificial general intelligence (AGI) — that's AI that can accomplish anything humans can, and probably many we can't — within our lifetimes.
Greene's original column made the relatively mainstream case that, in spite of impressive advances in machine learning over the past few decades, there's no way we're gonna see human-level artificial intelligence within our lifetimes.
"Solving these scaling challenges is what will deliver AGI," the DeepMind researcher tweeted, later adding that Sutskever "is right" to claim, quite controversially, that some neural networks may already by "slightly conscious."
DeepMind itself hasn't gone so far as to declare its new Gato multi-modal AI system capable of AGI, but given what one of its lead researchers is saying, it seems only a matter of time before Google declares that it's going to be the first to achieve it.
A 'game-changing' new battery for electric vehicles (EVs) that charges in three minutes and lasts for 20 years could soon be coming to new cars.
Adden Energy, a start-up based in Waltham, Massachusetts, has been granted a licence and $5.15 million in funding to build the battery design at scale to fit in EVs.
The battery, developed by Harvard scientists, is lithium metal, rather than lithium ion found in EVs that are already on the market.
Its intricate design, inspired by a BLT sandwich, prevents the growth of troublesome 'dendrites' that grow in lithium-metal batteries and shorten their lifespan.
Harvard has granted an exclusive license to Adden Energy to develop the solid-state, lithium-metal battery. The startup aims to scale the battery up to a palm-sized 'pouch cell' - which has components enclosed in an aluminum-coated film (pictured)
Long-lasting, quick-charging batteries are essential to the expansion of the EV market, but today's lithium-ion batteries fall short, because they're too heavy and expensive and take too long to charge (file photo)
Currently, EVs contain lithium-ion batteries that degrade over time and last up to seven or eight years, depending on how much they're used – much like a smartphone battery.
LITHIUM-ION VS LITHIUM METAL
Lithium metal batteries contain metallic lithium, while lithium ion batteries contain lithium that's only present in an ionic form in the electrolyte.
Most lithium metal batteries are not rechargeable while lithium ion batteries are. However, there are rechargeable lithium-metal batteries in development.
Lithium-ion are currently powering EVs already on the market from Tesla and other companies, as well as laptops and smartphones.
Long-lasting, quick-charging batteries are essential to the expansion of the EV market, but today's lithium-ion batteries fall short, because they're too heavy and expensive and take too long to charge.
Source: IATA/Green Batteries
These lithium-ion batteries can be replaced, but they can cost thousands of pounds, meaning drivers are often better off buying a whole new EV.
But this new solid-state, lithium-metal battery can increase the lifetime of EVs to a comparable length to petrol and diesel cars – up to 20 years – without the need to ever replace the battery during this time.
In the lab, the team's battery prototype has achieved battery charge rates as fast as three minutes with over 10,000 cycles in a lifetime.
The new technology has been created by Xin Li and colleagues at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).
Adden Energy was co-founded in 2021 by Li, along with William Fitzhugh and Luhan Ye, both of whom contributed to the development of the technology as graduate students in Li’s Harvard lab.
The startup aims to scale the battery up to a palm-sized 'pouch cell' – which has components enclosed in an aluminium-coated film – and then toward a full-scale vehicle battery in the next three to five years.
'We have achieved in the lab 5,000 to 10,000 charge cycles in a battery's lifetime, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 charging cycles for even the best in class now, and we don’t see any fundamental limit to scaling up our battery technology,' said Li. 'That could be a game changer.'
Lithium-metal batteries hold substantially more energy in the same volume and charge in a fraction of the time compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.
But they're prone to the formation of 'dendrites' – tiny, rigid tree-like structures that speed up battery failure.
Researchers have therefore tried to harness the potential of solid-state, lithium-metal batteries, using a unique BLT-inspired design.
Think of the battery like a BLT sandwich. First comes the bread (the lithium metal anode) followed by lettuce (a coating of graphite). Next, a layer of tomatoes (the first electrolyte) and a layer of bacon (the second electrolyte). Finish it off with another layer of tomatoes and the last piece of bread (the cathode)
WHAT ARE DENDRITES?
Dendrites are tiny, rigid tree-like structures that can grow inside a lithium battery.
Their needle-like projections are called whiskers.
They increase unwanted reactions between the electrolyte and the lithium, speeding up battery failure.
Dendrites and whiskers are holding back the widespread use of lithium metal batteries, which have higher energy density than their commonly used lithium-ion counterparts.
Source: DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
A lithium-metal battery uses lithium in its pure metallic form, rather than lithium compounds used in lithium-ion batteries.
Meanwhile, 'solid-state' just refers to the use of solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion.
'If you want to electrify vehicles, a solid-state battery is the way to go,' said Li, who is a scientific adviser to Adden Energy.
'We set out to commercialise this technology because we do see our technology as unique compared to other solid-state batteries.'
Batteries have three main components – the anode, cathode and electrolyte.
The electrolyte (typically a chemical) separates the anode and cathode and moves the flow of electrical charge between the two.
Lithium-ion batteries move lithium ions from the cathode to the anode during charging.
But when the anode is made of lithium metal, needle-like structures called dendrites form on the surface.
These structures grow like roots into the electrolyte and pierce the barrier separating the anode and cathode, causing the battery potentially catch fire.
Lithium ion batteries contain two electrodes - one made from lithium (cathode) and one from carbon (anode) - submerged in a liquid or paste called an electrolyte. When the battery is charged, electrons that were attached to the ions flow through a circuit, powering a device
To overcome this challenge, Li and his team designed a multi-layer battery that sandwiches different materials of varying stabilities between the anode and cathode.
As previously described in Nature, the design prevents the penetration of lithium dendrites by controlling and containing them.
The battery is layered like so – first comes the bread (the lithium metal anode) followed by lettuce (a coating of graphite).
Next, a layer of tomatoes (the first electrolyte) and a layer of bacon (the second electrolyte) and finally another layer of tomatoes and the last piece of bread (the cathode).
The first electrolyte is more stable with lithium but prone to dendrite penetration, while the second electrolyte is less stable with lithium but appears immune to dendrites.
In this design, dendrites are allowed to grow through the graphite and first electrolyte but are stopped when they reach the second.
In other words, the dendrites grow through the lettuce and tomato but stop at the bacon. The bacon barrier stops the dendrites from pushing through and short-circuiting the battery.
The battery is also self-healing – meaning its chemistry allows it to backfill holes created by dendrites.
'Typically, lithium-metal anodes in other solid-state designs develop dendrites, twig-like growths that can gradually penetrate through the electrolyte to the cathode,' said Ye, who is now CTO of Adden Energy.
'We defeat the growth of dendrites before they can cause damage, by novel structural and material designs.
'As a result, the device can sustain its high performance over a long lifetime. Our recent study shows that this nice feature can also be maintained at scale-up.'
Researchers also stress the importance of being able to help speed up the adoption of eco-friendly EVs in light of the climate crisis.
EVs are generally seen as more eco-friendly than gasoline-powered vehicles, known for their planet-warming emissions.
'Complete electrification of the vehicle fleet is one of the most meaningful steps we can take to fight climate change,' said Fitzhugh, CEO of Adden Energy.
HOW DOES CHARGING A BATTERY WORK?
In their simplest form, batteries are made of three components: a positive electrode, a negative electrode and an electrolyte.
When a battery is charging, lithium ions are extracted from the positive electrode and move through the crystal structure and electrolyte to the negative electrode, where they are stored.
The faster this process occurs, the faster the battery can be charged.
The material a battery is made of can severely restrict this rate.
Graphite is a commonly used material for the negative electrode as it accepts positive ions well and has a high energy density.
In the search for new electrode materials, researchers normally try to make the particles smaller.
However, it’s difficult to make a practical battery with nanoparticles as it creates a lot of unwanted chemical reactions with the electrolyte, so the battery doesn’t last as long, plus it’s expensive to make.
Nieuwe batterij voor elektrische wagens laadt op in 3 minuten en heeft levensduur van 20 jaar: “Dit kan gamechanger zijn”
Een batterij die in amper drie minuten is opgeladen en die ook nog eens twintig jaar meegaat. Welke eigenaar van een elektrische wagen zou daar niet voor staan springen? Het zou over een paar jaar zomaar kunnen. Onderzoekers van de universiteit van Harvard ontwikkelden de technologie daarvoor en de start-up uit Massachusetts heeft nu de licentie beet om ze ook te produceren. Een van hen spreekt van een “mogelijke gamechanger”.
De technologie is ontwikkeld door Xin Li en zijn collega’s van de Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). Li richtte in 2021 samen met William Fitzhugh en Luhan Ye - twee studenten die de batterij mee hielpen ontwikkelen - Adden Energy op, een start-up gevestigd in Waltham in Massachusetts. Hun bedrijf kreeg de licentie én ook nog eens 5,15 miljoen dollar om de batterij op schaal te bouwen voor elektrische wagens. Binnen drie tot vijf jaar willen ze dat voor mekaar krijgen.
De batterij die de onderzoekers van Harvard ontwikkelden is een lithium-metaalbatterij en geen lithium-ion-batterij die je vandaag in de bestaande elektrische wagens terugvindt. Lithium-metaalbatterijen kunnen aanzienlijk meer energie opslaan in hetzelfde volume en laden in een fractie van de tijd op in vergelijking met traditionele lithium-ionbatterijen. Het prototype van de nieuwe batterij presteerde erg goed in het laboratorium. Het haalde oplaadsnelheden van amper drie minuten met meer dan 10.000 cycli voor het op was. “We hebben in het laboratorium 5.000 tot 10.000 laadcycli in de levensduur van een batterij bereikt, vergeleken met 2.000 tot 3.000 laadcycli voor zelfs de beste in zijn klasse nu”, aldus Li. “En we zien geen fundamentele limiet voor het opschalen van onze batterijtechnologie. Dit zou een gamechanger kunnen zijn.”
Het ontwerp van de batterij is geïnspireerd door wat de Amerikanen een “BLT sandwich” noemen. Dat zijn twee sneden brood met daartussen als beleg: spek (bacon), sla (lettuce) en tomaat (tomato). Vertaald naar de batterij: de onderste boterham is de lithium-metaal-anode, de sla is grafiet, de laag tomaten is de eerste elektrolyt, de laag spek is de tweede elektrolyt en de bovenste boterham is de kathode. Die ingewikkelde structuur moet voorkomen dat de levensduur van de batterij verkort wordt door zogenaamde ‘dendrieten’. Dat zijn kleine, harde boomvormige structuren, waarvoor lithium-metaalbatterijen gevoelig zijn en die de werking ervan verstoren.
De huidige lithium-ion-batterijen in elektrische wagens worden minder performant na verloop van tijd en gaan maximaal zeven tot acht jaar mee. De batterij dan vervangen door een nieuwe kost zo veel, dat bestuurders vaak al beter een nieuw elektrisch voertuig zouden kopen. De nieuwe lithium-metaalbatterij kan de levensduur van elektrische wagens verlengen tot zo’n 20 jaar - vergelijkbaar met de levensduur van benzine- en dieselauto’s. De batterij moet al die tijd niet worden vervangen. Dit zou een wereld van verschil kunnen maken.
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12-09-2022
Scientists Successfully Sent A Particle Back in Time Using A Quantum Computer
Scientists Successfully Sent A Particle Back in Time Using A Quantum Computer
Time travel was fiction before Einstein, but his calculations took us into the quantum world and we were introduced to a more complex picture of time. Einstein’s equations permitted time travel into the past, as Kurt Gödel discovered. The issue? None of the hypothesized time travel systems were ever physically feasible.
So, before sending a particle back through time, Argonne National Laboratory, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and ETH Zurich scientists wondered, “Why stick to physical grounds?
Many physics laws treat the future and the past as continuous. A closed system progresses from order to disorder according to the second rule of thermodynamics (or entropy). If you scramble an egg to produce an omelet, you’ve added a lot of chaos to the closed system that was the egg.
The arrow of time is an essential consequence of the second law. A process that develops entropy, like whisking an egg, is irreversible. An omelet won’t turn back into an egg, and billiard balls won’t spontaneously reassemble a triangle. Entropy, like an arrow, goes in one direction, and we see it as time.
The second rule of thermodynamics holds us captive, but an international team of scientists sought to test it in the quantum world. Since nature cannot do such a test, scientists utilized an IBM quantum computer.
Ordinary computers, such as the one you’re reading this on, work with bits of data. A bit is either a 1 or a 0. A qubit is a fundamental unit of information used by quantum computers. A qubit may be both a 1 and a 0, allowing the system to process data considerably quicker.
The researchers used qubits to simulate subatomic particles in a four-step experiment. They entangled the qubits first, such that whatever occurred to one affected the others. Then they utilized microwave radio pulses to evolve the quantum computer’s initial order into a more sophisticated state.
A specific algorithm changes the quantum computer to bring order out of chaos. They’re zapped by another microwave pulse, but this time they go back to their old selves. That is, they are de-aged by a millionth of a second.
Argonne National Laboratory researcher Valerii M. Vinokur compares it to pushing against a pond’s waves to restore them to their source.
Success was not guaranteed since quantum mechanics is about probability. In a two-qubit quantum computer, however, the algorithm accomplished a time leap 85 percent of the time. With three qubits, the success rate decreased to around 50%, which the scientists blamed on flaws in current quantum computers.
The results are exciting but don’t go buying flux capacitors just yet. This experiment also illustrates that manipulating even a simulated particle in time is difficult. Our ability to produce such an external force to influence even one quantum wave is limited.
To time-reverse even ONE quantum particle is impossible for nature alone, says research author Vinokur. “The system comprising two particles is even more irreversible, let alone the eggs — comprising billions of particles — we break to prepare an omelette.”
A press release from the Department of Energy notes that the “timeline required for [an external force] to spontaneously appear and properly manipulate the quantum waves” to appear in nature and unscramble an egg “would extend longer than that of the universe itself.” In other words, this tech specifically binds to quantum computation.
But the study isn’t just a high-tech exercise. While the approach won’t help us build real-world time machines, it will improve quantum computation.
Einstein’s equations don’t prohibit time travel, but they make it a difficult task, as Kurt Gödel demonstrated.
A battery powered by nuclear waste could keep a spaceship or hospital operating for 28,000 years without needing to be recharged or replaced, its developers claim.
The radioactive battery is 'completely safe' for humans, according to California-based Nano Diamond Battery (NDB), who say it will 'change the world'.
The firm hopes to start selling the battery to commercial partners, including space agencies for long duration missions, within the next two years.
NDB are also working on a consumer version that could run a smartphone or electric car for up to a decade without requiring a charge.
No details on pricing have been revealed by the technology startup, who say it is still in development phase.
A battery powered by nuclear waste could keep a spaceship or hospital operating for 28,000 years without needing to be recharged or replaced, its developers claim
DIAMOND NUCLEAR VOLTAIC (DNV) ENERGY GENERATION
Diamond Nuclear Voltaic (DNV) is a technology that converts nuclear waste into electricity.
The microscopic diamonds have 'extremely good head conductance'.
They act to move heat away from the radioactive isotopes so quickly the transaction generates electricity.
This generates a small output of power but consistently for a very long period of time - thousands of years.
Several of these units are stacked, increasing overall power output.
This kind of arrangement improves the overall efficiency of the system and provides a multi layer safety shield.
The technology involves combining radioactive isotopes taken from nuclear waste with layers of panelled nano diamonds stacked in a battery cell.
Extremely good heat conductance of the microscopic diamonds acts to move heat away from the radioactive isotopes so quickly the transaction generates electricity.
It is based on a technology called diamond nuclear voltaic (DNV) presented by scientists in 2016 from the University of Bristol using waste graphite blocks.
This technology is best suited for devices that need a slow trickle of electricity, consistently over a long period of time due to low energy production.
The NDB system is able to work in consumer products by adding layers and layers of diamonds and radioactive waste panels to increase the total energy output.
'This battery has two different merits,' NDB CEO Nima Golsharifi told Future Net Zero.
'One is that it uses nuclear waste and converts it into something good. And the second is that it runs for a much longer time than the current batteries.'
The firm has also worked to ensure the material is safe and people can't easily access the radioactive material inside the stacked power cells.
'The DNV stacks along with the source are coated with a layer of poly-crystalline diamond, which is known for being the most thermally conductive material,' a spokesperson said.
This material 'also has the ability to contain the radiation within the device and is the hardest material,' up 12 times tougher than stainless steel.
'This makes our product extremely tough and tamperproof.'
Use cases include having a watch with a tiny NDB battery that could be passed down from generation to generation without ever having to replace the power supply.
Diamond batteries may one day power satellites, providing them with enough spare energy to de-orbit at the end of their life, or probes heading into deep space for thousands of years.
'The human desire to explore space is fuelled by the excitement of exploring the unknown,' NDB said on their website.
Future devices can also be used to power a smartphone or a laptop, each containing a miniature power generator that will last as long as the device itself - with no need to ever charge, or an electric car that could run for thousands of miles without a charge
'Recent advances in space technology and the rise of the first manned electric aircrafts have led to increasing demand on their battery systems, hindered by concerns regarding longevity and safety.
'NDB can be utilized to power drones, electric aircrafts, space rovers and stations whilst allowing for longer activity.'
Future devices can also be used to power a smartphone or a laptop, each containing a miniature power generator that will last as long as the device itself - with no need to ever charge.
'In situ medical devices and implantable such as hearing aids and pacemakers respectively can benefit from long battery life in a smaller package with added benefit of safety and longevity,' the firm added.
WHAT ARE HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS?
Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to power a battery and motor by mixing hydrogen and oxygen in specially treated plates, which are combined to form the fuel cell stack.
Fuel cell stacks and batteries have allowed engineers to significantly shrink these components to even fit neatly inside a family car, although they are also commonly used to fuel buses and other larger vehicles.
Trains and aeroplanes are also being adapted to run on hydrogen fuel, for example.
Oxygen is collected from the air through intakes, usually in the grille, and hydrogen is stored in aluminium-lined fuel tanks, which automatically seal in an accident to prevent leaks.
These ingredients are fused, releasing usable electricity and water as by-products and making the technology one of the quietest and most environmentally friendly available.
Reducing the amount of platinum used in the stack has made fuel cells less expensive, but the use of the rare metal has restricted the spread of their use.
Recent research has suggested hydrogen fuel cell cars could one day challenge electric cars in the race for pollution-free roads, but only if more stations are built to fuel them.
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Scientists Turn Nuclear Waste Into Diamond Batteries That Could Last For Thousands Of Years
Scientists Turn Nuclear Waste Into Diamond Batteries That Could Last For Thousands Of Years
We have an unquenchable energy need. When we need to run anything that cannot be plugged in, electricity will have to come from a battery, and the quest for a better battery is being launched in laboratories around the globe. Hold that thought for a moment.
Nuclear waste is radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants that no one wants to be kept near their houses or even carried through their communities. The ugly substance is poisonous and deadly, takes thousands of years to disintegrate completely, and we continue to produce more of it.
Now, a California-based business, NDB, says it can resolve both of these issues. They claim to have built a self-powered battery made entirely of radioactive waste that has a life expectancy of 28,000 years, making it ideal for your future electric car or iPhone 1.6 x 104.
Rather than storing energy generated elsewhere, the battery generates its own charge. It is constructed of two kinds of nano-diamonds, which makes it almost crash-proof when used in vehicles or other moving things. Additionally, the business claims that its battery is safe since it emits less radiation than the human body.
NDB has already created a proof of concept and intends to construct its first commercial prototype once its laboratories restart operations after the COVID outbreak(which should be soon).
The nuclear waste from which NDB intends to manufacture its batteries consists of reactor components that have become radioactive as a result of exposure to nuclear power plant fuel rods.
While this is not considered high-grade nuclear waste—that would be spent fuel—it is nonetheless very poisonous, and a nuclear plant generates a lot of it. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that the "core of a typical graphite-moderated reactor" may contain up to 2000 tonnes of graphite. (A tonne is equal to one metric tonne, or about 2,205 pounds.)
Carbon-14 is a radioisotope found in graphite. It is the same radioisotope used by archaeologists for carbon dating. It has a half-life of 5,730 years and ultimately decays into nitrogen 14, an anti-neutrino, and a beta decay electron, the charge of which piqued NDB's curiosity as a possible source of electricity.
NDB cleanses graphite and then converts it to microscopic diamonds. The business claims that by using current technology, they've engineered their little carbon-14 diamonds to generate a large quantity of electricity. Diamonds also operate as a semiconductor, absorbing energy and dispersing it via a heat sink.
However, since they are still radioactive, NDB encases the miniature nuclear power plants in other low-cost, non-radioactive carbon-12 diamonds. These glistening lab-created shells provide diamond-hard protection while also containing the carbon-14 diamonds' radiation.
NDA intends to manufacture batteries in a variety of common and unique sizes, including AA, AAA, 18650, and 2170. Each battery will feature many stacked diamond layers, as well as a tiny circuit board and a supercapacitor for energy collection, storage, and discharge. The ultimate result, the business claims, is a battery that will last an extremely long period.
According to NDB, a battery may live up to 28,000 years when utilized in a low-power setting, such as a satellite sensor. They predict a usable life of 90 years as a car battery, much longer than anyone vehicle would last—the business believes that one battery could theoretically power one pair of wheels after another. For consumer gadgets like phones and tablets, the firm estimates that a battery will last around nine years.
“Think of it in an iPhone,” NDB’s Neel Naicker tells New Atlas. "With the same size battery, it would charge it five times an hour from zero to full. Imagine that. Imagine a world where you wouldn’t have to charge your battery at all for the day. Now imagine for the week, for the month… How about for decades? That’s what we’re able to do with this technology.”
NDB expects commercialising a low-power version in a few of years, followed by a high-power version in roughly five years. If all goes according to plan, NDB's technology will represent a significant step forward in terms of delivering low-cost, long-term energy to the world's electronics and cars.
The company says, “We can start at the nanoscale and go up to power satellites, locomotives.”
Additionally, the business anticipates that its batteries will be comparably priced to existing batteries, including lithium-ion, and maybe much cheaper after they are produced of nuclear waste may even pay the company to take care of their poisonous issue.
The garbage of one enterprise becomes the diamonds of another.
The quadrupedal robots are well suited for repetitive tasks.
Two Ghost Robotics Vision 60 Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Q-UGVs) pose for a picture at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., July 28, 2022. (Image credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker)
Man's new best friend is coming to the U.S. Space Force.-
The Space Force has conducted a demonstration using dog-like quadruped unmanned ground vehicles (Q-UGVs) for security patrols and other repetitive tasks. The demonstration used at least two Vision 60 Q-UGVs, or "robot dogs", built by Ghost Robotics and took place at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on July 27 and 28.
According to a statement(opens in new tab) from the Department of Defense, Space Launch Delta 45 will use the robot dogs for "damage assessments and patrol to save significant man hours." The unit is responsible for all space launch operations from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.
Images from the demonstration show personnel operating the robots with a hand controller inside a hangar. The Ghost Robotics Vision 60 Q-UGVs can be equipped with a wide variety of optical and acoustic sensors, enabling them to serve as automated "eyes and ears" around sensitive installations such as a Space Force base. The robots can be operated either autonomously or by a human controller and can even respond to voice commands.
U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Andrew Cuccia, chief innovation officer, operates a Ghost Robotics, Vision 60 Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) with a handheld controller at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (Image credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker)
The dog-like robots can also serve as miniaturized communications nodes, carrying antennas to quickly extend networks beyond existing infrastructure or in locations where no such infrastructure exists.
A Ghost Robotics, Vision 60 Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) is operated during a demo for 45th Security Forces Squadron at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., July 28, 2022. (Image credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker)
The robots have been previously tested by the U.S. Air Force for perimeter defense tasks and as part of a large test of the service's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) data-sharing network. In that 2020 test, robot dogs at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada "provided real-time strike targeting data to USAF operators" in Florida using Starlink satellite links, then-CEO of Ghost Robotics Jiren Parikh told The War Zone(opens in new tab).
The Ghost Robotics Q-UGVs are designed to withstand water and weather, and were recently demonstrated with a tail-like payload enabling them to travel underwater(opens in new tab).
Aside from their military applications, the robot dogs are also being eyed for uses in emergency management, public safety and industrial inspection.
Follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley(opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom(opens in new tab)or onFacebook(opens in new tab).
This is the first instance when stem cells have been used to make advanced-stage embryos
The researchers have developed a special type of incubator that made this possible
The technology could one day help provide cells, tissues, or even organs for transplantation.
In a major breakthrough, scientists in Israel have made mouse embryos without using sperm or egg cells but only stem cells taken from the skin, The Times of Israel has reported. These embryos have beating hearts as well as brain structures.
The discovery of stem cells and their ability to take the form of any cell type in the body has opened many doors in the field of medicine. From curing baldness to curing HIV, stem cells can be used everywhere.
However, sourcing stem cells has raised major ethical concerns. Found abundantly in the embryonic stages of cell growth, harvesting these cells requires the embryo to be destroyed before it is implanted in the female womb. So, researchers have been looking for an alternative way to source them and have even been successful in their search.
Making stem cells more "naive"
Studies have shown that stem cells are also present in small numbers in organs like the skin, which constantly undergoes renewal throughout our life. The process requires cells of different types, and that's where the multi-potency of stem cells comes in handy.
Jacob Hanna, a professor at the Molecular Genetics Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, however, developed a method that would take back such stem cells to a previous step, where they are more "naive". In a previous study, Hanna and his team demonstrated that their technology could make human stem cells so "naive" that they could even be injected into mice, where they would function as if they were mice's own.
In separate work, Hanna's team also developed a special incubator that has all the necessary conditions for the growth of an embryo. In 2021, a group of researchers grew 250 mouse embryos into fetuses with fully formed organs inside this artificial womb. What Hanna and his team wanted to know was if the incubator could also grow embryos that were sourced from stem cells.
Embryos from stem cells
The researchers then used naive stem cells that had been cultured for years in a petri dish in the lab. Before placing them into the special incubator, these cells were divided into three groups. While one was left untreated to grow into embryonic stem cells, the other two were pretreated for a period of 48 hours to express genes that were master regulators of either the placenta or yolk sac.
The cells were once again mixed together in the incubator and allowed to grow. While most failed to develop properly, 0.5 percent, or 50 of 10,000 cells, went on to become spheres, which then took the elongated form of embryos.
The researchers had labeled each group of cells differently, so they could the growth of the placenta and yolk sac outside the embryo. At day 8.5, nearly half of the normal gestation of 20 days in mice, these embryos displayed early organs such as the beating heart, blood stem cell circulation, a brain with well-shaped folds, a neural tube,, and an intestinal tract, a university press release said.
This is the first instance of a research group using stem cells to make advanced embryos, Hanna told the Times of Israel. "Our next challenge is to understand how stem cells know what to do – how they self-assemble into organs and find their way to their assigned spots inside an embryo."
Apart from helping reduce the use of animals in stem cell research, the techniques developed in his lab could one day also help become a reliable source of cells, tissues, and organs for transplantation.
The findings of the study were published in the journal Cell.
Abstract
In vitro cultured stem cells with distinct developmental capacities can contribute to embryonic or extra-embryonic tissues after microinjection into pre-implantation mammalian embryos. However, whether cultured stem cells can independently give rise to entire gastrulating embryo-like structures with embryonic and extra-embryonic compartments, remains unknown. Here we adapt a recently established platform for prolonged ex utero growth of natural embryos, to generate mouse post-gastrulation synthetic whole embryo models (sEmbryos), with both embryonic and extra-embryonic compartments, starting solely from naïve ESCs. This was achieved by co-aggregating non-transduced ESCs, with naïve ESCs transiently expressing Cdx2- and Gata4- to promote their priming towards trophectoderm and primitive endoderm lineages, respectively. sEmbryos adequately accomplish gastrulation, advance through key developmental milestones, and develop organ progenitors within complex extra-embryonic compartments similar to E8.5 stage mouse embryos. Our findings highlight the plastic potential of naïve pluripotent cells to self-organize and functionally reconstitute and model the entire mammalian embryo beyond gastrulation.
The research was conducted by DeepMind and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), which used the AlphaFold AI system to predict a protein’s 3D structure.
AlphaFold DB has identified over 200 million structures (Provider: AlphaFold)
The AlphaFold Protein Structure Database – which is freely available to the scientific community – has been expanded from nearly one million protein structures to more than 200 million structures, covering almost every organism on Earth that has had its genome sequenced.
The expansion includes predicted shapes for the widest possible range of species, including plants, bacteria, animals, and other organisms, opening up new avenues of research across the life sciences.
Demis Hassabis, founder and CEO of DeepMind, said: ‘We’ve been amazed by the rate at which AlphaFold has already become an essential tool for hundreds of thousands of scientists in labs and universities across the world.
‘From fighting disease to tackling plastic pollution, AlphaFold has already enabled incredible impact on some of our biggest global challenges.
‘Our hope is that this expanded database will aid countless more scientists in their important work and open up completely new avenues of scientific discovery.’
Being able to predict a protein’s structure gives scientists a better understanding of what it does and how it works (Provider: AlphaFold)
At the time, it demonstrated that it could accurately predict the shape of a protein, at scale and in minutes, to atomic accuracy.
The database works like an internet search for protein structures by providing instant access to predicted models.
This cuts down the time it takes for scientists to learn more about the likely shapes of the proteins they are researching, speeding up experimental work.
Earlier predictions have already helped scientists in their quest to create an effective malaria vaccine.
Scientists at the University of Oxford and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have been researching a protein called Pfs48/45, which is one of the most promising candidates for inclusion in a transmission-blocking malaria vaccine.
Existing technology alone did not allow them to fully understand the structure of the protein in order to see where the most effective transmission-blocking antibodies bind across its surface.
Matthew Higgins, professor of Molecular Parasitology and co-author of that study, said: ‘By combining AlphaFold models with our experimental information from crystallography, we could reveal the structure of Pfs48/45, understand its dynamics and show where transmission-blocking antibodies bind.
‘This insight will now be used to design improved vaccines which induce the most potent transmission-blocking antibodies.’
DeepMind and EMBL-EBI said they will continue to refresh the database periodically, with the aim of improving features and functionality.
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30-07-2022
When asking an AI to show the last selfie ever taken it produced a creepy scene
When asking an AI to show the last selfie ever taken it produced a creepy scene
DALL-E AI, developed by OpenAI, is a new system that can produce full images when fed natural language descriptions and TikToker Robot Overlords simply asked it to 'show the last selfie ever taken.'
It produced chilling scenes of bombs dropping and catastrophic weather, along with cities burning and even zombies. Each image shows a person holding a phone in front of their face and behind them is the world coming to an end, reports Dailymail.
Asking an AI to show the last selfie ever taken
Here are a few more eerie images.
Asking an AI to show the last selfie ever taken in the apocalypse
Asking AI how it will take over the world
Asking an AI how the End of the universe will look like
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27-07-2022
Researchers Turn Dead Spiders Into 'Necrobotic' Grippers
Researchers Turn Dead Spiders Into 'Necrobotic' Grippers
See how engineers at Rice University transformed wolf spiders into necrobots.
Amanda Kooser
Researchers inserted a needle into a dead spider to operate its legs like a gripper.
Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET
Grippers made from dead spiders. For some, this might sound like a horror movie. For others, it's a fascinating mashup of robotics and the natural world.
A team of engineers at Rice University worked out how to reanimate (after a fashion) the legs of dead spiders. This isn't a Frankenstein's monster sort of situation. The researchers used a needle and air to activate the spider legs, mimicking how the appendages work in living spiders. Because the spiders are dead and are used in a robotic fashion, the engineers call this "necrobotics."
Mechanical engineering graduate student Faye Yap is the lead author of a paper on the spider project published in the journal Advanced Science this week. "It happens to be the case that the spider, after it's deceased, is the perfect architecture for small scale, naturally derived grippers," said co-author Daniel Preston in a Rice statement on Monday.
It's one thing to read about this project and another to see it in action. Fortunately (or not depending on how you feel about all this), Rice delivered a video that explains the process for creating the necrobots and shows how it works.
When alive, spiders use blood to extend and contract their legs through a hydraulic process. The researchers euthanized wolf spiders, inserted a needle into the chamber of the body that controls the legs, sealed it with glue and then used air to trigger the opening and closing of the legs.
Enlarge ImageThe necrobots are able to grip and hold more than their own weight.
Preston Innovation Laboratory/Rice University
The gripper spiders were able to lift more than their own body weight, including another spider and small objects like parts on a circuit board.
The team sees some advantages to necrobotic spiders. The little grippers can grab irregular objects, blend into their environment and also biodegrade over time. The researchers hope to try this method out with smaller spiders. They also plan to work out how to trigger the legs individually.
As this work advances, I'm looking forward to a new type of Transformers. Necrobots, reach out!
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From the robo-surgeon that killed its patient to the driverless car that ran over a pedestrian: Worst robotic accidents in history - after chess robot breaks seven-year-old boy's finger in Russia
From the robo-surgeon that killed its patient to the driverless car that ran over a pedestrian: Worst robotic accidents in history - after chess robot breaks seven-year-old boy's finger in Russia
Shocking footage emerged of a chess-playing robot breaking a child's finger during a chess match in Russia
A spokesperson from Russian Chess Federation said the boy violated 'safety rules' by making a move too soon
But other incidents involving robots and humans in the past have had more tragic outcomes
MailOnline delves into the worst robotic accidents in history including a robo-surgeon that killed its patient
Shocking footage emerged at the weekend of a chess-playing robot breaking a child's finger during a match in Russia.
The robot grabbed the seven-year-old boy's finger at the Moscow Open last week because it was confused by his overly-quick movements, Russian media outlets reported.
Sergey Lazarev, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, said the child had violated 'certain safety rules' by making a move too soon.
Lazarev said that the machine had been hired for many previous events without any problems, and that the incident was an 'extremely rare case'.
Christopher Atkeson, a robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon University, told MailOnline: 'Robots have limited sensing and thus limited awareness of what is going on around them.
'I suspect the chess robot did not have ears, and that its vision system was blind to anything other than chess boards and pieces.'
Although the young chess player only suffered a broken finger, in other accidents involving robots the injured party has not always been as lucky.
MailOnline has taken a look at some of the disastrous robotic failures, from the robo-surgeon that killed its patient to the driverless car that hit a pedestrian.
A chess-playing robot (pictured) broke a child's finger during an international tournament in Moscow last week, with the incident being captured in CCTV footage
CHINESE WORKER SKEWERED - WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
One of the most gruesome robo-accidents involved a 49-year-old Chinese factory worker, known as Zhou, back in December 2018.
Zhou was hit by a rogue robot that collapsed suddenly, impaling him with 10 sharp steel rods in the arm and chest, each one foot long.
The spikes, which were part of the robotic arm, speared through the worker's body when the robot collapsed during a night shift.
Four of them were stuck in his right arm, one in his right shoulder, one in his chest and four in his right forearm, reported People's Daily Online at the time.
Miraculously, Zhou survived after surgeons removed the rods from his body and was in stable condition, according to the Xiangya Hospital in Changsha.
Mr Zhou (pictured), 49, was hit by part of a robot that collapsed in China. Four of them were stuck in his right arm, one in his right shoulder, one in his chest and four in his right forearm
In March 2018, Elaine Herzberg was fatally struck by a prototype self-driving car from ridesharing firm Uber.
Herzberg, 49, was pushing a bicycle across a four-lane road in Tempe, Arizona, when she was struck by the vehicle, which was operating in self-drive mode with a human safety backup driver sitting in the driving seat.
The Uber engineer in the vehicle, Rafaela Vasquez, was watching videos on her phone, according to reports at the time.
Herzberg was taken to the local hospital where she died of her injuries – marking the first recorded case of a pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car.
This photo from video from a mounted camera provided by the Tempe Police Department shows an interior view moments before the Uber vehicle hit a woman in Tempe, Arizona, in March 2018
Vasquez was later charged with negligent homicide, while Uber was found not criminally responsible for the accident.
The ridesharing giant had been testing self-driving vehicles in four North American cities – Tempe, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Toronto – but these tests were suspended following the accident.
In 2020, Uber sold off its self-driving car division, spelling an end to its attempts to develop autonomous driving systems.
BOTCHED ROBO-SURGERY
In February 2015, father-of-three and retired music teacher Stephen Pettitt underwent robotic surgery for Mitral valve disease at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne.
The operation was conducted by surgeon Sukumaran Nair using the Da Vinci surgical robot, which consists of a surgeon's console and interactive robotic arms controlled from the console.
Details of the botched six-hour procedure include the surgical team, Mr Nair and assisting surgeon Thasee Pillay, shouting at one another.
The operation using the Da Vinci robot (file image) was the first of its kind conducted in the UK
Communication was difficult because of the 'tinny' sound quality coming from the robot console being operated by Nair, it was revealed.
The machine also knocked a theatre nurse and destroyed the patient's stitches, Newcastle Coroner's Court later heard.
Mr Nair, who trained in India and London and previously worked at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire, said he now works in Scotland and no longer does robotic surgery.
Sadly, Mr Pettitt had a 98 to 99 per cent chance of living had the operation not been carried out using a robot.
VW WORKER CRUSHED
In June 2015, a 22-year-old man was killed by a robotic arm at a Volkswagen plant in Baunatal, Germany.
The robotic arm intended to lift machine parts but reportedly grabbed him and crushed him against a large metal plate.
The man suffered severe injuries to his chest in the incident and resuscitated at the scene, but died from his injuries in hospital.
A Volkswagen spokesman said initial conclusions indicated human error was to blame rather than a malfunction with the robot, which can be programmed to perform various tasks in the assembly process.
In June 2015, a 22-year-old man was killed by a robotic arm at a Volkswagen plant in Baunatal, Germany. The robotic arm intended to lift machine parts but reportedly grabbed him and crushed him against a large metal plate
JAPAN'S FIRST ROBO-CASUALTY
In July 1981, Japanese maintenance worker Kenji Urada died while checking a malfunctioning hydraulic robot at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant in Akashi.
Urada, 37, had jumped over a safety barrier that was designed to shut down power to the machine when open, but he reportedly started the robot accidentally.
He was pinned by the robot's arm against another machine before tragically being crushed to death.
Other workers in the factory were unable to stop the machine as they didn't know how to operate it.
Urada was the first human killed by a robot in Japan – but not the first in the world.
THE FIRST ROBOT DEATH
The first person to be killed by a robot was Robert Williams, an American factory worker, in Flat Rock, Michigan back in January 1979.
Williams, 25, was killed instantly when he was struck in the head by an industrial robot arm designed to retrieve objects from storage shelves.
The first person to be killed by a robot was Robert Williams while working at the Ford Motor Company Flat Rock Casting Plant (pictured here in 1973)
His body remained in the shelf for 30 minutes until it was discovered by workers who were concerned about his disappearance, according to reports.
His family successfully sued the manufacturers of the robot, Litton Industries, and were awarded $10 million in damages.
Wayne County Circuit Court concluded that there were not enough safety measures in place to prevent such an accident from happening.
SELF-DRIVING TESLA SLAMS INTO TRACTOR
A former Navy SEAL became the first person to die at the wheel of a self-driving car after it ploughed into a tractor trailer on a freeway in Williston, Florida, in May 2016.
Joshua Brown, 40, was riding in his computer-guided Tesla Model S on autopilot mode when it travelled underneath the low-hanging trailer crossing his path on US Highway 27A, shearing off the car's roof completely.
By the time firefighters arrived, the wreckage of the Tesla had come to rest in a nearby yard hundreds of feet from the crash site, assistant chief Danny Wallace of the Williston Fire Department said.
Tesla said its autopilot system failed to detect the truck because its white colour was similar to that of the bright sky, adding that the driver also made no attempt to hit the brakes.
Elon Musk's company confirmed the man's 'tragic' death, but defended its vehicles, saying they were safer than other cars.
Joshua Brown, 40, was riding in his computer-guided Tesla Model S on autopilot mode when it travelled underneath the low-hanging trailer crossing his path on US Highway 27A, shearing off its roof completely
Brown was killed as the car drove underneath the low-hanging trailer at 74mph, ripping the roof off before smashing through a fence and hitting an electrical pole. Tesla said its autopilot system failed to detect the truck because its white colour was similar to that of the bright sky, adding that the driver also made no attempt to hit the brakes
CRUSHED BY A ROBOT ARM
On July 7 2015, a grandmother was crushed to death when she became trapped by a piece of machinery that should not have entered into the area in which she was working.
Wanda Holbrook was 57 at the time of the incident, and had been working at car manufacturing facility Ventra Ionia Main in Michigan, USA for 12 years.
She was working on the production line when a robotic arm took her by surprise by entering the section in which she was stationed.
The arm hit and crushed her head against a trailer hitch assembly it was working on, a wrongful death lawsuit states.
According to The Callahan Law Firm, widower Bill Holbrook said his wife's head injuries were so severe that the funeral home recommended a closed casket.
On July 7 2015, a grandmother was crushed to death when she became trapped by a piece of machinery that should not have entered into the area in which she was working at at car manufacturing facility Ventra Ionia Main in Michigan, USA (pictured)
Wanda Holbrook was 57 at the time of the incident, and had been working at the car manufacturing facility for 12 years
STABBED BY WELDING ROBOT
The first person killed by a robot in India is thought to be 24-year-old Ramji Lal, who was stabbed to death by a robotic welding machine, also in July 2015.
Lal was reportedly adjusting a metal sheet at car parts manufacturer SKH Metals in Manesar, Gurgaon that was being welded by the machine when he was stabbed by one of its arms.
A colleague told the Times of India: 'The robot is pre-programmed to weld metal sheets it lifts.
'One such sheet got dislodged and Lal reached from behind the machine to adjust it.
'This was when welding sticks attached to the pre-programmed device pierced Lal's abdomen.'
The first person killed by a robot in India is thought to be 24-year-old Ramji Lal, who was stabbed to death by a robotic welding machine, also in July 2015. Lal was reportedly adjusting a metal sheet at car parts manufacturer SKH Metals in Manesar, Gurgaon that was being welded by the machine when he was stabbed by one of its arms (stock image)
AMAZON ROBOT PUNCTURES BEAR REPELLENT CAN
In 2018, a robot accidentally punctured a can of bear repellent at an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey, hospitalising 24 workers.
The nine-ounce aerosol can contained concentrated capsaicin - the active component found in chilli peppers that makes your mouth feel hot.
Many of the workers experienced trouble breathing and said their throats and eyes burned as a result of the fumes from the pepper spray.
One worker from the Robbinsville-based warehouse was in critical condition and was sent to the ICU at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, while another 30 were treated at the scene.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, issued a statement after the incident saying: 'Amazon's automated robots put humans in life-threatening danger today, the effects of which could be catastrophic and the long-term effects for 80+ workers are unknown,
'The richest company in the world cannot continue to be let off the hook for putting hard working people's lives at risk.'
In 2018, a robot accidentally punctured a can of bear repellent at an Amazon facility in New Jersey, hospitalising 24 workers
One worker from the Robbinsville-based warehouse was in critical condition and was sent to the ICU at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, while another 30 were treated at the scene (pictured)
Josh Bongard, a robotics professor at the University of Vermont, told MailOnline: 'Robots are kind of the opposite of people. They're good at things we’re bad at, and vice versa.
'The good news in all this is that robots will likely kill many fewer people, than people do. Especially here in the US.'
Professor Bongard also said it's 'really, really hard' to train robots to avoid such accidents.
'Our best hope at the moment for deploying safe robots is to put them in places where there are few people, like autonomous cars restricted to special lanes on highways.'
WHY ARE PEOPLE SO WORRIED ABOUT ROBOTS AND AI?
It is an issue troubling some of the greatest minds in the world at the moment, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk described AI as our 'biggest existential threat' and likened its development as 'summoning the demon'.
He believes super intelligent machines could use humans as pets.
Professor Stephen Hawking said it is a 'near certainty' that a major technological disaster will threaten humanity in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years.
They could steal jobs
More than 60 percent of people fear that robots will lead to there being fewer jobs in the next ten years, according to a 2016 YouGov survey.
And 27 percent predict that it will decrease the number of jobs 'a lot' with previous research suggesting admin and service sector workers will be the hardest hit.
As well as posing a threat to our jobs, other experts believe AI could 'go rogue' and become too complex for scientists to understand.
A quarter of the respondents predicted robots will become part of everyday life in just 11 to 20 years, with 18 percent predicting this will happen within the next decade.
They could 'go rogue'
Computer scientist Professor Michael Wooldridge said AI machines could become so intricate that engineers don't fully understand how they work.
If experts don't understand how AI algorithms function, they won't be able to predict when they fail.
This means driverless cars or intelligent robots could make unpredictable 'out of character' decisions during critical moments, which could put people in danger.
For instance, the AI behind a driverless car could choose to swerve into pedestrians or crash into barriers instead of deciding to drive sensibly.
They could wipe out humanity
Some people believe AI will wipe out humans completely.
'Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,' DeepMind's Shane Legg said in a recent interview.
He singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the 'number one risk for this century'.
Musk warned that AI poses more of a threat to humanity than North Korea.
'If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea,' the 46-year-old wrote on Twitter.
'Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.'
Musk has consistently advocated for governments and private institutions to apply regulations on AI technology.
He has argued that controls are necessary in order protect machines from advancing out of human control.
When chess robots go bad: AI player grabs a seven-year-old boy and BREAKS his finger during tournament in Russia
A chess-playing robot broke a child's finger during a tournament in Russia last week, with the incident being captured in CCTV footage.
The robot grabbed the seven-year-old boy's finger because it was confused by his overly-quick movements, Russian media outlets reported, quoting the President of the Moscow Chess Federation - who seemingly blamed the child.
'The robot broke the child's finger - this, of course, is bad,' Sergey Lazarev told Russia's TASS news agency, while distancing his organisation from the robot.
The incident occurred at the Moscow Open on July 19. Lazarev said that the federation had rented the robot for the event, which ran from July 13 to 21.
Lazarev said that the machine had been hired for many previous events without incident, saying the boy went to move a piece too quickly after making a move.
A chess-playing robot (pictured) broke a child's finger during an international tournament in Moscow last week, with the incident being captured in CCTV footage
Captured by a camera over the boy's shoulder, the video starts by showing the robot as it picks up a piece from the board and drops it into a box to the side - used to contain the discarded pieces from the game
'The robot was rented by us, it has been exhibited in many places, for a long time, with specialists. Apparently, the operators overlooked it,' Lazarev said.
'The child made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried , the robot grabbed him. We have nothing to do with the robot.'
Video of the incident was published by the Baza Telegram channel, who said the boy's name was Christopher. Baza said he was among the 30 best chess players in Moscow in the under-nine age group category.
According to The Guardian, Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, went even further in blaming the boy.
'There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realise he first had to wait,' The Guardian quoted Smagin as saying. 'This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall.'
The footage shows the robot - which consists of a single mechanical arm with multiple joints and a 'hand' - was in the middle of a table and surrounded by three different chess boards. It's AI can reportedly play three matches at the same time.
Captured by a camera over the boy's shoulder, the video starts by showing the robot as it picks up a piece from the board and drops it into a box to the side - used to contain the discarded pieces from the game.
As it does so, the young boy reaches to make his next move. However, the robot appears to mistake the boy's finger for a chess piece, and grabs that instead.
Upon grabbing the boy's finger, the mechanical arms freezes in place, trapping the boy who begins to panic. Several people standing around the table rush in to help him, and after a few seconds are able to free him from the robot's grip
Pictured: The boy is taken away by adults who were standing around the table. Russian chess officials said the machine had been hired for many previous events without incident, saying the boy went to move a piece too quickly after making a move
Upon grabbing the boy's finger, the mechanical arms freezes in place, trapping the boy who begins to panic. Several people standing around the table rush in to help him, and after a few seconds are able to free him from the robot's grip.
Lazarev said in his statement that the boy was able to return to the tournament the following day in a case, and finished the tournament.
However, he told TASS that the boy's parents had contacted the public prosecutor's office about the incident, and that his organisation had been contacted by Moskomsport - the Department of Sport for the Russian capital.
He offered to help the family 'in any way we can,' and warned that the operators of the robot were going to have to 'think about strengthening protection so that this situation does not happen again.'
Smagin told RIA Novosti that the incident was a 'concidence' and said the robot is 'absolutely safe,' The Guardian reported.
'It has performed at many opens. Apparently, children need to be warned. It happens,' Smagin said - calling the robot 'unique'.
Imagine an all-electric drone with zero emissions and no noise.
It could venture anywhere — practically undetected — and be used for a variety of applications from search and rescue to military operations.
That vision is now here, and it runs on ion propulsion.
Last month, a Florida-based tech startup called Undefined Technologies unveiled the new aesthetic design of its silent eVTOL drone, called Silent Ventus, which is powered by ion propulsion, according to a press release by the firm.
A sustainable and less noisy urban environment
“Silent Ventus is a vivid example of our intent of creating a sustainable, progressive, and less-noisy urban environment,” said Tomas Pribanic, Founder and CEO of Undefined Technologies, in the statement. “The design brings us closer to our final product and enables us to showcase the dual-use of our technology.”
The concept vehicle uses proprietary technology to fully activate the ion cloud surrounding the craft. This allows the drone to generate high levels of ion thrust in atmospheric air, and take flight in near-silence.
A major milestone for all-electric drones
Development of the drone has been ongoing for a while now. In December of 2021, the drone completed a major milestone. It undertook a 2-minute and 30-second mission flight, where its performance, flight dynamics, endurance, and noise levels were tested.
The engineers leading the tests reported that the craft’s flight time extended five-fold from the previous version and generated noise levels of less than 85 decibels. Pribanic said at the time that the drone was one step closer to market.
According to Undefined Technologies' website, the drone today "uses innovative physics principles to generate noise levels below 70 dB." This would make it ideal for use throughout the U.S., where acceptable noise levels for residential, industrial, and commercial zones range from 50 to 70 dB.
In comparison, the majority of drones produce noises in the vicinity of 85 to 96 dB. Time will tell whether the new "silent" drones will inaugurate a new age of whispering drones that take no toll on the surrounding environment, toiling away in peace.
ROBOTS AREN’T TYPICALLY KNOWN FOR THEIR FLAWLESS SKIN AND 12-STEP CARE ROUTINES, BUT RECENT INNOVATIONS IN ROBOTICS AND LAB-GROWN BODY PARTS MIGHT SPAWN A FRESH GENERATION OF YOUTUBE BEAUTY VLOGGERS AFTER ALL.
Instead of cold metal and dull silicon exteriors, next-generation robots may instead sport a more human birthday suit called electronic skin, or e-skin for short.
Beyond just making these robots look more human, engineers are excited about how the skin will enable robots to feel like humans do — a necessary skill to help them navigate our human-centric world.
HORIZONS is a newsletter on the innovations and ideas of today that will shape the world of tomorrow. This is an adapted version of the June 30 edition. Forecast the future by signing up for free.
“E-skin will allow robots to have safe interaction with real-world objects,” Ravinder Dahiya, professor of electronics and nanoengineering at the University of Glasgow, tells Inverse.
“This is also important for social robots which may be helping elderly in care homes, for example, to serve a cup of tea.”
Dahiya is the lead author on one of several papers published this month in the journal Science Robotics detailing several advances in robotic skin that together overcome decades-worth of engineering obstacles.
CREATING “ELECTRONIC SKIN”
How robots feel matters for human-machine interactions.Donald Iain Smith/Photodisc/Getty Images
Dahiya and his colleagues’ latest work explores how robots’ skin can be used to feel and learn about their surroundings using synaptic transistors embedded in the artificial skin. Mimicking the sensory neural pathways of the human body and brain, their work demonstrates a robot skin that can learn from sensory experiences, like a child who learns not to touch a hot surface after getting a burn.
“A ROBOT DEPLOYED IN A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CAN HAVE E-SKIN WITH RADIATION SENSORS.”
We take this kind of sensory ability for granted as a result of living in our acutely sensitive skin, but they’re much harder to imbue in e-skin, roboticist Kyungseo Park tells Inverse.
Park is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the first author of another e-skin paper published this month in Science Robotics that shows how electrodes and microphones could be built into hydrogel and silicone e-skin to provide more sensitive tactile input.
While small-scale sensors might work for small-scale projects like responsive robot hands, Parks says these technologies struggle to scale up.
“Although these tactile sensors work well, it is challenging to cover the robot’s whole body with these sensors due to practical limitations such as wiring and fabrication,” Park says.
“It is required to develop a sensor configuration that can be freely scaled depending on the application.”
The human skin is the largest organ in the body. Our skin can process sensory input at nearly any location with very little energy, but replicating and scaling this ability in e-skin is a logistics and latency nightmare, Dahiya says.
“[Electronics] need to be developed or embedded in soft and flexible substrates so that the e-skin can conform to curvy surfaces,” Dahiya says.
“This [will] mean sensors and processing electronics can be distributed all over the body, which will reduce the latency and help address other challenges such as wiring complexity.”
If an e-skin cannot reliably process sensory inputs anywhere as they occur, it could be a major liability in the real world — especially because humans enjoy split-second sensory processing as a result of their biological skin.
LEARNING TO FEEL
If building e-skin is so challenging, then why are scientists around the world still working hard to make it a reality? For robots, and the companies or governments that control them, e-skin could represent a new opportunity to record and process massive amounts of information beyond our own skin’s sensing abilities.
“MOST COMMERCIAL ROBOT ARMS ARE NOT ABLE TO PERCEIVE PHYSICAL CONTACT, SO THEY MAY CAUSE SERIOUS INJURY TO HUMANS.”
“When we think about robots that are used in hazardous environments, the types of sensors can be much broader than basic five sensory modalities,” Dahiya says.
“For example, a robot deployed in a nuclear power plant can have e-skin with radiation sensors as well. Likewise, the e-skin may have photodetectors which can also augment human skin capability by allowing us to measure the excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays. We don’t have such capabilities.”
In the future, e-skin could also be used to measure things like proximity (guard robots), temperature, or even disease and chemical weapons. Such advanced sensing capabilities might enable remote robots to go into potentially dangerous situations and assess the problem without putting humans in harm’s way.
Beyond the vision of autonomous Terminator-like robots, e-skin could also be used to bring sensing capabilities to existing tools. For example, medical instruments that could allow clinicians to “feel” tissues inside the human body to make diagnoses, Dahiya says.
In his and colleagues’ work, Dahiya also explored how e-skin could be designed to sense injuries (like a cut or tear) and heal itself, much as our skin does. Right now, their e-skin needs a lot of assistance to accomplish this task, but in the future, this functionality could be essential for remote robots exploring potentially harmful terrain like the surface of Mars.
ON THE HORIZON
Pressing the flesh.Ravinder Dahiya
Beyond the advancement of robot sensing, Dahiya and Park say that e-skin will also play an important role in keeping humans safe in human-robot interactions as well. For many service robots, this is a particularly crucial concern.
“Most commercial robot arms are not able to perceive physical contact, so they may cause serious injury to humans,” Park says.
Take a greeter robot, for example, tasked with shaking the hand of everyone who crosses its path to welcome them into a place. Without tactile sensors to gauge the pressure of its handshakes, it could unwittingly crush someone’s hand.
“I think the elderly who need direct assistance from robots will probably benefit the most,” Park adds.
Advances in e-skin could also play a role in improving prosthetics, Park says. The same tactile sensors that help robots feel their environment could help restore or even advance the sensing capabilities of those with limb loss.
While the e-skin that Park and Dahiya worked on is making strides toward a robotic future, they’ve both got some fine-tuning to do before they’re put into practice. In the meantime one thing is certain: We should be thankful for the complex and capable skin we have evolved.
Gianluca Rizzello with 'dielectric elastomers.' The Saarbrücken researchers are using this composite material to create artificial muscles and nerves for use in flexible robot arms.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
01-07-2022
De ‘Sky Cruise’ moet een vliegend hotel worden met zwembaden en bioscopen dat nooit landt
De ‘Sky Cruise’ moet een vliegend hotel worden met zwembaden en bioscopen dat nooit landt
Er zouden zelfs geen piloten nodig zijn
Mensen zijn verbijsterd over een video waarin een potentieel AI-gestuurd vliegtuig wordt gedemonstreerd dat ‘nooit zou landen’. Het concept van de ‘Sky Cruise’, ontworpen door Hashem Al-Ghaili, is in feite een vliegend hotel dat beschikt over 20 nucleair aangedreven motoren en een capaciteit zou hebben om 5.000 passagiers te vervoeren.
Geen piloten
Al-Ghaili noemt het vliegtuig de ‘toekomst van het vervoer’ en legt uit dat conventionele luchtvaartmaatschappijen passagiers van en naar de Sky Cruise zouden ‘ferryen’, die nooit de grond zou raken en zelfs alle reparaties tijdens de vlucht zou kunnen laten uitvoeren. Daily Star vroeg aan de maker hoeveel piloten het vliegtuig nodig heeft. Hij antwoordde: “Al deze technologie en je wilt nog steeds piloten? Ik denk dat het volledig autonoom zal zijn.”
Dat is allemaal goed en wel, maar de Sky Cruise zou nog steeds een flinke hoeveelheid personeel aan boord nodig hebben, aangezien er ook een enorm winkelcentrum aan boord zou zijn, om nog maar te zwijgen van zwembaden, fitnesscentra en bioscopen. In een video van het vliegtuig, gepost door Al-Ghaili op YouTube, is te zien hoe het uittorent boven vliegtuigen van normale grootte en wordt het zelfs omschreven als ‘de perfecte trouwlocatie’.
De apocalyps
Hoewel de lanceringsdatum van het vliegende hotel nog moet worden aangekondigd, is niet iedereen enthousiast over het idee van Al-Ghaili. Eén persoon schreef in de commentaarsectie onder zijn video: “Geweldig idee om een kernreactor te plaatsen in iets dat defect kan raken en uit de lucht kan vallen.” Een andere grapte: “Ik heb het gevoel dat dit de plek is waar alle rijke mensen zich gaan verstoppen tijdens de apocalyps, en gewoon rondvliegen boven de rest van de wereld terwijl iedereen elkaar te lijf gaat in Mad Max-stijl.”
De 31-jarige ‘wetenschapscommunicator’ en videoproducent Al-Ghaili is Jemenitisch maar woont momenteel in Berlijn, aldus zijn website. Een deel van zijn biografie luidt: ‘Hashem is moleculair bioloog van beroep en gebruikt zijn kennis en passie voor wetenschap om het publiek voor te lichten via sociale media en video-inhoud’. Hieronder vind je de video over de ‘Sky Cruise’.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
30-06-2022
Watch Robot Dog Shoot A Rifle!! World Robot Dog Army Threat To Human Race? Spot The Robot Dog Is Designed To Carry Large Weapon And Hunt Humans?
Watch Robot Dog Shoot A Rifle!! World Robot Dog Army Threat To Human Race? Spot The Robot Dog Is Designed To Carry Large Weapon And Hunt Humans?
Watch Robot Dog Shoot A Rifle!! World Robot Dog Army Threat To Human Race? Spot The Robot Dog Is Designed To Carry Large Weapon And Hunt Humans?
Here’s the glossy version… meaning, the harmless dog that knows a few tricks, and doesn’t do much else… meanwhile watch the other videos and you’ll know this isn’t just a giant cute toy!!
Well if you ask me, it’s reasonable to say that the back of the robot, is designed to and equipped with the ability to carry anything, weapons included! People… this is a real issue… look at what China has…
A memorable scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the one where Dr. Miles Dyson, a cybernetics expert, the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 (T-800) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger cuts into his arm and removes its skin to show its mechanical insides and convince Dyson it is indeed a Terminator. Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in 1991 and the movie partly takes place in 2029 – the year the T-800 and T-1000 are sent from. It is now 2022. While we’re a long way from making Terminators (hopefully), tissue engineers at the University of Tokyo have successfully covered a three-jointed, functioning robot finger with lab-grown human skin. Is it too early to call Sarah Connor?
Is it time to point fingers - real and robotic?
“These findings show the potential of a paradigm shift from traditional robotics to the new scheme of biohybrid robotics that leverage the advantages of both living materials and artificial materials.”
In a new study, published in the journal Matter, Tokyo University researchers explain what most people already knew – humans prefer robots that look like them. While firms like Boston Dynamics have successfully created robots that move like living dogs and humans, they still look like mechanical machines. That’s because the most difficult organ of the human body to replicate is the skin – the feeling, flexible covering that keeps everything inside protected while moving seamlessly with the mechanical parts and healing itself after injuries. It’s the holy grail with nails and the researchers decided that it was time to adopt a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach by ditching the quest for artificial human skin and instead growing the real deal in a way that can be used as a robot package.
“The finger looks slightly ‘sweaty’ straight out of the culture medium. Since the finger is driven by an electric motor, it is also interesting to hear the clicking sounds of the motor in harmony with a finger that looks just like a real one.”
Study co-author Professor Shoji Takeuchi admits what the team created is only a finger … but what a finger it is. To achieve the bond between living cells and robotic metal, the team submerged their well-designed robotic finger in a cylinder filled with a solution of collagen and human dermal fibroblasts, the two main components of the skin’s underlying connective tissues. That was the secret to fitting the skin seamlessly to the finger – the mixture shrank and tightly bonded to the finger bot. This formed the base foundation for the top coating of human epidermal keratinocytes, which make up 90% of the outermost layer of skin and give it its self-healing properties. The end result was a robotic finger with the texture, moisture-retaining properties and protection of human skin.
According to the press release, the lab grown skin stretched and bent but did not break as it matched the movement of its robotic exoskeleton. For a creepy factor, the skin could be lifted and stretched with a pair of tweezers, then snapped back and repelled water. (Photos here.) And then came the Terminator effect.
IMAGES: KAWAI ET. AL.
IMAGE: KAWAI ET. AL.
“When wounded, the crafted skin could even self-heal like humans’ with the help of a collagen bandage, which gradually morphed into the skin and withstood repeated joint movements.”
So, we ask again … IS it time to call Sarah Connor? Not quite … but keep her number handy. Takeuchi admits that, while impressive, the lab grown robotic skin is much weaker than its homegrown counterpart. It also requires assistance to feed it nutrients and remove waste. Finally, it needs fingernails, hair follicles and sweat glands – not just for their cosmetic value, although that’s important for humans to accept humanoid robots, but to replace the artificial feeding, circulation and protection the scientists still had to provide for the skin.
How far away are we from this being a robot's hand?
“I feel like I'm gonna throw up.”
“I think living skin is the ultimate solution to give robots the look and touch of living creatures since it is exactly the same material that covers animal bodies.”
Does the thought of human skin covering a robot make you feel like Dr. Mike Dyson in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day“ (the first quote) or Dr. Shoji Takeuchi in his lab at the University of Tokyo?
Gravity Industries, a leading British jet suit company, is out to give superhuman abilities to emergency services for search and rescue missions in remote regions in the north of England.
And it can prove it.
The company's 3D-printed suit has two small turbines attached to each arm and a bigger one installed on the back, and it can achieve speeds of more than 80 mph (roughly 130 km/h). One of their most recent demonstration videos is part of a series of paramedic response exercises to prove the product's capability. And while also training real paramedics, the team demonstrated that the jet suit can scale a mountain in low visibility, which is something that a helicopter would be unable to do in a rescue situation. And typically, the mountain rescue on-foot response time exceeds 70 minutes.
In contrast, the record-breaking ascent to the top of a 3,100-foot (945-meter) mountain was achieved in just three minutes and thirty seconds! "This system, akin to the rapid response of a Paramedic on a motorbike in an urban environment, will be the difference between life and death for many critical cases," Gravity Industries noted in the video's description. If you want to see the demonstration, make sure you watch the video embedded above, and as always, enjoy.
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