‘Scary’ Boston Dynamics Dance Video Divides Internet as Robo-Dogs Celebrate Hyundai Acquisition

from RT:

American robotics company Boston Dynamics released a new robot dance video after it announced it had been acquired by Hyundai – and, like its previous effort, this one had many people terrified.

Though it announced the completion of the acquisition last week in a press release, Boston Dynamics decided to mark the occasion in style on Tuesday.

The video shows five of its dog-like ‘Spot’ robots dancing to the song ‘IONIQ: I’m On It’ by South Korean boy band BTS, and demonstrates the precision and complexity of its machines, which feature long arm-like appendages with claws.

Source: 

• https://www.sgtreport.com/2021/06/scary-boston-dynamics-dance-video-divides-internet-as-robo-dogs-celebrate-hyundai-acquisition/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

30-06-2021 om 15:28 geschreven door peter  

Robots may be taking away our jobs, but one consolation (perhaps the ONLY consolation) is that they don’t ever seem to look like they’re enjoying it. Then again, how many of you look like you  enjoy your job … at least pre-pandemic? Well, some robots have decided to rub our human noses into our job losses by curling that thing underneath THEIR useless noses into the creepiest smile ever. If you’ve been searching for incentive to rise up against our robot overlords, that look may be it.

“The idea for EVA took shape a few years ago, when my students and I began to notice that the robots in our lab were staring back at us through plastic, googly eyes.”

Hod Lipson, James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation (Mechanical Engineering) and director of the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia Engineering (Columbia University), explains in a press release how an observation by students who hadn’t yet gotten jobs that they would eventually lose to robots turned into a study called “Smile Like You Mean It: Driving Animatronic Robotic Face with Learned Models” which led to the development of EVA, an autonomous robot with a soft face and AI Learning algorithms it used to mimic the facial expressions of humans around it.

EVA

(CREDIT: Creative Machines Lab/Columbia Engineering)

“The greatest challenge in creating EVA was designing a system that was compact enough to fit inside the confines of a human skull while still being functional enough to produce a wide range of facial expressions.”

Undergraduate student Zanwar Faraj led the team in developing artificial cable-and-pulley facial muscles to replace the more than 42 tiny muscles in a human face. That gave the robot the ability to express the six basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise, plus an array of more nuanced feelings. Over the mechanics they stretched a blue skin resembling a member of the popular and much-loved Blue Man Group performance art company. To make the robotic face closer to a human one than the animatronic robots at theme parks, they gave EVA deep learning artificial intelligence to “read” and then mirror the expressions on nearby human faces, and then learn more by watching videos of itself. In that way, EVA obtained a ‘self-image’.

Did it work?

“I was minding my own business one day when EVA suddenly gave me a big, friendly smile. I knew it was purely mechanical, but I found myself reflexively smiling back.”

Hod Lipson was one of the first to come under the control of EVA. He admits that his reflex response to the smiling EVA was one of the goals of the project – he had noticed that grocery stores using restocking robots often decked them out in name badges and clothing to give them a human identity, and decided the next step was to make a robot that could control that identity and its responses itself.

“Our brains seem to respond well to robots that have some kind of recognizable physical presence.”

That’s true … but is it wise? Boyuan Chen, a PhD student who led the software phase of the project, added this:

“Robots are intertwined in our lives in a growing number of ways, so building trust between humans and machines is increasingly important.”

What could possibly go wrong?

What’s the harm in making a robot smile? What’s the first thing a con man does? Or a politician? Or a pusher? A kidnapper? Anyone looking to win your trust before they violate it?

We now have a smiling robot that can make you reflexively smile back. What do you think it’s going to say as it smilingly leads you away and you ask it to tell you where it’s taking you? You’ve seen this movie before.

“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Who’s in the blue man group now?

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

03-06-2021 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

War games: Army's new night vision goggles look like they are straight out of Halo video games

• The US Army is using advanced night vision goggles on the battlefield

• Footage of the device in action shows human figures outlined in glowing light

• This allows users see enemies in the dead of night, regardless of weather

• The footage was shared to Twitter with some users comparing it to Halo

• In the video game, figures are also outlined in a glowing light 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

The US Army has high-powered night vision goggles that provide war fighters with the ability to pick out enemies in the dead of night, regardless of weather conditions.

The military group’s Lancer Brigade shared footage of the new Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binoculars in action, which shows glowing figures that some liken to those in the popular ‘Halo’ video game.

The system includes a new, high-resolution display and an embedded soldier wireless personal area network, rapid target acquisition and augmented reality algorithms to interface with the Army’s Nett Warrior.

Using the goggles, soldiers can keep their eyes on their target without looking down to read maps or check radios, as all information is shown on the display.

More than 4,800 of the combat-ready devices are now in the hands of the US Army.

Scroll down for video 

The military group’s Lancer Brigade shared footage of the new Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binoculars in action, which shows glowing figures that some liken to those in the popular ‘Halo’ video game

The footage shows glowing figures that some liken to those in the popular ‘Halo’ video game (pictured) 

The US Army has high-powered night vision goggles that provide war fighters with the ability to pick out enemies in the dead of night, regardless of weather conditions

The Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binoculars (ENVG-B) was developed by L3Harris Technologies, a global aerospace and defense technology innovator, specifically to be used on the battlefield.

Lynn Bollengier, President, Integrated Vision Solutions, L3Harris, said: ‘The ENVG-B is the most advanced night vision goggle ever developed for and fielded by the US Army, enabling a soldier to see and maneuver in zero and low-light situations.

‘We have delivered more than 4,500 combat-ready systems to the US Army, which meet today’s urgent operational needs of our close combat forces.’

In the tweet shared by Lancer Brigade it says: ‘You have never seen night vision like this.’

The clip posted shows the body of soldiers outlined in a glowing light as they move through the forest, fire guns and rest during missions.

However, one Twitter user commented with ‘I have, actually’ to the statement and included an image from the popular video game Halo.

The video game is a military science fiction franchise that is focused around soldiers going to war with aliens.

And the images seen through the ENVG-B looks similar to those with Halo 3’s Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance (VISR).

The clip posted shows the body of soldiers outlined in a glowing light as they move through the forest, fire guns and rest during missions

In the tweet shared by Lancer Brigade it says: ‘You have never seen night vision like this.' One Twitter user commented with ‘I have, actually’ to the statement and included an image from the popular video game Halo

It weighs just 2.5 pounds and attaches to the front of a helmet, allowing users to easily switch between monocular and binocular visioning

VISR provides navigational data and highlights various points of interest in the operational area, along with outlining figures in glowing light.

However, ENVG-B is the real deal that provides soldiers with actionable intelligence through the fusion of Image Intensified (I2) white phosphor tubes and thermal imaging.

The advanced goggles also provide targeting and identification in all battlefield conditions as well as light levels including degraded visual environments such as smoke, fog and debris.

It weighs just 2.5 pounds and attaches to the front of a helmet, allowing users to easily switch between monocular and binocular visioning.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

30-05-2021 om 01:14 geschreven door peter  

By: Nidhi Goyal 

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

{ https://www.industrytap.com/ }

30-05-2021 om 01:01 geschreven door peter  

NOBEL WINNER: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL CRUSH HUMANS, “IT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE”

FROM THE DEPT. OF PEOPLE YOU SHOULD REALLY, REALLY LISTEN TO.

Endgame, Set, Match

It’s common knowledge, at this point, that artificial intelligence will soon be capable of outworking humans — if not entirely outmoding them — in plenty of areas. How much we’ll be outworked and outmoded, and on what scale, is still up for debate. But in a new interview published by The Guardian over the weekend, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman had a fairly hot take on the matter: In the battle between AI and humans, he said, it’s going to be an absolute blowout — and humans are going to get creamed.

“Clearly AI is going to win [against human intelligence]. It’s not even close,” Kahneman told the paper. “How people are going to adjust to this is a fascinating problem.”

Prospect Theory

Why listen to Daniel Kahneman? His 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” — over two million copies sold — is one of the most influential tomes in the field of behavioral economics, exploring how and why humans think the way they think (the “fast” thinking of the title being intuitive; the “slow” thinking being rational), and what leaves us prepared (or unprepared) to make decisions about our future. But moreover, he won his 2002 Nobel Prize for pioneering “prospect theory,” which explains how people rationalize the difference between gains and losses, and how their thresholds for risk aversion and risk appetite work.

And why, according to Kahneman, are we so unprepared for the forthcoming takeover of artificial intelligence? Speaking to the way the pandemic overtook an unprepared world, Kahneman cited the exponential growth of the virus. Human minds, he explained, are essentially unequipped to handle the basic math underlying how something like a Covid outbreak can spiral out of control on a global scale.

“Exponential phenomena are almost impossible for us to grasp,” he told The Guardian. “We are very experienced in a more or less linear world. And if things are accelerating, they’re usually accelerating within reason. Exponential change [as with the spread of virus] is really something else. We’re not equipped for it. It takes a long time to educate intuition.”

Gird Your Maladaptive Loins

Winding up into the discussion about AI, Kahneman noted the issue with human minds: “There is going to be massive disruption. Technology is developing very rapidly, possibly exponentially. But people are linear. When linear people are faced with exponential change, they’re not going to be able to adapt to that very easily.” Kahneman cites medicine as one place humans are going to be replaced, “certainly in terms of diagnosis.” And elsewhere, he issues a stark message to the boardrooms of the world: “There are rather frightening scenarios when you’re talking about leadership. Once it’s demonstrably true that you can have an AI that has far better business judgment, say, what will that do to human leadership?”

If nothing else, Kahenman’s quotables feel canny — like maybe if the people in the C-suite are scared for their jobs, someone who can do something about any of this might actually listen.

READ MORE: 

• Daniel Kahneman: ‘Clearly AI is going to win. How people are going to adjust is a fascinating problem’ [The Guardian]

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

23-05-2021 om 22:38 geschreven door peter  

From the “What could possibly go wrong?” and the “They didn’t listen the first time!” files comes the double-whammy news that those controversial genetically-altered mosquitoes, designed to control their populations by killing off all of the biting females while leaving the non-biting males, have been released in Florida and are mating, while scientists not waiting to see what happens are already genetically engineering armyworms to kill off all of the females and stop them from destroying billions of dollars’ worth of crops worldwide. What happens when a genetically-engineered mosquito bites a genetically-engineered armyworm and a human accidentally eats it?

The mosquitoes contain a proprietary gene belonging to Oxitec, which calls it “the world’s leading insect-based biological control system to safely and sustainably control insects that transmit disease and destroy crops.” Residents of the Florida Keys have been demanding more information, independent testing and safety studies for a decade, but claim they’ve received little response from Oxitec nor support from local government or the agricultural industry. Previous tests using Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were conducted in in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama and Malaysia, and the company reported that local mosquito populations fell by at least 90% in those locations. However, Live Science reports that in Brazil genes from the insects cropped up in local mosquito populations because the lethal gene failed to kill off all of the females before they could mate.

Besides this, another thing that could go wrong in Florida is that tetracycline turns off the self-destruct mechanism in female larvae. However, that’s the same antibiotic used in sewage treatment plants. Oxitec claims the testing locations are far enough away from plants and other tetracycline-using areas to avoid this possibility. Should the tests be halted while they look for other things that went wrong in Florida?

Too late.

“The collaboration between Bayer and Oxitec in the development of a ‘friendly’ fall armyworm explores a promising new approach to support integrated pest management, helping farmers manage destructive pests more sustainably while reducing the need for other inputs.”

According to Zenger.news, by “friendly” Bob Reiter, head of crop science research and development at Bayer, means these genetically modified male fall armyworms (Spodoptera frugiperda), also from Oxitec, will not harm the environment, other animals or humans while the kill off all of the female armyworms before the eat corn/maize, rice, sorghum, sugarcane, wheat, and 75 other crop species in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Fall armyworms are highly reproductive and spread quickly – they spread to 12 countries in Africa in 2016 and 2017, to India’s southern state of Karnataka in 2018 and to China in 2019. India, with its huge population needing huge amounts of food, is considering the genetically modified male fall armyworms – does anyone think its questionable leadership will handle this any better than the coronavirus?

Adult fall armyworm

Pests are definitely a problem – but pests are in the eye of the beholder. Many traditional crops are resistant to these insects, but they don’t adapt to industrialized mass farming. Similarly, development in areas where the mosquitoes formerly lived undisturbed and not spreading disease to humans results in … disease spreading to humans. Did anyone ask “What could possibly go wrong?” when these things spread?

They did. They didn’t listen the first time. Isn’t it time to ask louder now … and not give up?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-05-2021 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Does Putin really need another army? Russia's defence minister wants to CLONE 3,000-year-old ancient warriors from remains found in Siberia (and their horses to boot)

• Sergei Shoigu has unveiled desire to clone ancient royal warriors in Siberia   

• The ancient Tunnug burial site is located in the Valley of the Kings in Tuva 

• 'We would like very much to find the organic matter,' the defence minister said 

By WILL STEWART IN MOSCOW FOR MAILONLINE

Russia's defence minister has taken time out from massing troops on Ukraine's borders to unveil a 'Dolly the Sheep' cloning dream involving ancient royal warriors and their prize horses using DNA preserved in permafrost.

Sergei Shoigu - one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies - spoke about the potential of the extraordinary 3,000-year-old Scythian burials in Tuva, his mountainous native republic in Siberia.

The ancient Tunnug burial site of nomadic warriors - often laid to rest with their horses - is in an area known as the Valley of the Kings in Tuva.

Excavation works at the Tunnug royal burial in the Valley of the Kings, Republic of Tuva

Sergei Shoigu, pictured above, one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies - spoke about the potential of the extraordinary 3,000-year-old Scythian burials in Tuva

Excavation works at the Tunnug royal burial in the Valley of the Kings, Republic of Tuva

Shamans performed a rite to bless the start of excavation at the ancient Tunnug burial mound

The defence chief told a session of the Russian Geographical Society, also attended remotely by Putin, on Wednesday: 'Of course, we would like very much to find the organic matter.'

He was referring to well-preserved remains of ancient people and animals, explained TASS.

'I believe you understand what would follow that,' said Shoigu in a broadcast by Zvezda TV.

'It would be possible to make something of it, if not Dolly the Sheep.'

He added, without explaining more of planned genomic research that 'in general, it will be very interesting'.

The burials were in permafrost and according to scientists, organic matter should be preserved there.

'We have conducted several expeditions there already, it is a big international expedition.

'A lot of things have been confirmed, but a lot remains to be done.'

Shoigu has been in the limelight in recent days spearheading Russia's build up of almost 100,000 troops close to Ukraine, triggering fears of a new war - but at this session he spoke about more ancient warriors.

The burial is among the earlier Scythian remains.

Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BC claimed the Scythians made cloaks from their victims' scalps after victory.

The savage warriors are believed to have used their enemies' skulls as drinking cups.

Aerial view of the The Valley of the Kings in the Republic of Tuva. The burials were in permafrost and according to scientists, organic matter should be preserved there

Entrance to The Valley of the Kings in the Republic of Tuva

Aerial view of the The Valley of the Kings in the Republic of Tuva. The defence chief told a session of the Russian Geographical Society, also attended remotely by Putin, on Wednesday: 'Of course, we would like very much to find the organic matter' 

Legend says they drank the blood of their vanquished foes.

The valley contains so-called 'tsar' mounds from the Scythian era.

It is not the first time Shoigu has spoken about finding 'organic' matter which can be investigated by scientists for DNA.

While exciting remains have been found, there are still hopes to dig deeper into the mounds and find remains similar to a tattooed princess discovered in a mound in Siberia's Altai Mountains.

Wikimedia commonsEquipment from Scythian horse riders of northern Black Sea region and Kuban region, dated circa 7-5th century, B.C.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

14-05-2021 om 20:42 geschreven door peter  

Russia's Plan to Clone an Army of 3,000 Year Old Scythian Warriors via Leak Project

Russia’s Plan to Clone an Army of 3,000 Year Old Scythian Warriors via Leak Project

According to the Iran Chamber Society and others sources, the Scythians are of the Ukraine region. From there they migrated into Iran area and brought the Aryan language-(which infers they are Aryan origin). They are known for traits of incredible warrior skills. With this combo, Ukraine-Aryan-natural warrior skills, it’s no wonder Russia’s interest..they always are after the best of the best. y4

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

14-05-2021 om 20:23 geschreven door peter  

Day of the cyborgs: US Army is developing muscle-bound, Terminator-like war robots that use LIVING TISSUE in place of actuators

• The Army Research Laboratory wants to grow living muscles for robots

• The team says the living tissue would replace actuators that hold joints

• This would give robots similar agility and versatility to biological systems 

• The goal of this project is to create robots that can travel where humans can't 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Combining living tissue with cold metal robots may sound like a plot from the James Cameron film 'Terminator,' but the idea is being developed for real-world machines at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL).

The US military group is working on a series of 'biohybrid robotics' that integrates living organisms into mechanical systems that 'produces never-seen-before agility and versatile.'

The team envisions growing muscle tissue in a lab that would be added to robotic joints in place of traditional actuators – components responsible for moving and controlling mechanisms.

The project aims to give robots the same agility and precision that muscles offer biological systems, allowing these futuristic machines to venture into spaces too risky for human soldiers.

Scroll down for video 

The US military group is working on a series of 'biohybrid robotics' that integrates living organisms into mechanical systems that 'produces never-seen-before agility and versatile.' The group is focusing on legged robots like the Army's Legged Locomotion and Movement Adaptation research platform, known as LLAMA (pictured)

Dr. Dean Culver, a research scientist at the laboratory, said: 'Though impressive in their own right, today's robots are deployed to serve a limited purpose then are retrieved some minutes later.'

'ARL wants robots to be versatile teammates capable of going anywhere Soldiers can and more, adapting to the needs of any given situation.'

The team is initially focusing on legged platforms similar to the Army's Legged Locomotion and Movement Adaptation research platform, known as LLAMA, and the U.S. Marine Corps' Legged Squad Support System, or LS3.

The idea is to give these war robots similar abilities to animals, such as balancing on uneven and unreliable terrain.

The team envisions growing muscle tissue in a lab that will added to robotic joints in place of traditional actuators – components responsible for moving and controlling mechanisms

'One obstacle that faces ground-based robots today is an inability to instantly adjust or adapt to unstable terrain,' Culver said.

'Muscle actuation, though certainly not solely responsible for it, is a big contributor to animals' ability to navigate uneven and unreliable terrain.

Pictured is T-800' from Terminator, which features living tissue around its robotic structure

'Similarly, flapping wings and flying organisms' ability to reconfigure their envelope gives them the ability to dart here and there even among branches.'

'In multi-domain operations, this kind of agility and versatility means otherwise inaccessible areas are now viable, and those options can be critical to the U.S. military's success.'

Culver and the researchers are set to share their work with the biohybrid engineering community regarding how to culture strong muscle tissue rather than extract it from a trained organism.

The project aims to give robots., like the U.S. Marine Corps' Legged Squad Support System, or LS3, the same agility and precision that muscles offer biological systems, allowing these futuristic machines to venture into spaces too risky for human soldiers

Ritu Raman, a mechanical engineer who works in biohybrid design, told Science Focus Magazine in October that to make the muscles work with different sized joints, it would be best to create a gel and muscle mixture that can be molded to the same needed for the muscular action of a specific robot.

'Then, because the cells are alive, when they go through this process, they're sensing and responding to their environment,' Raman said. 

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

07-05-2021 om 00:56 geschreven door peter  

From the “What could possibly go wrong?” file comes yet another report that the US military is working to create robotic warriors that move more like humans than one of those robotic New York police dogs trying to walk on two legs and carry a gun. The latest technique under trial is something called ‘biohybrid robotics’, which in this case means replacing rods, gears and shock absorbers with real human muscle tissue. Are you ready for robots with bigger biceps than yours … or Arnold’s?

“We look at a wolf in nature: It probably weighs about the same, can pull much more and can travel hundreds of miles without really eating, take a nap and do the same thing the next day.”

Instead of building a better wolf with technology, Dr. Dean Culver, a research scientist at the Army Research Laboratory, told NextGov.com that the lab’s strategy would be to make the robotic wolf better with biology – using real tendons and ligaments to give the robot real wolf speed, spring and agility, and replace its batteries with a chemical system that could be replenished on the run rather than shutting down the robot for recharging. The same strategy is behind building a better robotic soldier for combat. Current robots on wheels powered by batteries are reaching their physical limits. More concerning however are current attempts to make human-like walking robots, which Culver says work well on flat terrain but fall down, literally and figuratively, on gravel and rougher terrain.

“But if you run through a field, and your footsteps into a rabbit hole, even before the signal from your foot has reached your brain to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m in a rabbit hole,’ your body is already moving to accommodate that sudden change. Part of that is the way that control systems are designed in organisms—that’s obviously really amazing—but another part of that is the ability of muscles and tendons to bend and flex a little bit, and offer those control systems an opportunity to adapt.”

Adapting means joining roboticists with biologists to understand how muscle tissue works and converting them to a metal skeleton that provides electrical impulses for power, ions for signals to make decisions and chemicals to replace the nourishment from blood and oxygen. All of that collapses, literally and figuratively, if it’s not durable – they don’t need to last 80 years like human muscles but definitely longer than mechanical robots.

Our days are numbered.

“We’re going to learn how to build things from the ground up, and not only offer robots and devices and mechanisms, the capabilities that we see in nature—but just revolutionize the way that we think about it and push the horizons on what we’re capable of way further back. And that disruption is precisely the kind of thing that we want to lead, and that [ARL] should be front-runners in.”

After World War II, when was the US Army revolutionary in anything … other than getting involved in other countries’ revolutions? Culver sees this as a chance for the Army Research Laboratory to be leading-edge in “biohybrid and bio-inspired engineering.” What could possibly go wrong? Well, other than blurring the line between humans and robots, the fact that the primary purpose of these biohybrids is warfare is always disconcerting at best, scary at worst. If the technology can be shared with industries other than defense – medicine, for example – this may be a good idea. We’ll just have to wait and see .. and hope a war doesn’t drive the development first.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-05-2021 om 00:38 geschreven door peter  

The U.S. military wants soldiers that have superhuman eyesight, controllable augmented muscles that turn untrained novices into expert killers, and more.

 By Matthew Gault

IMAGE: GETTY

Cybernetic enhancements that fuse humans and machines are coming, and the U.S. Military wants to be prepared.

A new report from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center—a scientific research division of the Army with a focus on biological and chemical weapons—detailed what the field of cybernetics might look in 2050. The report, titled Cyborg Soldiers 205: Human/ Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DOD, reads like the framework for a dystopian novel set in a near future where injured soldiers are cybernetically enhanced, but come home to an America terrified of cyborgs.

“The primary objective of this effort was to determine the potential of machines that are physically integrated within the human body to augment and enhance the performance of human beings over the next 30 years,” the researchers said.

The study identified poor public perception as being a barrier to the mass adoption of cybernetics. Terminator II: Judgement Day poisoned us all against killer robots, much to the military’s chagrin.

“Across popular social and open-source media, literature, and film, the use of machines to enhance the physical condition of the human species has received a distorted and dystopian narrative in the name of entertainment,” the study said. “Defense leadership should understand that negative public and social perceptions will need to be overcome, if these technologies are to be fielded.”

Cyber enhancement is cutting edge technology, and it’s hard to predict where it will go over the next three decades. The Pentagon researchers focused on four probable areas of enhancement: super vision, augmented hearing, enhanced muscles, and “direct neural enhancement of the human brain for two-way data transfer.”

See like the Predator

The Pentagon predicts a world where enhanced soldiers have cybernetically enhanced eyes that allow them to see across the battlefield in different wavelengths, and identify targets in “dense, urban environments or subterranean megacities that will challenge identification and tracking of targets,” they said.

The researchers mention what becomes a disturbing theme of the study—many of these enhancements may only occur after a soldier is injured. When working with a delicate area such as the eye, injury may be the only path towards convincing a wounded warrior to receive the surgery, the study notes.

“Ocular enhancement would be an attractive medical option in situations where the eye tissue has been damaged or destroyed by injury or disease,” the researchers said. “It is deemed unlikely that individuals would willingly undergo removal of healthy tissue in an area considered to be sensitive. However, the central and critical role that vision plays in society would likely motivate warfighters who have lost part or all of their vision to voluntarily undergo surgery that would restore or even improve their ability to see.”

Muscles controlled with light

This trend of fixing fallen soldiers with cybernetics continues with optogenetic musculoskeletal control systems. “The most likely [use] would be in the restoration of lost function due to injury of muscles or nerves,” the study said. “Musculoskeletal injuries are the second leading cause of lost duty time in the U.S. Armed Forces.”

To enhance muscles, the Pentagon would enhance weak tissue with a “network of emplaced subcutaneous sensors that deliver optogenetic stimulation through programmed light pulses,” the researchers said. Optogenetics stimulates muscle tissue, or even neurons, with light instead of electricity.

“The optogenetic controller would, in effect, take control of the motions of a warfighter’s limbs, thereby allowing a novice (i.e., the warfighter) to perform functions professionally"

“The human body would have an array of small optical sensors implanted beneath the skin in the body areas that need to be controlled. These sensors could be manifested as thin optical threads that are placed at regular intervals over critical muscle and nerve bundles and are linked to a central control area designed to stimulate each node only when the muscles below it are needed.”

According to the study, this could allow wounded soldiers to return to battle with cybernetic muscles that operate better than their meat alone did. It could also allow them to control external tools such as drones and weapons systems not directly attached to their body. Or let someone else control them remotely.

“The optogenetic controller would, in effect, take control of the motions of a warfighter’s limbs, thereby allowing a novice (i.e., the warfighter) to perform functions professionally.”

You can hear a pin drop

Cybernetic ears will both enhance perception and allow soldiers to access new abilities, according to the Pentagon.

The study imagines that future advances won’t just improve people’s hearing, but also allow for the “conversion and transmission of these signals to others across distances,” the study said. In other words, people could use cybernetic ears to access a network of voices and communication only perceptible to them. It’s like implanting your smartphone inside your ear, complete with real-time translation features for foreign languages.

Hearing loss is a major problem in the military and, for this reason, the researchers believe selling soldiers on enhanced hearing will be easier than eyes and muscles. However, the researchers feel that upgrading ears will be more invasive and less reversible than other technologies and so they recommend that the Pentagon pursue less invasive approaches. . “Electrodes that directly interface with neural pathways could be implanted with a minor surgical procedure and potentially, could be removed with minimal adverse effects,” they said.

Jacking in

The crown jewel of cybernetic enhancement is direct interface between the human brain and machines. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been working on the technology for years. It has already successfully tested “prosthetic memory chips.” Even Elon Musk is working on neural implants with the goal of “[achieving] symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”

The Pentagon’s study suggests a future where humans with neural implants are jacked into a matrix that allows them to control machines, have machines control them, and to control each other. “The enhancement would not simply entail user control of equipment (brain to machine) but also transmission to operator (machine to brain) and human to human (command and control dynamics) to enhance situational awareness as drone, computational analytical, and human information is relayed to the operator,” it said.

Cybernetically enhanced soldiers could control drones and complicated weapon systems remotely with the power of their mind. The problem is, unlike some of the other technologies discussed, there probably won’t be a non-invasive way to achieve symbiosis between soldier and machine.

Because of that, the researchers suggested that neural links be restricted to an elite class of soldier, like the Navy SEALs, who may be amenable “if they could provide significant improvements in capability, lethality, survivability, and overall battlefield superiority,” they said.

Unexpected consequences

More frightening than negative public perception of cyborgs, which the report goes into, is the Pentagon’s correct assertion that the adoption of technology has outpaced the legal and ethical frameworks that govern society. When a human merges with a machine, should the laws of war still consider it a person or a piece of equipment?

“If an enhanced warfighter is caught and captured, does he have the same protections under the Geneva Convention, and will his enhanced status alter the treatment he is likely to receive?” researchers asked.

There’s also basic questions of national security. Can cyborgs be hacked? What kind of encryption should be used and will it ever be enough? Should a soldier returning home surrender their enhancements? Is it ethical to remove the enhanced muscles that allow a wounded soldier to walk? What will the short and long term health effects of these technologies be? Should military cohorts be integrated with cyborg soldiers or do they need their own units?

The Pentagon doesn’t know. No one knows. All anyone knows is that these enhancements, in some form, are coming. They may not look exactly like what the Pentagon predicts here, but powerful people want them to happen. Billionaires want them to happen. The U.S. Military wants them to happen. The sad truth is that most moral, ethical, and legal considerations will likely be defined after the fact.

"There is so much in the world today that would have seemed like wild science fiction thirty years ago, whether its a computer in your hand on which you could search all the world's information to a President of the United States using that same computer to push foreign government disinformation,” Peter W. Singer—future war strategist, Senior Fellow at New America, and the author of the forthcoming book Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution—told Motherboard in an email. “So while not everything in the military's report on a potential future human-machine fusion in 2050 may come true, we shouldn't be shocked that some parts of it do.”

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{ https://www.vice.com/en }

04-05-2021 om 01:38 geschreven door peter  

Fighting aliens with 'Space Force' and clovers at HI-SEAS — Commander's report: lunar day 6

30-04-2021 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

The “What could possibly go wrong” file is so full, it may be time to give China its own manila folder for its experiments with human-animal chimeras that not only cross the ethical line – they wipe it out completely with genetically-altered erasers. The latest entry in the file is an experiment that attempts to reach the unholy grail of hybrids – human-monkey chimeras, created under the ‘good intentions’ guise of developing ways to address the severe shortage of human organs for transplants. Before you start pointing fingers at China’s Kunming University of Science and Technology, the leader of this experiment was an American from the Salk Institute in California who has also been involved in creating human-pig chimeras. Do we need to start TWO files?

“We studied the chimeric competency of human extended pluripotent stem cells (hEPSCs) in cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) embryos cultured ex vivo. We demonstrate that hEPSCs survived, proliferated, and generated several peri- and early post-implantation cell lineages inside monkey embryos.”

Whoa!

In their new paper published in the journal Cell, American geneticist Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte and a team of researchers in China led by primate reproduction biologist Weizhi Ji announced they have successfully injected 25 human stem cells into developing five-day-old macaque monkey embryos, and of the 132 human-monkey chimera embryos created, 103 were still alive after 10 days and 3 survived for 20 days in lab dishes. That’s an impressive success rate when compared to Izpisúa Belmonte’s experiments with human-pig and other chimeras, and he tells Live Science it’s because “the evolutionary distance is smaller” between humans and monkeys.

“Generation of a chimera between human and non-human primate, a species more closely related to humans along the evolutionary timeline than all previously used species, will allow us to gain better insight into whether there are evolutionarily imposed barriers to chimera generation and if there are any means by which we can overcome them.”

In the press release, Izpisúa Belmonte even destroys the chalk used to draw the ethical line by revealing his experiments seek to hurdle the barriers to chimera generation. Right now, by doing the experiments in China, the only barriers he hasn’t hurdled are regulations in other countries. Alejandro De Los Angeles, a stem cell biologist at the Yale University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, told Live Science:

“The embryos here were not transferred into a uterus, and thus could not lead to living chimeric animals or even fetuses. Implantation of human-monkey embryos would be ethically contentious and will need to be discussed by scientists, ethicists and the public before moving forward with such experiments.”

Right — just like the creation of these human-monkey embryos was … not. In fact, one of the big concerns about allowing human-monkey chimeras to live longer is that the human cells would migrate to the monkey brains and grow there, transferring humanness to them. Unfortunately, it appears some communications already occurred in the 20-day-old chimera embryos, according Izpisua Belmonte in the press release.

“From these analyses, several communication pathways that were either novel or strengthened in the chimeric cells were identified. Understanding which pathways are involved in chimeric cell communication will allow us to possibly enhance this communication and increase the efficiency of chimerism in a host species that’s more evolutionarily distant to humans.”

This is too much!

Even if we eliminate the more cinematic, sci-fi and dystopian scenarios from the “what could possibly go wrong” discussions, there are still plenty of other outcomes worth worrying about and preventing. As always, the reality is that these experiments are being conducted in China and those scenarios may have already played out, even though Izpisua Belmonte assures us that “it is our responsibility as scientists to conduct our research thoughtfully, following all the ethical, legal, and social guidelines in place.”

Sorry, Izpisua Belmonte. What if you’re in a place where there are no such guidelines? Isn’t that why you went to China?

How many more “What could possibly go wrong” files do we need? Is it time for a cabinet? A warehouse?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

16-04-2021 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

A fifth force of nature has been found and it violates the laws of physics – why are we still in existence? “Muon g-2” sounds like a villainous robot in a sci-fi movie, but it’s actually the experiment conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago that resulted in the discovery that muons – massive cousins of electrons – wobble while spinning through a strong magnetic field and the force created is not known under the Standard Model of particle physics. That would make it a fifth fundamental force of nature. Is that a bad thing?

“This quantity we measure reflects the interactions of the muon with everything else in the universe. But when the theorists calculate the same quantity, using all of the known forces and particles in the Standard Model, we don’t get the same answer. This is strong evidence that the muon is sensitive to something that is not in our best theory.”

Renee Fatemi, a physicist at the University of Kentucky and the simulations manager for the Muon g-2 experiment, doesn’t sound too concerned in the press release that he may have helped create a force in the universe that isn’t gravity, electromagnetic, weak or strong forces. Then again, he may be playing the odds that the numbers are wrong — there is a one in a 40,000 chance that the result could be a statistical fluke. On the other hand, Professor Ben Allanach from Cambridge University, who was not involved with the study, sounds positively giddy in his interview with the BBC.

“My Spidey sense is tingling and telling me that this is going to be real.I have been looking all my career for forces and particles beyond what we know already, and this is it. This is the moment that I have been waiting for and I’m not getting a lot of sleep because I’m too excited.”

Allanach and other physicists are hoping a fifth fundamental force might help explain dark matter and other mysteries and puzzles of the Universe. Gordan Krnjaic, a cosmologist at Fermilab, told The New York Times he thinks this will also help find new subatomic particles, like the theoretical leptoquark or the Z-prime boson.

“If the central value of the observed anomaly stays fixed, the new particles can’t hide forever. We will learn a great deal more about fundamental physics going forward.”

Since it’s a possible new force of nature, it needs a name. Allanach has already given the possible fifth force various names in his theoretical models — the “flavour force,” the “third family hyperforce” and “B minus L2.”

Needless to say, Gravity and Electromagnetic aren’t impressed with any of those. However, they probably agree that Leptoquark would make a great name for a band.

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-04-2021 om 21:04 geschreven door peter  

From the “Ethically Dubious” file, which is in the “What could possibly go wrong?” filing cabinet, comes the news that researchers have grown mouse embryos outside of a mouse womb and kept them growing for 12 days – which would be about the length of the first trimester for a human embryo. Speaking of human embryos – the researchers are already discussing growing them outside of the womb for much longer than the few days embryos grow at invitro fertilization clinics before being implanted in a mother or destroyed. Is this the start of a brave new world, the end of ethics, the plot of the ultimate dystopian horror movie … or something far more unimaginable?

“It’s not only about being able to grow [mouse] embryos, but being able to manipulate them.”

If you picked “far more unimaginable,” you’re probably right. Jacob Hanna at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is the senior author of the mouse-embryo-growing-in-a-jar study accepted for publication in the journal Nature Research and the purpose was not just to see if it could be done but to play/experiment with the embryos. Mice have a 20-day gestation period, so the 12 days in a jar was enough for them to grow tissues and organs – and be observed by researchers doing little more than peering through the glass. In fact, the only thing stopping the mouse embryos from growing to term in the jar of liquid nutrients was the lack of a blood supply to their hearts. Hanna told MIT Technology Review that he’s not interested in going to term – his goal is “to watch and manipulate early development.” One idea is to introduce viruses such as Zika, to learn how exactly they harm the fetus. That’s fine for mice (but not for animal rights activists) but Hanna wants to go beyond mice to … human embryos.

HANNA, ET. AL./WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE/YOUTUBE/SCREENSHOT

“Once the guidelines are updated, I can apply, and it will be approved. It’s a very important experiment. We need to see human embryos gastrulate and form organs and start perturbing it. The benefit of growing human embryos to week three, week four, week five is invaluable. I think those experiments should at least be considered. If we can get to an advanced human embryo, we can learn so much.”

(Insert screams here.)

Hanna recognizes and respects the so-called 14-day rule – an unwritten guideline for embryologists which keeps them from growing human embryos more than two weeks. However, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) wants to allow for a much longer term and that’s what Hanna is waiting for. He told MIT Technology Review he wants to conduct experiments where human embryos could be altered to limit their potential to develop fully – for example, by installing genetic mutations in a calcium channel to prevent the heart from ever beating.

Is Jacob Hanna making plans to help humankind through science … or is he a mad scientist helping to make a new kind of human? A little of both? One thing is for certain – he’s not alone in this thinking. And one other thing is probable – this is already being done somewhere else.

Do you want this brave new world? What could possibly go wrong?

Pressurized oxygen helps to feed the developing cells, pushing through with pressure where nature would build a circulatory system. The embryos eventually died because they grew too large for oxygen to penetrate without the help of the placental blood oxygen flow that embryos have in real wombs.

Twelve days represents about half a mouse’s natural full gestational term. Hanna tells MIT Technology Review he hopes this will lead to human embryo studies of up to 5-week-old embryos. In naturally occurring pregnancies, it’s almost impossible to study embryos without jeopardizing them in some way—the same way it’s very, very ethically difficult to study pregnant people under the traditional scientific method.

To demonstrate the wide-ranging research ramifications of their method, the scientists also experimented with specific stains, chemicals, and more to show the embryos could still grow in the spinning artificial womb:

“This culture system is amenable to introducing a variety of embryonic perturbations and micro-manipulations that can be followed ex utero for up to six days. The ability to remove a mammalian embryo from the uterine environment and grow it normally in controlled conditions constitutes a powerful tool to characterize the effect of different perturbations on development during the period from gastrulation to organogenesis, that can be combined with genetic modification, chemical screens, tissue manipulation and microscopy methods.”

Developmentally, the 12-day-old mouse embryo, which is at “the hind limb formation stage,” is the same as the 5-week-old human fetus. As Technology Review points out, other researchers are actively studying ways to culture artificial human embryos by prompting human stem cells to divide and grow. But there are ethical questions that go both ways when it comes to studying embryos.

First, many critics consider the idea of implanting a so-called “artificial embryo” into a human womb to be extremely distasteful, and the practice is even illegal in some places. Trying to study this dynamic would be fraught, to say the least. Second, implanting a real embryo in an artificial womb to be studied up to 5 weeks, when the embryo would recognizably be human and have growing features, is a tough sell for many people.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-04-2021 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Human Cyborg Thrives Even as His Body of Flesh Breaks Down

Paul Seaburn

The late Stephen Hawking managed to live a long (for his condition) and certainly fulfilling life after being diagnosed and ultimately debilitated by the motor neuron disease (MND) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) – with the help of a speech generating device, a sophisticated wheelchair and the help of many friends. Peter Scott-Morgan also has motor neuron disease, but he’s gone a big step further that Hawking by making the decision and the necessary surgical changes to connect to machines and become what he calls the first human cyborg. The process, begun in 2019 just two years after his diagnosis, has reached the point where he’s announced to the world that he’s now Peter 2.0. Is he really a human cyborg?

“In short, as a transitioning cyborg my overall quality of life is exceptional,’ he said. ‘I have love, I have fun, I have hope, I have dreams and I have purpose and did I mention, I’m still alive. Really alive, not just one of the living dead, not just surviving, thriving. So when you ask the best thing in the last four years, not being dead is right up there.”

Scott-Morgan is more than “not dead” – the world-renowned roboticist is a living advertisement for the technology he has developed, along with the risky and controversial surgical decisions he has made in order to use much of it. He describes the steps in great detail in his new autobiography “Peter 2.0,” which was recently serialized by The Daily Mail. Those include a gastrostomy, a cystostomy and a colostomy all performed in a single operation so that tubes and devices could take over the functions of his stomach, bladder and colon. After training a computer to mimic his voice, he said his last words and received a laryngectomy (removal of the voice box) to prevent saliva from entering his lungs. Laser eye surgery improved the vison he needs for seeing the computer and eye-movement-controlled devices. And he was able to record a library of facial expressions while he could still make them which are now a realistic avatar.

The scientist remains determine to use technology to transform his body before being 'locked in' by the condition

While his partner of 45 years, Francis, is indispensable both physically and emotionally, his true inspiration comes from a surprising source.

“For one simple reason, all my early science education game from Doctor Who and Star Trek. Every week I learned if you’re smart enough and brave enough and have access to enough super cool technology then whatever the odds you can change everything.”

All of this work to build Peter 2.0 is not just to save Peter 1.0 – it’s to help others with motor neuron disease and other debilitating conditions. He’s starting with his voice simulator, which actually allows him to speak in any language.

“Building on the research we conducted to create my Peter 2.0 voice, world-leading @cereproc and The Scott-Morgan Foundation will be announcing a wonderful first – the chance for ANYONE losing their voice to clone it affordably!!!”

CereProc Ltd. developed the world’s most advanced text to speech technology for multiple platforms and Scott-Morgan’s foundation is helping those without his robotics knowledge, support system and financial backing to afford the same tools in a world where medical advances that give people quality of life are not a right but a product with a price that’s usually exorbitant.

“I’m not just surviving… I’m thriving!”

Peter 2.0 is obviously not the end, just the beginning. As Peter Scott-Morgan upgrades himself, he will help upgrade those like him. As he puts it, his mission is “to completely rewrite the future of disability.”

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WHAT IS MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE?

Motor neurone disease is a rare condition that mainly affects people in their 60s and 70s, but it can affect adults of all ages.

It's caused by a problem with cells in the brain and nerves called motor neurones. These cells gradually stop working over time. It's not known why this happens.

Having a close relative with motor neurone disease, or a related condition called frontotemporal dementia, can sometimes mean you're more likely to get it. But it doesn't run in families in most cases.

Early symptoms can include weakness in your ankle or leg, like finding it hard to walk upstairs; slurred speech, finding it hard to swallow, a weak grip, and gradual weight loss

If you have these sympthoms, you should see a GP. They will consider other possible conditions and can refer you to a specialist called a neurologist if necessary.

If a close relative has motor neurone disease or frontotemporal dementia and you're worried you may be at risk of it – they may refer you to a genetic counsellor to talk about your risk and any tests you can have

Source: NHS UK 

HOW DID HE BECOME A CYBORG? 

Roboticist Peter Scott-Morgan has undergone many changes on his journey

Peter Scott-Morgan has undergone a complex journey to extend his life in the face of motor neurone disease. 

• He built a life-like avatar so he can express emotions after his facial muscles have wasted away.
  • A top-end wheelchair lets him move around quickly, stand and lie flat.
  • Laser eye surgery has given him perfect computer-using vision. 
  • Eye-tracking technology will enable him to operate computers.
  • A feeding tube has been inserted directly into his stomach.
  • In a similar fashion, a catheter and colostomy bag take care of his toileting needs.
  • Most recently, the expert had his larynx remove to stop saliva entering his lungs.
  • A voice box — with his pre-recorded speech — will talk for him.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-04-2021 om 23:45 geschreven door peter  

No Longer Sci-Fi: Laser Guns Are Coming to the U.S. Military

These weapons will help defend against fast drone swarms and could even eventually be used against missiles.

Enemy drone attack threats are a key part of the inspiration for newer kinds of laser weapons because they can incinerate drones without generating large amounts of explosive fragmentation. Moreover, newer lasers can scale attacks to align with the target and desired combat effect and, perhaps most of all, travel at the speed of light to destroy drones quickly, ideally before they are able to strike.

Attacking drone swarms may be approaching for attack so quickly that kinetic responses such as interceptor missile fire control systems may be challenged in certain respects, depending upon the extent of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled target recognition technology and computer automation.

The question of scaling lasers to optimize power input for counter-drone strikes is addressed in a recent essay from May of last year called “Testing the Efficiency of Laser Technology to Destroy Rogue Drones,” in the Security & Defense Quarterly from War Studies University. The essay describes innovative experimental methods of “incorporating a laser module and groups of optical lenses to focus the power in one point to carbonize any target.” Specifically, the research paper explained, a laser lens was adjusted to zero in or focus upon particular distant objects.

“We measured the necessary time to burnt acrylic plastic, wood, and hard carton from a distance of 55 metres. It was noticed that the laser efficiency is proportional to the laser power and time the cannon is turned on,” the essay writes.

In a discussion with The National Interest, Army Futures Command Commander Gen. John Murray made the point that pre-programmed or autonomous drones do indeed potentially present a uniquely difficult, first-of-its kind defensive predicament which requires tailorable solutions. Perhaps AI-enabled defenses can help discern key specifics related to an incoming drone threat and help determine the optimal countermeasure, which may in many cases be lasers.

“When you have little drones operating in different patterns and formations, all talking to each other and staying in sync with one another...imagine that with the ability to create lethal effects on the battlefield. There is no human who will be able to keep up with that,” Murray told The National Interest in an interview.

AI-capable drone defenses can already gather, pool, organize and analyze an otherwise disconnected array of threat variables, compare them against one another in relation to what kinds of defense responses might be optimal and make analytical determinations in a matter of milliseconds. As part of this, AI-empowered algorithms can analyze a host of details such as weapons range, atmospheric conditions, geographical factors and point of impact calculations all in close relation to one another as part of an integrated picture, examine and compare what has worked in specific previous circumstances and scenarios to determine the best defensive response.

Added power to a laser weapon includes the ability to decrease processing time for any kind of kill chain or sensor-to-shooter cycle. While elements of this process can be shortened through the use of AI-empowered computers and automation, doubling the power output from 10kw would likely reduce the kill time from approximately five seconds to two-to-three seconds, Evan Hunt, Director of Business Development for High Energy Lasers and c-UAS, Raytheon, told The National Interest in an interview.

“The laser is a solution with high efficiency that can ruin or intercept autonomously programmed drones, as this cannot be achieved in the same way by the RF jammer or any other solutions,” the War Studies University essay explains.

There are a number of current, high-profile laser weapons development efforts underway including Air Force initiatives to fire lasers from stealth fighter jets, Navy integration of large, powerful lasers onto destroyers and even Missile Defense Agency work on “power scaling” sufficient to use lasers for ballistic missile defense.

Nonetheless, one thing Murray stressed was that, while lasers can offer lower-cost, scalable and highly-efficient weapons systems, they can experience what’s called “beam attenuation” and weaken in certain weather conditions.

“One thing about lasers is they are never going to be the sole solution, because of atmospherics- weather - so you are always going to have some mix of gun, missile and lasers, I think,” Murray explained.

• Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

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{ https://nationalinterest.org/ }

05-04-2021 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

“The generated intraspecies chimaeras were viable and displayed normal histology, morphology and function. Human:pig chimaeras generated with TP53-null human induced pluripotent stem cells led to higher chimaerism efficiency, with embryos collected at embryonic days 20 and 27 containing humanized muscle, as confirmed by immunohistochemical and molecular analyses. Human:pig chimaeras may facilitate the production of exogenic organs for research and xenotransplantation.”

Science-speak is often so confusing that it makes seemingly horrific things less so, but one phrase in the opening abstract of a new study jumps out in a way that anyone can understand – “Human:pig chimaeras.” The chimera (or chimaera) of Greek mythology was a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature made from parts of a lion, goat and serpent. Modern-day chimeras are creatures, organisms or tissue that are one body with two sets of cells and two different sets of DNA. A whole-body chimera is created when two embryos merge at a very early stage and the two embryos develop as one being. This can occur in humans when a fetus absorbs a dead fraternal twin. For comparison, a hybrid is the offspring of two different species with each of their cells containing DNA from both species — mules (horse-donkey) and ligers (lion-tiger) are examples.

Classic chimera

Human-pig chimeras in the U.S. were first created in 2017 by placing human cells in pig embryos. In a few, the cells grew into muscle and organ cells before the embryos were destroyed. The goal was to eventually grow human organs in pigs for transplanting, and more experiments involving human-rodent and human-chimpanzee chimeras allegedly occurred in China and Japan. On the other hand, these experiments in the U.S. have been tightly regulated and are quite rare. Recently, researchers at the University of Minnesota focused on some less complex but just as needed tissue – muscles to replace those lost in accidents, combat or surgical procedures. That focus resulted in the creation of more human-pig chimeras with one new twist – the embryos were allowed to grow to full term!

“It is important to note that we demonstrate that the human donor cells are located only where the pig skeletal muscle [now genetically deleted] once was. The human donor cells do not migrate to the brain or to the reproductive cells of the pig.”

Mary Garry, associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota’s Cardiovascular Division and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, answers in Inverse the chimera-elephant-in-the-room question – the human stem cells were implanted in pig embryos that had the genes required to develop pig skeletal muscle tissue removed via CRISPR gene editing. Because of that, they never strayed to the pigs’ brains or reproductive organs. Also, these were adult-derived stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

You know what this means?

That still left a lab full of human-pig chimeras running around. Transplanting their human muscles is not yet technologically feasible nor ethically approved — Garry estimates that both will happen in the next 3 to 5 years in the U.S. What about outside the U.S.? We’ve already seen that regulations don’t matter in some countries and money talks in just about all of them. Could human-pig chimeras be supplying organs already somewhere else? That needle is moving quickly on the probability meter. Organ transplants of all kinds are in short supply, even in countries with illegal or look-the-other-way harvesting. Do the benefits outweigh the risk of unethical development or an accidental escape into the normal population? Is there a twisted scientist with the goal of creating a real Orwellian “Animal Farm” or Seinfeldian Pig Man?

Stranger things have happened … and they’re not going to stop.

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Scientists from the Salk Institute discuss the breakthrough.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

02-04-2021 om 18:39 geschreven door peter  

15 Amazing Technology Trends We Must Embrace in the Next Decade

According to CompTIA 2020, the global technology industry is forecasted to reach $5 trillion in 2021. If this prediction comes true, it will represent a growth rate of 4.2%. 

With today’s rapid pace of change, it gets challenging to predict the evolving state of technology in the future. The ghastly COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the innovation process. It has reshaped the technology trends and digital ecosystem. As our perspective on life has also changed for the better, we are digging for ways to be more competitive and productive through technology. 

The next few years will be full of technological surprises and disruption. In this light, let us examine the emerging technology trends that will significantly impact the economy and our lives in the coming decade. 

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Become a Conventional Reality 

According to Deloitte 2021, AI-based revenues are anticipated to hit $100 billion by 2025.

We have already witnessed what AI is capable of, and the next decade will take things a notch higher. AI can help medical patients through the use of different kinds of robots. Assistive robots can help with manipulation tasks like grasping or feeding disabled patients. Further, AI can also help chemists and druggists analyze data and recognize treatments efficiently based on the disease’s direct cause. This could lead to a reduction of up to $2.6 billion in the treatment development process. 

2. 5G Technology Will Soon Become a Boon for Businesses 

According to IDG, 5G latency is predicted to range between 1 and 4 milliseconds- a far cry from 4G’s 50 to 100 milliseconds. By 2023, 5G subscriptions are forecasted to reach 1.3 billion worldwide (Statista, 2021).

What Is 5G Technology And How Must Businesses Prepare For It?

 ADOBE STOCK

The term 5G has been creating a buzz for more than half a decade and has been a matter of debate on most technical essay writer forums. The emergence of 5G is one of the most enigmatic, new upcoming technologies that could impact businesses in 2021. 

Huawei says, “5G wireless networks will support 1000 fold gains in capacity, connections for at least 100 billion devices and a 10GB/s individual user experience of extremely low latency and response times. Deployment of these networks will emerge between 2020 and 2030.”  

3. Emergence of Easy and Safe Autonomous Driving 

You must have heard of well-known companies like Alphabet, Tesla, and Waymo. Do you know what is common between them? Their impeccable objective is to craft amazing autonomous vehicles. 

• https://www.zdnet.com/video/teslas-big-new-feature-autopilot-now-halts-cars-at-red-lights-and-stop-signs/

Although the existing infrastructure needs tweaks, we certainly cannot rule out the possibility of autonomous vehicles in 2020. 

4. Considerable Advancement in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

As per a survey by Statista in 2020, the market size of AR is presently at $12 billion, and by 2023 AR users are estimated to reach 2.4 billion. Augmented reality has turned out to be another major game-changer across numerous industries. Advances in AR, VR, and MR will continue to be at the forefront of attention in the upcoming decade. Once only found in video gaming, R+ will quickly become a useful tool in manufacturing, healthcare, engineering design, space exploration, and many other areas. 

5. Rise of The Internet of Behaviors 

The Internet of Behaviors is only meant to captivate the ‘digital dust’ of the lives of people from various sources. According to Gartner, more than half of the global population will be under an IoB tool by 2025. Given the implementation of COVID-19 protocols, we will only experience a boom in the internet of behaviors in the year 2021 and further on. This would be phenomenal in monitoring and enhancing customer choices, priorities, and actions. 

6. Increasing Popularity of Distributed Cloud Services 

Currently, cloud-based applications have taken the markets by storm. As more than 90% of firms switch to cloud-based operations, distributed cloud services will get allocated as per their physical location through public cloud providers. In 2021, distributed cloud technology will flourish for its numerous advantages, like less latency, physical proximity, and lower data cost. It can be said without a shade of doubt that cloud distribution is the future and new normal that we should embrace wholeheartedly. 

7. Growth of Digital Sectors By Leaps And Bounds 

When COVID-19 revealed our systems’ fragility, digital medical examinations and digital health came to the rescue of humanity. Globally, the digital health market was worth around $88 billion in 2018, but now it is expected to grow to over $500 billion by 2025. In this decade, the digital health sector is expected to develop sustainable, scalable, and affordable health solutions. If anything, we know how rapidly our world will embrace these technological leaps. 

8. DARQ- An Asset for Hiring And Training

The technology market of DARQ (Distributed Ledger Technologies)has generated revenue of $640 million in 2019 and is expected to rise at a CAGR of 16.5% during 2020-2025. Volkswagen is already cashing in on this technology trend to use quantum computing to test traffic flow optimization and accelerate battery development. Taking all these cases of DARQ into consideration, eminent tech essay writers and researchers believe that its existence in the coming decade is beyond doubt. 

9. Growth of E-Sports

A decade ago, the popular concept of online gaming, virtual matches, and sports was challenging to comprehend. The past few years and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the growth of the e-sports market, predicted to surpass $1.5 billion by 2023. 

When the pandemic hit us, it was observed that 1/3 of online consumers subscribed to virtual sports avenues. A flux of digital consumers was seen on video gaming, cloud gaming, and the virtual sports portal. Gen Z and millennial customers are leaning towards E-sports more than ever. 

10. Rise Of Ethical AI

In the past, firms that adopted AI technologies and machine learning paid little heed to their ethical impact. In the present day, value-based consumers and employees expect various companies to adopt AI responsibly. Although over 50% of AI adopters have major concerns regarding the potential risks of their AI plans, only 4 in 10 reported that their organizations were prepared to address them. Over the next few years, firms will deliberately choose to do business with partners who commit to data ethics and values. 

11. Increasing Use of Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency 

A digital asset or the online monetary equivalence, Cryptocurrency is a giant market worth over $265 billion. We will observe a steady increase in Cryptocurrency users (presently around 40 million) in the upcoming years. We can expect blockchain tech and Cryptocurrency to shine through digital transactions in 2021 due to the increasing interest of business in digitalization. 

12. The Empowered Edge 

According to Grand View Research, the value of the global edge computing market is estimated to reach $3.5 billion by 2027.  In 2021, innovations in next-generation communications, cloud-native technologies, and edge computing architectures have come together to create breakthroughs in cloud-to-cloud integration. By 2023, Gartner believes there will be up to 20 times as many smart devices at the edge of the network. 

13. The Rise of AI Security 

Perhaps one of the most undeniable trends that we will most likely see in the upcoming decade is an increasing need for privacy and security in the artificial intelligence environment. As companies worldwide continue to embrace machine learning and AI, it only makes sense that we will want these environments to become as secure as possible. This will compel CIOS and eminent business leaders to think diligently about improving the cloud computing environment. 

14. Human Augmentation 

A vital topic that Gartner has considered in its recent report of disruptive tech trends for the upcoming decade is Human Augmentation. 

As per Gartner, human augmentation is the wing of technology that can be used to deliver cognitive and physical improvements to the human experience. Certain aspects of human augmentation may incorporate more wearables to complete tasks every day. Gartner also feels that human augmentation will soon become more evident over the next ten years. 

15. Global IoT Security Breaches 

Analyst firm Gartner predicts that 20.4 billion connected things would be in use worldwide by 2030. And with the steep rise of autonomous things, there is an excellent chance that many of these things will have a weak security level. 

In 2021, it will be essential for IoT manufacturers to significantly increase security for all the products in the market. Whether it is a drone or a refrigerator, manufacturers should implement security to keep hackers at bay. 

Final Note 

The future is uncertain, and it is difficult to predict how technology will evolve. Innovations will emerge from left-field and surprise the world. But, that’s what makes it excessively exciting! We hope this gives you a comprehensive idea of the 15 technology trends to keep an eye on in the upcoming decade. Let us embrace the changing times with gusto! 

• Clara Smith is an eminent technology consultant and part-time blogger hailing from the USA. A part of Allessaywriter.com for 10+years now, he is quite popular among students for catering to ‘write my essay’ requests.

The post 15 Amazing Technology Trends We Must Embrace in the Next Decade appeared first on SiteProNews.

Source: 

• https://www.sitepronews.com/2021/03/19/15-amazing-technology-trends-we-must-embrace-in-the-next-decade/

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19-03-2021 om 17:32 geschreven door peter  

Is the future of deep-sea exploration soft? Researchers have developed a new type of soft robot designed to cope with the crushing pressures at the bottom the ocean.

Inspired by the deepest-living known fish, the Mariana snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei), researchers used soft materials and distributed electronics to create a machine that can withstand extreme pressure. They say that a soft robot could be more versatile and reliable at depth than other machines which require bulk materials or pressure compensation systems.

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{ https://www.nature.com/nature }

11-03-2021 om 21:59 geschreven door peter