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!!!
Een interessant adres?
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.
11-07-2019
Robot-Ants Jump, Communicate And Work Together in a Swarm
Robot-Ants Jump, Communicate And Work Together in a Swarm
Robot ants
Credit: EPFL
A team of EPFL researchers has developed tiny 10-gram robots that are inspired by ants: they can communicate with each other, assign roles among themselves and complete complex tasks together. These reconfigurable robots are simple in structure, yet they can jump and crawl to explore uneven surfaces. The researchers have just published their work in Nature.
Individually, ants have only so much strength and intelligence. However, as a colony, they can use complex strategies to complete sophisticated tasks and evade larger predators.
At EPFL, robotics researchers in Professor Jamie Paik’s Laboratory have reproduced this phenomenon, developing tiny robots that display minimal physical intelligence on an individual level but that are able to communicate and act collectively. Despite being simple in design and weighing only 10 grams, each robot has multiple locomotion modes to navigate any type of surface. Collectively, they can quickly detect and overcome obstacles and move objects much larger and heavier than themselves. The related research has been published in Nature.
Credit: Marc Delachaux / EPFL
Robots inspired by trap-jaw ants
These three-legged, T-shaped origami robots are called Tribots. They can be assembled in only a few minutes by folding a stack of thin, multi-material sheets, making them suitable for mass production. Completely autonomous and untethered, Tribots are equipped with infrared and proximity sensors for detection and communication purposes. They could accommodate even more sensors depending on the application.
“Their movements are modeled on those of Odontomachus ants. These insects normally crawl, but to escape a predator, they snap their powerful jaws together to jump from leaf to leaf,” says Zhenishbek Zhakypov, the first author. The Tribots replicate this catapult mechanism through an elegant origami design that combines multiple shape-memory alloy actuators. As a result, a single robot can produce five distinct locomotion gaits: vertical jumping, horizontal jumping, somersaulting to clear obstacles, walking on textured terrain and crawling on flat surfaces – just like these creatively resilient ants.
Roles: leader, worker and explorer
Despite having the same anatomy, each robot is assigned a specific role depending on the situation. ‘Explorers’ detect physical obstacles in their path, such as objects, valleys and mountains. After detecting an obstacle, they inform the rest of the group. Then, the ‘leader’ gives the instructions. The ‘workers,’ meanwhile, pool their strength to move objects. “Each Tribot, just like Odontomachus ants, can have different roles. However, they can also take on new roles instantaneously when faced with a new mission or an unknown environment, or even when other members get lost. This goes beyond what the real ants can do,” says Paik.
Zhenishbek Zhakypov and Jamie Paik. (Photo : Mac Delachaux / EPFL)
Future applications
In practical situations, such as an emergency search mission, Tribots could be deployed en masse. And thanks to their multi-locomotive and multi-agent communication capabilities, they could locate a target quickly over a large surface without relying on GPS or visual feedback. “Since they can be manufactured and deployed in large numbers, having some ‘casualties’ would not affect the success of the mission,” adds Paik.““With their unique collective intelligence, our tiny robots can demonstrate better adaptability to unknown environments; therefore, for certain missions, they would outperform larger, more powerful robots.”
This work is the result of a joint collaboration between EPFL and Osaka University
In April, Jamie Paik has presented her reconfigurable robots at the TED2019 conference in Vancouver. Her talk will be available July 10th here https://go.ted.com/jamiepaik at 11 a.m. EST.
Photo: Bret Hartman / TED
On July 10th, Jamie Paik and several eminent scientists joined famous writer Professor Harari on stage at a special event to help mark EPFL’s 50th anniversary year.
Contacts and sources: Laure-Anne Pessina Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Citation: Zhenishbek Zhakypov, Kazuaki Mori, Koh Hosoda and Jamie Paik, Designing Minimal and Scalable Insect-Inspired Multi-Locomotion Millirobots, Nature, 10 July 2019. DOI 10.1038/s41586-019-1388-
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20-06-2019
Robotic fighter jets could soon join military pilots on combat missions. Here's why.
Robotic fighter jets could soon join military pilots on combat missions. Here's why.
The fast-flying drones would scout enemy locations and draw fire that otherwise would be directed at human pilots.
The Boeing Airpower Teaming System is the company's first unmanned system developed in Australia and designed for global defense customers.Boeing
By Jeremy Hsu
Military pilots may soon have a new kind of wingman to depend upon: not flesh-and-blood pilots but fast-flying, sensor-studded aerial drones that fly into combat to scout enemy targets and draw enemy fire that otherwise would be directed at human-piloted aircraft.
War planners see these robotic wingmen as a way to amplify air power while sparing pilots' lives and preventing the loss of sophisticated fighter jets, which can cost more than $100 million apiece.
"These drone aircraft are a way to get at that in a more cost-effective manner, which I think is really a game-changer for the Air Force," says Paul Scharre, director of the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Unlike slow-moving drones such as the Reaper and the Global Hawk, which are flown remotely by pilots on the ground, the new combat drones would be able to operate with minimal input from human pilots. To do that, they'd be equipped with artificial intelligence systems that give them the ability not only to fly but also to learn from and respond to the needs of the pilots they fly alongside.
"The term we use in the Air Force is quarterbacking," says Will Roper, assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics and one of the experts working to develop the AI wingmen. "So the pilot is calling a play and knows how the systems will respond, but doesn't have to run the play for them."
Training a robotic wingman
Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory took an important step in the development of the AI wingmen by announcing its Skyborg program focused on developing the AI necessary to control the drones. As part of the program, Air Force pilots are already flying simulated missions alongside the drones. Roper says drones like the XQ-58A Valkyrie, a 652-mph drone built by Sacramento-based Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems with a projected manufacturing cost of $2 million apiece, could be AI-enabled and ready to fly within the next three years.
The XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator, a long-range unmanned air vehicle, completed its inaugural flight on March 5, 2019 at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona.Senior Airman Joshua Hoskins / US Air Force
"I wouldn't be surprised if the AI becomes tailored to individual pilots," Roper says. "They're actually training their own AI that augments their strengths and weaknesses."
The U.S. military isn't alone in working to develop fighter drones. The Future Combat Air System is a $74-million, two-year deal between Germany and France aimed at building a next-generation fighter that would act as a flying command center for swarms of the fighter drones.
The latter program plans for the first test flight to take place in 2020, with the goal of eventually selling the system worldwide.
Partners or replacements?
Given the rise of drones and AI, some experts question whether it makes sense to continue sending human pilots into harm's way. Why not have people on the ground or in an airborne command center give orders to swarms of combat drones — and let them carry out the mission on their own?
"If you just make the human go fly in combat and their wingman is a drone, it doesn't change their risk profile at all — it only adds to their workload," says Missy Cummings, director of the humans and autonomy laboratory at Duke University and a former fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy.
Scharre says the military still needs humans "forward in the fight" to guide combat drones. But he too sees a coming shift in the role of combat pilots — from flying a fighter jet and controlling its weapons systems to acting as a "battle manager" who decides what actions need to be taken by piloted and drone aircraft. That will likely include deciding when drones should use deadly force and selecting specific targets — decisions that the U.S. military is hesitant to hand over entirely to AI in part because research suggests AI is less skilled than humans at adapting to changing or uncertain situations.
"A country that does not have pilots trained as good as we do might see appeal in shifting more and more of their mission to autonomous systems," Roper says. "Well, if they do that, I think we will have the advantage, because those autonomous systems acting alone will never be able to do what people teamed with machines are able to do."
In 2017, Harvard University geneticist George Church predicted that gene-edited pig organs would be transplanted into humanswithin two years. Well, it’s 2019. Is it time to stop putting pork in baked beans and start putting it in human bein’s? (Sorry, but you knew it was coming.)
“I was wrong.”
When life gives you lemons, or pesky regulations that stop you from testing gene-edited pig organs on humans, you make lemonade by putting the pig organs in the next best thing to humans. No, not zombies … although that’s a great idea for a movie. George Church and his eGenesis company has convinced a major US hospital to allow them to transplant gene-edited pig organs into monkeys. You know the next question: What could possibly go wrong?
“What we’re doing is a necessary step. We’d be hard pressed to put a modified organ into a human until it’s been tested in a large animal.”
Dr. James Markmann, the chief of transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is working with eGenesis to prove to skeptics that the shortage of human donor organs can be solved by using modified pig organs which are closer to human organs than those of any other animals. Close — but not close enough to light up a Cohiba Behike … yet. In fact, the only thing you may want to light up at the moment is a warning flare. In an interview in the MIT Technology Review, Markmann declines to identify which pig organs are being tested (heart, kidney and liver would be the most popular and useful) nor what kind of monkeys are receiving them. Baboons and chimps would be the obvious choices for their size but it’s difficult both physically and ethically to obtain them for medical experiments, which is why those plentiful, pesky and sometimes murderous Rhesus monkeys are probably the recipients.
On the other hand, there’s millions of pigs and the non-organ parts won’t go to waste, but animal rights groups are fighting for them as well – Markmann avoids conflicts by refering to both donors and recipients as merely “large animals.” Pigs are also becoming more controversial as other researchers believe it’s better to perform the gene edits (the purpose is to eliminate recipient rejection) in such a way that they remove the rejection gene from most of the pig’s organs – creating a veritable buffet of transplantable offal. Markmann prefers to edit one organ at a time and points out that pig hearts have survived in baboons for up to two years. Is it time to test them on humans? What could possibly go wrong?
Doctor, ever since I got that transplant I have this overwhelming urge to burn down a sausage plant.
“We’ve got a Chevy. We may even have a BMW now. Do we wait for a Ferrari? There’s a point where you just want to give it a test drive.”
By far, the best quote on the subject comes from Devin Eckhoff, director of the medical school transplantation division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who seems to liken his own field to auto mechanics and organ transplants to putting a big new Ford engine in an old Model T. As with so many other experiments that end up being plots for horror movies, what could possibly go wrong is that the marketing and accounting departments overrule research and development and make decisions based on fame, money and beating the competition.
A new innovative airplane design known as the Flying-V embraces an entirely different approach to aircraft design. Named after the iconic Gibson Flying-V electric guitar, this plane is designed by researchers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. Dutch airline KLM is funding this revolutionary aeronautical project.
Professor Henri Werij, dean of the university’s faculty of aerospace engineering, said, “New and energy-efficient aircraft designs such as the Flying-V are important, as are new forms of propulsion. Our ultimate aim is emission-free flight.”
Here are some of its salient features:
Aerodynamic shape and reduced weight of this highly energy-efficient plane allow it to use 20% less fuel than the most efficient plane.
The wings of this pioneering aircraft would host the passenger space, cargo hold, fuel tanks and all other infrastructure.
Total width of ‘Flying-V’ is 215ft (65m) and its length will be slightly shorter, at 180 ft (55m).
Having the same wingspan as existing planes, it will be able to carry up to 314 passengers.
If all goes well, we won’t have to wait for long, as a prototype model is expected to take flight later this year.
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05-06-2019
NEW “FLYING-V” PLANE PUTS PASSENGER SEATS IN THE WINGS
NEW “FLYING-V” PLANE PUTS PASSENGER SEATS IN THE WINGS
KLM/TU DELFT
KRISTIN HOUSER
Fuel For Thought
Airlines are testing all sorts of ways to make planes less of a drag on the environment. Virgin Atlantic recently used recycled waste to power a commercial flight, while Boeing and JetBlue have backed an effort to create hybrid electric planes.
The Netherland’s KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is taking a different approach.
It just partnered with a university to develop the “Flying-V,” a radical new airplane design that puts passenger seats inside the plane’s wings — and it could decrease the amount of fuel needed for flights by a substantial 20 percent.
Radical Redesign
On Monday, KLM announced plans to collaborate with Delft University of Technology on the school’s in-development Flying-V airplane design. And it doesn’t just put passengers in the plane’s wings — the fuel tanks and cargo hold will also find a new home there.
Based on the researchers’ calculations, the new design should allow the Flying-V to transport approximately the same number of passengers as an Airbus A350 using 20 percent less fuel.
“We’ve been flying these tube and wing airplanes for decades now, but it seems like the configuration is reaching a plateau in terms of energy efficiency,” TU Delft project leader Roelof Vos told CNN. “The new configuration that we propose realizes some synergy between the fuselage and the wing. The fuselage actively contributes to the lift of the airplane, and creates less aerodynamic drag.”
In the wings: Dutch airline KLM has agreed to find development of V-shaped aircraft known as the Flying-V, which incorporates the passenger cabin, fuel tanks and cargo hold into the wings.
KLM
Aerial efficiency: It's claimed the plane will use 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350-900 while carrying a similar number of passengers -- just over 300.
Edwin Wallet, OSO Studio
Better by design: The plane's increased fuel efficiency is largely a result of its aerodynamic design, its creators say, although its reduced weight also contributes.
Edwin Wallet, OSO Studio
Testing times: Researchers hope to fly a scale model of the airplane in September and say it could be ready to enter service between 2040 and 2050.
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30-05-2019
US Navy orders laser cannon to be mounted on active warship within a year
US Navy orders laser cannon to be mounted on active warship within a year
A fully operational laser cannon is about to be fitted to a US destroyer. It will be the first time such a weapon will be carried by an active warship.
Jamie Seidel
It’s big. It’s bright. It’s dangerous. And it will go to sea on a front-line warship for the first time before 2021. The US Navy has announced it has ordered Lockheed Martin to fit a High Energy Laser Integrated Optical weapon with Surveillance (HELIOS) aboard a destroyer in its Pacific fleet.
The 60-kilowatt laser cannon is capable of burning holes in boats and melting vital components on drones. Ultimately, it’s hoped the defensive weapon will be able to sear incoming hypersonic missiles out of the sky.
The US Navy has placed a $US150 million order for two of the devices.
But Russia is already rolling out a similar system to defend its ground-based installations.
Artist’s rendering of Lockheed Martin’s HELIOS system.
Picture: Lockheed MartinSource:Supplied
ALL ABOARD
“We are going to burn the boats if you will and move forward with this technology,” Rear Admiral Ron Boxall told the 2019 Directed Energy Summit.
One laser cannon will be installed at the White Sands Missile Range for testing, Lockheed Martin says. The other will be installed upon a modern Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.
“The HELIOS program is the first of its kind, and brings together laser weapon, long-range ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) capabilities, dramatically increasing the situational awareness and layered defence options available to the US Navy,” says Lockheed Martin spokesman Michele Evans.
The challenge will be getting it to work in harmony with all the other sensors and weapons systems attached to the destroyer’s complex AEGIS computer network.
“The problem I have today is the integration of that system into my existing combat system. If I’m going to burn the boats, I’m going to replace something I have today with that system doing that mission with these weapons,” Admiral Boxall said.
“If I have this system that can kill and I have a system that can actually sense, then I have to make sure it integrates with the other things I have on my ship that can sense and kill, namely the Aegis weapon system.”
It’s not the first time the US Navy has sent a laser weapon to sea.
It did so with the USS Ponce, amphibious transport ship converted to test new technologies, in 2014. Named LaWS (Laser Weapon System), that experimental cannon had only one third the strength of the new device.
HELIOS, however, is hoped to meet a new generation of threats.
A group of Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers fire missiles during a training exercise. One of these ships will soon be fitted with the world's first operational laser cannon to go to sea.
Picture: US Navy Source:Supplied
BABY STEPS
It’s hoped HELIOS will be fast enough and strong enough to cripple swarms of armed speedboats, such as those used by Iran in the Persian Gulf.
It’s also hoped it will be accurate enough to counter swarms of cheap drones — whether through the raw power of its laser or its ability to ‘dazzle’ some sensors.
These capabilities are nothing new. Current generation automatic Phalanx gattling-guns and Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) systems do the same thing.
It’s just that it takes time to reload these defensive weapons, and only limited stocks of ammunition can be carried. A Phalanx can only fire for a total of 20 seconds before it is emptied. And RAM launchers only come with 21 missiles each.
What both RAM and Phalanx can do that the HELIOS can’t is shoot down attacking cruise missiles.
Nevertheless, facing a threat potentially involving hundreds of cheap drones and dozens of small attack boats, the US Navy finds the ability for HELIOS to be recharged any number of times by the ship’s own engines appealing.
And it hopes ongoing development of the laser will soon give it an antimissile capability.
A third, less defined, feature of HELIOS is an ability to provide long-range surveillance. This may involve the weapon’s new targeting system, or a digital scan mode for the laser itself.
Russia's Peresvet laser cannon unfolds from the back of a truck. It is believed to be an area-defence weapon, similar to the US Navy's HELIOS system.
Picture: Russian Ministry of Defence Source:Supplied
RUSSIA’S LASER CANNON
One of President Vladimir Putin’s six new ‘superweapons’ announced a year ago is now rolling out into active service.
It’s called Peresvet. It’s a truck-mounted laser cannon probably intended to defend an area from hostile drones and missiles.
Exactly what it is capable of is unknown.
But Moscow is hyping its new weapon, releasing a series of videos and reports on the advanced technology.
“Peresvet laser systems, based on new physical principles, entered combat service in [a] testing regime with the Russian armed forces,” the Russian Defence Ministry’s news service said in December.
In 2021, the USS Preble, a destroyer operating out of the Pearl Harbor naval base, will be equipped with the HELIOS, according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser — and the weapon will become the Navy’s go-to system for disabling any inbound cruise missiles launched by China and Russia.
Infinite Ammo
Right now, the Navy uses a Gatling gun called the Phalanx to shoot down missiles or drones, per The Honolulu. With a new laser system, the Navy hopes to improve its anti-drone and anti-missile capabilities.
“We are making the decision to put the laser on our [destroyers],” Ronald Buxall, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, told Defense News. “It’s going to start with Preble in 2021, and when we do that, that will now be her close-in weapon that we now continue to upgrade.”
Room For Improvement
Lockheed Martin, the company that developed the laser weapon, demonstrated that a 10-kilowatt laser can destroy drones and 30 kilowatts is enough to disable a truck, according to the newspaper.
The HELIOS system that will be attached to the USS Preble can fire at 60 kilowatts, according to The Honolulu, and the Navy expects to upgrade it to 150 kilowatts of power.
Three different source videos bring da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to life.
Credit: Samsung.
Researchers used machine learning to create an amazing AI that can create eerie videos of people talking starting from a single frame — a picture or even a painting. The ‘talking head’ in the videos follows the motions of a source face (a real person), whose facial landmarks are applied to the facial data of the target face. As you can see in the presentation video below, the target face mimics the facial expressions and verbal cues of the source. This is how the authors brought Einstein, Salvador Dalí, and even Mona Lisa to life using only a photograph.
This sort of application of machine learning isn’t new. For some years, researchers have been working on algorithms that generate videos which swap faces. However, this kind of software required a lot of training data in video form (at least a couple of minutes of content) in order to generate a realistic moving face for the source. Other efforts rendered 3D faces from a single picture, but could not generate motion pictures.
Credit: Samsung
Computer engineers at Samsung’s AI Center in Moscow took it to the next level. Their artificial neural network is capable of generating a face that turns, speaks, and can make expressions starting from only a single image of a person’s face. The researchers call this technique “single-shot learning”. Of course, the end result looks plainly doctored, but the life-like quality increases dramatically when the algorithm is trained with more images or frames.
Credit: Samsung.
The authors also employed Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) — deep neural net architectures comprised of two nets, pitting one against the other. Basically, each model tries to outsmart the other by creating the appearance of something “real”. This competition promotes a higher level of realism.
If you pay close attention to the outputted faces, you’ll notice that they’re not perfect. There are artifacts and weird bugs that call out the fakeness. That being said this is surely some very impressive work. The next obvious step is making Mona Lisa move her lower body as well. In the future, she might dance for the first time in hundreds of years — or her weird AI avatar, at least.
The work was documented in the preprint server Arxiv.
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11-05-2019
Futuristic Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist!
Futuristic Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist!
Check out these Futuristic SCIFI Weapons That Actually EXIST! From amazing guns from the future like rail guns and laser guns to other futuristic sci-fi technology, this top 10 list of real scifi weapons will amaze you!
9. HEAT RAY
Developed by the U.S. military, the Active Denial System, informally known as the Heat Ray, is a non-lethal, directed-energy weapon designed for area denial, perimeter security, and crowd control. It’s called the ADS for short and works by heating the surface of targets, including human skin.
8. WEAPONIZED HYPERSONIC PLANES
Besides heat rays of the future, this might also remind you of something straight out of a science fiction movie. A ‘scramjet’ powered aircraft called the X-51A WaveRider has been successfully tested by the American military. During testing, it reached a hypersonic speed of Mach (mawk) 5.1, or 3,913 miles per hour (4,828 km/hr) – that’s over five times the speed of sound!
7. AN/SEQ-3 LASER WEAPON SYSTEM
In 2014, the US Navy deployed its first anti-drone laser for active duty in the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Ponce. Known as the An/Seq-3 Laser Weapon System, it’s intended for use against a variety of targets, from drones to small attack boats, and the commander of the USS Ponce is authorized to use it as he deems necessary.
6. ROBOT SOLDIERS
The MAARS, or Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, is a small robot tank that was developed by QinetiQ North America. The fully-loaded system weighs 369 pounds and is equipped with sensors, weapons, and ammunition, along with a battery that can last three to 12 hours, as well as a sleep mode that lasts up to a week.
5. SELF-AIMING RIFLE
This terrifying, $17,000 piece of technology, known as the TrackingPoint XS1 scope, essentially equips sniper rifles with an automatic aiming system. Using advanced technology, the firearm tags targets; then, it factors in variables like wind speed and movement to calculate the perfect shot before firing.
4.RAILGUN
Before the railgun actually existed, it was a mythical weapon that made frequent appearances in video games and, occasionally, in movies, such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The railgun hurls metal slugs at hypersonic speeds using electromagnets and is considered the future of artillery and small arms.
3. PLASMA FORCE FIELDS
Researchers are attempting to keep up with the ever-advancing pace of weapons technology. A patent has been issued to aerospace and defense giant Boeing to develop a force field-like system that could protect military vehicles from shockwaves following explosions from missiles or IED’s, or improvised explosive devices.
2. CornerShot Rifle and Grenade Launcher
Despite the seemingly space-age nature of up-and-coming military technology, combat soldiers struggle with the ages-old problem of being able to see and fire weapons around corners. This is an especially prevalent issue when it comes to modern warfare in urban settings.
1. DIGITAL REVOLVER
Once again, the Armatix Digital Revolver resembles something out of a science fiction film, and something like it was actually featured in a James Bond movie. It’s a futuristic pistol designed with safety in mind – it’s equipped with a digital safety mechanism that can only be disabled by a special wristwatch worn by the operator, which sends an unlock signal to the gun once a password is put in and if it is within a certain distance.
Origins Explained is the place to be to find all the answers to your questions, from mysterious events and unsolved mysteries to everything there is to know about the world and its amazing animals!
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01-05-2019
Futuristic Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist!
Futuristic Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist!
Check out these Futuristic SCIFI Weapons That Actually EXIST! From amazing guns from the future like rail guns and laser guns to other futuristic sci-fi technology, this top 10 list of real scifi weapons will amaze you!
9. HEAT RAY
Developed by the U.S. military, the Active Denial System, informally known as the Heat Ray, is a non-lethal, directed-energy weapon designed for area denial, perimeter security, and crowd control. It’s called the ADS for short and works by heating the surface of targets, including human skin.
8. WEAPONIZED HYPERSONIC PLANES
Besides heat rays of the future, this might also remind you of something straight out of a science fiction movie. A ‘scramjet’ powered aircraft called the X-51A WaveRider has been successfully tested by the American military. During testing, it reached a hypersonic speed of Mach (mawk) 5.1, or 3,913 miles per hour (4,828 km/hr) – that’s over five times the speed of sound!
7. AN/SEQ-3 LASER WEAPON SYSTEM
In 2014, the US Navy deployed its first anti-drone laser for active duty in the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Ponce. Known as the An/Seq-3 Laser Weapon System, it’s intended for use against a variety of targets, from drones to small attack boats, and the commander of the USS Ponce is authorized to use it as he deems necessary.
6. ROBOT SOLDIERS
The MAARS, or Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, is a small robot tank that was developed by QinetiQ North America. The fully-loaded system weighs 369 pounds and is equipped with sensors, weapons, and ammunition, along with a battery that can last three to 12 hours, as well as a sleep mode that lasts up to a week.
5. SELF-AIMING RIFLE
This terrifying, $17,000 piece of technology, known as the TrackingPoint XS1 scope, essentially equips sniper rifles with an automatic aiming system. Using advanced technology, the firearm tags targets; then, it factors in variables like wind speed and movement to calculate the perfect shot before firing.
4. RAILGUN
Before the railgun actually existed, it was a mythical weapon that made frequent appearances in video games and, occasionally, in movies, such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The railgun hurls metal slugs at hypersonic speeds using electromagnets and is considered the future of artillery and small arms.
3. PLASMA FORCE FIELDS
Researchers are attempting to keep up with the ever-advancing pace of weapons technology. A patent has been issued to aerospace and defense giant Boeing to develop a force field-like system that could protect military vehicles from shockwaves following explosions from missiles or IED’s, or improvised explosive devices.
2. CornerShot Rifle and Grenade Launcher
Despite the seemingly space-age nature of up-and-coming military technology, combat soldiers struggle with the ages-old problem of being able to see and fire weapons around corners. This is an especially prevalent issue when it comes to modern warfare in urban settings.
1. DIGITAL REVOLVER
Once again, the Armatix Digital Revolver resembles something out of a science fiction film, and something like it was actually featured in a James Bond movie. It’s a futuristic pistol designed with safety in mind – it’s equipped with a digital safety mechanism that can only be disabled by a special wristwatch worn by the operator, which sends an unlock signal to the gun once a password is put in and if it is within a certain distance.
Origins Explained is the place to be to find all the answers to your questions, from mysterious events and unsolved mysteries to everything there is to know about the world and its amazing animals!
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28-04-2019
How To Time Travel, According To A Physicist!
How To Time Travel, According To A Physicist!
Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University explains what we know about time travel so far.
It's critical that you realize that there are two types of time travel, and they are radically different. Time travel to the future? Definitely possible.
We know how to do it because Einstein showed us the way over a hundred years ago. It’s surprising how few people actually really know about this in their bones.
He showed that if you go out into space and travel near the speed of light, and you turn around, and you come back, your clock will be ticking off time more slowly. So, when you step off it's going to be the future on planet Earth. You will have time traveled into the future.
He also showed that if you hang out near a nice strong source of gravity, a neutron star, a black hole and you kind of get right near the edge of that object, time also for you would slow down real slow relative to everybody else. And therefore, when you come back to Earth, for instance, it'll again be far into the future.
This is not controversial stuff. Any physicist who knows what they're talking about agrees with this. But the other kind of time travel — to the past is where the arguments start to happen because many of us don't think that time travel to the past is possible.
The main proposal that people at least consider worthy of attention for traveling to the past does make use of a weird concept called wormholes. A wormhole is something that really … Albert Einstein again discovered. The guy has like got his name written over everything in this field.
It's a bridge, if you will, from one location space to another. It's kind of a tunnel that gives you a shortcut to go from here to here.
Now he discovered this in 1935 but it was subsequently realized that if you manipulate the openings of a wormhole — put one near a black hole or take one on a high-speed journey, then time of the two openings of this wormhole tunnel will not take off at the same rate, so that you will no longer just go from one location in space to another, if you go through this tunnel, through this wormhole, you'll go from one moment in time to a different moment in time.
Go one way, you'll travel to the past, the other way, travel to the future.
Now again, we don't know if wormholes are real. We don't know if they are real whether you'll be able to go through them.
So, there are all sorts of uncertainties here. Most of us think that you're not going to actually go on a whirlwind journey through a wormhole to the past. But it's still not ruled out.
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25-04-2019
Scientists Merge Machines With Living Things.. Biomaterials aka Living Machines Becomes A Reality
Scientists Merge Machines With Living Things.. Biomaterials aka Living Machines Becomes A Reality
Scientists have created simple machines made of biomaterials with the properties of living things. These so-called “living machines” have the properties of living things despite being human-engineered machines.
As a genetic material, DNA is responsible for all known life. But DNA is also a polymer. Tapping into the unique nature of the molecule, Cornell engineers have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things.
“We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism.We are not making something that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before,” said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Using DASH, the Cornell engineers created a biomaterial that can autonomously emerge from its nanoscale building blocks and arrange itself – first into polymers and eventually mesoscale shapes, reports news.cornell.edu.
RT America’s Trinity Chavez reports on the breakthrough.
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24-04-2019
Machines from biomaterials becomes a Reality
Machines from biomaterials becomes a Reality
Scientists have created simple machines made of biomaterials with the properties of living things. These so-called “living machines” have the properties of living things despite being human-engineered machines.
As a genetic material, DNA is responsible for all known life. But DNA is also a polymer. Tapping into the unique nature of the molecule, Cornell engineers have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things.
“We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism.We are not making something that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before,” said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Using DASH, the Cornell engineers created a biomaterial that can autonomously emerge from its nanoscale building blocks and arrange itself – first into polymers and eventually mesoscale shapes, reports news.cornell.edu.
RT America’s Trinity Chavez reports on the breakthrough.
24-04-2019 om 21:31
geschreven door peter
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When the discussion turns to using animal organs to replace human hearts and livers (and if it does, it’s time to leave that dinner party and head home), the beast deemed best for the task is the pig. In fact, pig heart valves are common replacements for human ones and a pig heart kept a baboon alive for 57 days. Once it’s determined how to prevent rejection (of the physical, not ethical, kind), you can be sure hearts, livers and kidneys will be harvested for humans. But what about pig brains? While even that doctor attempting head transplant might reject this idea, a new study has shown that pig brains can be disconnected from their bodies for up to four hours and then be reanimated. Can these pig zombies tell that their hams have already been removed?
“The intact brain of a large mammal retains a previously underappreciated capacity for restoration of circulation and certain molecular and cellular activities multiple hours after circulatory arrest.”
That’s how a real scientist explains “It’s alive!” The scientist is Nenad Sestan, professor of neuroscience, comparative medicine, genetics, and psychiatry at Yale University, who just one year after announcing the successful test of a system that can restore blood circulation to a disconnected (i.e. decapitated) pig brain. In that case, Sestan used 200 pig brains obtained from a local slaughterhouse, so these were brains already destined for the cannery (yes, pork brains and milk gravy is a delicacy in some areas) and EEG tests showed no electrical activity.
According to a new study published in the journal Nature, that changed one year later when Sestan’s team obtained 32 pig brains from a slaughterhouse, waited four hours, hooked them up to a new system which circulated a “restorative cocktail” of synthetic blood containing oxygen and blood and circulated it for six hours. Ten hours after those brains last told a pig to oink, they were tested and showed working synapses and some brain activity.
Were the brains thinking “What the oink is going on here?”?
“Restoration of consciousness was never a goal of this research. The researchers were prepared to intervene with the use of anesthetics and temperature-reduction to stop organized global electrical activity if it were to emerge. Everyone agreed in advance that experiments involving revived global activity couldn’t go forward without clear ethical standards and institutional oversight mechanisms.”
In a Yale press release, study co-author Stephen Latham, director of Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, said the brains showed no brain-wide electrical activity and, if any did, they would immediately be anesthetized and the test would end. Of course, this is the U.S., not China where the human head transplant doctor is moving closer to human testing and ethics often seem secondary to envelope-pushing experimentation.
So, why did they do it? The tests prove that cellular death in brains occurs much more slowly than previously thought. This has implications in the treatment of brain injuries, in surgery on brain disorders and in helping stoke victims.
Do these benefits outweigh the ethical implications? The pig brains were kept inactive using drugs. What if the drugs aren’t used? How long could the brains be kept alive? Would brain functions improve to the point of consciousness? Would we eventually be able to find out what the pigs think about losing their heads?
When its comes to grey matter, there’s always a lot of grey matters.
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20-04-2019
Boston Dynamics Teases Robot Dog Army Hauling Truck as Production Underway
Boston Dynamics Teases Robot Dog Army Hauling Truck as Production Underway
Boston Dynamics has a motto on the front page of its website: “Changing your idea of what robots can do.” To date, that’s probably pretty accurate, depending on which movies you’re referencing. The company has previously released videos of its SpotMini canine-type robot opening doors, navigating stairs, and cleaning up a kitchen, all solo. Now, Boston Dynamics has demonstrated what the ‘Spotpower’ version of the bot can do when it comes together as a pack: march in synchronicity and tow a truck.
In a video published on the Boston Dynamics’ YouTube channel titled “Mush, Spot, Mush!”, ten bots are seen pulling a cargo truck in neutral up a 1% incline. The company website lists two similar versions of the Spot robot, the Spot classic, and the SpotMini, but not the variation that’s marching. The Spotpower version in the video may be a hybrid of the two, but not much information is offered; it certainly looks a lot like the SpotMini without the helper arm. Perhaps one is only needed if tire changing is in order.
Boston Dynamics information page further states that the SpotMini is the quietest robot they’ve built, but the eerie mechanical marching sound made while the Spotpowers are in motion is still loud enough to draw significant attention (or fear). Interestingly enough, the video description also notifies viewers that the Spot robots are under production and will be available soon. Could this be an indicator that we should be on the lookout for Spot ‘user experience’ videos to come?
SpotMini, the robotic dog. | Image: Boston Dynamics
Both the SpotMini and the Spot classic robots are all-electric, operable for 45 and 90 minutes per charge, and weigh about 30 kg (66 lbs) and 75 kg (165 lbs), respectively. The Spot classic is listed as having a 45 kg (99 lbs) cargo capacity, and the Spot Mini is listed at 14 kg (30 lbs) payload capacity. However, after this promotional piece, it seems that the stats need to be updated to include towing capacity.
The YouTube channel for Boston Dynamics is full of entertaining videos of Spot, SpotMini and its humanoid brethren demonstrating a dynamic range of task capability for the company’s creations. Spotpower coming to production means that sort of robotic flexibility will be ready to help with a variety of applications soon. Given what has already been shown, package deliveries, warehouse operations, and possible search and rescue missions may be what’s in store for customer use.
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18-04-2019
Part-Revived Pig Brains Raise Slew of Ethical Quandarie
Part-Revived Pig Brains Raise Slew of Ethical Quandaries
Researchers need guidance on animal use and the many issues opened up by a new study on whole-brain restoration, argue Nita A. Farahany, Henry T. Greely and Charles M. Giattino
Scientists have restored and preserved some cellular activities and structures in the brains of pigs that had been decapitated for food production four hours before. The researchers saw circulation in major arteries and small blood vessels, metabolism and responsiveness to drugs at the cellular level and even spontaneous synaptic activity in neurons, among other things. The team formulated a unique solution and circulated it through the isolated brains using a network of pumps and filters called BrainEx. The solution was cell-free, did not coagulate and contained a haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier and a wide range of pharmacological agents.
The remarkable study, published in this week’s Nature, offers the promise of an animal or even human whole-brain model in which many cellular functions are intact. At present, cells from animal and human brains can be sustained in culture for weeks, but only so much can be gleaned from isolated cells. Tissue slices can provide snapshots of local structural organization, yet they are woefully inadequate for questions about function and global connectivity, because much of the 3D structure is lost during tissue preparation.
The work also raises a host of ethical issues. There was no evidence of any global electrical activity—the kind of higher-order brain functioning associated with consciousness. Nor was there any sign of the capacity to perceive the environment and experience sensations. Even so, because of the possibilities it opens up, the BrainEx study highlights potential limitations in the current regulations for animals used in research.
Most fundamentally, in our view, it throws into question long-standing assumptions about what makes an animal—or a human—alive.
SIGNS OF WHAT?
The pig brains used in the study, which was conducted by a team based largely at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, produced a flat line on an electroencephalogram (EEG) of brain activity. Had any degree of sentience been recovered, let alone consciousness, one would expect to see low-amplitude waves in the alpha (8–12 Hz) and beta (13–30 Hz) range, at the very least. In consultations with the Neuroethics Working Group of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative and in discussions with us, the researchers have stated that if they had detected such activity, they would have administered anaesthetic agents to prevent any experience similar to pain or distress, and would have reduced the brain temperature to swiftly quell the activity.
Absence of organized electrical electrical brain activity, measured with an EEG, is one measure used to establish brain death. Credit: Kateryna Kon Getty Images
Researchers already study whole organs, and maintain cellular activity for a few seconds to minutes in slices of animal and human brains. Thus, on the face of it, in the absence of EEG activity, the BrainEx study does not raise fundamentally different issues from those encountered in the use of animal or human brain tissue after death.
Yet, until now, neuroscientists and others have assumed two things. First, that neural activity and consciousness are irretrievably lost within seconds to minutes of interrupting blood flow in mammalian brains. Second, that, unless circulation is quickly restored, there is a largely irreversible progression towards cell death and the death of the organism.
The BrainEx study used pig brains that had received no oxygen, glucose or other nutrients for four hours. As such, it opens up possibilities that were previously unthinkable.
Take the lack of EEG activity. This activity could have been lost irreversibly when the pigs were slaughtered. Another possibility, however, is that the lack of EEG activity was a function of the study design. The researchers used several chemical agents in their solution that inhibit neural activity, hypothesizing that the tissues would be more likely to show some recovery if cellular activity were reduced. Had these blockers been removed at some point, perhaps the team would have detected EEG activity.
Another possibility needing investigation is that something similar to shock treatment for the heart is required to reset the firing of neurons in the brain to a level that is detectable. Or maybe it takes longer than six hours (the length of the BrainEx perfusion, following the four hours after death) for the cells to recover sufficiently for this kind of brain activity to emerge. Physicians sometimes lower the core body temperatures of people who have had a heart attack, to induce a hypothermic coma. This can limit damage caused by swelling in the brain, for instance, and aid cellular recovery. In these cases, patients seem to need at least 24 hours of ‘cooling treatment’.
Obviously, more data are needed, including the replication of the BrainEx findings in other laboratories by other groups. But we’re reminded of a line from the 1987 film The Princess Bride: “There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.” Even with all the unknowns, the discovery that mammalian brains can be made to seem ‘slightly alive’, hours after the animals had been killed, has implications that ethicists, regulators and society more broadly must now think through.
ANIMAL RESEARCH
To be clear, the BrainEx study did not breach any ethical guidelines for research. The team sought guidance from Yale University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which exists to ensure that the use of animals aligns with what is required by US law for federally funded research. The committee decided that oversight was unnecessary. The pigs, having been raised as livestock, were exempt from animal welfare laws and were killed before the study started. In the United States, the 1966 Animal Welfare Act is the only federal law that regulates how animals are treated in research, and applies to either living or dead animals. It explicitly excludes animals raised for food. Meanwhile, the policies and regulations of the US Public Health Service, which funds most US research involving animals—mainly through the NIH—do not specify any protections for animals after their death.
Had the research been conducted outside the United States, the response from ethics or regulatory bodies would almost certainly have been the same. The European Union’s Directive on the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes largely aims to prevent (or minimize) any pain, suffering or distress experienced by live animals. It, too, specifically excludes animals raised for agriculture (see go.nature.com/2cpdgjr). In China, both the Ministry of Science and Technology and the provincial bureaus of science and technology ensure that researchers follow local regulations and that they abide by the National Standard on Laboratory Animal Welfare in China. Here, too, the protections exclude animals raised for food, and the main focus is on eliminating or reducing live animals’ potential pain and distress.
In our view, new guidelines are needed for studies involving the preservation or restoration of whole brains, because animals used for such research could end up in a grey area—not alive, but not completely dead. Five issues in particular need addressing.
First, how should researchers try to detect signs of consciousness or sentience? On its own, EEG activity would not reliably signal a conscious brain; such activity is nearly always detected in people who are under general anaesthesia. EEG activity might provide an appropriate measure should it be detected along with responsiveness to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)—a non-invasive way of stimulating brain activity, using a magnetic coil held near the head. Together with other measures, this would determine the brain’s perturbational complexity index, a way of identifying the level of consciousness. Furthermore, recent research in humans using functional magnetic resonance imaging indicates that certain patterns of neuronal activity may provide a correlate for consciousness.
Second, which species make appropriate models for this type of research on brain perfusion? And what kinds of research and results would be needed to justify the use of other models? (In our view, investigators should proceed cautiously with testing in other mammals, particularly in pigs, dogs or primates, at this time.)
Third, until more is known, is the use of neuronal activity blockers sufficient to safeguard against the emergence of capabilities associated with sentience, such as the capacity to feel pain? It might be necessary to apply BrainEx or similar systems to mice or rats, both with and without neuronal activity blockers, to better understand the blockers’ role.
Fourth, under which scenarios should anaesthetics be used in follow-on studies, to safeguard against the possibility of inducing any experience similar to pain or distress? And under what scenarios might it be permissible not to use them? (We think that the use of anaesthetics in follow-on studies should be mandatory at this time, given all of the unknowns.)
Finally, for how long should BrainEx or similar artificial circulatory systems be run? Such systems might be effective for only a certain period of time, or there could be a limit as to how much recovery can be achieved. This knowledge will inform analyses of risks and benefits.
HUMAN RESEARCH
Although it is a long way off, researchers might one day consider using a system similar to BrainEx to treat humans for brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen. Until now, neuroscientists and physicians have assumed that the cell death caused by this is irreversible. Treatment generally involves working with a person’s remaining healthy brain tissue to help rehabilitate mobility, motor and other skills.
Before developing whole human-brain models outside the body—and certainly before the use of brain perfusion in the clinic—investigators need to arm people with enough information for them to make informed decisions. Most fundamentally, patients or donors will need to understand what kinds of brain activity could result and what that activity could mean. They will also need to know the chances of recovery being only partial, and the implications that will have.
Another question is what information, if any, could plausibly be retrieved from the brain. Various groups are developing ways to decode the neural activity of living people, for instance to probe their memories or the images they have seen in their dreams. Could such approaches one day be applied to brains after death?
Such possibilities (if they come to pass at all) are far in the future. Yet we need to think through at least some of them now. Hundreds of people worldwide have already paid to have their brains frozen and stored, in the hope that scientists will one day be able to revive them. It’s easy to imagine misapplications of brain perfusion following the publication of the BrainEx study alone.
GUIDELINES
It might not be easy for others to replicate the study, despite the BrainEx team providing detailed information on the device, perfusate and methods. As a first step, the investigators, their home institutions and the NIH should facilitate the transfer of the technology and know-how to other researchers and institutions. Any follow-up and independent studies should be just as transparent as this one.
Crucially, future researchers will need guidance through the potential scientific, ethical and political questions opened up by this research.
Precedents exist. Internationally, research involving stem cells derived from human embryos has successfully been steered by the 2005 Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research released by the US Institute of Medicine and US National Research Council—the substance of which was almost entirely adopted by the International Society for Stem Cell Research. Ongoing efforts to set guidelines for human genome-editing research hold lessons, too. Key actors here are the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Medicine, the UK Royal Society, the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
In other contexts, such as in biomedical engineering (see, for example, go.nature.com/2t6kon5), artificial intelligence and debates around the definition of death, international conferences are being held to help find common ground across countries and to develop frameworks that enable responsible scientific progress.
We think that the latest research on brain resuscitation demands the same kind of international attention. A starting point could be the guiding principles issued last December by the Neuroethics Working Group of the NIH BRAIN Initiative, which held a 2018 workshop on research with human neural tissue.
Citizens must be part of the process. Engaging non-scientists in delineating the ethical boundaries of this research doesn’t guarantee its public acceptance in the future; and nor should it, necessarily. But not engaging other stakeholders could help to precipitate its rejection.
In our view, discussion about the appropriate path for this research should not wait for follow-up studies. The Yale group was conscientious and consulted the local institutional IACUC, Yale bioethicists, NIH programme officers and even the NIH Neuroethics Working Group. The researchers did what they could, and probably more than many would have done, to ensure that they were acting appropriately in a void of ethical analysis on the issue.
Now is the time to fill that void.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on April 17, 2019.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Nita A. Farahany
Nita A. Farahany is professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Henry T. Greely
Henry T. Greely is Director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences and Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics, at the Stanford School of Medicine. He is the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics, and Director of the Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society.
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Scientists Restore Some Functions in a Pig’s Brain Hours after Death
Scientists Restore Some Functions in a Pig’s Brain Hours after Death
Circulation and cellular activity were restored in a pig’s brain four hours after its death, a finding that challenges long-held assumptions about the timing and irreversible nature of the cessation of some brain functions after death, Yale scientists report April 17 in the journal Nature.
The brain of a postmortem pig obtained from a meatpacking plant was isolated and circulated with a specially designed chemical solution. Many basic cellular functions, once thought to cease seconds or minutes after oxygen and blood flow cease, were observed, the scientists report.
Immunofluorescent stains for neurons (green), astrocytes (red), and cell nuclei (blue) in a region of the hippocampus of a pig’s brain left untreated 10 hours after death (left) or subjected to perfusion with the BrainEx technology. Ten hours postmortem, neurons and astrocytes undergo cellular disintegration unless salvaged by the BrainEx system.
Image credit: Stefano G. Daniele & Zvonimir Vrselja; Sestan Laboratory; Yale School of Medicine
“The intact brain of a large mammal retains a previously underappreciated capacity for restoration of circulation and certain molecular and cellular activities multiple hours after circulatory arrest,” said senior author Nenad Sestan, professor of neuroscience, comparative medicine, genetics, and psychiatry.
However, researchers also stressed that the treated brain lacked any recognizable global electrical signals associated with normal brain function.
“At no point did we observe the kind of organized electrical activity associated with perception, awareness, or consciousness,” said co-first author Zvonimir Vrselja, associate research scientist in neuroscience. “Clinically defined, this is not a living brain, but it is a cellularly active brain.”
Cellular death within the brain is usually considered to be a swift and irreversible process. Cut off from oxygen and a blood supply, the brain’s electrical activity and signs of awareness disappear within seconds, while energy stores are depleted within minutes. Current understanding maintains that a cascade of injury and death molecules are then activated leading to widespread, irreversible degeneration.
However, researchers in Sestan’s lab, whose research focuses on brain development and evolution, observed that the small tissue samples they worked with routinely showed signs of cellular viability, even when the tissue was harvested multiple hours postmortem. Intrigued, they obtained the brains of pigs processed for food production to study how widespread this postmortem viability might be in the intact brain. Four hours after the pig’s death, they connected the vasculature of the brain to circulate a uniquely formulated solution they developed to preserve brain tissue, utilizing a system they call BrainEx. They found neural cell integrity was preserved, and certain neuronal, glial, and vascular cell functionality was restored.
The new system can help solve a vexing problem — the inability to apply certain techniques to study the structure and function of the intact large mammalian brain — which hinders rigorous investigations into topics like the roots of brain disorders, as well as neuronal connectivity in both healthy and abnormal conditions.
“Previously, we have only been able to study cells in the large mammalian brain under static or largely two-dimensional conditions utilizing small tissue samples outside of their native environment,” said co-first author Stefano G. Daniele, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate. “For the first time, we are able to investigate the large brain in three dimensions, which increases our ability to study complex cellular interactions and connectivity.”
While the advance has no immediate clinical application, the new research platform may one day be able to help doctors find ways to help salvage brain function in stroke patients, or test the efficacy of novel therapies targeting cellular recovery after injury, the authors say.
The research was primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) BRAIN Initiative.
“This line of research holds hope for advancing understanding and treatment of brain disorders and could lead to a whole new way of studying the postmortem human brain,” said Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, chief of functional neurogenomics at the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health, which co-funded the research.
The researchers said that it is unclear whether this approach can be applied to a recently deceased human brain. The chemical solution used lacks many of the components natively found in human blood, such as the immune system and other blood cells, which makes the experimental system significantly different from normal living conditions. However, the researcher stressed any future study involving human tissue or possible revival of global electrical activity in postmortem animal tissue should be done under strict ethical oversight.
“Restoration of consciousness was never a goal of this research,” said co-author Stephen Latham, director of Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. “The researchers were prepared to intervene with the use of anesthetics and temperature-reduction to stop organized global electrical activity if it were to emerge. Everyone agreed in advance that experiments involving revived global activity couldn’t go forward without clear ethical standards and institutional oversight mechanisms.”
There is an ethical imperative to use tools developed by the Brain Initiative to unravel mysteries of brain injuries and disease, said Christine Grady, chief of the Department of Bioethics at the NIH Clinical Center.
“It’s also our duty to work with researchers to thoughtfully and proactively navigate any potential ethical issues they may encounter as they open new frontiers in brain science,” she said.
Contacts and sources: Bill Hathaway Yale University
Citation: Restoration of brain circulation and cellular functions hours post-mortem. Vrselja, Z. et al. Nature, 2019 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1099-1
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17-04-2019
New Device Creates Electricity from Falling Snow: It's Small Cheap and Flexible
New Device Creates Electricity from Falling Snow: It's Small Cheap and Flexible
UCLA researchers and colleagues have designed a new device that creates electricity from falling snow. The first of its kind, this device is inexpensive, small, thin and flexible like a sheet of plastic.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
“The device can work in remote areas because it provides its own power and does not need batteries,” said senior author Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation. “It’s a very clever device — a weather station that can tell you how much snow is falling, the direction the snow is falling, and the direction and speed of the wind.”
The researchers call it a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or snow TENG. A triboelectric nanogenerator, which generates charge through static electricity, produces energy from the exchange of electrons.
Hiking shoe with device attached
Credit Abdelsalam Ahmed
“Static electricity occurs from the interaction of one material that captures electrons and another that gives up electrons,” said Kaner, who is also a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering, and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “You separate the charges and create electricity out of essentially nothing.”
Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons. Silicone — a synthetic rubber-like material that is composed of silicon atoms and oxygen atoms, combined with carbon, hydrogen and other elements — is negatively charged. When falling snow contacts the surface of silicone, that produces a charge that the device captures, creating electricity.
“Snow is already charged, so we thought, why not bring another material with the opposite charge and extract the charge to create electricity?” said co-author Maher El-Kady, a UCLA assistant researcher of chemistry and biochemistry.
“While snow likes to give up electrons, the performance of the device depends on the efficiency of the other material at extracting these electrons,” he added. “After testing a large number of materials including aluminum foils and Teflon, we found that silicone produces more charge than any other material.”
About 30 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by snow each winter, during which time solar panels often fail to operate, El-Kady noted. The accumulation of snow reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the solar array, limiting the panels’ power output and rendering them less effective. The new device could be integrated into solar panels to provide a continuous power supply when it snows, he said.
The device can be used for monitoring winter sports, such as skiing, to more precisely assess and improve an athlete’s performance when running, walking or jumping, Kaner said. It also has the potential for identifying the main movement patterns used in cross-country skiing, which cannot be detected with a smart watch.
It could usher in a new generation of self-powered wearable devices for tracking athletes and their performances.
Credit: Thom Holmes/Unsplas
It can also send signals, indicating whether a person is moving. It can tell when a person is walking, running, jumping or marching.
The research team used 3-D printing to design the device, which has a layer of silicone and an electrode to capture the charge. The team believes the device could be produced at low cost given “the ease of fabrication and the availability of silicone,” Kaner said. Silicone is widely used in industry, in products such as lubricants, electrical wire insulation and biomedical implants, and it now has the potential for energy harvesting.
Co-authors include Abdelsalam Ahmed, who conducted the research while completing his doctoral studies at the University of Toronto; Islam Hassan and Ravi Selvaganapathy of Canada’s McMaster University; and James Rusling of the University of Connecticut and his research team.
Kaner’s research was funded by Nanotech Energy, a company spun off from his research (Kaner is chair of its scientific advisory board and El-Kady is chief technology officer); and Kaner’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation.
Kaner’s laboratory has produced numerous devices, including a membrane that separates oil from water and cleans up the debris left by oil fracking. Fracking is a technique to extract gas and oil from shale rock.
Kaner is among the world’s most influential and highly cited scientific researchers. He was selected as the recipient of the American Institute of Chemists 2019 Chemical Pioneer Award, which honors chemists and chemical engineers who have made outstanding contributions that advance the science of chemistry or greatly impact the chemical profession.
Contacts and sources:
Stuart Wolpert / University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA)
Citation:
All printable snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator. Abdelsalam Ahmed, Islam Hassan, Islam M. Mosa, Esraa Elsanadidy, Gayatri S. Phadke, Maher F. El-Kady, James F. Rusling, Ponnambalam Ravi Selvaganapathy, Richard B. Kaner. Nano Energy, 2019; 60: 17 DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.03.032
It’s time for the latest edition of “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”, the game show that pits seemingly unethical science against potentially catastrophic predictions. In today’s competition, scientists in China (one point already for the catastrophic team) announce they used gene-editing to place human brain genes in rhesus macaque monkeys and it made their brains smarter. Cue the music from every “Planet of the Apes” movie and let the game begin!
“The presented data represents the first attempt to experimentally interrogate the genetic basis of human brain origin using a transgenic monkey model, and it values the use of nonhuman primates in understanding human unique traits.”
China Daily reports that researchers from the Beijing-based National Science Review, the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of North Carolina (that’s in the U.S. – looks like it’s playing for the Seemingly Unethicals) edited human MCPH1 genes – a gene that is critical in fetal brain development because it controls brain size and rate of growth – and created 11 transgenic (a cloud word meaning “artificially carrying DNA from an unrelated organism”) monkeys. Eight of those monkeys were first-generation and three were second-generation, obliterating the ‘artificial’ part of ‘transgenic’ by getting their human genes from their monkey parents.
“According to the research article, brain imaging and tissue section analysis showed an altered pattern of neuron differentiation and a delayed maturation of the neural system, which is similar to the developmental delay (neoteny) in humans.”
In other words, the monkeys showed the human trait of slow brain development (neoteny) rather than the rapid growth of normal monkey brains. What was the benefit of this slow growth?
“The study also found that the transgenic monkeys exhibited better short-term memory and shorter reaction time compared to wild rhesus monkeys in the control group.”
To put it bluntly — even the monkeys could understand the results because the human genes made them smarter!
Ding-ding-ding! That bell means it’s time to play the lightning “What could possibly go wrong?” round.
Time-out called by the Potentially Catastrophics. In a shocking and somewhat honorable display of conscience, Martin Styner, a University of North Carolina computer scientist and coauthor of the Chinese report, told the MIT Technology Review that his role was merely to train Chinese student on how to extract brain volume data from MRI images and, after learning the true purpose, considered removing his name from the paper, which he claims could not find a publisher in the West. Styner then throws his “What could possibly go wrong?” pitch:
“I don’t think that is a good direction. Now we have created this animal which is different than it is supposed to be. When we do experiments, we have to have a good understanding of what we are trying to learn, to help society, and that is not the case here.”
Is this going to be a sequel to Planet of the Apes or Flowers for Algernon?
Unfortunately, that pitch didn’t strike out Bing Su, the geneticist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology who led the research. He told the MIT Technology Review he is planning to create more smart monkeys and is planning to test another gene — SRGAP2C – which has been called the “humanity switch” and the “missing genetic link” because it appeared about two million years ago when Australopithecus (the Southern Ape) was being replaced by the smarter Homo habilis.
Putting the “humanity switch” in a monkey? What could possibly go wrong? This game isn’t over … it’s barely starting. Is this progress … or an unethical march down the field to unforeseen consequences?
If we’ve learned anything from “Planet of the Apes,” it’s that if this game goes into overtime, it won’t be a sudden death.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
11-04-2019
CHINESE SCIENTISTS GENE-HACKED SUPER SMART HUMAN-MONKEY HYBRIDS
CHINESE SCIENTISTS GENE-HACKED SUPER SMART HUMAN-MONKEY HYBRIDS
ALEXA’S PHOTOS VIA PIXABAY/TAG HARTMAN-SIMKINS
DAN ROBITZSKI
Big Brain
For the first time, scientists have used gene-editing techniques to make monkey brains more humanlike.
The monkeys, rhesus macaques, got smarter — they had superior memories to unaltered monkeys, according torecently-published research that’s kicked off a fiery debate among ethicists about how far scientists should be able to take genetic experimentation.
Cognitive Gap
The team of Chinese scientists edited the human version of a gene called MCPH1 into the macaques. The new gene made the monkeys’ brains develop along a more human-like timeline. The gene-hacked monkeys had better reaction times and enhanced short-term memories compared to their unaltered peers, according to China Daily.
But not everyone is on board.
“The use of transgenic monkeys to study human genes linked to brain evolution is a very risky road to take,” University of Colorado geneticist James Sikela told the MIT Technology Review. “It is a classic slippery slope issue and one that we can expect to recur as this type of research is pursued.”
Evolutionary Roadmap
Pinpointing the gene’s role in intelligence could help scientists understand how humans evolved to be so smart, MIT Tech reports.
While altering one gene to enhance memory in some macaques won’t throw Darwinism off-kilter — there’s no risk of a “Planet of the Apes”-style uprising, yet — it could teach us how humanity became so intelligent and gives us hints as to why.
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