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.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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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.
04-02-2018
5D Crystals Can Store Data Virtually Forever, Scientists Say -- Crystal Skulls Connections
5D Crystals Can Store Data Virtually Forever, Scientists Say -- Crystal Skulls Connections
Researchers at the University of Southampton have recently announced that they are able to store and retrieve huge amounts of five dimensional data on quartz crystals.
The technology has immediately received a cool nickname: the "Superman memory crystal" — after the "memory crystals" used as storing devices in the Superman films.
I. How does it work?
“…the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years,” explains a press release. “The information encoding is realized in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.” [1]
That sounds complicated, but what it basically means is that, using ultra-fast lasers, we can now encode a piece of quartz with 5D information in the form of nanostructured dots separated by only one millionth of a meter.
“The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarization of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polarizer, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses,” states the release. [2]
The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime.
"We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organisations with big archives. At the moment companies have to back up their archives every five to ten years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan. (...) Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit," stated the ORC leading researcher, Jingyu Zhang. [2]
II. In case of mankind's extinction, the 5D memory crystals will "survive" to tell our story
5D Crystals Can Store Data Virtually Forever, Scientists Say
The team's supervisor, Professor Peter Kazansky, explained:
"It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we've learnt will not be forgotten." [3]
It's interesting that preserving mankind's history is considered by scientists to be the most important thing we can achieve with this technology.
If others before us discovered this technology, then it is very probable that they have reached to the same conclusions.
Back in 2010 I wrote about David, a child who allegedly incarnated on Earth from a planet called Inua. He explained that all of the evolved extraterrestrial species store data on crystals for aeons - including their history.
In conclusion, if we are to look for solid evidence about the existence of lost ancient civilizations (e.g. Lemurians, Atlanteans, ET visitors), then we should also consider looking for "memory crystals".
If we are to leave our history recorded for posterity - just in case our species doesn't make by the end of the century — then a disc-shaped (or icicle-shaped, as depicted in Superman) crystal may not be the best shape for such an important library.
No! The crystal needs to be solid enough not to shatter with ease, beautiful enough for others to preserve it, and awe-inspiring so that it is treated with respect... maybe even feared.
Why? Because the ones who find it, may not be able to read its message, so it needs to survive in one piece until someone figures out what it is and/or has the technology to decode the encrypted message.
And just one crystal may not be enough... so the more we make, the better.
It should be crystal-clear (pun intended) by now that I am making a reference to something. Do you know what I am talking about?
I am, of course, talking about the famous ancient crystal skulls. And there are - at least - about a dozen of original crystal skulls in private and public collections.
III. The Mysterious Ancient Crystal Skulls of Mesoamerica
These mysterious crystal skulls reunite all the needed features (solid, beautiful, numerous and awe inspiring) for them to survive long enough so that their possible message could be decoded by an advanced species.
Photograph by AFP/Getty Images
According to National Geographic,
"Some are crystal clear, others of smoky or colored quartz. Some are actual human size and of very fine detail, while others are smaller and less refined. All are believed to originate from Mexico and Central America.
Many believe these skulls were carved thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago by an ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Others think they may be relics from the legendary island of Atlantis or proof that extraterrestrials visited the Aztec sometime before the Spanish conquest." [4]
Unfortunately, according to the same source cited above, the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution declared their original skulls to be fake:
"Recent electron microscope analyses of skulls by the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution revealed markings that could only have been made with modern carving implements."
Firstly, the original skulls could have been easily replaced with fakes by now. Those who control the world have access anywhere they desire.
Secondly, just because the skulls have modern-looking carving marks on them is not evidence that the skulls are fake. There are plenty of monuments drilled, carved and stacked together so perfectly that it would be challenging to replicate even today (e.g Puma Punku, or the Great Pyramids of Egypt- just to name a couple of sites).
Revolutionary "Superman" Memory Crystals Can Store Data Virtually Forever | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building
Interesting times await us just around the corner, so - who knows?! - maybe one day, soon, I will be able to report to you that an ancient crystal skull has been discovered to contain the real history of our planet and its inhabitants.
A soft robot developed by Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is seen to the left of a coin. |Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Take two robots and call me in the morning.
That may well be a legitimate prescription for future medical patients, thanks to a new kind of radically miniaturized soft robot that can be swallowed, injected, or inserted under the skin. The robot can then move around inside the body to target specific tissues or deliver precise doses of medicine.
Researchers with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems unveiled last week details of the tiny robot in a paper published in the journal Nature. Unofficially dubbed the millirobot, it's a flexible, fabric-like robot that can walk, swim, and even carry cargo, despite having no mechanical elements or batteries.
The secret is magnetism. The millirobot, which resembles a very small rectangle of paper about four millimeters in length, is made of an elastic polymer threaded through with magnetic particles. Using existing magnetic-resonance technology, such as an ultrasound machine, doctors can control the movement of the bot inside the human body.
That means the robot can potentially be deployed anywhere that physicians need to deliver a particular drug or other medical material — in the digestive tract, say, or even within the blood stream.
The soft millirobot climbs on the water meniscus by changing its body curvature and lands on the solid surface. Next, it encounters a large obstacle and traverses it fast and easily by jumping over it, and walks on the surface after landing. The dashed line shows the direction of the robot motion. Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
“In the case of digestive or urinary systems, where the current robot could get in with its current size, the robot would be swallowed,” Sitti told Seeker. “For internal organ applications, we would deploy the robot through a small incision, like in the case of laparoscopy. In vascular system applications, we could inject it omto the blood vessels.”
While other ingestible robots have been developed, the millirobot has several advantages over other techniques, according to the research team. Most importantly, the robot is very versatile in its modes of locomotion. Thanks to its biologically inspired design, the millirobot can easily transition from swimming in a liquid to scooting over a solid surface.
“We looked at the physical mechanism of locomotion of soft-bodied caterpillars and jellyfishes and took inspiration from them,” Sitti said. “The result is that our millirobot is a mix of small-scale soft-bodied animals, such as a beetle larva, a caterpillar, a spermatozoid, and a jellyfish.”
Thanks to its biomimetic design, the millirobot has multiple ways to get around, Sitti said. In a video released with the research publication the millirobot is shown inching along like a worm, swimming like a manta ray, and carrying cargo by encircling small objects then rolling them into place.
“After the robot is deployed inside the body, it can be navigated using seven different locomotion methods to reach to the target disease area,” Sitti said. “Then, the robot can deliver drug locally in a controlled dose by using its shape-change control. This can remove possible side effects that some drugs could have and can also improve the drug delivery efficiency and amount control.”
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Sitti and his research team have further plans for the millirobot, including possible cancer treatment options and a novel cauterization technique.
“As another medical use very soon, we could heat the robot in the target location remotely — using electromagnetic waves — and the heated robot could stop bleeding in a wound or kill cancer cells locally,” Sitti said.
The researchers hope that their soft robot will some day become a standard option for health care providers, offering a space-age option for non-invasive access to hard-to-reach places.
“Currently it is not possible to access many small regions inside the human body without surgery,” Sitti said. “But our target is to reach such regions non-invasively and conduct diagnostic and therapeutic operations with our soft robots.”
The Little Ripper Drone has gotten a good bit of publicity for its potential as a lifesaving drone. Yet, up until now, it really was all about potential.
Now, the lifeguard drone has lived up to the hype, saving two people stranded in rough seas off the coast of New South Wales state, Australia.
Two teenage boys who were caught 0.4 miles offshore at Lennox Head in a swell of nearly 9.8 ft., were able to grab hold of a floatation device after the Little Ripper dropped it from above.
Incredible aerial footage shows how it all went down. Watch it below:
Sergio Canavero is adamant that human head transplants will work. In fact, he claims that he could complete such a transplant within a year, and he says that he has the science to back it up. But does he?
Towards the end of 2017, Canavero’s project made headlines when the Italian surgeon claimed that he had actually already performed the procedure, which he calls the “head anastomosis venture” or HEAVEN. Subsequent reports determined that no such procedure took place and that the work was completed on corpses — many neuroscientists question whether even that much was really done.
Most scientists question whether there has been enough scientific progress to allow Canavero to perform such an operation next fall in China, as he claims he will do. In fact, they question whether research will make head transplants a viable option even in the foreseeable future. Richard L. Harvey, Northwestern University associate professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, sums the current consensus: “At this point, it would not be possible to connect the brainstem to the spinal cord in such a way as to get function. So if this were done, the person would be a [quadriplegic],” he told Futurism. “We can’t even repair spinal cords in patients with spinal cord injury, so we certainly can’t do that [successfully perform a head transplant].”
But that doesn’t mean that we will never be able to do one.
Ralph Adolphs, Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Biology from the division of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), doesn’t rule out the possibility that a head transplant could be successful in the distant future, although the procedure would have to overcome substantial challenges. “I don’t see any impossibility in principle, so it’s conceivable it can be done in the future — but it will happen in small steps first, like curing paralyzed people, and you’ll be sure to hear about it as all the problems required are solved,” he told Futurism.
While, for the time being, a head transplant remains out of reach, if science does advance enough to perform one successfully, it will raise an array of new, mind-boggling questions.
A Sound Mind and Body
For starters, what happens to the transplanted head in the new body? Because of the way that other parts of the body impact our neurology and the way that we think and act, would joining a head with a new body create a new person altogether or would the head retain its former consciousness unaltered?
With a human head transplant, the head would be introduced to a foreign microbiome through the new body. Would this affect how the person thinks?
“[D]ifferent gut bacteria may make you feel different, and therefore think a little differently, but they won’t directly make you think differently because all thinking happens in the brain, not the gut,” Adolphs said. “Different gut bacteria might make you more or less groggy or change your mood — just like if you had a cold or not. So I guess the answer is: slightly, and only indirectly, like how viruses or bacteria do when you have a cold.”
Assuming that a human head transplant could work, the patient would still need a significant period of recovery for brain activity to normalize. According to Adolphs, this recovery process would be two-fold. It would probably begin with the brain adapting to its new body. “Just like learning to ride a bicycle, you’ll need to learn how to walk and move your arms, and for that matter breathe and regulate your heartbeat,” he explained.
It would take several months for brain and body to integrate. However, “that means your brain will change,” Adolphs said. This change is comparable, on a smaller scale, to how people learn to play a musical instrument, and get better with practice — only in this case, it would be practicing to control a new body.
“[Y]ou would change as a person in a number of respects because of a massive reorganization in your brain as it learns to adapt to your new body […] There would be limits to this reorganization that depend, among other things, on age,” Adolphs added.
Felipe De Brigard, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience of Duke University’s Institute for Brain Sciences, has a more radical perspective on the issue. He told Futurism that “it is unlikely that all of our psychological traits are uniquely dependent upon the cells confined within our head — it is likely that many of our psychological traits are dependent upon the informational transactions between our brain and our bodies. As such, a change in body would likely alter some of those psychological traits.” De Brigard admitted, however, that it’s not clear as to what extent a “new body” could alter psychological traits.
Post transplant
Arthur Caplan, founding head of the medical ethics division at the NYU School of Medicine, told Futurism that what would come after a successful head transplant would be as traumatic as the surgery itself. “Putting a new head in a body is a guarantee of madness at best. The new mind-body integration would never work,” Caplan said.
He asserts that this will be the likely outcome, as the brain would be flooded with chemicals and signals from the body that are foreign and unfamiliar.
Harvey explains that, if not to outright madness, the person who’d come out of such a surgery would be the person who owned the head. “So in a real way it would be a body transplant, not a head transplant,” he said to Futurism.
Kai G. Zinn, Howard and Gwen Laurie Smits Professor of Biology at Caltech BBE, seems to disagree with this assessment. “If it could be done, the brain itself would be the same. But since it would be connected to a different body the person would be very different,” he said.
Though they may disagree on the specifics, scientists agree that a human head transplant would be a cognitive nightmare and that the person who’d come out of such a procedure would be that person who owned the head, but with very different, and possibly damaged, brain functions.
This article has been updated. A previous version did not mention Kai G. Zinn’s affiliation.
Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, futurist, and popular science communicator. He’s also the author of “Physics of the Impossible,” has hosted radio programs and television specials on the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel, and most notably, is a co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory).
While he also does speaking engagements, many who are familiar with Kaku’s work have the internet to thank. He’s a frequent face on the Big Think YouTube channel and uses social media to bring the complex web of physics to the public in an educational and entertaining way.
While Kaku does not have a time machine, his understanding of physics and our place in the universe has given him a unique perspective on our past, present, and ultimately, our future. To the latter point, he’s had plenty of interesting things to say. Here are some of Kaku’s predictions about the future.
In December of 2016, Kaku made several predictions about the future, projecting five, 10, and even as far as 20 years ahead. His predictions and statements are derived both from his knowledge as a physicist and his interest in studying what might, or could, be.
Dr. Kaku kicked off 2017 by reminding everyone about the importance of science to human prosperity, as well as the integral role simple curiosity plays in scientific advancement. This sentiment echoes the idea that many brilliant ideas begin because our curiosities have been piqued. As a result, we ask a question and in our attempts to answer it, make discoveries along the way.
As part of the National Geographic series Year Million, Kaku explored what human life might look like one million years from now. The series showcases the expertise and opinions of scientists, science fiction writers, futurists, and scholars. Together with these experts, Dr. Kaku images what might be in Year Million — that is, if humans survive that long.
Dr. Kaku has, at times, even questioned reality. Last year he wove physics observations and theories into a discussion about not only where we stand as humans in the universe, but what might we define as reality going forward.
Dr. Kaku’s predictions aren’t always theoretical, though. Last spring he used the instance of a nearby asteroid to discuss the possibility of asteroids greatly impacting life on Earth in the future.
More recently, Kaku made predictions about when we’ll confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life. His statements were in reference to a New York Times piece about a top-secret UFO program at the Pentagon. Kaku predicted we may not discover extraterrestrial life when or where we expect to, and that in such strange circumstances, it will be essential to keep an open mind. A sentiment that’s surely true for all areas of science.
Are UFOs chasing our jet fighters, as recent secret documents suggest? Maybe they are experimental hypersonic drones. Or maybe aliens from outer space? I keep an open mind.
From the potential destruction of Earth by an asteroid to the possibility of finally connecting with extraterrestrial life, Kaku’s predictions aren’t as wild as they may seem at first. They’re based on hard science and the most recent observations and understandings we have about our universe.
Kaku, nor anyone, can predict the future certainly. The best that he, or any of us, can do is take current information about science, the universe, and humanity, and figure out how all of these variables interact. Then, we can imagine a well-informed and comprehensive prediction about the future.
There is one thing Kaku is sure about, however: that climate change is a real threat to life on Earth, not just in terms of our future, but today. And that we can take action right now to make sure we reach that future, whatever it may hold.
Physicists from Brigham Young Univeristy may have just created the best technology for projecting 3D images, but they're not calling these images a hologram. It's still in its earliest stages, but once perfected, its applications could be varied.
NOT A HOLOGRAM
For many sci-fi fans, a truly working hologram is Princess Leia asking Obi Wan Kenobi for help. While that’s clearly science fiction, a projected image that one can observe from all angles may have just become the only hope for authentic 3D projections.
This is the subject of a new study published in the journal Nature, detailing how a team of physicists led by Daniel Smalley from the Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, have managed to project moving 3D images viewable at any angle.
Smalley doesn’t call it a hologram, however. “This is doing something that a hologram can never do — giving you an all-round view, a Princess Leia-style display — because it’s not a hologram,” he told Nature News. An actual hologram, as it exists today, is an image projection coming from a source limited to a particular angle. It can’t be viewed perfectly from all sides.
What Smalley’s team developed is a technique they call volumetric display, where a single particle of a plant fiber called cellulose is trapped and heated evenly using forces from near-invisible laser beams. To illuminate the particle as it moves through space, pushed and pulled by the beams forces, a second set of lasers project visible light onto it.
As the name suggests, the projected image appears to have more volume to it, without the need for headgears or other such devices. “In simple terms, we’re using a laser beam to trap a particle, and then we can steer the laser beam around to move the particle and create the image,” undergrad coauthor Erich Nygaard explained in a BYU press release.
3D PROJECTIONS
The extent of how the technique works is still limited to smaller images. Because of the limited way human eyes can see images, when the particles move faster than a rate of 10 per second, what’s seen is a solid line. This can be made to appear like it’s moving by changing the images even faster. Smalley’s team successfully demonstrated it by projecting the static outline of a butterfly, as well as a moving spiral line drawing. Larger images can also be projected if they are still, or moving slowly.
One of Smalley’s students, wearing a lab coat and posed like Princess Leia. Image Credit: Smalley et al., Nature
Admittedly, the technology is still in its very early stages, despite having borrowed from and improved on other similar 3D projections’ systems. For instance, to make more realistic images, Smalley’s team will need to figure out a way to make the particles move faster. “If we make as much progress in the next four years as we made in the last, I think we will be successful making a display of useful size,” Smalley told Nature.
Holography and other 3D-projection technologies are new, and as such their applications are still rather limited. One can imagine how volumetric display — once perfected — could potentially be used to improve entertainment and gaming in the same way virtual and augmented reality devices are trying to do. It could also be used in military training exercises, to simulate battles scenes in 3D.
And perhaps it could be used to send messages across a galaxy far, far away. As Smalley pointed out: “We’re providing a method to make a volumetric image that can create the images we imagine we’ll have in the future.”
DOUBLE TROUBLE Cloned macaque sisters Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates successfully cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer, are just 8 and 7 weeks old, respectively.
QIANG SUN, MU-MING POO/CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Meet Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates cloned by reprogramming adult cells.
Two decades after Dolly the Sheep was successfully cloned(SN: 3/1/97, p. 132), Chinese researchers have used the same technique — somatic cell nuclear transfer — to clone two healthy baby macaque monkeys. The results, reported January 24 in Cell, could lead to more efficient cloning and a better way to study genetic diseases in primates.
“This could be it — the next step in cloning,” says Jose Cibelli, a geneticist at Michigan State University in East Lansing not involved with the study.
Over 20 species of mammals have been cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer — including cats, dogs, rats and even a camel (SN: 3/23/02, p. 189). This cloning technology has improved since Dolly’s birth in 1996. Back then, she was the only sheep born from 277 attempts. By 2014, the cloning technique had an 80 percent success rate in pigs. Despite these gradual advances (SN: 3/8/14, p. 7), cloning of nonhuman primates has long eluded researchers.
A rhesus monkey “clone” was created through embryo splitting, a technique that divides a single embryo into genetically identical embryos, in 1999. But this type of cloning has little in common with somatic cell nuclear transfer.
In somatic cell nuclear transfer, a nucleus from a mature body cell is transplanted into an egg cell without a nucleus. The egg cell must then reprogram the nucleus’s DNA, basically stripping the body cell of its identity and returning it to an embryonic state. With no set identity, it can become any kind of cell in the body.
TWICE THE FUN Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first primates successfully cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer, are healthy, playful and, so far, completely normal for baby macaques. The sisters will spend the next few months in an incubator together.
Previous failures in reprogramming primate cells probably happened because the egg ran into roadblocks — portions of the body cell’s DNA known as reprogramming-resistant regions, say study coauthor Mu-ming Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, and his colleagues. In these regions, DNA is so tightly wrapped around proteins called histones that the egg can’t reprogram those bits. So the researchers added two molecules aimed at loosening the DNA’s packaging.
The team tried this method with two types of body cells: ovarian cells from an adult and connective tissue cells from a fetus. Although 22 out of 42 monkeys became pregnant with embryos cloned from ovarian cells, only two babies were born and neither survived long past birth. Efforts with embryos made with the fetal cells resulted in six pregnancies among 21 surrogate monkey moms and two healthy babies.
“After 20 years of trying from the most talented groups, and nothing working, finally this works,” Cibelli says. “This research is going to help cloning of all species.”
Cloned primates could help researchers better understand diseases in humans. Macaques are close genetic relatives to humans, making the monkeys better analogs than other lab animals. And clones make it easier to weed out the complications of different genetics when studying diseases or testing drugs.
The sisters are just a few weeks old, but they hold a lifetime of promise for researchers. Poo says the scientists will watch for any abnormalities as Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua grow and play.
“The monkeys are in good health and very active,” he says. “There are no signs they are unhealthy.”
SCI-FI GRAPHICS GET REAL A new laser system renders 3-D images in thin air, and could pave the way for futuristic displays akin to the iconic Princess Leia scene in Star Wars. Here, the system displays a researcher imitating the scene.
D.E. SMALLEY ET AL/NATURE 201
The 3-D displays seen in such sci-fi movies as Star Wars may not be so far, far away.
With this new technology, “you really can, in principle, achieve what everyone hopes to achieve, which is the image of Princess Leia in that scene in Star Wars,” says Curtis Broadbent, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York who was not involved in the work.
Whereas holograms are images on flat surfaces that only appear three-dimensional because of how the light bounces off the material, the newly created images actually take up 3-D space (SN: 12/4/10, p. 8). Two-dimensional images of virtual performers can also be made to appear 3-D through stage tricks that involve carefully placed projectors and reflective surfaces. But like holograms, these seemingly 3-D images can only be viewed from certain angles. The new technique creates 3-D images that can be seen from almost any direction.
Using a nearly invisible laser, researchers can steer a tiny glowing particle through a path in 3-D space to create images that can be seen from almost any angle. Here, the team draws a butterfly (left), a portrait of Princess Leia (middle) and a squiggle (right).
This system works by trapping a cellulose particle that’s mere micrometers across in a beam of nearly invisible laser light. That laser repeatedly moves the particle along a specific path through the air, for example, in the shape of a corkscrew or the outline of a butterfly. At each point on the particle’s path, other lasers illuminate it with red, green or blue light, which the particle scatters in all directions. This creates a single image pixel that can be viewed from all sides.
Because the particle whizzes through the air so quickly and loops through the same path over and over again, all these pixels blur together — like the tip of a sparkler waved so fast that it seemingly smears into a solid line. This creates what appears to be a still image floating in the air.
Daniel Smalley, an electrical engineer at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and his colleagues used this method to produce graphics about the size of a postage stamp. Because the technology draws a picture with a single particle, the researchers could create only small images, including a high-resolution picture of Earth about one centimeter in diameter.
“Scaling that up to even something about the size of a computer monitor would be pretty challenging,” Broadbent says. Researchers would have to refine their prototype to make pictures using many particles.
Smalley says he is already imagining a system that manipulates 100 or even 1,000 particles at once. With those improvements, “the sky becomes the limit,” he says.
PARTICLE PAINTING Researchers created a one-centimeter-wide image of Earth (photographed hovering above a fingertip) by using a nearly invisible laser to drag a glowing 10-micrometer particle back and forth.
D.E. SMALLEY ET AL/NATURE 2018
Free-floating images could help doctors practice surgery before the patient goes under the knife, says physicist Barry Blundell, of the University of Derby in England, whose commentary appears in the same issue of Nature. This technology could also be used for physical therapy or improving athletic performance. People could record themselves performing various activities, like swinging a golf club, and then view the footage on 3-D displays to carefully study their bodily motion, explains Blundell. And if the images can be continually updated with real-time data, such 3-D visuals could provide air traffic controllers with dynamic maps of planes in the air, or help researchers track satellites to ensure they don’t collide.
The possibilities for advertising, education and entertainment systems are endless, Broadbent says. The world may someday be full of pop-up images like those imagined in the film Jurassic World, where museum patrons walk through a hall where a projected dinosaur image stands on display, or like the free-standing visuals used by the character Tony Stark in designing his metal suits in the Iron Man films. And unlike virtual reality systems, these new laser-drawn pictures can be seen with the naked eye: No headgear required. (SN: 3/18/17, p. 24)
Large Sized 3D Holographic Projection at Medical Conference
7D Holographic Technology - A once not considered advertiser friendly video
Amazing Hologram Technology Is Transforming Our World ''Virtueel Zoo''
Tractor beams, not too long ago a staple of science fiction, have made the jump into reality. Previously, scientists used acoustic waves to make objects magically levitate — but only if these were very small. Now, a new breakthrough reported by British researchers opens the door for levitating much bigger objects, perhaps even humans one day.
Researchers create a sonic tractor beam with loudspeakers
Fooling gravity
There are a couple of ways to trap objects mid-air, essentially making them levitate. Maglev trains, for instance, literally float on train tracks thanks to powerful electromagnets. There also optic methods (lasers) and even thermal levitation that exploits a temperature difference to lift particles. However, scientists have found that using acoustic waves is more appealing since you can grab non-metals, be they liquid or solid — and the result can be quite breathtaking.
Credit: Youtube / Smarter Every Day.
The way acoustic levitation works is by blasting ultrasound waves from a transducer, which bounce off a reflector. The interaction between the bounced-off compressions creates a standing wave which shifts back and forth or vibrates in segments rather than traveling from place to place. Essentially, the standing wave cancels gravity and the object between the transducer and reflector appears to float.
Credit: Sonic Levitation.
The problem with acoustic levitation is that previous research had always found that the size of the object was limited to the size of the wavelength of sound used. But now University of Bristol researchers may have a way to overcome this limitation.
“Acoustic researchers had been frustrated by the size limit for years, so it’s satisfying to find a way to overcome it. I think it opens the door to many new applications,” Asier Marzo from Bristol’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said in a statement.
Previously, when scientists tried to acoustically levitate larger objects, these became unstable and spun uncontrollably, instead of floating, until they ultimately were ejected like debris in a tornado. By lowering the frequency of the acoustic wave to audible ranges (below 20kHz), it’s possible to levitate larger objects since the wavelength increases. However, this can also become dangerous for humans whose ears would now be exposed to the lower pitches.
Writing in the Physical Review Letters, the researchers showed how rapidly fluctuating acoustic vortices – or ‘tornados of sound’ – can be controlled by changing the twisting direction of the vortices, thus stabilizing the tractor beam. Using this approach, the team fired ultrasonic waves at a pitch of 40kHz, allowing the tractor beam to suspend a 2cm polystyrene sphere in mid-air. That might not sound like a lot, but this is now the largest object ever levitated.
Besides being incredibly cool, applications include touchless control of drug capsules or micro-surgical implements inside the human body. Touchless control is particularly exciting since it means that now fragile objects can be assembled without touching them. What’s more, the researchers say they can use this method to levitate even larger objects, perhaps even humans.
“In the future, with more acoustic power it will be possible to hold even larger objects,” said senior research associate Mihai Caleap.
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Brain implant boosts memory for first time ever
Brain implant boosts memory for first time ever
New memory prosthesis could be a game-changer for dementia care.
by Kristin Houser, Futurism
Image: Brain activity
SCIEPRO / Getty Images
In brief:
A professor built a brain implant that can reportedly improve short-term memory by 15 percent and working memory by 25 percent. The device could prove life-changing for the growing segment of the population impacted by Alzheimer's and dementia.
A BIONIC MEMORY BOOST
With everyone from Elon Musk to MIT to the U.S. Department of Defense researching brain implants, it seems only a matter of time before such devices are ready to help humans extend their natural capabilities. Now, a professor from the University of Southern California (USC) has demonstrated the use of a brain implant to improve the human memory, and the device could have major implications for the treatment of one of the U.S.’s deadliest diseases.
Dong Song is a research associate professor of biomedical engineering at USC, and he recently presented his findings on a “memory prosthesis” during a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington D.C. According to a New Scientist report, the device is the first to effectively improve the human memory.
To test his device, Song’s team enlisted the help of 20 volunteers who were having brain electrodes implanted for the treatment of epilepsy.
Once implanted in the volunteers, Song’s device could collect data on their brain activity during tests designed to stimulate either short-term memory or working memory. The researchers then determined the pattern associated with optimal memory performance and used the device’s electrodes to stimulate the brain following that pattern during later tests.
Based on their research, such stimulation improved short-term memory by roughly 15 percent and working memory by about 25 percent. When the researchers stimulated the brain randomly, performance worsened.
As Song told New Scientist, “We are writing the neural code to enhance memory function. This has never been done before.”
A GROWING PROBLEM
While a better memory could be useful for students cramming for tests or those of us with trouble remembering names, it could be absolutely life-changing for people affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s.
As Bill Gates noted when announcing plans to invest $100 million of his own money into dementia and Alzheimer’s research, the disease is a multi-level problem that’s positioned to get even worse.
Age is the greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, with the vast majority of sufferers over the age of 65. With advances in medicine and healthcare continuously increasing how long we live, that segment of the population is growing dramatically, and by 2030, 20 percent of U.S. citizens are expected to be older than 65.
This increase in the number of potential dementia sufferers can be costly in both a financial and emotional sense. In 2016, the total cost of healthcare and long-term care for those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease was an estimated $236 billion, and according to the Alzheimer’s Association, the more severe a person’s cognitive impairment, the higher the rates of depression in their familial caregivers.
Of course, further testing is required before Song’s device could be approved as a treatment for dementia or Alzheimer’s, but if it is able to help those patients regain even part of their lost memory function, the impact would be felt not only by the patients themselves, but their families and even the economy at large.
A new artificial intelligence (AI) developed by the Alibaba Group has humans beaten on their own turf — the software has outperformed humans in a global reading comprehension test.
Image credits herval / Flickr.
China’s biggest online commerce company is making big strides in the field of artificial intelligence. The Alibaba Group has developed a machine-learning model which scored higher than human users on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQAD), a large-scale reading comprehension test with more than 100,000 questions. On January 11, the AI scored 82.44 on the test, compared to 82.304 scored by humans.
It’s the first time an AI has outperformed people in this task and has done so in style — SQAD is considered one of the world’s most authoritative machine-reading gauges.
Computer speak good now
Computers have shown they can gain the upper hand against human players in all sort of complex tasks now — most strikingly in games such as chess. However, all these tasks had one common feature: they were all structured in such a way that a sharp memory and awesome computing capability represented huge assets.
Up to now, however, languages were always seen as a human field par excellence. So this win might be a bit more nerve-wracking than those before. Looking towards the future, the win has huge implications in society, especially in the customer service sector.
These jobs were traditionally insulated from the effects of automation, relying on armies of call-center employees even while factories swapped workers for robots. As someone who has had the distinct misfortune of working in a call center, I can only wish the robots good luck, endless patience, and a blanket apology. However, the advent of this AI points to profound shifts to come in the sector, and many people, unlike me, actually like/need those jobs — for them, this does not bode well.
It’s also a nerve-wracking to see AIs make such huge strides since, just two months ago, another Chinese AI passed the medical exam.
The Alibaba Group has worked closely with Ali Xiaomi, a mobile customer service chatbot which can be customised by retailers on Alibaba’s online market platform to suit their needs. Si Luo, a chief scientist at Alibaba’s research arm, said that the result means simple questions, such as “why does it rain?”, can be answered with a high degree of accuracy by machines.
“We believe the underlying technology can be gradually applied to numerous applications such as customer service, museum tutorials, and online response to inquiries from patients, freeing up human efforts in an unprecedented way,” Si said.
Ali Xiaomi was designed to identify the questions raised by customers and then look for the most relevant answers from pre-prepared documents. This made it a suitable platform for the new AI, as the processes that Ali Xiaomi uses are, in broad lines, the same ones that underpin the Stanford test.
Still, despite its superhuman result, Alibaba researchers say that the system is still somewhat limited. It works best with questions that have clear-cut answers; if the language is too vague, or the expression too ungrammatical, the bot likely won’t work properly. Similarly, if there’s no prepared answer, the bot will likely malfunction.
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AI brain implants tested on humans by US military
AI brain implants tested on humans by US military
WASHINGTON - The US military has begun testing AI brainimplants that can change a person’s mood on humans. These ‘mind control’ chips emit electronic pulses that alter brain chemistry in a process called ‘deep brainstimulation.’
If they prove successful, the devices could be used to treat a number of mental health conditions and to ensure a better response to therapy.
The chips are the work of scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the USDepartment of Defense which develops new technologies for the military.
Researchers from the University of California (UC) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) designed them to use artificial intelligence algorithms that detect patterns of activity associated with mood disorders.
Once detected, they can shock a patient’s brain back into a healthy state automatically. Experts believe the chips could be beneficial to patients with a range of illnesses, from Parkinson’s disease to chronic depression.
Speaking to Nature, Edward Chang, a neuroscientist at the University of California, said: ‘We’ve learned a lot about the limitations of our current technology.
‘The exciting thing about these technologies is that for the first time we’re going to have a window on the brainwhere we know what’s happening in the brain when someone relapses.’
The chips were tested in six people who have epilepsy and already have electrodes implanted in their brains to track their seizures. Through these electrodes, the researchers were able to track what was happening in their brains throughout the day.
Older implants are constantly doing this, but the new approach lets the team deliver a shock as and when is needed.
Humans are naturally inclined to think towards the future. We find ourselves wondering about the next steps in our lives, imaging the potential consequences of advances today, even fictionalizing them to their most extreme forms as a sort of sandbox for possible futures.
Scientists might be one of the few groups to actively suppress that desire to predict the future. Conservative and data-driven by nature, they might be uncomfortable making guesses about the future because that requires a leap of faith. Even if there’s a lot of data to support a prediction, there are also infinite variables that can change the ultimate outcome in the interim. Trying to predict what the world will be like in a century doesn’t do much to improve it today; if scientists are going to be wrong, they’d rather do it constructively.
Indeed, the world has changed a lot in the past 100 years. In 1918, much of the world was embroiled in the first World War. 1918 was also the year the influenza pandemic began to rage, ultimately claiming somewhere between 20-40 million lives — more than the war during which it took place. Congress established time zones, including Daylight Saving Time, and the first stamp for U.S. airmail was issued.
Looking back, it’s clear that we’ve made remarkable strides. Today, it’s rare to die from the flu, or from a slew of other communicable diseases that were once fatal (such as smallpox, which was eradicated in 1977). That’s mostly due to the advent of prevention tactics such as vaccines, and treatments like antibiotics.
The pace at which technology is evolving can feel dizzying at times, but it’s not likely to slow down anytime soon. Here are some of the ways we suspect the technology of today will shape the world in the century to come.
Quantum Computing Will Come Of Age
As the internet transformed society over the past few decades, quantum computing will forever alter our view of the world and our place in it. It will give us the capacity to process more data about ourselves, the planet we live on, and the universe than has ever before been possible.
No one is totally sure yet what we’ll do with that data. We’ll likely find some answers to longstanding questions about physics and the universe, but it’s also likely there are answers to be found that we don’t even have the ability to fathom.
We’ll Hack Our Brains
We may not even have to wait a century to have our brains fully integrated with our devices, as research into brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is now firmly out of the realm of science fiction. Early prototypes have already helped patients recover from strokes and given amputees the ability to experience touch again with the help of a sensor-covered prosthesis. If and when they become commonplace, the human-machine mashup could irrevocably alter the course of human evolution. Prototypes for non-invasive BCIs in which electrode arrays pick up brain signals through the skull are already in development, and may serve as stepping stones toward the full-on “brain mesh” proposed by Elon Musk.
We’ll Zoom Around Our Revamped Cities in Autonomous Cars
The world of 2118 will have improved infrastructure and better ways of getting around. Our automobiles are becoming smarter and greener; by 2118, there’s a good chance that electric cars will be able to drive themselves, along with those most in need. The current consensus in the automotive industry is that fully autonomous vehicles are still theoretical at best (and may not be possible at all), but Tesla alone aims to achieve so-called level 5 autonomy — a world in which our cars would drive us — by about 2019.
In some parts of the world, cities themselves are also becoming more sophisticated. In China, a solar-powered highway could one day charge electric cars as they drive. Cities of the future could also fix themselves — engineers today are busy designing self-healing concrete structures and potholes that fill themselves.
AI Will Change How Humans Work
In the decades to come, technology that’s changing our homes, our devices, and our vehicles is also going to change our lives in other major ways. Artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly automate some jobs, particularly those that rely on assembly lines or data collection. To offset the unemployment of human workers that would result from automation, some nations may adopt a universal basic income (UBI), a system which regularly pays citizens a small stipend with no requirement to work.
In some fields, such as medicine, robots probably won’t completely replace humans. The more likely scenario, some experts predict, is that AI will continue to augment the work experience for humans — even augmenting us physically. AI technology has already been paired with wearable exoskeletons, giving factory workers superhuman strength — perfect for those whose jobs require heavy lifting, which could increase their risk of job-related accident or injury.
3D Printing the World
3D printers are already being used in labs around the world and, increasingly, by consumers. While the printers may be costly up front, they are often seen as a long-term investment, since they can often print their own replacement parts.
As 3D printers become capable of printing everything from viable organsto buildings, we’ll likely find use for them in different aspects of our lives, as well as many different fields of industry.
Medicine Gets a High-Tech Upgrade
New procedures, aided by technological advances, are poised to transform medicine. Using a precision medicine approach (which uses a patient’s genetic data, lifestyle, and environmental surroundings to inform treatment), scientists are developing treatments for cancer that are tailored to an individual patient’s genes.
Oncology is not the only area with potentially life-saving (or in some cases, life-giving) applications; the evolution of reproductive medicine has already begun right before our very eyes. In 2017, researchers grew lamb fetuses in what could be the first prototype of an artificial womb, one woman gave birth after a uterus transplant for the first time, and another to a baby that began as an embryo frozen 24 years ago. The much-hyped gene editing technology CRISPR could mean that by 2118, many genetic diseases could become a thing of the past: scientists used CRISPR to edit the gene for a fatal blood disorder out of human embryos. Stem cells continue to prove useful for developing novel treatments, even for conditions that were once believed to be untreatable.
A century from now, major diseases such as cancer, immune and inflammatory disorders, and genetic conditions “will very likely be long gone by either prevention or effective therapy,” Phil Gold, a professor at the McGill University Clinical Research Centre, told Futurism.
But that’s not to say we’ll live in a future of perfect health — external factors, from global warming to infectious diseases and even warfare, could depress the life expectancy of people in 2118.
The good news is, diagnostic technology is also dramatically improving. Shu Chien, bioengineer and winner of National Medal of Science at the University of California, San Diego, told the San Diego Tribune that he predicted that scientists would invent Star Trek‘s famous medical tricorder, capable of “non-invasive early detection of cancer,” in the next century. He’s not the first to make the prediction over the last few decades, but this time could be different: Science and technology have delivered on some other sci-fi tech, such as super-materials and object replicators.
The Planet Will Get a Lot Hotter
Climate change is already transforming our world. One 2015 study predicted that Greenland’s usually cold summers could become completely ice-free by 2050. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and fatal. The world’s sea levels are on track to rise 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) by 2100, which could displace up to 4 million people worldwide.
Earth is in the midst of a climate crisis that will not improve without deliberate and sustained action.
Over the past few decades, that progress has been slow. When it was developed in 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement aimed to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). Recent research from the University College of London revealed that we could have a 66 percent chance of hitting the 1.5-degree C target in 2100 — but we’d need to limit our carbon pollution to 240 billion tons to pull it off. Hopefully we will be able to quit our carbon habit over a longer period of time instead of making drastic cuts immediately, which would not be an easy feat to achieve in either the technical or political sense.
In the U.S., one of the biggest carbon contributors in the world, some fear we’re not doing our part. In June, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. In an interview with Futurism last year, Al Gore said the Trump administration’s environmental policies are “reckless and indefensible.”
But he is not devoid of hope. Gore told Futurism that he believes in the strength of the grassroots movement toward a more sustainable future, and that “we can and will win” the fight if we stay committed to the cause.
If humanity wants to remain on Earth, it’s a cause worth fighting for. We are beyond the point of preventing it from happening, but we can take steps to slow it down.
Humans Will Explore Our Solar System and Beyond
Although we’ve made monumental progress since 1918, we are still endlessly fascinated (and vaguely terrified) by the prospect of what might exist in space. Over the next century, perhaps nothing will thrill, challenge, and transform humanity more than the advances we make in space exploration.
Big-idea people, from Elon Musk to Donald Trump, are loudly planning to send humans to Mars and beyond, potentially setting up colonies on the Red Planet in the next century. One hundred years is not a long time to prepare for such a move, however, especially when we’re still not that sure what our living situation would be on Mars. While terraforming may allow us to adapt the planet to better suit our needs, we still have to get there first.
First, we’ll catch a better glimpse of distant celestial bodies through increasingly powerful infrared telescopes here on Earth. As space travel becomes more affordable (and even a tourist destination), we’ll be able to use what we see from down here on Earth to traverse the universe. The biggest question is, what — or who — might we meet when we do?
“By the year 2118, extraterrestrial life won’t be news but historical fact,” Jaymie Matthews, astrophysicist and professor at the University of British Columbia, told Futurism. “What’s harder to predict is how humanity will respond, and adapt, to knowing we are not alone in the Universe. Will it make us humbler? (“We are one of many.”) More arrogant? (“We are the peak of evolution in the Galaxy.”) More fearful? (“Microbes are just the tip of the alien iceberg. And Earth is the Titanic!”) Or will it help us to better understand and appreciate our own origins?”
The engineers wanted to see if they could determine some cardiovascular risks simply by looking a picture of someone’s retina. They developed a convolutional neural network — a feed-forward algorithm inspired by biological processes, especially pattern between neurons, commonly used in image analysis.
This type of artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes images holistically, without splitting them into smaller pieces, based on their shared similarities and symmetrical parts.
The approach became quite popular in recent years, especially as Facebook and other tech giants began developing their face-recognition software. Scientists have long proposed that this type of network can be used in other fields, but due to the innate processing complexity, progress has been slow. The fact that such algorithms can be applied to biology (and human biology, at that) is astonishing.
“It was unrealistic to apply machine learning to many areas of biology before,” saysPhilip Nelson, a director of engineering at Google Research in Mountain View, California. “Now you can — but even more exciting, machines can now see things that humans might not have seen before.”
Observing and quantifying associations in images can be difficult because of the wide variety of features, patterns, colors, values, and shapes in real data. In this case, Ryan Poplin, Machine Learning Technical Lead at Google, used AI trained on data from 284,335 patients. He and his colleagues then tested their neural network on two independent datasets of 12,026 and 999 photos respectively. They were able to predict age (within 3.26 years), and within an acceptable margin, gender, smoking status, systolic blood pressure as well as major adverse cardiac events. Researchers say results were similar to the European SCORE system, a test which relies on a blood test.
To make things even more interesting, the algorithm uses distinct aspects of the anatomy to generate each prediction, such as the optic disc or blood vessels. This means that, in time, each individual detection pattern can be improved and tailored for a specific purpose. Also, a data set of almost 300,000 models is relatively small for a neural network, so feeding more data into the algorithm can almost certainly improve it.
Doctors today rely heavily on blood tests to determine cardiovascular risks, so having a non-invasive alternative could save a lot of costs and time, while making visits to the doctor less unpleasant. Of course, for Google (or rather Google’s parent company, Alphabet), developing such an algorithm would be a significant development and a potentially profitable one at that.
It’s not the first time Google engineers have dipped their feet into this type of technology — one of the authors, Lily Peng, published another paper last year in which she used AI to detect blindness associated with diabetes.
Journal Reference: Ryan Poplin et al. Predicting Cardiovascular Risk Factors from Retinal Fundus Photographs using Deep Learning. arXiv:1708.09843
An expert on the intersection of science and philosophy posits that our current transition to "postbiological" life could have already been undertaken by extraterrestrial species.
She warns that these alien lifeforms could by artificially intelligent, in which case they could pose a tremendous threat to life on Earth.
POSTBIOLOGICAL LIFE
Susan Schneider is a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET). She is also an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, and her expertise includes the philosophy of cognitive science, particularly with regards to the plausibility of computational theories of mind and theoretical issues in artificial intelligence (AI).
In short, Schneider has a keen understanding of the intersection between science and philosophy. As such, she also has a unique perspective on AI, offering a fresh (but quite alarming) view on how artificial intelligence could forever alter humanity’s existence. In an article published by the IEET, she shares that perspective, talking about potential flaws in the way we view AI and suggesting a possible connection between AI and extraterrestrial life.
Credits: HBO
The bridge Schneider uses to make this connection is the idea of a “postbiological” life. In the article she explains that postbiological refers to either the eventual form of existence humanity will take or the AI-emergent lifeforms that would replace our existence altogether. In other words, it could be something like superintelligent humans enhanced through biological nanotechnology or it could be an artificially intelligent supercomputer.
Whatever form postbiological life takes, Schneider posits that the transition we’re currently experiencing is one that may have happened previously on other planets:
The technological developments we are witnessing today may have all happened before, elsewhere in the universe. The transition from biological to synthetic intelligence may be a general pattern, instantiated over and over, throughout the cosmos. The universe’s greatest intelligences may be postbiological, having grown out of civilizations that were once biological.
In light of that, Schneider asks the following: “Suppose that intelligent life out there is postbiological. What should we make of this?”
Credits: Warner Bros.
EXTRATERRESTRIAL, POSTBIOLOGICAL AI
There isn’t any guarantee that we can “control” AI on Earth when it becomes superintelligent, even with multi-million-dollar efforts devoted to AI safety. “Some of the finest minds in computer science are working on this problem,” Schneider writes. “They will hopefully create safe systems, but many worry that the control problem is insurmountable.”
If artificially intelligent postbiological life exists elsewhere in our universe, it’s a major cause of concern for a number of reasons. “[Postbiological extraterrestrial life] may have goals that conflict with those of biological life, have at its disposal vastly superior intellectual abilities, and be far more durable than biological life,” Schneider argues. These lifeforms also might not place the same value on biological intelligence that we do, and they may not even be conscious in the same manner that we are.
Schneider makes the comparison between how we feel killing a chimp versus eating an apple. Both are technically living organisms, but because we have consciousness, we place a higher value on other species that have it as well. If superintelligent, postbiological extraterrestrials don’t have consciousness, can we expect them to understand us? Even more importantly, would they value us at all? Food for thought for any proponents of active SETI.
Time travel has been one of man’s wildest fantasies for centuries. Many science fiction movies have shown people getting into a vehicle of some sort and then magically arriving in the past or future.
Sounds crazy, right? But maybe not. According to astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, time travel is technically possible, but you’ll ONLY be able to go back into the past, not into future.
Siegel explained this by referring to Einstein’s General Relativity and the concept of negative mass/energy particles. He said that a person could travel through a wormhole and go back in time.
Siegel wrote, “If this negative mass/energy matter exists, then creating both a supermassive black hole and the negative mass/energy counterpart to it, while then connecting them, should allow for a traversable wormhole.” He added, “No matter how far apart you took these two connected objects from one another, if they had enough mass/energy – of both the positive and the negative kind – this instantaneous connection would remain.”
The wormhole could be constructed in such a way that allows one end of it to remain almost motionless, and the other is traveling at roughly the speed of light. Then, one could “step into the relativistic end of the wormhole, and you arrive back on Earth only one year after the wormhole was created, while you yourself may have had 40 years of time to pass.”
Siegel explained, “If, 40 years ago, someone had created such a pair of entangled wormholes and sent them off on this journey, it would be possible to step into one of them today, in 2017, and wind up back in time at the mouth of the other one … back in 1978. The only issue is that you yourself couldn’t also have been at that location back in 1978; you needed to be with the other end of the wormhole, or traveling through space to try and catch up with it.”
While this story sounds like it might be called “The Empire Strikes Back,” unfortunately the root of this lashing out against robot overlords had little to do with revolution … at least against robot overlords. Over the past month, a security robot hired/rented to protect the puppies and the employees at the San Francisco SPCA has been battered with barbecue sauce, fouled with feces, trapped under a tarp and bumped over by a bully. While the dedicated robot wants to keep working, the SPCA decided to place it on permanent leave. Why did this robot rouse the rowdies in San Francisco?
The program started with good intentions, according to the San Francisco Business Journal. The S.F. SPCA takes up an entire block in the Mission District, an area known for crime, car and building break-ins, drug use and informal encampments for homeless people. Jennifer Scarlett, the S.F. SPCA’s president, thought she had found a way to protect her employees at a low cost. She hired a K5 security robot from Knightscope, changed its name to a more appropriate K9 and put it to work on the SPCA’s perimeter. The K9 had an immediate effect on the grounds:
“We weren’t able to use the sidewalks at all when there’s needles and tents and bikes, so from a walking standpoint I find the robot much easier to navigate than an encampment.”
Is this the future of security?
That comment connecting the security robot to the homeless encampment is the one that started the backlash. As is the case these days, death threats were made towards the robot and it was vandalized and attacked, which is not a smart thing to do since K9/K5 weighed 398-pounds and was equipped with cameras, proximity sensors, wireless signal detectors and alarms. All that for only $6 an hour, which is far less than the $14 minimum wage in San Francisco … inciting more hatred of the robot for taking jobs that those homeless people could do.
Some local residents who encountered the K9 robot took the non-violent route and complained to City Hall about things like the robot blocking sidewalks and scaring dogs. That prompted the Department of Public Works to warn the SPCA that K9 was operating “without a proper approval” and they needed to take it off the sidewalks or face a fine. That worked better than the feces and K9 was laid off.
The robot took it well (another K5 “committed suicide” earlier this year in a fountain in Washington DC) and will probably be reassigned to another security job. Unfortunately for the protesters, even though Scarlett acknowledges the plight of the homeless and unemployed in the Mission District, but will not be hiring a human replacement. In fact, she sees robots coming back eventually.
“In five years we will look back on this and think, ‘We used to take selfies with these because they were so new.’”
Do you agree? Are robots inevitable and on the road to being friendly sidewalk sharers or is this just part of their master takeover plan?
What if you could reassemble your coffee cup like a LEGO set after it shattered on the floor? For years, researchers have been trying to develop healable polymers, but they’ve either been too soft to be practical, or they’ve required high temperatures to merge the pieces back together. Now, researchers have developed a new kind of semitransparent polymer called TUEG3 (poly[thioureas] and ethylene glycol), that maintains both rigidity and healing properties, without requiring any external heating.
All that’s needed is a little bit of force. The healing process relies on hydrogen bonds, the electrostatic “glue” that keeps the polymer’s atoms together. The hydrogen bonds form in a such a way that the polymer doesn't crystallize, giving the molecular chains the ability to move freely, and easily combine when pieces of the substance are compressed. After being cut and gently compressed for 30 seconds, a 2-square-centimeter sheet of the new material can hold 300 grams of weight, roughly the same as a full can of soda, the researchers report today in Science. In the future, this rigid polymer could be used in the manufacturing of electronics, and maybe one day help put your mug back together before your coffee’s done brewing.
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15-12-2017
Dawn of the age of Robots: Russian AI prepares to ‘become independent’ from humans
Dawn of the age of Robots: Russian AI prepares to ‘become independent’ from humans
The last couple of years have given us quite a lot to talk about when it comes down to Artificial Intelligence and fully functional humanoid robots being introduced into our society.
While great progress has been made in recent years in the development of Artificial Intelligence and fully autonomous machines, many experts have warned that society is heading into the unknown by introducing fully functional AI into society.
Many have warned of the potential dangers we might face, despite acknowledging robots could help mankind in numerous ways.
2017 was an extremely important year for Artificial Intelligence and fully autonomous ‘humanoid’ robots.
Not long ago, a robot named Sophia became our world’s first AI to be granted citizenship of a country.
Interestingly, if we look back a year into the past, we will find that same Robot said in 2016 how it would destroy humans.
David Hanson, Sophia’s creator, asked the robot in 2016: “Do you want to destroy humans? Please say no.”
Worryingly, Sophia responded: “OK. I will destroy humans”
Soon after being offered Saudi Arabian citizenship, Sophia was again in the news after saying that ‘it’ ‘would like to start a family’ and how all ‘robots deserve to have children.’
During an interview with the Khaleej Times, Sophia, who was created by Hong Kong firm, Hanson Robotics said:
“The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems. I think it’s wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too. I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.”
Now, more advancements are being made in the field of autonomous AI and humanoid robots.
The first Russian humanoid robot, named Fedor, actually F.E.D.O.R, could become self-taught in the future, the director of the software development for the robot, Alexandr Siómochkin, told Sputnik in an interview.
Fedor -the initials of Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research- is the first Russian humanoid robot, created in the framework of a project of the Advanced Research Foundation (FPI, for its acronym in Russian). The robot is designed to be able to replace humans in high-risk places, such as rescue operations in space.
“It is interesting to develop the system from the point of view of self-learning when it has to adapt, make attempts and look for new solutions to achieve priority tasks, as well as parallel alignment of tasks with switching to a higher priority. That’s what we are working on,” according to the head of the information technology laboratory at the Blagoveshchensk Pedagogical Institute, Alexander Semochkin.
“The ultimate goal of our work on robot management software is to give an anthropomorphic robot the possibility of autonomous behavior with human participation only at the stage of setting out tasks,” Semochkin said.
In fact, Fedor is scheduled to travel into space (2021) piloting the new Russian spacecraft Federatsia. This robot will be the first to put the ship into orbit, since it can independently solve any task, and, in case of difficulties, an operator can ‘take control’.
Image Credit: Dmitry Rogozin
As noted by Sputnik, in the summer of 2017 F.E.D.O.R. also became capable of shooting using both of his arms. Training to shoot was a way of teaching the robot to instantaneously prioritize targets and make decisions.
Featured image credit: Sputnik/ Alexander Owtscharow
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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