Tag: science

Scientists propose putting nanobots in our bodies to create ‘global superbrain’

A team has proposed using nanobots to create the ‘internet of thoughts’, where instant knowledge could be downloaded just by thinking it.

An international team of scientists led by members of UC Berkeley and the US Institute for Molecular Manufacturing predicts that exponential progress in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, artificial intelligence (AI) and computation will lead this century to the development of a human ‘brain-cloud interface’ (B-CI).

Writing in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team said that a B-CI would connect neurons and synapses in the brain to vast cloud computing networks in real time.

Such a concept isn’t new with writers of science fiction, including Ray Kurzweil, who proposed it decades ago. In fact, Facebook has even admitted it is working on a B-CI.

However, Kurzweil’s fantasy about neural nanobots capable of hooking us directly into the web is now being turned into reality by the senior author of this latest study, Robert Freitas Jr.

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World’s First ‘Living Robot’ Invites New Opportunities And Risks

A team of researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University has succeeded in developing robots composed exclusively of living biological cells. Dubbed “xenobots,” these living robots can perform a range of basic functions, from locomotion and object manipulation to collective behavior. Their creation promises to deliver significant advances in biology and in medicine, in particular. However, it also potentially carries serious risks, insofar as the researchers themselves admit that experimenting with living cells creates the scope for unforeseen consequences.

Putting such risks aside for one moment, the team’s development of “xenobots” is impressive. First, the scientists at Vermont simulated possible configurations of individual biological cells on a supercomputer. They used what’s called an evolutionary algorithm to test thousands of possibilities and find the best candidates, ‘best’ in terms of the known biophysics of biological cells, which in this case were frog cells.

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The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called “Master Race.”

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn’t originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement’s campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed “unfit,” preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies,” and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century’s first decades, California’s eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America’s most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics’ racist aims.

Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of “race and blood” in his 1902 racial epistle “Blood of a Nation,” in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

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Why physicist Avi Loeb thinks there’s a “serious possibility” that ‘Oumuamua was an alien spacecraft

Are we alone in the universe?

It’s a question humans have been asking for thousands of years—but when a bizarrely fast, cigar-shaped interstellar object jetted past Earth on its trip through our solar system, Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes scientists weren’t ready to seriously consider that it was of artificial origin. But Loeb is beyond consideration — he says it’s very possible that ‘Oumuamua (pronounced “oh moo ah moo ah”) was an interstellar spacecraft. 

Back in October 2017, a postdoctoral researcher named Robert Weryk at the University of Hawaii was sifting through the usual data stream from the Pan-STARRS astronomical survey of the sky when he noticed an unexpected object. It appeared to be highly elongated, like a stick, with a long axis 10 times longer than its short axis — unprecedented for an asteroid. Some hypothesized that ‘Oumuamua swung towards our solar system as a result of a gravitational slingshot of a binary star system; others, that it might be an odd comet, though no tail was evident. Thus the search began to collect and analyze as much data as possible before it left our solar system.

Immediately upon discovering its physical properties, researchers realized its shape — which would minimize abrasions from interstellar gas and dust — would be ideal for an interstellar spacecraft. The idea understandably sent shockwaves through the scientific community and stoked controversy. Ultimately, scientists coalesced behind the idea that it was of natural origin, rather than artificial.  But Loeb, who is the former chair of astronomy at Harvard University, remains certain that it was something akin to a light sail — a form of interstellar propulsion — spacecraft created by an extraterrestrial civilization. So much so that he wrote a whole book about it.

That book would be “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” in which Loeb argues that the scientific community’s resistance to discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial life has hindered taking seriously his hypothesis that ‘Oumuamua was an alien light sail. Loeb reflects on how what happened with ‘Oumuamua was a bit of a missed opportunity, and that academia must invest more in the search for life in our universe to better prepare us for another interstellar visitor. But perhaps, most importantly, in a time when Earth faces an urgent global warming crisis, Loeb says that it could be finding extraterrestrial life that saves us from ourselves.

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Six Extinct Animals, and How We Can Bring Them Back

Father-and-son scientists George and Hendrik Poinar have helped set the stage in recent decades for a dramatic advance: Resurrecting extinct species.

George led early explorations of the notion before essential technology had been invented. Later, Hendrik and George together pioneered new methods of extracting and sequencing ancient DNA.

To turn those genetic blueprints into living organisms, however, is quite a challenging proposition. One approach is to take a similar existing species and modify individual genes to match its extinct relative. But this of course wouldn’t be an exact match of the original animal.

Another approach could be to use a donor egg from a modern animal but with its DNA replaced by that of the extinct animal.

Here, six of the candidates for de-extinction, and the modern counterparts that could shepherd them into being.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: WTF??? Have these people never seen science fiction movies? Read a book? Even a comic book?

Scientists think they’ve detected radio emissions from an alien world

Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time.

The astronomers behind the new research used a radio telescope in the Netherlands to study three different stars known to host exoplanets. The researchers compared what they saw to observations of Jupiter, diluted as if being seen from a star system dozens of light-years away. And one star system stood out: Tau Boötes, which contains at least one exoplanet. If the detection holds up, it could open the door to better understanding the magnetic fields of exoplanets and therefore the exoplanets themselves, the researchers hope.

“We present one of the first hints of detecting an exoplanet in the radio realm,” Jake Turner, an astronomer at Cornell University and lead author of the new research, said in a statement. “We make the case for an emission by the planet itself. From the strength and polarization of the radio signal and the planet’s magnetic field, it is compatible with theoretical predictions.”

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France Says It’s Developing Bionic Supersoldiers Because “Everyone Else Is Doing It”

A report published last Tuesday by the French Military Ethics Committee has indicated that the country has begun to develop technology for bionically enhanced soldiers. The report discussed conditions in which devices like implants can be used to improve soldier performance on the battlefield.

“Human beings have long sought ways to increase their physical or cognitive abilities in order to fight wars. Possible advances could ultimately lead to capacity enhancements being introduced into soldiers’ bodies,” the report said, according to the BBC.

The report said that maintaining clear ethical lines would be important in the development of bionic soldiers. The report called for eugenic or genetic applications of the technology to be banned, as well as anything “that could jeopardise the soldier’s integration into society or return to civilian life”.

The country’s military leaders believe that it is necessary to develop this technology because not doing so would allow other countries to get ahead and gain a military advantage.

In a speech last week, Defence Minister Florence Parly, said that the country’s military doesn’t plan on developing anything extremely “invasive” right away, but said that this could be an option in the future because other countries will be pushing the technology as far as they can.

“We must face the facts. Not everyone shares our scruples and we must be prepared for whatever the future holds,” Parly said.

Parly went on to promise that the French government would seek to find a balance, and will find “ways to maintain our operational superiority without turning our backs on our values.”

Parly also pointed out that similar technologies, such as neural implants, have already been introduced to civilian fields without much controversy.

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