Tag: technology

Researchers regrow frog’s lost leg

For millions of patients who have lost limbs for reasons ranging from diabetes to trauma, the possibility of regaining function through natural regeneration remains out of reach. Regrowth of legs and arms remains the province of salamanders and superheroes.

But in a study published in the journal Science Advances, scientists at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have brought us a step closer to the goal of regenerative medicine.

On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the researchers were able to trigger regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals in the elixir over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that restores a functional leg.

Many creatures have the capability of full regeneration of at least some limbs, including salamanders, starfish, crabs, and lizards. Flatworms can even be cut up into pieces, with each piece reconstructing an entire organism. Humans are capable of closing wounds with new tissue growth, and our livers have a remarkable, almost flatworm-like capability of regenerating to full size after a 50% loss.

But loss of a large and structurally complex limb—an arm or leg—cannot be restored by any natural process of regeneration in humans or mammals. In fact, we tend to cover major injuries with an amorphous mass of scar tissue, protecting it from further blood loss and infection and preventing further growth.

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China Unveils ‘World’s Largest’ Quadruped Military Robot

China has introduced what it claims to be the world’s largest electrically-powered quadruped robot to assist the military on logistics and reconnaissance missions.

With a “yak-like appearance,” the four-legged robot can reportedly carry up to 352 pounds (160 kilograms) of payload and run at six miles (10 kilometers) per hour.

The platform’s structure is designed to withstand challenging off-grid military missions and conquer a wide variety of terrain, including cliffs, trenches, grasslands, fields, deserts, snow, and muddy roads.

Despite being reported as the heaviest and largest quadruped robot, the hi-tech unit can run, jump, turn, and walk diagonally.

According to state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), the platform has 12 modules and state-of-the-art sensors, allowing it to collect tactical battlefield information and perform logistics.

Potential military uses include all-weather operations in high-risk combat zones, remote border areas, and complex environments that have proven too challenging for soldiers.

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Emirates president calls 5G rollout fiasco the ‘most delinquent mess he’s seen in his entire career’ and blames Pete Buttigieg for doing nothing to stop the chaos after dozens of flights were canceled – and then uncanceled

The president of Emirates has slammed the 5G fiasco as the ‘most delinquent, irresponsible’ mess he has seen in his 50-year aviation career and blamed it on Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who he says knew about the impending chaos but failed to warn anyone in time to stop it. 

AT&T and Verizon launched their 5G network across America on Wednesday morning, switching on 4,500 towers to bring faster wireless to their customers. They had to hold back on ten percent of the towers – 500 – that are near airports because the frequencies the towers emit could interfere with the signal on some planes. 

Eighty-eight airports now have buffers to protect against it but some major airports like Boston and Memphis do not. In the most recent FAA announcement on Wednesday afternoon, the government said ’62 percent’ of flights could operate safely – leaving nearly half to reschedule.

On Wednesday, some airline passengers who were unaware of the fiasco showed up at airports ready to board their flights but were told they had been canceled. Air India, Emirates, BA, Japan Airlines and All Nippon canceled flights on Tuesday, then rushed to bring them back on Wednesday. 

In total, 239 flights to, from and within the US have been canceled so far. It’s unclear if all have been scrapped because of 5G, but the network launch is causing major issues.

It had a detrimental effect on Boeing, whose 777 and 787 planes are the ones affected and which has lucrative contracts with both the government and with the airlines; stocks fell by three percent on Wednesday as a result of the fiasco.

Sir Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, appeared on CNN, Wednesday that American airlines knew about the risks before the rest of the world, and that it forced them to scramble to cancel flights then bring them back once it was safe. 

President Biden, at a rare press conference on Wednesday afternoon, shrugged off responsibility for the fiasco and instead tried to take credit for brokering the deal. 

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The FBI’s Honeypot Phones Were More Widely Distributed in the U.S. Than Previously Thought

One of the weirder stories from last year involved a gargantuan FBI honeypot operation designed to catch crooks all over the world. According to Motherboard, that operation had a bigger imprint in the U.S. than originally believed.

During “Operation Trojan Shield,” the feds used a secret relationship with an encrypted phone company, called Anom, which sold devices exclusively to career criminals looking for a secure way to communicate with one another. The product’s developer, who had previously been busted for drug trafficking, agreed to act as a high-level federal informant and for at least two years sold devices to criminals while also secretly cooperating with authorities. Meanwhile the FBI, along with its international partners, intercepted all of the communications, which allowed them to capture evidence of widespread criminal malfeasance on a global scale.

It made for one helluva weird story when the bureau finally revealed what it had been up to last June, and “Shield” led to the arrest of hundreds of alleged criminals in countries all around the world—many of which are accused of using the phones to organize drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime. The arrests continue to this day.

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China’s $1 trillion ‘artificial sun’ fusion reactor just got five times hotter than the sun

China’s “artificial sun” has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported. 

The EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a temperature of 158 million degrees Fahrenheit (70 million degrees Celsius) for 1,056 seconds, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The achievement brings scientists a small yet significant step closer to the creation of a source of near-unlimited clean energy.

The Chinese experimental nuclear fusion reactor smashed the previous record, set by France’s Tore Supra tokamak in 2003, where plasma in a coiling loop remained at similar temperatures for 390 seconds. EAST had previously set another record in May 2021 by running for 101 seconds at an unprecedented 216 million F (120 million C). The core of the actual sun, by contrast, reaches temperatures of around 27 million F (15 million C).

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Scientists ‘Virtually Unwrap’ Exceptional 3,500-Year-Old Mummy of Amenhotep I With CT Scans, Revealing Ancient Mystery

A wrapped mummy of novel quality and exceptional appearance, whose burial rites were preserved from ages ago, has now been unwrapped—not by hand but virtually, using cutting-edge CT scans and 3D modeling software—revealing mysteries of the ancient kings of Egypt.

In 1902, among the royal mummies moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was Amenhotep I, who reigned from 1525 to 1504 B.C. during the 18th Dynasty, whose remains were found in Luxor tomb Deir el-Bahari Royal Cache—where New Kingdom royalty were placed, so as to protect them from tomb robbers, some 3,000 years ago.

One of the few mummies found fully wrapped in modern times, Amenhotep I was marveled upon by then director of antiquities in Egypt Gaston Maspero. Having been desecrated by tomb raiders long ago, the mummy was reburied by priests of the 21st Dynasty. The beautiful reburial features garlands of yellow, red, and blue flowers, as well as an intact mask of cartonnage and painted wood with obsidian eyes and a cobra adorning the forehead. When the coffin of Amenhotep I was opened, a preserved wasp, possibly attracted by the smell of garlands and trapped, was also found inside. Preserving the novelty of this ritual, Maspero left Amenhotep I undisturbed.

Yet, recent technological advances have made possible a virtual “unwrapping” of the mummy, revealing more of the story hidden within.

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The Vaccine Passport Pathway to a Social Credit System

Simply put the vaccine programs are really population control programs, because by pushing vaccines the elites are pushing vaccine passports which are the first step to creating digital ID numbers on a software platform where every subject’s personal information will eventually end up.  Control of information means control of the subjects.

The real-life model for this is the Chinese social credit system. This system is, through the totalitarian perspective, a brilliant combination of national digital identification numbers combined with high surveillance technology all controlled by advanced artificial intelligence.  Each Chinese subject is branded with a digital number and the surveillance state can follow his employment, medical, criminal, and schooling records, his online browsing records, his voiced political views, and even the places he visits through GPS positioning technology. 

If the subject so much as jaywalks across a street, it will likely be picked up by one of the millions of surveillance cameras installed in Chinese cities and run through face recognition software.  All this data is then combined and processed and the subject is given a “social credit score” which is then used to dole out rewards and punishments.  Score too low and the subject can be denied access to train and air travel. Score even lower and the subject can be denied a good job, good housing, access to credit, or even access to dating apps so the poor devil might even have a hard time finding a date.[i]

This software-controlled system of meting out incentives and disincentives made possible by modern digital technology has given political authorities a degree of social control over large populations never before seen in human history.  Because Western elites are fully aware that their post-World War II strategy of promising ever-expanding government benefits is not a sustainable way of holding onto permanent power, they are desperate to come up with other means of continuing their lordship over the masses.  This explains why they are pushing vaccines and vaccine mandates because the vaccine passport software will be designed to eventually accept all the data relevant to each citizen and once achieved, warns the Chinese defector Li-Meng Yan, the elites will have the vital tool necessary to implement a Chinese style social credit system.[ii]

No citizen can be exempt from this system which is why the estimated 146 million naturally immune[iii] are told to get vaccinated even though their immunity is far superior to that produced by vaccines, and why children have to be vaccinated even though they are 6 times more likely develop serious heart problems from the vaccines than to be hospitalized for Covid.[iv]  While the Covid vaccine policies of Western governments make no medical sense, they make perfect political sense once one understands the existential economic crisis Western power elites know they are facing.

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China Pursues “Brain Control” Weaponry In Bid To Command Future Of Warfare

Once believed to only exist in sci-fi movies, the weaponization of the brain has been discussed by Chinese military officials for years. And Beijing is spending billions each year on neuroscience that could draw these scenarios ever closer to reality.

“The study into brain science was born out of a vision for how the future warfare would evolve,” Li Peng, a medical researcher at a subsidiary of China’s state-run Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), wrote in an article in 2017.

Such research, he added, has “an extremely strong military characteristic” and is crucial to securing a “strategic high ground” for every country.

Li was not alone in stressing the urgency in militarizing brain science.

In March, a Chinese military-run newspaper described cloud-powered artificial intelligence (AI) “integrating human and machine” as the key to winning wars. With the accelerating “intelligentization” of the military, it warned, China needs to quickly get a firm footing in this technology, and any delay “could lead to unimaginable consequences.”

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Police Use of Artificial Intelligence: 2021 in Review

Decades ago, when imagining the practical uses of artificial intelligence, science fiction writers imagined autonomous digital minds that could serve humanity. Sure, sometimes a HAL 9000 or WOPR would subvert expectations and go rogue, but that was very much unintentional, right?

And for many aspects of life, artificial intelligence is delivering on its promise. AI is, as we speak, looking for evidence of life on Mars. Scientists are using AI to try to develop more accurate and faster ways to predict the weather.

But when it comes to policing, the actuality of the situation is much less optimistic.  Our HAL 9000 does not assert its own decisions on the world—instead, programs which claim to use AI for policing just reaffirm, justify, and legitimize the opinions and actions already being undertaken by police departments.

AI presents two problems,  tech-washing, and a classic feedback loop. Tech-washing is the process by which proponents of the outcomes can defend those outcomes as unbiased because they were derived from “math.” And the feedback loop is how that math continues to perpetuate historically-rooted harmful outcomes. “The problem of using algorithms based on machine learning is that if these automated systems are fed with examples of biased justice, they will end up perpetuating these same biases,” as one philosopher of science notes.

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Amazon’s Alexa dishes out potentially deadly challenge

Amazon says it has updated its voice assistant after it transpired that Alexa had suggested a 10-year-old girl touch a coin to the prongs of a partially inserted plug as a challenge.

The girl’s mother posted a tweet on Monday describing how her daughter had been doing some cold-weather indoor challenges set by a phys. ed. teacher on YouTube and was seeking another one. To the woman’s shock, Alexa suggested a “simple” task it had found on the web, whereby the participant “plug[s] in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch[es] a penny to the exposed prongs.” 

The dangerous “penny challenge” started making the rounds on TikTok and other platforms about a year ago and can potentially lead to electric shock as well as cause a fire.

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