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.
29-09-2019
Boeing's planned hypersonic airliner could fly from NYC to London in two hours
Boeing's planned hypersonic airliner could fly from NYC to London in two hours
The ultra-fast plane would be capable of flying five times the speed of sound.
Boeing says the first passenger-carrying hypersonic plane could be ready to fly in 20 to 30 years.Boeing
By Denise Chow
Boeing has unveiled plans for what could be the world’s first hypersonic airliner, a sleek, futuristic-looking craft that the Seattle-based company said would be capable of flying five times the speed of sound, or about 3,800 miles per hour.
At that speed — Mach 5 in aviation parlance — it would be possible to travel from New York City to London in about two hours instead of the eight hours the trip takes on a conventional airliner.
That means someone could conceivably fly overseas for a meeting and return home in a single day.
“Humankind has always wanted to go faster — always wanted to do things faster,” said Kevin Bowcutt, chief scientist of hypersonics at Boeing. “People cannot make time, so there’s an inherent value in time.”
The as-yet-unnamed plane would be much faster not only than conventional airliners, which cruise at about 550 miles an hour, but also the supersonic Concorde aircraft that flew routes across the North Atlantic Ocean from 1976 to 2003. Concorde, produced by a British-French consortium, could reach Mach 2.04, meaning the New York City-London trip took just under four hours.
Boeing’s proposed plane, described in broad strokes at an industry conference in Atlanta this week, could be used for military applications as well as commercial aviation. But it might take 20 to 30 years to take to the skies, Bowcutt said.
Supersonic and hypersonic (meaning five times the speed of sound or faster) have been hyped as the next era of commercial aviation since at least the 1950s. But with the exception of the Concorde, which was permanently grounded three years after a deadly crash in France, building such airplanes has proven to be an elusive goal.
“It’s been a dream for a while now,” said Stuart Craig, an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona, who is not affiliated with Boeing. “We’ve been striving for this hypersonic technology for the better part of half a century, but in recent years, advances in computational technology and materials technology have made it much more in grasp.”
One key question for Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers will be whether airline passengers would be willing to pay the higher ticket prices that hypersonic air travel would command.
High prices, along with limited routes, played a role in the demise of the Concorde, said Mike Sinnett, Boeing’s vice president of future airplane development. “We can do all kinds of cool things, but those cool things have to lead to something that creates value, or at the end of the day it’s not going to be all that successful,” he said. “In general, people flew on [the Concorde] as a novelty — it didn’t change the world, and the economics weren’t right.”
But Craig said new technologies and designs for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft are making high-speed air travel more attractive to travelers.
The Concorde’s routes were limited in part because regulators barred supersonic travel over populated areas to protect people on the ground from hearing the loud sonic booms that the plane created. But in the years since the Concorde’s retirement, Craig said researchers at NASA and elsewhere have made significant strides in mitigating sonic booms caused by supersonic and hypersonic craft.
As for what it would be like to experience a hypersonic flight, Bowcutt said it would be a lot like flying in a conventional jet — but with a few key differences.
Rather than cruising at 30,000 to 40,000 feet, as is typical for conventional airliners, a hypersonic craft like the one proposed by Boeing would cruise at 90,000 to 95,000 feet.
“At that altitude, you’re going to see the curvature of the Earth below you,” Bowcutt said. “You won’t see the entire Earth, but you will see the curvature — and above you, you’ll have the blackness of space. It’s also a very smooth ride because there isn’t atmospheric turbulence at that altitude.”
But while there would be less turbulence, more time would be needed to accelerate to Mach 5. On a conventional airline flight, passengers feel the sensation of being pushed back in their seats for about a minute or so during and shortly after takeoff. On a hypersonic flight, Bowcutt said, that sensation would last for about 12 minutes.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
26-09-2019
Irish Teenager Invents Magnetic Liquid Trap That Can Remove 90% of Microplastics From Water
Irish Teenager Invents Magnetic Liquid Trap That Can Remove 90% of Microplastics From Water
Teenager wins Google Science award for genius invention that could cheaply remove most microplastics from the ocean
Because microplastics are so small — some as tiny as grains of sand — scientists have had a hard time figuring out to remove them from the soil and the sea.
Now, an Irish teenager has come up with a promising solution for this seemingly impossible task — a magnetic liquid that attracts microplastics to itself.
18-year-old Fionn Ferreira was kayaking one day when he spotted a rock covered in oil from a recent spill. Clinging to the oil were a bunch of tiny pieces of plastic.
“It got me thinking,” Ferreira told Business Insider. “In chemistry, like attracts like.”
Plastic and oil are nonpolar, making them likely to stick together in nature
Ferreira wondered if the effect could be recreated using ferrofluid, a magnetic, oil-based liquid invented by NASA in 1963 to keep rocket fuel moving in zero gravity.
Today ferrofluid is used to control vibrations in speakers and to seal off electronics to keep debris out.
Ferreira makes a more environmentally friendly version of the liquid than the kind used in rocket fuel, using recycled vegetable oil and magnetite powder, a mineral found naturally on Earth’s surface.
When he first drops the liquid into a container of water contaminated with microplastics, it disperses and turns the water black.
Then he dips a magnet in the water, which pulls out all the ferrofluid, plastic and all, leaving clear water behind.
“It got me thinking,” Ferreira told Business Insider. “In chemistry, like attracts like.”
The method removed 88% of the microplastics in his test samples.
The most difficult type of microplastic to remove was polypropylene, used to make all sorts of plastic packaging. Still, the ferrofluid removes 80% of polypropylene.
The easiest microplastics to remove were microfibers from plastic clothing such polyester, spandex and Lycra.
Washers and dryers are currently not equipped to filter these microfibers, which are a major source of ocean plastic pollution, so this is great news for that application.
Additionally, Ferreira‘s invention can be used at wastewater treatment plants as a sort of catch-all for microplastic pollution before it enters rivers, lakes and oceans.
Ferreira has won the Google Science award, $50,000 and educational funding for his invention.
If you’re a nerd like me, the image of a half-constructed, almost skeletal second Death Star from Return of the Jedi is permanently lodged in your brain as one of the most majestically ominous creations in all of cinema.
George Lucas’ vision of building massive superstructures directly in outer space is iconic, but it’s hardly the first of its kind. The idea of manufacturing whole spacecraft or space stations that never touch Earth, that are fabricated and assembled directly out in the void where they will be operating, is one of humanity’s oldest science fiction dreams, dating back to antiquity, before the genre of sci-fi as we know it was even invented.
But now, outer space manufacturing is about to become a reality, albeit at a much smaller scale than the Death Star. The real-life Florida startup Made in Space recently won a $73.7 million contract from NASA to use, over the next three years, what’s essentially an advanced space-grade 3D printer to print out wings for a spacecraft while it orbits Earth.
Made in Space is pursuing something altogether more ambitious: producing whole new pieces of working equipment from raw materials in outer space — and doing so in a matter of days.
“We’re focused on the industrialization of space and moving the means of production into space,” said Justin Kugler, vice president of advanced programs and concepts at Made in Space, in a phone interview with OneZero.
To be clear, humanity has already gotten fairly good at assembling stuff in space — connecting one craft or piece of equipment to another using specialized tools, computers, physics, and robotics. That’s how the International Space Station and orbital laboratories from China and Russia were all put together over the years. But Made in Space is pursuing something altogether more ambitious and trickier: actually producing whole new pieces of working equipment from raw materials in outer space—and doing so in a matter of days.
Made in Space was founded nearly a decade ago in Silicon Valley by a quartet of entrepreneurial dudes: Aaron Kemmer, Jason Dunn, Mike Chen, and Michael Snyder. They were all part of some of the first graduate studies programs offered by Singularity University, a “benefit corporation” focused on nurturing advanced technologies that will move humanity toward the technology singularity, started by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis and futurist Ray Kurzweil.
Fittingly, given its lofty origins, Made in Space’s ultimate goal is that its 3D-printing-like technology will eventually be used to construct entire space settlements, cities even, at relatively lower cost than would be possible if those same structures were built on the ground first and then launched into space. (You’re paying a lot more for rocket fuel in those cases.)
The way Kugler describes it, using Made in Space’s technology, you’ll be able to launch small spacecraft and satellites that, once in orbit, could autonomously create the kinds of equipment normally restricted to larger, heavier satellites, at least when limited to traditional, Earth-bound production processes.
“You’re talking tens of millions [of dollars] compared to hundreds of millions,” said Kugler, referring to the cost savings Made in Space is envisioning.
NASA, whose funding yo-yos quite dramatically year over year, obviously sees the appeal of the cost-savings aspect of Made in Space’s approach.
“The benefit to the taxpayer is more efficient and affordable spacecraft and space vehicle designs that are not overdesigned (for launch) and that do not require the hardware needed to deploy the spacecraft into a usable configuration,” said Dayna Ise, a program executive at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate division, in an emailed statement.
That same Made in Space tech could and likely will be used to build space weaponry and battle stations — though hopefully not on the mass-destruction scale of the Death Star. Northrop Grumman — the aerospace and defense contractor that makes the Global Hawk military drone, among other weaponry — is one of Made in Space’s key business partners.
First, though, there needs to be a working proof-of-concept of the idea, which is coming soon.
In 2022 or shortly thereafter, a rocket made by the aptly named company Rocket Lab Electron will launch from New Zealand and release Made in Space’s smaller spacecraft, the Archinaut One, which is about the size of a small refrigerator that you’d see in a college student’s dorm room.
It’s a cylindrical craft with some complicated-looking equipment strapped to the side and two tiny solar arrays sprouting on opposite sides like square robotic bat wings. But the relatively benign appearance hides some groundbreaking technology onboard. Archinaut One will carry its own additive manufacturing facility.
Additive manufacturing refers to a wide range of technologies and building processes, among them 3D printing, that all share in common the ability to fabricate objects with relatively high precision by applying layers of material on top of one another, adding them together to form a more complex object.
Desktop 3D printers have been around for years, sold by the likes of MakerBot (a subsidiary of Stratasys) and XYZprinting.
Made in Space has already built a printer slightly larger than these desktop models. In 2014, the company launched it aboard a SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo vessel, which it sent, along with some mice, to the International Space Station.
That printer, which Made in Space called a zero-gravity printer, printed more than a dozen items and ended up serving as the basis for all of its subsequent technology. It was succeeded by Made in Space’s more advanced additive manufacturing facility printer (AMF printer), launched to the space station in 2016 and since used to print more than 100 different tools, including everything from specialized wrenches to finger splints for astronauts. (They’re prone to injuring their fingers on all the finicky equipment aboard the space station.)
Now Made in Space plans to take the success of that very same technology and run a variation of it outside of the space station—in the even more inhospitable vacuum of space, on the side of the free-flying Archinaut One spacecraft. After decoupling from the Rocket Lab rocket, the Archinaut One will enter low-earth orbit (LEO to space industry folks, defined by NASA as the first 100 to 200 miles of space above Earth’s surface) and begin circling our home planet more than 11 times per day.
A few days later, the Archinaut One will conduct the historic, first-ever free-flying additive manufacturing demonstration in space, using a spool of polymer filament to print two 32-foot-long (64 feet total) semirigid beams extending from either side of the spacecraft.
The beams will be much larger than those the Archinaut One could otherwise support if it were relying on traditional space assembly methods, such as bringing them folded up into space from Earth, and will be used to act as a kind of scaffolding for long solar arrays that extend outward. “Like Venetian blinds,” according to Kugler.
Robotic arms will weave the electrical junctions through the solar arrays and connect them back into the spacecraft, providing working power. And all of this will happen automatically, controlled by software algorithms, with humans overseeing it back on the ground in Texas and Florida.
“Space being a difficult and unusual medium is 90% of the challenge we face,” Kugler told OneZero.
Although Made in Space likes to brag that it doesn’t have any competition when it comes to its specific space-grade additive manufacturing systems, the commercial space industry at large is broadly focused on developing technologies to reduce the weight, cost, and time it takes to put craft into orbit and beyond.
SpaceX has its impressively successful Falcon reusable rockets, while other companies, including Virgin Galactic and Sierra Nevada, are working on private reusable space shuttle–type craft. Bigelow Aerospace, the company founded by billionaire hotel magnate and UFO aficionado Robert Bigelow, has launched an inflatable human habitat to the space station and proven that the concept — using fabric lighter than traditional spacecraft materials to construct tentlike rooms in orbit — is viable for reducing weight at launch and, therefore, rocket fuel and cost.
These companies all face the same challenges humanity has encountered since we first started shooting rockets up into the sky—namely, that beyond Earth’s atmosphere is an inhospitable environment for pretty much everything, even strong materials like metal and plastic.
There’s the strong force of gravity exerted on the payload of a rocket launch, then all the speed and motion to get objects into space, and once they get there, they typically move at thousands of miles per hour. The atmosphere also helps protect objects on Earth from a number of damaging space forces, like debris, cosmic radiation, and the more unfiltered radiation and heat of the sun. So, designing systems that work in space requires solving for problems in physics, math, chemistry, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, computation, and materials science, among other disciplines.
In many ways, space is fundamentally opposed to the kinds of finicky and delicate 3D-printing processes that companies have developed for Earth, with extremely precise and even fragile moving parts.
Fortunately for Made in Space, its employees have already managed to solve some of the fundamentals. The company says it prudently designed its zero-gravity additive manufacturing to work in a wide range of differing gravity environments, from “more than one G to negative G,” according to Kugler — that is, gravity both stronger and weaker than what’s felt on Earth’s surface.
“For the future of building deep-space transit vehicles that will take people to far-off destinations and land, this is vital technology.”
In fact, even though the Archinaut One demo will be the first of its kind, it may be easier in some ways to accomplish than Made in Space’s previous feat of putting a printer aboard the space station, where it was more prone to jostling and other interference (“perturbations,” as Kugler calls them) from the astronauts going about their tasks, such as running on the space station treadmill.
If the company can pull off this demo, what’s next?
“In the near term, we can directly apply the tech from the Archinaut One to making small satellites that have larger, more efficient solar arrays or larger, more efficient active arrays, like antennas, reflectors, laser arrays,” Kugler said.
Made in Space thinks that within a few years after that, it will be able to build solar collection stations that can beam power to other spacecraft or customers down on Earth.
NASA, for one, is bullish on using Made in Space’s technology to create human-crewed spacecraft. “The timeline depends on a variety of factors, but the in-space robotic manufacturing and assembly capability could be matured to this level within the next decade,” Ise said.
“For the future of building cities in space and deep-space transit vehicles that will take people to far-off destinations and land, this is vital technology,” Kugler went on. “We will need a couple of miracles between now and then, but it’s possible.”
Made in Space isn’t talking up the potential for its technology to be used in Death Star–like superweapons—or any smaller weapons, for that matter. But it is open to developing craft and technology that can be used by the U.S. military.
Asked about the possibility of using the technology for defense purposes, Made in Space spokesperson Austin Jordan provided the following statement via email: “Our vision is that Made in Space will continue to be a close partner to the U.S. government across both defense and civil organizations. As it relates to national security and defense, in-space assembly and manufacturing capabilities could address key national security space priorities, including improving asset resilience, enhancing satellite capabilities, and providing rapid-response equipment. I think innovative technology platforms like Archinaut One will open up the playbook for us to engage with various agencies within the defense community to incorporate these capabilities into future missions.”
It may take a while, but if Made in Space’s visions pan out at all close to how the company hopes, future generations may look at the Death Star scenes in Star Wars as more realistic — perhaps worryingly so — than George Lucas could have ever anticipated.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
04-09-2019
Brain Waves Detected in Lab Grown Mini-brains
Brain Waves Detected in Lab Grown Mini-brains
Brain organoids in a laboratory dish.
Credit: UC San Diego Health Sciences
Brain organoids — also called mini-brains — are 3D cellular models that represent aspects of the human brain in the laboratory. Brain organoids help researchers track human development, unravel the molecular events that lead to disease and test new treatments. They aren’t prefect replicas, of course. Brain organoids do not replicate cognitive function, but researchers can check how an organoid’s physical structure or gene expression changes over time or as a result of a virus or drug.
University of California San Diego researchers have now taken brain organoids one step further, achieving an unprecedented level of neural network activity — electrical impulses that can be recorded by multi-electrode arrays. Using data from babies born up to three-and-a-half months premature, the team developed an algorithm to predict their age based upon EEG patterns. The algorithm then read lab-grown brain organoids the same way, and assigned them an age.
The electrical impulse pattern for nine-month-old brain organoids revealed similar features to those of a premature infant who had reached full-term (40 weeks gestation).
These new optimized brain organoids may make it possible for researchers to study mental illnesses that aren’t caused by or result in overt physiological changes, but instead involve disturbances in brain cell network activity, such as autism or epilepsy. For many of these conditions, there are no relevant laboratory or animal models.
“We couldn’t believe it at first — we thought our electrodes were malfunctioning,” said co-senior author Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Because the data were so striking, I think many people were kind of skeptical about it, and understandably so.” Muotri led the study with Bradley Voytek, PhD, associate professor of cognitive science in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences.
Brain organoid construction begins with a perhaps surprising source: an adult skin sample. In the lab, researchers convert the skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Like most stem cells, with the right cocktail of molecular factors, iPSCs can be directed to specialize into any cell type. In this case, they become brain cells — different types of neurons and glia, for example.
At UC San Diego, brain organoids have been used to produce the first direct experimental proof that the Brazilian Zika virus can cause severe birth defects and to repurpose existing HIV drugs for a rare, inherited neurological disorder. Muotri and team also recently sent their brain organoids to the International Space Station to test microgravity’s effect on brain development — and maybe prospects for human life beyond Earth.
In the latest study, Muotri and colleagues optimized every step of brain organoid construction. For example, they started from single cells, rather than the clumps of cells used in most protocols. They also tweaked the precise timing and concentration of factors added to prompt brain cell organization. There wasn’t a single secret ingredient or innovation, he said, but rather several improvements over time.
The optimization paid off in terms of cellular diversity and cellular network activity. For example, the team detected a particular primate-specific neuron, called a cortical GABAergic neuron, that had never before been generated in a lab dish. According to Muotri, these cells are important players in the sophistication of neural networks.
To measure cellular network activity, the researchers grew their newly optimized brain organoids on multi-electrode arrays. The electrodes capture and record electrical impulses, which appear as patterns of waves and spikes in an EEG read-out. With the new protocol, the brain organoids went from producing 3,000 spikes per minute to 300,000 spikes per minute.
In humans, oscillations change with age, as brain cell connectivity develops. Newborn baby brains tend to have periods of rest (no waves) between spikes of electrical activity. Those quiet periods get shorter and shorter as the brain develops. In time, brain activity becomes constant, though levels vary. These brain oscillation patterns often correlate with human cognition and disease states.
Muotri and team compared their brain organoid electrical patterns to a publicly available dataset of 567 EEG recordings from 39 babies born prematurely, between 24 and 38 weeks gestation, and for several weeks after birth. From their initial days to nine months, the brain organoids produced similar levels of electric activity, following a similar pattern: less quiet time, more frequent electrical impulses.
Muotri said he is often asked about the ethical implications of this work, with questions like: “Are we getting too close to re-creating the human brain?” These brain organoids dramatically differ from human brains in many ways, he explained. For example, they are several times smaller than an adult human brain. They do not have hemispheres or blood vessels. And they are not surrounded by protective skulls or connected to other tissues.
“They are far from being functionally equivalent to a full cortex, even in a baby,” said Muotri, who is also director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. “In fact, we don’t yet have a way to even measure consciousness or sentience.”
Muotri’s brain organoids can live for years in the lab, but their activity plateaus at nine months. He said a number of reasons might apply, including the lack of blood vessels or the need for additional neurons to continue maturing.
The better brain organoids can replicate the human brain in the lab, Muotri said, the less researchers will need to rely on animal models and fetal tissue to better understand and treat human disease.
“Our work doesn’t yet replace the need for human fetal brain tissue for research, but it’s very attractive as a potential alternative,” he said.
Reference:
Trujillo, C. A., Gao, R., Negraes, P. D., Gu, J., Buchanan, J., Preissl, S., … Muotri, A. R. (2019). Complex Oscillatory Waves Emerging from Cortical Organoids Model Early Human Brain Network Development. Cell Stem Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2019.08.002
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
03-09-2019
Video – 3D bioprinter patches up wounds using a patient’s own skin cells
Video – 3D bioprinter patches up wounds using a patient’s own skin cells
While the advent of 3D printers is commonly thought of as a revolution for manufacturing, it could have huge benefits for medicine as well. To help patch up large wounds that might normally require a skin graft, researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have developed a new bioprinter that can print dual layers of a patient’s own skin directly into a wound.
The idea of 3D printing skin has been in development for a few years. In 2014, a prototype machine was unveiled that could print large sheets of human skin that could then be cut to size and grafted onto a patient. The tech evolved over the years into more detailed machines and eventually a handheld device that works like a tape dispenser for skin.
The new machine looks like a cross between those last two. It’s much larger than the handheld device, but it’s still relatively portable in a hospital setting. The machine can be wheeled to a bedside, and a patient lies underneath the printer nozzle while it goes to work.
Like earlier devices, the new printer uses an “ink” made up of a patient’s own cells, to minimize the risk of rejection. First a small biopsy of healthy skin is taken, and from that two types of skin cells can be isolated: fibroblasts, the cells that help build the structure to heal wounds, and keratinocytes, which are the main cells found in the outermost layer of skin.
Larger amounts of these cells are grown from the biopsy sample, then mixed into a hydrogel to form the bioprinter ink. And here’s where it differs from previous bioprinters – rather than just applying the new skin over the injury, the new machine first uses a 3D laser scanner to build a picture of the topology of the wound. Using that image, the device then fills in the deepest parts with the fibroblasts, before layering keratinocytes over the top.
That technique mimics the natural structure of skin cells, allowing the injury to heal faster. The team demonstrated that it works using mouse models, observing that new skin began to form outward from the center of the wound. Notably, it only worked when the ink was made using the patient’s own cells – in other experiments the tissue was rejected by the body.
“If you deliver the patient’s own cells, they do actively contribute to wound healing by organizing up front to start the healing process much faster,” says James Yoo, co-author of the paper. “While there are other types of wound healing products available to treat wounds and help them close, those products don’t actually contribute directly to the creation of skin.”
The researchers say that the next steps involve conducting clinical trials in humans. Eventually, the new device could be put to work treating burn victims, patients with diabetic ulcers and other large wounds that have trouble healing on their own.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
02-09-2019
How Putting Googly Eyes on Robots Makes Them Fundamentally Less Threatening (Video)
How Putting Googly Eyes on Robots Makes Them Fundamentally Less Threatening (Video)
At the beginning of 2019, the supermarket chain Giant Food Stores announced it would begin operating customer-assisting robots — collectively dubbed Marty — in 172 East Coast locations. These autonomous machines may navigate their respective store using a laser-based detection system, but they’re also outfitted with a pair of oversized googly eyes. This is to, “[make] it a bit more fun,” Giant President Nick Bertram told Adweek in January, and “celebrate the fact that there’s a robot.”
“As we approach the completion of the rollout, we continue to be pleased by the addition of Marty in our stores,” a Giant Food rep told Engadget via email. “Our associates are appreciative of the assistance Marty provides them, freeing them up to do other tasks and interact more with customers. Speaking of our customers, they, too, are big fans of Marty, with kids and adults alike looking for Marty in-store and taking selfies.”
But Marty’s googly eyes don’t just give customers something to chuckle at as they pass one another in the cereal aisle. Research shows that slapping peepers on inanimate objects puts the humans around them at ease and encourages them to be more generous and pro-social (as opposed to anti-social) than they normally would.
“People pay attention to the presence of eyes,” Dr. Amrisha Vaish, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s department of psychology, told Engadget. “Humans are very sensitive to the presence of other people, and we behave more socially in the presence of other people.” It’s called the “watching-eye paradigm” and exploits the deep-seated human trait of needing to be valued within society: managing our reputations and being seen by those around us as team players.
“In the course of our evolution, it’s been really important for us to be to cooperate with others,” Vaish points out. Interpersonal cooperation has proved “so important to the evolution of the human species that we’ve become really sensitive to even sort of minimal cues of eyes,” she continued.
Dr. Pawan Sinha, professor of vision and computational neuroscience at MIT, concurs. “If one were to find an ecological reason why we are so attuned to see faces it’s because the ability to detect faces is crucial for our social well being and, when we are young, it’s crucial to our survival to be able to detect a specific human and be able to orient towards them,” he told Engadget. “It’s very important for us to be able to live our lives as social beings.”
Vaish’s own research in this field, specifically the 2018 study Eyes, More Than Other Facial Features, Enhance Real-World Donation Behavior, bears out this effect. Vaish and her team alternated photographs of a chair, a nose, a mouth and a pair of human eyes above the donation jar at a local children’s museum over 28 weeks.
The weeks during which the eyes were displayed saw an average total donation of $27 — around $12 more than when the other images were shown.
“What we found is that the eyes — compared to the chairs — did, in fact, increase people’s donations,” Vaish said.
“The numbers weren’t huge but there was a statistically significant increase.”
This effect extends beyond actions like donations, the watching-eye paradigm can also reduce antisocial behavior like littering and bike theft. It also affects people of all ages. “As young as 5 years of age, children become sensitive to being watched.” Vaish said. “When a peer is watching them, they show more prosocial behavior and less antisocial, less stealing behavior.”
The effect does not last forever, however. Vaish notes that in her previous research position, she found that putting a picture of eyes near the communal supply of milk drastically reduced the rate at which people would help themselves to it. At least to start.
“Initially, they’re very striking when you put them up, and then you sort of start to monitor your behavior more,” she said. However, over time, people became accustomed to the presence of these watching eyes before eventually sliding back into complacency with regard to their milk intake.
This intra-office phenomenon illustrates an unusual aspect of humanity’s evolution: We can see faces (and assign agency) to almost anything. “People look for certain specific cues, physical features or behaviors, to determine whether something is alive,” Dr. Erin Horowitz, a lecturer at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s department of psychological and brain science, told Engadget. “So something that appears to move on its own, people tend to process it as alive.”
This is an ancient prey response in humans, instilled over countless generations before we arrived at the top of the food chain. It’s better to see the leopard that isn’t there, Horowitz said, than to not see the leopard that is. As such, even highly abstracted and stylized depictions of eyes can trigger this response. “You could have two dots next to each other, and those would be considered eyes,” Horowitz said, “if there’s, say, a line underneath that looks like a mouth.”
And it’s “not just identifying predators,” she said, “but also identifying potential people that we can cooperate and interact with.” These hardwired evolutionary responses and visceral need for social bonds have led to the development of the “theory of mind.”
“You can think of it as a broad term for research on the human capacity for social engagement,” Dr. Tamsin German, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s department of psychological and brain science, told Engadget. “Specifically, those ones that talk about the concepts we have of people’s internal, hidden mental states.
“People believe things, people want things, people hope things. And those internal states predict the behaviors that they will engage in,” said. By piecing together a person’s behavior and explaining it in terms of those hidden states, one can glimpse at the motivations and underlying beliefs of that person. “it’s a critically important skill for humans being such a social species,” German said.
As it turns out, slapping googly eyes on a roving robotic monolith like Marty can elicit the same response from humans even when we know the object is not actually alive. But there are limits to this effect, and surprisingly, the Uncanny Valley exists for robot eyes as well.
German notes that a wide variety of prey species have evolved agency-granting responses similar to humans’, “there is lots of work suggesting that they have a sensitivity to two eyes looking directly at them.”But in rhesus macaques, how those eyes are presented makes all the difference.
She points to a recent study from Princeton University, which placed various photographs and stylized, abstracted depictions of macaque faces in front of real macaques. “The rhesus macaque will look a lot at highly stylized, cartoony pictures of other faces of rhesus monkeys. And they look a lot at actual photographs of rhesus monkeys, But if you have very, very close, but not quite, images, they don’t like them at all.”As with humans, being almost there — but not quite — is interpreted as a negative signal.
A similar effect can be seen when humans observe the movements of robots, androids, and other people. German references a recent multinational study in which subjects were shown static images of clearly mechanical robots, natural humans and androids like you’d see at the Disney World Hall of Presidents.
“You put them in an fMRI scanner and just essentially allow the brain to acclimate to what it’s seeing,” she said. Then, “using a technique called predictive coding, you look at which parts of the brain are excited when [the object in the image] starts moving. Essentially, asking the brain to tell you what it didn’t expect.”
When the robot starts clunking around in a very mechanical fashion and the human moves smoothly, researchers noted only slight electrical responses from the brain.“But the Android looks like a human and moves like a robot in various areas of the brain kind of a more active compared to a baseline, suggesting that the brain didn’t see what it predicts,” German explained.
This is what elicits the uneasiness and trepidation in people when they interact with a machine in the Uncanny Valley. It’s 200,000 years of evolution going, “Hey, stupid, this thing is moving when it shouldn’t be (at least not moving or looking like it should be). You need to scram before you get eaten.”
But adding eyes, even the googly variety, appears to help mitigate this effect by exploiting our social nature to artificially instill a sense of agency toward these inanimate objects.
“It’s just a signal that this is an animate thing, it’s going to have mental states and — provided you’re not trying to you make it look so realistic, where the movement that it engages in looks wrong — you’re not going to get an Uncanny valley effect,” German concluded.
We learn from our personal interaction with the world, and our memories of those experiences help guide our behaviors. Experience and memory are inexorably linked, or at least they seemed to be before a recent reporton the formation of completely artificial memories. Using laboratory animals, investigators reverse engineered a specific natural memory by mapped the brain circuits underlying its formation. They then “trained” another animal by stimulating brain cells in the pattern of the natural memory. Doing so created an artificial memory that was retained and recalled in a manner indistinguishable from a natural one.
Memories are essential to the sense of identity that emerges from the narrative of personal experience. This study is remarkable because it demonstrates that by manipulating specific circuits in the brain, memories can be separated from that narrative and formed in the complete absence of real experience. The work shows that brain circuits that normally respond to specific experiences can be artificially stimulated and linked together in an artificial memory. That memory can be elicited by the appropriate sensory cues in the real environment. The research provides some fundamental understanding of how memories are formed in the brain and is part of a burgeoning science of memory manipulation that includes the transfer, prosthetic enhancement and erasure of memory. These efforts could have a tremendous impact on a wide range of individuals, from those struggling with memory impairments to those enduring traumatic memories, and they also have broad social and ethical implications.
In the recent study, the natural memory was formed by training mice to associate a specific odor (cherry blossoms) with a foot shock, which they learned to avoid by passing down a rectangular test chamber to another end that was infused with a different odor (caraway).The caraway scent came from a chemical called carvone, while the cherry blossom scent came from another chemical, acetophenone.The researchers found that acetophenone activates a specific type of receptor on a discrete type of olfactory sensory nerve cell.
They then turned to a sophisticated technique, optogenetics, to activate those olfactory nerve cells. With optogenetics, light-sensitive proteins are used to stimulate specific neurons in response to light delivered to the brain through surgically implanted optic fibers. In their first experiments, the researchers used transgenic animals that only made the protein in acetophenone-sensitive olfactory nerves. By pairing the electrical foot shock with optogenetic light stimulation of the acetophenone-sensitive olfactory nerves, the researchers taught the animals to associate the shock with activity of these specific acetophenone-sensitive sensory nerves. By pairing the electrical foot shock with optogenetic light stimulation of the acetophenone-sensitive olfactory nerves, the researchers taught the animals to associate the two. When theylater tested the mice, they avoided the cherry blossom odor.
These first steps showed that the animals did not need to actually experience the odor to remember a connection between that smell and a noxious foot shock. But this was not a completely artificial memory, because the shock was still quite real. In order to construct an entirely artificial memory, the scientists needed to stimulate the brain in such a way as to mimic the nerve activity caused by the foot shock as well.
Earlier studies had shown that specific nerve pathways leading to a structure known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA) were important for the aversive nature of the foot shock. To create a truly artificial memory, the researchers needed to stimulate the VTA in the same way as they stimulated the olfactory sensory nerves, but the transgenic animals only made the light-sensitive proteins in those nerves. In order to use optogenetic stimulation, they stimulated the olfactory nerves in the same genetically engineered mice , and they employed a virus to place light-sensitive proteins in the VTA as well. They stimulated the olfactory receptors with light to simulate the odor of cherry blossoms, then stimulated the VTA to mimic the aversive foot shock. The animals recalled the artificial memory, responding to an odor they had never encountered by avoiding a shock they had never received.
For a long time, it has been a mystery how memories are formed in the brain—and what physical changes in the brain accompany their formation. In this study, the electrical stimulation of specific brain regions that led to a new memory also activated other brain regions known to be involved in memory formation, including an area called the basolateral amygdala. Because nerve cells communicate with one another through junctions called synapses, it has been assumed that changes in synaptic activity account for the formation of memories. In simple animals, such as the sea slugAplysia, memories can be transferred from one individual to another using RNA extracted from the one who experienced them. The RNA contains the codes for proteins made in the nerves of the animal associated with the memory. Memories have been partially transferred in rodents by using recordings of electrical activity of a trained animal’s memory center (the hippocampus) to stimulate similar patterns of nerve activity in a recipient animal. This process is similar to the new report described here, in that stimulating the electrical activity of specific neural circuits is used to elicit a memory. In the case of memory transfer, that pattern came from trained animals, whereas in the optogenetics study, the pattern of electrical activity associated with the memory was built de novo within brain of the mouse. This is the first report of a completely artificial memory, and it helps establish some fundamental understanding of how memories may be manipulated.
Research into memory and efforts to manipulate it have progressed at a rapid pace. A “memory prosthetic” designed to enhance its formation and recall by electrical stimulation of the memory center in the human brain has been developed with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In contrast, memory erasure using what has been nicknamed the Eternal Sunshine drug (zeta inhibitory peptide, or ZIP)—after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a Hollywood movie with a mnemonic theme—is being developed to treat recollections of chronic pain.
There are legitimate motives underlying these efforts. Memory has been called “the scribe of the soul,” and it is the source of one’s personal history. Some people may seek to recover lost or partially lost memories. Others, such as those afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder or chronic pain, might seek relief from traumatic memories by trying to erase them.
The methods used here to create artificial memories will not be employed in humans anytime soon: none of us are transgenic like the animals used in the experiment, nor are we likely to accept multiple implanted fiber-optic cables and viral injections. Nevertheless, as technologies and strategies evolve, the possibility of manipulating human memories becomes all the more real. And the involvement of military agencies such as DARPA invariably renders the motivations behind these efforts suspect. Are there things we all need to be afraid of or that we must or must not do? The dystopian possibilities are obvious.
Creating artificial memories brings us closer to learning how memories form and could ultimately help us understand and treat dreadful diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Memories, however, cut to the core of our humanity, and we need to be vigilant that any manipulations are approached ethically.
Well, pack it in kids, we’ve finally gone and done it. We reached grade A, genuine sci-fi dystopia. Scientists have now successfully created and implanted an artificial memory. That is, a memory of an event that never happened created from the ground up and implanted into an animal. They’ve only done it to a mouse so far, so we’ve still got a bit of time before this whole thing starts feeling like a David Lynch movie. But boy, oh boy, this definitely feels like one of those “so focused on if we could, we never stopped to think if we should” type of deals.
According to a recent article in the journal Naturetitled Memory formation in the absence of experience, scientists reverse engineered a memory to map the brain circuits involved in creating it—in this case the association of the smell of cherry blossoms with an electrical shock to the foot—then artificially implanted that memory in a mouse. Tests showed that the mouse behaved as if it actually remembered being shocked in the foot whenever it smelled cherry blossoms, despite the mouse never having been shocked nor been exposed to the scent of cherry blossoms.
Even ones that never happened!
Previous research had shown that it was possible to partially transfer memories from one rodent to another via reproducing the electrical activity associated with a specific memory in one mouse and jolting it into the brain of another mouse. This new experiment is different. This time the memory was created completely artificially from the ground up. This consisted of a few parts.
First, they used a technique called optogenetics. This involves fiber optic cables surgically implanted into the olfactory region of the mice’s brain so that light can be used to turn on proteins associated with specific smells. To do that, the mice had to be genetically engineered to only produce the light-sensitive protein in the region associated with acetophenone—AKA the scent of cherry blossoms. Now they could artificially create the scent of cherry blossoms in the brain of a mouse.
So we’re already into some wacky stuff, but don’t worry. It gets wackier.
The scientists identified the region of the brain responsible for creating an aversion to being shocked in the foot, an area called the ventral tegmental area (VTA). To link the two regions together, scientists then used a virus (yes, that’s correct) to implant those same light-sensitive proteins into the VTA. This way, they could use light to stimulate both regions at once. Fake memories at the speed of light.
And it worked. The mice were then placed in a rectangular chamber, one end of which smelled like cherry blossoms, while the other smelled like caraway. The mice avoided the end that smelled like cherry blossoms, because they remembered being shocked by it. In an article for Scientific American, Robert Marcone puts it this way:
The animals recalled the artificial memory, responding to an odor they had never encountered by avoiding a shock they had never received.
A little poke here, a little twist there, and you’ll remember that time you were the king of France.
Now, this is still a long ways off from being used in humans. But it is an active area of research. Of course it is important to study memory. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are nothing but tragedies, and the memory of trauma can take hold over a person’s life and never let go. It’s a very important area of study, but we must be careful. If there was a way to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind away painful events, would you do it? Maybe not, but someone would. Would you implant a fake memory of a trip around the world, or how about a fake memory of hitting a walk-off home run, just to boost your confidence and self image? How many companies— companies that already specialize in creating false narratives and self images built like houses of cards—are already working to sell you that walk-off home run?
Research like this is like playing with fire. That’s a neutral statement; playing with fire brought us down from the trees and allowed us to build a civilization, overcome the bounds of gravity, and put people on the moon. But it can also burn your house to the ground.
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11-08-2019
NASA Figured Out How To Make Food Out Of CO2 - It Could Feed Billions
NASA Figured Out How To Make Food Out Of CO2 - It Could Feed Billions
A company from Finland, Solar Foods, are planning to sell food created from carbon dioxide (CO2). They are, quite literally, creating food out of thin air! The company has plans to bring a new protein powder, Solein, to market. It's made out three simple, cheap, and readily available ingredients - CO2, water, and electricity. While this may not sound appealing at first, it's actually incredibly nutritious. Essentially, its a high-protein, ingredient, resembling flour, that contains 50 percent protein content, 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbohydrates.
There are a massive number of potential uses for an ingredient such as Solein and it is expected to be the main component of a lot of foods when it hits the shelves in 2021. It's most likely to first appear in protein shakes and yogurt, both of which are simple foods to add it to. This may be a very exciting development as the creation of Solein is carbon neutral but it also helps remove CO2 from the atmosphere, being beneficial in two respects!
Beginning in 2018, Solein has come so far since it was created. NASA actually came up with the idea first and Solar Foods has since taken it to a commercial level. With plans to release the product as soon as 2021 and produce 2 million meals every year, it won't be long before Solein is in everything. By 2050, the company has high hopes to be providing sustenance for up to 9 billion people as part of a $500 billion protein market. At the rate things have taken place so far, there's no doubt that Solar Foods will achieve their targets.
To create Solein, Solar Foods extracts CO2 from the air using carbon-capture technology. Then, they combine the carbon dioxide with water, nutrients, and vitamins, using 100 percent renewable solar energy from their partner, Fortum, to promote a naturalfermentation process similar to the one that produces yeast and lactic acid bacteria. This is such a natural process, needing no man-made products, that it could single-handedly solve the world's food crisis.
Furthermore, Solar Foods has claimed that their product is completely free from agricultural limitations, and they aren't lying! Solein can be grown indoors so there's no need for arable land, and it's not dependent on favorable weather either. In fact, this seems so promising that the European Space Agency has already started working with the company in an attempt to develop foods for off-planet production and consumption. This could be the answer that they have been looking for.
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02-08-2019
Japan Approves Groundbreaking Experiment Bringing Human-Animal Hybrids To Term
Japan Approves Groundbreaking Experiment Bringing Human-Animal Hybrids To Term
Stem cell biologist Hiromitsu Nakauchi has been waiting for this moment for more than a decade.
After years of planning, the persistent researcher has at last received approval from a government willing to pursue one of the most controversial scientific studies there is: human-animal embryo experiments.
While many countries around the world have restricted, defunded or outright banned these ethically-fraught practices, Japan has now officially lifted the lid on this proverbial Pandora's box. Earlier this year, the country made it legal to not only transplant hybrid embryos into surrogate animals, but also to bring them to term.
As a lead stem cell researcher at the University of Tokyo and Stanford University, Nakauchi has gone from country to country, chasing his dream of one day growing customised human organs in animals like sheep or pigs.
With more than 116,000 patients on the transplant waiting list in the United States alone, Nakauchi hopes his idea can transform lives.
That ultimate goal is still a long way off, but the next step in his research has at last been given the green light by ministry officials in Japan. As the first researcher to receive government approval since the 2014 ban, Nakauchi plans on taking things slowly so that public understanding and trust can catch up.
"We don't expect to create human organs immediately, but this allows us to advance our research based upon the know-how we have gained up to this point," Nakauchi told The Asahi Shimbun.
The experiments will start by injecting human induced pluripotent stem cells into rat and mice embryos, all of which have been genetically manipulated so that they cannot make pancreases.
The goal is for the rodent embryo to use the human cells to build itself a pancreas, and for two years, the team plans on watching these rodents develop and grow, carefully monitoring their organs and brains in the process. Only then will the researchers ask for approval to do the same with pigs.
While human-animal embryos have been created in the past - such as pig-human embryos and sheep-human embryos - they've never been allowed to develop to term before.
One of the biggest fears with this type of research centers on exactly where these human stem cells actually go in an animal, and what type of cells they could develop into, once they are injected.
While Nakauchi and his team are trying to target this treatment to just the pancreas, if they detect more than 30 percent of the rodent brains are human, they will suspend the experiment. These are part of the government's conditions to prevent a "humanised" animal from ever coming into existence.
Nakauchi, however, doesn't think this is going to happen. Last year, he and his colleagues at Stanford successfully made the first human-sheep embryo, and although it was destroyed after just 28 days, the hybrid contained no organs and very few human cells - only about one in 10,000 or less.
"We are trying to ensure that the human cells contribute only to the generation of certain organs," Nakauchi explained the winter edition of Stanford Medicine's Out There.
"With our new, targeted organ generation, we don't need to worry about human cells integrating where we don't want them, so there should be many fewer ethical concerns."
Traveling by airplane is fast and convenient but it can take a largetoll on the environment. For this reason, the Hempearth Group is developing the world’s first plane made from and powered by hemp. The innovation is made almost entirely from the sustainable crop — from the plane walls and seats to the wings and pillows.
The hemp airplane was developed by Hempearth, a Canadian cannabis company and thought leader in hemp-related inventions. The company was founded in 2012 and sells a variety of organic hemp products. Their inventory includes hemp surfboards, paddle boards, oils, cannabis, and even a hemp fiber body phone.
This innovation is a first in the aviation world. When completed, the hemp plane will be able to transport four lucky passengers and a pilot. It has a 36-foot wingspan and runs on Hempearth Hemp Jet A Bio Fuel.
Why Hemp?
First of all, hemp is one of the healthiest and most versatile plants on the planet. Not only is it, pound for pound, 10 times stronger than steel but it can also bend much farther than metal. As a result, hemp is ideal for aviation technology.
Furthermore, hemp is less toxic than traditional aerospace materials, such as aluminum and fiberglass. The crop is also incredibly eco-friendly. It requires less water to grow than cotton and even puts nutrients back into the soil through a process called phytoremeditation.
Finally, hemp is lighter than traditional aviation materials. As a result, it requires less fuel (in this case, hemp biofuel) to reach a high altitude. Hemp also requires no mining, or carbon fiber. Therefore, it has almost no environmental impact.
In addition to developing the world’s first hemp plane, Hempearth is in the process of developing hemp composites in Montreal. Reportedly, they could replace all fiberglass in aviation and other industries — such as construction.
One of Hempearth’s more notable promises is to never sign or work “with fascist companies that are associated with military, The Rockefellers, The Rothchilds and or the Military Industrial Complex.” This statement alone is applaud-worthy.
Derek Kesek, the founder of Hempearth, is passionate about sustainable hemp production and its seemingly endless applications. “This is the kind of future we all want here on Earth,” he said. When the first hemp plane is completed, its first flight will take place at the Wright Brothers memorial in Kitty Hawk North Carolina. The location is the birthplace of aviation and will soon witness history once again.
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A 'time machine' that moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past was built in Russia, scientists have claimed.
It may not rival Dr Who's Tardis but researchers have described it as being able to move the smaller-than-atom sized objects in the opposite direction of 'time's arrow'.
The experiments involved electrons - negatively charged particles that make up an atom - found in the realm of quantum mechanics, the study of sub-atomic particles.
They gave the analogy of a break for a game of pool, in which the balls are substitutes for the electrons.
After the break the 'balls' are scattered in what should be a haphazard way, according to the laws of physics.
But researchers managed to make them reform in their original triangle 'break' order - appearing as if they were turning back time - using a special quantum computer.
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A 'time machine' that moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past has built in Russia, scientists have claimed. The team gave the analogy of a break for a game of pool. The 'balls' scattered and should have appeared to split in a haphazard way. But researchers managed to make them reform in their original order in the snooker triangle (pictured)
WHAT IS THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics deals with transition of energy within a system from usable to unusable.
It is the reason our phones and laptops need to be charged, and that our sun will one day die out.
It states that energy cannot repeat in an infinite loop within a closed system, and so we must replenish what is lost.
The Second Law profoundly sets the limits for what is possible in our universe, defining why everything within it must one day decay.
Researchers, from the Laboratory of the Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics & Technology (MIPT), say that they have effectively defied the second law of thermodynamics with the experiment.
This is a rule within physics that governs the direction of events from the past to the future, stating that everything in our universe tends towards decay.
The 'time machine' is built from a basic quantum computer, which is made up of 'qubits'.
These are units of information described by a 'one', a 'zero', or a mixed 'superposition' of both, that can be stored on an electron.
In the experiment an 'evolution program' was launched which caused the qubits to become an increasingly complex changing pattern of zeros and ones.
During this process, order was lost - just as it is when the pool balls are struck and scattered with a cue. Another program then modified the state of the quantum computer in such a way that it evolved 'backwards', from chaos to order.
The state of the qubits was rewound back to its original starting point.
To an outside observer, it looks as if time is running backwards, said lead researcher Dr Gordey Lesovik, who heads the laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information.
'We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time.'
The 'time machine', described in the journal Scientific Reports consists of a rudimentary quantum computer made up of electron 'qubits'.
In the experiment an 'evolution program' was launched which caused the qubits to become an increasingly complex changing pattern of zeros and ones.
During this process, order was lost - just as it is when the pool balls are struck and scattered with a cue.
Another program then modified the state of the quantum computer in such a way that it evolved 'backwards', from chaos to order.
It may not be the Tardis, a fictional time machine that appears in Doctor Who, pictured here, but physicists have loosely described as moving in the direction of 'time's arrow'. The team worked with electrons in the realm of quantum mechanics
The state of the qubits was rewound back to its original starting point.
The scientists found that, working with just two qubits, 'time reversal' was achieved with a success rate of 85 per cent.
When three qubits were involved more errors occurred, resulting in a 50 per cent success rate.
The experiment could have a practical application in the development of quantum computers, the scientists said.
'Our algorithm could be updated and used to test programs written for quantum computers and eliminate noise and errors,' said Dr Lesovik.
WHAT IS A QUANTUM COMPUTER AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
The key to a quantum computer is its ability to operate on the basis of a circuit not only being 'on' or 'off', but occupying a state that is both 'on' and 'off' at the same time.
While this may seem strange, it's down to the laws of quantum mechanics, which govern the behaviour of the particles which make up an atom.
At this micro scale, matter acts in ways that would be impossible at the macro scale of the universe we live in.
Quantum mechanics allows these extremely small particles to exist in multiple states, known as 'superposition', until they are either seen or interfered with.
A scanning tunneling microscope shows a quantum bit from a phosphorus atom precisely positioned in silicon. Scientists have discovered how to make the qubits 'talk to one another
A good analogy is that of a coin spinning in the air. It cannot be said to be either a 'heads' or 'tails' until it lands.
The heart of modern computing is binary code, which has served computers for decades.
While a classical computer has 'bits' made up of zeros and ones, a quantum computer has 'qubits' which can take on the value of zero or one, or even both simultaneously.
One of the major stumbling blocks for the development of quantum computers has been demonstrating they can beat classical computers.
Google, IBM, and Intel are among companies competing to achieve this.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s ambitious project to wire up the brain to computers, stepped out of the shadows Tuesday evening.
In a detail-laden presentation at the California Academy of Sciences’ Morrison Planetarium, the tech entrepreneur explained how his foray into brain-machine interfaces could pave the way for a symbiotic relationship with artificial intelligence.
Clinical trials could start as early as next year: “We hope to have this, aspirationally, in a human patient, before the end of next year. So this is not far,” Musk said.
Pricing wasn’t announced in the presentation, the primary purpose of which was recruiting. Neuralink is hiring in the areas of robotics, materials, electrochemistry, micro-fabrication, histology, mixed-signal chip design, optics, and more. The company’s job board on its website lists eight engineering openings and a talent acquisition position.
Little was known about Neuralink prior to the presentation, bar a multi-page explainer published on WaitButWhy in April 2017. At that time, it seemed the company was exploring a variety of methods for linking up brains and machines, and it would initially focus on healthcare benefits as a way of funding further research.
“I feel like I’m in Transcendence,” Musk joked, in an otherwise science-focused event that lacked the party vibe of some Tesla events. “Actually, I was in Transcendence!”
Over two years later, and that vision has come into sharper focus. Neuralink has a product, a means of wiring to the brain, and even an iPhone app to plug into the existing world of hyper-connected technology. Company employees noted the rate of advancement versus existing solutions.
“Elon has this incredible optimism where he’ll pierce through these imagined constraints,” Max Hodak, president of Neuralink, told the audience. “You have to be very careful telling him that something’s impossible.”
Musk on stage.
Here’s what we learned:
6. Neuralink Has a Product
First, a quick primer. Scientists have developed a number of ways to interface with the brain, which reads the electrical firing of neurons in different ways. Some are non-invasive, like EEG scans that use a helmet, but they can be rather imprecise. Others are invasive like ones used in surgery, but the probes can be large and cause issues. Neuralink has opted for an invasive approach that uses a small chip to read the brain, with minuscule probes weaving their way through.
The product is called the N1. It’s a chip that sits in a hermetic package, which fits into a cylinder measuring eight millimeters in diameter by one-fourth of a millimeter tall. Each chip measures four millimeters by four and uses 1,024 electrodes. By comparison, designs used for Parkinson’s today can use just 10 electrodes.
N1 sensor.
All electrodes have read and write functionality. The probes are five microns thick, three microns thinner than a red blood cell and 95 microns thinner than a human hair. The design enables the probes to get close to neurons to detect spikes, and the team believes that the probes can rest 60 microns away from a neuron to detect the spikes.
N1 sensor.
In initial setups, Neuralink places four N1 chips in a patient, three in motor areas and one by the somatic sensory cortex. They’re then wired to an inductive coil near the ear that connects to a link that sits on the outside of the skin. The link contains the battery and Bluetooth to power the system, making it possible to remove and upgrade the firmware without actually touching the sensors again.
The N1 array in action.
Neuralink went through a variety of prototype designs, including ones with a USB-C port. As the goal is to make it as safe as possible for surgery, the team had to compromise on more ambitious designs with triple the probes:
Prototype models, from left to right in chronological order.
5. It Could Reach Patients Very Soon
As mentioned before, the first trials will focus on healthcare. The company aims to host the first-in-human clinical study trial before the end of next year, focusing on patients with quadriplegia due to C1-C4 spinal cord injury.
This will use the four-chip setup to enable patients to control their smartphone using their brain. Through that, they can control a mouse and keyboard on a computer through a Bluetooth connection.
Timescales will vary depending on regulatory approval. Musk previously stated in April 2017 that it may be around eight to 10 years before it’s available to people without disabilities.
And yes, as previous evidence suggested, the company has been using animals in its testing. President of Neuralink Max Hodak said that “we wish that we didn’t have to work with animals,” explaining how the firm takes careful consideration over its approach to tests. Musk noted that the team enabled a monkey to control a computer with his brain.
4. Surgery Will Be Like Lasik
These probes are incredibly fine, and far too small to insert by human hand. Neuralink has developed a robot that can stitch the probes in through an incision. It’s initially cut to two millimeters, then dilated to eight millimeters, placed in and then glued shut. The surgery can take less than an hour.
On the far right next to the arrow, the robot needle used to thread the probes.
The goal is to make the insertion about as complex as Lasik eye surgery, making it easy to link up with machines.
3. It Has an App to Bring It All Together
It uses an iPhone app to interface with the neural link, using a simple interface to train people how to use the link.
The iPhone app.
“You have no wires poking out of your heard; very important. It basically bluetooths to your phone,” Musk said. “We’ll have to watch the app store updates for that one, make sure we don’t have a driver issue.”
No word on an Android version yet.
2. A Brain App Store? It’s Possible
One of the most intriguing comments came during the question-and-answer session, where an audience member asked about third-party software running on the pod. With read-and-write abilities, it’s potentially a tricky area of development.
“Conceivably there could be some kind of app store thing in the future,” Musk said.
Hodak noted that any creations couldn’t use an ad-supported model. While ads on phones are mildly annoying, ads in the brain could be a disaster waiting to happen.
The brain: is there an app for that?
1. A Symbiotic Relationship Is Still the Goal
Neuralink may be initially focused on healthcare benefits, but Musk noted his goal is still to link up humans with A.I. Musk compared it to using a smartphone, except making it a more direct link instead of telling the brain to move fingers to interact.
“This is going to sound pretty weird, but [we want to] achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” Musk said. “This is not a mandatory thing! This is a thing that you can choose to have if you want. I think this is going to be something really important at a civilization-scale level. I’ve said a lot about A.I. over the years, but I think even in a benign A.I. scenario we will be left behind.”
Details around the economics of the setup are still sketchy, but Musk joked that “if you want to be symbiotic with A.I., I think it’s safe to say you could repay the loan with superhuman intelligence.” Perhaps a funny suggestion, but research suggests that intelligence does not always predict financial wellbeing.
Far from wiring up and worrying about the details later, the really smart move may be to wait and see how Neuralink develops further over the coming years. Based on Tuesday’s presentation, it could be a fascinating ride.
“I do not like the idea of being a domestic cat, but what’s the solution? I think one of the solutions that seems to be the best option is to add an AI layer. This is something that I think will really be important on a civilization level scale.”
Who said anything about being a domestic cat? And why is it so bad? Garfield seems to be doing well and most house cats seem to rule the homes they live in while doing nothing to earn it other than the occasional purr. And yet, that’s what seems to be worrying billionaire and man-you-don’t-want-licking-your-face Elon Musk, whose solution to not being a house cat (you would think he has enough money to get plastic surgery) is to implant wires into brains and download all of their data into massive computers. Not HIS brain, mind you – but probably his computers and his wires. Do you trust him with your mind? Do you trust him with your milk or tuna?
“Even in a benign AI scenario we will be left behind,” he said. “With a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface, we can actually go along for the ride. We can have the option of merging with AI.”
At a presentation at the California Academy of Sciences this week, Musk explained that artificial intelligence is leaving our puny human brains behind, but his company Neuralink has a way for us to at least keep pace with it. Neuralink’s product is a computer chip attached to ultrafine, electrode-studded wires that will be inserted into a brain (yours?) by a surgical robot, which first drilled the hole. The robot will then connect the chip to a computer that will read brain “spikes,” interpret them and then store them faster than you can say “this sounds a lot scarier than that Russian face-aging app.” That’s because it is, although Neuralink’s president Max Hodak assured The New York Times that they’re not trying to hide anything – well, not anymore … this is the first announcement since Musk founded and financed the company two years ago.
“We want this burden of stealth mode off of us so that we can keep building and do things like normal people, such as publish papers.”
Publish papers? Does Elon I-can’t-get-to-Mars-soon-enough Musk know that this guy just wants to write papers about his brain-data-sucking device?
“All this will occur I think quite slowly. It’s not as if Neuralink will suddenly have this incredible neural lace and take over people’s brains. It will take a long time.”
That comment sounds like Musk is smoking pot again. In reality, Neuralink has made considerable progress. It showed the Times a lab rat with 1,500 electrodes in its brain connected to a computer that is reading and interpreting them – a system they say is already advanced enough for scientific research or medical applications. They’re also upgrading the robot to use a laser drill because the mechanical ones cause too much brain vibrations. Could that be why Musk feels like he’s becoming a cat?
Neuralink says it plans to conduct testing on humans by 2020. It already has a jump on its competition because it uses ultra-thin wires and the robot can insert them at different depths inside a brain. It still needs to find a better material for the wires, since the salt in brains causes them to deteriorate and Musk wants them to stay in your head permanently so he knows when you change your mind about buying a Tesla. Musk may be anxious to get some return on his $100 million investment, especially since Neuralink is hiring more people without a product to sell. Then again, isn’t that the Muskian way?
Someone who didn’t go with Neuralink
“[If two people both had Neuralinks, they’d] effectively have a really high-bandwidth telepathy … potentially a new kind of communication, a conceptual telepathy. It would also be consensual.”
Consensual? Did Musk throw that last word in about brain-to-brain communications because he was worried about privacy … or does he know the first thoughts most people would send across the wires?
A lot of people have already trusted Elon Musk with their money. How many will trust him with their thoughts?
Musk and several of the top scientists from the company covered a lot of ground during the event, going into great detail about the system it hopes to one day implant into your brain. It also shared how it hopes to reach your brain in the first place: by shooting holes in your skull with lasers.
The first step to getting data out of the brain is finding a way to capture all the signals zipping around in a person’s skull and transmit them to a device outside of it.
To accomplish that, Neuralink is developing flexible threads of electrodes — implant these threads into the brain near neurons, and they can pick up and wirelessly transmit signals from those neurons to a computer.
Right now, Neuralink uses thin needles, guided by a computer-vision system, to precisely place bundles of these treads into the brain.
But rather than drilling holes into the skulls of humans to access their brains, Neuralink President Max Hodak told The New York Times the company eventually wants to use laser beams to create a series of tiny holes in the skull.
“One of the big bottlenecks is that a mechanical drill couples vibration through the skull, which is unpleasant,” Hodak said, “whereas a laser drill, you wouldn’t feel.”
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11-07-2019
Robot-Ants Jump, Communicate And Work Together in a Swarm
Robot-Ants Jump, Communicate And Work Together in a Swarm
Robot ants
Credit: EPFL
A team of EPFL researchers has developed tiny 10-gram robots that are inspired by ants: they can communicate with each other, assign roles among themselves and complete complex tasks together. These reconfigurable robots are simple in structure, yet they can jump and crawl to explore uneven surfaces. The researchers have just published their work in Nature.
Individually, ants have only so much strength and intelligence. However, as a colony, they can use complex strategies to complete sophisticated tasks and evade larger predators.
At EPFL, robotics researchers in Professor Jamie Paik’s Laboratory have reproduced this phenomenon, developing tiny robots that display minimal physical intelligence on an individual level but that are able to communicate and act collectively. Despite being simple in design and weighing only 10 grams, each robot has multiple locomotion modes to navigate any type of surface. Collectively, they can quickly detect and overcome obstacles and move objects much larger and heavier than themselves. The related research has been published in Nature.
Credit: Marc Delachaux / EPFL
Robots inspired by trap-jaw ants
These three-legged, T-shaped origami robots are called Tribots. They can be assembled in only a few minutes by folding a stack of thin, multi-material sheets, making them suitable for mass production. Completely autonomous and untethered, Tribots are equipped with infrared and proximity sensors for detection and communication purposes. They could accommodate even more sensors depending on the application.
“Their movements are modeled on those of Odontomachus ants. These insects normally crawl, but to escape a predator, they snap their powerful jaws together to jump from leaf to leaf,” says Zhenishbek Zhakypov, the first author. The Tribots replicate this catapult mechanism through an elegant origami design that combines multiple shape-memory alloy actuators. As a result, a single robot can produce five distinct locomotion gaits: vertical jumping, horizontal jumping, somersaulting to clear obstacles, walking on textured terrain and crawling on flat surfaces – just like these creatively resilient ants.
Roles: leader, worker and explorer
Despite having the same anatomy, each robot is assigned a specific role depending on the situation. ‘Explorers’ detect physical obstacles in their path, such as objects, valleys and mountains. After detecting an obstacle, they inform the rest of the group. Then, the ‘leader’ gives the instructions. The ‘workers,’ meanwhile, pool their strength to move objects. “Each Tribot, just like Odontomachus ants, can have different roles. However, they can also take on new roles instantaneously when faced with a new mission or an unknown environment, or even when other members get lost. This goes beyond what the real ants can do,” says Paik.
Zhenishbek Zhakypov and Jamie Paik. (Photo : Mac Delachaux / EPFL)
Future applications
In practical situations, such as an emergency search mission, Tribots could be deployed en masse. And thanks to their multi-locomotive and multi-agent communication capabilities, they could locate a target quickly over a large surface without relying on GPS or visual feedback. “Since they can be manufactured and deployed in large numbers, having some ‘casualties’ would not affect the success of the mission,” adds Paik.““With their unique collective intelligence, our tiny robots can demonstrate better adaptability to unknown environments; therefore, for certain missions, they would outperform larger, more powerful robots.”
This work is the result of a joint collaboration between EPFL and Osaka University
In April, Jamie Paik has presented her reconfigurable robots at the TED2019 conference in Vancouver. Her talk will be available July 10th here https://go.ted.com/jamiepaik at 11 a.m. EST.
Photo: Bret Hartman / TED
On July 10th, Jamie Paik and several eminent scientists joined famous writer Professor Harari on stage at a special event to help mark EPFL’s 50th anniversary year.
Contacts and sources: Laure-Anne Pessina Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Citation: Zhenishbek Zhakypov, Kazuaki Mori, Koh Hosoda and Jamie Paik, Designing Minimal and Scalable Insect-Inspired Multi-Locomotion Millirobots, Nature, 10 July 2019. DOI 10.1038/s41586-019-1388-
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20-06-2019
Robotic fighter jets could soon join military pilots on combat missions. Here's why.
Robotic fighter jets could soon join military pilots on combat missions. Here's why.
The fast-flying drones would scout enemy locations and draw fire that otherwise would be directed at human pilots.
The Boeing Airpower Teaming System is the company's first unmanned system developed in Australia and designed for global defense customers.Boeing
By Jeremy Hsu
Military pilots may soon have a new kind of wingman to depend upon: not flesh-and-blood pilots but fast-flying, sensor-studded aerial drones that fly into combat to scout enemy targets and draw enemy fire that otherwise would be directed at human-piloted aircraft.
War planners see these robotic wingmen as a way to amplify air power while sparing pilots' lives and preventing the loss of sophisticated fighter jets, which can cost more than $100 million apiece.
"These drone aircraft are a way to get at that in a more cost-effective manner, which I think is really a game-changer for the Air Force," says Paul Scharre, director of the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Unlike slow-moving drones such as the Reaper and the Global Hawk, which are flown remotely by pilots on the ground, the new combat drones would be able to operate with minimal input from human pilots. To do that, they'd be equipped with artificial intelligence systems that give them the ability not only to fly but also to learn from and respond to the needs of the pilots they fly alongside.
"The term we use in the Air Force is quarterbacking," says Will Roper, assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics and one of the experts working to develop the AI wingmen. "So the pilot is calling a play and knows how the systems will respond, but doesn't have to run the play for them."
Training a robotic wingman
Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory took an important step in the development of the AI wingmen by announcing its Skyborg program focused on developing the AI necessary to control the drones. As part of the program, Air Force pilots are already flying simulated missions alongside the drones. Roper says drones like the XQ-58A Valkyrie, a 652-mph drone built by Sacramento-based Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems with a projected manufacturing cost of $2 million apiece, could be AI-enabled and ready to fly within the next three years.
The XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator, a long-range unmanned air vehicle, completed its inaugural flight on March 5, 2019 at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona.Senior Airman Joshua Hoskins / US Air Force
"I wouldn't be surprised if the AI becomes tailored to individual pilots," Roper says. "They're actually training their own AI that augments their strengths and weaknesses."
The U.S. military isn't alone in working to develop fighter drones. The Future Combat Air System is a $74-million, two-year deal between Germany and France aimed at building a next-generation fighter that would act as a flying command center for swarms of the fighter drones.
The latter program plans for the first test flight to take place in 2020, with the goal of eventually selling the system worldwide.
Partners or replacements?
Given the rise of drones and AI, some experts question whether it makes sense to continue sending human pilots into harm's way. Why not have people on the ground or in an airborne command center give orders to swarms of combat drones — and let them carry out the mission on their own?
"If you just make the human go fly in combat and their wingman is a drone, it doesn't change their risk profile at all — it only adds to their workload," says Missy Cummings, director of the humans and autonomy laboratory at Duke University and a former fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy.
Scharre says the military still needs humans "forward in the fight" to guide combat drones. But he too sees a coming shift in the role of combat pilots — from flying a fighter jet and controlling its weapons systems to acting as a "battle manager" who decides what actions need to be taken by piloted and drone aircraft. That will likely include deciding when drones should use deadly force and selecting specific targets — decisions that the U.S. military is hesitant to hand over entirely to AI in part because research suggests AI is less skilled than humans at adapting to changing or uncertain situations.
"A country that does not have pilots trained as good as we do might see appeal in shifting more and more of their mission to autonomous systems," Roper says. "Well, if they do that, I think we will have the advantage, because those autonomous systems acting alone will never be able to do what people teamed with machines are able to do."
In 2017, Harvard University geneticist George Church predicted that gene-edited pig organs would be transplanted into humanswithin two years. Well, it’s 2019. Is it time to stop putting pork in baked beans and start putting it in human bein’s? (Sorry, but you knew it was coming.)
“I was wrong.”
When life gives you lemons, or pesky regulations that stop you from testing gene-edited pig organs on humans, you make lemonade by putting the pig organs in the next best thing to humans. No, not zombies … although that’s a great idea for a movie. George Church and his eGenesis company has convinced a major US hospital to allow them to transplant gene-edited pig organs into monkeys. You know the next question: What could possibly go wrong?
“What we’re doing is a necessary step. We’d be hard pressed to put a modified organ into a human until it’s been tested in a large animal.”
Dr. James Markmann, the chief of transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is working with eGenesis to prove to skeptics that the shortage of human donor organs can be solved by using modified pig organs which are closer to human organs than those of any other animals. Close — but not close enough to light up a Cohiba Behike … yet. In fact, the only thing you may want to light up at the moment is a warning flare. In an interview in the MIT Technology Review, Markmann declines to identify which pig organs are being tested (heart, kidney and liver would be the most popular and useful) nor what kind of monkeys are receiving them. Baboons and chimps would be the obvious choices for their size but it’s difficult both physically and ethically to obtain them for medical experiments, which is why those plentiful, pesky and sometimes murderous Rhesus monkeys are probably the recipients.
On the other hand, there’s millions of pigs and the non-organ parts won’t go to waste, but animal rights groups are fighting for them as well – Markmann avoids conflicts by refering to both donors and recipients as merely “large animals.” Pigs are also becoming more controversial as other researchers believe it’s better to perform the gene edits (the purpose is to eliminate recipient rejection) in such a way that they remove the rejection gene from most of the pig’s organs – creating a veritable buffet of transplantable offal. Markmann prefers to edit one organ at a time and points out that pig hearts have survived in baboons for up to two years. Is it time to test them on humans? What could possibly go wrong?
Doctor, ever since I got that transplant I have this overwhelming urge to burn down a sausage plant.
“We’ve got a Chevy. We may even have a BMW now. Do we wait for a Ferrari? There’s a point where you just want to give it a test drive.”
By far, the best quote on the subject comes from Devin Eckhoff, director of the medical school transplantation division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who seems to liken his own field to auto mechanics and organ transplants to putting a big new Ford engine in an old Model T. As with so many other experiments that end up being plots for horror movies, what could possibly go wrong is that the marketing and accounting departments overrule research and development and make decisions based on fame, money and beating the competition.
A new innovative airplane design known as the Flying-V embraces an entirely different approach to aircraft design. Named after the iconic Gibson Flying-V electric guitar, this plane is designed by researchers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. Dutch airline KLM is funding this revolutionary aeronautical project.
Professor Henri Werij, dean of the university’s faculty of aerospace engineering, said, “New and energy-efficient aircraft designs such as the Flying-V are important, as are new forms of propulsion. Our ultimate aim is emission-free flight.”
Here are some of its salient features:
Aerodynamic shape and reduced weight of this highly energy-efficient plane allow it to use 20% less fuel than the most efficient plane.
The wings of this pioneering aircraft would host the passenger space, cargo hold, fuel tanks and all other infrastructure.
Total width of ‘Flying-V’ is 215ft (65m) and its length will be slightly shorter, at 180 ft (55m).
Having the same wingspan as existing planes, it will be able to carry up to 314 passengers.
If all goes well, we won’t have to wait for long, as a prototype model is expected to take flight later this year.
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05-06-2019
NEW “FLYING-V” PLANE PUTS PASSENGER SEATS IN THE WINGS
NEW “FLYING-V” PLANE PUTS PASSENGER SEATS IN THE WINGS
KLM/TU DELFT
KRISTIN HOUSER
Fuel For Thought
Airlines are testing all sorts of ways to make planes less of a drag on the environment. Virgin Atlantic recently used recycled waste to power a commercial flight, while Boeing and JetBlue have backed an effort to create hybrid electric planes.
The Netherland’s KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is taking a different approach.
It just partnered with a university to develop the “Flying-V,” a radical new airplane design that puts passenger seats inside the plane’s wings — and it could decrease the amount of fuel needed for flights by a substantial 20 percent.
Radical Redesign
On Monday, KLM announced plans to collaborate with Delft University of Technology on the school’s in-development Flying-V airplane design. And it doesn’t just put passengers in the plane’s wings — the fuel tanks and cargo hold will also find a new home there.
Based on the researchers’ calculations, the new design should allow the Flying-V to transport approximately the same number of passengers as an Airbus A350 using 20 percent less fuel.
“We’ve been flying these tube and wing airplanes for decades now, but it seems like the configuration is reaching a plateau in terms of energy efficiency,” TU Delft project leader Roelof Vos told CNN. “The new configuration that we propose realizes some synergy between the fuselage and the wing. The fuselage actively contributes to the lift of the airplane, and creates less aerodynamic drag.”
In the wings: Dutch airline KLM has agreed to find development of V-shaped aircraft known as the Flying-V, which incorporates the passenger cabin, fuel tanks and cargo hold into the wings.
KLM
Aerial efficiency: It's claimed the plane will use 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350-900 while carrying a similar number of passengers -- just over 300.
Edwin Wallet, OSO Studio
Better by design: The plane's increased fuel efficiency is largely a result of its aerodynamic design, its creators say, although its reduced weight also contributes.
Edwin Wallet, OSO Studio
Testing times: Researchers hope to fly a scale model of the airplane in September and say it could be ready to enter service between 2040 and 2050.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 75 jaar jong.
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