The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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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.
01-06-2018
Een oog op de weg
Een oog op de weg
Figure 1 Principle of range measurement using laser
Afstanden meten met lasers, nieuw is het niet. Toch is er vandaag veel te doen rond een geavanceerde vorm van de lasermeettechnologie.
Een van de heetste technologieën van het moment is één waarvan je wellicht nog nooit gehoord hebt. En toch heb je het binnenkort mogelijk zelfs in huis staan – of liever: in de garage. LIDAR of LIght Detection And Ranging of Laser Imaging Detection And Ranging blijkt een cruciale bouwsteen te zijn voor autonoom rijdende auto’s. Dit verklaart ook de plotse toename in start-ups die rond LIDAR werken en de grote overnames die rond de technologie plaatsvinden. LIDAR is ook de achterliggende reden waarom Uber in een bits juridisch gevecht verwikkeld raakte rond een ingenieur die het wegplukte bij zijn Amerikaanse rivaal Waymo.
Radar met licht
LIDAR is een paraplu waaronder verschillende technologieën schuilen om snel en accuraat afstanden te meten. Je zou kunnen stellen dat het een verre verwante is van de lasermeters die doe-het-zelvers gebruiken in plaats van rolmeters, maar dan wel heel wat geavanceerder. Lijkt de naam wat op ‘radar’? Dat is geen toeval, want LIDAR lijkt er wat op. In plaats van radiogolven worden laserpulsen uitgestuurd. De tijd die nodig is om een weerkaatsing te ontvangen, geeft aan hoe ver een object zich bevindt.
Een fotodetector in een LIDAR-eenheid kijkt echter niet enkel naar directe reflecties, maar observeert hoe het licht dat terugkeert verstrooit. Het ziet hiermee hoe een laserstraal ‘breekt’ op een object. Door te werken met miljoenen laserpulsen en verschillende frequenties wordt zo een 3D-beeld van een object gevormd. Met meerdere lasers en door deze te plaatsen achter een bewegelijke spiegel wordt het mogelijk om heel de omgeving te scannen.
LIDAR-technologieën bestaan al decennia. De NASA paste het zelfs toe voor één van de Apollo-maanmissies. Sinds de jaren zeventig wordt breed ingezet, bijvoorbeeld om zeer nauwkeurige kaartdata vanuit vliegtuigen of satellieten te creëren. Er zijn systemen die vanaf extreme hoogte toch in staat zijn om objecten van enkele tientallen centimeters groot te detecteren.
Het is die extreme nauwkeurigheid dat LIDAR zo aantrekkelijk maakt voor autobouwers. Op korte afstand is de technologie veel preciezer, waardoor niet enkel een menselijke lichaam kan gedetecteerd worden maar ook delen er van, zoals armen en benen. Als je denkt aan scenario’s zoals een autonoom rijdende wagen die een fietser moet voorbijsteken, dan is dat wel belangrijk. Maar er is nog veel werk aan de winkel, want het moet nog sneller, nauwkeuriger en goedkoper kunnen. Daarom dat er nog veel ruimte is voor nieuwe start-ups, naast oudere LIDAR-bedrijven, zoals Velodyne. Die laatste begon al tien jaar geleden met LIDAR in kader van een robotautorace die de Amerikaanse defensie organiseerde.
Velodyne was tot voor kort de enige die een LIDAR-systeem kon produceren die goed genoeg was voor gebruik op de openbare weg, maar er zijn nu uitdagers zoals Luminar (verbonden met Toyota en uitvinder van een systeem die in één blik 120° graden bestrijkt) en Innoviz (die samenwerkt met BWM en LIDAR maakt zonder bewegende delen). De uitdaging blijft LIDAR voldoende betrouwbaar te maken voor zelfrijdende wagens van level 3 (conditionele automatisatie met chauffeur die kan ingrijpen) tot level 5 (volledig autonoom).
Recente ongelukken met (semi)-autonome wagens verhoogt de kans dat overheden hier nog strenger op zullen toekijken. LIDAR kan daarbij ook de oplossing zijn. Tesla is één van de weinigen die LIDAR links laat liggen en camera’s in combinatie met slimme software toepast voor afstandsmeting van objecten rondom de auto. Het bedrijf van Musk heeft echter af te rekenen met enkele incidenten waarbij een Model S verongelukte in autonome modus, wat Tesla onder druk zet om toch ook LIDAR te implementeren.
Welke zijn de Top 5 gebruiken van LIDAR? Waarom is LIDAR zo belangrijk?
Researchers from the University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science have now created a biohybrid robot — a robotic device that incorporates living tissue — that remained functional for more than a week. They published their study Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.
Video Credit: 2018 Shoji Takeuchi, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
The first step to create a biohybrid robot: to construct the robot skeleton. The researchers created theirs using 3D-printed resin. They gave it a joint and added anchors where they could attach living tissue. Electrodes they could use to stimulate the living muscle, causing it to contract, were the final touch.
Building the living muscle was the next step. For that, the team used myoblasts, a type of stem cell that eventually matures into different types of muscle cells. They incorporated these cells into hydrogel sheets, poked holes in the sheets to attach them to the skeleton’s anchors, and added some striped structures that would encourage the muscle fibers to grow between the anchors.
Image Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
“Once we had built the muscles, we successfully used them as antagonistic pairs in the robot, with one contracting and the other expanding, just like in the body,” study corresponding author Shoji Takeuchi said in a news release. “The fact that they were exerting opposing forces on each other stopped them shrinking and deteriorating, like in previous studies.”
The bot’s signature (and only) move is bending its “fingertip” up and down. It may be awfully reminiscent of the creepy REDRUM finger motion that kid makes in “The Shining,” but it’s enough for the bot to pick up a tiny ring and place it on a peg. Working in harmony, two of the robots can lift a small square tab.
Admittedly, engineering a “biohybrid” finger doesn’t seem like the most efficient way to accomplish this task. But according to the researchers, robots like these could serve other, more practical uses in the future.
Image Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
First, we could create more complex robots, and then study those to glean new insights into how the human body works and how we might treat medical issues. “If we can combine more of these muscles into a single device, we should be able to reproduce the complex muscular interplay that allow hands, arms, and other parts of the body to function,” said lead author Yuya Morimoto in the press release.
Second, we could start using these robots in the pharmaceutical industry. Researchers could test drugs or conduct other experiments on the muscles of biohybrid robots, which could eliminate the need for animal test subjects. This would be similar to the organ-on-a-chip technology, which is also in development.
While the biohybrid robot finger might have limited uses for now, the future of medicine may end up in its (sort of) hands.
Credit: Flickr, Many Wonderful Artists / Public Domain.
An international team of researchers has shown for the first time that artificial intelligence is better at diagnosing melanoma than human doctors. This particular form of machine learning, known as a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN), was able to make more correct diagnoses and fewer misdiagnoses than some of the world’s most capable skin care oncologists.
Man vs machine
The CNN starts off as a blank slate. In order to teach the artificial neural network how to identify skin cancer, the researchers fed it a dataset of over 100,000 images of malignant melanomas and benign moles. With each iteration, it learned patterns of features characteristic of malignant and benign tumors, becoming increasingly better at differentiating between the two.
After this initial training round, the team of researchers led by Professor Holger Haenssle, senior managing physician at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, introduced the AI to two new sets of images sourced from the Heidelberg library. These dermoscopic images of various skin lesions were completely new to the CNN. One set of 300 images was meant to solely test the performance of the CNN. Another set of 100 images was comprised of some of the most difficult to diagnose lesions and was used to test both machine and real dermatologists.
Researchers were able to recruit 58 doctors from 17 countries. Among them, 17 (29%) indicated they had less than two years’ experience in dermoscopy, 11 (19%) said they had two to five years of experience, and 30 (52%) were experts with more than five years’ experience.
The volunteers were asked to make a decision about how to manage the condition — whether it was surgery, follow-up, or no action at all — based on two levels of information. At level I, the only information that the dermatologists had at their disposal was from dermoscopic images. Four weeks after making the level I assessment, each participant was asked to review their diagnosis at level II, where they were given far more information about the patient — including age, sex, and the location of the lesion, as well as magnified images of the same case.
At level I, humans could accurately detect melanomas 86.6% of the time and correctly identified benign lesions with an average score of 71.3%. The CNN, however, was able to detect benign moles 95% of the time. At level II, the dermatologists significantly improved their performance, as expected, having diagnosed 88.9% of malignant melanomas and 75.7% that were benign.
Even though the expert doctors were better at spotting melanoma than their less experienced counterparts, they were, on average, outperformed by the AI.
Around 232,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed worldwide every year, which result in 55,500 deaths annually. The cancer can be cured, but it typically requires an early diagnosis. This is why this CNN is so impressive — it would be able to identify more cancers early on, thereby saving lives.
“These findings show that deep learning convolutional neural networks are capable of out-performing dermatologists, including extensively trained experts, in the task of detecting melanomas,” Haenssle said.
Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that doctors will soon be scrapped. Far from it: the researchers say that the machine will augment the performance of doctors rather than replace them. Think of a second ‘expert’ opinion which doctors can instantly turn to.
“This CNN may serve physicians involved in skin cancer screening as an aid in their decision whether to biopsy a lesion or not. Most dermatologists already use digital dermoscopy systems to image and store lesions for documentation and follow-up. The CNN can then easily and rapidly evaluate the stored image for an ‘expert opinion’ on the probability of melanoma. We are currently planning prospective studies to assess the real-life impact of the CNN for physicians and patients,” according to Haenssle.
Concerning the study’s limitations, it’s important to note that the study’s participants made diagnoses in an artificial setting. Their decision-making process might look different in a ‘life or death’ situation, which might impact performance. The CNN also had some limitations of its own, such as poor performance with images of melanomas on certain sites such as the fingers, toes, and scalp. For this reason, there is still no substitute for a thorough clinical examination performed by a trained human physician.
That being said, these impressive results indicate that we’re about to experience a paradigm shift, not only in dermatology but in just about every medical field, thanks to developments in artificial intelligence.
If there’s one thing that scientists absolutely should be working on, it’s a self-regenerating robo-Deadpool or the eerily-fluid T-1000 Terminator. Thankfully, a team of scientists just took an important first step towards building a robot that can keep on truckin’ even with a couple of bullet holes improve its ventilation.
Okay, so maybe they weren’t working on killer robots and (probably) didn’t subject their research to gunfire, but what they did do is create a soft, flexible electronic material that can automatically repair its circuits when it gets damaged.
Credit: Nature Materials
The new “skin” is made of droplets of liquid metal housed within a rubber-like material that can bend, fold, and stretch. Calling it “self-repairing” is a bit of a misnomer, as the stretchy material won’t stitch itself together. But when it’s ripped, torn, or cut, the droplets burst open and create new circuits, immediately replacing those that were broken. The current is never broken, so electricity continues to flow even as the material is being damaged.
The team demonstrated this immediate rerouting by continuously powering a clock while cutting away at pieces of the flexible circuitry.
The team of scientists who developed the material imagines that it will help develop better robots that are based on people or other animals, and also improve interactions between people and machines. It could also lead to better wearable technology that won’t break from everyday wear and tear.
“If we want to build machines that are more compatible with the human body and the natural environment, we have to start with new types of materials, Carmel Majidi, an engineer at Carnegie Mellon University who worked on the research, said in a press release.
Many engineers believe that soft electronics will help revolutionize the way robots function, and also how they’re perceived in society. Flexible and durable machinery could help bring robots from the awkward, jerky movements typical of hard, inflexible bots to something more like the humanoid, smooth NS-5 androids from iRobot – at least in terms of appearance and motor control.
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20-05-2018
The World’s First Floating Nation To Launch In Pacific Ocean In 2022, With Own Government And Cryptocurrency
The World’s First Floating Nation To Launch In Pacific Ocean In 2022, With Own Government And Cryptocurrency
The Floating City will become the first floating nation on Earth–a Libertarianutopiafreeofregulationandtaxes. It will feature offshore housing, use its own cryptocurrency, and operate ‘outside of government regulations’.
The plan to create the first floating city started off a decade ago when Peter Thiel, an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author co-founded a nonprofit called Seasteading Institute.
In a 2009 essay, Mr. Thiel wrote, “Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans.”
Since then, the project has taken a long leap, and as things stand now, the institute is set to embark on a pilot project with the Government of French Polynesia.
Image Credit: Seasteading Institute
The world’s first independent floating nation will soon launch in the Pacific Ocean and will operate outside of government regulations, using its own cryptocurrency called ‘Vyron’.
The floating city, a sea-bound city-state featuring around 300 intricately designed homes, a number of hotels, restaurants, offices and other buildings is being built in the Pacific Ocean near the island of Tahiti.
The floating city-state was a project never attempted before.
Its founders imagined the floating city as a Libertarianutopiafreeofregulationandtaxes.
But the plan developed beyond that.
Image Credit: Blue Frontiers
Speaking to Business Insider, Joe Quirk, president of the Institute said how he and his team now see the floating city a way mankind can coup with rising sea levels, which are sadly expected to increase by more than six feet by the end of the century.
Nathalie Mezza-Garcia, a political scientist and researchers from the Floating Island Project say how the islands residents will be free of ‘fluctuating geopolitical influences and trade issues’ and claimed the independent sea nation could one-day house refugees displaced by climate change.
“There is significance to this project being trialed in the Polynesian Islands. This is the region where land is resting on coral and will disappear with rising sea levels. Once we can see how this first island works, we will have a proof of concept to plan for islands to house climate refugees,” said Mr. Mezza Garcia in an interview with CNBC.
Image Credit: Blue Frontiers
The independent floating city is expected to cost around $50 million, and will float in international waters, while operating within its own laws, and will ‘liberate humanity from politicians’, according to the SeasteadingInstitute.
The floating city is a massive project in today’s radicalized society.
The floating island’s non-residential buildings are designed to operate as business centers, which will offer a number of companies to work ‘outside government regulations’.
“This means there is stability, outside of fluctuating geopolitical influences, trade issues, and currency fluctuations – it’s the perfect incubator,” Ms. Mezza Garcia explained.
“If you don’t want to live under a particular government, ‘people will be able to just take their house and float away to another island,” added Ms. Mezza Garcia.
The Journey to make the floating city-state happen was a long one. The Seasteading Institute, co-founded by Mr. Thiel has worked for the last five years designing and testing ‘permanent, innovative communities floating at sea’.
Their journey has seen them team up with Blue frontiers– a startup that specializes in building floating islands.
Image Credit: Blue Frontiers
The design of the floating city took inspiration from the Polynesian culture, in particular from their traditional navigation, based on observation and vast knowledge of natural elements.
The designers of the floating city-state reflected mountains and hills, the shape of ocean reefs and numerous different underwater landmarks, as well as the rising and setting of the moon, the sun and stars in the design.
Interestingly, the small platforms featuring the villas are set to be aligned with the path of the stars of Sirius according to the plans.
As explained by the Daily Mail, “Larger platforms with mixed-use buildings aligned to the celestial pillar Pou, starting from the main platform, the ‘star headlight’ or Ta’urua, and ending by the guide star Avei’a, passing through the zenith of the floating island.”
Image Credit: Seasteading Institute.
“During several visits to French Polynesia and after getting acquainted with the environment and the local contexts, one thing was sure, the project has to blend into its environment. To achieve this, local environmental characteristics, climate, ecology and cultural context have all been studied and play a major role in the process.”
“The project, however, doesn’t only want to not hurt the existing environment, the vision of the Blue Frontiers [is to] facilitate the development of more conscious and balanced settlements at sea where humans can peacefully coexist with the environment and with each other,” explains a written statement by the Seasteading Institute.
Another staple plot device of science fiction may soon be crossing the line into science. Researchers at UCLA have successfully transferred memory from one creature’s brain to another. Is this the solution to finding out where a criminal hid the money?
This revolutionary discovery appears in the current edition of the journal eNeuro. UCLA neurobiologist David Glanzman did not accept the commonly held belief that memories are stored in brain synapses and decided to look for an alternative memory storage locker. He speculated that one existed in RNA (ribonucleic acid), the messenger service for DNA inside cells. To test this theory, Glanzman used electrical shocks to train Aplysia californica to respond defensively when jolted in a certain area.
Aplysia what? OK, the test subjects in this experiment were California sea hares, the giant foot-long hermaphrodite marine snails found along the US Pacific coast. What do giant snails have to remember besides where they parked their shells? Actually, Aplysia californica are favorite lab subjects of neuroscientists because, while their bodies are slow, their brains are quite fast. And with only about 20,000 neurons in them (humans have 100 billion), sea hare brains are easy to study and map.
Aplysia californica sea hare
After training one set of snails to respond when shocked in their siphon (the water intake tube snails use for locomotion, feeding, respiration, and reproduction) and setting up a control group with their siphons wired but not receiving shocks, Glanzman’s team extracted RNA from their brains and injected them into other snails. When tested, the snails receiving RNA from the trained donors had the same reflexive responses while those getting control group RNA did not.
“If memories were stored at synapses, there is no way our experiment would have worked.”
Snail anatomy
That’s important because synapses are not permanent while some memories are. Or at least they are until a person has Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder or other brain problems. While he doesn’t explain how in the study nor the press release from UCLA, Glanzman believes that this RNA transfer can revive lost memories or those that have been shut down by disease.
Of course, it’s a long way from snails to humans (in most cases) and there are still many neuroscientists who are sticking with the ‘memory resides in synapses’ side. But Glanzman’s research is a start. His next step is to identify which specific types of RNA can be used to perform successful memory transfers.
Until then, remember this – Shocked In The Siphon would be a great name for a band.
You may not carry your house on your back or release sulphuric acid, but you’ve got a lot more in common with a sea snail than you may think. Especially where your brain is concerned.
Yes, sea snails may have 20,000 neurons — a paltry sum compared to humans’ 100 billion. But scientists have been studying sea snails for a long time, and they know an awful lot about how the organisms learn. Many marine organisms function the same way mammals do, except the processes that keep them alive are just way less complicated. And sea snails are no exception — their nerves transmit impulses much the way ours do.
So, it’s impressive that researchers from UCLA were able to transfer memories of being shocked between marine snails. Even more impressive? That early research may someday pave the way for similar processes in humans.
In the study, published Monday in the journal eNeuro, snails in one group were trained to respond to a stimulus — in this case, a shock to the tail (animal lovers, don’t fear — the shock didn’t hurt the snails. It just triggered a defensive curl reflex, sort of like snatching your hand away from a hot stove). At first, the snails would only curl for a few seconds. But through repeated shocks, the researchers trained them to curl for longer, up to about 50 seconds.
Next, the team took some ribonucleic acid (RNA), which forms proteins based on cells’ DNA, from nerve tissue in the upper abdomen of trained snails and injected it into the untrained snails’ necks to get to their circulatory system. When they were shocked, the snails that weren’t injected with RNA curled for only a few seconds, the way all snails do when they haven’t been trained. But the ones injected with RNA from the trained snails? They held the pose for 40 seconds, as if they remembered how to respond to a stimulus, even though they had never encountered it before. The researchers also tested some of the same techniques on snail neurons in a petri dish.
This is a big deal because it helps clear up a longstanding scientific debate. See, some researchers think memories are stored in the synapses (the spaces between nerve cells). Another camp believed memories were stored in the nuclei of neurons. As study author David Glanzman told the BBC, “If memories were stored at synapses, there is no way our experiment would have worked.”
To treat memory-related illnesses in humans, we’ve first got to understand how the brain stores memories in the first place. The UCLA team suggests their research might one day allow us to, as the study states, “modify, enhance, or depress memories.” That could lead to new ways for people with early-stage Alzheimer’s to regain some of what they lost, or novel treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Let’s not get carried away, here — these are snails, after all. These findings don’t close the debate about where memories are stored, and they certainly don’t mean that we can instantly restore detailed memories in humans.
But there are many different types of RNA, and Glanzman’s team plans to do more research to figure out determine which types most directly impact memory.
So, we’re still a ways off from becoming a karate black belt simply by injecting some RNA into our necks, or downloading sweet dance moves directly to our minds. But we may be a step closer to it, thanks to the humble, oft-shocked sea snail.
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14-05-2018
Check Out The Floating Pyramid City That Makes 100% Of Its Food, Water And Electricity
Check Out The Floating Pyramid City That Makes 100% Of Its Food, Water And Electricity
I’ve got to admit, every once in a while, I get tired from the life in a big city.
Modern ways of life have twisted the fabrics of our society to a point where people live by the clock without consideration, by the routine.
We live in a monotony, where every day is similar to the previous one and a strictly embedded pattern in our society unconsciously dictates how our lives unfold.
Society, our communities, and life, in general, has drastically changed, and we have become hugely dependent on things that did not matter previously.
So if you have become tired of Suburbia, you may have a pretty awesome alternative: applying to live on the ocean, in a community made of self-sufficient, solar powered, Pyramid-shaped buildings.
Need I say more?
The Waya Adobes were designed by Pierpaolo Lazzarini a man who managed to blend the past and the future, inspired by ancient Mayan and Japanese architecture.
A pretty awesome project, right? Image Credit: Pierpaolo Lazzarini
His pyramid-shaped buildings come in a variety of designs and sizes and are specifically built to serve different purposes.
According to New Atlassome exist as floating homes, whereas others function as greenhouses, hotels, and cinemas.
The largest of the structures was designed to be around 30 meters tall, above the water line.
According to Lazzarini, the Pyramid-shaped Waya modules are to be built of fiberglass, carbon fiber as well as steel. The buildings are to be installed on massive floating platforms, containing basements locate beneath the water, suitable for bedrooms or living rooms.
As the floating Pyramid-shaped city aims to be fully autonomous and self-sustaining, the Waya modules will have solar-powered motors that will propel the structures.
Image Credit: Pierpaolo Lazzarini
The Pyramid-city would also have a small marina where the inhabitants could accommodate their boats and other water vehicles.
Lazzarini envisioned how each Waya module would obtain electricity from solar panels and water turbines.
Sounds interesting right?
Image Credit: Pierpaolo Lazzarini
However, the city, Wayaland, is still in concept stage, and Lazzarini is currently raising funds to begin the construction of the pyramid-shaped floating city with a crowdfunding campaign.
The Smallest Waya module will cost around $422,000 USD.
The modules would also be available for rent, with a cost of around $1,200 USD per night.
Image Credit: Pierpaolo Lazzarini
All of those who purchase a Waya module will participate in the community giving them rights like voting for where the Pyramid-shaped city would be located, based on a pre-selected list of optimal locations.
Lazzarini plans the inauguration of Wayaland to take place in 2022.
Image Credit: Pierpaolo Lazzarini
So, if you have a bit of cash to space, like Pyramids–floating pyramids–and want to live in a fully autonomous and self-sustaining city, hop over to Lazzarini’s website and found more about this revolutionary project.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:SF-snufjes }, Robotics and A.I. Artificiel Intelligence ( E, F en NL )
07-05-2018
Playing God: Scientists Create Artificial Embryo And Successfully Insert It Into The Uterus
Playing God: Scientists Create Artificial Embryo And Successfully Insert It Into The Uterus
Genetic editing is like playing God.
A team of scientists from the University of Maastricht has developed an embryo using stem cells different from sperm and ovules and has managed to successfully transfer it to the uterus of mice. Researchers detail their study in a paper published in the journal Nature.
The researchers have managed to successfully go through the entire process for the first time ever, and hope that this work will help understand how the placenta is formed and how the embryo is implanted in the lining of the uterus.
When they are transferred in utero, the cell spheres, obtained from two types of rodent stem cell, activate adaptation mechanisms similar to those observed during implantation in the uterine wall.
While these early embryonic structures did not evolve to the state of mature embryos, they served as a model to study the development of the embryo at its inception, a stage still little understood in science.
A few days after fertilization, the mammalian ovule normally develops in a blastocyst, which corresponds to the embryo in the early stages of its development.
Artificial embryos grown in the laboratory.
It becomes a spherical structure composed of a layer of outer cells (the future placenta) that surrounds a cavity filled with fluid that contains a mass of embryonic cells.
The failure of the development of the embryo would be due to the absence of a third type of cell “that has an essential role in the structuring the embryo and is poorly produced by embryonic stem cells,” says Professor Robin Lovell-Badge.
Obtaining comparable results with human cells remains a great challenge for researchers who would like to create human embryos in this way.
However, this raises a number of ethical questions, raising doubts whether we, as a society, should venture out into the unknown.
It is also noteworthy to mention that mice and humans are very different, and this raises a number of questions like; Would a human uterus respond in the same way to these blastoids?
That’s an answer scientists are still looking for. Despite this, the discoveries it yields could potentially lead to great medical improvements.
Cloning Human Beings
Professor Nicholas Rivron of the University of Maastricht, leader of the research group, thinks that a developed embryo could be created in just three more years, however, a human embryo will take decades of tests.
“For the first time, we can study these phenomena in great detail and run drug screens to find medicines that could prevent infertility, find better contraceptives, or limit the appearance of epigenetic marks that appear in the blastocyst and lead to diseases during adult life,” Rivron told Research Gate.
“Embryos are very precious, but it is impossible to use them to detect drugs that could help with fertility without enough of them. With artificial blastocysts we can expand the numbers and eventually come to understand why some embryos are not implanted, “explains Rivron.
“I do not believe in the use of blastocysts for human reproduction. It would be to clone someone who is already alive. It is ethically very questionable, ” added Professor Rivron speaking to Mail Online.
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London said that while development can be considered a breakthrough in science, it is a relief that cannot yet be used to create, for example, a batch of genetically identical humans. “It would even be illegal – at least in the United Kingdom – to implant embryos in a woman,” he concluded.
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05-05-2018
Scientists create mutant enzymes that eat plastic bottles
Scientists create mutant enzymes that eat plastic bottles
Mutants exist and they’re helping to save the planet.
OK, not those kinds of mutants. But these are equally cool.
An international team of scientists has created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drink bottles, according to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (the link is down at time of writing).
The creation of the enzyme came by accident when the team, led by Professor John McGeehan at the University of Portsmouth, UK, tweaked a bacterium they had discovered in a waste dump in Japan in 2016. The bacterium had naturally evolved to eat plastic, and the scientists inadvertently made it even better at breaking down polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the plastic used for drink bottles. The break-down process starts in a matter of days, not the centuries it can take in the ocean.
“What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock,” McGeehan told the Guardian. “It’s great and a real finding.”
In 2017, researchers found 38 million pieces of plastic waste on an uninhabited South Pacific island. Figures from the same year showed that a million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. That number is predicted to jump 20 percent by 2021.
“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic,” McGeehan said. “It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment.”
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04-05-2018
SCIENTISTS PROJECT HOLOGRAMS INTO THE BRAIN TO CREATE EXPERIENCES
SCIENTISTS PROJECT HOLOGRAMS INTO THE BRAIN TO CREATE EXPERIENCES
One day soon you may be filling your lungs with crisp ocean air, your arms bathed in warm light as the sun sets over softly lapping waters and you may wonder, is this real? Or are scientists projecting holograms into my brain to create a vivid sensory experience that isn’t actually happening? A group of researchers at University of California, Berkeley are in the early stages of testing their ability to create, edit and scrub sensory experiences from our brains, both real-time and stored experiences–memories.
Using light to make us see what isn’t there.
Different sensory experiences show up in brain imaging as patterns of neurons firing in sequence. Neuroscientists are trying toreverse-engineer experiences by stimulating the neurons to excite the same neural patterns. At present, the steps to accomplish this are a little invasive. Scientists genetically modify neurons with photosensitive proteins so they can gingerly manipulate neurons using light. The process is known as optogenetics. Also, a metal head plate gets surgically implanted over the targeted area.
Then there’s the challenge of finding a way to bull’s-eye each individual, microscopic cell body without exciting neighboring neurons. Enter computer generated holography (CGH) to create three-dimensional floating light shapes. The diffracted light-forms are projected into the brain, sailing through a gossamer layer of brain tissue at the surface of the cortex and triggering just the right pattern and rhythm of neural activity to generate specific sensations and perceptions. The holograms can stimulate, edit and suppress patterns of neurons that correlate with the brain activity of actual experiences.
“The major advance is the ability to control neurons precisely in space and time,” says Nicolas Pégard, one of the first authors of a paper in Nature Neurosciencetoday. “In other words, to shoot the very specific sets of neurons you want to activate and do it at the characteristic scale and the speed at which they normally work.”
Development of the device required imagination and a confluence of emergent technologies. “This is the culmination of technologies that researchers have been working on for a while, but have been impossible to put together,” says another of the first authors, Alan Mardinly. “We solved numerous technical problems at the same time to bring it all together and finally realize the potential of this technology.”
The team published a paper last year in the journal Nature Communications, dubbing their holographic brain modulator The 3D-SHOT: a three-dimensional scanless holographic optogenetics with temporal focusing.
If sci-fi writers of the past somehow visited us today, they might wonder: where are all the clones?
As recently as the year 2000, it seemed almost inevitable that rogue scientists would start human cloning any day. Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was born in 1997. A council on bioethics called by then-President Bush, and an emergency report by the National Academies, both published reports deeming that the technology was unsafe and should be banned, even for research or therapy. Media reports covered every update breathlessly. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger got in on the action, starring in a movie about a man (with a self-driving car, of course) whose clone takes over his life.
Yes, over the past 15 years or so, genetics research has gotten so advanced that, from a scientific perspective, we’re actually pretty darn close to being able to create human clones.
But no need to freak out just yet. There are significant barriers to human cloning that remain, and they’re not only scientific ones.
For one thing: the technology that created Dolly the sheep in the 90s is simply inefficient, as MIT Tech Review explains — only one of 100 cloned embryos led to a live birth, and some of those that make it are born with fatal birth defects. Scientists have overcome some of these hurdles by figuring out how to un-block genes needed to develop a cell into a full-fledged embryo, which are usually not “turned on” in their original state.
These scientific advances have made it possible for companies to confidently charge customers to clone their beloved pets (granted, it’s still so expensive that it’s primarily the purview of celebrities, but it’s definitely a real thing that happens) and for Chinese scientists to successfully clone monkeys.
Doesn’t seem like much of a stretch that we could the clone humans, right? But given the science we have now, it would still require a significant number of failed human pregnancies, so many that it’s hard to imagine ethics committees allowing the research to happen. Stem cell biologist Yi Zhang, whose work solved the blocked gene problem, pointed out to Tech Review that the process of creating just two long-tailed macaque monkeys required 63 surrogate mothers and 417 eggs, all of which resulted in just six pregnancies.
Not to mention, many countries simply would not allow this process. According to the Center for Genetics and Society, any form of cloning is flat-out banned in 46 countries, and reproductive cloning (cloning specifically to create full-grown humans) is banned in another 32, leaving open the option to clone human cells for therapeutic uses like growing organs. In the United States, fifteen states prohibitreproductive cloning, and three prohibit the use of public funds for cloning research.
That’s not to say that just because scientists are not supposed to do something, that they won’t. But human cloning research would require significant financial support and the infrastructure of sophisticated technology; it’s not something that could be done in someone’s basement lab. Therefore, unless some mad billionaire decided to attempt the process privately, anyone who wanted to carry out human cloning would have some form of review board to answer to.
Because China hasn’t formally banned cloning in any way, some critics feared that Chinese scientists might attempt a human clone after their success in monkeys. Yet those researchers, at least, stated they had no plans to clone humans, as “social ethics would by no means allow that practice.”
This last statement is telling: should they perform human cloning, scientists know very well that they would be shunned by the scientific and diplomatic community altogether.
That pressure alone may be enough to keep rogue scientists from trying anything, even in places where there are no legal limits on the practice. At least, for now.
MIT computer scientists have developed SoFi – a soft, robot fish made of silicone rubber – that can swim alongside real fish in the ocean.
Computer scientists at MIT have unveiled a new, soft robot fish that can independently swim alongside real fish in the ocean. They call their robot fish SoFi and described the work in an article published March 21, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Science Robotics. The article is online here.
During test dives in the Rainbow Reef in Fiji, SoFi swam at depths of more than 50 feet [15 meters] for up to 40 minutes at once, nimbly handling currents and taking high-resolution photos and videos using (what else?) a fisheye lens.
Using its undulating tail and a unique ability to control its own buoyancy, SoFi can swim in a straight line, turn, or dive up or down. The team also used a waterproofed Super Nintendo controller and developed a custom acoustic communications system that enabled them to change SoFi’s speed and have it make specific moves and turns.
Robert Katzschmann is a Ph.D. candidate at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and lead author of the new research. He said:
To our knowledge, this is the first robotic fish that can swim untethered in three dimensions for extended periods of time.
We are excited about the possibility of being able to use a system like this to get closer to marine life than humans can get on their own.
The research team pointed out that, even with many technological advances in recent years, documenting marine life up close remains a challenging task. They pointed to recent rare footage of an elusive Greenland shark that can live more than 400 years. It revealed how little we know about life in the coldest oceans, and in the oceans in general.
These scientists hope that SoFI can help shed light on the ocean’s mysteries.
Bottom line: MIT computer scientists have developed SoFi – a soft, robot fish made of silicone rubber – that can swim alongside real fish in the ocean.
A soft robot developed by Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is seen to the left of a coin. |Max Planck Institute for Intelligent SystemsROBOTICS
Take two robots and call me in the morning.
That may well be a legitimate prescription for future medical patients, thanks to a new kind of radically miniaturized soft robot that can be swallowed, injected, or inserted under the skin. The robot can then move around inside the body to target specific tissues or deliver precise doses of medicine.
Researchers with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems unveiled last week details of the tiny robot in a paper published in the journal Nature. Unofficially dubbed the millirobot, it's a flexible, fabric-like robot that can walk, swim, and even carry cargo, despite having no mechanical elements or batteries.
The secret is magnetism. The millirobot, which resembles a very small rectangle of paper about four millimeters in length, is made of an elastic polymer threaded through with magnetic particles. Using existing magnetic-resonance technology, such as an ultrasound machine, doctors can control the movement of the bot inside the human body.
That means the robot can potentially be deployed anywhere that physicians need to deliver a particular drug or other medical material — in the digestive tract, say, or even within the blood stream.
The soft millirobot climbs on the water meniscus by changing its body curvature and lands on the solid surface. Next, it encounters a large obstacle and traverses it fast and easily by jumping over it, and walks on the surface after landing. The dashed line shows the direction of the robot motion. |Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
“In the case of digestive or urinary systems, where the current robot could get in with its current size, the robot would be swallowed,” Sitti told Seeker. “For internal organ applications, we would deploy the robot through a small incision, like in the case of laparoscopy. In vascular system applications, we could inject it omto the blood vessels.”
While other ingestible robots have been developed, the millirobot has several advantages over other techniques, according to the research team. Most importantly, the robot is very versatile in its modes of locomotion. Thanks to its biologically inspired design, the millirobot can easily transition from swimming in a liquid to scooting over a solid surface.
“We looked at the physical mechanism of locomotion of soft-bodied caterpillars and jellyfishes and took inspiration from them,” Sitti said. “The result is that our millirobot is a mix of small-scale soft-bodied animals, such as a beetle larva, a caterpillar, a spermatozoid, and a jellyfish.”
Thanks to its biomimetic design, the millirobot has multiple ways to get around, Sitti said. In a video released with the research publication the millirobot is shown inching along like a worm, swimming like a manta ray, and carrying cargo by encircling small objects then rolling them into place.
“After the robot is deployed inside the body, it can be navigated using seven different locomotion methods to reach to the taret disease area,” Sitti said. “Then, the robot can deliver drug locally in a controlled dose by using its shape-change control. This can remove possible side effects that some drugs could have and can also improve the drug delivery efficiency and amount control.”
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Sitti and his research team have further plans for the millirobot, including possible cancer treatment options and a novel cauterization technique.
“As another medical use very soon, we could heat the robot in the target location remotely — using electromagnetic waves — and the heated robot could stop bleeding in a wound or kill cancer cells locally,” Sitti said.
The researchers hope that their soft robot will some day become a standard option for health care providers, offering a space-age option for non-invasive access to hard-to-reach places.
“Currently it is not possible to access many small regions inside the human body without surgery,” Sitti said. “But our target is to reach such regions non-invasively and conduct diagnostic and therapeutic operations with our soft robots.”
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30-03-2018
Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Reportedly Planned For Animal Testing
Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Reportedly Planned For Animal Testing
This innovative—yet controversial—technology could allow humans to communicate through telepathy, have “superpowers” and solve some degenerative diseases of the brain. Furthermore, according to Elon Musk, these brain chips could help prevent Artificial Intelligence from taking over mankind.
However, the idea itself raises a number of questions which many experts can’t really answer.
Is it correct? Is it ethical? And should mankind begin fusing with machines?
Despite the fact we as a society may not have an answer for those questions yet, Elon Musk’s Neuralink is planning to conduct animal trials.
It’s a logical and necessary next step. Apparently.
If Musk’s Neuralink ever wants to connect human minds with machines, it will first have to be tested on animals, something that could soon happen according to Gizmodo, as Neuralink has requested from the University of California a permit to experiment with lab animals and build “a small operating room for testing and another area to house rodents.”
Furthermore, Neuralink is also looking for staff to work in San Francisco on “nanotechnology and next-generation microelectromechanical systems”.
“While many of our resources can be found in typical semiconductor process environments, we are highly interdisciplinary, and the usage often deviates from traditional semiconductor processing,” the listing says.
Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are fundamental tools for establishing brain-machine interfaces.
A calculation presented last month by Grand View Research projected that the market for these devices as medical implants could reach 57,000 million dollars by 2025.
This figure includes devices applicable beyond the brain, such as pacemakers.
However, Neuralink’s interest in MEMS is in line with Musk’s ambition to commercialize a chip that can help people with brain damage and, in his words, “prevent machines with artificial intelligence from overtaking us.”
As noted by Gizmodo, a spokesperson for Neuralink declined to comment on this story and Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the comments of the people who are currently working on Neuralink, Musk’s company is focusing on something known as ‘neural cord’, which is based on small brain electrodes that can one day be charged to enhance our capabilities.
Broadly speaking, Neuralink is a neuroscience company that plans to develop ‘cranial computers’.
The first step of the company will be to treat diseases such as epilepsy, major depression, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but as noted by Musk, these implants could help us prevent AI taking over, something that Musk mentioned a few months ago saying that “Or humans are fused with machines, or artificial intelligence will make us irrelevant.”
How can there still be organs left in the human body to discover? Well, judging from the history of science, it’s because our our methods for analyzing and identifying the many different systems and networks within the body have improved. Think about it: we’ve only been chopping up and poking at the human body for a few centuries. Well, in a scientific sense anyway, not in the destroy-your-enemies-and-eat-their-dismembered-bodies sense. The discovery of DNA is less than a century old, while imaging technologies like magnetic resonance imaging are only a few decades old. Put into context, these relatively recent but groundbreaking advances show how we’re still only beginning to understand the complexities of the human body.
Even more mysteries lie within the folds of the human brain.
Case in point: a team of physicians has just published a studyof what they claim is an organ of the human body which has been completely ignored by medical science until now. They’re calling the organ the interstitium, and describe it as a dense layer of connective tissues found throughout and surrounding nearly the whole body, or a “widespread, macroscopic, fluid-filled space within and between tissues.” The organ was discovered through analyzing frozen body tissues, allowing this fluid-filled layer to retain its form unlike the flat, desiccated samples used in microscopy:
Freezing biopsy tissue before fixation preserved the anatomy of this structure, demonstrating that it is part of the submucosa and a previously unappreciated fluid-filled interstitial space, draining to lymph nodes and supported by a complex network of thick collagen bundles. We observed similar structures in numerous tissues that are subject to intermittent or rhythmic compression, including the submucosae of the entire gastrointestinal tract and urinary bladder, the dermis, the peri-bronchial and peri-arterial soft tissues, and fascia.
If confirmed, the intersitium would become the 80th known organ of the human body. The researchers believe the interstitium serves as a sort of ‘shock absorber’ which helps cushion muscles and organs from impacts or compression due to the movement of the body, while also playing a much more negative role in allowing cancers to metastasize more quickly since the interstitium is connected to the lymphatic system.
Illustration by Jill Gregory, Mount Sinai Health System, licensed under CC-BY-ND.
On a strange note, the researchers claim the interstitium generates a small electrical current as the body moves, which they note might explain the effects of acupuncture. Will the discovery of this new organ lead to new forms of therapy?
For the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), killing people isn’t all that complicated. A budget of more than $600 billion per year buys a whole lot of tanks, guns, and bombs.
But not killing someone proves to be a bit more complicated. How about just stunning them a bit from far away? Or maybe setting their clothes on fire without having to look them in the face?
For that, we’ve got the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Development Program (JNLWD). The program’s purpose: to develop weapons and other devices military personnel can use to incapacitate targets without outright killing them. As explained on the program’s FAQ, the goal of the JNLWD is to fill the gap between “shout and shoot” (truly, we should all be grateful the armed forces acknowledge that such a gap exists).
The JNLWD’s latest breakthrough is the Non-Lethal Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (NL-LIPE) system. They recently gave Defense One a look at the in-development device. And it’s truly a sight to behold.
Rather, a sound to behold. Take a listen below (and maybe make sure your pets are out of the room because, we promise, they really hate this).
Here’s how this device is useful. Imagine an enemy is getting a bit too close for comfort, and you want them to back off.
You could use a stun grenade, a blinding flash of light and noise that leaves the enemy disoriented and stunned. Those only work if you’re close enough to throw them, though.
And maybe you have some good guys standing in between. How do you blast the enemy but not the good guys? That’s where the lasers come in.
First, the NL-LIPE operator shoots a burst of light at the target using a femtosecond laser. This rips electrons from the air molecules to create a ball of plasma at the targeted site. The operator then manipulates the plasma ball using a second nanolaser, directing the plasma to produce sound or light, or even burn clothing.
Right now, of course, the technology is still in development, so it only works under pretty specific conditions. Eventually, though, the military thinks it could get the device to work at distances of tens of kilometers, David Law, head of JNLWD’s technology division, told Defense One. That would give it a longer range than any other non-lethal weapon.
Law also said the researchers believe they’re very close to getting their device to outright “speak” to them, but the creepy almost-voice it already produces would likely be enough to get any enemies to turn tail.
The demise of honey bee populations worldwide has become one of the most pressing ecological concerns of our time. Over the last decade, it’s been estimated that some 30–70% European honey bee colonies have collapsed or disappeared, prompting fears of agricultural collapse due to the vital role honey bees play in pollinating crops. Scientists still aren’t sure what the exact cause of colony collapse might be, although it is believed pesticides, genetically modified crops, or even electromagnetic radiation from cellphone towers might be factors.
Selective commercial breeding is also suspected as contributing to a diminished bee gene pool, opening the doors for many diseases.
To help stave off agricultural catastrophe, engineers around the world have begun tossing around ideas to create tiny droneswhich might pollinate crops in the absence of real bees. While this idea sounds like exactly like a recent Black Mirror episode, things got even more dystopian with the recent discovery of the filing of patent applications for robo-bee systems on behalf of retail giant and all-around nefarious corporation Walmart. What exactly might Walmart be up to?
The same thing they’re up to every night, Pinky: trying to take over the world.
The patent was found and posted online by CB Insights, a market research firm which leverages artificial intelligence to analyze trends and identify future disruptions. The patentdescribes a pretty straightforward centralized network which can control legions of tiny bee drones which go from flower to flower pollinating crops. The patent lists many variations of the same system of pollinating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), some of which do not require human control whatsoever:
In some embodiments, the UAV deployed in the exemplary system does not require physical operation by a human operator and wirelessly communicates with, and is wholly or largely controlled by, the computing device.
Hmm… hordes of tiny autonomous flying bee-bots controlled by the world’s largest retailer…say it with me now: what could go wrong?
A lot, once Wal-Bee version 2.1.0 rolls out.
Walmart has already been aggressively pursuing the grocery market, and many analysts believe these patents show that the massive multinational corporation might be attempting to control the food supply chain. While many of us (myself included) tend to view anything Walmart does with disdain and loathing, CB Insights notes that such a drone bee system could help the retailer “manage crop yields more effectively” and “increase its emphasis on transparency and sustainability to attract shoppers.” Still, is it wise to allow a retailer to have so much control over such a vital part of our society? Time, as always, will tell.
Honshu wolves were abundant in Japan until 1732, when rabies reached the island’s shores. Alongside widescale deforestation and a state-funded culling, the disease ultimately led to wolve’s complete extinction. The last specimen was officially killed in 1905 in Nara prefecture.
Now, in the farmlands near Kisarazu City, they are making a comeback. However, these aren’t the living, breathing wolves we all know (and fear). Rather, it’s a solar-powered robot that’s meant to look like a wolf. And instead of terrorizing Japanese rice farmers, this big, bad wolf is designed to scare off deer, wild boars and other ‘pests’ that have bred uncontrollably ever since wolves disappeared.
The mechanized wolf, officially called “Super Monster Wolf” (SMW), was loaned to the cooperative association JA Kisarazu-shi for the last eight months. Reportedly, the trial has been a resounding success with local farmers happy with the results.
SMW measures 65 centimeters (2.2 feet) in length, which makes it about the size of a real wolf. It’s been adorned with fur, but also with a really weird and menacing-looking face, with angry blood-shot eyes. And I’m sorry to break it to you, but this version doesn’t prance around farms, shrieking and howling. Instead, it’s immobile, much like a scarecrow.
However, it’s infrared sensors alert the bot of any wildlife that comes within a one kilometer (0.6 miles) radius. When it does, it goes full nuclear, emitting a wide range of sounds from classic wolf howls to gunshots — anything to ward off wild boars. Any humans scared to death by SMW can be classed as collateral damage.
Since SMW was installed on July 11, Japanese news outlet The Asahi Shimbunreports that there have been no more signs of wild animals or birds nearby. So, it seems to be working quite nicely. If you’re interested in one for your farm (or evil lair), the Super Monster Wolf will become commercially available in late September for ¥200,000, or $1,810 USD. Quite the price to pay for a high-tech scarecrow, but imagine what an icebreaker this will make at parties.
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05-03-2018
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
CreditChristoph Hitz
When you drive toward an intersection, the sight of the light turning red will (or should) make you step on the brake. This action happens thanks to a chain of events inside your head.
Your eyes relay signals to the visual centers in the back of your brain. After those signals get processed, they travel along a pathway to another region, the premotor cortex, where the brain plans movements.
Now, imagine that you had a device implanted in your brain that could shortcut the pathway and “inject” information straight into your premotor cortex.
That may sound like an outtake from “The Matrix.” But now two neuroscientists at the University of Rochester say they have managed to introduce information directly into the premotor cortex of monkeys. The researchers published the results of the experiment on Thursday in the journal Neuron.
Although the research is preliminary, carried out in just two monkeys, the researchers speculated that further research might lead to brain implants for people with strokes.
“You could potentially bypass the damaged areas and deliver stimulation to the premotor cortex,” said Kevin A. Mazurek, a co-author of the study. “That could be a way to bridge parts of the brain that can no longer communicate.”
In order to study the premotor cortex, Dr. Mazurek and his co-author, Dr. Marc H. Schieber, trained two rhesus monkeys to play a game.
The monkeys sat in front of a panel equipped with a button, a sphere-shaped knob, a cylindrical knob, and a T-shaped handle. Each object was ringed by LED lights. If the lights around an object switched on, the monkeys had to reach out their hand to it to get a reward — in this case, a refreshing squirt of water.
Each object required a particular action. If the button glowed, the monkeys had to push it. If the sphere glowed, they had to turn it. If the T-shaped handle or cylinder lit up, they had to pull it.
After the monkeys learned how to play the game, Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber had them play a wired version. The scientists placed 16 electrodes in each monkey’s brain, in the premotor cortex.
Each time a ring of lights switched on, the electrodes transmitted a short, faint burst of electricity. The patterns varied according to which object the researchers wanted the monkeys to manipulate.
As the monkeys played more rounds of the game, the rings of light dimmed. At first, the dimming caused the monkeys to make mistakes. But then their performance improved.
Eventually the lights went out completely, yet the monkeys were able to use only the signals from the electrodes in their brains to pick the right object and manipulate it for the reward. And they did just as well as with the lights.
This hints that the sensory regions of the brain, which process information from the environment, can be bypassed altogether. The brain can devise a response by receiving information directly, via electrodes.
Neurologists have long known that applying electric current to certain parts of the brain can make people involuntarily jerk certain parts of their bodies. But this is not what the monkeys were experiencing.
Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber were able to rule out this possibility by seeing how short they could make the pulses. With a jolt as brief as a fifth of a second, the monkeys could still master the game without lights. Such a pulse was too short to cause the monkeys to jerk about.
“The stimulation must be producing some conscious perception,” said Paul Cheney, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study.
But what exactly is that something? It’s hard to say. “After all, you can’t easily ask the monkey to tell you what they have experienced,” Dr. Cheney said.
Dr. Schieber speculated that the monkeys “might feel something on their skin. Or they might see something. Who knows what?”
What makes the finding particularly intriguing is that the signals the scientists delivered into the monkey brains had no underlying connection to the knob, the button, the handle or the cylinder.
Once the monkeys started using the signals to grab the right objects, the researchers shuffled them into new assignments. Now different electrodes fired for different objects — and the monkeys quickly learned the new rules.
“This is not a prewired part of the brain for built-in movements, but a learning engine,” said Michael A. Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton University who was not involved in the study.
Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber only implanted small arrays of electrodes into the monkeys. Engineers are working on implantable arrays that might include as many as 1,000 electrodes. So it may be possible one day to transmit far more complex packages of information into the premotor cortex.
Dr. Schieber speculated that someday scientists might be able to use such advanced electrodes to help people who suffer brain damage. Strokes, for instance, can destroy parts of the brain along the pathway from sensory regions to areas where the brain makes decisions and sends out commands to the body.
Implanted electrodes might eavesdrop on neurons in healthy regions, such as the visual cortex, and then forward information into the premotor cortex.
“When the computer says, ‘You’re seeing the red light,’ you could say, ‘Oh, I know what that means — I’m supposed to put my foot on the brake,’” said Dr. Schieber. “You take information from one good part of the brain and inject it into a downstream area that tells you what to do.”
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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 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
