Scientists found the optimal robot body, and it has 20 legs ‪—‬ watch it scale walls and move through trees

A sea-urchin-like robot could offer a new blueprint for making more versatile robots, research suggests.

By Kenna Hughes-Castleberry

A weird 20-legged machine could change how scientists think about the ideal robot form.

For decades, roboticists have been inspired by the natural world, building machines that resemble humans, dogs, insects and even horses. But new research suggests that the most useful robot body may look less like a human and more like a sea urchin.

The robot has no front or back. Its 20 telescoping legs, each costing $300, radiate from a central body, with a depth camera at each leg tip, leading the researchers to name it Argus, after the all-seeing monster of Greek mythology. This design results in a machine that can move in any direction, stabilize itself after being pushed, cross rough terrain, carry a 10-pound (4.5 kilograms) payload and even climb up walls.

"Watching Argus move is unlike watching any other robot we've worked with," Jiaxun Liu, a doctoral student in Duke's General Robotics Lab and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "The first time we saw it navigate among trees and rough terrain, even under heavy collisions [when someone pushed it], we knew this was something different."

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Simulating symmetry

The team arrived at Argus' design after running more than 1,500 simulations of different robot shapes. Instead of asking what animal the robot should resemble, the researchers focused on how symmetrical a machine could be in all directions ‪—‬ a mathematical concept called dynamic isotropy.

The dynamic isotropy score ranges from 0 to 1 and measures how evenly a robot can accelerate its body, or center of mass, in every direction. A score of 1 means a robot can react or move nearly identically in all directions.

"When a robot can accelerate equally well in every direction, it stops needing to face the world in any particular way," Boyuan Chen, director of Duke's General Robotics Lab and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "Forward and backward become the same. Left and right become the same. The whole problem of robot control changes character."

According to the researchers, most robots today — including advanced four-legged robots, humanoids and conventional drones — score below 0.6, meaning they're better at moving or reacting in some directions than others. With its 20 legs, Argus scored a 0.91, close to the theoretical maximum.

To achieve this high score, the team arranged Argus' body around a shape called a regular dodecahedron, a three-dimensional form with 12 pentagonal faces. The arrangement gives the robot a nearly uniform field of view and allows it to move without needing to orient itself the way a conventional robot would.

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Chen said that based on these findings, robots don't need to imitate humans or dogs to boost their agility, and instead are designed from deeper mathematical principles.

Releasing the robot

To test whether Argus' design was truly optimal, the team took the robot out on the Duke campus, where it rolled across concrete, grass, dense foliage, soft sand, wet surfaces and bark. It handled obstacles up to 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) tall, kept moving even after three of its legs were broken, and pushed a 3-foot (1 meter) cube while rolling.

Argus is a proof of concept and not the final answer on the optimal robot design, the researchers wrote in the study. Its broader importance may be in how it was designed rather than where or how it can be used in real-world scenarios ‪—‬ it could be a mathematical way to compare different robot bodies and design new form factors from scratch.

"It shows that designing for dynamic symmetry isn't just a theoretical curiosity," Boxi Xia, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke's General Robotics Lab and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "It produces a robot you can deploy in the wild, on uneven ground and in clutter, even in low-gravity settings. It changes what's possible."

Article Sources

{ https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics }

Humans May Soon Be Able to Regrow Body Parts—Including Fingers and Limbs—Thanks to a Groundbreaking Serum

Hw were they able to do this? According to study author Ken Muneoka, PhD, professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology at Texas A&M, he and his team amputated part of a mouse’s finger. From there, researchers followed three steps to regrow the digit:

• Wait for initial healing: Instead of treating the wound right away, Muneoka and his team waited for the skin to close up and heal over. The wound actually has the highest potential to regrow right when the skin closes and the body’s natural inflammation peaks, Muneoka explains.
• Apply the first protein (FGF2): Once the skin closed, Muneoka and his team implanted a tiny bead containing a protein called FGF2. While this protein doesn’t cause full regrowth on its own in adult mice, it successfully stops the body from forming a scar, according to Muneoka. Instead, it tricks the wound cells into forming a “blastema”—a mass of multiplying, unprogrammed cells that is usually seen when animals like salamanders regrow lost limbs. Simply put, it helps the body form a “blueprint.”
• Apply the second protein (BMP2): After the blastema formed, Muneoka and his team treated it with a second protein called BMP2. On its own, BMP2 only helps fix and lengthen broken bones, according to Muneoka. However, because it was applied after the first protein, it uses the newly formed blastema cells to grow an entirely new, complete bone at the tip of the finger.

So, could someone who is born with, say, an underdeveloped limb be able to grow a new one using this treatment—or does the human body lack the blueprint? According to Muneoka, it depends on the reason for the underdeveloped limb.

“The human body uses the ‘blueprint’ to form the limb in the embryo, and we found evidence that this ‘blueprint’ is re-utilized when regeneration is stimulated by our treatment,” Muneoka says. In other words, someone whose limb was underdeveloped because of external factors in vivo, such as alcohol or drug exposure, might see better results than someone whose underdeveloped limb was caused by a genetic modification—or a damaged blueprint. “If the ‘blueprint’ is intact, then the expectation is that the regeneration should be possible,” he says. The amount of time this would take isn’t yet known.

If this treatment has the potential to regrow human limbs, what else could it do? Could it eventually be used to regrow more complex structures, like organs? There are studies—such as one published in Nature Genetics and another in PNAS—that show lung formation and limb formation share similar genetic requirements, according to Muneoka. There’s also research in salamanders that show that two proteins that are important for limb regeneration are also important for regeneration of other structures, such as gills.

“This suggests that the regenerative process may have universal characteristics, which gives us hope that our strategy for stimulating digit regeneration could have broad application,” Muneoka says. “We believe that our study outlines a general strategy for enhancing regenerative capabilities in humans. The specific details for this strategy will likely differ between organ systems, and that needs to be determined empirically.”

The tricky part, Muneoka says, is that organ regeneration requires time that may not be possible if the organ’s use is required to stay alive. So depending on the extent of the organ’s damage, a transplant from a donor may still be necessary.

Regeneration of body parts is unlikely to lead to immortality, though, according to Muneoka. “If individuals could regenerate organs throughout their lives, it would improve the quality of life, and it may enhance lifespan,” he says. But he points to a 2021 mouse study that he worked on, which found that blastema formation and the quality of the regenerative response declines with age.

So while we won’t be able to live forever or sprout a new pair of lungs overnight, the blueprint for human regeneration is already coded inside us—an exciting step forward for what’s possible when it comes to human healing.

{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/ }

Experts Find 'Anomaly' Near the Great Pyramids

Nick Brundle Photography - Getty Images

Ground-penetrating radar has enabled archaeologists to identify hidden structures beneath the surface. A new study conducted by Japanese and Egyptian researchers has revealed an L-shaped structure accompanied by a nearby anomaly next to the Great Pyramids of Giza. While the precise nature of the anomaly is unknown, the researchers speculate that the L-shaped feature could potentially be an entrance to a deeper structure.

In archaeology, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has transformed the way sites are studied. This geophysical technique sends radar pulses into the ground to create subsurface images. Similar methods have previously uncovered Viking longships in Norway, revealed lost civilizations within the Amazon rainforest, and even mapped entire Roman cities without any excavation.

Once again, GPR has yielded discoveries near one of the world’s most thoroughly explored sites—the Great Pyramids of Giza. The research team, led by Motoyuki Sato of Tohoku University, combined GPR with electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), a method that uses variations in electrical resistance to map underground features. Using these techniques, they detected what they describe as an “L-shaped anomaly” in the western cemetery close to the pyramids.

Darren Orf

In the world of archeology, few tools have revolutionized the field as much as ground-penetrating radar (GPR). This geophysical technique uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. Similar techniques have uncovered Viking longships in Norway, revealed lost civilizations in the Amazonian jungle, and even entire Roman cities without ever putting a shovel into dirt.

In 2024, GPR once again delivered near one of the most well-excavated sites in the world—the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Researchers led by Tohoku University's Motoyuki Sato used GPR, along with electrical resistivity tomography, or ERT, to survey a "blank" patch of the Western Cemetery, the elite burial zone west of the Great Pyramid. The scans showed an L-shaped structure near the surface, with a deeper anomaly below it.

GPR sends radar pulses into the ground. ERT maps how strongly buried materials resist electrical current. Together, the methods gave the team a look at shapes and contrasts below the sand without opening the ground.

According to the team's research paper, published in the journal Archeological Prospection, the structure is roughly 6.5 feet from the surface, measures 33 feet in length, and was backfilled after construction.

"The Western Cemetery at Giza is known as an important burial place of members of the royal family and high-class officers," the paper reads. "In the initial survey by GPR and ERT we found an anomaly in the north of the survey site. The area of the anomaly could be established approximately, but the structure and the location were unclear."

Below the L-shaped feature, the team reported a deeper anomaly 16 to 33 feet underground and described it as "highly electrically resistive." That could mean a few things. The paper pointed to two possibilities: a mixture of sand and gravel, or sparse spacing with air voids. The cemetery around it is packed with mastabas, the flat-roofed tombs associated with elite burials at Giza. This particular patch drew less attention because it did not have the kind of visible surface architecture that usually pulls archaeologists in.

Later research and heritage-science literature treats the 2024 paper as an example of integrated GPR/ERT work in Egypt, but the Western Cemetery anomaly has not been upgraded into a solved archaeological case.

So, what exactly could this L-shape structure and its lower anomaly represent? Speaking with Live Science, Sato said the structure is likely not natural, as the shape is too sharp.

"It may have been an entrance to the deeper structure," Sato and his colleagues wrote in the paper. But "may" is doing real work here. The scan doesn't identify what is below the L-shaped feature, and the researchers didn't claim they had found a tomb. "From the survey results, we cannot determine the material causing the anomaly," they wrote, "but it may be a large subsurface archaeological structure."

The paper called for excavation to establish the anomaly's purpose. Until that happens publicly, the cleanest version of the story is that something unusual showed up in the scans beside the Great Pyramid, and archaeologists still don't know exactly what it is.

This Western Cemetery study is separate from viral claims about enormous hidden structures beneath the Pyramid of Khafre, which Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass publicly rejected in 2025. The GPR/ERT study near the Great Pyramid is peer-reviewed and real—but it's also unresolved.

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{ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/ }

Astrophysicist Avi Loeb explains government secrecy on UAPs

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{ https://www.foxnews.com/# }

Yale Professor John Coleman Darnell, the expedition’s leader and the co-director of the Elkab Desert Survey Project, said the newly discovered inscriptions, which were not recorded by any previous scientific expedition, include samples as far back as 4,000 BCE.

Although the team concedes that these are not the first examples of this specific style of rock art, they are the first of this ancient age and “monumental” scale, making them of great significance in the history of ancient Egyptian writing systems.

“This was not what I was expecting to find when I set out on this period of work on the expedition,” Professor Darnell said of the historic find. “It was completely shocking to me.”

The expedition, which was directed by Darnell and Dirk Huyge, was undertaken in cooperation with the Ministry of Antiquities and the Aswan and Edfu inspectorates.

After photographing the newly discovered inscription, Darnell and Alberto Urcia, a digital archaeologist and associate research scientist in the University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, created a series of three-dimensional (3D) images. Darnell said the new technology allows archaeologists to record ancient sites and artworks “at a level of accuracy and detail that was absolutely impossible before.”

“It also means that we can record the site as a place, or a location, and not just as a series of inscriptions,” the professor added.

One of the more noteworthy examples of ancient monumental hieroglyphs, carved sometime between 4,000 and 3,500 BCE, depicted a herd of elephants. A closer examination also revealed that one of the elephants had an image of a smaller elephant inside of it, which Professor Darnell described as “an incredibly rare way of representing a pregnant female animal.”

A second discovery detailed by the joint expedition, which consists of four separate panels, was likely created sometime around 3,250 BCE. Written right to left, which ultimately became the dominant writing form in later Egyptian hieroglyphic languages, the panels show animal images of a bull’s head on a short pole, followed by two back-to-back saddlebill storks with a bald ‘ibis’ bird above and between them.

The research team said this arrangement of symbols is common in Egyptian representations created centuries after the newly discovered panels depicting the solar cycle. These same depictions typically include imagery of luminosity. Darnell suggested that the images may also express “the concept of royal authority over the ordered cosmos.”

“This is the First Time That Anyone Has Seen Them on Such a Massive Scale”

When discussing the importance of the new find, Professor Darnell noted the immense size of the individual tableaus and their elements. For example, each individual hieroglyph identified by the Yale-led team measures over half a meter in height. The professor also noted that the entire tableau “is about 70 centimeters (27.5 inches) in height,” whereas previously discovered signs of early Egyptian hieroglyphs were “only one or two centimeters in size.”

“This discovery isn’t new in the sense that this is the first time that anyone has seen these hieroglyphs,” Darnell explained, “this is the first time that anyone has seen them on such a massive scale.”

To offer a perspective on the discovery’s significance, the professor said a modern-world equivalent would be seeing smaller text displayed on your computer screen, “and then suddenly seeing very large ones made the same way,” only displayed up on a highway billboard.

When discussing the site’s location in the northeastern desert hinterland of Elkab, Darnell noted that it was a “very important” center in ancient Egypt, which demonstrates that the area’s budding communicative system “is not limited to the more commonly found small tokens or labels.”

The professor also said the study shows that ancient writing did not develop slowly “for bureaucratic use,” as researchers had previously believed. Instead, Darnell suggested that the discovery shows hieroglyphic-style writing “was more geographically widespread and topically diverse at the time of or shortly after its development.”

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

Where is the 3I/ATLAS Now? Harvard Physicist Claims 12-Billion-Year-Old Relic Is an Alien Probe

A frozen wanderer older than the Sun has slipped through our skies, leaving behind data, debate and a reminder of how little we know about the galaxy we live in.

By Briane Nebria

3I/ATLAS

PHOTO International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin/NSF NOIRLab

An interstellar comet known as 3I/ATLAS, which swept past the Sun in 2024, could be a 12‑billion‑year‑old relic from deep space and has even been described by a Harvard physicist as a possible alien probe, according to new research and long-running controversy over its origins. The object, only the third confirmed interstellar visitor ever seen in our solar system, was tracked as it brightened dramatically before heading back out towards the dark between the stars.

3I/ATLAS first appeared in telescopes in July 2024, immediately drawing attention because its orbit made clear it did not originate in our own planetary system. Its steep, hyperbolic trajectory marked it out as a true interstellar interloper, following in the footsteps of 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. Those earlier objects were too faint and fleeting to yield much detail. This time, astronomers had a rare opportunity: a comparatively bright comet, passing close enough to the Sun for the world's most powerful observatories to pick it apart.

3I/ATLAS, Alien Probe Claims And Nasa's Firm Rebuttal

The attention on 3I/ATLAS did not come only from astronomers quietly poring over data. Almost as soon as it was announced, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb began speculating publicly that the object might be artificial, suggesting it could be some form of alien spacecraft or probe. Loeb has spent years arguing that ʻOumuamua might have been engineered technology rather than a natural rock or comet, and he saw echoes of that debate in 3I/ATLAS.

NASA, though, moved quickly to shut that line of thought down. The space agency rejected the alien spacecraft suggestion, pointing instead to the emerging science that painted 3I/ATLAS as an unusually old, but natural, fragment of ice and dust. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, better known as Seti, later backed that assessment, saying it had found 'no evidence of extraterrestrial technology' associated with the comet.

Nothing in the publicly released data confirms Loeb's more provocative claims and, at this stage, any talk of alien probes remains firmly in the realm of speculation. Without direct signatures of technology, the balance of evidence lies heavily on the side of an exotic but natural object, and all such suggestions should be taken with a grain of salt.

3I/ATLAS as seen from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter  PHOTO NASA/X

What The Telescopes Saw In 3I/ATLAS

Behind the headlines, the real story of 3I/ATLAS lies in the painstaking work done with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) in Chile. These instruments allowed scientists to analyse the comet's chemical make-up in unprecedented detail.

In a study published in Nature, a team led by Martin Cordiner of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center reported that 3I/ATLAS contains around ten times more deuterium a heavy form of hydrogen than is typically found in comets and other icy bodies in our own solar system. That excess deuterium shows up in 'heavy water,' where deuterium replaces normal hydrogen.

Cordiner said this chemical fingerprint could only be explained if 3I/ATLAS formed in an environment that was extraordinarily cold. According to the team's interpretation of astrochemical models, the comet's building blocks must have condensed at temperatures close to absolute zero, around –243C. That places its birth in some frigid region of a long‑vanished protoplanetary cloud, far from the warming influence of any young star.

Taken together with its inferred age of up to 12 billion years, the object looks less like a curiosity and more like a fossil. Cordiner described 3I/ATLAS as 'maybe the oldest object to have been observed in our solar system' and suggested it could be a relic from 'cosmic noon', the era when star formation across the universe was near its peak.

If that age estimate holds, 3I/ATLAS predates our own solar system by more than seven billion years. For billions of those years, it may have drifted on 'vast unimaginable trajectories around our galaxy', as Cordiner put it, slowly circling the Milky Way before a chance gravitational nudge flung it through our neighbourhood.

NASA is studying interstellar object 3I/ATLAS to refine its planetary defence systems, using the comet’s rare trajectory as a real-time test for Earth impact prevention strategies. N ASA/Science.nasa.gov

A Once‑Only Visitor, And The Future Of Interstellar Hunts

The scientific community is treating 3I/ATLAS as a one‑off opportunity. Astronomer Peter Veres, who helped confirm the comet's interstellar status at the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, called the research 'exciting' but cautioned that the clock is ticking. The comet is already receding, moving back out of the solar system and onto an escape path that means it 'will never return.' As its distance grows, fresh observations will become steadily harder, then effectively impossible.

It is precisely that sense of fleeting contact that makes 3I/ATLAS feel both mundane and profound. On one hand, the data points towards a perfectly natural explanation anchored in chemistry, not science fiction. On the other, this is tangible material from a different stellar nursery, older than the Sun, briefly lighting our skies before vanishing into the dark.

Astronomers expect that 3I/ATLAS will not be the last such messenger. New survey telescopes, particularly the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile, are designed to sweep the sky repeatedly and pick up fast‑moving, faint objects that older surveys would have missed. Cordiner believes this is 'just the beginning of an exciting new field,' arguing that each new interstellar comet or asteroid will carry a different piece of the story of how planets and stars formed across the galaxy.

Key points about 3I/ATLAS can be summed up simply. It is only the third confirmed interstellar object ever observed. Its isotopic make‑up suggests an origin in ultra‑cold conditions, and its age may reach back three times further than that of our solar system.

3I/ATLAS Unsplash

Claims that it might be an alien probe remain unproven and are contradicted by current observational evidence. For now, 3I/ATLAS looks like what the data says it is: an ancient, icy fragment from somewhere else in the Milky Way, glimpsed once and then lost to interstellar space again.

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5 real UFO coverups you missed in 'Disclosure Day'

Steven Spielberg has captivated audiences for decades with cinematic masterpieces like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., but his film Disclosure Day marks a sharp turn toward historical reality. Inspired by the groundbreaking 2017 New York Times exposé on the Pentagon's secret UAP task force, the film blurs the lines between Hollywood entertainment and genuine ufology. This comprehensive breakdown explores the five real-world historical pillars anchoring the plot, evaluating the actual declassified documents, congressional testimonies, and folklore that Spielberg used to piece together his narrative.

{ https://mashable.com/entertainment?_}

Two plasmoid orbs over guys neighborhood, June 5, 2026, UFO UAP Sighting News.

Date of sighting: June 5, 2026

Location of sighting: Boise, Idaho, USA

Source: NUFORC

 

These are cloud orbs, at night they glow when they want to be seen. Often mistaken for angelic beings at night, they glow and flux as a sphere in the sky. I wonder...were they testing the guys reaction to them, recording his behavior, thoughts and more, because these energy entities can read your mind from a long ways away. 

Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Scientists propose radical new theory of consciousness – and claim it doesn't depend on flesh and blood

• READ MORE: Start–up using disembodied human BRAINS for drug testing

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Human consciousness is one of the strangest and most stubbornly elusive phenomena in nature.

Now, researchers have proposed a radical theory that suggests consciousness doesn't depend on flesh and blood.

According to their 'Copernican Principle', consciousness isn't some special property that is only found in humans and a handful of creatures with similar biology.

That means brains and bodies radically different from our own should be able to experience the universe just like we do.

This has huge implications for our search for life amongst the stars, since conscious beings might be nothing like life as we know it.

This bold theory opens the door to conscious aliens with entirely different biological chemistry from our own, like 'Rocky' from Project Hail Mary.

And it might mean that there's nothing preventing an artificial intelligence from becoming conscious.

Co–author Professor Eric Schwitzgebel, of the University of California, says: 'The universe may contain minds stranger than we can imagine.'

Researchers have proposed a bold new theory of consciousness, which says that it doesn't rely on flesh and blood 

Very roughly, we can define consciousness as the 'what it is like' aspect of existence.

The big question scientists and philosophers have spent years debating is whether this property is 'substrate flexible'.

This means that it can be 'realised' by lots of different types of things, just like the property of 'being a cup' can be realised by something made of glass or plastic.

Recently, some researchers have made the case that consciousness isn't substrate–flexible at all, meaning it can only arise in very specific types of biological systems.

This essentially narrows down the range of creatures that could be conscious to a very small slice of possible life that includes creatures on Earth and those with Earth–like biology.

That might seem like a harmless assumption until we start to think about the baffling variety of life that could exist out in the wider universe.

Professor Schwitzgebel and his co–author Dr Jeremy Pober, from the University of Lisbon, suggest that if advanced civilisations arise in just one galaxy in every billion, there would still be over 1,000 scattered over time and space.

The authors say that consciousness shouldn't be unique to things with human–like biology. This means that silicon–based life, like Rocky from Project Hail Mary, could also be conscious

Given the wide variety of possible environments in which they might flourish, it should be no surprise that many of these creatures would be very different to us.

Dr Pober told the Daily Mail that aliens could have 'high level' differences in terms of their functional architecture, but could also differ at the 'much lower level' of basic biochemistry.

'Astrobiologists and biochemists have shown that carbon–based life, which is nonetheless significantly different in biochemical composition from ours, is possible,' says Dr Pober.

For example, life that evolved in the sulphuric acid clouds of Venus might have silicon take the role that sulphur plays in our biochemistry.

However, no matter how advanced or intelligent these creatures might be, some theorists suggest that these differences rule them out from being considered conscious.

To Dr Pober and Professor Schwitzgebel, this is an obvious mistake.

Instead, they propose something called the 'Copernican Principle of Consciousness'.

The idea is that we shouldn't simply assume that humans and our particular type of conscious experience are special or unique.

Their ideas are inspired by the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (pictured), who showed that Earth wasn't in a special place in the universe. Likewise, they argue that we shouldn't think of human consciousness as special

What was the Copernican Revolution in astronomy?

The so–called Copernican Revolution was one of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of thought.

For thousands of years, astronomers had assumed that Earth was at the centre of the universe, with the sun and other planets orbiting us.

However, in 1543, a Polish astronomer called Nicolaus Copernicus published a work called 'Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs'.

This laid out the theory that Earth actually orbited the sun.

This had the consequence of suggesting that Earth was not the centre of the universe, and that humanity was not as important as the Church suggested.  

This draws inspiration from the so–called 'Copernican Revolution' in astronomy, in which astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus realised Earth wasn't at the centre of the universe.

Before Copernicus, people thought that Earth occupied a special or privileged position in the universe.

However, better scientific understanding has shown that it is better to assume that there is nothing special about Earth or humans until proven otherwise.

Dr Pober says: 'The spirit of the Copernican Principle is: we should believe that we as humans are special when we have evidence that says so, but not when we don't.

For example, we have plenty of evidence to suggest that humans are the most intelligent species on Earth, but absolutely no reason to think we are even nearly the most intelligent in the universe.

Once we apply this idea to consciousness, Dr Pober says there's no reason to think that consciousness needs to rely on flesh and blood.

The big consequence of that idea is that it vastly expands the possible range of life forms that could be having conscious experiences out in the wider universe.

The researchers are dubious that silicon–based lifeforms like Rocky or the Horta from Star Trek are biologically viable.

The researchers are divided over whether this means artificial intelligences, like Skynet from The Terminator, could be conscious in the future 

But if they did exist, there is no reason to think that they wouldn't be conscious.

However, Dr Pober and Professor Schwitzgebel don't agree on what this means for AI.

On the one hand, Dr Pober isn't convinced that we shouldn't be so flexible with what can be considered conscious.

'There is good reason to think some aliens with biochemistries are conscious,' he says.

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•  Is AI already conscious? Richard Dawkins is left convinced after spending 72 hours with Claude 

'The extent of this difference – the degree of substrate flexibility of consciousness, if you will – does not extend to stuff as different from us as silicon chips.'

However, Professor Schwitzgebel argues that we should be even more flexible about what sorts of systems can be considered conscious.

Once the idea that consciousness requires human biology is abandoned, he argues, it becomes harder to justify excluding silicon–based systems solely because they are made of silicon.

Professor Schwitzgebel adds that philosophers have 'focused too much on whether silicon can duplicate a human brain and not enough on the broader question of what kinds of systems can be conscious.'

HOW SOON WILL WE BE ABLE TO UPLOAD OUR MINDS TO A COMPUTER?

Brain and memory preservation has been explored at length by futurists, scientists and science fiction junkies alike. 

Many say it falls under the category of 'transhumanism.'  

Transhumanism is the belief that the human body can evolve beyond its current form with the help of scientists and technology.  

The practice of mind uploading has been promoted by many people, including Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, who believes we will be able to upload our entire brains to computers by 2045.

Similar technologies have been depicted in science fiction dramas, ranging from Netflix's Altered Carbon, to the popular series Black Mirror.  

Another prominent futurist, Dr Michio Kaku, believes virtual reality can be used to keep our loved ones' personalities and memories alive even after they die. 

Scientists and futurists have different theories about how we might be able to preserve the human brain, ranging from uploading our memories to a computer to Nectome's high-tech embalming process, which can keep it intact for thousands of years

'Imagine being able to speak to your loved one after they die ... it is possible if their personality has been downloaded onto a computer as an avatar,' he explained. 

These ideas haven't been met without criticism. 

McGill University Neuroscientist Michael Hendricks told MIT that these technologies are a 'joke.'

'I hope future people are appalled that in the 21st century, the richest and most comfortable people in history spent their money and resources trying to live forever on the backs of their descendants. I mean, it’s a joke, right? They are cartoon bad guys,' he said. 

Meanwhile, neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis said recently that such technologies would be virtually impossible. 

'The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,' he said. 

'You can have all the computer chips in the world and you won't create a consciousness.'

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See Stonehenge's construction like NEVER before: Incredible visual reveals the vast manpower needed to haul the 25–tonne stones into position 5,000 years ago

• READ MORE: Archaeologists discover Stonehenge's secret sister site 

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

An incredible new visual has revealed Stonehenge's construction like never before.

Created by English Heritage based on laser scan data and archaeological research, this is the most accurate and detailed reconstruction ever made.

The monument we see today took around 1,500 years to build, from about 3100 BC to 1600 BC, although the visual focuses on the the main phase of construction, which took place around 2500 BC.

Hundreds of people would have come together to pull, hoist, and set the enormous sarsen stones that form the iconic stone circle, according to experts. 

Its builders also used surprisingly ingenious devices and techniques to make this mammoth task a little easier.

This transformed Stonehenge from a simple ring of ditches and wooden posts to the most sophisticated ritual site in ancient Britain.

Dr Susan Greaney, an archaeologist from the University of Exeter, who worked on the reconstruction, told the Daily Mail: 'In this new reconstruction, the sarsens are being raised into place by chocking them up on a pile of boulders, smaller sarsens and hammerstones, rather than the A–frame and weights seen in other reconstructions. 

'This is based on some evidence for how the Easter Island statues were raised, which are a similar weight and size.'

Created by English Heritage based on laser scan data and archaeological research, this is the most accurate and detailed reconstruction ever made 

New research suggests that the large sarsen stones were raised by propping them up with piles of rubble 

This stunning reconstruction, created for the book Stonehenge: The Story of an Icon, shows the builders transporting the enormous 'sarsen' stones to the site on the Salisbury Plain.

These are the largest and most recognisable stones in Stonehenge, forming both the standing pillars and the horizontal 'lintels' that cap the arches.

Archaeologists believe that they would have been taken from the edge of the Marlborough Downs, located about 15 miles to the North.

With the largest of these stones weighing over 36 tonnes and measuring seven metres long, moving these would have been an enormous task.

More than 150 people might have worked together to pull a single stone along a track made of timber greased with animal fat.

However, researchers say this is not necessarily because the task was so difficult, but because pulling the stones was part of a celebration.

Professor Duncan Garrow, an archaeologist from Durham University, co–curated a new digital exhibition on the monument with the British Museum, called The Virtual World of Stonehenge.

He told the Daily Mail: 'People get really into building monuments in the Neolithic period, and Stonehenge is the peak of that.

Archaeologists believe that the building of Stonehenge might have been even more important than the finished project, serving as a way of bringing the community together. Illustrated: A Neolithic man explains Stonehenge's construction to children

It helped the community come together, so building it was very much part of the meaning and the purpose.'

Once the stones made it to the site, they still needed to be expertly shaped.

The ground at Salisbury Plain isn't exactly level, so each stone had to be precisely cut to the right height, and archaeologists have found piles of waste stone chips nearby.

Finally, the outer circle was topped with the lintels that formed a smooth, continuous ring around the entire structure.

While the Neolithic is known as the Stone Age, the people of this time were actually far more familiar with woodworking than stone carving.

This expertise can be seen in the traditional woodworking techniques used to fasten the lintels, with each massive stone being secured with dovetail joints and mortise and tenon fittings.

Archaeologists believe that building Stonehenge would have taken around five and a half million hours of labour – with four and a half million of those spent on the large sarsen stones.

Of course, the most impressive aspect of this gargantuan construction project is that Stonehenge aligns perfectly with the movements of the sun.

The large lintels were lifted into position by building timber platforms. Each lintel was then fitted with a mortise and tenon joint 

The summer solstice sunrise perfectly aligns with the outlying Heel Stone, while the winter solstice sun sets directly between the uprights of the tallest Trilithon.

While earlier structures such as long barrows were built to align with the sunrise or sunset, this is the first structure that 'points' at the solstice.

Professor Garrow says: 'Once people started farming during the Neolithic period, they had more invested in planting crops, so it was a bigger deal if the harvest failed.

'So, good weather and a good year of sunshine and rain to make the crops grow become more important, and that escalated into a kind of religious focus on the sunshine.'

It is thought that this was centred around enormous gatherings around the summer and winter solstice, involving hundreds to thousands of people from all around the country.

Archaeologists believe that the Stonehenge builders stayed at the nearby site of Durrington Walls, one of the largest henges in Britain, measuring 500 metres across.

Excavations have evidence of mass feasting, with chemical analysis of pig bones and animal teeth revealing that these animals had been transported from as far as Scotland and west Wales.

Dr Matt Leivers, senior research manager, Wessex Archaeology, told the Daily Mail: 'Further away, very large numbers of people gathered for feasts, and we can imagine opportunities for things like exchange of foreign objects, marriage partners, settling of disputes, competition, games, all that sort of thing.'

However, while the gatherings near Stonehenge would have been 'seasonal fairs', the focus at the circle itself would have been religious.

'It was essentially a cathedral,' says Dr Leivers.

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'Imagine Salisbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey. It's the single crowning achievement of the expression of Neolithic religion in the English south.'

Exactly what those ritual gatherings would have looked like is hard to say, but researchers are now beginning to piece together a few scant clues.

Dr Leivers says: 'The evidence from Stonehenge tells us that there probably wasn't a lot done inside the circles that left a lot of material behind – so imagine that as a sacred centre.

'Most people would have been gathered outside the circles, watching, praying, celebrating – maybe singing, drumming, or maybe in silence.'

The Stonehenge monument standing today was the final stage of a four part building project that ended 3,500 years ago

Stonehenge is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain. The Stonehenge that can be seen today is the final stage that was completed about 3,500 years ago. 

According to the monument's website, Stonehenge was built in four stages:   

First stage: The first version of Stonehenge was a large earthwork or Henge, comprising a ditch, bank and the Aubrey holes, all probably built around 3100 BC. 

The Aubrey  holes are round pits in the chalk, about one metre (3.3 feet) wide and deep, with steep sides and flat bottoms. 

Stonehenge (pictured) is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain

They form a circle about 86.6 metres (284 feet) in diameter. 

Excavations revealed cremated human bones in some of the chalk filling, but the holes themselves were likely not made to be used as graves, but as part of a religious ceremony.

After this first stage, Stonehenge was abandoned and left untouched for more than 1,000 years. 

Second stage: The second and most dramatic stage of Stonehenge started around 2150 years BC, when about 82 bluestones from the Preseli mountains in south-west Wales were transported to the site. It's thought that the stones, some of which weigh four tonnes each, were dragged on rollers and sledges to the waters at Milford Haven, where they were loaded onto rafts.

They were carried on water along the south coast of Wales and up the rivers Avon and Frome, before being dragged overland again near Warminster and Wiltshire.

The final stage of the journey was mainly by water, down the river Wylye to Salisbury, then the Salisbury Avon to west Amesbury. 

The journey spanned nearly 240 miles, and once at the site, the stones were set up in the centre to form an incomplete double circle. 

During the same period, the original entrance was widened and a pair of Heel Stones were erected. The nearer part of the Avenue, connecting Stonehenge with the River Avon, was built aligned with the midsummer sunrise. 

Third stage: The third stage of Stonehenge, which took place about 2000 years BC, saw the arrival of the sarsen stones (a type of sandstone), which were larger than the bluestones.

They were likely brought from the Marlborough Downs (40 kilometres, or 25 miles, north of Stonehenge). 

The largest of the sarsen stones transported to Stonehenge weighs 50 tonnes, and transportation by water would not have been possible, so it's suspected that they were transported using sledges and ropes. 

Calculations have shown that it would have taken 500 men using leather ropes to pull one stone, with an extra 100 men needed to lay the rollers in front of the sledge.

These stones were arranged in an outer circle with a continuous run of lintels - horizontal supports. 

Inside the circle, five trilithons - structures consisting of two upright stones and a third across the top as a lintel - were placed in a horseshoe arrangement, which can still be seen today. 

Final stage: The fourth and final stage took place just after 1500 years BC, when the smaller bluestones were rearranged in the horseshoe and circle that can be seen today.

The original number of stones in the bluestone circle was probably around 60, but these have since been removed or broken up. Some remain as stumps below ground level. 

Source: Stonehenge.co.uk 

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