The Yellow Brick Road

The road to the "Emerald City" of the future is taking us past some interesting technological scenery. From biotech to nanotech to robotics and machine intelligence, if we can keep the violent religious and ideological fanatics occupied elsewhere, our future should look even stranger than the Land of Oz.

A few weeks ago, bioengineers at Keio University in Japan demonstrated control of the computer game Second Life using a non-invasive “brain-computer” interface. Cyberonics, a Houston-based company, markets an implantable brain chip that was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat depression.

Of course depression is just one of many human ills the Transhumanists promise to eliminate — along with cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, baldness, poverty, global warming, aging and ultimately death.

Perhaps the futurists’ predictions are too wild, and their time scale overly ambitious. Surely human inefficiency, religious reticence and global political instability could slow down the transformation. But ultimately, we are quibbling over when, not if, it will happen.

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Consider the many things you will ask your "Home Fab" to make for you. And once we understand the magic of "self-assembly" better, what nanotechnological marvels will we eventually "shake and bake?"

We need smarter brains, and pharmacologists are working on that. Using marvelous new tools for imaging the body and the functioning brain, scientists are solving many of the problems that have prevented us from shaping our own future selves.

We do need to be smarter, and certainly if we suffer damage to our brains, we need better ways of restoring ourselves to full neural function. We plan to live a long time, and the brain will certainly suffer from traumatic and degenerative change over many decades and centuries of time.

We can try to follow the many projects of organisations such as SENS, CRN, The Lifeboat Foundation, the Singularity Institute, Foresight Institute, and those of many other institutions. Although we cannot possibly follow them all as closely as we would like, with the magic of high speed internet and hyperlinked multimedia, we can at least scan across the tip of the iceberg. I do recommend making personal connections with people who at least are dipping their toes in the current. Check out some of the links on the Al Fin sidebar.

Mixed News and Thoughts

Here are the Top Ten Forecasts for 2008 from the editors of The Futurist. Interesting, but like Wired magazine, The Futurist often seems a bit "retro" to people who actually have imaginations. ;-)

This fascinating SciAm article looks at what happens in the brains of mystics, when they "see God." The article goes far beyond previous speculations and claims for the temporal lobe as the seat of the mystical impulse. Must reading for anyone with an interest in both neuroscience and the human mystic.

What happens when you insert human nuclear material into animal eggs? Read this Technology Review article to learn more about this fascinating "end run" around limitations in the supply of human eggs for embryonic stem cell research.

Craig Venter has gone beyond all of the human--animal cell controversy. No, Venter is going to make his own living cells from scratch, thanks. While this venture holds many hidden hazards, it also holds great promise for teasing out the very basic mysteries of life. I hope these labs have excellent bio-containment, although at these early stages the danger is probably minimal.

A new form of plastic that is not only transparent, but "strong as steel" is described in this physorg.com article. Materials science keeps chugging along, whether you pay attention to it or not.

Hat tip for above links to KurzweilAI.net

Here is yet another way that medical scientists may be able to stop cancer cells from multiplying. Hat tip Brian Wang.

Finally, here is an information packed look at the different ways that science may significantly raise the average IQ of the human population of Earth. As Brian Wang says, it is not just about selecting the genome.

Plasma Shields, Laser Snipers, Perpetual Nuclear Fuel Recycling

The US military aims to introduce some rather exotic weapons into the battlefield of the near future.

The Plasma Acoustic Shield System will eventually combine a dynamic pulse detonation laser with a high power speaking for hailing or warning, and a dazzler light source. PASS has already been demonstrated by the system's makers, Stellar Photonics.

"It uses a programmed pattern of rapid plasma events to create a sort of wall of bright lights and reports (bangs) over the coverage area," says Keith Braun of the US Army's Advanced Energy Armaments Systems Division at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, US, where the system is being tested.

...The company has also pitched a portable laser rifle, which would be lethal, to the US Army. It would weigh about fifteen kilograms, would have a range of more than a mile, and could have numerous advantages over existing rifles – better accuracy and the ability to hit a moving target at the speed of light.

It could also be used in non-lethal mode, "offering the individual soldier a first response non-lethal alternative, with the capability to go lethal should the situation call for that level of response", says Braun. But extensive testing of its effects on humans would need to be carried out before it could be legitimately used as a non-lethal weapon.

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Meanwhile, Oak Ridge National Lab wants to recycle all that nuclear waste from nuclear reactors, that had been slated for the Yucca Mountain waste disposal site.

The aim of the demo -- part of a controversial $405-million government project called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) -- is to transform nuclear leftovers into fuel for a new breed of reactors. The new reactor/fuel combo, GNEP officials say, could produce up to 100 times as much energy as conventional reactors and could generate 40 percent less waste.

The initiative is a key part of the Bush administration's long-term strategy to meet America's rising demand for electricity -- according to the DOE, it's expected to jump by 45 percent from 4,000 billion kilowatt-hours in 2005 to 5,800 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030 -- without creating more greenhouse gases.

"Nuclear energy is the biggest source we have for meeting our energy needs without contributing to global warming," says Sherrell Greene, director of the nuclear-technology program at Oak Ridge, one of the 13 potential recycling sites selected earlier this year by the DOE.

Another central GNEP objective is to deal with the nation's growing nuclear-waste problem: The country's 103 nuclear reactors produce 2,200 tons of radioactive waste annually, and there's no good place to put it.

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New generations of reactors should be able to utilise the recycled nuclear waste as fuel to generate more gigawatt scale power. While "environmentalists" may wish to have it both ways--no fossil fuels and no nuclear power--it is very unlikely that such "purity" will be achievable for the next thirty years. After that it is possible that nuclear fusion will step in--quien sabe?

And speaking of profitable uses of waste, how about this plasma converter that turns garbage into clean energy?

The radiant energy of the plasma arc is so powerful, it disintegrates trash into its constituent elements by tearing apart molecular bonds. The system is capable of breaking down pretty much anything except nuclear waste, the isotopes of which are indestructible. The only by-products are an obsidian-like glass used as a raw material for numerous applications, including bathroom tiles and high-strength asphalt, and a synthesis gas, or “syngas”—a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be converted into a variety of marketable fuels, including ethanol, natural gas and hydrogen.

Perhaps the most amazing part of the process is that it’s self-sustaining. Just like your toaster, Startech’s Plasma Converter draws its power from the electrical grid to get started. The initial voltage is about equal to the zap from a police stun gun. But once the cycle is under way, the 2,200˚F syngas is fed into a cooling system, generating steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. About two thirds of the power is siphoned off to run the converter; the rest can be used on-site for heating or electricity, or sold back to the utility grid. “Even a blackout would not stop the operation of the facility,” Longo says.

Tidbits

Although Italy, Russia, and many other western nations are not producing enough human babies to maintain their populations, you can not say the same thing about Egypt or most other muslim countries.

Egypt's population has grown by more than 20% in the past decade and has doubled in the last 30 years, the government statistics agency says.

The population, including those living abroad, reached 76.5m in 2006 and one Egyptian baby was born every 23 seconds during the year, the census says.

Cairo's population rose to more than 18m....The 1882 census....showed a population of 6.7m..... nearly one-third of the population was under 15 last year....

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It is becoming more clear that biofuel presents a very real promise of substituting for significant amounts of fossil fuel in western countries. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are investing significant amounts of money into biofuels.

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming--you are trying to concentrate but your mind drifts to another world . . . ? I am one of the worst offenders in that area, but our friends at Eide Neurolearning Blog say that for creative people, daydreaming is perfectly normal.

Do you ever have to work quite late--sometimes around the clock? I certainly do. In the early part of my career, 60 hour shifts were not uncommon. You can understand why when I went to sleep, I did not want to be bothered by sounds of the neighborhood. Now, German researchers have invented windows that "block out the noise."

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF and Darmstadt University of Technology have found a solution, namely a new type of soundproof window. “Tests have shown that our windows are capable of lowering noise levels by an average of six decibels at frequencies between 50 and 1000 hertz. The perceived noise indoors is only half as loud,” says Dr. Thilo Bein, who manages the institute’s department of energy, environment and health. “We have even been able to reduce the volume of certain test signals by up to 15 decibels.” The experts have predicted a reduction of up to 10 dB for the engine noise of passenger aircraft in the frequency range below 1000 Hz.

When noise waves meet the walls of a building, they can be propagated to the interior by various routes. One is by causing the windows to vibrate, thus carrying the noise into the building. The other is by transmitting sound waves to the interior via the bridges in the structure where the curtain-wall elements are attached to the frame of the building. In both cases, the researchers have found a way to prevent the propagation of sound energy. Acceleration sensors attached to the window panes measure the vibrations generated by the noise.

A thin chip of piezoelectric material also attached to the window counteracts the vibration by generating an oscillation at the same pitch but in the opposite sense to that measured by the sensor – causing the pane to move in the opposing direction. “We have devised a similar solution for the points where the outer cladding is attached to the frame of the building. In this case, a stack of piezoelectric chips, rather than a single piezoelectric strip, counteracts the impinging force,” says Bein.

News Briefs

Human DNA varies from person to person by up to 10% of genes, by Copy Number Variation (CNV). Scientists are just now learning how to detect the DNA differences that make a difference.

UWMadison researchers have devised chips with "nano-slots" sized perfectly for holding DNA strands for detailed study.

Human mental abilities can be influenced by gene variants. One version of a gene that influences brain development offers certain advantages--and certain risks. Some of the population differences in intelligence and demeanor will eventually be tracked to gene variant affecting neural development.

Evolution is a powerful conceptual tool for studying and understanding biology. So it should not be surprising that our understanding of Evolution is itself evolving.

When fighting cancer, biomedical science is willing to use whatever works. The generally harmless reovirus seems to be particularly useful, since it not only kills cancer cells, the virus leaves the cells vulnerable to attack, even after the virus particles are gone.

This research in machine vision is particularly interesting, due to closer modeling of biological vision. Just as nanotechnology needs to learn from biological nano-assembly, so does machine sensory intelligence need to learn from biological sensory intelligence.