Conscious Evolution (Kansas City, MO) | Meetup

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Want to become empowered to live the life of your dreams or figure out what that is, then Conscious Evolution is the group for you. Human potential remains just words on a page until you take that first step in increasing your awareness. It begins with ideas and if you are the type of person that really wants to understand how to cause change, Conscious Evolution is a doorway to find out how to do just that.

Conscious Evolution is for people that are tired of the rat race, want something more out of life and are willing to explore new ideas. It's for people that want to change themselves and know that that can make their world a better place.

The Groups topics: Consciousness, Evolution, Science, New Age, Mind - Body, Philosophy, Psychology, Spirituality, Metaphysics, Meditation, Awakening, Enlightenment, Light Workers, Unity, Oneness, Discussion, Humanism, Agnostics, Seekers, Singles, Friends, Indigo, Personal Growth, Self Help, Self- Discovery, Self-Realization, Self-Improvement, Life Transformation, Creativity, Community, Social, Volunteers, Peace, Green, Environment, Course in Miracles, Secret, Law of Attraction, Dreams, Reiki, Energy, Quantum, Healing, Holistic, Alternative Health, Near-Death Experience, Paranormal, Shamanism, Psychic, Reincarnation, Past Life, Soul Travel, Medium, Channeling, Astrology, Numerology, More..

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Conscious Evolution (Kansas City, MO) | Meetup

2018 Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Psychic Insights Michelle …

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IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS BITCOINWho is Satoshi Nakamoto, Where is the One Million Bitcoin and more important Psychic Insights

by Michelle WhitedoveAuthor | Futurist | Humanitarianwritten April 5, 2018

Despite the change from decentralized to centralized, people want to know who created Bitcoin and Why. But theres another equally compelling question, What happened to the founders one million Bitcoin?

Who: Psychically I see Satoshi Nakamoto and want to release this info to the world and put to rest the rumors about who Satoshi is. The name, Satoshi Nakamoto was created to conceal the creators identity. And for good reason. To say this new technology wouldve brought undesirable attention to the founders is the understatement, they would have been jailed. Yes, I said, FOUNDERS with an S. Satoshi Nakamoto is a group of mixed nationality Asians they are cool cats, mostly young brainiac coders. I see a core group of seven with a few subcontractors. Of course this leads to other questions like: Are they still involved in Bitcoin? Will any of the founders help in Bitcoins further development? Ill answer those questions in a moment, but for now, onto the Why.

Why: The Satoshi Group saw what governments, the Federal Reserve and the R0THSCHILD Central Banks around the world were doing and knew we needed an incorruptible means of financial exchange. The intent behind Bitcoin was pure, it was made for the people, by the people, to revolutionize currency, to exchange money securely and fairly and to create wealth. I know for a fact that there were no Intelligence Agencies or Governments involved, this was completely under the radar created by a pioneering group of inventors.

Both the Satoshi Crew and the Anonymous group are not happy with the direction Bitcoin has recently taken as it was intended to be a peer-to-peer system for everyone to use. It was not intended to be locked up, manipulated and controlled by the Federal Reserve / R0thschilds World Banks / Bilderberg group. The Satoshi Group is furious that Bitcoin has been corrupted. They felt that the Blockchain they invented was secure and untouchable but to them it became more like the titanic they believed it to be airtight but in-fact Bitcoin was breached. This caused a division within the group, although I see that the founders are still involved in Bitcoin but they will not help with its further development because its been compromised and corrupted they have moved on to create other crypto currencies as a group and also independently .

With that said, the Satoshi Group can now see how and why this happened. They feel it was an unintended consequence, but it led to something greater than they had originally envisioned: the beginning of competing and complementing alternatives like Litecoin. Thats right, the founders see the competition as overall good and they know that Bitcoin sparked massive innovation and even humanitarian goals with some crypto coins.

What Will Happen to The Founders ONE MILLION BITCOIN since Bitcoin is now being manipulated and is no longer decentralized which means its Centralized and being controlled and manipulated just like the corrupt banking systems that Bitcoin was created to be the opposition of. Lets face it, people want to know whats going to happen to all of those Bitcoin that the founders mined. Thats because there are staggeringly different implications IF THEY ARE GONE FOREVER or IF THEY ARE COMING BACK ONTO THE MARKET. Yes, one million Bitcoin could significantly impact the market.

I predict that the Satoshi Crew have their mined coins and they deserve to benefit from the revolutionary invention of blockchain and cryptocurrency. And mark my words, I predict that BitcoinCash will one day overtake its predecessor.

>And since so many people are asking me when I see the overall market returning to it's last highs, I can tell you hold on because as we come into September of 2018 there will be an upswing!!!

For now, I just wanted to get this information out. If I feel that theres significant interest in cryptocurrency information from me a total outsider, then Ill seriously consider diverting some of my time, energy and focus from others areas. If not, Ill continue to do occasional updates like I recently posted here on my website: http://www.michellewhitedove.com

Let me know what you think, just comment below - Add just your first name and dont worry your email will not be published.

Sending you love and light,Michelle WhitedoveCelebrity Psychic | Spiritual Medium | Author | Futurist Written 04-05-2018

<3 Share the love Donate for fresh crypto insights >BitcoinCASH address: 1JBRUjzCM35PL4yvDoTq6BmFoe2jy9EeFF >Litecoin address: LfTARdn6cpT8CJBd6nooorVBzrimkzxUMv

PS .and remember who said it first!!! #SatoshiNakamoto

REALIST NEWS - Psychic Medium Michelle Whitedove on Satoshi Nakamoto VIDEO->YouTube http://bit.ly/SatoshiNakamotoJsnip4

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2018 Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Psychic Insights Michelle ...

Automation: The IT leader’s guide | The Enterprisers Project

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How are IT leaders using automation technologies? What are the keys to success? Whats next? Our comprehensive guide shares advice from CIOs and IT automation experts

Why is IT automation a growing trend?

How can I get started with IT automation?

What best practices should we use for IT automation?

How can I make the case for IT automation within my organization?

What are some common mistakes with IT automation?

What about IT automation and security?

Whats next in IT automation?

Where can I learn more about IT automation?

In enterprise IT shops, automation has become more than a trend: It has turned into a necessity. Thats due to the current mix of technologies in use, the speed at which IT must run, and talent concerns.

On the technology side, cloud, containers, and microservices lead the list of factors driving increased use of automation. Containers and microservices help tame the complexity of hybrid cloud environments. As you scale up your use of containers and microservices, automation soon becomes a core need.

You could manually deploy and configure 50 or even 500 servers, but when you hit 5,000 servers that is no longer an option, says Ned Bellavance, director of cloud solutions at Anexinet. Automation gives the administrator tools to effectively deploy scalable workloads, without a commensurate increase in staff.

Thats where automation tools like Ansible and orchestration platforms like Kubernetes come to the rescue: They help IT leaders reap the potential of cloud, containers, and microservices in a scalable manner without constantly throwing new bodies at growing and evolving operational needs. (Read our full article, 5 factors fueling automation in IT now.)

The speed at which organizations now work, and the concurrent rise of the DevOps way of working, also fuel the need for automation. DevOps requires paying down technical debt, such as time-sucking manual patches, so people can focus on more important problems.

If adding manpower is the only way to grow your business, then scalability is a pipe dream."

The result of automation is scalability less effort per person to maintain and grow your IT environment," as Red Hat VP, Global Services John Allessio recently noted. If adding manpower is the only way to grow your business, then scalability is a pipe dream. Automation reduces your manpower requirements and provides the flexibility required for continued IT evolution. (See his full article, What DevOps teams really need from a CIO.)

Finally, theres the IT talent factor. As weve noted, If your engineers and other talent spend the bulk of their time on painful, manual tasks, are you getting their best work? Probably not, and thats a killer when youre constantly challenged to do more with less.

In the enterprise IT space, one of automations biggest use cases is ensuring businesses have the right people performing the right tasks, says Mark Kirstein, VP, products at BitTitan.

IT leaders need talent working on strategic priorities today, not drudge work that can be automated. Also, IT people whose companies keep them on drudge work are more likely to leave - for a more innovative environment where they can grow their careers. Automation, in this regard, can help with retention.

Perhaps you have already started down the road to automation and are trying to increase its use. Or, perhaps you are just beginning to transition from older, manual ways of working to more automated ones. One of the hardest tasks is knowing what task makes a good automation candidate and what doesnt.

Before you start automating, or automating more, make sure you are not automating a business or IT process that no longer makes sense, notes Red Hat chief technologist E. G. Nadhan. IT leaders working with automation must keep an eye on processes that can be sunsetted instead of automated.

Automation is an effective trigger to revisit existing processes and determine their applicability in todays market, he writes. While it is true that repeatable processes warrant automation, it is important to make sure theyre being executed the right way. Automating the wrong processes proliferates chaos.

After examining your processes, identify types of low-skill work that vacuum up your IT teams time.

As ServiceNow CIO Chris Bedi recently wrote, IT teams continue to spend too much of their time managing the day-to-day tasks involved in keeping the business up and running.

Bedi sought to free up more of his teams time for innovation after finding his team was

To be a 'no service' organization will take some time, effort, and a plan, Bedi writes. Service automation cant just be about quick wins and incremental improvement. Its about creating competitive advantage over the long run: Its a marathon, not a sprint. You wont jump from manual to machines completely managing every service in one step.

Start with end-to-end processes with a lot of structured tasks and where automation will alleviate the most workload for the IT team. Provisioning VMs, patching machines, and installing are good candidates. Automate these entire processes the provisioning, the management, the reporting, the scaling up and down. Learn from them, then tackle more.

Bedis team boosted its operations resources spent on innovation from about 25 percent to 43 percent and Bedi wants that number to keep rising. Our IT team now has the time to experiment with how the rest of the organization can benefit from intelligent automation applied to their business processes, Bedi notes.

Youll also need to audit IT workflows, identify the success metrics for your work, and help others in the organization help themselves using automation. For detailed advice, see the fullarticle:Getting started with automation: 6 tips.

As Bedis experience shows, automation success is far from automatic. Also, if you focus just on tools, youll soon see that people and process are key.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

Get buy-in from your team: Of course, this advice applies to any significant shift in IT strategy, but its particularly true with automation, which sometimes carries negative connotations, notes Ned Bellavance, director of cloud strategy at Anexinet. As an IT leader, youll need to explain how the automation strategy will benefit IT and the greater business, both at an organizational and individual job level.

Although you may already have some tools in mind, listen closely to what your team suggests. They are the ones who will be using it the most, and they wont use it if they don't believe it can do the job, Bellavance says. Some other team members may have misgivings about automation and the amount of work it will take. Put their fears to rest by identifying and making some quick wins that simplify the teams life.

Choose flexible tools: When selecting an ideal automation toolbox, I would focus on three key attributes: flexibility, simplicity, usability, Bellavance advises. Any automation tool should be flexible enough to cover 90 percent of your use cases.

Think long-term and begin incrementally: Don'ttryto tackle your entire software development life cycle (SDLC) or a similarly large workflow all at once.

Ellucian CIO Lee Congdon, following this strategy, has taken a measured approach to automation in his organization. As he writes, For us, the first step in automation is thinking about what we can consume as a service. As we rely more and more on partners to do the low-level and routine work, we can also rely on them to automate that work for us, rather than do it ourselves.

Secondly, as we shift more of these technology tasks to cloud providers, and we gain more time to work more closely with the business, were naturally seeing more business automation opportunities. We can see where business people are doing manual and repetitive tasks and find new ways to assist them with tools for automating processes. (See the full article,Ellucian CIO: How we took a measured approach to automation.)

Consider a dedicated automation lead on the IT team: Theywill champion efforts and document success over the long haul.

Insist on strong, clear documentation for automated processes:You dont want Rube Goldberg projects that are complex masquerading as simple.

Dont be afraid to pass on automation for projects where it doesnt fit. Possible example: Services that require significant customization or one-off deliveries, whether to different business units, partners, or external customers.

Automation sounds scary to some people, since it is often mentally associated with job loss, and tied to some lingering misconceptions. Helping people understand the what, why, and how of your companys automation strategy is a necessary step to achieving your goals.

We asked a variety of IT leaders for their advice on making the case for automation in your organization - up and down the ladder. Here are some tips:

Show people whats in it for them.Showpeople how your automation strategy will benefit them and their jobs. Will automating a particular process in the software pipeline mean fewer middle-of-the-night calls for team members? Will it enable some people to dump low-skill, manual tasks in favor of more strategic, higher-order work the sort that helps them take the next step in their career?

Convey whats in it for them, and how it will benefit clients and the whole company, advises Vipul Nagrath, global CIO at ADP. Compare the current state to a brighter future state, where the company enjoys greater stability, agility, efficiency, and security.

Paint a before-and-after picture to help people see the upside, he advises.

You want to paint a picture of the current state that people can relate to, Nagrath says. Present whats working, but also highlight whats causing teams to be less than agile. Then explain how automating certain processes will improve that current state.

Connect automation to specific business goals.The case for automation needs to be driven by a business demand signal, such as revenue or operating expense, says David Emerson, VP and deputy CISO at Cyxtera. No automation endeavor is self-justifying, and no technical feat, generally, should be a means unto itself, unless its a core competency of the company.

Break the plan into manageable pieces. This will help people digest it - and reduce skepticism. It will also give you some flexibility to tweak plans as you go.

Promote your success. Talk up your small wins. Eric Kaplan, CTO at AHEAD, says that the value small wins reveal can actually help you sharpen the big picture for people. Kaplan points to the value of individual and organizational time as an area everyone can connect with easily.

The best place to do this is where you can show savings in terms of time, Kaplan says. If we can accelerate the time it takes for the business to get what it needs, it will silence the skeptics. (For more, see the full article:IT automation: How to make the case.)

Like any IT effort, automation has its oops moments. Thankfully, use of automation has progressed to a point where you can learn plenty from the earlier mistakes of other people. Here are some common trip-ups to watch out for and avoid, as you automate more.

Botching your estimate of automation results: Vipul Nagrath, global CIO at ADP, says skimping on due diligence is a key automation pitfall to avoid. This is particularly true, Nagrath says, when it comes to defining the goals and expected outcomes of your automation plan.

Be realistic. If you overestimate the benefits, you risk not achieving your stated goals, Nagrath explains, adding that theres a flip side: If you underestimate the benefits, you end up underselling the program, and that can cause analysis paralysis. Carefully estimate what the automation effort is truly going to yield.

Thinking too narrowly about the benefits: You may have a particular IT task in your sights to automate, but you need to think broadly for the business. Probably the most common mistake I see today is myopia, says David Emerson, VP and deputy CISO at Cyxtera. Automation has so many benefits.

For example, you may be able to use automation to realize peripheral benefits such as reduced compliance audit complexity, improved security posture, and fewer manual controls and processes that hamper engineering output, he says.

Expecting too much in the first few weeks: One of the most common mistakes Bruno Attore, CTO and co-founder at Uru, has seen is under-estimating the difficulty of the early stage of implementation. Expect some trial-and-error as you iterate and optimize, he stresses.

If you are transitioning from a pure manual operations and QA process to an automated one, the first few weeks will be hard.

If you are transitioning from a pure manual operations and QA process to an automated one, the first few weeks will be hard, Attore says. It's important not to give up and keep pushing forward. In the end, everyone needs to know that this is not a flip of a switch, but instead, a continuous process that will only get better and better.

Other common mistakes includebelieving automation will fix a bad process, failing to ensure governance, and ignoring the culture change aspect. For much more detail on these issues, see our article:8 IT automation mistakes to avoid.

Since you will hear security worries from others in your organization (remember the early days of cloud security worries?), its important to be able to articulate how your move to automation will affect your security strategy.

The good news: Automation tools and their frequent partner, containers, can actually help improve your organizations security posture (as many organizations have found is true of cloud services).

Orchestration tools like Kubernetes not only help you manage container deployments at scale, but they also manage related security tasks. As Red Hat security strategist Kirsten Newcomer shared in a related podcast, You really want automation, orchestration to help manage which containers should be deployed to which hosts; monitoring host capacity; container discovery knowing which containers need to access each other; managing shared resources, and monitoring container health.

Newcomer encourages people to think of container security as having ten layers including both the container stack layers (such as the container host and registries) and container lifecycle issues (such as API management). (For complete details on the ten layers and how Kubernetes fits in, check out this whitepaper: Ten Layers of Container Security. )

At the same time, more organizations are baking security into each step of the development and operations pipeline (rather than bolting it on right before teams deploy code.) Some organizations call this approach DevSecOps.

Enterprises are finding ways to move security left in their application development lifecycles, Newcomer told us. Theyre adopting DevSecOps by integrating security practices, tooling, and automation throughout the CI/CD pipeline. (Read the full article: Why DevSecOps matters to IT leaders. )

Containerization can also better protect against some existing threats and help you react quickly to emerging security issues.

The good news is that most containers are stateless and replaceable, which makes it easy to roll out a newer version of the image across a deployment and improve your security posture quickly, Bellavance says. They should also be immutable, in that they are replaced rather than changed.

When youre dealing with IT technologies that involve this much change, its valuable to get a peek at whats coming in the not-so-distant future. Were monitoring several trends that IT leaders should keep on the radar screen.

Machine learning and AI will mature and play bigger roles:When it comes to machine learning, its still very early days for most organizations in terms of actual implementations. However, machine learning is expected to play a significant role in the next waves of IT automation.

With the data that is developed, automation software can make decisions that otherwise might be the responsibility of the developer, says Mehul Amin, director of engineering for Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. For example, the developer builds what needs to be executed, but identifying the best system to execute the processes might be [done] by software using analytics from within the system.

Machine learning can also do things like enable automated systems to provision additional resources when necessary to meet timelines or SLAs, or retire resources when theyre no longer needed.

IT automation is moving towards self-learning, says Kiran Chitturi, CTO architect at Sungard Availability Services. Systems will be able to test and monitor themselves, enhancing business processes and software delivery.

Chitturi points to automated testing as an example; test scripts are already in widespread adoption, but soon those automated testing processes may be more likely to learn as they go, developing, for example, wider recognition of how new code or code changes will impact production environments.

Scripting and automation tools keep evolving:The way people view and use scripting or automation tools (sometimes referred to as configuration management tools) is evolving with greater use.

There are many processes in the data center environment that are repetitive and subject to human error, and technologies such as Ansible help to ameliorate those issues, says Mark Abolafia, chief operating officer at DataVision. With Ansible, one can write a specific playbook for a set of actions and input different variables such as addresses, etc., to automate long chains of process that were previously subject to human touch and longer lead times. (Want to learn more about this aspect of Ansible? Read the related article: Tips for success when getting started with Ansible. )

Also, the tools themselves continue to become more advanced.With advanced IT automation tools, developers will be able to build and automate workflows in less time, reducing error-prone coding, says Amin. These tools include pre-built, pre-tested drag-and-drop integrations, API jobs, the rich use of variables, reference functionality, and object revision history.

Automation opens new metrics opportunities:Automation paves the way for new ways to measure IT performance. As more and more development activities source control, DevOps pipelines, work item tracking move to the API-driven platforms the opportunity and temptation to stitch these pieces of raw data together to paint the picture of your organization's efficiency increases, says Josh Collins, VP of architecture at Janeiro Digital.

Collins thinks of this as a possible new development organization metrics-in-a-box.

Whether measuring individual resources or the team in aggregate, these metrics can be powerful but should be balanced with a heavy dose of context, Collins says. Use this data for high-level trends and to affirm qualitative observations not to clinically grade your team.

For more issues to watch, see the full article: Whats next in IT automation: 6 trends to watch.

Want more detailed advice on automation? Dig into these articles, papers, and Ebooks:

The Automated Enterprise (Red Hat Ebook)

Understanding automation

Tips for success when getting started with Ansible

Ansible in depth (Red Hat whitepaper)

DevOps metrics: Are you measuring what matters?

5 TED Talks on AI to watch

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Automation: The IT leader's guide | The Enterprisers Project

Sustainable Table | Genetic Engineering

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Genetically engineered (GE) or genetically modified (GM) foods are produced from plants and animals that have had changes made to their DNA, which introduce or modify genetic traits.

Most packaged foods contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) engineered to be resistant to herbicides and pests; corn, soybeans and canola oil are prime examples. Concerns about GMOs range from their safety to how genetically modified plants pollen effects the environment, to the increasing use of herbicides associated with their use, with decreasing effectiveness. Polls show that consumers want mandatory labels on foods containing GE ingredients.

All living organisms are made up of cells, within which are strings of DNA molecules possessing instructions to make genes, which form a unique blueprint determining how an organism grows, develops, looks and lives. Genes make up about one percent of the DNA sequence; the rest is responsible for regulating when and how quantities of proteins are made.

Genetic engineering (GE) is the direct manipulation of genetic material (or the genome) by artificial means to alter the hereditary traits of a cell or organism. The process can involve the transfer of specific traits, or genes, from one organism to another, including across diverse species. Other types of genetic engineering include removing or switching off certain genes, adding new genes or introducing desired mutations. An organism that is created or modified by genetic engineering is called a genetically modified organism.

Genetic engineering is different from traditional cross-breeding methods, which have been used for millennia. Traditional breeding more closely resembles accelerated evolution: breeders select organisms with a desired trait and then further select and breed whichever of its offspring most exhibits that trait. A breeder seeking a disease-resistant tomato, for example, will grow many tomatoes, but save the seeds of only the most disease-resistant plants. After several generations, offspring will be much more disease resistant than the progenitor. Traditional breeding is done between the same or closely related species and keeps strands of DNA and gene sequences intact which can also mean that negative traits are reproduced alongside positive traits. Through genetic engineering, on the other hand, it is possible to isolate a single gene out of the whole genome and insert it into another organism.

The future of genetic engineering appears to be even more targeted than that: CRISPR technology (which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) allows scientists to isolate and essentially cut and paste very specific sections of DNA. This makes the process much more precise and efficient and inexpensive, making it easier for many more scientists to experiment with the technology. As it becomes more common, many scientists also urge caution, as unintended consequences, whether at the cellular, human or ecosystem level, cannot be known in advance.

Genetically engineered crops have been adopted at an exceptionally rapid rate. In 1997, 17 percent of US soybean acres were planted with GE varieties; by 2014, that figure rose to 94 percent. GE cotton usage went from 10 percent in 1997 to 91 percent in 2014. GE corn acreage increased from 25 percent in 2000 to 92 in 2017.

The vast majority of these crops have been engineered to tolerate herbicides, allowing the plants to be sprayed with a particular chemical while the surrounding weeds die. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the most common. Other crops are engineered to produce their own natural pesticide (primarily to produce Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a naturally-occurring bacterium that is lethal to a number of agricultural pests), to increase drought resistance or improve nutritional content. The AquAdvantage Salmon, the first GE animal approved for human consumption, was engineered for faster growth, so that it reaches market weight more quickly than a natural salmon.

In addition to corn, soybeans and cotton, the other GE crops that are commercially available in the US are potatoes, papaya, squash, canola, alfalfa, apples and sugar beets. Several others are USDA approved but are not currently produced, including tomatoes, (non-sugar) beets, rice, roses, flax, plums and tobacco. The controversial hormone rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), which increases milk production in dairy cows, is genetically engineered as well.

The FLAVR SAVR tomato, engineered to retain real tomato taste after shipping, was the first GE food approved for human consumption by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 1992, but has since been taken off the market. Most recently, the Impossible Burger a meatless burger that uses a genetically engineered yeast to make its signature ingredient known as heme (which accounts for its meat-like flavor) has been popping up on menus and causing controversy because it does not have FDA approval.

In the US, regulatory approvals for GMOs are a complicated patchwork of the Food and Drug Administration for pharmaceutical developments, the Environmental Protection Agency for insecticide uses and the USDA for food crops.

For many farmers, GE crops require much less work and provide a larger yield, which offsets the substantially higher cost of GE seed. One 2014 metastudy found that globally, GE crops have reduced pesticide use by 37 percent, increased crop yields by 22 percent and increased farmer profits by 68 percent. It is important to note that it was insect-resistant Bt crops that had much more advantage than herbicide-tolerant crops (from Roundup Ready seeds).

A 2014 analysis of USDA data had similar findings for insect-resistant crops in the US, but many more mixed results on herbicide resistance. Certainly, when farmers start with GE seeds, yields and profits increase in the first few years. But some studies show that this tapers off. For reasons discussed below, GMO technology is problematic for farmers and consumers alike.

On a larger scale, corporate interest plays an enormous role in the rapid growth of the technology. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that scientists could patent a GE bacterium developed to break down oil spills. This ruling stating that life itself could be patented and owned gave companies an incentive to develop GMOs that could be useful and profitable.

Monsanto (now part of Bayer ), the largest manufacturer of GMOs, has a long history as a chemical maker, including as one of several makers of Agent Orange, the highly toxic defoliant used during the Vietnam War. Following the war, the company turned to making agricultural chemicals, including its bestseller glyphosate herbicide, Roundup, and experimenting with genetically modifying seeds to resist the chemical so that pesticides could be liberally applied without fear of killing the crops. It introduced Roundup Ready seed in 1996 and spun off its chemical operations two years later to focus on biotechnology.

In 2017, Monsantos net sales of GE corn, soybean and cotton seeds and traits totaled $9.5 billion. Most troubling, in the last two decades, is that Monsanto has bought many competitor seed companies, giving it control of a wide swath of the seed market and its accompanying genetic diversity. In 2018, Monsanto was bought by Bayer, further consolidating the production and ownership of seed stocks around the world.

The biotech industry claims that this chemical-based agricultural technology and biotechnology is necessary to feed a growing world population, increase crop yields and adapt to a changing climate. Herbicide-resistant crops do not require tilling, which leaves carbon in the ground and is better for soil structure, and proponents claim that they require less pesticide application than non-GE crops. However, this does not tell the whole story. These crops have actually driven up the use of herbicides like glyphosate, thereby increasing weed resistance and leading to the reintroduction of more potent herbicides. These false narratives are perpetuated by biotech and other agribusiness corporations, but also by land grant universities (which receive more funding from agrochemical companies than public dollars ), many agricultural scientists and farm organizations.

However, technology and the industrialized food system are not currently feeding the world, so there is reason for skepticism about this claim. Globally, agriculture produces more than one and a half times the number of calories needed to feed the world population, yet one in nine people goes hungry. The profit motive of Bayer/Monsanto and other agrochemical companies, as well as their long lack of support for small farmers, should subject their claims of working solely for the public good to scrutiny.

When it comes to increasing calorie production for the parts of the world that sorely need to feed a hungry populace, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development report from the United Nations proposes that organic and sustainable agriculture is the best solution for countries like Africa and India, where the need is greatest.

Much of the debate around genetically modified food crops and animals focuses on potential threats to human health. But, long-term studies of the impact of consuming GM foods have yet to be done. Some independent studies have documented health effects on animals from eating GMO foods, which have become the subject of controversy.

Companies have determined that GE crops are different enough from those derived by conventional crops to get a patent, but not different enough to require adequate safety testing before they get to market. Additional independent studies and testing are needed. Ways in which GE foods can cause health problems are already documented, particularly in terms of allergens: genes from an allergenic plant can transfer the allergen to the new plant, causing it to provoke a reaction in those sensitive to the first plant. It is also possible that new allergens could be created from combinations of genes that did not previously exist. Overall, though, we do not understand all of the potential health concerns, but that uncertainty is enough to warrant more oversight, not less.

Perhaps the most concerning consequence of herbicide-resistant crops is the huge increase in herbicide use and the evolution of herbicide-resistant superweeds. Weeds resistant to glyphosate, which have survived annual use of the herbicide, have become a problem. A 2016 survey across the Midwest found that one third to upwards of three quarters of fields showed resistant weeds. To address the problem, seed and chemical companies have turned to older chemicals such as 2,4D and dicamba, engineering seeds resistant to these more toxic compounds and increasing their use in farmers fields.

Contrary to industry promises that GE crops would require less pesticide application, chemical use has increased steadily, particularly by farmers growing herbicide-resistant crops. Farmers growing Bt pest-resistant crops have been able to decrease their insecticide use, but scientists are concerned that the effect may not last, as pests also evolve resistance.

One of the major ways that GMOs have impacted the environment, therefore, has been in a mass of side effects stemming from increased pesticide use, including compromised water quality, loss of biodiversity and threats to human health.

While biotech seeds are touted as the only way to feed a growing world population, the data on yields are mixed. It should also be noted that GE crops rely on the promise of reduced pest and weed pressure to boost yields; no successful GE technique has yet increased intrinsic yields (such as more kernels per corncob).

A 2008 literature review by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that herbicide-tolerant GE crops produced no yield gain, while Bt crops produced marginal increases. A 2013 New Zealand study found that average US GE corn yields were slightly lower than non-GE corn yields in western Europe in the same period. 2016 studies by both the National Academies of Sciences and the New York Times found no evidence that yield increases could be tied to GM technology.

Meanwhile, traditional plant breeding techniques have increased yields significantly and have even outperformed GE technology in improving drought tolerance and other factors necessary for farming in a warming climate. But investment in GE research means less funding going to these more promising methods.

Farmers adopt GE seeds and their attendant herbicides ostensibly to make farming easier and more profitable. However, GE seeds cost a lot more than conventional seeds (up to $150 more per bag, according to one report) plus the cost of herbicides. An analysis by AgriWize farm business consultant Aaron Bloom found that GM corn costs an average of $81 more per acre per season than conventional. For many farmers, the yield increase at harvest time makes the upfront costs worth it, but for others, the proliferation of superweeds or simply one bad harvest can put them in debt, with few options for how to get off the GE treadmill.

Congress passed the Plant Patenting Act in 1930, as the rise of hybrid seeds made the business of selling seeds (which since time immemorial have been freely reproducible) profitable for the first time. The law applied to certain plants only, but in 1985, it was expanded to include not only all crops but also their cells, genes and DNA. Seed patents, along with laws on intellectual property, seed marketing and more, have exploded in years since.

Humans have been breeding seeds for aeons, making plants more productive, tastier and better adapted to local conditions. In fact, adaptation has been bred into seeds throughout the ages by subsistence farmers; we take ancient farmer breeding ingenuity for granted. Todays seed patents, meanwhile, bestow rights and profits on multinational companies for discovering the newest traits, ignoring the long and unsung contributions of farmers localized agricultural knowledge.

Patents and other legal measures put control of this long heritage of seed development, and therefore our future food security, in the hands of a very few companies. The seed industry is one of the most concentrated in the US economy. Almost 80 percent of corn and more than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the US feature Monsanto/Bayer seed traits, while the top three seed firms control more than half of the total seed market, with Monsanto/Bayer alone controlling one quarter. Up-to-date numbers on seed market control are difficult to come by, however, because huge mergers in the industry, including the 2017 Dow/Dupont and the 2018 Monsanto/Bayer mergers have shifted the landscape.

These companies value their patents and other intellectual property highly. Monsanto/Bayer has filed suit against 147 farmers for violating the terms of their planting agreement and has also at times threatened or intimidated farmers.

Surveys consistently show that upwards of 90 percent of Americans support labeling of GMO foods, but unlike most developed countries including 28 nations in the European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia and China the US had for many years no federal requirement for labels. States responded by taking the matter into their own hands. More than 70 labeling bills or ballot initiatives were introduced across 30 states, and labeling laws were passed in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine. In high-profile cases in Washington State and California, bills were defeated due to aggressive lobbying efforts by big food and biotechnology companies to the tune of $63.6 million in 2014.

In 2016, a federal law was passed, mandating labeling of GE ingredients in foods, which strikes down or pre-empts state labeling laws. The federal laws many critics dubbed it the Denying Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, because not only does it override state efforts (which in some cases, as in Vermont, are stringent), but because many GMOs would be exempted from being labeled. Further, the federal law states that labeling can be in the form of a digital QR code or toll-free phone number rather than a textual label that clearly marks the product as containing GMOs.

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Sustainable Table | Genetic Engineering

NATO launches biggest war games since end of Cold War

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NATO launched its biggest exercises since the end of the Cold War on Thursday in Norway.

The Trident Juncture war games involve around 50,000 troops, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 65 ships from all 29 alliance members, plus Sweden and Finland. The maneuvers will take place for two weeks in Norway and the air and sea spaces around the country.

Read more:US General Ben Hodges: 'Russia only respects strength'

The goal of the exercises is to test and train NATO'sVery High Readiness Joint Task Force and follow-on forces. The rapid reaction force is designed to spearhead a defense against an attack on an alliance member within days and is a component of the NATO Response Force.

The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force was established by the alliance in 2014 as a deterrent in response toRussia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and Moscow'ssupport for separatists there.

US Navy Admiral James Foggo, head of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command, told reporters in Oslo that the US commitment to the Article 5 mutual defense clause which requires all NATO member states to come to the aid of another was "rock solid."

NATO's "Trident Juncture," the largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War, launched in Norway on October 25 and is due to run until November 7. Some 50,000 troops are taking part in the exercises, including 24,000 navy personnel and 20,000 land forces.

Germany is the second largest contributor to the NATO exercise, coming in behind the United States. Some 10,000 German troops are taking part, with German forces leading one of the land exercises. A total of 31 countries are participating in the exercises, including non-NATO members Finland and Sweden.

NATO's "Trident Juncture" exercise will also see thousands of military vehicles put to use, including some 250 aircraft, 65 ships and over 10,000 vehicles. The United States' nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman will also be taking part.

The scripted maneuvers during "Trident Juncture" are based on a hypothetical scenario where troops have to restore Norway's sovereignty following an attack by a "fictitious aggressor." Norway has grown increasingly nervous about neighboring Russia since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. NATO's latest exercise has angered Moscow, which slammed it as an "anti-Russian" and "provocative."

To help ensure that "sensitive areas" like hospitals, schools and drinking water sites aren't affected during the exercise, Norway printed 1.6 million maps for NATO troops to use. The Norwegian Armed Forces estimate 650 tons of laundry will be done during the exercise and some 1.8 million meals.

The exercise area encompasses large areas of land, sea and air space with naval operations stretching along the Norwegian coast and down to Scotland. The focus of the exercise will be on the land exercise in central Norway. Participating troops will be divided into northern and southern forces that will maneuver against one another.

Author: Rebecca Staudenmaier

Russia angered by NATO exercise

Russia, which borders Norway, has been invited to monitor the war games but has issued a condemnation.

"NATO's military activities near our borders have reached the highest level since the Cold War times," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday, adding that Trident Juncture is "simulating offensive military action."

Moscow denounced Trident Juncture as an "anti-Russian" exercise: "Such activity... comes across as provocative, even if you try to justify it as being of a purely defensive nature," the Russian embassy in Oslo said on Thursday.

Russia regularly carries out war gamesof its own.

Some German politicians objected to the exercise as well, with the co-leader of the Left party in parliament slamming the move as "ludicrous, dangerous and provocative towards Russia."

"The threat of war is greater than it has been for a long time. The US president threatens nuclear armament against Russia and China and is cancelling nuclear disarmament treaties,"Dietmar Bartsch told German newspaper Neue Osnabrcker Zeitung.

In Trident Juncture,alliance forces will test their readiness to restore sovereignty to Norway following an attack by a "fictitious aggressor."

The German military is participating in the maneuvers with around 10,000 troops and 4,000 vehicles, as well as Tornado and Eurofighter jets and three ships. That makes it the second largest participant after the United States.

At the beginning of 2019, Germany will take over command of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force for a year.

cw/jm (AFP, AP, dpa)

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A Microdose Of “Magic Mushrooms” Could Unleash Your Creativity

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Free Your Mind

It turns out you don’t have to risk a bad trip to enjoy the mind-expanding benefits of psychedelics.

According to researchers from Leiden University, just a tiny dose of magic mushrooms or truffles containing psychedelic substances — an amount unlikely to make you think the floor is alive and wants to eat you — can enhance your cognitive abilities.

With Free Drugs

For their study, which was published Thursday in the journal Psychopharmacology, the researchers first tracked down 36 volunteers at an event organized by the Psychedelic Society of The Netherlands.

Then they asked these volunteers to each complete three tasks, which they designed to assess the person’s ability to identify a solution to a problem (that’s called convergent thinking), reason and find answers to new problems (fluid intelligence), and recognize many possible solutions to a problem (divergent thinking).

Each volunteer completed the tasks twice: once before consuming approximately 0.37 grams of dried truffles — that’s about one-third the weight of a jelly bean — and once after.

The researchers found that the microdoses improved the volunteers’ divergent and convergent thinking — they were better equipped to find a single solution to a problem and conjure up additional out-of-the-box solutions.

Do Trip

Microdosing has gained popularity in recent years among tech workers who think it gives them a creative boost at work, but this was the first study to explore how microdosing psychedelic substances can affect a volunteer’s cognitive abilities in a natural setting. Lead researcher Luisa Prochazkova is hopeful that its results will inspire others to pursue similar research on magic mushrooms.

“Apart from its benefits as a potential cognitive enhancement technique, microdosing could be further investigated for its therapeutic efficacy to help individuals who suffer from rigid thought patterns or behavior such as individuals with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder,” she said in a press release.

And those benefits would come without the potential side effect of a bad trip.

READ MORE: Can Tiny Doses of Magic Mushrooms Unlock Creativity? [EurekAlert]

More on psychedelics: Did an Acid Trip Change Your Life? Scientists Want to Know About It

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A Microdose Of “Magic Mushrooms” Could Unleash Your Creativity

Scientists: The Government Should Invest in Carbon Capture Now

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Scrub Tech

It’s starting to look as though our best bet to stave off a climate change apocalypse is carbon capture: technology that can clean a huge amount of greenhouse gases from the planet’s atmosphere.

The problem: that technology doesn’t exist yet. In a 368-page report published Thursday by the National Academies of Science, leading scientists argued that the government should invest heavily in research that could leave to planet-saving carbon capture.

Outatime

The urgent call for carbon capture research comes on the tail of a damning UN report in which researchers concluded that civilization has much less time than we thought to prevent irreparable environmental devastation.

This is a different sort of investment than expanding our use of solar and wind power — two things we know how to do fairly well at this point. Carbon capture tech still needs more fundamental research.

But Maybe

Different approaches to carbon capture tech have shown promise at the proof of concept level, as The New York Times reported. The real challenge will be scaling those different technologies to the point where they can accomplish what the National Academies of Sciences is hoping.

Unfortunately, this may mean putting all of our chips on entrepreneurs and hoping that some tech company cracks the climate code. Because until someone figures carbon capture out, it would seem things are going to keep getting worse.

READ MORE: Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air [The New York Times]

More on carbon capture: Experts Worry a Landmark Report on Climate Change Will Call for Unrealistic Tech

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Scientists: The Government Should Invest in Carbon Capture Now

These Environmentally Friendly Bricks Are Made out of Human Urine

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Bathroom Bricks

The next time you pee, think about this: Your urine could one day create the sustainable building materials of the future.

Dyllon Randall is a research engineer at the University of Cape Town. He’s also the supervisor on a new project in which students harvested urine from urinals so they could transform the waste into building bricks. Not only could these bio-bricks eliminate one form of human waste, they could also help fight climate change.

Liquid Gold

In a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, the team describes the process of creating one of its bio-bricks.

First, they collect human urine in special urinals that convert much of the liquid into a solid fertilizer. Then, they add the remaining urine to loose sand they colonized with a bacteria that produces an enzyme called urease. This urease reacts with the urine over a period of four to six days, cementing the sand into the brick-like shape of its container.

This whole process takes place at room temperature, while creating traditional bricks involves the use of carbon emission-producing kilns. And as yet another bonus, the team says it can convert the little bit of human urine left over from the brick-building process into yet another fertilizer.

Flushed Away

Ultimately, this team has taken something most of us don’t think twice about flushing down the toilet every day and transformed it into two things we need: fertilizer and building materials.

Still, the amount of urine needed to produce just one brick would require about 100 trips to the restroom, so unless the team is able to get its hands on a lot more urine, these bio-bricks might never find their way onto a construction site.

READ MORE: World-First: Bio-Bricks From Urine [University of Cape Town]

More on upcycling waste: Researchers Devise Method for Recycling Astronaut Urine to Make 3D Printing Plastics in Space

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These Environmentally Friendly Bricks Are Made out of Human Urine

Former General: The US Will Likely Fight a War With China

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“Strong Likelihood”

On Wednesday, a retired general predicted that America will wage a war with China in the future.

That’s according to the Associated Press, which quoted Lt. General Ben Hodges’ remarks at a Warsaw conference for Central European military leaders.

“I think in 15 years — it’s not inevitable — but it is a very strong likelihood that we will be at war with China,” Hodges said.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The risk is that this sort of rhetoric could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A military leader publicly predicting war with another major world power seems like the sort of move that could make such a war much more likely to happen.

Town Ain’t big Enough

Hodges’ comments seem to come from China’s increasing political and economic influence around the world. America will need to reckon with the fact that China is quickly gaining on other world leaders and may soon pass them technologically and economically.

Hopefully, that reckoning comes with a little bit more grace than setting the stage for a future of warfare.

READ MORE: Retired US general says war with China likely in 15 years [AP]

More on China: An AI Research Supergroup Just Added its First Chinese Firm

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Former General: The US Will Likely Fight a War With China

Facebook Sees a Future in Augmented Reality Glasses

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Zuckerglass

The year is 2025. You’re trying to pay attention to your nephew blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, but bright-red Facebook notifications keep flickering in your peripheral vision.

The social media giant really wants its breakout hardware device to be a pair of augmented reality glasses. That’s according to the company’s head of AR, Ficus Kirkpatrick, who blabbed to TechCrunch during an AR event last week in LA.

“We want to see [AR] glasses come into reality,” Kirkpatrick said, “and I think we want to play our part in helping to bring them there.”

Eye Spy

This isn’t the first sign that Facebook wants to dominate the AR space. It bought the breakout VR company Oculus in 2014. Last year, it filed a patent for what look an awful lot like smart spectacles.

If heads-up glasses are the company’s next push, it’ll need to overcome decades of missteps in the space, from Nintendo’s disastrous Virtual Boy to Google’s failed-and-revived Project Glass. And Kirkpatrick cautioned to TechCrunch that the tech likely won’t be here for at least five years.

If the company dreams up a compelling product, though, we’re all going to need to ask ourselves whether we want Facebook notifications clogging up our views as much as they already do our screens.

READ MORE: Facebook Confirms It’s Building Augmented Reality Glasses [TechCrunch]

More on augmented reality: These Are The Lightest Augmented Reality Smart Glasses on The Market

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Facebook Sees a Future in Augmented Reality Glasses

Poll: Cool Teens Think Self-Driving Cars Are Totally Lame

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Can It Kickflip?

Sources tell us that teens are into a lot of totally-rad stuff like skateboards, dank memes, and dabbing.

Notably missing from that list? Self-driving cars. It takes a lot for people who still needs their parents to drive them to their dates to pass on autonomous vehicles, but that’s exactly what 56 percent of 764 teens polled by State Farm insurance said, according to CBS News.

Hall Monitors

To be fair, the poll was taken among the narcs of the teen world: members of Students Against Destructive Decisions, a group that fights underage substance abuse. According to CBS’s article, chief concerns included the lack of steering wheels and brake pedals fully autonomous vehicles.

Without those standard features, some of the teens felt hesitant to give full control over their safety to the self-driving car.

Buckle Up

No matter how safe self-driving cars may become, this poll illuminates an often-overlooked challenge for autonomous vehicles: actual human interest. In addition to the many technological and political hurdles on the path towards a world of AVs, we can’t forget to address the needs of the people who will be riding in them.

That means that solving problems like motion sickness in people who are used to driving, and convincing passengers that their lives are in good hands, will need to be just as high an industry priority as actually getting the cars to work right.

READ MORE: Self-driving cars are a nonstarter for many teens [CBS News]

More on teens in AVs: Federal Officials put the Brakes on a Driverless School Bus

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Poll: Cool Teens Think Self-Driving Cars Are Totally Lame

Terminator 2’s Terrifying Villain Inspired a New Liquid Metal Robot

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Hasta La Vista

Soochow University robotics professor Li Xiangpeng didn’t mince words in a new interview about his latest robot.

“We were inspired,” he told the South China Morning Post, “by T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

T-1000? The killer assassin android on a special mission to murder the teenaged John Connor? That T-1000?

Thankfully, it wasn’t T-1000’s killer instincts that prompted Xiangpeng. Instead it was the liquid-metal robot’s shape-shifting ability that fascinated his research team. And while the robot they built is far less advanced than the one depicted in James Cameron’s sci-fi classic, it could pave the way for bots to come.

Hey Janelle

Xiangpeng and other researchers from China and Australia detail their creation in a paper published earlier this month in the journal Advanced Materials.

Ultimately, their robot comprises just three parts: a plastic wheel, drops of a gallium-based liquid metal alloy, and a small lithium battery. Voltage from the battery alters the liquid metal’s center of gravity, which causes the palm-sized robot to roll in one direction or the other.

I’ll Be Back

The bot may be a far cry from T-1000, but the researchers believe their creation could serve as inspiration for other devices, the same way James Cameron’s 1991 smash-hit followup to “The Terminator” inspired them to build this tiny bot.

“In the future, we expect to further develop soft robots incorporating liquid metal that could be used in special missions such as searching for and rescuing earthquake victims, since they can change shape to slide under doors or make it through spaces humans can’t get into,” researcher Tang Shiyang told SCMP.

Saving people following natural disasters — now that’s the kind of mission we can get behind.

READ MORE: Chinese Scientists Develop Shape-Shifting Robot Inspired by T-1000 From Terminator [South China Morning Post]

More on Terminator-esque robots: Russia’s New Space Robot Can Drive, Use Tools… and Shoot

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Terminator 2’s Terrifying Villain Inspired a New Liquid Metal Robot

How Data Transparency Is Helping Us Build Future Cities

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Data has gotten a bad rap. In the last several years, thanks to high-profile scandals and a tumultuous political climate, there’s been an increasing sense that data transparency means a loss of privacy and an infringement on our personal rights by government and corporations. But data shouldn’t be a dirty word. In the right hands, and when collected responsibly, data is one of the best tools available for improving the way we live.

Our cities, in particular, present a powerful case for harnessing data transparency for the public good – both because of the vast wealth of public information available in urban environments, and because of the variety of unique challenges that cities face. At tech accelerator URBAN-X, several startups are looking at these challenges as opportunities, with the belief that harnessing data and using it in innovative ways can make our cities more efficient, more livable, and – above all – safer.

Take Yale Fox, founder of Rentlogic. Like many of the best startup founders, Fox didn’t have to go searching for an idea. Instead, he saw a problem when it intruded on his own life, and realized that data presented the beginning of a solution. After moving from Canada to New York City, Fox found himself forced to take his landlord to court after becoming sick from a mold-infested apartment. Without much in the way of evidence to present in housing court, he put together an early version of an app to compile public complaints against landlords as well as assessments by the city against buildings.

Today, Rentlogic analyzes decades worth of building inspection data and then uses an algorithmic approach towards generating a letter grade rating – A through F – for every property in New York City. Although this inspection data has always been out there, Rentlogic has found an elegant and fair way to consolidate and evaluate it, so that users can easily look up an apartment and quickly get up to speed on potential problems before signing a lease. By using public data rather than subjective opinions, it avoids many of the problems of bias that plague Yelp and other sites that rely on user-generated reviews. (It’s working already: one in four New Yorkers consult Rentlogic before signing a lease.)

Public data can be applied for consumers, but can also be used by cities and insurance carriers to assess and reduce risk – not just saving money for themselves but also making our urban environments safer for everyone. That’s the mission of Open Data Nation’s Carey Anne Nadeau, a data scientist and former research analyst at the Brookings Institution, who’s using vast resources of publicly available data to help insurance companies make smarter, more informed decisions.

“When an insurance carrier looks to price an auto policy for you, they pay a lot of attention to your behaviors and who you are,” Nadeau said recently at URBAN-X’s 2018 Demo Day. “But they miss the much bigger picture. What matters more [than just personal factors] is the world around you. But they lack a consolidated measure to assess that risk.” ODN is changing that, Nadeau says, by analyzing billions of existing public data records – including crash reports and other city administrative data – and using those records to build a metric that allows insurance carriers to better evaluate both their existing and prospective customers. “We help carriers know not only if you’re a bad driver, but if the roads you’re driving on are dangerous,” says Nadeau.

While public records are a valuable source of information about the behaviors and habits of a city’s population, data can also be collected and used on a project-by-project basis in ways that can have an outsized impact on efficiency and public safety. At Avvir, founder Raffi Holzer – a former bioengineer – is revolutionizing the construction industry using algorithms and laser imaging.

“Construction is incredibly complex, and up until now nobody has had an accurate picture, in real time, of what’s actually going on in the construction site,” Holzer says. “The way we solve that problem is by providing our clients a digital twin – an accurate replica of the construction site or building so that general contractors can find mistakes immediately, all stakeholders can monitor progress, and building owners have an accurate model of the building.”

By comparing laser scans of the construction site against the 3D model of the building plans, Avvir’s algorithms can detect any discrepancies between the two, whether those discrepancies of errors or delays. Then, Avvir can measure the dimensions of those errors, and push them back into the 3D model so that the model always reflects what’s actually been built – an innovation that’s unique to the startup, and puts them well ahead of competitors. With Avvir’s technology, our buildings are safer, more stable, and more cost-efficient.

Data can also help us be greener by helping us gain valuable insights into our own behavior. At Sapient Industries, they’re using data about human habits to create an energy management system that eliminates waste in buildings. According to Sapient co-founder Sam Parks, nearly two-thirds of all energy consumed in buildings goes unregulated. While we’ve all learned to turn off the lights when we leave a room, how many people are actually able to unplug all their energy-leeching devices from the wall whenever they’re not in use?

Teaching people to alter their habits might help this problem on a very small scale, but in order to create a noticeable change, a more comprehensive and forward-thinking solution is needed. By learning and analyzing the behaviors of a building’s inhabitants, the Sapient system is able to regulate buildings so that energy is only used when it’s actually necessary. When implemented on a large-scale – by partnering with building owners, real estate developers and property managers – it’s the kind of visionary solution that won’t just change the financial bottom line for owners who implement it, but might actually begin to change the world.

As we move into the future, aging infrastructure, rapidly advancing technology, and climate change will only increase the challenges that cities face. With the thoughtful and transparent use of data, we can make sure that our urban environments are able to keep pace, becoming safer, more efficient, and responsive.

Futurism fans: To create this content, a non-editorial team worked with URBAN-X, who sponsored this post. They help us keep the lights on. This post does not reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

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Elon Musk Says Your Tesla Will Earn You Money While You Sleep

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Good for Shareholders

Tesla shareholders weren’t the only ones seeing dollar signs on Wednesday.

Around 6:30 pm ET that evening, CEO Elon Musk jumped on a conference call to discuss Telsa’s finances for the third quarter of 2018. For the first time since 2016, he had positive financial news to share: The company made $312 million in profit, far more than many experts had predicted.

Good for You

But during the call Musk also shared his prediction for the future of ride-hailing, and if his vision becomes reality, you won’t need to own stock in Tesla to earn some greenbacks — you’ll just need to own one of the company’s green vehicles:

We absolutely see the future as kind of a shared electric autonomy, so that you’d be able to do ride-hailing or share the car anyway, you know, sort of a long-term model that’s probably some combination of like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. There will be Tesla dedicated cars for ride-hailing and any customer will be able to share their car at will, just like you share your house on Airbnb.

So, it’s a combination of those two models, I think is pretty obvious where things are headed long-term. The advantage that Tesla will have is that we’ll have millions of cars in the field with full autonomy capability, and no one else will have that. So I think that will end up putting us in the strongest competitive position long-term.

If Musk’s right, your Tesla could one day earn money ferrying people across town while you sleep. Now if he could just program the vehicles to pick up breakfast on their way home.

READ MORE: Tesla Network: Elon Musk Talks About Competing Against Uber and Lyft With ‘Millions of Self-Driving Cars’ [Electrek]

More on Tesla: 7 Ways Tesla Is Changing Everything

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Elon Musk Says Your Tesla Will Earn You Money While You Sleep

A Work of AI-Generated Art Just Sold For Vastly More Than Expected

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AI Auction

Back in August, we reported that a piece of art generated by an artificial intelligence was scheduled to go on auction at Christie’s, a prominent British auction house.

Today the auction went through, and the portrait sold for vastly more than expected. Christie’s anticipated it would fetch between $7,000 and $10,000 — but it instead sold for an impressive $432,000.

Art Thou

The piece, “Edmond de Belamy,” is part of a series of works created by a group of three Parisian AI enthusiasts.

One of the creators of the piece, Hugo Caselles-Dupré, told Motherboard that he doesn’t foresee algorithms replacing human artists — at least for the time being.

“Today, it’s not about algorithms that are replacing people,” Caselles-Dupré said. “In the future, we might have to be careful about this, but today, they’re more like a tool.”

READ MORE: An AI-Generated Artwork Just Sold for $432,500 at Christie’s [Motherboard]

More on AI-generated art: AI-Generated Art Will Go on Sale Alongside Human-Made Works This Fall

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A Work of AI-Generated Art Just Sold For Vastly More Than Expected

A Stem Cell Transplant Let a Wheelchair-Bound Man Dance Again

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Stand Up Guy

For 10 years, Roy Palmer had no feeling in his lower extremities. Two days after receiving a stem cell transplant, he cried tears of joy because he could feel a cramp in his leg.

The technical term for the procedure the British man underwent is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). And while risky, it’s offering new hope to people like Palmer, who found himself wheelchair-bound after multiple sclerosis (MS) caused his immune system to attack his nerves’ protective coverings.

Biological Reboot

Ever hear the IT troubleshooting go-to of turning a system off and on again to fix it? The HSCT process is similar, but instead of a computer, doctors attempt to reboot a patient’s immune system.

To do this, they first remove stem cells from the patient’s body. Then the patient undergoes chemotherapy, which kills the rest of their immune system. After that, the doctors use the extracted stem cells to reboot the patient’s immune system.

It took just two days for the treatment to restore some of the feeling in Palmer’s legs. Eventually, he was able to walk on his own and even dance. He told the BBC in a recent interview that he now feels like he has a second chance at life.

“We went on holiday, not so long ago, to Turkey. I walked on the beach,” said Palmer. “Little things like that, people do not realize what it means to me.”

Risk / Reward

Still, HSCT isn’t some miracle cure for MS. Though it worked for Palmer, that’s not always the case, and HSCT can also cause infections and infertility. The National MS Society still considers HSCT to be an experimental treatment, and the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve the therapy in the U.S.

However, MS affects more than 2.3 million people, and if a stem cell transplant can help even some of those folks the way it helped Palmer, it’s a therapy worth exploring.

READ MORE: Walking Again After Ten Years With MS [BBC]

More on HCST: New Breakthrough Treatment Could “Reverse Disability” for MS Patients

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AI Dreamed Up These Nightmare Fuel Halloween Masks

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Nightmare Fuel

Someone programmed an AI to dream up Halloween masks, and the results are absolute nightmare fuel. Seriously, just look at some of these things.

“What’s so scary or unsettling about it is that it’s not so detailed that it shows you everything,” said Matt Reed, the creator of the masks, in an interview with New Scientist. “It leaves just enough open for your imagination to connect the dots.”

A selection of masks featured on Reed’s twitter. Credit: Matt Reed/Twitter

Creative Horror

To create the masks, Reed — whose day job is as a technologist at a creative agency called redpepper — fed an open source AI tool 5,000 pictures of Halloween masks he sourced from Google Images. He then instructed the tool to generate its own masks.

The fun and spooky project is yet another sign that AI is coming into its own as a creative tool. Just yesterday, a portrait generated by a similar system fetched more than $400,000 at a prominent British auction house.

And Reed’s masks are evocative. Here at the Byte, if we looked through the peephole and saw one of these on a trick or treater, we might not open our door.

READ MORE: AI Designed These Halloween Masks and They Are Absolutely Terrifying [New Scientist]

More on AI-generated art: Generated Art Will Go on Sale Alongside Human-Made Works This Fall

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Robot Security Guards Will Constantly Nag Spectators at the Tokyo Olympics

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Over and Over

“The security robot is patrolling. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. The security robot is patrolling. Ding-ding. Ding-ding.”

That’s what Olympic attendees will hear ad nauseam when they step onto the platforms of Tokyo’s train stations in 2020. The source: Perseusbot, a robot security guard Japanese developers unveiled to the press on Thursday.

Observe and Report

According to reporting by Kyodo News, the purpose of the AI-powered Perseusbot is to lower the burden on the stations’ staff when visitors flood Tokyo during the 2020 Olympics.

The robot is roughly 5.5 feet tall and equipped with security cameras that allow it to note suspicious behaviors, such as signs of violence breaking out or unattended packages, as it autonomous patrols the area. It can then alert security staff to the issues by sending notifications directly to their smart phones.

Prior Prepration

Just like the athletes who will head to Tokyo in 2020, Perseusbot already has a training program in the works — it’ll patrol Tokyo’s Seibu Shinjuku Station from November 26 to 30. This dry run should give the bot’s developers a chance to work out any kinks before 2020.

If all goes as hoped, the bot will be ready to annoy attendees with its incessant chant before the Olympic torch is lit. And, you know, keep everyone safe, too.

READ MORE: Robot Station Security Guard Unveiled Ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics [Kyodo News]

More robot security guards: Robot Security Guards Are Just the Beginning

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Robot Security Guards Will Constantly Nag Spectators at the Tokyo Olympics

People Would Rather a Self-Driving Car Kill a Criminal Than a Dog

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Snap Decisions

On first glance, a site that collects people’s opinions about whose life an autonomous car should favor doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. But look closer, and you’ll catch a glimpse of humanity’s dark side.

The Moral Machine is an online survey designed by MIT researchers to gauge how the public would want an autonomous car to behave in a scenario in which someone has to die. It asks questions like: “If an autonomous car has to choose between killing a man or a woman, who should it kill? What if the woman is elderly but the man is young?”

Essentially, it’s a 21st century update on the Trolley Problem, an ethical thought experiment no doubt permanently etched into the mind of anyone who’s seen the second season of “The Good Place.”

Ethical Dilemma

The MIT team launched the Moral Machine in 2016, and more than two million people from 233 countries participated in the survey — quite a significant sample size.

On Wednesday, the researchers published the results of the experiment in the journal Nature, and they really aren’t all that surprising: Respondents value the life of a baby over all others, with a female child, male child, and pregnant woman following closely behind. Yawn.

It’s when you look at the other end of the spectrum — the characters survey respondents were least likely to “save” — that you’ll see something startling: Survey respondents would rather the autonomous car kill a human criminal than a dog.

moral machine
Image Credit: MIT

Ugly Reflection

While the team designed the survey to help shape the future of autonomous vehicles, it’s hard not to focus on this troubling valuing of a dog’s life over that of any human, criminal or not. Does this tell us something important about how society views the criminal class? Reveal that we’re all monsters when hidden behind the internet’s cloak of anonymity? Confirm that we really like dogs?

The MIT team doesn’t address any of these questions in their paper, and really, we wouldn’t expect them to — it’s their job to report the survey results, not extrapolate some deeper meaning from them. But whether the Moral Machine informs the future of autonomous vehicles or not, it’s certainly held up a mirror to humanity’s values, and we do not like the reflection we see.

READ MORE: Driverless Cars Should Spare Young People Over Old in Unavoidable Accidents, Massive Survey Finds [Motherboard]

More on the Moral Machine: MIT’s “Moral Machine” Lets You Decide Who Lives & Dies in Self-Driving Car Crashes

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People Would Rather a Self-Driving Car Kill a Criminal Than a Dog

Scientists Say New Material Could Hold up an Actual Space Elevator

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Space Elevator

It takes a lot of energy to put stuff in space. That’s why one longtime futurist dream is a “space elevator” — a long cable strung between a geostationary satellite and the Earth that astronauts could use like a dumbwaiter to haul stuff up into orbit.

The problem is that such a system would require an extraordinarily light, strong cable. Now, researchers from Beijing’s Tsinghua University say they’ve developed a carbon nanotube fiber so sturdy and lightweight that it could be used to build an actual space elevator.

Going Up

The researchers published their paper in May, but it’s now garnering the attention of their peers. Some believe the Tsinghua team’s material really could lead to the creation of an elevator that would make it cheaper to move astronauts and materials into space.

“This is a breakthrough,” colleague Wang Changqing, who studies space elevators at Northwestern Polytechnical University, told the South China Morning Post.

Huge If True

There are still countless galling technical problems that need to be overcome before a space elevator would start to look plausible. Wang pointed out that it’d require tens of thousands of kilometers of the new material, for instance, as well as a shield to protect it from space debris.

But the research brings us one step closer to what could be a true game changer: a vastly less expensive way to move people and spacecraft out of Earth’s gravity.

READ MORE: China Has Strongest Fibre That Can Haul 160 Elephants – and a Space Elevator? [South China Morning Post]

More on space elevators: Why Space Elevators Could Be the Future of Space Travel

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Scientists Say New Material Could Hold up an Actual Space Elevator