Select Page ::

NASA getting closer to solving ‘space poop’ problem – USA TODAY

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

It's a good day to be an astronaut!(Photo: NASA/Carla Cioffi)

NASA recently turned to the public to find a solutionthat will allowastronauts to poop while stuck in their space suits for up to six days.

More than 5,000 solutions from 19,000 competitors were submitted to the Space Poop Challenge, which was organized by NASA Tournament Lab, and overseen by HeroX, a crowdsourcing competition platform.

"As astronauts travel farther into the solar system, explorers may need to remain in their suits for several days on their way back to Earth in the event of an emergency situation," NASA said in a statement."This challenge sought solutions for fecal, urine, and menstrual management systems for the crews launch and entry suits."

On Wednesday, the winners were announced. With the grand prize of $15,000 going to Thatcher Cardon, a family physician, and flight surgeon. He won the challenge for his MACES Perineal Access & Toileting System (M-PATS).

Cardon told NPR his design was inspired by minimally invasive surgical techniques that can do some amazing things in very small openings.

"I never thought that keeping the waste in the suit would be any good," Cardon told NPR. "So I thought, 'How can we get in and out of the suit easily?

Cardons design features an airlock at the crotch of the suit, which will allow items like inflatable bedpans and diapers to be passed through, NPR reported.

While crew members currently wear diapers that are adequate for a few hours, NASA needed a long-term solution in case crew members were forced to stay in their spacesuits for up to six days.

As humans travel to the moon and Mars, we will have many problems to solve some are as simple as how do we go to the bathroom in space, it isnt glamorous, but it is necessary for survival, Astronaut Richard Mastracchio said in an October video about the competition.

The other Space Poop Challenge winners included a team of three from Houston who took home $10,000, and Hugo Shelly, who took home $5,000 for a design called "SWIMSuit - Zero Gravity Underwear."

NASA will use "aspects of the winning designs to develop future waste management systems for use in the suit, Kirstyn Johnson, spacesuit engineer at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2lc2JXe

View post:

NASA getting closer to solving 'space poop' problem - USA TODAY

NASA wants you to find a missing planet – USA TODAY

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

An artists' conception of the mysterious Planet 9.(Photo: NASA)

Want to work for NASA from the comforts of your couch?The space agency is looking to fulfill an amateur astronomer's dream credit for the discovery of a new planet.

NASA is looking for helpto findthe mysterious and as-yet undiscovered Planet 9, which astronomers think may be the most distant planet in our solar system.

A new website Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 lets people comb through footage captured by the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission a few years ago.

The footage shows objectsgradually movingacross the sky."There are too many images for us to search through by ourselves," NASA said.

In this case, people are better than computers at spotting and identifying objects, such as a planet, in the footage. Human eyes can easily recognize the important moving objects while ignoring the background stars and other objects that computer programs would flag.

Astronomers believe the planet exists because of strange orbits of other distant objects that spin beyond Neptune. If Planet 9 also known as Planet X is there and is as bright as some predictions, it could show up in the WISE moviestaken in 2010 and 2011.

This "has the potential to unlock once-in-a-century discoveries, and it's exciting to think they could be spotted first by a citizen scientist," said Aaron Meisner, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in analyzing WISE images.

If an average citizen spots something that leads to a discovery, he or she will get shared credit with the professional astronomers.

"There are just over four light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this vast territory is unexplored," said lead researcher Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Planet 9 could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth and an orbit about 20 times farther from the sun, on average, than Neptune, NASA said. It may take between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make one full orbit around the sun, NASA suspects.

Pluto used to be the ninth planet before its demotion to dwarf planet status 10 years ago. NASA said the search for Planet 9 is a 21st-century version of the technique astronomer Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto in 1930, a discovery made 87 years ago this week.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2lcj7Hj

Original post:

NASA wants you to find a missing planet - USA TODAY

Seeing Spots: NASA Video Shows 7 Years of Solar Activity – Space.com

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Watch the sun break out in spots over and over again in a new NASA video of the sunshowing seven years of sunspot footage, collected by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

The SDO launched in December 2009 and has been in space long enough to see most of an 11-year solar cycle, which is characterized by a peak in activity, such as the appearance of sunspots and explosions of material from the surface. The mission is intended to help scientists learn more about the sun's influence on the Earth by studying the sun's atmosphere. In 2013, the SDO and other observatories observed the most muted solar peak in 100 years, which is captured in the video. Data in the video is represented up to January 2017.

The larger, orange sun on the left side of the screen represents visible light captured by the HMI (Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager). The black dots are sunspots, which are concentrations of magnetic fields that appear darker than the surroundings. Simply put, larger and more frequent sunspots tend to correlate with more solar activity. [Sunspot Photos: Amazing Views of Spots on the Sun]

The smaller, golden sun in the lower right shows the star in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, based on data from the SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA). Here you can see some of the corona, which is the sun's outer atmosphere. Scientists are still trying to figure out why the corona has a temperature in the millions of degrees, while the surface is at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius.) A phenomenon called "heat bombs," which occur when magnetic fields cross in the corona and realign, may be partially responsible.

The graph in the upper-right corner of the video screen "shows the sunspot number, a measurement based on the number of individual spots and the number of sunspot groups," NASA added in a statement. "In this case, the line represents a smoothed 26-day average to more clearly show the overall trend."

And although solar energy is essential for life on Earth, solar activity can wreak havoc on satellites and even ground-based power grids, potentially damaging Earth's power and communication infrastructures.

Forecasting and preparing for such events is one reason why NASA and governments worldwide are interested in learning more about how the sun works.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

NASA Satellite Spots Mile-Long Iceberg Breaking Off of Antarctic Glacier – Live Science

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

A massive, 1-mile-long (1.6 kilometers) chunk of ice has broken off Antarctica's fast-changing Pine Island Glacier, and NASA satellites captured the dramatic event as the icy surface cracked and ripped apart.

The Pine Island Glacier is one of the largest glaciers within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, accounting for about 20 percent of the ice sheet's total ice flow to the ocean, according to NASA scientists. The immense glacier is also one of the least stable, and in recent years, the ice sheet has been quickly retreating and losing massive amounts of ice. Previously, icebergs the size of cities have broken off of the Pine Island Glacier. [Photo Gallery: Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Cracks]

The glacier's last major iceberg break an event known as calving was in July 2015, when an iceberg measuring almost 225 square miles (580 square kilometers) separated from Pine Island Glacier.

The Earth-watching Landsat 8 satellite captured images of the latest iceberg event between Jan. 25 and 29, seeing the progression from the initial crack to the iceberg floating into the bay. Though this latest iceberg is about 10 times smaller than the 2015 event, measuring between 0.6 and 1.2 miles (1 to 2 km), NASA scientists said the recent break shows how fragile the ice shelf is.

"I think this event is the calving equivalent of an 'aftershock' following the much bigger event," Ian Howat, a glaciologist at The Ohio State University, said in a statement. "Apparently, there are weaknesses in the ice shelf just inland of the rift that caused the 2015 calving that are resulting in these smaller breaks."

More icebergs may break off of the Pine Island Glacier in the near future. NASA has previously photographed small rifts developing about 6 miles (10 km) from the ice front, and one such rift was observed on Nov. 4, 2016, during one of the agency'sOperation IceBridgeflights to monitor the region.

Climate change and the warming ocean have been linked to the the retreat and melt of the world's ice. According to Howat, such "rapid fire" calving is generally unusual for the glacier, but West Antarctic glaciers are eroding due to the flow of warm ocean water beneath them. A recent study found that thewarming ocean was melting an ice crevasseof the Pine Island Glacier at the bedrock level, melting the glacier from its center.

These warmer ocean waters are causing the Antarctic ice shelf to break from the inside out. As such, scientists expect further calving along the glacier and have warned that theWest Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapsewithin the next 100 years.

Original article on Live Science.

Visit link:

NASA Satellite Spots Mile-Long Iceberg Breaking Off of Antarctic Glacier - Live Science

‘Hidden Figures’ Broke Ground for Modern Figures at NASA – NBC4 Washington

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

At 98 years old, one of the three inspiring female African-American mathematicians the Academy Award-nominated film Hidden Figures is based still has a head for numbers and would like to be back in her chair at NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The book and movie Hidden Figures tells the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson, who were among the first African-American women to work for NASA during the space race in the 1950s and 1960s, when their job assignments in the segregated computers division at Langley were far beneath the heights they would eventually climb through excellent work and perseverance achieving equality.

Johnsons first job at NASA was as a computer programmer in a segregated unit of all African-American women, where her brilliant math skills were recognized.

I miss working, she says. I worked all my life, all kinds of jobs.

The bigger challenge was overcoming racial prejudice.

John Glenn trusted Johnsons telemetry calculations over those from computers that were relatively new at the time.

Yes, he was like me, she said. He didn't trust the computers.

He knew her equations done by hand had worked for some very high-stakes missions.

So how did she feel about so much weight riding on her arithmetic?

No problem.

Math never stumped Johnson.

She is a legend now at NASA, where a lot has changed since her 33 years there. She was a major catalyst for that change. Her brilliant mind for math led to great strides in the race to get to space and back.

She says she was just doing her job, but her parts putting America out front in the pioneering days of the space race and bringing her race from the back of the bus when they rode to work both earned a place in history.

The movie offers only a glimpse of Johnson's life away from NASA. The single mother of three daughters has a new husband who is still in her life.

Christine Darden was hired as a computer programmer in 1967, two years before NASA put a man on the moon. As a trained mathematician, she eventually wanted to do more.

Turned down by her immediate supervisors when she asked if she could work in an engineering group, she had the courage to go to a more senior supervisor because of the shoulders of women she stood on, like those of Katherine Johnson.

We were enabled to move up in our jobs because of what they did and the way they worked, Darden said.

She rose to the rank of supervisor and retired as head of the department of education and legislative affairs.

Engineer Julie Williams-Byrd is one of the women NASA designated a "modern figure." Right now, NASA is looking at sending people to Mars.

Thinking about sending humans to Mars, we start with a concept, right, we start visualizing, she says.

Williams-Byrd has her name on the door at NASA, something Katherine Johnson may have dreamed of when she was creating trajectories in her head.

Published at 9:45 PM EST on Feb 15, 2017 | Updated 6 hours ago

The rest is here:

'Hidden Figures' Broke Ground for Modern Figures at NASA - NBC4 Washington

NASA gets a night-time view ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo – Phys.Org

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

February 16, 2017 On Feb. 15 at 2246 UTC (5:46 p.m. EST) the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo along the southeastern coast of Mozambique. Credit:NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite got a night-time view of former Tropical Cyclone Dineo over the southeastern coast of Mozambique. Warnings have already been posted in the northeastern region of South Africa as Dineo continues to track inland.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC issued their final warning on the system on February 15. Later in the day at 2246 UTC (5:46 p.m. EST) the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a night-time, infrared image of the ex-tropical cyclone. The image showed that the storm had become somewhat elongated as it continued to weaken. The interaction with the land of Mozambique is expected to continue weakening the storm as it tracks further inland on Feb. 16.

On Feb. 16 at 0000 UTC (Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. EST) Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo was located near 23.4 degrees south latitude and 34.1 degrees east longitude, just inland from the coast of southeastern Mozambique. Dineo was moving to the west at 9 knots (10.3 mph/16.6 kph) and maximum sustained surface winds were estimated at 60 knots (69 mph/111 kph).

On Feb. 16, the South African Weather Service posted warnings for the northeastern part of the country where the effects of Ex-tropical Cyclone Dineo were already being experienced

A warning for severe thunderstorms was in effect over the south-western parts of the Waterberg District of Limpopo with possible heavy rain leading to localized flooding as well as large amounts of small hail. There was also warnings for damaging winds and flooding in Vhembe and Mopani District Municipalities of Limpopo from late afternoon on Thursday, persisting into tomorrow Friday morning, February 17.

A Heavy Rain warning is also in effect. Heavy rains may create localized flooding in Vhembe and Mopani District Municipalities of Limpopo, from Thursday late afternoon, persisting into Friday morning, Feb. 17. For updated warnings from the South African Weather Service, visit: http://www.weathersa.co.za..

Explore further: NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Dineo at Mozambique coast

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Dineo in the Mozambique Channel on Feb. 15, the storm was centered just off the coast of Mozambique and moving toward landfall.

NASA's Terra satellite saw strong thunderstorms spiraling into the heart of Tropical Cyclone Dineo on Valentine's Day as it continued to strengthen in the Mozambique Channel.

The fifth tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean season formed today, February 13 as NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of the storm.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a night-time image of Tropical Cyclone Carlos using infrared light that showed the storm was being stretched out. Carlos is being adversely affected by the Westerlies.

Tropical Cyclone Carlos became sub-tropical and weakened to a remnant low pressure area over the weekend of February 11 and 12. By February 13, as NASA's Terra satellite passed over the remnants, the storm still showed a ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of newly formed Tropical Cyclone 05B in the Bay of Bengal, Northern Indian Ocean.

Seagrass meadows - bountiful underwater gardens that nestle close to shore and are the most common coastal ecosystem on Earth - can reduce bacterial exposure for corals, other sea creatures and humans, according to new research ...

New findings from the University of Michigan explain an Ice Age paradox and add to the mounting evidence that climate change could bring higher seas than most models predict.

Oxygen is an essential necessity of life on land. The same applies for almost all organisms in the ocean. However, the oxygen supply in the oceans is threatened by global warming in two ways: Warmer surface waters take up ...

Gleaning data from old rocks may result in bias. Now, geophysicists have a way to improve their methods to overcome challenges in studying the history of the Earth's core and magnetic field that make up the geodynamo.

Dr Pim Bongaerts, a Research Fellow at The University of Queensland's Global Change Institute (GCI) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and lead author of the study, said deep reefs share coral species with ...

Cracks in the Greenland Ice Sheet let one of its aquifers drain to the ocean, new NASA research finds. The aquifers, discovered only recently, are unusual in that they trap large amounts of liquid water within the ice sheet. ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

See the original post:

NASA gets a night-time view ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo - Phys.Org

NASA’s Kepler Mission Could Detect Exomoons Formed by Giant Impacts – Space.com

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

In 2012, a team of scientists from the Kepler mission announced they would start to hunt for moons orbiting distant exoplanets. While Kepler has discovered thousands of extrasolar planets, the hunt for these so-called "exomoons" has so far come up empty.

The major problem has been that for a moon to be detectable in the Kepler data, it would have to be about 10 percent the mass of Earth, or roughly the mass of Mars. This is about ten times larger than the largest moons in our own solar system.

While the formation of planetary satellites seems to be a natural by-product of planet formation, scientist Amy Barr of the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) wondered if it would be possible for large moons possibly even Earth-like habitable moons to form. And if so, could they possibly be common in the galaxy?

Using modeling and simulations, Barr and her fellow researchers found it is theoretically possible for super-sized moons to form around both rocky and gas planets, but only if the planets themselves are sufficiently large enough. Large rocky moons could be created from collisions between super-Earth sized rocky worlds, and exomoons around gas giants may be able to form by co-accretion or capture.

RELATED: Hunting for Exomoons That May Host Alien Life

"Our results are the first to demonstrate the masses of the moons that could form in the varied set of impact conditions possible within exoplanetary systems,"said Barr, a senior scientist at PSI. "Most importantly, we have shown that it is possible to form exomoons with masses above the theoretical detection limits of the ongoing Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler survey, moons of more than a tenth of an Earth mass."

Just as the Kepler spacecraft used the transit method to detect planets passing in front of the disc of the parent star which causes a temporary drop in brightness the transit method should also be the best and most direct method for detecting exomoons. That's why a team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics started theHunt of Exomoons with Kepler (HEK) project.But finding exomoons has been a fruitless challenge, mostly because of the size needed for the moon to be detectable.

However, solar systems found by Kepler are quite different than our own, and the most common size of planet in the Kepler data is new class of planets called super-Earths. These are planets between the size of Earth and Neptune, which we don't have in our own cosmic neighborhood.

"Very little is known about how the satellite formation processes proposed for our solar system might scale to different planetary masses and stellar conditions," wrote Barr in her paper.

Using hydrodynamical simulations which have been used to study how Earth's moon may have formed by a large impact Barr was able to determine how much material would be launched into orbit by the collision of two rocky super-Earth exoplanets. Collisions between rocky planets with masses of two to seven Earth masses can launch into orbit enough mass to create a satellite large enough to be detected in Kepler transit data.

"These outcomes are broadly similar to the Moon-forming impact, but when two super-earths collide, the disk is much hotter and more massive," said Barrin a press release.

And her paper,"Formation of Massive Rocky Exomoons by Giant Impact"explains that the models suggest that detectable rocky exomoons can be produced for a variety of impact conditions and may be associated with host planets of various sizes.

A second paper,"Formation of Exomoons: A Solar System Perspective,"demonstrates how large exomoons could form by co-accretion around growing gas giant planets, or by capturing wandering bodies, or other processes that did not take place in our Solar System.

RELATED: 'Smaller Than Earth'-Sized Exomoon Discovered?

Barr also looked at current theories of how moons form in our Solar System, and how those theories might apply to the formation of exomoons.

"Some of the old theories about the formation of Earth's Moon, for example, fission, could operate in other solar systems," said Barr. "With new observatories coming online soon, this is a good time to revisit some of the old ideas, and see if we might be able to predict how common exomoons might be, and what it would take to detect them."

Barr said that these studies of the types of exotic moon-forming events has "yielded promising initial results, relevant to the current efforts to observe exomoons," and that the models suggest that detectable exomoons can be produced in a variety of conditions and may be associated with host planets of various sizes.

As of this writing, the combined Kepler and K2 missions have found 2,476 confirmed planets, with an additional 5,216 planet "candidates," meaning they have yet to be confirmed. The exomoon count is currently at zero, but the work by Barr and her colleagues provides hope that discovering exomoons could be the next big thing.

WATCH VIDEO: Proxima B: Another Earth Just Next Door

Originally published onSeeker.

Continued here:

NASA's Kepler Mission Could Detect Exomoons Formed by Giant Impacts - Space.com

Research briefs: diagnostic imaging – Medical Physics Web (subscription)

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Automated system classifies skin cancers

Skin cancer, the most common human malignancy, is usually diagnosed visually and then confirmed with follow-up biopsies and histological tests. Automated classification of skin lesions is desirable but challenging because such lesions vary greatly in appearance. Now, researchers from Stanford University have devised a deep-learning algorithm that can classify skin cancers from images. They trained the algorithm using a dataset of 129,450 clinical images representing more than 2000 different skin diseases. In tests on clinical images, the algorithm could diagnose the most common and the most deadly types of skin cancer malignant carcinomas and melanomas, respectively with equivalent performance to a group of 21 board-certified dermatologists (Nature 542 115).

"We made a very powerful machine learning algorithm that learns from data," said Andre Esteva, co-lead author of the paper and a graduate student in the Thrun lab. "Instead of writing into computer code exactly what to look for, you let the algorithm figure it out." The authors note that the system has yet to be validated in a real-world clinical setting, but has extensive potential to affect primary care. They also hope to make the algorithm smartphone compatible in the near future. "My main eureka moment was when I realized just how ubiquitous smartphones will be," added Esteva. "Everyone will have a supercomputer in their pockets with a number of sensors in it, including a camera. What if we could use it to visually screen for skin cancer? Or other ailments?"

Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School have designed a portable cancer diagnostic system that enables faster and more accurate diagnosis of brain tumours in the operating room. Typically, after removing the tumour, the surgeon must wait 30 to 40 minutes while the tissue is sent to a pathology lab for processing, sectioning, staining, mounting and interpretation. This can delay decision-making in the operating room, while tissue processing can introduce artefacts. Instead, the Michigan researchers have developed a stimulated Raman histology (SRH) system that can provide fast analysis of fresh brain tumour samples in the operating room, with no sample processing or staining required (Nature Biomedical Engineering 1 0027).

SRH is based on stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, using a fibre-laser-based microscope. The technology produces images that are virtually coloured to highlight cellular and architectural features and are almost indistinguishable from traditionally stained samples. The researchers imaged tissue from 101 neurosurgical patients using the new approach and conventional methods. Both produced accurate results but SRH was much faster. Neuropathologists given 30 samples, processed via SRH or traditional methods, were equally likely to make a correct diagnosis with either sample. The team has also built a machine learning process that could predict brain tumour subtype with 90% accuracy. "By achieving excellent image quality in fresh tissues, we're able to make a diagnosis during surgery," said first author Daniel Orringer. "Our technique may disrupt the intraoperative diagnosis process in a great way, reducing it from a 30-minute process to about three minutes. Initially, we developed this technology as a means of helping surgeons detect microscopic tumour, but we found the technology was capable of much more than guiding surgery."

A research team headed up at the Center for Nanomedicine in the Republic of Korea has developed the Nano MRI Lamp a platform based on an MRI contrast that only "switches on" in the presence of the targeted disease. The Nano MRI Lamp technology combines two magnetic materials: a superparamagnetic quencher (magnetic nanoparticle) and a paramagnetic enhancer (MRI contrast agent). When the two materials are separated by more than 7nm, the MRI signal is on, whereas when they are placed closer than 7nm, the signal is switched off. The researchers named this approach magnetic resonance tuning (Nature Materials doi: 10.1038/nmat4846).

The team tested the Nano MRI Lamp's performance by detecting the presence of MMP-2, an enzyme that can induce tumour metastasis, in mice with cancer. They connected the two magnetic materials with a linker, bringing them close together and switching the MRI signal off. In the presence of cancer, the MMP-2 cleaves this linker, separating the materials and switching the MRI signal on. The resulting MR image thus indicated the location of the tumour, with the signal brightness correlated with MMP-2 concentration in the cancerous tissue. "The current contrast agent is like using a flashlight during a sunny day: its effect is limited. Instead, this new technology is like using a flash light at night and therefore more useful," explained team leader Jinwoo Cheon.

The first-in-human application of a PET radiotracer designed to identify both early and metastatic prostate cancer has been reported by a USChina research team. The new tracer is a Ga-68-labelled peptide BBN-RGD agent that targets both gastrin-releasing peptide receptor and integrin v3, both of which are overexpressed in prostate cancer cells. The study included 13 patients with prostate cancer (four newly diagnosed and nine post-therapy) and five healthy volunteers. PET/CT using Ga-68-BBN-RGD detected 20 bone lesions in seven patients, either with primary prostate cancer or after radical prostatectomy. No adverse side effects were found during the procedure and two-week follow-up, demonstrating the safety of the radiotracer (J. Nucl. Med. 58 228).

"Compounds capable of targeting more than one biomarker have the ability of binding to both early and metastatic stages of prostate cancer, creating the possibility for a more prompt and accurate diagnostic profile for both primary and the metastatic tumours," explained senior investigator Xiaoyuan Chen, from the Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Nanomedicine at NIBIB. Looking ahead, Chen says that Ga-68-BBN-RGD could play a role in staging and detecting prostate cancer and provide guidance for internal radiation therapy, using the same peptide labelled with therapeutic radionuclides. He points out that larger-scale clinical investigations are warranted.

MSOM offers 3D in vivo skin mapping Raman imaging steps closer to the clinic Multifunctional bubbles image and treat PET helps quantify bone metastases response

View post:

Research briefs: diagnostic imaging - Medical Physics Web (subscription)

Israel launches two nano-satellites – Arutz Sheva

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

The satellites are launched

Science Ministry spokesman

Two Israeli nano-satellites were successfully launched into space from India at 6am Wednesday, using a launcher from the Indian Space Research Organization.

The new nano-satellites are the size of milk cartons, allowing Israeli researchers better navigation and easy information access.

One of the satellites belongs to Ben Gurion University and will provide Israel with high-resolution photos. The BGUSAT is equipped with cameras able to detect climate trends and changes, and has a small chip allowing it to function like a larger satellite. The BGUSAT weighs 11 pounds (5 kg).

The second satellite belongs to SpacePharma, the Israeli company which first developed nano-satellites. This satellite has a mini-lab on board which conducts four experiments, some of which investigate the effect of zero gravity on different substances. The experiments are controlled by the researchers via a direct application on their smartphones. The automatic system allows the researchers to change the experiments as necessary, as well as receive data on radiation, temperature, and more. The SpacePharma satellite weights 9.92 lbs (4.5 kg) and is equipped with a camera which can take microscopic pictures.

A record 101 other satellites from around the globe left the same launcher together with the Israeli satellites. All of the satellites entered an orbit 310.75 miles (500 kilometers) high within minutes after launch.

88 of the other satellites launched on the PSLV launcher belong to a US company, three of them belong to India, and the others belong to Kazakhstan, Holland, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates.

Launched together, the 102 satellites weighed 1,378 kilograms. India's three satellites were released at a lower orbit, but the other 97 will orbit together with the Israeli satellites at a height of 310.75 miles (500 kilometers) from Earth.

The launcher traveled at a speed of 16780.6 mph (27,000 km per hour), which is forty times faster than the average airplane.

The Israeli satellites will serve researchers from Israel and around the world, providing information for climate research and medicine. Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud) said, "We are proud to see how Israeli research has launched. We are proud of the Israeli researchers who developed these two small satellites, which will help us advance medical and environmental research for the sake of all humanity."

The rest is here:

Israel launches two nano-satellites - Arutz Sheva

Chemical Engineering | NanoEngineering

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

The Chemical Engineering Program offers graduate instruction leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering. The nanotechnology concentration signifies that four elective courses are chosen from the approved courses in this area.

Admission is in accordance with the general requirements of the graduate division, which requires at least a B.S. in some branch of engineering, sciences, or mathematics; an overall GPA of 3.0, and three letters of recommendation from individuals who can attest to the academic or professional competence and to the depth of their interest in pursuing graduate study.

In addition, all applicants are required to submit GRE General Test Scores. A minimum score of 550 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is required of all international applicants whose native language is not English. Students who score below 600 on the TOEFL are strongly encouraged to enroll in an English as a second language program before beginning graduate work. UC San Diego Extension offers an excellent English language program during the summers as well as the academic year.

Applicants are judged competitively. Based on the candidates background, qualifications, and goals, admission to the program is in one of three categories: M.S. only, M.S., or Ph.D. Admission to the M.S. only category is reserved for students for whom the M.S. degree is likely to be the terminal graduate degree. The M.S. designation is reserved for students currently interested in obtaining an M.S. degree but who at a later time may wish to continue in the doctoral degree program. Admission to the Ph.D. Program is reserved for qualified students whose final aim is a doctoral degree.

Non-matriculated students are welcome to seek enrollment in graduate-level courses via UC Extensions concurrent registration program, but an extension students enrollment in a graduate course must be approved by the instructor.

Read the rest here:

Chemical Engineering | NanoEngineering

Graphene Foam Gets Big and Tough – I-Connect007 :: Article – I-Connect007

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

A chunk of conductive graphene foam reinforced by carbon nanotubes can support more than 3,000 times its own weight and easily bounce back to its original height, according to Rice University scientists.

A microscope image of rebar graphene shows carbon shells, multiwalled carbon nanotubes and two-dimensional graphene. Courtesy of the Tour Group

Better yet, it can be made in just about any shape and size, they reported, demonstrating a screw-shaped piece of the highly conductive foam.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour tested its new rebar graphene as a highly porous, conductive electrode in lithium ion capacitors and found it to be mechanically and chemically stable.

Carbon in the form of atom-thin graphene is among the strongest materials known and is highly conductive; multiwalled carbon nanotubes are widely used as conductive reinforcements in metals, polymers and carbon matrix composites. The Tour lab had already used nanotubes to reinforce two-dimensional sheets of graphene. Extending the concept to macroscale materials made sense, Tour said.

We developed graphene foam, but it wasnt tough enough for the kind of applications we had in mind, so using carbon nanotubes to reinforce it was a natural next step, Tour said.

The three-dimensional structures were created from a powdered nickel catalyst, surfactant-wrapped multiwall nanotubes and sugar as a carbon source. The materials were mixed and the water evaporated; the resulting pellets were pressed into a steel die and then heated in a chemical vapor deposition furnace, which turned the available carbon into graphene. After further processing to remove remnants of nickel, the result was an all-carbon foam in the shape of the die, in this case a screw. Tour said the method will be easy to scale up.

Electron microscope images of the foam showed partially unzipped outer layers of the nanotubes had bonded to the graphene, which accounted for its strength and resilience. Graphene foam produced without the rebar could support only about 150 times its own weight while retaining the ability to rapidly return to its full height. But rebar graphene irreversibly deformed by about 25 percent when loaded with more than 8,500 times its weight.

Junwei Sha, a visiting graduate student at Rice and a graduate student at Tianjin University, China, is lead author of the paper. Co-authors from Rice are postdoctoral researchers Rodrigo Salvatierra, Pei Dong and Yongsung Ji; graduate students Yilun Li, Tuo Wang, Chenhao Zhang and Jibo Zhang; former postdoctoral researcher Seoung-Ki Lee; Pulickel Ajayan, chair of the Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering and a professor of chemistry; and Jun Lou, a professor of materials science and nanoengineering. Naiqin Zhao, a professor at Tianjin University and a researcher at the Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin, is also a co-author. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and its Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative supported the research.

Continued here:

Graphene Foam Gets Big and Tough - I-Connect007 :: Article - I-Connect007

India Breaks Record After Launching 104 Satellites on One Rocket – Interesting Engineering

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

India recently launched a record-breaking rocket with a massive payload containing 104 satellites.

Indias space agency is lightingup the skies again with another record-breaking rocket. On its thirty-ninth flight, the PSLV-C37 carried 103 nano-satellitesinto space along with themuch larger Cartosat-2 series satellite. The mission beat Russias previous record of 37 satellites back in 2014. Although it is not a competition, the mission instilled the competence of the ISROs space technological capabilities.

[Image Source:ISRO]

The satellites onboard the record-breaking mission originate from many countries including Kazakhstan, Israel, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a majority of96 from United States of America (USA), as well as two Nano-satellites from India. The satellites will remain in high-orbit 505 km above the Earth. Altogether, the payload weighed in at about1377 kg.Although, about714 kg of the load was theCartosat-2 satellitealone.

The primaryand heaviest satellite aboard the PSLV-C37 rocket is the Cartosat-2. The satellitewill monitor the earth using its high-tech Panchromatic and Multispectral cameras. The images takenwill be useful in monitoringroad networks, water distribution, creation of land use maps, and many other applications. Over a five-year period, the satellite will continuously monitor Earth and will provide various information about the planet.

Also onboard the rocket were many other satellites, the majority of which are nano-satellites.

[Image Source:ISRO]

Although the ISRO may not have the highest budget, it is perhaps the most cost-efficient space program. With a late entrance into the space race and considerably less funding, the ISRO did not have a favorable beginning. What they do maintain, however, is a resourceful engineering team unphased by the disadvantageous recourse. The ISROs space budget ofjust over 2 billion USDcompares significantlyless than NASAs lucrative budget of $18.5 billion.However, regardless of any shortcomings, the ISRO iscontinuouslyadvancing in space technology, exemplifiedby the recent record-breaking rocket.

Back in 2013, the ISRO launched the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) which sent a probe into space that would later become the fourth ever space agency to reach Mars; right behind the Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. In 2014 and after nearly 300 days in space, the probe successfully reached Mars orbit.

The primary objective of the mission is to develop the technologies to enable future manned interplanetary missions. At the same time, the MOM orbiter monitoredthe surface features of Marsby studying the morphology, topography,and mineralogy. The mission also investigated the dynamics of the upper atmosphere of Mars includingsolar wind and radiation levels. The team successfullycompleted the mission with an impeccably small budget.

Indias Mars mission, with a budget of $73 million, is far cheaper than comparable missions including NASAs $671 million Maven satellite that is expected to set off for Mars later in November, reports The Wall Street Journal.

More recently, in 2016, the team successfully launched a model Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV-TD). Since the termination of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, government and private companies have been racing to develop the next reusable shuttle. The ISRO is making some advancements with a recent test investigating a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The test involved launching a 1.75-tonne unmanned spacecraft to an altitude of nearly 70 kmatop of a single-use rocket.

[Image Source:IDRW NEWS NETWORK]

The entire duration of the flight lasted just 770 seconds. While the shuttle was not expected to survive the landing, ISRO engineers reported the autonomous landing system managed to slow the decent down enough to land the craft into the Bay of Bengal without causing much damage.

Of course, the RLV is just a model of a prototypical vehicle. However, over a five-year development, the model cost just1bn rupees ($14m; 9.6m). By using a reusable shuttle, the ISRO hopes to bring the cost of sending 1 kg into space down from $5000 US to just $500 US. A fully functional model is expected to reach completion within the next 10 years.

After the successful mission to Mars, ISRO also hopes to send spacecraft to investigate both Venus and Jupiter. Although, the program is still a long way off from any long distance voyage any time soon.

Unlike the Mars mission wherein we were able to successfully send a spacecraft for a mission costing just Rs 450 crore, to Jupiter it would have to be elaborate. There is no point sending a spacecraft so far after planning with minimal payload, reportsa senior space scientist. For that, the spacecraft propulsion systems have to be planned, besides first successfully getting out GSLV Mark-III launcher ready, he said.

Over the years, the ISRO continues to prove its capabilities in keeping up with the ongoing space race. But it is not a race to be won. Rather it is a challenge for humanity to collaborateand engineer spacecraft which will take people back to the moon and beyond. Although ISRO may not be the most advanced program, they stand behind a greater cause advancing the technologies of the future which will propel humanity into the next era: the Space Age.

Continue reading here:

India Breaks Record After Launching 104 Satellites on One Rocket - Interesting Engineering

Large-Scale Quantum Computing Prototype on Horizon – The Next Platform

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

February 16, 2017 Jeffrey Burt

What supercomputers will look like in the future, post-Moores Law, is still a bit hazy. As exascale computing comes into focus over the next several years, system vendors, universities and government agencies are all trying to get a gauge on what will come after that. Moores Law, which has driven the development of computing systems for more than five decades, is coming to an end as the challenge of making smaller chips loaded with more and more features is becoming increasingly difficult to do.

While the rise of accelerators, like GPUs, FPGAs and customized ASICs, silicon photonics and faster interconnects will help drive performance to meet many of the demands of such emerging applications as artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics, autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things, down the road new computing paradigms will have to be developed to address future workload challenges. Quantum computing is among the possibilities being developed as a possible solution as vendors look to map out their pathways into the future.

Intel, which more successfully than any other chip maker has driven Moores Law forward, is now turning some of its attention to the next step in computing. CEO Brian Krzanich last week during the companys investor event said Intel is investing a lot of time, effort and money in both quantum computing and neuromorphic computing developing systems that can mimic the human brain and Mark Seager, Intel Fellow and CTO for the HPC ecosystem in the chip makers Scalable Datacenter Solutions Group, told The Next Platform that at Intel, we are serious about other aspects of AI like cognitive computing and neuromorphic computing. Our way of thinking about AI is more broad than just machine learning and deep learning, but having said that, the question is how the technologies required for these workloads are converging with HPC.

Quantum computing has been talked about for decades, and there have been projects pushing the idea for almost just as long. It holds out the promise of systems that are multiple times faster than current supercomputers. At the core of quantum computers are qubits, which are to quantum systems what bits are to traditional computers.

IBM last year made its quantum computing capabilities available on the IBM Cloud to give the public access to the technology and to drive innovation and new applications that can be used for the technology. Big Blue has been working on quantum computing technology for more than three decades. D-Wave currently is the only company to offer commercial quantum computing systems, and last month introduced its latest version, the D-Wave 2000Q, which has 2,000 qubits twice the number of its predecessor and has its first customer in Temporal Defense Systems, which will use the system to address cybersecurity threats. The systems are expensive reportedly in the $15 million range and the number of applications that can run on them are small, though D-Wave officials told The Next Platform that the number of applications will grow over the next decade and that the company is working to encourage that growth.

Others organizations also are pushing to expand the capabilities of quantum computing. Researchers led by Prof. Winfried Hensinger, head of the Ion Quantum Technology Group at the University of Sussex in England, this month unveiled a blueprint for building a modular, large-scale and highly scalable quantum computer and plans to build a prototype of the system at the university. The modular model and a unique way for moving qubits between the modules are at the center of what the researchers who also come from the United States, Denmark, Japan and Germany are developing. Qubits take advantage of what is called in quantum mechanics superposition the ability to have values of 1 and 0 at the same time. That ability fuels much of the promise of quantum computers that are significantly faster than conventional systems.

Quantum physics is a very strange theory predicting things like an atom can be in two different places at the same time, were harnessing these very strange effects in order to build a new type of computer. These quantum computers will change all of our lives, revolutionizing science, medicine and commerce.

The computer will be built through modules that contain an electronics layer, a cooling layer using liquid nitrogen and piezo actuators. Each module will be lowered into a steel frame, and the modules will leverage connections created via electric fields that transmit ions from one module to the next. Its a step in another direction from the fiber optic technologies many scientists are advocating for in quantum computers.

The researchers in Sussex argue that using electric fields to transport the charged atoms will offer connection speeds between the modules that are 100,000 faster than current fiber technologies and, according to Hensinger, will allow us to build a quantum computer of any size [and] allow us to achieve phenomenal processing powers. Each module will hold about 2,500 qubits, enabling a complete system that can contain 2 billion or more qubits.

The blueprint and prototype will be the latest step in what is sure to be an ongoing debate about what quantum computers will look like. However, creating modular system that can scale quickly and offers a very fast connectivity technology will help drive the discussion forward. Hensinger and his colleagues are making the blueprint public in hopes that other scientists will to take in what theyre developing and build off of it.

Categories: Compute

Tags: Quantum Computing

Why Googles Spanner Database Wont Do As Well As Its Clone How Yahoos Internal Hadoop Cluster Does Double-Duty on Deep Learning

Follow this link:

Large-Scale Quantum Computing Prototype on Horizon - The Next Platform

Could going beyond Moore’s Law open trillion dollar markets? – Scoop.co.nz (press release)

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Press Release #2 Multicore World 2017

Could going beyond Moores Law open trillion dollar markets for New Zealand?

Technology is advancing at a faster rate than societys expectations, says Paul Fenwick, keynote speaker at Multicore World 2017, Wellington, February 20 - 22

We can go from science fiction to consumer availability, with very little in the way of discussion in between. But the questions they raise are critically important, says the Australian, one of a number of global experts at a world leading forum on what is possible with vastly underutilised computing processing power now available.

Not many look at critical questions such as What happens when self-driving vehicles cause unemployment, when medical expert systems work on behalf of insurance agencies rather than patients, and weapon platforms make their own lethal decisions, he says.

Conference Director Nicolas Erdody says MW17 is much more than a talk-fest.

Erdody says that 90% of all the data in the world has been generated in the past two years; a pattern that will keep repeating. How on earth will we process these massive amounts of data, and actually make meaningful sense and use of it, he asks?

Among some of the industry, academic and research experts is Prof Michelle Simmons.

She is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Director at the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, UNSW. She will describe the emerging field of quantum information, a response to the fact that device miniaturization will soon reach the atomic limit, set by the discreteness of matter, leading to intensified research in alternative approaches for creating logic devices of the future.

Prof Satoshi Matsuoka (Japan) will present his keynote Flops to Bytes: Accelerating Beyond Moores Law and Dr John Gustafson (former Director of Intel Labs, now Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore) will reveal a new data type called posit, that provide a better solution for approximate computing.

In this context, New Zealander Prof Michael Kelly, Prince Philip Professor of Technology from the University of Cambridge (UK) will ask in his keynote How Might the Manufacturability of the Hardware at Device Level Impact on Exascale Computing?

Dr Nathan DeBardeleben from Los Alamos National Labs (US) will discuss how supercomputer resilience and fault-tolerance are increasingly challenging areas of extreme-scale computer research as agencies and companies strive to solve the most critical problems. In his talk he will discuss how data analytics and machine learning techniques are being applied to influence the design, procurement, and operation of some of the worlds largest supercomputers

The assemblage of big brains around multicore computing and parallel programming will pose questions and answers as the world moves towards exascale computing in the next decade. Being part of such discussions can position New Zealand technologists, entrepreneurs and scientists at the intersection of two massive global markets that will benefit this countrys future growth: Decision-Making (estimated in $2 Trillion) and Food and Agriculture (estimated in $5 Trillion), says Nicolas Erdody, Open Parallel CEO and MW17 Conference Organiser

The 6th annual Multicore World, to be held at Shed 6 will discuss these and other Big Questions. MW17 will be three days of intensive talks, panels and discussion in a think-tank format that allows plenty of time for one on one meetings.

The conference is organised by Open Parallel Ltd (New Zealand) and sponsored by MBIE, Catalyst IT, NZRise and Oracle Labs

ENDS

Scoop Media

Continue reading here:

Could going beyond Moore's Law open trillion dollar markets? - Scoop.co.nz (press release)

Treatment at high-volume facilities linked to longer OS in multiple myeloma – Healio

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Treatment at high-volume facilities linked to longer OS in multiple myeloma
Healio
The study of the volumeoutcome relationship in hematologic malignancies may be especially relevant, because these cancers are relatively rare and, with the advent of molecular medicine, are becoming much more complex to classify, risk stratify and ...

See the original post:

Treatment at high-volume facilities linked to longer OS in multiple myeloma - Healio

Biothera Pharmaceuticals to Discuss Imprime PGG Combination … – GlobeNewswire (press release)

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

February 15, 2017 10:26 ET | Source: Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

EAGAN, Minn., Feb. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that it will deliver two presentations on its Phase 2 candidate Imprime PGG at the 24th annual Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference, taking place at the Moscone North Convention Center, San Francisco, February 19-24, 2017.

Jeremy R. Graff, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, Research at Biothera Pharmaceuticals, will present data showing that Imprime PGG acts therapeutically as an immunological ignition switch to coordinate robust innate and adaptive immune responses that enhance the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors. The Company has announced plans for Phase 2 clinical studies to evaluate Imprime PGG in combination with Mercks KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in advanced melanoma, triple negative breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer.

Biothera Pharmaceuticals Tri-Con presentation details are as follows:

About Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Biothera Pharmaceuticals is a privately held biotechnology company developing Imprime PGG, a mid-clinical stage cancer immunotherapy that enhances the efficacy of anti-cancer immune response in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor, tumor-targeting and anti-angiogenesis antibodies. Biothera Pharmaceuticals has clinical research agreements with Merck to evaluate Imprime PGG and KEYTRUDAin Phase 2 studies in advanced melanoma, metastatic triple negative breast cancer, and head and neck squamous cell cancer. This therapeutic combination also is the focus of a Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Phase 1b/2 trial in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Imprime PGG has been well-tolerated and has established proof of concept in trials with more than 400 subjects.

KEYTRUDA is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.

Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Eagan, Minnesota, UNITED STATES

Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Logo

LOGO URL | Copy the link below

Formats available:

Follow this link:

Biothera Pharmaceuticals to Discuss Imprime PGG Combination ... - GlobeNewswire (press release)

3D Signatures Inc. Adds Medical Diagnostic Expert to Business Advisory Board – P&T Community

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

3D Signatures Inc. Adds Medical Diagnostic Expert to Business Advisory Board
P&T Community
He has addressed the National Institutes of Health, Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference, World Theranostics Congress and other audiences, worldwide. He has authored numerous articles for industry publications, appeared on CBS Evening News and been ...

and more »

See original here:

3D Signatures Inc. Adds Medical Diagnostic Expert to Business Advisory Board - P&T Community

Ebolaviruses need very few mutations to cause disease in new host species – Science Daily

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Ebolaviruses need very few mutations to cause disease in new host species
Science Daily
The research was performed by Dr Mark Wass (Senior Lecturer in Computational Biology), Professor Martin Michaelis (Professor of Molecular Medicine), and Dr Jeremy Rossman (Senior Lecturer in Virology) and members of their research groups.

Only Human – New Republic

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

This might be another way of saying that the idea of living forever is as influential as the actual possibility of living forever. Immortality is a long shot. But why is it such big business now?

The future, as a concept, has always been lucrative; the more abstract, the better. Though OConnell doesnt focus strictly on Silicon Valleytranshumanists dot the globetranshumanism is a distinctly Californian project. The state has a long legacy of self-improvement programs, exercise crazes, and faddish diets, amounting to a unique brand of bourgeois spirituality. California is a pusher for freedom. Lifestyle is supreme.

These days, this utopian futurism can take the shape of New Age management philosophy, corporate wellness, or the annual conference Wisdom 2.0, which brings together tech luminaries and the spiritual leaders of industry, from Eileen Fisher and Alanis Morissette to the CEOs of Slack and Zappos. Recent years have seen an uptick in venture capitalbacked products that carry the promise of not just a better, more productive you, but a better life overall. From Soylent (a meal-replacement drink) to nootropics (capsules that purportedly level-up ones cognitive ability), investors are pursuing extended youth, neurological enhancement, and physical prowess.

Of course, much of this is less new than it feels. In Silicon Valley, there are no new ideas, only iterations. Soylent looks a lot like SlimFast, a protein drink marketed to dieting women since the 1970s. Nootropics tend to contain ingredients like l-theaninefound in green teaand caffeine. These companies web design has a lot to do with this illusion of newnesssexy front-end design signals trustworthiness and hints that there is something technologically impressive happening on the back end. Their products get a boost from their association with work-addicted engineers, who turn to them as high-tech solutions to self-created high-tech problems. But this promise is bigger than Silicon Valley, and carries with it a distinctly Californian air of self-improvement, of better living through technology.

It is tempting to see transhumanism, too, as merely the latest rebranding of a very old desire. Many of OConnells subjects specialize in the hypothetical. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who sees death as a disease to be cured. Anders Sandberg, a neuroscientist working on mind uploading, wishes literally to become an emotional machine. He is also an artist who creates digital scenes resembling early-web sci-fi fan art, and gives them dreamy names such as Dance of the Replicators and Air Castle. Zoltan Istvan, a former journalist who claims to have invented the sport of volcano-boarding, ran a presidential campaign that saw him travel across the country in a coffin-shaped bus to raise awareness for transhumanism. He campaigned on a pro-technology platform that called for a universal basic income, and promoted a Transhumanist Bill of Rights that would assure, among other things, that human beings, sentient artificial intelligences, cyborgs, and other advanced sapient life forms be entitled to universal rights of ending involuntary suffering.

Then theres Max More, a co-founder of Extropianism, who runs the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. Alcor is a cryopreservation facility that houses the bodiesor disembodied heads, to be attached at a later date to artificial bodiesof those hoping to be reanimated as soon as the technology exists. The bodies, OConnell writes, are considered to be suspended, rather than deceased: detained in some liminal stasis between this world and whatever follows it, or does not. Alcor is the largest of the worlds four cryopreservation facilities, and houses 149 patients, nearly 70 percent of whom are male. (Alcor also cryopreserves pets.) Its youngest patient is a two-year-old who died due to a rare form of pediatric brain cancer; her case summary, posted on Alcors web site, shares that her parents, both living, also intend to be cryopreserved. No doubt being surrounded by familiar faces of loving relatives will make the resumption of her life . . . easier and more joyful, the case summary ends hopefully, heartbreakingly. To date, science has not suggested that reanimation will ever be possible; the dream of re-uploading ones mind into a new, living body, at a yet-to-be-determined date, remains just that: a dream.

Those working on immortality are long-term thinkers and fall, broadly, into two camps: those who want to free the human from the body, and those who aim to keep the body in a healthy condition for as long as possible. Randal Koene, like Max More, is in the first group. Instead of cryonics, he is working toward mind uploading, the construction of a mind that can exist independent of the body. His nonprofit organization, Carboncopies, aims for the effective immortality of the digitally duplicated self. Koene compares mind uploading to kayaking. It might be like the experience of a person who is, say, really good at kayaking, who feels like the kayak is physically an extension of his lower body, and it just totally feels natural, he tells OConnell. So maybe it wouldnt be that much of a shock to the system to be uploaded, because we already exist in this prosthetic relationship to the physical world anyway, where so many things are experienced as extensions of our bodies.

Aubrey de Grey is in the second, body preservationist group, whose efforts tend to be slightly more modest: Rather than solving death, they focus on extending life. His nonprofit, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, focuses on research in heart disease and Alzheimers, and other common illnesses and diseases. (SENS, like many organizations the transhumanists are involved with, has received funding from Thiel.) De Greys most mainstream contribution is the popularization of the concept of longevity escape velocity, which OConnell explains as such: For every year that passes, the progress of longevity research is such that average human life expectancy increases by more than a yeara situation that would, in theory, lead to our effectively outrunning death. One might dismiss such transhumanist visions as too extreme: so many men, so much hubris. And yet, at a time of great cynicism about humanityand the future were all barreling towardthere is something irresistible about transhumanism. Call it magical thinking; call it radical optimism.

A quest for immortality may be the ultimate example of overpromising and under-delivering, but it will still deliver something. Indeed, plenty of the Extropian dreams of anti-aging have already been realized, though these accomplishments now look less futuristic than we previously imagined. Thanks to improved health care, sanitation, and education, we are living longer than our ancestors could have imagined. We sleep with our cell phones. Prosthetics have become increasingly personalized and affordable. Roboticized microsurgery blurs the lines between human and machine skill. In more staid quarters (where most of the money is), the quest for transhumanism is simply biotech.

OConnells focus is on the more extreme transhumanists, those committed to eternal life. But he also meets a few of the transhumanists taking this more incremental approach, edging us closer to longer and healthier lives. Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist working on brain-machine interface technology, created a robotic exoskeleton that can be controlled by brain activity. He exhibited it at the 2014 World Cup, to give a sense of how human and robot might work together in the future. A clear practical application of his work would be to help paraplegics increase their mobility and activity. Its technology that doesnt demand that we radically overhaul our idea of reality. It allows us to make minor adjustments.

Nicolelis does not seem to share the technologists passion for scalability; though he has proven that brain activity can be translated into dataand that data can be translated into movementhe is not drawn to large-scale projects like whole-brain emulation. I dont think we will ever be able to broadcast from one brain to another the essence of the human condition, he told Popular Mechanics last year. We love analogies, metaphors, expecting things, and predicting things. These things are not in algorithms.

As transhumanism gradually alters the length and quality of human life, it will also alter political and cultural life. If the average human life were to span 100 healthy years, then society, the economy, and the environment would be drastically transformed. How long would childhood last? What would the political landscape look like if baby boomers were able to vote for another 50 years? OConnells foray into transhumanism comes at a moment when our democratic institutions look weaker than ever. Wealth is increasingly concentrated among a small group of people. The future, while always uncertain, looks, for many, particularly bleak. Envisioning a future in which transhumanisms wildest desires are realized is a heady thought experiment, one that quickly devolves into a vision of dystopia: too little space, too many bodies, andif brains are uploaded from centuries pastobsolete software.

As exciting, ambitious, fantastical, or practical as the transhumanists aims may be, they neglect to offer a fully fledged vision for society should they be successful. It would hardly be the first time that actors in Silicon Valley, with an emphasis on speed and scale, innovated firstthen scrambled to address the repercussions after they had already arrived.

This is both a core promise and the fundamental problem of transhumanism: It exempts those involved from their debt to the present. As Bill Gates put it in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, It seems pretty egocentric while we still have malaria and TB for rich people to fund things so they can live longer. OConnell finds it odd, too, that billionaire entrepreneurs are more interested in developing AI than in eradicating grotesque income inequality in their own country. Of course, experimentation is essential to progress, and researchers claim their work will benefit all of humanity in the future. But it raises the question: What future and for whom?

There is something deeply sad about transhumanism, tooa yearning, one that perhaps harks back to the self-improvement doctrines that have so colored California since the halcyon days of the midcentury. The promise of a better worlda better youis hard to turn away from these days. We are not more than human; we have not found a way to transcend. In the weeks between the election and the inauguration, our collective visions of the future adjusted to accommodate the possibilities of rampant corruption and the rapid perversion of constitutional freedoms, among many other things. It feels indulgent to fantasize about a future in which humanity is optimized for immortality; it feels indulgent to fantasize about a future at all.

Yet I cannot fault the transhumanists for wanting more: more from life, more of life itself. In How We Became Posthumanpublished in 1999, and now a touchstone of writing on transhumanismthe literary critic N. Katherine Hayles detailed her ideal version of a posthuman world:

If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival.

To focus on the extremes of posthuman ambition is, it seems to me, to miss the point. As a species, we are slowly nudging along a spectrum. Hayless vision is solidly in the middle with its mortality and fallibility, rendered not obsolete but more manageablemore human.

Mylestone lets you access your personal memories through Alexa – TechCrunch

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Danzig

Mylestone lets you access your personal memories through Alexa
TechCrunch
What if our photographs and social media updates could be turned into memories we or our children could later access just by asking a virtual assistant, like Amazon's Alexa? That's the premise behind a new startup called Mylestone, which is ...

and more »

See more here:

Mylestone lets you access your personal memories through Alexa - TechCrunch

Select Page ::