Category Archives: Futurism

In Brief

Prof George Church and his team at Harvard University have been studying the DNA from frozen mammoths found preserved in the Arctic. Specifically, theyve been looking for genes that separated them from elephants.

Since elephant species are currently on the brink of extinction, the team is attempting to splice mammoth DNA into the genome of an elephant embryoin order to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. The goal is to eventually grow a mammoth embryo within an artificial womb, as to not compromise the reproductive system of a healthy elephant.

Professor Church stated, Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant/mammoth embryo. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. Were not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.

As awesome as playing Ice Age Jurassic Park sounds, there are also other preventative applications for this technology. According to Dr. Edze Westra of the University of Exeter, One can also use this technology for engineering the DNA of rapidly declining species or those that are becoming too inbred to increase their chance of survival.

Prof Church said the mammoth project has two main goals: securing an alternative future for the endangered Asian elephant and helping to combat global warming. Chruch explains that the animals could, keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in. In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.

Any of these possibilities are well worth the continued research. Technology is allowing for the impossible to become reality. Just a few years ago, we couldnt have dreamed of an extinct animal brought back, and now we could be within a few years of actually seeing that.

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Biologists Plan to Bring the Woolly Mammoth Back to Life by 2019 - Futurism

In Brief

Mosquitos are ugly creatures. They buzz, bite, and bother you, but more than just being annoying, they harbor parasites that transmit malaria. A person infected by one of these parasites via a mosquito bite can experience fever, chills, vomiting, and sometimes even death.

The World Health Organization predicts that almost 3.2 billion people thats half the worlds population are at risk of catching this disease, andamong those at risk, 214 million people were infected in 2015. Of those infected with malaria, at least 438,000 people passed away.

While global efforts have successfully reduced the incidences of malaria by 60 percent since 2000, researchers may have just found a way to take that progress even further thanks to a new malaria vaccine.

A malaria vaccine has been particularly elusive in the medical community because malaria originates from a parasite and not a virus. Therefore, a live but weakened form of the parasite that infects humans was used in the creation of this new investigational vaccine, Sanaria PfSPZ. The weakened sporozoites parasite was developed by Sanaria Inc. through a clinical study conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Healths (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases (NIAID) division and the University of Bamako in Bamako, Mali.

The vaccine has shown to be 100 percent effective in U.S. clinical trials and 48 percent effective in those run in Mali. A principal investigator on the Mali trial, Dr. Sara Healy M.D., M.P.H., has noted that this level of sustained efficacy against malaria infection in a region with an intense transmission season has not been seen in previous malaria vaccine studies in Africa, establishing a positive outlook for the newly crafted vaccine.

Sanarias isnt the only malaria vaccine in development.GSKs malaria candidate vaccine,Mosquirix, is expected to roll out to the public in 2018. While its not expected to be as successful as PfSPZ, it is further ahead in development as PfSPZ has only just cleared Phase II clinical trials. Until recently, we had no true preventative measures against malaria, and now we just may have more than enough.

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A New Malaria Vaccine Was 100% Effective in Clinical Trials - Futurism

In Brief

Elon Musk has made another bold prediction about the future of self-drivingcars. In a conversation held at the World Government Summit in Dubai, the Tesla CEO stated that nearly all new cars would be self-driving within the next ten years.

Musk predicts that the first level four autonomous cars from Tesla will arrive by the end of this year. He views this arrival as a paradigm shift for the automobile industry:

There are about 2 billion cars in the world and the total annual production capacity is about 100 million cars, which makes sense since the average life of a car before being totally scrapped is about 20-25 years. This means that the shift to driverless cars wont be immediate, but the point for which we see autonomy appear will not be the point when we see a massive impact on people because it will take a lot of time to make enough autonomous vehicles to disrupt. That disruption will take place for about 20 years.

Musk also mentioned how the supercomputer used to control Teslas vehicles, the NVIDIA Drive PX 2, can reach level five autonomy. NVIDIA thinks that level 4-5 autonomy would only be possible with two supercomputers, but even so, Musk stated that the computers could easily be upgraded to rise the occasion.

We wont have to wait long to see how his predictions will play out.

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Elon Musk: All New Cars Will Be Self-Driving in 10 Years - Futurism

In Brief

As scientists ask everyone to help them locate the elusive Planet Nine, researchers involved inNASAs Dawn mission are hard at work studyingthe dwarf planet Ceres. The Dawn mission has previously uncovered evidence of water, ice volcanoes, and carbonate minerals that cause the mysterious bright spots on Ceres surface. Now, researchers have found traces of organic molecules on Ceres using Dawns spectrometer to map the dwarf planets surface in visible and infrared wavelengths.

What weve found on Ceres is probably the most unambiguous detection of organics on any Solar System body other than Earth, said Carl Pieters, Dawn mission investigator, in an interview with Brown University. Weve collected meteorites on Earth with organic signatures, which makes us think their parent asteroids may have had organics. But until now we havent seen such definitive evidence on any asteroid. So this could help us put together the history of organics in the Solar System.

There are high-resolution data available from Dawn that provide the geologic context for these deposits, added Pieters. Were looking at those data now, which will help us to pin down the origin of these materials. The discovery was found in a crater-ridden region called Ernutet in the northern part of Ceres, and the teams findings were published in the journal Science.

Organic molecules, such as carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and proteins, are the basic building blocks of life. Organic materials have previously been found in meteorites and on Mars, and whilefinding these on Ceres doesnt mean that theres life on the dwarf planet, coupled with the discovery of water and carbonate minerals, they do indicate that Ceres is potentially ripe for life.

Its kind of like baking a cake, Pieters explained. You can have all the ingredients, but if you dont put them together properly, you dont end up with a cake. So there is still plenty of work to be done before we can start thinking about whether microbes were able to form on Ceres.

While the discovery doesnt directly translate to discovering extraterrestrial life, it definitely improves the chances of finding it. The fact that these ingredients of life are located in a single setting outside of Earth is a great first step.

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Traces of Organic Molecules Have Been Located on Ceres - Futurism

In Brief

In an amazing Autobahn maneuver on Monday, Tesla Model S driver Manfred Kick saved the life of 50-year-old man who lost consciousness behind the wheel. The unconscious driver was in a VW Passat station wagon, which the Tesla driver noticed was swerving on the busy road, according to the Munich fire services report.

After alerting the appropriate authorities, Kick slowed his car in front of the station wagon, allowing the Passat to crash into him from behind. He kept his foot on the brakes, forcing both vehicles to a controlled stop. Kicks courage and concern for a fellow driverearned him praise from the authorities and the media, as well as a congratulatory tweet from Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk himself: Congrats to the Tesla owner who sacrificed damage to his own car to bring a car with an unconscious driver safely to a stop!

Now, it looks like the driver will be getting more than just accolades. Musk has said that Tesla will shoulder the cost of repairs for Kicks Model S. Police estimated the damages for the accident to total around 10,000 ($10,600 USD). Musk also said that Tesla will expedite the repairs for Kicks 70,000 ($74,686 USD) Model S, a surely welcome turn of events considering Teslas can take significant time to repair in certain markets. All proof that not all good deeds go unnoticed.

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Elon Musk: Tesla Will Pay for Damages Caused by Hero Driver - Futurism

In Brief

Elon Musk shocked the tech world this pastsummerwhen he explained both the concept and need for a neural lace at the 2016 Recode Code Conference.

The Neural Lace is a concept that has been a staple of science fiction. Its the idea of capturing the processes of the human mind with a tool and enhancing them to better suit our environment and lifestyle in one large, wirelessly connected interface among humans. Recently, this concept has taken a step forward in transitioning from the realm of fiction to non-fiction.

With their results published in Nature Nanotechnology, scientist Charles Lieber and his teamhave developed syringe-injectable electronics. Thus far, they has only been tested on live mice, but the results are promising. These electronics assist in monitoring brain activity, delivering treatment, and can even enhance brain activity. While human trials are years away, and the neural lace is currently a wired technology, the reason why Elon Musk finds it imperative is because of what it coulddo.

Elon Musk is making it very clear that the best way to avoid a dystopian nightmare is to form a symbiosis with machines. The need for this, he said on Monday in Dubai, could achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence, and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem.Since computers are able to transmit information an exponentially quicker than humans, becoming one with them would allow humans to stay relevant in an age where automation and technology threaten our usefulness as organic organisms. Additionally, having a wireless interface would help to keep us on a similar playing fieldessentially by making us part machine. So, while this cyborg idea of a future sounds ludicrous, when you consider how much of our reality is already sci-fi inspired, it makes a little bit more sense.

You can hear more about Musks thoughts on the necessary symbiosis between humans and machines in this recent video from CNBC.

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Elon Musk: If Humans Are to Survive, We Must Merge With Machines - Futurism

TrueTime

Ever wonder how Google has been able to coordinate its data centers from all over the world? Well, they found a way to take control of time. Yes, time. And they did so by building the worlds first truly global database: Spanner. This system has given Google a way to store information in dozens of data centers, across millions of machines, spanning multiple continents, and it now underpins most of Googles services, including AdWords (the companys primary moneymaker), Gmail, Google Photos, and the Google Play store.

Through Spanner, Googles engineers have taken control of time in a way never done before. Prior to such a system, communication across servers and data centers took time. Having multiple databases meant information could vary from one machine to another.A transaction at one data center wouldnt show up at one across the globe as soon as it took place it needed time. For the services that Google provides, this variance wasnt an option they needed a way to make sure that actions and information lined up across the globe.

To solve this problem, Googles engineers developed a unique timekeeping technology called TrueTime. The engineers equipped all of Googles data centers with GPS receivers and atomic clocks, and each center would shuttle its time readings to amaster server. Those servers would constantly trade their readings with other servers to produce a common time for all data centers. This gives you faster-than-light coordination between two places, Peter Mattis, a former Google engineer, explained to Wired.

TrueTime is just one aspect of Spanner, the power of which is unprecedented and seems to defy logic. Through this system, Google can implement changes in one part of its database without contradicting informationon the other side of the planet. Spanner also replicates data readily and reliably across multiple data centers and multiple parts of the world, as well as allows for the retrieval of data should one data center fail.

Now, Google want to make this amazing technologyavailable to customers.

Spanner is truly essential for a company like Google, and no one else in the tech world, not Microsoft, Apple, or Amazon, has anything quite like it. Google wants to leverage its position by offeringits Spanner tech to customers in thecloud computing market. The result?Cloud Spanner, a version of their unique database that is on the cloud.

If you are struggling with the scale of your transactional database you will go to a shared database, or NoSQL, Googles Deepti Srivastava told TechCrunch. If youre at that stage where you have to make those trade-offs, Spanner is the way to go. You are already doing work to use one of those systems. We try to make that trade-off as simple as possible.

Some worry that very few companies actually have database needs similar to Googles, so Cloud Spanner might not have that big of a market. Plus, Cloud Spanner wont be free, with a starting price of $0.90 per node per hour (including replication) and $0.30 per GB of storage per month. But Spanner is powerful, and it is unique. If they offer it, people will want it, and people will use it, Peter Bailis, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University, told Wired.

Google is already in talks with large financial institutions for possible Cloud Spanner adoption, and while there are few truly global businesses like Google, the company hopes that Cloud Spanner could help smaller businesses expand later on.

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Google Made Its Faster-Than-Light Time Harnessing Tech Available to All - Futurism

Melting Fast

The Antarctic ice sheet goes through a cycle of expansion and contraction every year. Ultimately, the ice that exists around the continent melts during the southern hemispheres summer, which occurs towards the end of February, and expands again when autumn sets in.

However, that melting is increasing dramatically.

This week, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)announcedthat the sea ice contracted to just 883,015 sq. miles (2.28m sq. km). The announcement came on February 13, and these numbers mean that the ice is now at the smallest extent on record, reaching just a little smaller than the previous low of 884,173 sq. miles, which was recorded February 27, 1997.

NSIDC director Mark Serreze asserts that we will need to wait for measurements in the coming days before officially confirming this new all-time low; however, he is not optimistic. Unless something funny happens, were looking at a record minimum in Antarctica,Serreze told Reuters.

Climate change skeptics have often pointed to the tendency of the Antarctic ice sheet to expand as evidence against global warming. But with world average temperatures hitting an all time high in 2016, the impact of climate change on planet Earth is getting more pronounced and harder to deny. Weve always thought of the Antarctic as the sleeping elephant starting to stir, Serreze stated;Well, maybe its starting to stir now.

That said, all is not lost. Despite the hesitancy of some world governments when it comes to taking action against fossil fuels and climate change, efforts to reverse the effects of global warming are in no short supply.

The historic Paris Climate Agreement is one such step, with nations beefing up their efforts in transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energylike solar, wind, and even nuclearpower.Moreover,a number of private effortsby companies like Microsoft, who plans to run on 50% renewables, and Tesla, who is pushing for electric cars andsolar powered roofs, provide hope for the future and make the case for renewable energy sources.

If we truly invest in theseefforts, future generations may never have to witness the Antarctic ice sheets receding to such low levels.

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The Antarctic Ice Sheet Is the Smallest It's Ever Been - Futurism

If You Cant Beat Them

Without a doubt, computers and machines are besting humans in many ways thanks to developments in artificial intelligence (AI). AIs have beaten their human counterparts at everything from games likeGoandpokertodriving safelyand treating illnesses. Clearly, intelligent machines are increasingly becoming better than humansat so many things, and as the old saying goes, if you cant beat themmerge with them.

Given that AI is expected to surpass humankind at an unprecedented rate,that just might be the best thing we can do, and itsthe idea behind Elon Musks neural lace, an unconventional and highly controversial brain-computer interface. That were even considering such a device highlights this necessity for a symbiosis between humans and machines. This week, speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder raised this point once again: I do think there is a path to having some sort of merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence.

Musk explained:

To some degree, we are already cyborgs. You think of the digital tools that you have, the applications that you have. You can ask a question and instantly get an answer from Google. You already have a digital tertiary layer. I say tertiary because you think of the animal brain or the primal brain, and then the cortex, the thinking brain, and then your digital self as the third layer.

The potential for this human-machine merger isnt lost on DARPA, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. There are a couple of very interesting things happening as we speak facilitating humans and machines working together in a very different way, said Justin Sanchez, director of DARPAs Biological Technologies Office, in an interview with Computer World.

Indeed, we are already seeing this to a certain extent with the latest developments in exoskeleton technology. We now have smart exoskeletons that help paralyzed people walk again or improve the strength and enduranceof the average person.I think the recent science and technology developments were making at DARPA, as well as the embracing of physiology and A.I., is enabling us to set up the conditions for profound changes on how humans and machines can work together, Sanchez added. We are giving our physiology the opportunity to work with machines in a different way.

DARPA researchers are developing implantable devices that can perform computing functions similar to a desktop or laptop computer. Sanchez even noted that they have researchers working on the possibility of a human-computer interface using devices and chips that neednt be implanted in the body. Another potential technology is a pair of smart contact lenses that allow soldiers to see what a drone sees from above.

Of course, while the technological possibilities are already here, there are other things that need to be considered, such as what these enhanced capabilities would mean for humanity in general. We deeply feel that we cant do this work in a vacuum, Sanchez said. We need to consider all aspects the moment we try to even start thinking about science and technology in this space. Theres a responsibility that goes along with this.

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DARPA: We're Moving to Merge Humans and Machines - Futurism

Animal-Free Meat

The day when even vegans can enjoy a crispy slice of baconis closer than ever as a team of researchers just published a paper in the journal Scientific Reports outlining advancements made in lab-grown meat, specifically from pig cells.

Their paper focused on two particular breakthroughs in testing. The first highlightedthe transformation of adult stem cells from livestock into a pluripotent state so that they could be developed into muscle that would be ideal for cooking. The other was learning how to nurture tissue growth without the use of animal serum, the liquidin which blood cells and platelets float. Animal serum was a key ingredient for the development of tissues in other efforts to grow meat in a lab, but these scientists found a way to create a synthetic formula that has similar components.

Both findings increase the feasibility of creatingmeat that is 100 percent animal free.Ideally, we believe that our process can be much more efficient than (feed) consumption by cattle because were only producing the product that the consumer wants muscle, explains Nicholas Genovese, who authored the paper.

Even with lab-grown meats on the horizon, the worlds livestock industry doesnt seem to be the least bit threatened, nor should they. Taste, cost, and a general reluctance on behalf of the general population would likely be the biggest barriers to widespread adoption should these artificially grown slabs of beef and pork ever make it to the market.

However, the goal right now is simply to produce these animal-free cuts; replicating key elements of meat such as flavor, smell, and texture are concerns for a later time, as is finding a way to get the public to accept cultured meat as a preferred alternative to the real deal.

The current consensus is that lab-grown meats will still be more expensive, and it will take at least half a decade before any real benefits of artificially created meat become evident. Once that happens, however, the cost of producing muscle tissue and bringing it to consumers may actually prove to be significantly cheaper than raising animals and getting them to the market. Growing only muscle tissue means minimizing the logistics surrounding maintaining livestock, such as facility use, storage, and transport. It will also require fewer resources, such as water and land, which will translate tolower greenhouse-gas emissions.

Ultimately, as more advancements are made in this field, lab-grown meat might prove to be better for humans. In a few years, we could see nutrition-packed, lab-grown meats that are cleaner, safer, and healthier to eat. Hopefully, by then, theyll also taste just as good as the real thing.

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Soon, Pig-Free Bacon Might Be on Your Breakfast Plate - Futurism