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Feb 3, 2018

India’s farmed chickens dosed with world’s strongest antibiotics, study finds

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, health, sustainability

Warning over wider global health impacts after findings reveal hundreds of tonnes of colistin – the ‘antibiotic of last resort’ – are being shipped to India’s farms.

Thu 1 Feb 2018 05.50 EST Last modified on Thu 1 Feb 2018 11.20 EST.

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Feb 3, 2018

The most advanced robotic arm in the world, John Hopkins’s Modular Prosthetic Limb, is finally leaving the lab

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI

I suspect this will be the hands for ATLAS. being field tested by human volunteers to see what it needs to do for average use. And, then blow that away within a few years.


Johnny Matheny is the first person to live with an advanced mind-controlled robotic arm. Last December, researchers from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab delivered the arm to Matheny at his home in Port Richey, Florida. Aside from the occasional demo, this is the first time the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) has spent significant time out of the lab.

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Feb 3, 2018

Getting to grips with military robotics

Posted by in categories: information science, military, robotics/AI

PETER SINGER, AN expert on future warfare at the New America think-tank, is in no doubt. “What we have is a series of technologies that change the game. They’re not science fiction. They raise new questions. What’s possible? What’s proper?” Mr Singer is talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and big-data analytics. Together they will produce systems and weapons with varying degrees of autonomy, from being able to work under human supervision to “thinking” for themselves. The most decisive factor on the battlefield of the future may be the quality of each side’s algorithms. Combat may speed up so much that humans can no longer keep up.

Frank Hoffman, a fellow of the National Defence University who coined the term “hybrid warfare”, believes that these new technologies have the potential not just to change the character of war but even possibly its supposedly immutable nature as a contest of wills. For the first time, the human factors that have defined success in war, “will, fear, decision-making and even the human spark of genius, may be less evident,” he says.

Weapons with a limited degree of autonomy are not new. In 1943 Germany produced a torpedo with an acoustic homing device that helped it find its way to its target. Tomahawk cruise missiles, once fired, can adjust their course using a digital map of Earth’s contours. Anti-missile systems are pre-programmed to decide when to fire and engage an incoming target because the human brain cannot react fast enough.

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Feb 3, 2018

How Vietnam veterans can get a rare cancer from this parasite

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Worth a closer look at, parasites causing cancer.


Vietnam veterans may have a slow growing, silent killer sitting inside their bodies, and they probably won’t even know it until it’s too late.

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Feb 3, 2018

We are already Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, computing, cyborgs, DNA, evolution, existential risks, futurism, hacking, robotics/AI, theory, transhumanism

By Eliott Edge

“It is possible for a computer to become conscious. Basically, we are that. We are data, computation, memory. So we are conscious computers in a sense.”

—Tom Campbell, NASA

If the universe is a computer simulation, virtual reality, or video game, then a few unusual conditions seem to necessarily fall out from that reading. One is what we call consciousness, the mind, is actually something like an artificial intelligence. If the universe is a computer simulation, we are all likely one form of AI or another. In fact, we might come from the same computer that is creating this simulated universe to begin with. If so then it stands to reason that we are virtual characters and virtual minds in a virtual universe.

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Feb 3, 2018

3D computed modelling of the presumed #railgun mounted on #Chinese #Navy landing ship

Posted by in category: military

Reps from #BAE, #GA General Atomics and others have been saying for years they could do this now if US #Navy wanted — but it’s hever happened. Gotta wonder why.

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Feb 3, 2018

‘Game Changer’: Maya Cities Unearthed In Guatemala Forest Using Lasers

Posted by in categories: food, military

The technology provides them with an unprecedented view into how the ancient civilization worked and lived, revealing almost industrial agricultural infrastructure and new insights into warfare.

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Feb 3, 2018

Physicists Spot Evidence of ‘Odderon’ First Predicted in the 1970s

Posted by in category: physics

Scientists have uncovered some preliminary evidence for a nuclear physics effect first predicted back in the 1970s. The physics universe you’re about to enter into in order to understand it is especially mind-bending.

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Feb 3, 2018

Why I Spent A Week Without My Phone … — By Gigi Falk | Thrive Global

Posted by in categories: computing, evolution, fun

“My phone habits are, I’d like to think, better than most. I seldom take my phone out in company and it’s a rare site to see me scrolling through social media. But when I’m walking to or from work, standing in an elevator, or eating by myself, I’ll often be checking emails, texting friends, or reading articles.”

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Feb 3, 2018

Hubble’s Majestic Spiral in Pegasus | NASA

Posted by in categories: science, space

“This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy known as NGC 7331. First spotted by the prolific galaxy hunter William Herschel in 1784, NGC 7331 is located about 45 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (the Winged Horse). Facing us partially edge-on, the galaxy showcases its beautiful arms, which swirl like a whirlpool around its bright central region.”

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