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ISS crew being monitored by 'Star Wars' floating drone


RT
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:09 UTC
JEM Internal Ball Camera taking a video
© JAXA / NASA
JEM Internal Ball Camera taking a video.
A floating drone, designed to help monitor the work of crew onboard the International Space Station, has beamed back to Earth its first images from inside the low-orbit satellite.

Manufactured by 3D-printing, the Int-Ball is a robotic camera drone produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and has been on board the ISS since June.

Resembling a droid from the Star Wars movie series, the curious looking sphere can move autonomously in space but can also capture images under the command of operators on Earth.
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Cassiopaea

NASA's Van Allen Probes mission analyzing eerie whistling sounds coming from space


RT
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:55 UTC
Van Allen Probes mission
© NASA
NASA scientists are trying to decipher rather eerie whistling sounds its probes have recorded in space. Don't get too worried though, it's not aliens.

The team says it recorded the sounds with the help of the Van Allen Probes mission, which allows us "listen to the sounds of space" and how different elements interact.

The space agency attributes the strange sounds to different electromagnetic waves known as plasma waves creating distinctive sounds "in the particle symphony surrounding Earth."

"While technically a vacuum, space nonetheless contains energetic charged particles, governed by magnetic and electric fields, and it behaves unlike anything we experience on Earth," NASA said.

"By understanding how waves and particles interact, scientists can learn how electrons are accelerated and lost from the radiation belts and help protect our satellites and telecommunications in space," a statement explained.
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Brain

Prairie Vole love helps scientists pinpoint romantic brain activity

Hannah Devlin
The Guardian
Wed, 31 May 2017 00:00 UTC
As a species, voles have almost perfected monogamy - so scientists have turned to the tiny mammals to study the neuroscience of love
Brain signals from Romantic Voles
© Emory University
Signals were recorded from the brains of female voles as they met a potential partner, mated for the first time and began forming a lifelong bond, indicated by “huddling” behaviour.
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind," Shakespeare wrote. Now scientists have pinpointed the specific patterns of brain activity that accompany romance, offering a new explanation for why love sends our judgement haywire.

As a relationship takes root, the study found, the brain's reward circuit goes into overdrive, rapidly increasing the value placed on spending time with one's love interest. This, at least, was the case in the prairie vole, scientists' animal model of choice for studying the neuroscience of love.

Elizabeth Amadei, who co-led the work at Emory University in Atlanta, said: "As humans, we know the feelings we get when we view images of our romantic partners, but, until now, we haven't known how the brain's reward system works to lead to those feelings."
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Info

Wearable electronics - Breathable nanoscale tech worn like a second skin

Amy Middleton
Cosmos
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 03:30 UTC
Gold nanomesh conductor
© Takao Someya Group, University of Tokyo
Index finger with gold nanomesh conductor. Electric current from a battery near the knuckle flows through the conductor and powers the LED just below the fingernail.
Sci-fi and future-tech fans take note: the latest development in wearable electronics is a thin, stretchable electronic film that could monitor health through our skin, and integrate with computers and devices.

Measuring changes in the skin is useful in many physiological and health-related scenarios - for example, for monitoring a person's heart health, skeletal muscle behaviour and brain function.

Previously the technology required for skin monitoring has been bulky and impractical, restricting natural movement and changing the way skin interacts with environmental factors like air and moisture.

Now a team of researchers led by Akihito Miyamoto at the University of Tokyo have unveiled an innovative solution, straight out of a science-fiction movie.
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Arrow Down

Exposing the booming genetic pseudoscience market

Kristen V. Brown
Gizmodo
Sun, 16 Jul 2017 11:00 UTC
Soccer Genomics Ad
© Soccer Genomics
The premise behind Yes or No Genomics is simple: Genetic disease is typically caused by a variation in at least one of the many thousands of genes in the human genome, so knowing whether your DNA code contains variants could suggest whether your health is at risk. And for just $US199 ($254), the scientists at Yes or No Genomics can use special technology to determine that.

Except Yes or No Genomics isn't a real company. It's satire.

The mind behind this parody is Stanford geneticist Stephen Montgomery, who hopes the website he launched this week will highlight the extreme absurdity of many of the "scientific" consumer genetic tests now on the market.

Fork over hundreds to Yes or No Genomics and you will find out, inevitably, that you do have genetic variants, because everyone does. And that "specialised optical instrument" used to determine this? A kaleidoscope.
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Fireball 5

What it would take to kill all life on Earth

Giorgia Guglielmi
Science
Fri, 14 Jul 2017 05:00 UTC
Asteroid impact on earth
© Zloyel/iStock
A giant asteroid crashing into our planet would instantly kill off millions of animals. But the aftermath of such an impact would be even more disastrous: Tsunamis, earthquakes, and vast clouds of dust blocking out the sun would lead to crop failure and mass extinction.

Sixty-five million years ago, just such an event killed off 75% of species on Earth. But to really wipe life off the planet, it would take an astrophysical event so powerful that Earth's oceans would literally boil away, according to a new study. The heat and cosmic radiation would make Earth inhospitable even to tardigrades, among the hardiest organisms ever discovered.

"They've taken a grand question—how resilient is life?—and turned [it] into a well-posed calculation, by focusing on the energy required to boil Earth's oceans," says Joshua Winn, an exoplanets expert at Princeton University, who was not involved in the study. "It's an awful lot of energy."
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Camcorder

Coming soon! Facial recognition software for police body cameras

Patrick Tucker
Defense One
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 07:54 UTC
Police body camera
© Vocativ
An approach to machine learning inspired by the human brain is about to revolutionize street search

Even if the cop who pulls you over doesn't recognize you, the body camera on his chest just might in the future.

Device-maker Motorola announced Monday that would partner with artificial intelligence software startup Neurala to build "real-time learning for a person of interest search" on Motorola products such as the Si500 body camera for police, the AI firm announced in a press release today.

Italian-born neuroscientist and Neurala founder Massimiliano Versace is the creator of patent-pending image recognition and machine learning technology. It's similar to other machine learning methods but far more scalable, so a device carried by that cop on his shoulder can learn to recognize shapes and — potentially faces — as quickly and reliably as a much larger and more powerful computer. It works by mimicking the mammalian brain, rather than the way computers have worked traditionally.
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Robot

A destroyer of worlds?: An AI researchers shares his fears

Arend Hintze
The Conversation
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 15:30 UTC
human marionette
As an artificial intelligence researcher, I often come across the idea that many people are afraid of what AI might bring. It's perhaps unsurprising, given both history and the entertainment industry, that we might be afraid of a cybernetic takeover that forces us to live locked away, "Matrix"-like, as some sort of human battery.

And yet it is hard for me to look up from the evolutionary computer models I use to develop AI, to think about how the innocent virtual creatures on my screen might become the monsters of the future. Might I become "the destroyer of worlds," as Oppenheimer lamented after spearheading the construction of the first nuclear bomb?

I would take the fame, I suppose, but perhaps the critics are right. Maybe I shouldn't avoid asking: As an AI expert, what do I fear about artificial intelligence?

Comment: See also:

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Robot

"Intelligent machines could destroy mankind": Elon Musk fears destructive capacity of AI without proactive regulation


RT
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 08:05 UTC
Elon Musk
© Brian Snyder / Reuters
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk (R) answers questions from Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval
Tesla founder Elon Musk believes artificial intelligence could prove to be one of the most destructive technological innovations for the human race, unless governments are "proactive" in regulation.

Speaking at the National Governors Association in Rhode Island, Musk ominously suggested we could be facing a future in which intelligent machines actually destroy mankind.

"AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were harmful to a set of individuals in society of course, but they were not harmful to society as a whole," Musk told Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval on Saturday.

Comment: 'We have a problem': AI still a major concern despite scientific assurances

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Microscope 1

Chinese scientists clone and genetically modify a dog, implications for human possibilities


AWD News
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 04:31 UTC
genetically modified dog, GM Dog

Scientists have successfully enhanced the muscle density in a dog, are humans next?
We have entered an era of unprecedented mystery. Technology which allows you to manifest your will, basically over night, is beginning to take an even more wild turn. We're not only beginning to manifest realities with the delivery of technology, but we're also imposing our will upon other pre-existing manifestations - What I'm trying to say is we are using technology to manipulate the world and reality.

Scientists in China have cloned dogs from genetically modified parents.

The dogs, which are test tube babies, bred in a lab, have twice the muscle mass of their natural counterparts and are considerably stronger and faster. The genomes of the dogs have been especially difficult to engineer and replicate, but they are close to the human genome, which has long sought after by geneticists.

Success with the project have created fears that the Chinese will create or weaponize the technology by creating genetically modified Human beings.

David King, director of Human Genetics Alert (HGA), voiced his fears over what is widely viewed as the first step on a very slippery slope.

He told express.co.uk: "It's true that the more and more animals that are genetically engineered using these techniques brings us closer to the possibility of genetic engineering of humans.

"Dogs as a species, in respect of cloning are very difficult, and are even more difficult to clone than human beings. He said. "There's no medical case for it, the scientists are interested in being the first person in the world to create a genetically engineered child."
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