Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger

In an incredibly interesting development, an “artificial womb” has successfully grown sheep from 105-120 days in pregnancy (roughly the equivalent of 22-24 weeks in a human) to full term. The womb consists of a sealed transparent bag, inside which an electrolyte fluid flows, keeps the developing lungs supported, and removes waste (much like amniotic fluid does) and an umbilical blood system which provides nutrients, oxygenates blood, and so on. As you can imagine, this was tremendously difficult to develop — e.g., the umbilical system can’t have its own pump, since that would damage the developing heart, and instead fluids must flow easily enough that the fetus’ own heartbeat is enough to keep its circulation going.

What’s amazing is that this seems to be working. Eight lambs have been born through the system, and researchers are monitoring them closely to see how they develop.

This isn’t a complete uterine replicator; the environment in early development is even more complex than it is in late development, and there’s no suggestion that you could start from an embryo or a zygote here. What this could have an effect on is extreme prematurity — infants delivered at or before the 28th week, who currently have a fairly poor prognosis, both for survival and later quality of life. The further effects that such technologies could have in the future are, of course, even more profound. (And have been discussed at length in the science fictional literature, with Bujold being probably its most famous explorer)

Current estimates suggest that this could be 3-5 years away from the first human tests. Those are likely to be difficult, of course, since human development is more complex than sheep development, especially as regards the brain; however, if applied to extremely premature fetuses, it could be a reasonable experimental treatment as the alternative is even worse.

via David Fuchs

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421734/artificial-womb-fetus-biobag-uterus-lamb-sheep-birth-premie-preterm-infant

Because electrocuting users is secretly what all developers long to do.

Originally shared by Roy Hembree

Electrical muscle stimulation used to create boundaries in VR

The Hasso Plattner Institute has developed a system that delivers electrical muscle stimulation to provide haptic feedback. It can create the illusion of holding and moving heavy objects as well as create the feeling of touching walls and turning knobs. The system is compact enough to fit in a backpack.

“When the user grabs the virtual cube, the user expects the cube’s weight to create tension in the user’s biceps and the cube’s stiffness to create a tension in the user’s pectoralis. In order to create this sensation, the system actuates the respective opposition muscles. In order to put a load onto the user’s biceps, it actuates the triceps and in order to put a load onto the user’s pectoralis, it actuates the user’s shoulder muscle. This creates the desired tension in biceps and pectoralis, thereby creating the desired experience.”

Link to the study: https://hpi.de/baudisch/projects/vr-walls.html

Source of GIF: https://youtu.be/OcSmCamMKfs

Of course the headline is an exaggeration – I knew that without even clicking through. This is cool, though, and a genuine advance in our understanding of how dreams work – with implications for being able to manipulate dreams. Without too much handwavium, you could write a story about an interactive lucid dream machine.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Neuroscientists Can Now Read Your Dreams With a Simple Brain Scan

http://suhub.co/2oPGhVJ