Another misleading headline (at this point, it’s the painfulness, not the memory, that can be erased), but some interesting implications for the future. Already pretty well explored in SF, though.
Originally shared by CM Stewart
via Shar Banning et al
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-figured-out-how-to-to-erase-your-painful-memories
In connection with my day job, I’ve just finished this extensive and comprehensive course on sustainability and business innovation, taught by SAP’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, the personable and knowledgeable Peter Graf.
A few key ideas and concepts I learned that I want to think about some more:
1. The concept of a “social license to operate”. Governments issue businesses with licenses to operate, but markets issue them with “social license to operate” – that is, if we decide that we don’t want to patronise businesses that don’t conform to our values, their viability becomes endangered. An example is the backlash against Nike when they were found to have child labour in their supply chain; they’ve since tightened up their act and become a model of socially responsible manufacturing, knowing that their brand would otherwise be destroyed. (Look for something similar from VW soon.)
2. The idea of a “circular economy”. The traditional linear economy extracts resources to make consumer goods which end up becoming waste. A circular economy designs from the beginning with reuse and recycling in mind, pays attention to how materials are sourced, how goods are manufactured and shipped to markets, to the costs incurred when the goods are in use (for example, energy efficiency of devices), and to the process of recycling them back into the value chain when they’re no longer usable for their intended purpose.
3. Dematerialisation: a product (or process) that used to be physical becomes virtual. We’ve seen this with music, movies and books so far. It also applies to things like remote education and the replacement of physical travel with electronic collaboration or telepresence. All of this reduces environmental damage incurred by transporting things or people around.
4. Replacing the selling of products with the selling of a service:
– An air compressor manufacturer shifts from selling air compressors to selling compressed air, meaning that they install, monitor, maintain and replace their compressors in the client’s facility and charge for the air they produce. They now have an incentive to make their machines as efficient as possible.
– A tractor company or a fertilizer company shifts to selling agricultural productivity, monitoring farmland and advising on the best way to produce maximum yield, and providing only the necessary machinery or chemicals at the time they’re needed.
– A carpet company shifts to selling floor covering as a service, so it’s now in their interests to make the carpet last a long time and be recyclable when it’s worn out.
All these are made possible by cloud computing; big data and the ability to analyse it; the internet of things (constantly monitoring multiple aspects of performance for big data techniques to analyse); and mobile technology.
5. Changes in behaviour occur when people or companies see a personal, immediate benefit – so that’s the way to pitch the change. For example:
– Sell car pooling as a social benefit that provides networking opportunities and the ability for the participants to grow social capital.
– Use energy use as a proxy for process inefficiency, and make a business case based on saving money on energy costs.
– Demonstrate that employee retention has an impact on training, recruitment and internal efficiency costs, and put a dollar value on an improvement in employee retention – which will give you the budget to offer your employees something that will make them stay around.
6. The idea of a “social sabbatical” – offering skills to NGOs or developing countries, or in mentoring students or entrepreneurs, which in turn cultivates potential valuable employees or business partners.
I personally believe in a mixed economy (which is what we have, of course), neither completely unregulated and relying solely on “enlightened self-interest” to produce good outcomes, nor completely regulated and assuming that good outcomes must always be compelled. Just as laws regarding how individuals behave aren’t necessary for people who have enough social awareness that they don’t attack each other or steal each other’s stuff, but still are necessary because not everyone is like that, so laws regarding how companies must behave aren’t necessary for companies that are smart enough to see that taking care of their social and physical environment is in their best interests – but they are still necessary, because not all companies are that smart. (Also, sometimes acting in a way that harms others is in a person or company’s interest, unless the law provides negative consequences that the act itself does not.)
All in all, thought-provoking stuff, and it will go into the mix for any SF I write in the future.
SciTech #ScienceSunday Digest – 07/2016.
Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2016/02/brain-preservation-win-stent-bci-dna.html
Brain preservation win, Stent BCI, DNA nanocage chemistry, Cell transformation mastery, Gravity waves confirmed, Electron fluid on graphene, Laser boosts superconductivity, Better GPS, Artificial capillary networks, Protein nanoneedles.
1. Long Term Structural Brain Preservation
The brain preservation prize has been claimed by a new aldehyde-stabilised cryopreservation procedure that proves that near perfect, long term structural preservation of intact mammalian brains is possible, with every neuron and synapse appearing to be captured even after freezing and thawing http://www.brainpreservation.org/small-mammal-announcement/. This is a very big step towards validating cryonics and cryogenic preservation for life extension, stasis, and future uploading applications.
2. Stentode is a Less Invasive BCI
A DARPA team has created an electrode-laden stent as a neural recording device that, like similar conventional stents, is designed to be introduced through blood vessels in the neck to reach capillaries in the desired region of the brain in order to record neural firing and function as a less invasive brain computer interface http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-02-08. Proof of concept successfully measured motor cortex signals in sheep and human studies are planned for 2017. In related news we had a new design for an implanted wireless power device for BCIs http://www.kurzweilai.net/powering-brain-implants-without-wires-with-thin-film-wireless-power-transmission-system.
3. DNA Nanocages Accelerate Enzyme Function
Self-assembled DNA origami nanocages have been formed in which enzymes are confined and localised along with their substrate molecules and serving to both accelerate the rate of enzymatic reactions and shield the enzymes from typical degradation processes https://asunow.asu.edu/20160210-chemical-cages-new-technique-advances-synthetic-biology. More complex cages and scaffolds in future might allow more sophisticated enzyme cascades that could perform a wide range of useful functions; another small step on the path to atomically precise fabrication.
4. Mogrify is a Cell Transformation Algorithm
Mogrify is a new algorithm that draws on a large database of human cell and tissue types and, according to the research team, is able to predict the optimal set of factors required to transform any cell type into any other cell type http://www.sciencealert.com/new-algorithm-points-the-way-towards-regrowing-limbs-and-organs/page-2. Initial studies have confirmed this but more are needed and it is expected to become more accurate over time as more data is acquired.
5. Gravity Waves Confirmed
In the biggest news of the week the existence of gravity waves has been confirmed by the LIGO experiment, and made possible after a large and expensive detector sensitivity upgrade https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160211-gravitational-waves-discovered-at-long-last/. The finding was confirmed by two separate, correlated detection events at two different LIGO detectors whose signal profiles matched theoretical models and predictions, and believed to be caused by a black hole merger in which three times the mass of our sun was converted into gravitational wave energy. Setting up LIGO detectors in India, Japan, and other sites will help cement gravity wave astronomy and allow pinpointing of gravity wave sources.
6. Liquid Nature of Graphene Electrons
The surface electrons on ultra-pure graphene surfaces have been observed acting like a collective fluid describable by hydrodynamics, with individual electrons behaving like massless relativistic objects https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2016/02/metal-that-behaves-like-water. Energy injected into the system flowed across many electrons, like a wave through water. Such a fluid allows for simulating and experimenting with black hole physics and other high energy environments. It’d be interesting to know what the other properties are for the waves in this fluid; if frictionless then energy and charge transfer without losses might be possible.
7. Laser-Boosted Superconductivity
Work to boost superconducting transition temperatures with lasers continues with a new class of fullerene materials in which laser pulses induce superconductivity at minus 170 degrees Celsius instead of minus 250 degrees Celsius without the laser https://www.mpg.de/9949877/superconductivity-fullerenes-light-induced. It is hoped that additional work helps to unveil a general mechanism by which this phenomena can be controlled at ever-higher temperatures. In related news endohedral fullerenes (fullerene cages with a single atom trapped inside) are now available commercially http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/12/oxford-company-now-selling-endohedral-fullerenes-priced-at-110-million-per-gram/.
8. Consumer GPS to Centimeter Accuracy
Newly reformulated algorithms for calculating GPS position are much more efficient and look set to enable mobile and wearable devices to achieve centimeter-level positional GPS accuracy http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/34932. The technique combines measurements from a GPS unit, an inertial measurement unit, and an internal navigation system. This should prove useful for phones, drones, and internet of things applications.
9. Better Artificial Capillary Networks for Engineered Organs
Using a $40 cotton candy machine allows researchers to spin out special hydrogels into threads that are comparable to normal capillaries and which form three dimensional microfluidic networks able to facilitate the transport of fluids, nutrients, and oxygen through bulk materials http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/02/cotton-candy-machines-may-hold-key-for-making-artificial-organs/. The proof of concept artificial organ structures were able to keep cells throughout the structure alive and well for much longer than other approaches and provide a promising platform on which to develop better-performing artificial organs.
10. Retractable Protein Nanoneedles
Protein nanoneedles are found in bacteria where they are used to puncture cell membranes. These structures, which rapidly extend from a coil to a needle and back again depending on changes in pH past a threshold, are being engineered as a tool in synthetic biology as an alternative mechanism to deliver material such as genes into cells http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/245. However, these little actuators might be commandeered en masse to create functional and responsive materials at the nanoscale, for example (i) helping to build little motors for tiny devices, (ii) altering the shape and properties of a material, or (iii) being used in controlled chemical and enzymatic production processes e.g. combined with #3 above offers interesting possibilities.
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In connection with my day job, I just listened to this online interview series about the Internet of Things.
There were a few points that interested me as someone who likes to think about, and write fiction set in, the future:
– Industry will need different kinds of workers (more flexible, participating in lifetime learning, good at working in teams, doing more decisionmaking).
– Therefore, a different approach to education and a different education system will be needed.
– Who owns the data produced by the things you own? The manufacturer? You? The government?
– Resilience of the system is important as complexity increases – ability to “reboot” in an acceptable timeframe, or otherwise deal with failure in a way that doesn’t cascade into other, linked systems.
I also came up with a story idea: in a world of automated machines which cooperate according to their digital model of the world, a person is voluntarily or involuntarily excluded from that world, and therefore at risk as well as free – the machines can’t “see” the person.
SciTech #ScienceSunday Digest – 06/2016.
Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2016/02/better-gene-delivery-better-dna.html
Better gene delivery, Better DNA aptamers, Light effect transistor, Rejuvenation advances, Atomically precise materials, Integrated photonics modem, Electronic nematicity, Deep learning chips, Graphene lenses & electrodes, Flexiramic materials.
1. Delivering Genes Across the Blood Brain Barrier
Using high-throughput screening techniques combined with methods of directed evolution, researchers screened millions of viral variants to create a novel, modified adeno-associated virus that is able to efficiently get past the blood-brain-barrier and deliver genes and genetic engineering tools to neurons and other cells of the brain http://www.caltech.edu/news/delivering-genes-across-blood-brain-barrier-49679. This obviates the need to drill a hole through the skull to inject these vectors and provides a far more elegant tool that can be used for CRISPR-powered modifications. In related news rats have been cured of a genetic liver disorder with a more effective CRISPR-delivery system involving a different adeno-associated virus carrying guide RNA and repaired-gene-insert and lipid nanoparticles carrying Cas9 mRNA instructions http://news.mit.edu/2016/crispr-curing-disease-repairing-faulty-genes-0201; 6% of liver cell transformations are sufficient for disease curing, which is 15 times more effective than other methods, but the group hope to boost this % in future.
2. Better DNA Aptamer Technology
DNA aptamers can be artificially engineered to target and bind any molecular target in the body – proteins, viruses, bacteria, cells, tumours – but are limited by poorer binding-efficiency and instability due to enzymatic digestion. These two limiting factors have now been addressed http://www.a-star.edu.sg/Media/News/Press-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/4496.aspx with (i) the inclusion of an artificial base into the DNA that boosted binding ability by 100 times compared to existing aptamers, and (ii) the inclusion of a DNA-mini-hairpin structure that serves to restrict enzymatic digestion and boost lifetime in the body from hours to days. DNA aptamers like these could in theory be used instead of antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic applications but are cheaper, quicker, and simpler to produce and obviate potential inflammatory side effects.
3. Developing a Light-Effect-Transistor
Prototype light effect transistors have been developed with the aim of replacing standard field effect transistors in future chip designs https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600702/the-nanodevice-aiming-to-replace-the-field-effect-transistor/. A light effect transistor comprises a wire that conducts electricity when exposed to light and insulates when it is dark; a light-controlled switch in which light functions like a gate and with benefits including no reliance on dopant atoms and the ability to achieve smaller size dimensions to continue Moore’s Law. The demonstrations include semiconducting nanowires whose conduction changes by six orders of magnitude when switched, and can also function as an optical amplifier that performs logic operations when two or more laser beams are used. But the biggest unsolved question is how a chip would accurately address more than a billion nanowires with light?
4. Rejuvenation via Senescent Cell & Amyloid Clearance
First, venture-backed company Unity Biotechnology joins competition with Oisin Biotechnology aiming to develop and launch therapeutics that clear senescent cells from adult animals https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/02/25-median-life-extension-in-mice-via-senescent-cell-clearance-unity-biotechnology-founded-to-develop-therapies.php. Their latest work extends the median lifespan of mice by 25% and should help to attract additional funding and support for this approach; investors will want to get this into humans as soon as possible. And back in the lab another group finds a 35% lifespan extension by clearing senescent cells http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-researchers-extend-lifespan-by-as-much-as-35-percent-in-mice-2/. Second, a partnership between companies Pentraxin and GSK is slowly bearing fruit with clinically-tested drug therapies that very effectively clear amyloid (misfolded protein clumps that accumulate) deposits from tissues and body fluids, intended for Alzheimer’s and other diseases but providing a platform for this area of rejuvenation therapies https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/02/what-next-for-transthyretin-amyloid-clearance-therapies.php. Boosting mitophagy also rejuvenates cells to a more youthful state http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/nu-mst020316.php.
5. Atomically Precise Materials and Devices
Structural DNA technology can self-assemble nanoparticles into diamond-shaped crystal lattices https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11810. The DNA forms the rigid frame of the material, while complementary DNA binding ensures the nanoparticles bind in specific locations, leading to a diamond lattice about 100 times larger than conventional diamond; interesting platform for novel materials development. Bacteria produce self-assembled microcompartments to concentrate enzymatic production of certain molecules, and these compartments are being used as templates to engineer variants with novel functions and molecular production capabilities https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/02/04/toward-nanoscale-chemical-factories/, slowly building a platform of contained molecular production machinery that might one day be introduced inside human cells for exmample.
6. NASAs Integrated Photonics Modem
NASA is building the first fully integrated photonics modem, simplifying optical on-chip systems design, and reducing the size of the large prototype down to conventional system-on-chip scales http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-engineers-tapped-to-build-first-integrated-photonics-modem. The chip uses lasers to encode and transmit data at 10 – 100 times faster than equipment available today. While testing of the device in space won’t begin until 2020 we might see commercial applications of this earlier, particularly in data centers and Internet backbone lines.
7. Electronic Nematicity Key in Superconductivity
New studies indicate that the phenomenon of electronic nematicity, in which electron clouds in a material snap into an aligned and directional order, is a generic property common to high-temperature superconductors https://uwaterloo.ca/stories/waterloo-physicists-discover-new-properties. The electrons involved in superconductivity form patterns that exhibit different symmetries that preferentially align in one direction and which can compete with, co-exist, or enhance superconductivity. Hopefully this understanding allows for the future design of higher-temperature superconductors.
8. Dedicated Deep Learning Chips on Smartphones
Eyeriss is a newly designed and developed dedicated deep learning chip for use in smartphones and other low-power applications http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/processors/a-deep-learning-ai-chip-for-your-phone. The chip is designed to allow these devices to run computationally demanding neural network algorithms quickly and efficiently on the device without offloading to the cloud, and using only one tenth of the energy of a typical mobile GPU. Agnostic to the type of neural network being run the chip can process image, sound, and other types of data as needed and might also find deployment in autonomous platforms such as cars and drones. In related news Google’s DeepMind game-playing AI can now also navigate environments in first-person-shooters https://www.newscientist.com/article/2076552-google-deepmind-ai-navigates-a-doom-like-3d-maze-just-by-looking/ and I wonder if this can be transferred to robots to help in realworld environments, perhaps by using these dedicated chips.
9. Graphene Lenses and Electrode Benefits
First, graphene has been formed into a clever fresnel lens by using a laser to pattern concentric rings of graphene oxide on its surface, and allowing optical focusing in the visible and infrared down to scales of 200nm http://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/latest-news/2016/01/focus-on-results.php. Second, graphene-coated electrodes turn out to be an excellent option for applications involving interfacing with neurons http://graphene-flagship.eu/graphene-based-interfaces-do-not-alter-target-nerve-cells. Finally, graphene cages formed around silicon anodes appear to enable higher capacity batteries that avoid the problem of cracking that such materials are usually limited by http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/graphene-cages-cover-silicon-anodes-for-high-capacity-batteries.
10. Flexiramics: Ceramics that Act Like Paper
A new material dubbed flexiramics is being developed and commercialised by a company called Eurekite http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/dutch-researchers-have-created-flexiramics-flexible-ceramics-for-circuit-boards/. Flexiramics appear to be a new class of materials that possess the mechanical properties of paper or thin textiles in being thin, foldable, and flexible while also exhibiting the properties of ceramics in being fireproof and nonconducting. The fabrics withstand 1,200 degrees Celsius for 24 hours without burning or melting. Printed PCBs will be the first application apparently but the possibilities are endless.
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Useful knowledge for an SF writer.
Originally shared by ExtremeTech
DNA sequencing 101.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/214647-how-does-dna-sequencing-work
Remember the 80s, when guys like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling gave us ridiculous visions of a future where you could connect your brain to a worldwide network of computers, and powerful megacorporations dominated the world?
Crazy, right?
Originally shared by ExtremeTech
DARPA wants to connect our brains to the Internet. What could possibly go wrong?
Via The Mary Sue
Chance of a flat-earth conspiracy lasting this long: zero.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-equation-large-scale-conspiracies-quickly-reveal.html
We SF writers often write about new technologies that work the way they’re supposed to. That leads to interesting stories – but what about the familiar reality of technology that doesn’t quite work right?
Originally shared by Eduardo Suastegui
The Neurologist Who #Hacked His Brain—And Almost Lost His #Mind #neuroscience
“Neurologist Phil Kennedy set out to build the ultimate brain-computer interface. In the process he almost lost his mind…”
Modular electronics. Something that Sparx, the electromancer from my Auckland Allies series, would definitely be into.
Originally shared by Laston Kirkland
“Last year, says Elmieh, he and his team took apart 600 products released since 2012 and found that 80 percent of them could be built from just 15 common electronic components.”
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/nascent-objects-an-ambitious-plan-to-stop-us-from-wasting-our-gadgets