Scientists discover virus with no recognizable genes (Science)
What’s in a Name? Taxonomy Problems Vex Biologists (Quanta Magazine)
Ethnic Bioweapon - a type of theoretical bioweapon that aims to harm only or primarily people of specific ethnicities or genotypes.
"There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves." - William S. Cohen, US Secretary of Defense (1997)
World must prepare for biological weapons that target ethnic groups based on genetics, says Cambridge University (Telegraph, August 2019)
Cancel Earthworms - The “crazy worms” remaking forests aren’t your friendly neighborhood garden worms. Then again, those aren’t so great either (The Atlantic) (Art by Myriam Wares)
Event 201 - A Global Pandemic Exercise (2019)
"The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences."
Health experts issued an ominous warning about a coronavirus pandemic 3 months ago. Their simulation showed it could kill 65 million people. (Business Insider, 20.1.2020)
"Toner’s simulation imagined a fictional virus called CAPS. The analysis, part of a collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, looked at what would happen if a pandemic originated in Brazil’s pig farms."
PERDIX - Fabricate any free-form 2D drawing at the nanometer scale using DNA (MIT)
PERDIX (Programmed Eulerian Routing for DNA Designs using X-overs) is a free, open-source resource for the fully autonomous design of arbitrary 2D scaffolded DNA origami nanostructures.
TALOS (Three-dimensional, Algorithmically-generated Library of DNA Origami Shapes) is a open-source, fully autonomous design algorithm for generating 3D nanometer-scale structures using DNA.
Chinese authorities confirm human-to-human transmission of new coronavirus (TASS)
Human-to-human link to some cases of new China virus, Sars expert says (SCMP)
China warns Communist Party officials: cover up spread of Wuhan virus and be ‘nailed on pillar of shame for eternity’ (SCMP)
Priority now to stop emergence of ‘super-spreader’, with one carrier already infecting more than a dozen medical staff, specialist says. Authorities in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, report a fourth death and 15 infections among hospital staff.
Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing (Nature, 2019) - by Mathew P. White, Ian Alcock, et.al.
Sperm Counts Continue to Fall (The Atlantic, 2018)
"Scientists are coming to a consensus that men in America and Europe are experiencing a worsening decrease in fertility. They disagree, however, about why."
Scientists Use Stems Cells From Frogs To Build First Living Robots (The Guardian)
Research Paper: A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms - by Sam Kriegman, Douglas Blackiston, Michael Levin, and Josh Bongard (2020)
Abstract
: "Here we show a scalable pipeline for creating functional novel lifeforms: AI methods automatically design diverse candidate lifeforms in silico to perform some desired function, and transferable designs are then created using a cell-based construction toolkit to realize living systems with the predicted behaviors. Although some steps in this pipeline still require manual intervention, complete automation in future would pave the way to designing and deploying unique, bespoke living systems for a wide range of functions."
#Comment: Impressive research and ongoing work - congrats! But beyond the praises, please allow me to offer some critical reflections: As usual, the media (and researchers) is willingly mislabeling and exaggerating. Evolutionary Soft-robotics, ALife etc. are progressing, sure. But is this a "first living machine", as is loudly claimed in some of the articles about this work? Humans still lack a functional, semi-universal definition of what constitutes "living". Such questions are by and large still at the same stage, as when Schrödinger published "What Is Life?" in 1944. The reporting on this research contains many other such fantastical claims ("Xenobots SOON could be used to deliver medicine to humans" etc.), presented as hard science/engineering reality - even it clearly encompasses a manifold of unsolved hard problems and questions and is deep in fundamental research territory. More humbleness and restraint would serve all involved parties very well. It makes for good science and a robust public discourse, unlike the hype driven 15min-of-fame click-bait madness of today.
Related: My mini docu "Life": EP 1 on Artificial Life, and EP 2 on Neurorobotics
Computer-designed organisms - interview with Josh Bongard
Computer designed organisms. Aired on CNN Jan 19, 2020.
Among the key efforts launched under Walker’s tenure at DARPA was development of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile. Walker also reinvigorated the agency’s hypersonic weapons and space efforts. Also noted by the agency: Under Walker’s leadership, DARPA launched the three-year, $1.5 billion Electronics Resurgence Initiative as well as the five-year, $2 billion AI Next program. Walker also “made pivotal investments in the realm of engineered biology, resulting in several breakthroughs, chief among them a program that has helped reduce Ebola fatality rates by more than 70%,”
#Military #BCI #Biotech #Biology #RadioBio #ML #Augmentation #Robot
Magnetic Salmon (2019) & Salmon use magnetic field as navigational aid (2013)
Salmon can detect the precise geomagnetic "feel" of a river's location, and memorize it to help them return later. Scientists have discovered evidence showing that salmon use a technique called "geomagnetic imprinting" to find their way home to their birth rivers.
Videos by Andy Adamatzky, Professor in Unconventional Computing, UWE, Bristol
"Dynamics Patterns in Water as Analogue Models" - talk by Rupert Sheldrake (2019)
Related: "Determinants of Faraday Wave-Patterns in Water Samples Oscillated Vertically at a Range of Frequencies from 50-200 Hz" - by Merlin Sheldrake & Rupert Sheldrake
Where do minds belong? - by Caleb Scharf (Director of astrobiology at Columbia)
"Intelligence could have been moving back and forth between biological beings and machine receptacles for aeons"
"Any machine intelligence might already be dreaming of becoming biological again, returning to an islanded state in the great wash of interstellar space"