John Raptakis Blog

An alternative to string theory

2006-09-06T09:27:00.000+03:00

One of the subjects we keep coming back to here at Nobel Intent is the unification of gravity and quantum mechanics. One of the main contenders for this has to be string theory, in which all observable properties can be simply described as vibrations on a string or more complex structure. The problem with string theory has been obtaining precise predictions. On the one hand, string theory provides predictions at very high energy, which experimentalists cannot test, while at lower energy, the calculation techniques and approximations make any predictions tenuous at best. Then there was the great disappointment, string theory doesn't naturally explain a nonzero vacuum energy, causing some theorists to fall back on the anthropic principle. However, alternatives such as braneworld do exist.

One such alternative was outlined in the print edition of Scientific American this month. The idea really goes back to Einstein and his work on relativity and gravity. Einstein modified our understanding of space, time and their relationship and Alain Connes thinks that maybe we still don't have that understanding quite right. The reasoning behind this lies in something called the commutative properties of space and quantum mechanics. This is not some hairy, eyeball-popping concept but rather a property of order. For instance, in mathematics, multiplication is commutative; 4 ? 6 = 24 = 6 ? 4. Travel through space is also commutative: traveling to a destination that is 4.5km northeast of my current location, I can either go 2km east and then 4km north or 4km north and then 2km east. Some spatial operations, such as rotations, are not always commutative. This property of commutation has great power in quantum mechanics, however, in a slightly less straightforward way. In this case it is the operators, such as position and momentum that do not commute.

Connes has figured out how to construct a space that doesn't commute (e.g., I will not reach the same destination if I reverse the order of my east and north travels). The result is that there are two continuous spaces which are separated by a small "jump." The advantage to this description is that it gives a mathematical trick, called renormalization, a proper foundation which can be tested in experiments. It also predicts the Higgs boson to be about 160 billion electron volts. Just predicting the presence of the Higgs boson, let alone a precise number for its mass places it well ahead of string theory in terms of pure science.

The true strength of Connes' approach lies in his belief that the mathematics behind the physics should give you some insight into the physics. The great failure of string theory is that while a lot has been discovered about mathematics, no physical insight has resulted. On reflection, I think that the other great downfall of string theory is that it starts from the unobservable (very high energy) and works its way down, while most successful theories start from what is known and work their way up.

Read more ...

Are We Enlightened Guardians, Or Are We Apes Designing Humans?

2006-08-11T17:20:00.000+03:00

Are We Enlightened Guardians, Or Are We Apes Designing Humans?
by Douglas Mulhall

Thanks in part to molecular manufacturing, accelerated developments in AI and brain reverse-engineering could lead to the emergence of superintelligence in just 18 years. Are we ready for the implications -- like possible annihilation of Homo sapiens? And will we seem to superintelligence what our ape-like ancestors seem to us: primitive?

Originally published in Nanotechnology Perceptions: A Review of Ultraprecision Engineering and Nanotechnology, Volume 2, No. 2, May 8, 2006.

Most students of artificial intelligence are familiar with this forecast made by Vernor Vinge in 19931: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

That was thirteen years ago. Many proponents of super-intelligence say we are on track for that deadline, due to the rate of computing and software advances. Skeptics argue this is nonsense and that we're still decades away from it.

But fewer and fewer argue that it won't happen by the end of this century. This is because history has shown the acceleration of technology to be exponential, as explained in well-known works by inventors such as Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, some of which are elucidated in this volume of essays.

A classic example of technology acceleration is the mapping of the human genome, which achieved most of its progress in the late stages of a multi-year project that critics wrongly predicted would take decades. The rate of mapping at the end of the project was exponential compared to the beginning, due to rapid automation that has since transformed the biotechnology industry.

The same may be true of molecular manufacturing (MM) as self-taught machines learn via algorithms to do things faster, better, and cheaper. I won't describe the technology of MM here because that is well covered in other essays by more competent experts.

MM is important to super-intelligence because it will revolutionize the processes required to understand our own intelligence, such as neural mapping via neural probes that non-destructively map the brain. It also will accelerate three-dimensional computing, where the space between computing units is reduced and efficiency multiplied in the same way that our own brains have done it. Once this happens, the ability to mimic the human brain will accelerate, and self-aware intelligence may follow quickly.

This type of acceleration suggests that Vinge's countdown to the beginning of the end of the human era must be taken seriously.

The pathways by which super-human intelligence could evolve have been well explained by others and include: computer-based artificial intelligence, bioelectronic AI that develops super-intelligence on its own, or human intelligence that is accelerated or merged with AI. Such intelligence might be an enhancement of Homo sapiens, i.e. part of us, or completely separate from us, or both.

Many experts argue that each of these forms of super-intelligence will enhance humans, not replace them, and although they might seem alien to unenhanced humans, they will still be an extension of us because we are the ones who designed them.

The thought behind this is that we will go on as a species.

Critics, however, point to a fly in that ointment. If the acceleration of computing and software continues apace, then super-intelligence, once it emerges, could outpace Homo sapiens, with or without piggybacking on human intelligence.

This would see the emergence of a new species, perhaps similar in some ways, but in other ways fundamentally different from Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence, genetics, and immunology.

If that happens, the gap between Homo sapiens and super-intelligence could quickly become as wide as the gap between apes and Homo sapiens.

Optimists say this won't happen, because everybody will get an upgrade simultaneously when super-intelligence breaks out.

Pessimists say that just a few humans or computers will acquire such intelligence first, and then use it to subjugate the rest of us Homo sapiens.

For clues as to who might be right, let's look at outstanding historical examples of how we've used technology and our own immunology in relation to less technologically adept societies, and in relation to other species.

When technologically superior Europeans arrived in North and South America, the indigenous populations didn't have much time to contemplate such implications because in a just few years, most who came in contact with Europeans were dead from disease. Many who died never laid eyes on a European, as death spread so quickly ahead of the conquerors through unknowing victims.

Europeans at first had no idea that their own immunity to disease would give them such an advantage, but when they realized it, they did everything to use it as a weapon. They did the same with technologies that they consciously invented and knew were superior.

The rapid death of these ancient civilizations, numbering in the tens of millions of persons across two continents, is not etched into the consciousness of contemporary society because those cultures left few written records and had scant time to document their own demise. Most of what they put to pictures or symbols was destroyed by religious zealots or wealth-seeking exploiters.

And so, these civilizations passed quietly into history, leaving only remnants.

By inference, enhanced intelligence easily could take choices about our future out of our hands, and may also be immune to hazards such as mutating viruses that pose dire threats to human society.

Annihilation of Homo sapiens could occur in one of many ways:

* The "oops" factor: accidental annihilation at the hands of a very smart klutz, e.g. by something that is unwittingly immune to things that kill us, or that is smart in one way, but inept in others. Predecessors to super-intelligence may only be smarter than us in some ways, and therein lies a danger. An autistic intelligence could do us in by accident. Just look at current technology, where computers are more capable than humans in some ways but hopeless in others.
* Annihilation in the crossfire of a war-like competition between competing forms of super-intelligence, some of which might include upgraded Homo sapiens. One of the early, deadlier competitions could be for resources as various forms of super-intelligence gobble up space that we occupy, or remake our ecology into an environment more suitable to their needs.
* Deliberate annihilation or assimilation because we are deemed inferior.

If Vernor Vinge is right, we have 18 years before we will face such realities. Centuries ago, the fate of Indian civilizations in North and South America was decided in a similar time span. So, the time to address such risks is now.

This is especially true because paradigms shift more quickly now; therefore, when the event occurs we'll have less time, perhaps five years or even just one, to consider our options.

What might we use as protection against these multi-factorial threats?

Sun Microsystems' cofounder Bill Joy's April 2000 treatise, "Why the future doesn't need us,"2 summarized one field of thought, arguing the case for relinquishment-- eschewing certain technologies due to their inherent risks.

Since that time, most technology proponents have been arguing why relinquishment is impractical. They contend that the march of technology is relentless and we might as well go along for the ride, but with safeguards built in to make sure things don't get too crazy.

Nonetheless, just how we build safeguards into something smarter than us, including an upgraded version of ourselves, has as yet gone unanswered. To see where the solutions might lie, let's again look at the historical perspective.

If we evaluate the arguments between technology optimists and relinquishment pessimists in relation to the history of the natural world, it becomes apparent that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The ‘rock’ in this case could be an asteroid or comet. If we were to relinquish our powerful new technologies, chances are good that an asteroid would eventually collide with Earth, as has occurred before, thus throwing human civilization back to the dark ages or worse.

For those who scoff at this as an astronomical long shot, be reminded that Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 punched Earth-sized holes in Jupiter less than a decade after the space tools necessary to witness such events were launched, and just when most experts were forecasting such occurrences to be once-in-a-million-year events that we would likely never see.

Or perhaps we would be thrown back by other catastrophic events that have occurred historically, such as naturally induced climate changes triggered by super-volcanos, collapse of the magnetosphere, or an all-encompassing super-nova.

Due to those natural risks, I argue in my book, Our Molecular Future, that we may have no choice but to proceed with technologies that could just as easily destroy us as protect us.

Unfortunately, as explained in the same book, an equally bad "hard place" sits opposite the onrushing "rock" that threatens us. The hard place is our social ineptness.

In the 21st century, despite tremendous progress, we still do amazingly stupid things. We prepare poorly for known threats including hurricanes and tsunamis. We go to war over outdated energy sources such as oil, and some of us increasingly overfeed ourselves while hundreds of millions of people ironically starve. We often value conspicuous consumption over saving impoverished human lives, as low income victims of AIDS or malaria know too well.

Techno-optimists use compelling evidence to argue that we are vanquishing these shortcomings and that new technologies will overcome them completely. But one historical trend bodes against this: emergence of advanced technologies has been overwhelmingly bad for many of the less intelligent species on Earth.

To cite a familiar refrain: We are massacring millions of wild animals and destroying their habitat. We keep billions more domestic farm animals under inhumane, painful, plague-breeding conditions in increasingly vast numbers.

The depth and breadth of this suffering is so vast that we often ignore it, perhaps because it is too terrible to contemplate. When it gets too bothersome, we dismiss it as animal rights extremism. Some of us rationalize it by arguing that nature has always extinguished species, so we are only fulfilling that natural role.

But at its core lies a searing truth: our behavior as guardians of less intelligent species, which we know feel pain and suffering, has been and continues to be atrocious.

If this is our attitude toward less intelligent species, why would the attitude of superior intelligence toward us be different? It would be foolish to assume that a more advanced intelligence than our own, whether advanced in all or in only some ways, will behave benevolently toward us once it sees how we treat other species.

We therefore must consider that a real near-term risk to our civilization is that we invent something which looks at our ways of treating less intelligent species and decides we're not worth keeping, or if we are worth keeping, we should be placed in zoos in small numbers where we can't do more harm. Resulting questions:

* How do we instill into super-intelligence 'ethical' behavior that we ourselves poorly exhibit?

* How do we make sure that super-intelligence rejects certain unsavory practices as we banned slavery?

* Can we reach into the future to prevent a super-intelligence from changing its mind about those ethics?

These questions have been debated, but no broad-based consensus has emerged. Instead, as the discussions run increasingly in circles, they suggest that we as a species might be comparable to 'apes designing humans'.

The ape-like ancestors of Homo sapiens had no idea they were contributing DNA to a more intelligent species. Nor could they hope to comprehend it. Likewise, can we Homo sapiens expect to comprehend what we are contributing to a super-intelligent species that follows us?

As long as we continue to exercise callous neglect as guardians of species less intelligent than ourselves, it could be argued that we are much like our pre-human ancestors: incapable of consciously influencing what comes after us.

The guardianship issue leads to another question: How well are we balancing technology advantages against risks?

In the mere 60 years since our most powerful weapons—nuclear bombs—were invented, we've kept them mostly under wraps and congratulated ourselves for that, but we have also seen them proliferate from at first just one country to at least ten, with some of those balanced on the edge of chaos.

Likewise, in the nanoscale technology world that precedes molecular manufacturing, we've begun assessing risks posed to human health by engineered nanoparticles, but those particles are already being put into our environment and into us.

In other words, we are still closing the proverbial barn doors after the animals have escaped. This limited level of foresight is light years away from being able to assess how to control the onrushing risks of molecular manufacturing or of enhanced intelligence.

Many accomplished experts have pointed out that the same empowerment of individuals by technologies such as the Internet and biotech could make unprecedented weapons available to small disaffected groups.

Technology optimists argue that this has occurred often in history: new technologies bring new pros and cons, and after we make some awful mistakes with them, things get sorted out.

However, in this case the acceleration rate by its nature puts these technologies in a class of their own, because the evidence suggests they are running ahead of our capacities to contain or balance them. Moreover, the number of violently disaffected groups in our society who could use them is substantial.

To control this, do we need a "pre-crime" capacity as envisaged in the film Minority Report, where Big Brother methods are applied to anticipate crime and strike it down preemptively?

The pros and cons of preemptive strikes have been well elucidated recently. The idea of giving up our freedom in order to preserve our freedom from attack by disaffected groups is being heavily debated right now, without much agreement.

However, one thing seems to have been under-emphasized in these security debates:

Until we do the blatantly positive things such as eliminate widespread diseases, feed the starving, house the homeless, disenfranchise dictators, stop torture, stop inhumane treatment of less intelligent species, and other do-good things that are treated today like platitudes, we will not get rid of violently disaffected groups.

By doing things that are blatantly humane, (despite the efforts of despots and their extremist anti-terrorist counterparts to belittle them as wimpy) we might accomplish two things at once: greatly reduce the numbers of violently disaffected groups, and present ourselves to super-intelligence as being enlightened guardians.

Otherwise, if we continue along the present path, we may someday seem to superintelligence what our ape-like ancestors seem to us: primitive.

In deciding what to do about Homo sapiens, a superior form of intelligence might first evaluate our record as guardians, such as how we treat species less intelligent than ourselves, and how we treat members of our same species that are less technologically adept or just less fortunate.

Why might super-intelligences look at this first? Because just as we are guardians of those less intelligent or fortunate than us, so super-intelligences will be the guardians of us and of other less intelligent species. Super-intelligences will have to decide what to do with us, and with them.

If Vinge is accurate in his forecast, we don't have much time to set these things straight before someone or something superior to us makes a harsh evaluation.

Being nice to dumb animals or poor people is by no means the only way of assuring survival of our species in the face of something more intelligent than us. Using technology to massively upgrade human intelligence is also a prerequisite. But that, on its own, may not be sufficient.

Compassion by those who possess overwhelming advantages over others is one of the special characteristics that Homo sapiens (along with a few other mammals) brings to this cold universe. It is what separates us from an asteroid or super-nova that doesn't care whether it wipes us out.

Further, compassionate behavior is something most of us could agree on, and while it is often misinterpreted by some as a weakness, it is also what makes us human, and what most of us would want to contribute to future species.

If that is so, then let's take the risk of being compassionate and put it into practice by launching overarching works that demonstrate the best of what we are.

For example, use molecular manufacturing and its predecessor nanotechnologies to eliminate the disease of aging, instead of treating the symptoms. That is what I personally have decided to focus on, but there are many other good examples out there, including synthesized meat that eliminates inhumane treatment of billions of animals, and cheap photovoltaic electricity that could slash our dependence on oil—and end wars over it.

Such works are not hard to identify. We just have to give them priority. Perhaps then we will seem less like our unwitting ancestors and more like enlightened guardians.

Are We Enlightened Guardians, Or Are We Apes Designing Humans?
by Douglas Mulhall

Thanks in part to molecular manufacturing, accelerated developments in AI and brain reverse-engineering could lead to the emergence of superintelligence in just 18 years. Are we ready for the implications -- like possible annihilation of Homo sapiens? And will we seem to superintelligence what our ape-like ancestors seem to us: primitive?

Originally published in Nanotechnology Perceptions: A Review of Ultraprecision Engineering and Nanotechnology, Volume 2, No. 2, May 8, 2006. Reprinted with permission on KurzweilAI.net, May 22, 2006.

Most students of artificial intelligence are familiar with this forecast made by Vernor Vinge in 19931: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

That was thirteen years ago. Many proponents of super-intelligence say we are on track for that deadline, due to the rate of computing and software advances. Skeptics argue this is nonsense and that we're still decades away from it.

But fewer and fewer argue that it won't happen by the end of this century. This is because history has shown the acceleration of technology to be exponential, as explained in well-known works by inventors such as Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, some of which are elucidated in this volume of essays.

A classic example of technology acceleration is the mapping of the human genome, which achieved most of its progress in the late stages of a multi-year project that critics wrongly predicted would take decades. The rate of mapping at the end of the project was exponential compared to the beginning, due to rapid automation that has since transformed the biotechnology industry.

The same may be true of molecular manufacturing (MM) as self-taught machines learn via algorithms to do things faster, better, and cheaper. I won't describe the technology of MM here because that is well covered in other essays by more competent experts.

MM is important to super-intelligence because it will revolutionize the processes required to understand our own intelligence, such as neural mapping via neural probes that non-destructively map the brain. It also will accelerate three-dimensional computing, where the space between computing units is reduced and efficiency multiplied in the same way that our own brains have done it. Once this happens, the ability to mimic the human brain will accelerate, and self-aware intelligence may follow quickly.

This type of acceleration suggests that Vinge's countdown to the beginning of the end of the human era must be taken seriously.

The pathways by which super-human intelligence could evolve have been well explained by others and include: computer-based artificial intelligence, bioelectronic AI that develops super-intelligence on its own, or human intelligence that is accelerated or merged with AI. Such intelligence might be an enhancement of Homo sapiens, i.e. part of us, or completely separate from us, or both.

Many experts argue that each of these forms of super-intelligence will enhance humans, not replace them, and although they might seem alien to unenhanced humans, they will still be an extension of us because we are the ones who designed them.

The thought behind this is that we will go on as a species.

Critics, however, point to a fly in that ointment. If the acceleration of computing and software continues apace, then super-intelligence, once it emerges, could outpace Homo sapiens, with or without piggybacking on human intelligence.

This would see the emergence of a new species, perhaps similar in some ways, but in other ways fundamentally different from Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence, genetics, and immunology.

If that happens, the gap between Homo sapiens and super-intelligence could quickly become as wide as the gap between apes and Homo sapiens.

Optimists say this won't happen, because everybody will get an upgrade simultaneously when super-intelligence breaks out.

Pessimists say that just a few humans or computers will acquire such intelligence first, and then use it to subjugate the rest of us Homo sapiens.

For clues as to who might be right, let's look at outstanding historical examples of how we've used technology and our own immunology in relation to less technologically adept societies, and in relation to other species.

When technologically superior Europeans arrived in North and South America, the indigenous populations didn't have much time to contemplate such implications because in a just few years, most who came in contact with Europeans were dead from disease. Many who died never laid eyes on a European, as death spread so quickly ahead of the conquerors through unknowing victims.

Europeans at first had no idea that their own immunity to disease would give them such an advantage, but when they realized it, they did everything to use it as a weapon. They did the same with technologies that they consciously invented and knew were superior.

The rapid death of these ancient civilizations, numbering in the tens of millions of persons across two continents, is not etched into the consciousness of contemporary society because those cultures left few written records and had scant time to document their own demise. Most of what they put to pictures or symbols was destroyed by religious zealots or wealth-seeking exploiters.

And so, these civilizations passed quietly into history, leaving only remnants.

By inference, enhanced intelligence easily could take choices about our future out of our hands, and may also be immune to hazards such as mutating viruses that pose dire threats to human society.

Annihilation of Homo sapiens could occur in one of many ways:

* The "oops" factor: accidental annihilation at the hands of a very smart klutz, e.g. by something that is unwittingly immune to things that kill us, or that is smart in one way, but inept in others. Predecessors to super-intelligence may only be smarter than us in some ways, and therein lies a danger. An autistic intelligence could do us in by accident. Just look at current technology, where computers are more capable than humans in some ways but hopeless in others.
* Annihilation in the crossfire of a war-like competition between competing forms of super-intelligence, some of which might include upgraded Homo sapiens. One of the early, deadlier competitions could be for resources as various forms of super-intelligence gobble up space that we occupy, or remake our ecology into an environment more suitable to their needs.
* Deliberate annihilation or assimilation because we are deemed inferior.

If Vernor Vinge is right, we have 18 years before we will face such realities. Centuries ago, the fate of Indian civilizations in North and South America was decided in a similar time span. So, the time to address such risks is now.

This is especially true because paradigms shift more quickly now; therefore, when the event occurs we'll have less time, perhaps five years or even just one, to consider our options.

What might we use as protection against these multi-factorial threats?

Sun Microsystems' cofounder Bill Joy's April 2000 treatise, "Why the future doesn't need us,"2 summarized one field of thought, arguing the case for relinquishment-- eschewing certain technologies due to their inherent risks.

Since that time, most technology proponents have been arguing why relinquishment is impractical. They contend that the march of technology is relentless and we might as well go along for the ride, but with safeguards built in to make sure things don't get too crazy.

Nonetheless, just how we build safeguards into something smarter than us, including an upgraded version of ourselves, has as yet gone unanswered. To see where the solutions might lie, let's again look at the historical perspective.

If we evaluate the arguments between technology optimists and relinquishment pessimists in relation to the history of the natural world, it becomes apparent that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The ‘rock’ in this case could be an asteroid or comet. If we were to relinquish our powerful new technologies, chances are good that an asteroid would eventually collide with Earth, as has occurred before, thus throwing human civilization back to the dark ages or worse.

For those who scoff at this as an astronomical long shot, be reminded that Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 punched Earth-sized holes in Jupiter less than a decade after the space tools necessary to witness such events were launched, and just when most experts were forecasting such occurrences to be once-in-a-million-year events that we would likely never see.

Or perhaps we would be thrown back by other catastrophic events that have occurred historically, such as naturally induced climate changes triggered by super-volcanos, collapse of the magnetosphere, or an all-encompassing super-nova.

Due to those natural risks, I argue in my book, Our Molecular Future, that we may have no choice but to proceed with technologies that could just as easily destroy us as protect us.

Unfortunately, as explained in the same book, an equally bad "hard place" sits opposite the onrushing "rock" that threatens us. The hard place is our social ineptness.

In the 21st century, despite tremendous progress, we still do amazingly stupid things. We prepare poorly for known threats including hurricanes and tsunamis. We go to war over outdated energy sources such as oil, and some of us increasingly overfeed ourselves while hundreds of millions of people ironically starve. We often value conspicuous consumption over saving impoverished human lives, as low income victims of AIDS or malaria know too well.

Techno-optimists use compelling evidence to argue that we are vanquishing these shortcomings and that new technologies will overcome them completely. But one historical trend bodes against this: emergence of advanced technologies has been overwhelmingly bad for many of the less intelligent species on Earth.

To cite a familiar refrain: We are massacring millions of wild animals and destroying their habitat. We keep billions more domestic farm animals under inhumane, painful, plague-breeding conditions in increasingly vast numbers.

The depth and breadth of this suffering is so vast that we often ignore it, perhaps because it is too terrible to contemplate. When it gets too bothersome, we dismiss it as animal rights extremism. Some of us rationalize it by arguing that nature has always extinguished species, so we are only fulfilling that natural role.

But at its core lies a searing truth: our behavior as guardians of less intelligent species, which we know feel pain and suffering, has been and continues to be atrocious.

If this is our attitude toward less intelligent species, why would the attitude of superior intelligence toward us be different? It would be foolish to assume that a more advanced intelligence than our own, whether advanced in all or in only some ways, will behave benevolently toward us once it sees how we treat other species.

We therefore must consider that a real near-term risk to our civilization is that we invent something which looks at our ways of treating less intelligent species and decides we're not worth keeping, or if we are worth keeping, we should be placed in zoos in small numbers where we can't do more harm. Resulting questions:

* How do we instill into super-intelligence 'ethical' behavior that we ourselves poorly exhibit?

* How do we make sure that super-intelligence rejects certain unsavory practices as we banned slavery?

* Can we reach into the future to prevent a super-intelligence from changing its mind about those ethics?

These questions have been debated, but no broad-based consensus has emerged. Instead, as the discussions run increasingly in circles, they suggest that we as a species might be comparable to 'apes designing humans'.

The ape-like ancestors of Homo sapiens had no idea they were contributing DNA to a more intelligent species. Nor could they hope to comprehend it. Likewise, can we Homo sapiens expect to comprehend what we are contributing to a super-intelligent species that follows us?

As long as we continue to exercise callous neglect as guardians of species less intelligent than ourselves, it could be argued that we are much like our pre-human ancestors: incapable of consciously influencing what comes after us.

The guardianship issue leads to another question: How well are we balancing technology advantages against risks?

In the mere 60 years since our most powerful weapons—nuclear bombs—were invented, we've kept them mostly under wraps and congratulated ourselves for that, but we have also seen them proliferate from at first just one country to at least ten, with some of those balanced on the edge of chaos.

Likewise, in the nanoscale technology world that precedes molecular manufacturing, we've begun assessing risks posed to human health by engineered nanoparticles, but those particles are already being put into our environment and into us.

In other words, we are still closing the proverbial barn doors after the animals have escaped. This limited level of foresight is light years away from being able to assess how to control the onrushing risks of molecular manufacturing or of enhanced intelligence.

Many accomplished experts have pointed out that the same empowerment of individuals by technologies such as the Internet and biotech could make unprecedented weapons available to small disaffected groups.

Technology optimists argue that this has occurred often in history: new technologies bring new pros and cons, and after we make some awful mistakes with them, things get sorted out.

However, in this case the acceleration rate by its nature puts these technologies in a class of their own, because the evidence suggests they are running ahead of our capacities to contain or balance them. Moreover, the number of violently disaffected groups in our society who could use them is substantial.

To control this, do we need a "pre-crime" capacity as envisaged in the film Minority Report, where Big Brother methods are applied to anticipate crime and strike it down preemptively?

The pros and cons of preemptive strikes have been well elucidated recently. The idea of giving up our freedom in order to preserve our freedom from attack by disaffected groups is being heavily debated right now, without much agreement.

However, one thing seems to have been under-emphasized in these security debates:

Until we do the blatantly positive things such as eliminate widespread diseases, feed the starving, house the homeless, disenfranchise dictators, stop torture, stop inhumane treatment of less intelligent species, and other do-good things that are treated today like platitudes, we will not get rid of violently disaffected groups.

By doing things that are blatantly humane, (despite the efforts of despots and their extremist anti-terrorist counterparts to belittle them as wimpy) we might accomplish two things at once: greatly reduce the numbers of violently disaffected groups, and present ourselves to super-intelligence as being enlightened guardians.

Otherwise, if we continue along the present path, we may someday seem to superintelligence what our ape-like ancestors seem to us: primitive.

In deciding what to do about Homo sapiens, a superior form of intelligence might first evaluate our record as guardians, such as how we treat species less intelligent than ourselves, and how we treat members of our same species that are less technologically adept or just less fortunate.

Why might super-intelligences look at this first? Because just as we are guardians of those less intelligent or fortunate than us, so super-intelligences will be the guardians of us and of other less intelligent species. Super-intelligences will have to decide what to do with us, and with them.

If Vinge is accurate in his forecast, we don't have much time to set these things straight before someone or something superior to us makes a harsh evaluation.

Being nice to dumb animals or poor people is by no means the only way of assuring survival of our species in the face of something more intelligent than us. Using technology to massively upgrade human intelligence is also a prerequisite. But that, on its own, may not be sufficient.

Compassion by those who possess overwhelming advantages over others is one of the special characteristics that Homo sapiens (along with a few other mammals) brings to this cold universe. It is what separates us from an asteroid or super-nova that doesn't care whether it wipes us out.

Further, compassionate behavior is something most of us could agree on, and while it is often misinterpreted by some as a weakness, it is also what makes us human, and what most of us would want to contribute to future species.

If that is so, then let's take the risk of being compassionate and put it into practice by launching overarching works that demonstrate the best of what we are.

For example, use molecular manufacturing and its predecessor nanotechnologies to eliminate the disease of aging, instead of treating the symptoms. That is what I personally have decided to focus on, but there are many other good examples out there, including synthesized meat that eliminates inhumane treatment of billions of animals, and cheap photovoltaic electricity that could slash our dependence on oil—and end wars over it.

Such works are not hard to identify. We just have to give them priority. Perhaps then we will seem less like our unwitting ancestors and more like enlightened guardians.

1. The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.htm

The Singularity is near...

2006-08-11T13:08:00.000+03:00

In cosmology, the word singularity is used to describe the event horizons created by physical processes so fabulous that essentially no information can be transmitted from them. Among these are black holes, whose gravities do not permit light to escape, and the big bang, before which nothing is knowable.

In either case, these technical uses of the word have human connotations of uniqueness, incomprehensibility and danger. So it is perhaps not surprising that technofuturists and transhumanists see humanity and possibly all of creation hurtling toward something they call the Singularity.

The idea was popularized by San Diego State University mathematician Verner Vinge in the 1990s and given renewed attention in 2005 by the storied inventor Ray Kurzweil with the publication of his book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

In a precursor article, "The Law of Accelerating Returns," published in 2001, Kurzweil wrote: "Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultrahigh levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."

This millenarian vision of a positive feedback loop of ever-expanding intelligence and organization creates what might be called anti-entropy. When mankind reaches the Singularity, the universe will no longer be dominated by entropy. On the Web, there are sites for supporters of this philosophy, who identify themselves as extropians.

This change has also been viewed more ambiguously. For example, Vinge wrote of machine intelligence in a paper in 1993: "Within 30 years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Kurzweil's understanding of the Singularity, in contrast, is an unclouded one in which machine intelligence and human brains fuse for a future in which human/ machine hybrids invent ever-smarter machines and hybrids, and do this at ever- accelerating rates. They achieve a kind of immortality.

Kurzweil envisions the possibility of downloading brains and reconstituting them, thereby successfully propagating one person's consciousness, bringing a whole new perspective to Alan Turing's take on the question of whether machines can be said to think.

Even biological immortality is possible, according to Kurzweil, because of what he calls the three overlapping revolutions of GNR -- genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. The superhuman intelligences of the coming decades will know which genes to turn on and off in order to prolong life indefinitely. Nanotechnology will enable the infusion of human bodies with robotic servants to repair biological tissues and aid in the downloading of brains.

And all of this is coming sooner than we think, according to Kurzweil and fellow futurists. Using the evidence of Moore's Law concerning the doubling of computer power as a paradigm, Kurzweil identifies exponential growth in the capacity of information technology with a biblical sweep that stretches from the beginning through six epochs:

Physics and Chemistry -- from the big bang through the entire prelife era of the universe.
Biology and DNA -- stretching from the beginning of life on earth.
Brains -- the advent of human dominance.
Technology -- approaching culmination in the 20th century.
Merger of Human Technology and Human Intelligence -- which is the Singularity.
The Universe Wakes Up -- the other side of the Singularity.

Cyclic universe' can explain cosmological constant

2006-07-02T13:58:00.000+03:00

A cyclic universe, which bounces through a series of big bangs and "big crunches", could solve the puzzle of our cosmological constant, physicists suggest.

The cosmological constant represents the energy of empty space, and is thought to be the most likely explanation for the observed speeding up of the expansion of the universe. But its measured value is a googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes) times smaller than that predicted by particle physics theories. It is a discrepancy that gives cosmologists a real headache.

In the 1980s, physicists considered the possibility that an initially large cosmological constant could decay down to the value measured today. But this theory was abandoned when calculations showed that it would take far longer than 14 billion years – the time since the big bang – for the constant to reach the level seen today.

Now physicists Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University, in New Jersey, US, and Neil Turok at Cambridge University in the UK, are resurrecting the idea. They point out that if time stretches back beyond the big bang, the problem could be solved. At that is just what is predicted by their cyclic model of the universe – an alternative to the Standard Big Bang theory – which the pair first developed in 2002.

According to Steinhardt and Turok, today's universe is part of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches, with each cycle lasting about a trillion years. At every big bang, the amount of matter and radiation in the universe is reset, but the cosmological constant is not. Instead, the cosmological constant gradually diminishes over many cycles to the small value observed today.

The physicists' calculations show that the cosmological constant decreases in steps, through a series of quantum transitions. Crucially, the higher the value of the constant, the more rapid the transitions. But as the constant reaches lower levels, it changes more slowly, lingering on the lowest positive value for an extremely long time. That means that today's universe is most likely to have a small cosmological constant, just as we currently observe.

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Euclid's Fourteenth Book

2006-04-26T19:07:00.000+03:00

When a famous mathematician has something new to say, the whole world pays attention. Euclid's Elements, which presented the state of the art in geometry around 300 B.C., has been extraordinarily influential. This massive, 13-volume compendium set the standard for mathematical exposition and precise discourse for many centuries.

What's more, there is compelling evidence that Euclid of Alexandria (c. 365–275 B.C.) had a fourteenth book in mind. Officials of the Avril Foundation for Old Occidental Languages have announced that, after a year devoted to authentication and analysis, they are prepared to release the text of a manuscript that appears to be a Latin translation of research notes jotted down by Euclid in preparation for writing a fourteenth volume of Elements.

It's clear that Euclid was uncomfortable with the fifth and most complicated of the five postulates that begin Elements. This postulate states, "If a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles are less than two right angles."

Euclid's newly discovered notes propose an alternative way of expressing this notion: "Through any given point can be drawn exactly one straight line parallel to a given straight line." Euclid went on to consider two other cases: In one case, no parallel line can be drawn through the point, and in the other case, more than one parallel line can be drawn. In these two situations, he says, the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is no longer exactly equal to two right angles.

On the surface of a sphere, for example, the sum of the angles of any triangle is greater than two right angles, Euclid notes. Such a geometry has no parallel lines, yet it obeys his first four postulates.

The manuscript hints that Euclid also explored the curious geometry that arises from the existence of multiple parallels. "I have discovered things so wonderful that I was astounded," he wrote at one point. "Out of nothing I have created a strange, new world." Unfortunately, much of this section of the manuscript has deteriorated beyond repair, so only a few tantalizing fragments remain.

Euclid also shows how it's possible to build a star-like figure out of triangles. He starts with a large equilateral triangle, then breaks up each side with a protruding equilateral triangle one-third as large. Then he repeats the procedure with each new side, adding successively smaller triangles. He calls the resulting shape an "asteroid."

Euclid's "asteroid"
Euclid went on to speculate about how such self-similar forms may be useful for describing natural objects. "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line," he commented.

One highly cryptic section of Euclid's notes refers to a massive computational project. He apparently had hundreds of students over a period of many years computing the squares of numbers, taking differences, and obtaining answers that served as starting points for successive steps in some kind of procedure for creating fanciful mosaics.
Graphic output of Euclid's massive, student-powered computational project.
Euclid also spent time looking at extensions of the Pythagorean relationship (Proposition I.47). In his notes, he presented an ingenious argument to prove that the area of a right-angle triangle whose sides are all whole numbers cannot be a square of a whole number. Furthermore, he noted that it is impossible for a cube to be written as the sum of two cubes or a fourth power to be written as the sum of two fourth powers. Then he took a giant leap in conjecturing that the same thing holds for all powers greater than two. Euclid left an intriguing note: "I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this page is too small to contain". The astonishingly wide range of these investigations and speculations means that our use of the term "non-Euclidean geometry" is clearly misleading. We can now honestly say that it's all Euclidean geometry.

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Genes decide if coffee hurts or helps your heart

2006-04-01T02:34:00.000+03:00

Coffee can raise or reduce your chances of suffering a heart attack – it all depends on your genes, researchers suggest.

People with a genetic makeup that causes them to metabolise caffeine more slowly have a 36% greater risk of heart attack if they drink two to three cups of coffee a day than people with the same gene who drink one cup or less a day, according to a new study. And if they drink more than four cups, this risk rises to 64%. On the other hand, individuals who metabolised caffeine quickly and consumed two to three cups of coffee a day had a 22% reduction in the risk of heart attack compared with those with the same genetic makeup who consumed just one cup or less each day.

In the late 1990s researchers discovered that humans carry variants of the gene for an enzyme that breaks down caffeine in the body. People who carry two copies of the CYP1A2*1A gene may break down caffeine up to four times faster than those carrying the CYP1A2*1F gene.

The study showed that two to three cups of coffee per day caused a 36% rise in risk of heart attack among people who carried the CYP1A2*1F gene – and drinking four or more cups a day caused a 64% increase in the same group. Increased levels of circulating caffeine may block adenosine’s action, causing blood vessels to constrict, subsequently triggering a heart attack. About 55% of those involved in the study carried the gene for slow caffeine metabolism.

People who were homozygous for CYP1A2*1A – meaning they carried two copies of gene for fast caffeine-metabolism – actually reduced their risk of heart attack by drinking coffee. Among these volunteers, two to three cups of coffee caused a 22% decrease in heart attack risk. Drinking more than four cups of coffee only nominally reduced their chances of a heart attack.

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Stroke Brain Fix

2006-02-22T00:36:00.000+02:00

During a stroke, brain cells die from a lack of oxygen. But brain researchers may have found a way to make stroke-damaged nerve cells re-grow.

When a stroke occurs, blood flow to part of the brain is interrupted when a blood vessel becomes damaged or blocked. The blood normally brings oxygen and nutrients that the brain cells in the immediate area need to survive. Without the blood the brain cells begin to die and stroke victims lose the functions that were controlled by those brain cells. About 80 percent of all strokes are ischemic, caused by a blood clot that blocks a blood vessel or artery in the brain. The other 20 percent are caused by a weakened blood vessel that breaks and bleeds into the brain. This is known as hemorrhagic stroke, and is often fatal. Around 600,000 new strokes, or "brain attacks" are reported each year.

In the developing systems of young people and other animals, the central nervous system (CNS), which consists of around ten billion nerve cells, have the ability to spontaneously grow new nerve cell connections. But, when these young animals grow up and their nervous systems mature, this spontaneous re-growth no longer occurs — something is blocking it. In recent years, an international team of brain researchers, led by Swiss neurologist Martin Schwab, discovered that a protein called "Nogo-A" inhibits the re-growth and repair of injured nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord in adults.

In tests on stroke-damaged rats a research team used a very specific antibody, an immune-system protein, to stop Nogo-A from binding to receptors on nerve cells. Without the inhibitory affect of Nogo-A, the injured nerve cells were able to re-grow, restoring lost movement to the front paws of the rats. A week after the stroke, the rats began the two-week antibody treatment to block Nogo-A. Just nine weeks after the treatment the aged rats recovered the use of their paralyzed paws.

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New study is boost to homeopathy

2006-01-26T14:31:00.000+02:00

A six-year study at Bristol Homeopathic Hospital shows over 70% of patients with chronic diseases reported positive health changes after treatment.

More than 6,500 patients took part in the study with problems ranging from eczema to menopause and arthritis.The biggest improvements were seen in children - 89% of under 16s with asthma reported improvement.Of the group, 75% felt 'better' or 'much better', as did 68% of eczema patients under 16.

The results come just months after a study in The Lancet concluded that using homeopathy was no better than taking dummy drugs.

Dr David Spence, Clinical Director and Consultant Physician at Bristol Homeopathic Hospital and Chairman of the British Homeopathic Association, a co-author of the new study, said: "These results clearly demonstrate the value of homeopathy in the NHS.". All the patients were referred by their GP or hospital specialist and many had tried conventional treatment first without success.

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Path to true happiness 'revealed'

2006-01-26T14:21:00.000+02:00

Experts believe they have found the essential ingredients to make a person's life happier.

In an unusual three-month experiment, six specialists from a variety of disciplines worked to improve the happiness levels of a typical UK town. The experts tried and tested 10 simple measures in the quest for happiness:

Plant something and nurture it
Count your blessings - at least five - at the end of each day
Take time to talk - have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
Have a good laugh at least once a day
Get physical - exercise for half an hour three times a week
Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
Cut your TV viewing by half
Spread some kindness - do a good turn for someone every day

Low carb diets 'cut heart energy'

2006-01-26T14:09:00.000+02:00

Scientists have found high fat, low carbohydrate diets can reduce energy to the heart.

Many people have lost weight quickly by following such diets - but scientists fear they may not be good for health in the longer term. The Oxford team monitored 19 people over a two week period. They found that the energy stored in the heart was reduced by an average of 16% among those who followed a high fat, low carbohydrate diet. In some people the energy reduction was as much as a third. Their hearts also became slightly 'stiffer' - not relaxing quite as well as before the diet. One of the participants even noticed he could not manage his daily run while on the diet. The changes were reversed within two weeks after returning to a normal diet.

Professor Peter Weissberg, BHF medical director, said: "Diet devotees can be reassured that this research in no way suggests that the high fat-low carb regime is going to give them heart failure.

"However, they should be aware that such unbalanced diets are a major insult on their bodies' metabolism and, as this study shows, may be having direct effects on their hearts, particularly since they tend to be high in saturated fat. We would certainly not recommend high fat-low carb diets to anyone who wants to lose weight and look after their heart. Achieving this with a balanced diet and regular exercise is sustainable for life and, for most people, is the safest way for your heart."

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Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

2006-01-16T15:13:00.000+02:00

The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat". In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine".

Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail.

A final attempt to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her monkeys for further experiments reached American ears, with the New York Times reporting on the story, and she dropped the idea amid the uproar.

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Take a leap into hyperspace

2006-01-10T14:52:00.000+02:00

An extraordinary "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the idea, told that if everything went well a working engine could be tested in about five years.

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Vitamin D May Lower Some Cancer Risk

2006-01-05T16:30:00.000+02:00

There is growing evidence that vitamin D helps protect against colorectal cancer, and now a group of researchers who have long studied the vitamin say the same is true for breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

In a new analysis, the researchers contend that taking 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily can cut colon, breast, and ovarian cancer risk.

The researchers urged public health officials to increase recommendations for vitamin D consumption, calling the vitamin an inexpensive tool for preventing cancers that claim millions of lives each year.

The easiest way for the body to get vitamin D is through sun exposure, because UV rays from the sun trigger the natural synthesis of the vitamin in the body. Someone who spends 10 to 15 minutes in the sun on a sunny day without sunscreen can absorb 2,000 to 5,000 IU of vitamin D if 40% of the body is exposed. While supplements and foods are the only choice for people who cannot tolerate the sun, most people can safely spend 10 to 15 minutes in the sun each day.

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Creating first synthetic life form

2005-12-23T13:51:00.000+02:00

Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch.

The work is an extreme example of a burgeoning new field in science known as synthetic biology. It relies on advances in computer technology that permit the easy assembly of the chemical bits, known as nucleotides, that make up DNA. Several scientific groups are trying to make genes that do not exist in nature, in hopes of constructing microbes that perform useful tasks, such as producing industrial chemicals, clean energy or drugs. Dr. Venter and his colleagues are pushing the technology to its limits by trying to put together an entirely synthetic genome.

The Venter team is starting small, working to construct a simpler version of the bacteria known as Mycoplasma genitalium, a common resident of the human reproductive tract. They hope to determine the minimum number of genes required to breathe life into an organism. But even if the team can assemble all of the bug's 500,000 DNA chemicals (roughly 35,000 has been the record so far), no one knows if the organism will be viable. Will simply synthesizing a chemical sequence spark life?

One option for sparking life in a lab-made genome is to transplant the synthetic DNA into the shell of an existing microbe. The Vancouver group is researching the use of high-voltage electricity to essentially zap open a host bacteria and slowly infuse it with small pieces of new DNA.

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The Secrets of Pure Managers

2005-12-10T17:32:00.000+02:00

The disciple and the sage

The disciple went up to Gargi Yagnyavalka and offered the sage the customary salute.

``Teacher'', he asked, ``can you explain to me the secrets of pure managers? I have been a student of the Indian software industry for many years but I am unable to understand the role that pure managers played. My heart is now troubled, and I am unable to sleep at night. I have now begun seeing visions of tessaracts spinning in 4-space and my dreams are full of strings vibrating in Calabi-Yau spaces.''

The sage put down the CD-ROM twirling on his finger and looked at the student over the rims of his spectacles.

``Very well'', said Gargi, looking at the earnest young man in front of him. ``First, let us review some definitions.''

``What is a Pure Manager?''

``A manager who manages a team without having a clue about the work that the team does'', said the novice.

``Good. And what is a deliverable?''

``Something of value to a customer, O Sage'', replied the young man.

``Is a status report a deliverable?''

``No, O sage. A computer cannot execute a status report.''

``And what about a Quality Plan?''

``O sage, a Quality Plan in itself also has little value to the customer.''

``So what is a deliverable, then?'', asked the sage.

``Something the customer can use, to serve his need. A working program, perhaps'', answered the novice.

``Good'', the sage was pleased. ``Now, in a project managed by a Pure Manager, who determines the progress of the project?''

``The people working in the team, O sire'', replied the novice, ``for the pure manager, by definition, cannot determine the correctness of any course of action, since he hath no clue about the merits of one path over the other.''

``So what does the Pure Manager bring to the project team?'', asked the sage.

The disciple was silent. The sage continued, ``Have you spent the necessary hours studying the dynamics of team meetings?''

``Yes, teacher, using our history-scope to peer into the past'', said the novice.

``What have you observed?'', asked the sage.

``I have observed that Pure Managers sit at their desk, masterfully holding their mice, whilst their techies sit hunched up, unsure of themselves, as if ashamed of their nerdiness'', the student replied.

``And what was the nature of the interactions between the team and manager?'', asked the sage.

``The techies were very young and needed frequent reassurance'', said the novice.

``And the Pure Manager provided reassurance?'', asked the sage.

``Yes, teacher, the techies seemed to ascribe great value to his facial expressions.''

The sage was pleased with the students perspicacity. ``This then, is what the Pure Manager brings to the meeting table'', he said. ``Engineers, being unsure of themselves and being inherently driven by logic, seek meaning for their existence in this world. On finding no obvious, undisputed meaning, these youngsters panic, and search for someone to structure their lives for them. The Pure Manager serves to fill in this niche.''

The student was silent for a while. ``Tell me more about the secrets of the Pure Managers'', he asked.

``Very well'', said the sage. ``The only real role for a pure manager is to periodically say Tatha Astu ["so be it" in Sanskrit], to his team members. However, some care has to be exercised in playing this role. These are the guidelines:

1. The Pure Manager must not say Tatha Astu too often; once in a while, he should look serious and say "No". Doing so will preserve the apparent value of his "Yes".
2. The Pure Manager should practise every morning on his smile.
3. The Pure Manager must endeavour to project an all-knowing and sagacious look. A facial expression representing a state midway between constipation and Buddha-like enlightenment has been found to work the best.''

``O Sage,'' said the novice, ``your description reminds me of the priests in my native land.''

Gargi, looked with renewed interest at the young man. ``Indeed. The similarities are deep. Let us compare the two.''

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Is There a Link Between Stress and Cancer?

2005-12-02T22:24:00.000+02:00

The question of whether there is a link between stress and cancer has puzzled and intrigued researchers as well as patients. Study after study has asked whether people who developed cancer had more stress in the years before the diagnosis, and conversely, whether people who experienced extreme stress were more likely to develop cancer.

What has emerged is a tenuous connection between stress, the immune system and cancer, with a surprising new insight that is changing the direction of research: it now appears that cancer cells make proteins that actually tell the immune system to let them alone and even to help them grow.

One immediate consequence of this line of thinking is a new idea for treatment: scientists could seal off the cancer cells' proteins that block the immune system and enable white blood cells to kill the tumor. Or they could make the immune system more aggressive. To do that, they can block a molecule on the surface of T cells, CTLA-4, that tends to dampen the immune response.

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Geneticists claim ageing breakthrough

2005-12-02T22:06:00.000+02:00

A genetic experiment to unlock the secrets of the ageing process has created organisms that live six times their usual lifespan, raising hopes that it might be possible to slow ageing in humans.

The geneticists behind the study say the increase in lifespan is so striking, they may have tapped into one of the most fundamental mechanisms that controls the rate at which living creatures age.
The tests were carried out in single-celled organisms, forcing them into what the researchers refer to as an "extreme survival mode". Instead of growing quickly and showing signs of ageing, the organisms became resilient to damage and were better able to repair the genetic defects that build up with age, often leading to cancer in later life.

A large body of research has already shown that severely restricting diet can boost the lifespan of flies, worms and mice by around 40%. Scientists believe that drastically cutting calories triggers a switch in an organism's behaviour, from growing and being able to reproduce, to a state of stasis in which growth and ageing are put on hold at the expense of reproductive capability, until more food is available. Scientists are now trying to mimic the effect by tinkering with genes in the hope of developing anti-ageing treatments that work without having to cut food intake.

"We're not too far from being able to exploit this understanding to at least start thinking about drugs that can put humans in an anti-ageing mode. That doesn't mean we'll necessarily live six times longer, but it means we could slow down the DNA damage we accumulate as we age, and that could protect us from cancer," said Dr Longo.

In the experiment, Dr Longo's team took yeast cells and knocked out two key genes, named Sir2 and SCH9. The latter governs the cells' ability to convert nutrients into energy. They found that instead of dying after a week, the cells lived for up to six weeks. Dr Longo said parallel experiments on human liver cells appeared to replicate the effect.

The researchers believe that the Sir2 gene normally plays a role in restricting an organism's lifespan, and allows energy from the food it eats to be directed into growth and reproduction. By blocking the gene, the cells were essentially tricked into believing food was scarce and switched them into a survival mode.

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Science Points To Evidence of WTC Controlled Demolition

2005-11-19T10:42:00.000+02:00

Physics professor Steven E. Jones is the latest credible individual to come forward and assert that the official story of 9/11 differs wildly from the observable facts. Jones appeared on The Alex Jones Show on friday to discuss a story that refuses to die and one that has again been pushed to the forefront of alternative research. Jones made numerous compelling points on the collapse of both the twin towers and Building 7. According to Jones, his scientific peers have been very sympathetic to his research and have agreed with his conclusions.

- The three buildings collapsed in their own footprints and did not topple over. This bears the characteristics of controlled demolition. The central columns were pulverized and the buildings fell in on themselves. Why would Muslim fanatics go to the lengths of wiring the largest complex of buildings in the world with explosives when a topple collapse would have caused more damage to lower Manhattan and killed more people?

- Horizontal puffs of smoke or 'squibs' can be seen popping out floors as the collapse engulfs floor by floor of the buildings. Again, this is a phenomenon atypical of controlled demolition.

- Molten metal found in the basement of the WTC suggests that the commonly used explosive thermite may be responsible for the collapse. Jones said that buildings not destroyed by explosives would have insufficient directed energy to produce the large quantities of melted melted that was discovered. The molten steel was found five days after the collapse, on Sept. 16, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used an Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) to locate and measure the site’s hot spots.

- It requires temperatures of at least 5,000 fahrenheit to melt steel. Diesel jet fuel does not reach these temperatures and the fires in the buildings were short lived. Firefighter tape recordings prove that only small pockets of fire were still burning in the buildings seconds before their collapse.

- Building 7 was not hit by a plane and yet it collapsed in 6.6 seconds, which is .6 seconds quicker than it would take an object dropped from the roof of the building to hit the floor. This violates fundamental laws of physics, unless the building was brought down by explosives.

- Buildings that collapse without the aid of explosives produce large piles of in-tact concrete and do not turn to dust as they are falling, as was witnessed on 9/11.

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The food you eat may change your genes for life

2005-11-19T10:34:00.000+02:00

It sounds like science fiction: simply swallowing a pill, or eating a specific food supplement, could permanently change your behaviour for the better, or reverse diseases such as schizophrenia, Huntington's or cancer.

Yet such treatments are looking increasingly plausible. In the latest development, normal rats have been made to behave differently just by injecting them with a specific amino acid. The change to their behaviour was permanent. The amino acid altered the way the rat's genes were expressed, raising the idea that drugs or dietary supplements might permanently halt the genetic effects that predispose people to mental or physical illness. It is not yet clear whether such interventions could work in humans. But there is good reason to believe they could, as evidence mounts that a range of simple nutrients might have such effects.

Two years ago, researchers led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, showed that the activity of a mouse's genes can be influenced by food supplements eaten by its mother just prior to, or during, very early pregnancy. Then last year, Moshe Szyf, Michael Meaney and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, showed that mothers could influence the way a rat's genes are expressed after it has been born. If a rat is not licked, groomed and nursed enough by its mother, chemical tags known as methyl groups are added to the DNA of a particular gene. The affected gene codes for the glucocorticoid receptor gene, expressed in the hippocampus of the brain. The gene helps mediate the animal's response to stress, and in poorly raised rats, the methylation damped down the gene's activity. Such pups produced higher levels of stress hormones and were less confident exploring new environments. The effect lasted for life.

Now the team has shown that a food supplement can have the same effect on well-reared rats at 90 days old - well into adulthood. The researchers injected L-methionine, a common amino acid and food supplement, into the brains of well-reared rats. The amino acid methylated the glucocorticoid gene, and the animals' behaviour changed.

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"Organ printing", a healing bio-paper

2005-11-14T16:12:00.000+02:00

An emerging branch of medicine called "organ printing" takes a patient's own healthy cells and uses a printer, cell-based "bio-ink" and "bio-paper" to create tissue to repair a damaged organ. Now a hydrogel or "bio-paper" developed by a University of Utah College of Pharmacy professor is a key component of a $5 million National Science Foundation-sponsored study that includes organ printing.

The hydrogel is made of normal biological material from the body, two sugar chains that, mixed with a reactive substance, turn from liquid into gel. It's the type of biologic filler that is used in ophthalmic surgery, in injections in knee joints to ease pain or in the face to erase tiny wrinkles. "We've put a chemical handle on it, sort of like Velcro, to make something cells like and will attach to. The cells eat it up, then secrete a new tissue matrix that's needed for the tissue to function. And those become part of the final product."

The NSF study will try first to print blood vessels and cardiovascular networks. Once they prove it can be done, the scientists will look at more complex organs such as livers and kidneys and simpler but more mechanical organs like the esophagus. Experts believe that millions of people who need transplants eventually will benefit from organ printing. "I believe in five years we're going to be able to print simple organs, such as a cardiovascular network or a urethra," Prestwich said.

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xMax sparks low power wireless revolution

2005-11-14T16:05:00.000+02:00

A little-known start-up has demonstrated wireless broadband 1000 times more efficient than WiMax – and claims the technique could also make wireless LANs that will run for years on watch batteries.

xG Technology, based in Sarasota, Florida, used a transmitter not unlike a cordless phone base station, operating in the unlicensed - and crowded - 900MHz band, to send a 3.7Mbit/s data signal to a radius of 18 miles across the suburbs of Miami, using 50mW and an omnidirectional antenna.

The demonstration appears to have transmitted a signal at a power density other schemes would find impossible. The system carried 7.4 Mbit/s per MHz per Watt. By comparison, GSM would have around 0.0058, and CDMA/EV-DO about 0.0085 Mbit/s per MHz per Watt. The same technology could also make licensed broadband services more efficient: WiMax would require 90 base stations to cover the same area.

"xMax is unconventional," said Stuart Schwartz, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton Universithy, who has scrutinised xG's demonstration set-up, speaking at the xMax demonstration. "It is clever and innovative, but it is not magic. It uses single cycle modulation, and needs much less power than other technologies."

"I have also seen it demonstrated as a personal-area network, giving 2Mbit/s over 40ft, using 3 nanoWatts," said Schwartz. With that level of power, a Wi-Fi like network could operate for years on small batteries, he said.

Beyond that, it could even modulate signals carried over copper. This might even allow DSL technologies that give much higher data rates and greater range.

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A New Model For Disease: A Paradigm Shift

2005-11-05T16:31:00.000+02:00

Dr. Lonsdale has simplified the very complex disease mechanism through analogies (metaphors) to a computer and automobile. Also included in the equation are the roles attributable to stress and the impact of energy required to heal. A striking conclusion is on how even a single nutrient can manifest in so may different diseases. This outstanding work is a must read and clearly demonstrates why nutrition, and not the generally toxic drugs, will always be the key to our health.

..."We need a new paradigm shift in thinking about our approach to disease and I would like to outline the principles represented by Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM). This form of medical treatment is still in its infancy. It does represent a paradigm shift, but there are many predictable factors that prohibit its wide acceptance by mainstream medicine. Indeed, we must remind ourselves that Louis Pasteur spent only 20 percent of his career in making his great discoveries. The other 80 percent was spent in trying to persuade his contemporary colleagues to accept them. A paradigm shift treads on a lot of turf and creates widespread anger among people that are being told that they are on the wrong track, often when they have spent a lifetime in pursuing it."...

..."I remember the case of a physician of my acquaintance who was treating a patient for a serious and potentially life threatening pneumonia. In addition to the antibiotic, he gave the patient a series of vitamin infusions and she recovered very well. In the next bed was another patient who had pneumonia, being treated by another physician. The first doctor went to the second doctor and suggested to him that he might give the vitamin infusions since they appeared to be instrumental in the recovery of his patient. The second doctor refused to do this because it was “outside the box of common medical experience” and told the first doctor to mind his own business. The patient died. It might have been a useful learning experience for the second doctor but unfortunately, doctors are people and people resist change no matter what kind of profession or work with which they are involved. Naturally, we have all come to recognize the danger of infections and how they attack particular organs. It is just another way of thinking about how such an infection should be addressed."...

..." Why do we have to use what is sometimes called megadoses of vitamins and minerals in the treatment of disease? Well, these catalysts are necessary for the efficient use of the enzymes that do all the actions of the body that enable us to orchestrate our total function. Over a period of time, a marginal deficiency of these nutrients results in loss of efficiency in the enzymes and they no longer respond to the small amounts of vitamins and minerals that are referred to as the RDA (regular daily allowance). "...

..."I started this section under the title of the “metabolic cliff” and now I think that I can explain what I mean. Let us imagine that someone has inherited an excellent brain that dictates for great intelligence. He (the male sex for convenience) shows every sign of this in the early stages of his development. The food, however, is marginally deficient and his energy production is lagging behind the tremendous growth and function that his cellular genes require. Or perhaps his mitochondrial genes, responsible for running the engines of his cells are compromised. At some point in time, he begins to show evidence of regression and slowing down of his development. Or perhaps this is associated with some form of stress that is imposed on him. This could be an inoculation, a relatively simple infectious illness or even an injury, particularly to the head. I would suggest that this infant was born on the edge of a “metabolic cliff.” The stress factor pushed him over the edge!

I know of many instances in my own experience where this has happened and the medical literature tells us that some marginal states of metabolic deficiency are compatible with reasonably normal life until there is a superimposed infection, injury or inoculation. The result is the expression of symptoms that do not afflict that individual prior to the imposition of the stress factor. One could say that such an individual lives on the edge of a “metabolic cliff.” Diabetes is at least partly determined by genetic influence and it is known that it might not develop until the individual has an infection or other stress. It might even be precipitated by reading a telegram that delivers bad news"...

..."There are three components that have to come together to produce energy efficiently. Many of us will remember that we used to have a choke mechanism in our cars. This introduced a rich mixture to the cylinders when the engine was cold. If the choke mechanism became stuck as it sometimes did, the result would be a definite decline in the running characteristics of the engine and black smoke, representing unburned hydrocarbons came out of the exhaust pipe. Thus, if we give the body too many calorie-bearing food substances it is very much like choking the engine of a car. If we are deprived of vitamins and minerals, we die of malnutrition. If we are deprived of oxygen, we suffocate and if we are deprived of calories we die of starvation. All three are necessary in a balanced relationship that was imposed on us by the genius of Mother Nature."...

..."Marginal malnutrition is widespread. This is because our culture encourages the ingestion of high calorie substances that have no nutrient density. They are devoid of the vitamins and minerals that are normally contained in what I call God made food. High calorie malnutrition of this nature is sometimes referred to as “empty calories.” The dominant substances in this class are the sweets, the chocolate, the carbonated beverages: these are the simple carbohydrates that give us so much pleasure but choke our engines. Furthermore, we add caffeine in many different ways and that causes the consumption of energy that makes us “feel good.” I have already stated that energy is made and used in a balanced relationship. If the cells in our bodies are having a hard time keeping up with the energy consumption, then caffeine will only make things worse in the long run. We are getting the illusion that we “have more energy,” whereas in reality we are consuming it faster than ever and, if we are already malnourished, we can ill afford this kind of stimulation.

By far the commonest symptom that I hear is fatigue and it is always amazing to hear about the humungous rate at which coffee is consumed daily. We all know people that state that they are unable to go to work until they have consumed at least one cup of black coffee. They often conclude that “my body needs it” whereas they are really getting a “high” from a drug. Most of them never conclude that their headaches are due to coffee drinking because they are well aware that a headache will disappear when they consume yet another cup of this beverage. We all recognize that a cocaine user has to have another dose of the drug to reverse the withdrawal symptoms that are experienced when its effect wears off. All addictive drugs, of which group coffee is a member, have withdrawal symptoms of this nature. Some are much more severe but the principle is the same."...

..."In literally hundreds of cases, I have seen all the symptoms of this disappear within a month or so of doing two things. The first thing is to remove “the hair from the dog that has been biting.” By that, I mean the so-called “goodies”, the coffee, sugar, chocolate, ice cream, milk and milk products and sweets, and in some cases salt. The more these things are craved, the more important it is to remove them completely until the computer settles down into a normally responsive mode. The second thing that is needed is nutritional supplements, not medications and, in most cases in my experience hormones are not required at all."We must also recognize that faulty nutrition will affect the whole body."...

..."I will end with just two more stories to illustrate the brain/body relationship in disease. I have taken care of a charming lady for some years with a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, a true example of an organic disease affecting the bowel. She improved with nutrient treatment but kept relapsing. Her work was onerous and demanding and her ability to relax almost non existent. I referred her to a psychologist that performs biofeedback treatment. His technique is to seat the patient in front of a computer monitor with Packman on the screen. Electrodes on the scalp feed the patient’s brain waves into an electroencephalogram that the psychologist views during treatment. The patient’s task is to move Packman through the electronic maze and consume the nuts as it proceeds. The machinery is set up so that Packman moves only if the patient is relaxed. If he/she “tries hard to move it”, it remains stationary. The process teaches the patient the art of relaxation. Her ulcerative colitis has cleared up and I rarely see her and only for a routine review.

Lastly, I want to tell of a 15 year old boy who came to my office one spring with a diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. He was walking with the aid of crutches. I revised his diet and started him on some nutrient supplements. In the following fall he went out for football. The process of nutrient therapy is virtually guaranteed to produce improvement in almost any disease unless irreversible damage has been caused. It is relatively slow in its magic, but has the enormous advantage of being as safe as any therapy that has ever been tried in the history of medicine. It is a joy to be able to state that this kind of medicine has returned to the teaching of Hippocrates, the acknowledged Father of Modern Medicine. He said: “Let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food!..."

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No longer lost in translation

2005-11-05T12:18:00.000+02:00

An increasingly globalized world became even smaller when Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists unveiled technology that makes it possible to speak one language, yet be understood in another.

CMU computer science graduate student Stan Jou, stood before the audience, during a videoconference viewed on the CMU campus in Oakland and at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, with 11 tiny electrodes affixed to the muscles of his cheeks, neck and throat. The Taiwan native then mouthed -- without speaking aloud -- the following phrase in Mandarin Chinese: "Let me introduce our new prototype."

The sensors captured electrical signals from Jou's facial muscles when they moved to form the silent Chinese words. In a matter of seconds, this information traveled to a computer that recognized the words and translated them into English and Spanish. The phrase was then displayed on a screen and spoken by the computer in both languages.

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Nokia 888 communicator concept phone

2005-10-26T14:24:00.000+03:00

Now, you’re not going to see this in stores any time soon. But if you’d like to get an idea of what Nokia thinks the future of communications will look like, take a look at the Nokia 888 communicator, a concept design that recently won Nokia’s Benelux design contest.

The bracelet-like 888 is envisioned to use a liquid battery, feature speech recognition, a flexible touch screen, and a touch sensitive body cover. A video showing off the device’s potential features shows off close to a dozen functions, including an alarm clock, PDA, GPS, phone, push email receiver, digital wallet and, of course, jewelry.

Pivo: a rotating egg on wheels

2005-10-25T19:22:00.000+03:00

Tired of all those three-point turns? Nissan, Japan's second biggest auto maker has developed a concept car featuring an egg-shaped cabin atop a wheeled platform that can swivel around 360 degrees, doing away with the need to reverse when emerging from narrow spaces.

Pull into a parking space front-first, then, when you leave, you pivot the cab to drive in the direction you came from without ever going in reverse. Called the Pivo, the car is controlled with a drive-by-wire system, meaning that steering, braking and shifting are done not by mechanical linkages, but by electronic signals.

The dash is loaded with monitors displaying video feeds from outside-pointing cameras for total situational awareness. All controls are on the steering wheel. Extended front and rear bumpers -- who can tell which is front and which is rear? -- double as seats for kicking back while the Pivo is parked.

2005-10-21T23:15:00.000+03:00

The idea that comets and meteorites seeded an early Earth with the tools to make life has gained momentum from recent observations of some of these building blocks floating throughout the cosmos. Scientists scanning a galaxy 12 million light-years away with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detected copious amounts of nitrogen containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PANHs), molecules critical to all known forms of life.

PANHs carry information for DNA and RNA and are an important component of hemoglobin, the molecule that transports oxygen through the body. They also make chlorophyll, the main molecule responsible for photosynthesis in plants, and – perhaps most importantly – they're the main ingredient in caffeine and chocolate.

"There once was a time that the assumption was that the origin of life, everything from building simple compounds up to complex life, had to happen here on Earth," said study leader Doug Hudgins of Ames Research Center. "We've discovered that some very biologically interesting molecules can be formed outside our earthly environment and delivered here. This stuff contains the building blocks of life, and now we can say they're abundant in space. And wherever there's a planet out there, we know that these things are going to be raining down on it. It did here and it does elsewhere."

Are There No Other Alternatives to Flu Vaccines?

2005-10-21T14:37:00.000+03:00

The panic is beginning, and the public is turning to government health sources for information about the flu, even though it is inaccurate and promotes ill-founded fears. The news media then parrots this misinformation in an example of mindless reporting that borders on “yellow journalism.”

The World Health Organization says ducks found in Romania were found to carry the dreaded H5N1 strain of flu virus. So how did Romanian health authorities react? First, they ordered domestic fowl be culled. But the H5N1 was found in wild birds, not on farms.

Of course, the H5N1 flu strain still has to mutate to be able to be transmitted from human-to-human. Let’s overlook the fact that selenium, a trace mineral, prevents these mutations.

Most of the infected cases have occurred in Asia where nutrition is poor and natural immunity is weak. When SARS reached the North American continent, it fizzled out. Infected individuals had such mild symptoms it was disregarded by health authorities. Forget all these facts, the flu-fear stories attract readers for newspapers and viewers for television.

Of course, we could all start washing our hands in some phobic attempt to stop the spread of the flu. That’s what many health “authorities” now foolishly suggest. But hand washing is more appropriate to prevent the spread of bacteria, not airborne viruses transmitted by saliva.

Nature Magazine, along with all the other virologists and infectious disease specialists across the globe, in lock-step fashion, keep claiming “vaccination is the only meaningful weapon to combat the next flu pandemic.”

Yet, vaccines are a doomed technology. A vaccine that will produce antibodies against the specific virus can only be made after it is in circulation, and mutations make it ineffective over time. It takes months to make a vaccine. Even if effective and provided in a timely manner, the whole world would need to be vaccinated. There are other ways to boost immunity. Even the 1918 Spanish flu didn’t infect the whole population. Modern scenarios only call for a 36% infection rate. What keeps the other 64% of the population healthy?

Animal studies are instructive here. The body mounts a defense against viruses in the form of cells that digest viruses (macrophages, natural killer cells, T cells). Guinea pigs, in the same predicament as humans, not being able to synthesize their own vitamin C, exhibit fewer macrophage cells, that are less active, when their diet is not supplemented with vitamin C. Dietary deficiencies of specific nutrients profoundly alter cell-mediated immune responses in man and experimental animals. Both moderate and severe deficiencies are associated with significant changes in immunocompetence. Diets with inadequate levels of protein, calories, vitamin A, vitamin B6, biotin and zinc result in loss of thymic cellularity (T-cells).

The major problem with activation of the immune system is that it over-reacts. It sends too many defenders to the site of infection, causing massive inflammation and tissue destruction. This is true in the lungs when influenza strikes. The mortal form of influenza causes such an inflammatory response that the lungs fill with fluid and the patient drowns. These inflammatory responses can be inhibited by natural molecules, provided as dietary supplements.

When will the public stop relying on misinformation spread by government health authorities? We now have “perpetual fear of the spread of influenza.” It’s good for business, if you are selling face masks, cold remedies, Tamiflu and vaccines. Dr. Marc Siegel, author of a new book, “False Alarm: The Truth About The Epidemic of Fear,” says the danger is still hypothetical.

Eating fish keeps older people brainy

2005-10-15T19:48:00.000+03:00

Eating fish at least once a week may keep you brainy in old age, new research suggests.

A study of about 4000 senior citizens of Chicago in the US showed that all of them lost some cognitive sharpness – such as memory and speed of thinking – as the years passed.

However, among those who ate fish once a week, the rate of cognitive decline was about 10% slower. And it was 13% slower among those who consumed at least two fish meals a week. The difference is the equivalent of being three to four years younger, say the researchers.

Previous work has shown that the most important fatty acids in the brain are in the omega-3 class. This group is found in abundance in fish, which offers a biological explanation for the finding.

Steve Ballmer vs. Spider-Woman

2005-09-27T21:20:00.000+03:00

Plenty of people in the computing industry accuse Microsoft of evil behavior. And they could be right, if a 1980 Spider-Woman comic book from Marvel Comics is anything to judge by. Before he assumed control of Microsoft as its CEO, apparently Steve Ballmer worked as a VILLAIN in 1980s-era "Spider-Woman" comics.

The cover of the comic book shows Spider-Woman imperiled by a large rotating saw blade. But more deadly than the blade, we are warned, is a man who looks remarkably like Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Not only that, but 1980 is the year.

Microsoft defenders can take heart that while the Ballmer-like character might be deadly, there's no indication that he is as malevolent as Mephisto or Shuma-gorath.

Purdue scientists treat cancer with RNA nanotechnology

2005-09-21T00:13:00.000+03:00

Using strands of genetic material, Purdue University scientists have constructed tiny delivery vehicles that can carry anticancer therapeutic agents directly to infected cells, offering a potential wealth of new treatments for chronic diseases.

The vehicles look nothing like delivery trucks, though that is their function once inside the body. Instead, these so-called nanoparticles, which are assembled from three short pieces of ribonucleic acid, resemble miniature triangles. The microscopic particles possess both the right size to gain entry into cells and also the right structure to carry other therapeutic strands of RNA inside with them, where they are able to halt viral growth or cancer's progress. The team has already tested the nanoparticles successfully against cancer growth in mice and lab-grown human cells.

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Bush wants alternatives to Darwinism taught in school

2005-09-05T22:10:00.000+03:00

It should surprise no one that President Bush would like to see Creationism, which of late has been disguised as a “scientific theory” called Intelligent Design, taught in schools as an alternative to Darwinism.

President George W. Bush stirred the debate on the teaching of evolution in schools when he said that he supported the teaching of alternative viewpoints - such as the theory of Intelligent Design - to help students "understand what the debate is about".

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Mr Bush said in comments to five Texas newspapers on Monday. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

A challenge to the Religious Right idea of teaching “Intelligent Design” in schools has arisen in the form of the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Pastafarians, as they call themselves, believe that the Universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and that their beliefs are every bit as relevant as those of Christianity. Therefore, they believe by extension that their beliefs as just as much right be taught in school alongside Christianity.

Although invisible, the spaghetti monster is generally depicted as a giant wad of pasta with two eyestalks flanked by a pair of meatballs. Spaghetti monsterism, or "pastafarianism," boasts a cosmology as bizarre as its deity.

According to its creed, the monster created the world starting with a mountain, trees and a midget, and continues to guide human affairs with his "noodly appendage." Heaven is depicted as having a stripper factory and a beer volcano.

True pastafarians are expected to dress in pirate regalia, in keeping with their founder's discovery of a statistical correlation between global warming and the decline in the number of pirates since the 1800s.

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'Miracle mouse' can grow back lost limbs

2005-09-05T21:11:00.000+03:00

Scientists have created a “miracle mouse” that can regenerate amputated limbs or badly damaged organs, making it able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals. The experimental animal is unique among mammals in its ability to regrow its heart, toes, joints and tail.

The researchers have also found that when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate. The discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine.

Details of the research will be presented next week at a scientific conference on ageing, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, at Cambridge University. Ellen Heber-Katz, professor of immunology at the Wistar Institute, an American biomedical research centre, says that the ability of mice at her laboratory to regenerate appears to be controlled by about a dozen genes. She is still researching their exact functions, but it seems almost certain that humans have comparable genes.

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Researchers Devise New Technique for Creating Human Stem Cells

2005-09-03T01:23:00.000+03:00

Researchers have developed a new technique for creating human embryonic stem cells by fusing adult somatic cells with embryonic stem cells. The fusion causes the adult cells to undergo genetic reprogramming, which results in cells that have the developmental characteristics of human embryonic stem cells. The new technique may permit scientists to derive new human embryonic stem cell lines without the need to use human embryos.

In theory, researchers can induce embryonic stem cells to mature into a variety of specialized cells. For that reason, many researchers believe stem cells offer promise for creating populations of specialized cells that can be used to rejuvenate organs, such as the pancreas or heart, that are damaged by disease or trauma. Stem cells also provide a model system in which researchers can study the causes of genetic disease and the basis of embryonic development.

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Nano detector fingers pathogens

2005-07-30T22:13:00.000+03:00

Biofinger, which is being funded by the EU, could be used as a cheap and fast method in the diagnosis of diseases such as cancer. It could also be used for chemical and food analysis, said Biofinger's project coordinator, Joan Bausells.

The machine detects and analyses molecules in fluids using nano and micro cantilevers. In the medical world it is a way to rapidly and accurately diagnose disease. When coated with antibodies the cantilevers bend and resonate to changes in surface tension and mass when fluids containing disease-related protein molecules attach to them.

BioFinger incorporates the cantilevers on a disposable microchip, allowing it to be reconfigured with new on-chip cantilevers to detect different substances.

The analysis, which can be performed anywhere, anytime, takes between 15 and 20 minutes, "considerably less than the hours or days it takes to analyse a blood sample using traditional in-lab methods," Biofinger's project coordinator, Joan Bausells, claims.

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Making a Home on Mars

2005-07-30T21:19:00.000+03:00

The Mars Foundation is out with plans for a human colony on Mars, proposed to be built in the next 20 years. The settlement will be about the size of Boston's North End, will use local materials for construction and provide the comforts of home to terran migrants, including cars (rovers, actually), garages and living areas with skylights.

"We believe it's possible for completion of a 12-person settlement in 2025," said Mars Foundation co-founder Joseph E. Palaia IV, a graduate student in nuclear engineering at MIT, "assuming that launch technology and settlement technology development proceeds as planned."

The Mars settlement will in fact start with cylindrical tuna-can habitats, which settlers will live in while they and robots build permanent structures. The settlers and robots will work inside pressurized shell areas, and use steel, aluminum, glass and bricks manufactured on Mars. The Mars settlement will also have large living quarters, dining areas and greenhouses with jogging paths, as well as a nearby nuclear power plant and manufacturing facilities. Interior public spaces will include two-story bamboo forests, "providing psychological benefits as well as building material" to the settlers.

Life on the Mars settlement may be difficult at first. Atmospheric pressure inside the settlement's structures will be similar to that at 14,000 to 15,000 feet on Earth, but the settlement's oxygen-enriched atmosphere will make breathing easier.

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Computer scientists to copy brain of a mammal

2005-07-30T20:48:00.000+03:00

IBM and Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have teamed up to create the most ambitious project in the field of neuroscience: to simulate a mammalian brain on the world's most powerful supercomputer, IBM's Blue Gene.

Most theoretical neuroscientists have tried to simulate the brain using artificial neural networks. "That is not our goal," says Henry Markram, the professor leading the project. Markram wants to simulate the brain at every level of detail, even going down to molecular and gene expression levels of processing. At EPFL's Brain and Mind Institute, every facet of the brain is being examined and modelled.

No one claims the "Blue Brain" project will be self-aware. But this project, and others like it, use electrical patterns in a silicon brain to simulate the electrical patterns in the human brain -- patterns which are intimately linked to thought. But if computer programs start generating these patterns -- these electrical "thoughts" -- then what separates us from them?

Traditionally human beings have reserved words like "reasoning," "self-awareness," and "soul" as their exclusive property. But with the stirring of something akin to electronic consciousness -- some argue that human beings need to give up the ghost, and embrace the machine in all of us.

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Nanocell's double hit on cancer

2005-07-29T18:00:00.000+03:00

A nanocell that can burrow into a tumour, cut off its blood supply and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins has been developed. The double-action therapy, which comes packed in a tiny double chamber, leaves healthy cells unscathed.

The technique developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, combines two methods of combating cancer - poisoning tumour cells and cutting off the blood supply to the tumour. The MIT researchers created a structure for the nanocell that resembled a balloon within a balloon. They loaded the outer membrane of the nanocell with an anti-angiogenic drug and the inner balloon with chemotherapy agents. They also created a surface chemistry which allowed the nanocell to evade detection by the immune system.

The nanocell was made small enough to pass through tumour vessels, but too large for the pores of normal vessels. Once inside the tumour, the nanocell's outer membrane disintegrates, rapidly deploying the anti-angiogenic drug. The blood vessels feeding the tumor then collapse, trapping the loaded nanoparticle in the tumor, where it slowly releases the chemotherapy.

Tests in mice showed the nanocell shrank the tumour, stopped angiogenesis (new vessel growth) and avoided damage to surrounding healthy tissue much more effectively than other cancer treatments.

Henry Scowcroft, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This is a fascinating approach to cancer therapy that seems to be paying off in animal models of the disease. The idea of using nanoparticles as a sort of therapeutic 'Trojan horse', attacking the cancer cell by stealth from within, is entirely new. Although this concept is only starting out on the long road to becoming a treatment for cancer patients, these preliminary results look very promising indeed."

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Aging Cause Found in Mice

2005-07-17T18:58:00.000+03:00

The buildup of mutated DNA triggers aging in mice, according to a new study that could help advance research into human aging. As a lifetime of small mutations in the genetic code build up, cells begin to die. These deaths lead to such things as graying hair and weight changes, hearing and vision impairment, loss of muscle and weakened bones.

The DNA mutations accumulate specifically in each cell's mitochondria – the energy plant for a cell. When these mitochondria shut off, so do the cells, leading to the signs of aging. Prolla and his group used mice that were genetically altered to lack the protein necessary to repair mitochondrial DNA. These mice accumulated mutations at a higher rate than seen in unaltered mice.

This research suggests that someday anti-aging drugs could be developed that would prevent mutations from occurring in mitochondrial DNA – either for the whole body, or just for specialized areas, like the ears or hair follicles.

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Double vision TV to keep the whole family happy

2005-07-17T16:47:00.000+03:00

Sharp has apparently developed the first liquid crystal display that shows two completely different images depending on where you are sitting.

Equipped with DualView, a TV can be showing news to everyone sitting on the right-hand side of the sofa, while those on the left (wearing headphones) could be playing a video game. It all depends on the angle from which the viewer is watching the screen.At about 3ft from the screen, two people sitting just a foot apart would see different pictures.

The DualView works by introducing a minute filter in front of the existing LCD display. The filter sends the image from the backlight in two directions. The same barrier serves to block the unwanted image from the viewers on either side.

One of the first applications for the DualView will be in cars, where the screens used in navigation systems could be put to double use — the driver would see only the map and traffic information, while the passenger could be watching a DVD.

The first working versions of the TVs should be in Japanese stores in time for Christmas and cost around 50 per cent more than a normal LCD screen.

Texting Is Too Slow? Draw Your Words

2005-07-17T16:28:00.000+03:00

Typing an SMS on a cell phone takes time, and writing an e-mail on a PDA is only marginally better. But a researcher at IBM has found a solution to this vexing problem. Instead of typing words on these ridiculous small keyboards, with the SHARK, an abbreviation for ShortHand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding, you use a grid and a stylus.

The grid appears on the screen of your portable device. You put a stylus on the first letter of the word you want to type. Then you drag the stylus to draw a line connecting all the other letters of the word. When you release the stylus, the word appears almost magically. With SHARK, you can type between 50 and 80 words per minute, which is almost miraculous. So far, IBM hasn't yet decided to release this software as a product. But if enough of you download it, which is currently free, and say you want it, IBM could release it as a paying product within a few months.

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Scientists resurrect hope of cheating death

2005-07-16T11:00:00.000+03:00

The Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in Pittsburgh announced at conference that they have managed to revive dogs up to three hours after clinical death. Clinical death occurs when the heart stops pumping, breathing stops and brain activity ends.

Their technique involves infusing the animals with an ice-cold oxygenated physiological salt solution containing low amounts of glucose. This reduces the core body temperature to around 10˚C, and the O2 and glucose prevent cell death over this short time span.

Cooling the body in this way would buy extra time to transport injured soldiers or trauma victims in cardiac arrest to the hospital. The cold temperature would have a preserving effect so no damage would occur to tissues and organs, even though the heart would be stopped. The idea is to preserve the victim for just a little while in this state called suspended animation so the surgeons can locate bleeding sites and make the necessary repairs. Patients could then be revived by slowly pumping warm blood back into their bodies and administering a brief electric shock to their hearts.

Much of this work has been funded by the US Department of Defense, with a view to developing new methods of stabilizing wounded soldiers in order to get them from the battlefield to the operating theatre.

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London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack

2005-07-14T19:08:00.000+03:00

A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7th.

On a BBC Radio interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company. Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch.

Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.

The fact that the exercise mirrored the exact locations and times of the bombings is light years beyond a coincidence. Power said the drill focused around 'simultaneous bombings'. At first the bombings were thought to have been spread over an hour, but the BBC reports just today that the bombings were in fact simultaneous.

The British government or one of their private company offshoots could have hired Visor to run the exercise for a number of purposes. The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartamentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise.

This is precisely what happened on the morning of 9/11/2001. The CIA was conducting drills of flying hijacked planes into the WTC and Pentagon at 8:30 in the morning. It is clear that at least five if not six training exercises were in operation in the days leading up to and on the morning of 9/11. This meant that NORAD radar screens showed as many as 22 hijacked airliners at the same time. NORAD had been briefed that this was part of the exercise drill and therefore normal reactive procedure was forestalled and delayed. The large numbers of 'blips' on NORAD screens that displayed both real and 'drill' hijacked planes explain why confused press reports emerged hours after the attack stating that up to eight planes had been hijacked.

The Anglo-American establishment that controls the military-industrial complex of the West has been caught over a hundred times carrying out bombings and other terrorist attacks around the world to further their corporate aims and to blame their enemies. The London bombings have the same signature as the Madrild bombings of 3/11. Both of these bombings are almost indistinguishable from the Bolognia bombing in 1980 that killed over 80 people.

The bombing in Bolognia was part of a CIA operation code named Gladio, where the US government would pay right-wing terrorists to carry out bombings to be blamed on leftists in Europe. All of this was blown wide open when two of the Bolognia bombers were convited in an Italian court, forcing them to spill their guts admitting that they were neo-fascists contracted by the CIA. Operation Gladio documents have since been declassified.

The London terror alert level was lowered before the bombings took place. This gave the purpotrators extra cover to plan and execute the attack without having to evade the most stringent security. In any crime you look at history and motive, The British government has been caught in multiple examples of carrying out bombings in London which were then blamed on the IRA. They even had one of their own MI5 agents wihin the Omagh bomb squad.

The Madrid train bombing is another example. The bombers were found to be police informants with close links to the Spanish security services. They had access to the most secure areas of the Madrid train system. The Spanish government initially tried to blaim the Basque group ETA for the blast in the hope that the people would rally behind the government and get them re-elected. After ETA denied involvement and the people started saying the government was involved, the Spanish government had to blame Al-Qaeda and kill some patsies by claiming they blew themselves up during a raid.

From Putin blowing up his own apartment buildings to Israel being behind Hamas, the evidence is consistently clear that large scale terrorism is always state sponsored. The London Underground exercises were used as the fallback cover to carry out the attack. This is the biggest smoking gun yet pointing directly to the most secretive levels of the British establishment itself being behind the attack.

Hydrogen cars will save lives

2005-06-28T23:31:00.000+03:00

Hydrogen-powered vehicles will save thousands of lives a year in the United States alone, researchers say.

If all the vehicles in US were powered by hydrogen fuel cells rather than fossil fuels, the drop in pollutants that cause asthma, respiratory problems and other potentially life-threatening conditions could reduce deaths by over 6,000 a year. So says a study in Science conducted by Mark Jacobson and colleagues at Stanford University, California. Besides saving lives, this will significantly improve air quality, health, and climate.

After looking at several ways to produce hydrogen, the scientists have concluded that wind is the most promising means of generating hydrogen. It's even cheaper if some hidden costs to produce gasoline are taken into account: gasoline's true cost in March 2005, for example, was $2.35 to $3.99 per gallon, which exceeds the estimated mean cost of hydrogen from wind ($2.16 equivalent per gallon of gasoline).

Read more...

Dilbert, Dogbert and Coworkers!

2005-06-28T20:44:00.000+03:00

Dilbert by Scott Adams :)

New quantum model 'permits time travel'

2005-06-20T21:25:00.000+03:00

If you went back in time and met your teenage parents, you could not split them up and prevent your birth - even if you wanted to, a new quantum model has stated.

Researchers speculate that time travel can occur within a kind of feedback loop where backwards movement is possible, but only in a way that is "complementary" to the present.In other words, you can pop back in time and have a look around, but you cannot do anything that will alter the present you left behind.

According to Einstein, space-time can curve back on itself, theoretically allowing travellers to double back and meet younger versions of themselves. And now a team of physicists from the US and Austria says this situation can only be the case if there are physical constraints acting to protect the present from changes in the past.

Quantum behaviour is governed by probabilities. Before something has actually been observed, there are a number of possibilities regarding its state. But once its state has been measured those possibilities shrink to one - uncertainty is eliminated.

"Quantum mechanics distinguishes between something that might happen and something that did happen. "If we don't know your father is alive right now - if there is only a 90% chance that he is alive right now, then there is a chance that you can go back and kill him. "But if you know he is alive, there is no chance you can kill him."

In other words, even if you take a trip back in time with the specific intention of killing your father, so long as you know he is happily sitting in his chair when you leave him in the present, you can be sure that something will prevent you from murdering him in the past. It is as if it has already happened.

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Nanoparticles carry cancer-killing drugs into tumor cells

2005-06-20T01:25:00.000+03:00

University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells – increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects.

The drug delivery vehicle used by U-M scientists is a manmade polymer molecule called a dendrimer. Less than five nanometers in diameter, these dendrimers are small enough to slip through tiny openings in cell membranes. One nanometer equals one-billionth of a meter, which means it would take 100,000 nanometers lined up side-by-side to equal the diameter of a human hair.

Dendrimers (greek dendron = tree) are hyperbranched molecules, composed of a central core, to which repetitive dendritic branches are attached where scientists can attach a variety of molecules, including drugs. In experiments reported in Cancer Research, U-M scientists attached methotrexate, a powerful anticancer drug, to branches of the dendrimer. On other branches, they attached fluorescent imaging agents and their secret ingredient – a vitamin called folic acid.

Folic acid, or folate, is an important vitamin required for the healthy functioning of all cells. But cancer cells, in particular, seem to need more than average amounts. To soak up as much folate as possible, some cancer cells display more docking sites called folate receptors on their cell membranes. By taking advantage of a cancer cell's appetite for folate, U-M scientists are able to prevent the cells from developing resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs.

"It's like a Trojan horse," Baker explains. "Folate molecules on the nanoparticle bind to receptors on tumor cell membranes and the cell immediately internalizes it, because it thinks it's getting the vitamin it needs. But while it's bringing folate across the cell membrane, the cell also draws in the methotrexate that will poison it."

In conventional chemotherapy, drugs like methotrexate must diffuse across a cell membrane to get inside cancer cells, according to Baker. It's a slow process and requires a high concentration of drug in the extra-cellular fluid, which can damage normal cells and tissues.

When tested in laboratory mice that had received injections of human epithelial cancer cells, the nanoparticle-based therapy using folic acid and methotrexate was 10 times more effective at delaying tumor growth than the drug given alone. Nanoparticle treatment also proved to be far less toxic to mice in the study than the anticancer drug alone.

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Deadly Immunity - Cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal

2005-06-19T01:28:00.000+03:00

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line.

Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to eleven-year-olds.

The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among eleven children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

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Foggy screen points the way

2005-06-13T18:40:00.000+03:00

Forget plasma screens, here's one made out of nothing but water. Inventors have fashioned an interactive computer display from a curtain of fog. The FogScreen uses ceiling-mounted air jets to create a vertical, turbulence-free slice of air a few centimetres thick, into which a fine mist of water is pumped. An ordinary projector can be used to display images on the resulting wall of fog.

But don't let you be fooled by the name, the images are not blurry, even if the screen is made of water. You can even walk through the screen without feeling wet because the company uses 'dry' fog made of plain water without any chemicals added.

When the projector is hooked up to a normal computer, the FogScreen can function much like the large display from a desktop in a lecture theatre. But, with the help of a laser-scanning system, the FogScreen also allows users to click on the watery screen itself.

The idea behind the technology is similar to the one used by laser shows for musical events. And the real beauty of this innovation is its ease of use. You just replace your conventional screen by a FogScreen, and you're all set.

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Programmable matter

2005-06-13T18:24:00.000+03:00

Tiny robots that can turn into any shape - from a replica human to a banana to a mobile phone - are being developed by scientists in the United States.

The science of claytronics, which will use nanotechnology to create robots called catoms, should enable 3D copies of people to be "faxed" for virtual meetings. A doctor could also consult with a patient over the phone, even taking their pulse by holding the wrist of the claytronic replica.

The nano "clay" could be carried around, shape-shifting into anything when required. Your claytronic mobile phone could turn into a hammer and then a pair of running shoes. Todd Mowry, at Intel's research labs in Pittsburgh said: "You could have a little lump of this stuff you carry around and it could be a million different things. It's like the world's ultimate Swiss army knife." His partner, Seth Goldstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, said: "It's absolutely going to work."

Not a single such robot yet exists; building these one-millimeter diameter robots is beyond current technology. And it could be decades before a synthetic doctor is possible, much less affordable. So far, the group has been able to get four catoms to act together, but at more than 4cm in diameter, they are considerably larger than the nano-sized robots required to make the clay.

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IBM to create virtual brain

2005-06-12T20:56:00.000+03:00

IBM and The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are today announcing a major joint research initiative – nicknamed the Blue Brain Project – to take brain research to a new level.

Over the next two years scientists from both organizations will work together using the computational capacity of IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. By expanding the project to model other areas of the brain, scientists hope to eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain.

Relatively little is actually known about how the brain works. Using the digital model scientists will run computer-based simulations of the brain at the molecular level, shedding light on internal processes such as thought, perception and memory. Scientists also hope to understand more about how and why certain microcircuits in the brain malfunction – thought to be the cause of psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and depression.

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Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter

2005-06-09T20:15:00.000+03:00

Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter does periodic Altavista searches with the name of an operating system and the word "sucks" and "rocks" appended to it, and charts the results...

Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter

Is God a Taoist?

2005-06-09T01:52:00.000+03:00

Is God a Taoist ? is an interesting dialogue I've just read in a greek blog named philosophy. The first time I read this, was ten years ago from the book The Mind's I, Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (Το Εγώ της Νόησης εκδ. Κάτοπτρο) by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett.

This book deals with the philosophy of mind and goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness through a series of short fictional and non-fiction works, each of which are a brilliant read whether or not you have studied philosophy. If you have ever wondered what the mind is or whether or not we have a soul then you must read this book.

Read the Greek version here. English version follows:

Raymond M. Smullyan, 1977

Mortal:
And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!

God:
You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?

Mortal:
How can you call that which was forced on me a gift? I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!

God:
Why would you wish not to have free will?

Mortal:
Because free will means moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is more than I can bear!

God:
Why do you find moral responsibility so unbearable?

Mortal:
Why? I honestly can't analyze why; all I know is that I do.

God:
All right, in that case suppose I absolve you from all moral responsibility but leave you still with free will. Will this be satisfactory?

Mortal (after a pause):
No, I am afraid not.

God:
Ah, just as I thought! So moral responsibility is not the only aspect of free will to which you object. What else about free will is bothering you?

Mortal:
With free will I am capable of sinning, and I don't want to sin!

God:
If you don't want to sin, then why do you?

Mortal:
Good God! I don't know why I sin, I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.

God:
If it is really true that you cannot resist them, then you are not sinning of your own free will and hence (at least according to me) not sinning at all.

Mortal:
No, no! I keep feeling that if only I tried harder I could avoid sinning. I understand that the will is infinite. If one wholeheartedly wills not to sin, then one won't.

God:
Well now, you should know. Do you try as hard as you can to avoid sinning or don't you?

Mortal:
I honestly don't know! At the time, I feel I am trying as hard as I can, but in retrospect, I am worried that maybe I didn't!

God:
So in other words, you don't really know whether or not you have been sinning. So the possibility is open that you haven't been sinning at all!

Mortal:
Of course this possibility is open, but maybe I have been sinning, and this thought is what so frightens me!

God:
Why does the thought of your sinning frighten you?

Mortal:
I don't know why! For one thing, you do have a reputation for meting out rather gruesome punishments in the afterlife!

God:
Oh, that's what's bothering you! Why didn't you say so in the first place instead of all this peripheral talk about free will and responsibility? Why didn't you simply request me not to punish you for any of your sins?

Mortal:
I think I am realistic enough to know that you would hardly grant such a request!

God:
You don't say! You have a realistic knowledge of what requests I will grant, eh? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do! I will grant you a very, very special dispensation to sin as much as you like, and I give you my divine word of honor that I will never punish you for it in the least. Agreed?

Mortal (in great terror):
No, no, don't do that!

God:
Why not? Don't you trust my divine word?

Mortal:
Of course I do! But don't you see, I don't want to sin! I have an utter abhorrence of sinning, quite apart from any punishments it may entail.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better. I'll remove your abhorrence of sinning. Here is a magic pill! Just swallow it, and you will lose all abhorrence of sinning. You will joyfully and merrily sin away, you will have no regrets, no abhorrence and I still promise you will never be punished by me, or yourself, or by any source whatever. You will be blissful for all eternity. So here is the pill!

Mortal:
No, no!

God:
Are you not being irrational? I am even removing your abhorrence of sin, which is your last obstacle.

Mortal:
I still won't take it!

God:
Why not?

Mortal:
I believe that the pill will indeed remove my future abhorrence for sin, but my present abhorrence is enough to prevent me from being willing to take it.

God:
I command you to take it!

Mortal:
I refuse!

God:
What, you refuse of your own free will?

Mortal:
Yes!

God:
So it seems that your free will comes in pretty handy, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't understand!

God:
Are you not glad now that you have the free will to refuse such a ghastly offer? How would you like it if I forced you to take this pill, whether you wanted it or not?

Mortal:
No, no! Please don't!

God:
Of course I won't; I'm just trying to illustrate a point. All right, let me put it this way. Instead of forcing you to take the pill, suppose I grant your original prayer of removing your free will -- but with the understanding that the moment you are no longer free, then you will take the pill.

Mortal:
Once my will is gone, how could I possibly choose to take the pill?

God:
I did not say you would choose it; I merely said you would take it. You would act, let us say, according to purely deterministic laws which are such that you would as a matter of fact take it.

Mortal:
I still refuse.

God:
So you refuse my offer to remove your free will. This is rather different from your original prayer, isn't it?

Mortal:
Now I see what you are up to. Your argument is ingenious, but I'm not sure it is really correct. There are some points we will have to go over again.

God:
Certainly.

Mortal:
There are two things you said which seem contradictory to me. First you said that one cannot sin unless one does so of one's own free will. But then you said you would give me a pill which would deprive me of my own free will, and then I could sin as much as I liked. But if I no longer had free will, then, according to your first statement, how could I be capable of sinning?

God:
You are confusing two separate parts of our conversation. I never said the pill would deprive you of your free will, but only that it would remove your abhorrence of sinning.

Mortal:
I'm afraid I'm a bit confused.

God:
All right, then let us make a fresh start. Suppose I agree to remove your free will, but with the understanding that you will then commit an enormous number of acts which you now regard as sinful. Technically speaking, you will not then be sinning since you will not be doing these acts of your own free will. And these acts will carry no moral responsibility, nor moral culpability, nor any punishment whatsoever. Nevertheless, these acts will all be of the type which you presently regard as sinful; they will all have this quality which you presently feel as abhorrent, but your abhorrence will disappear; so you will not then feel abhorrence toward the acts.

Mortal:
No, but I have present abhorrence toward the acts, and this present abhorrence is sufficient to prevent me from accepting your proposal.

God:
Hm! So let me get this absolutely straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.

Mortal (reluctantly):
No, I guess not.

God:
All right, I agree not to. But I am still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will. Please tell me again.

Mortal:
Because, as you have told me, without free will I would sin even more than I do now.

God:
But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.

Mortal:
But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

God:
Sounds like you are pretty badly trapped, doesn't it?

Mortal:
Of course I am trapped! You have placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be sinning in so doing.

God:
But by the same token, you place me in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.

Mortal:
True!

God:
But since it is not my fault, why are you still angry with me?

Mortal:
For having placed me in such a horrible predicament in first place!

God:
But, according to you, there is nothing satisfactory I could have done.

Mortal:
You mean there is nothing satisfactory you can now do, that does not mean that there is nothing you could have done.

God:
Why? What could I have done?

Mortal:
Obviously you should never have given me free will in the first place. Now that you have given it to me, it is too late -- anything I do will be bad. But you should never have given it to me in the first place.

God:
Oh, that's it! Why would it have been better had I never given it to you?

Mortal:
Because then I never would have been capable of sinning at all.

God:
Well, I'm always glad to learn from my mistakes.

Mortal:
What!

God:
I know, that sounds sort of self-blasphemous, doesn't it? It almost involves a logical paradox! On the one hand, as you have been taught, it is morally wrong for any sentient being to claim that I am capable of making mistakes. On the other hand, I have the right to do anything. But I am also a sentient being. So the question is, Do, I or do I not have the right to claim that I am capable of making mistakes?

Mortal:
That is a bad joke! One of your premises is simply false. I have not been taught that it is wrong for any sentient being to doubt your omniscience, but only for a mortal to doubt it. But since you are not mortal, then you are obviously free from this injunction.

God:
Good, so you realize this on a rational level. Nevertheless, you did appear shocked when I said, "I am always glad to learn from my mistakes."

Mortal:
Of course I was shocked. I was shocked not by your self-blasphemy (as you jokingly called it), not by the fact that you had no right to say it, but just by the fact that you did say it, since I have been taught that as a matter of fact you don't make mistakes. So I was amazed that you claimed that it is possible for you to make mistakes.

God:
I have not claimed that it is possible. All I am saying is that if I make mistakes, I will be happy to learn from them. But this says nothing about whether the if has or ever can be realized.

Mortal:
Let's please stop quibbling about this point. Do you or do you not admit it was a mistake to have given me free will?

God:
Well now, this is precisely what I propose we should investigate. Let me review your present predicament. You don't want to have free will because with free will you can sin, and you don't want to sin. (Though I still find this puzzling; in a way you must want to sin, or else you wouldn't. But let this pass for now.) On the other hand, if you agreed to give up free will, then you would now be responsible for the acts of the future. Ergo, I should never have given you free will in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
I understand exactly how you feel. Many mortals -- even some theologians -- have complained that I have been unfair in that it was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
As I said, I understand the feeling perfectly. And I can appreciate the justice of the complaint. But the complaint arises only from an unrealistic understanding of the true issues involved. I am about to enlighten you as to what these are, and I think the results will surprise you! But instead of telling you outright, I shall continue to use the Socratic method.

To repeat, you regret that I ever gave you free will. I claim that when you see the true ramifications you will no longer have this regret. To prove my point, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am about to create a new universe -- a new space-time continuum. In this new universe will be born a mortal just like you -- for all practical purposes, we might say that you will be reborn. Now, I can give this new mortal -- this new you -- free will or not. What would you like me to do?

Mortal (in great relief):
Oh, please! Spare him from having to have free will!

God:
All right, I'll do as you say. But you do realize that this new you without free will, will commit all sorts of horrible acts.

Mortal:
But they will not be sins since he will have no free will.

God:
Whether you call them sins or not, the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great pain to many sentient beings.

Mortal (after a pause):
Good God, you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better! Here, I have already decided whether to create this new you with free will or not. Now, I am writing my decision on this piece of paper and I won't show it to you until later. But my decision is now made and is absolutely irrevocable. There is nothing you can possibly do to alter it; you have no responsibility in the matter. Now, what I wish to know is this: Which way do you hope I have decided? Remember now, the responsibility for the decision falls entirely on my shoulders, not yours. So you can tell me perfectly honestly and without any fear, which way do you hope I have decided?

Mortal (after a very long pause):
I hope you have decided to give him free will.

God:
Most interesting! I have removed your last obstacle! If I do not give him free will, then no sin is to be imputed to anybody. So why do you hope I will give him free will?

Mortal:
Because sin or no sin, the important point is that if you do not give him free will, then (at least according to what you have said) he will go around hurting people, and I don't want to see people hurt.

GOD (with an infinite sigh of relief):
At last! At last you see the real point!

Mortal:
What point is that?

God:
That sinning is not the real issue! The important thing is that people as well as other sentient beings don't get hurt!

Mortal:
You sound like a utilitarian!

God:
I am a utilitarian!

Mortal:
What!

God:
Whats or no whats, I am a utilitarian. Not a unitarian, mind you, but a utilitarian.

Mortal:
I just can't believe it!

God:
Yes, I know, your religious training has taught you otherwise. You have probably thought of me more like a Kantian than a utilitarian, but your training was simply wrong.

Mortal:
You leave me speechless!

God:
I leave you speechless, do I! Well, that is perhaps not too bad a thing -- you have a tendency to speak too much as it is. Seriously, though, why do you think I ever did give you free will in the first place?

Mortal:
Why did you? I never have thought much about why you did; all I have been arguing for is that you shouldn't have! But why did you? I guess all I can think of is the standard religious explanation: Without free will, one is not capable of meriting either salvation or damnation. So without free will, we could not earn the right to eternal life.

God:
Most interesting! I have eternal life; do you think I have ever done anything to merit it?

Mortal:
Of course not! With you it is different. You are already so good and perfect (at least allegedly) that it is not necessary for you to merit eternal life.

God:
Really now? That puts me in a rather enviable position, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't think I understand you.

God:
Here I am eternally blissful without ever having to suffer or make sacrifices or struggle against evil temptations or anything like that. Without any of that type of "merit", I enjoy blissful eternal existence. By contrast, you poor mortals have to sweat and suffer and have all sorts of horrible conflicts about morality, and all for what? You don't even know whether I really exist or not, or if there really is any afterlife, or if there is, where you come into the picture. No matter how much you try to placate me by being "good," you never have any real assurance that your "best" is good enough for me, and hence you have no real security in obtaining salvation. Just think of it! I already have the equivalent of "salvation" -- and have never had to go through this infinitely lugubrious process of earning it. Don't you ever envy me for this?

Mortal:
But it is blasphemous to envy you!

God:
Oh come off it! You're not now talking to your Sunday school teacher, you are talking to me. Blasphemous or not, the important question is not whether you have the right to be envious of me but whether you are. Are you?

Mortal:
Of course I am!

God:
Good! Under your present world view, you sure should be most envious of me. But I think with a more realistic world view, you no longer will be. So you really have swallowed the idea which has been taught you that your life on earth is like an examination period and that the purpose of providing you with free will is to test you, to see if you merit blissful eternal life. But what puzzles me is this: If you really believe I am as good and benevolent as I am cracked up to be, why should I require people to merit things like happiness and eternal life? Why should I not grant such things to everyone regardless of whether or not he deserves them?

Mortal:
But I have been taught that your sense of morality -- your sense of justice -- demands that goodness be rewarded with happiness and evil be punished with pain.

God:
Then you have been taught wrong.

Mortal:
But the religious literature is so full of this idea! Take for example Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." How he describes you as holding your enemies like loathsome scorpions over the flaming pit of hell, preventing them from falling into the fate that they deserve only by dint of your mercy.

God:
Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.

Mortal:
By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?

God:
I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.

Mortal:
Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!

God:
You mean you have hated your image of me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.

Mortal:
Are you trying to say that it is not wrong to hate a false conception of you, but that it is wrong to hate you as you really are?

God:
No, I am not saying that at all; I am saying something far more drastic! What I am saying has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong. What I am saying is that one who knows me for what I really am would simply find it psychologically impossible to hate me.

Mortal:
Tell me, since we mortals seem to have such erroneous views about your real nature, why don't you enlighten us? Why don't you guide us the right way?

God:
What makes you think I'm not?

Mortal:
I mean, why don't you appear to our very senses and simply tell us that we are wrong?

God:
Are you really so naive as to believe that I am the sort of being which can appear to your senses? It would be more correct to say that I am your senses.

Mortal (astonished):
You are my senses?

God:
Not quite, I am more than that. But it comes closer to the truth than the idea that I am perceivable by the senses. I am not an object; like you, I am a subject, and a subject can perceive, but cannot be perceived. You can no more see me than you can see your own thoughts. You can see an apple, but the event of your seeing an apple is itself not seeable. And I am far more like the seeing of an apple than the apple itself.

Mortal:
If I can't see you, how do I know you exist?

God:
Good question! How in fact do you know I exist?

Mortal:
Well, I am talking to you, am I not?

God:
How do you know you are talking to me? Suppose you told a psychiatrist, "Yesterday I talked to God." What do you think he would say?

Mortal:
That might depend on the psychiatrist. Since most of them are atheistic, I guess most would tell me I had simply been talking to myself.

God:
And they would be right!

Mortal:
What? You mean you don't exist?

God:
You have the strangest faculty of drawing false conclusions! Just because you are talking to yourself, it follows that I don't exist?

Mortal:
Well, if I think I am talking to you, but I am really talking to myself, in what sense do you exist?

God:
Your question is based on two fallacies plus a confusion. The question of whether or not you are now talking to me and the question of whether or not I exist are totally separate. Even if you were not now talking to me (which obviously you are), it still would not mean that I don't exist.

Mortal:
Well, all right, of course! So instead of saying "if I am talking to myself, then you don't exist," I should rather have said, "if I am talking to myself, then I obviously am not talking to you."

God:
A very different statement indeed, but still false.

Mortal:
Oh, come now, if I am only talking to myself, then how can I be talking to you?

God:
Your use of the word "only" is quite misleading! I can suggest several logical possibilities under which your talking to yourself does not imply that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
Suggest just one!

God:
Well, obviously one such possibility is that you and I are identical.

Mortal:
Such a blasphemous thought -- at least had I uttered it!

God:
According to some religions, yes. According to others, it is the plain, simple, immediately perceived truth.

Mortal:
So the only way out of my dilemma is to believe that you and I are identical?

God:
Not at all! This is only one way out. There are several others. For example, it may be that you are part of me, in which case you may be talking to that part of me which is you. Or I may be part of you, in which case you may be talking to that part of you which is me. Or again, you and I might partially overlap, in which case you may be talking to the intersection and hence talking both to you and to me. The only way your talking to yourself might seem to imply that you are not talking to me is if you and I were totally disjoint -- and even then, you could conceivably be talking to both of us.

Mortal:
So you claim you do exist.

God:
Not at all. Again you draw false conclusions! The question of my existence has not even come up. All I have said is that from the fact that you are talking to yourself one cannot possibly infer my nonexistence, let alone the weaker fact that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
All right, I'll grant your point! But what I really want to know is do you exist?

God:
What a strange question!

Mortal:
Why? Men have been asking it for countless millennia.

God:
I know that! The question itself is not strange; what I mean is that it is a most strange question to ask of me!

Mortal:
Why?

God:
Because I am the very one whose existence you doubt! I perfectly well understand your anxiety. You are worried that your present experience with me is a mere hallucination. But how can you possibly expect to obtain reliable information from a being about his very existence when you suspect the nonexistence of the very same being?

Mortal:
So you won't tell me whether or not you exist?

God:
I am not being willful! I merely wish to point out that no answer I could give could possibly satisfy you. All right, suppose I said, "No, I don't exist." What would that prove? Absolutely nothing! Or if I said, "Yes, I exist." Would that convince you? Of course not!

Mortal:
Well, if you can't tell me whether or not you exist, then who possibly can?

God:
That is something which no one can tell you. It is something which only you can find out for yourself.

Mortal:
How do I go about finding this out for myself?

God:
That also no one can tell you. This is another thing you will have to find out for yourself.

Mortal:
So there is no way you can help me?

God:
I didn't say that. I said there is no way I can tell you. But that doesn't mean there is no way I can help you.

Mortal:
In what manner then can you help me?

God:
I suggest you leave that to me! We have gotten sidetracked as it is, and I would like to return to the question of what you believed my purpose to be in giving you free will. Your first idea of my giving you free will in order to test whether you merit salvation or not may appeal to many moralists, but the idea is quite hideous to me. You cannot think of any nicer reason -- any more humane reason -- why I gave you free will?

Mortal:
Well now, I once asked this question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it, we of course need free will.

God:
That explanation is indeed much nicer than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply created only angels rather than mortals?

Mortal:
Beats me! Why didn't you?

God:
Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

No, my dear friend, I am not a moralist. I am wholly a utilitarian. That I should have been conceived in the role of a moralist is one of the great tragedies of the human race. My role in the scheme of things (if one can use this misleading expression) is neither to punish nor reward, but to aid the process by which all sentient beings achieve ultimate perfection.

Mortal:
Why did you say your expression is misleading?

God:
What I said was misleading in two respects. First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process. The ancient Taoists were quite close when they said of me (whom they called "Tao") that I do not do things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful definition of me which man can frame -- at least in his present state of evolution -- is that I am the very process of enlightenment. Those who wish to think of the devil (although I wish they wouldn't!) might analogously define him as the unfortunate length of time the process takes. In this sense, the devil is necessary; the process simply does take an enormous length of time, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But, I assure you, once the process is more correctly understood, the painful length of time will no longer be regarded as an essential limitation or an evil. It will be seen to be the very essence of the process itself. I know this is not completely consoling to you who are now in the finite sea of suffering, but the amazing thing is that once you grasp this fundamental attitude, your very finite suffering will begin to diminish -- ultimately to the vanishing point.

Mortal:
I have been told this, and I tend to believe it. But suppose I personally succeed in seeing things through your eternal eyes. Then I will be happier, but don't I have a duty to others?

GOD (laughing):
You remind me of the Mahayana Buddhists! Each one says, "I will not enter Nirvana until I first see that all other sentient beings do so." So each one waits for the other fellow to go first. No wonder it takes them so long! The Hinayana Buddhist errs in a different direction. He believes that no one can be of the slightest help to others in obtaining salvation; each one has to do it entirely by himself. And so each tries only for his own salvation. But this very detached attitude makes salvation impossible. The truth of the matter is that salvation is partly an individual and partly a social process. But it is a grave mistake to believe -- as do many Mahayana Buddhists -- that the attaining of enlightenment puts one out of commission, so to speak, for helping others. The best way of helping others is by first seeing the light oneself.

Mortal:
There is one thing about your self-description which is somewhat disturbing. You describe yourself essentially as a process. This puts you in such an impersonal light, and so many people have a need for a personal God.

God:
So because they need a personal God, it follows that I am one?

Mortal:
Of course not. But to be acceptable to a mortal a religion must satisfy his needs.

God:
I realize that. But the so-called "personality" of a being is really more in the eyes of the beholder than in the being itself. The controversies which have raged, about whether I am a personal or an impersonal being are rather silly because neither side is right or wrong. From one point of view, I am personal, from another, I am not. It is the same with a human being. A creature from another planet may look at him purely impersonally as a mere collection of atomic particles behaving according to strictly prescribed physical laws. He may have no more feeling for the personality of a human than the average human has for an ant. Yet an ant has just as much individual personality as a human to beings like myself who really know the ant. To look at something impersonally is no more correct or incorrect than to look at it personally, but in general, the better you get to know something, the more personal it becomes. To illustrate my point, do you think of me as a personal or impersonal being?

Mortal:
Well, I'm talking to you, am I not?

God:
Exactly! From that point of view, your attitude toward me might be described as a personal one. And yet, from another point of view -- no less valid -- I can also be looked at impersonally.

Mortal:
But if you are really such an abstract thing as a process, I don't see what sense it can make my talking to a mere "process."

God:
I love the way you say "mere." You might just as well say that you are living in a "mere universe." Also, why must everything one does make sense? Does it make sense to talk to a tree?

Mortal:
Of course not!

God:
And yet, many children and primitives do just that.

Mortal:
But I am neither a child nor a primitive.

God:
I realize that, unfortunately.

Mortal:
Why unfortunately?

God:
Because many children and primitives have a primal intuition which the likes of you have lost. Frankly, I think it would do you a lot of good to talk to a tree once in a while, even more good than talking to me! But we seem always to be getting sidetracked! For the last time, I would like us to try to come to an understanding about why I gave you free will.

Mortal:
I have been thinking about this all the while.

God:
You mean you haven't been paying attention to our conversation?

Mortal:
Of course I have. But all the while, on another level, I have been thinking about it.

God:
And have you come to any conclusion?

Mortal:
Well, you say the reason is not to test our worthiness. And you disclaimed the reason that we need to feel that we must merit things in order to enjoy them. And you claim to be a utilitarian. Most significant of all, you appeared so delighted when I came to the sudden realization that it is not sinning in itself which is bad but only the suffering which it causes.

God:
Well of course! What else could conceivably be bad about sinning?

Mortal:
All right, you know that, and now I know that. But all my life I unfortunately have been under the influence of those moralists who hold sinning to be bad in itself. Anyway, putting all these pieces together, it occurs to me that the only reason you gave free will is because of your belief that with free will, people will tend to hurt each other -- and themselves -- less than without free will.

God:
Bravo! That is by far the best reason you have yet given! I can assure you that had I chosen to give free will, that would have been my very reason for so choosing.

Mortal:
What! You mean to say you did not choose to give us free will?

God:
My dear fellow, I could no more choose to give you free will than I could choose to make an equilateral triangle equiangular. I could choose to make or not to make an equilateral triangle in the first place, but having chosen to make one, I would then have no choice but to make it equiangular.

Mortal:
I thought you could do anything!

God:
Only things which are logically possible. As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the impossible, as a limitation on His powers." I agree, except that in place of his using the word sin I would use the term error.

Mortal:
Anyhow, I am still puzzled by your implication that you did not choose to give me free will.

God:
Well, it is high time I inform you that the entire discussion -- from the very beginning -- has been based on one monstrous fallacy! We have been talking purely on a moral level -- you originally complained that I gave you free will, and raised the whole question as to whether I should have. It never once occurred to you that I had absolutely no choice in the matter.

Mortal:
I am still in the dark!

God:
Absolutely! Because you are only able to look at it through the eyes of a moralist. The more fundamental metaphysical aspects of the question you never even considered.

Mortal:
I still do not see what you are driving at.

God:
Before you requested me to remove your free will, shouldn't your first question have been whether as a matter of fact you do have free will?

Mortal:
That I simply took for granted.

God:
But why should you?

Mortal:
I don't know. Do I have free will?

God:
Yes.

Mortal:
Then why did you say I shouldn't have taken it for granted?

God:
Because you shouldn't. Just because something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.

Mortal:
Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.

God:
They are correct.

Mortal:
Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

God:
I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

Mortal:
Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.

Mortal:
What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you could not stop me!

God:
You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.

Mortal:
So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?

God:
It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the "force." In a way it is both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two which is crucial.

Mortal:
You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

God:
Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.

Mortal:
Then why did you play along with me all this while discussing what I thought was a moral problem, when, as you say, my basic confusion was metaphysical?

God:
Because I thought it would be good therapy for you to get some of this moral poison out of your system. Much of your metaphysical confusion was due to faulty moral notions, and so the latter had to be dealt with first.

And now we must part -- at least until you need me again. I think our present union will do much to sustain you for a long while. But do remember what I told you about trees. Of course, you don't have to literally talk to them if doing so makes you feel silly. But there is so much you can learn from them, as well as from the rocks and streams and other aspects of nature. There is nothing like a naturalistic orientation to dispel all these morbid thoughts of "sin" and "free will" and "moral responsibility." At one stage of history, such notions were actually useful. I refer to the days when tyrants had unlimited power and nothing short of fears of hell could possibly restrain them. But mankind has grown up since then, and this gruesome way of thinking is no longer necessary.

It might be helpful to you to recall what I once said through the writings of the great Zen poet Seng-Ts'an:

If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.

A few 30-second sprints as beneficial as hour long jog

2005-06-04T14:42:00.000+03:00

Just six minutes of intense exercise a week could be as effective as an hour of daily moderate activity suggests new findings from researchers at McMaster University. "Short bouts of very intense exercise improved muscle health and performance comparable to several weeks of traditional endurance training," says Martin Gibala, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology of McMaster.

The research, which is published in the June edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that performing repeated bouts of high-intensity "sprint"-type exercise resulted in profound changes in skeletal muscle and endurance capacity, similar to training that requires hours of exercise each week.

The study was conducted on 16 subjects: eight who performed a two-week sprint interval training program and eight who did no exercise training. The training program consisted of between four and seven 30-second bursts of "all out" cycling followed by four minutes of recovery three times a week for two weeks. Researchers found that endurance capacity in the sprint group increased on average from 26 minutes to 51 minutes, whereas the control group showed no change. The muscles of the trained group also showed a significant increase in citrate synthase, an enzyme that is indicative of the tissue's ability to utilize oxygen.

Read more...

Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010

2005-06-04T12:54:00.000+03:00

Toyota has announced it intends to develop a full line of humanoid robots to serve as personal assistants look after elderly people or serve tea to guests by 2010. Japan leads the world in robotics, and while the U.S. focuses on military robots (terminator, anyone?), Japan is working to actually improve the quality of life through helper robots.

Toyota will make partner robots that “have human characteristics, such as being agile, warm and kind and also intelligent enough to skillfully operate a variety of devices in the area of personal assistance, care for the elderly, manufacturing and mobility.” They are promoting the development of three different types of partner robots - walking, rolling and mountable - each with its own areas of expertise.” In a few years, personal assistant robots will be able to fetch items (and remember where you put them), guard your house, clean up the clutter in your home, engage in basic conversations, play music, and -- someday -- do your laundry.

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The Millennium Simulation

2005-06-04T10:22:00.000+03:00

Scientists unveiled the most detailed model yet produced of the development of the universe. The Millennium Run simulation shows how galaxies and quasars are thought to have evolved following the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

It is the result of 500,000,000,000,000,000 (500,000 trillion) calculations made by one of the biggest supercomputers in Europe after it was given information on the current composition of the universe, the microwave radiation left over after the Big Bang and the laws of physics. This "Millennium Run" used more than 10 billion particles to trace the evolution of the matter distribution in a cubic region of the Universe over 2 billion light-years on a side. It kept busy the principal supercomputer at the Max Planck Society's Supercomputing Centre in Garching, Germany for more than a month. By applying sophisticated modelling techniques to the 25 Tbytes of stored output, Virgo scientists are able recreate evolutionary histories both for the 20 million or so galaxies which populate this enormous volume and for the supermassive black holes which occasionally power quasars at their hearts.

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Breathing Underwater Without Oxygen Tanks

2005-06-04T10:11:00.000+03:00

An Israeli inventor, Alan-Izhar Bodner, has developed a breathing apparatus that will allow breathing underwater without the assistance of oxygen tanks. This invention is based on how fish are breathing, picking the air which is dissolved in the water.

Fish do not perform chemical separation of oxygen from water; instead they use the dissolved air that exists in the water in order to breathe. In the ocean the wind, waves and underwater currents help spread small amounts of air inside the water. Studies have shown that in a depth of 200m below the sea there is still about 1.5% of dissolved air. This might not sound like much but it is enough to allow both small and large fish to breathe comfortably underwater. Bodner’s idea was to create an artificial system that will mimic the way fish use the air in the water thus allowing both smaller submarines and divers to get rid of the large, cumbersome oxygen tanks.

Bodner has already built and tested a laboratory model which uses rechargeable batteries and will allow for one hour of diving time. He is also on the path to building a full-scale prototype. If everything goes according to plan, in a few years the new tankless breathing system will be operational and will be attached to a diver in the form of a vest that will enable him to stay underwater for a period of many hours.

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Wireless Chip for In-Body Communications Systems

2005-06-04T09:55:00.000+03:00

According to Reuters, a Canadian company, Zarlink Semiconductor, has developed a wireless chip for medical implants to be used for in-body communication systems. With such a chip, a pacemaker could wirelessly be monitored by a doctor or an hospital several miles away. The company thinks there are many other applications for the chip, such as in implanted blood glucose meters, which control insulin for diabetics. This is possible because the chip is sleeping most of the time, waiting for wake-up calls from a base station located far away. This allows the chip to use only 20% of the power needed by previous systems while sending much more data when awake.

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Bugs in Termite Guts May Offer Future Fuel Source

2005-05-29T18:42:00.000+03:00

Steven Chu sees a world free from foreign oil, powered by home-grown genetically engineered and eco-friendly fuel. And where does this Nobel laureate get his inspiration? From termites. Or more specifically: the guts of termites. He believes that the natural processes that allow termites to turn the hard fabric of plant material — cellulose — into an ethanol-like fuel hold secrets that could lead to cheap, clean-burning and virtually limitless fuel.

Chu is thinking about building a better termite. He dreams of creating a new class of microorganisms, microbes that would be genetically engineered to produce far more fuel, or ethanol, than they need to survive. They would be tailor-made versions of the microbes that convert cellulose to fuel for termites.

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State and Corp. by Noam Chomsky

2005-05-29T12:58:00.000+03:00

Read this interesting interview by Noam Chomsky. A part of the interview is following:

"Q: We want to talk about the two dominant power structures of the modern era: the national state and the transnational corporations. The first question is, could you please talk about the rise of this concept of the national state: Why was it created, and what were its consequences?

Well, the nation state is pretty much a European invention, I mean there were similar things, but the nation state in the modern form was largely created in Europe over many centuries. It's so unnatural and artificial that it had to be imposed by extreme violence. In fact that's the primary reason why Europe was the most savage part of the world for centuries. It was due to trying to impose a nation state system on cultures and societies that are varied and if you look at them had no relation to this artificial structure.

In fact the derivative effects were also the main reason the concept spread elsewhere. In the course of creating modern nation states, Europe developed a culture of savagery and a technology of violence which enabled it to conquer the world, and as it conquered the world it attempted to impose nation state systems wherever it went, also artificial and violent. If you look at today's major conflicts around the world, most of them are the residue of European efforts to impose nation state systems where it doesn't make any sense, which is almost everywhere.

The few exceptions to this are places of European colonization where they simply exterminated the indigenous population, like the United States and Australia. So there you get more homogeneous societies. On the other hand, the primary reason why the savage conflicts in Europe ended in 1945 was that it was recognized that if they continued this game any longer, they'd just wipe themselves out.

So you have, since 1945, a peace internal to Europe. Germans and French don't regard it as their highest goal in life to slaughter each other anymore. In the course of the development of the nation state system, there also developed on the side various economic arrangements which about a century ago turned into what became contemporary corporate capitalism, mostly imposed by judicial arrangements, not by legislation, and very tightly integrated and linked to the powerful states.

I've been under investigation, maybe I still am, by the Turkish state security courts for what they call preaching separatism. Namely in a talk I gave in Dyarbakir in south Eastern Turkey I actually said some favorable things about the Ottoman empire. Not that anybody wants the Ottoman empire back, but they had the right idea about many things. One was that they left people alone, partly because of corruption and weakness, but partly for doctrinal reasons. The whole area under the Ottoman empire had nothing like a state system. So in a particular city, the Greeks would take care of their affairs, and the Armenians would take care of their affairs, and others would run their part of the city. And it was kind of integrated. You could go from Cairo to Baghdad or Istanbul without crossing any border or posts or anything like that.

That's probably the right form of organization for that part of the world and probably every part of the world. And those are tendencies that are pretty clear in Europe, mostly at the cultural level but to some extent also at the political level. I suppose it is a reaction to the centralizing tendencies of the European Union which are often quite autocratic, particularly the enormous power of the Central Bank. But it's all in connection with the high concentration of economic and political and social power that lies in the hands of the unaccountable private tyrannies that are closely linked to state power and rely on it.

Q: Could you tell us in detail how the corporation became so powerful?

The corporations were granted rights by the courts. I mean, I know the Anglo-American history fairly well - but I think it's pretty much the same elsewhere, so I'll keep to that one - in the Anglo-American system the courts, not the legislators, gave the corporate entities extraordinary rights. They gave them the rights of persons, meaning they have the right of freedom of speech, they can propagandize freely, advertise, they run elections and so on, and they have the protection from inspection by the state authorities which means that just as the police technically can't go into your apartment and read your papers, the public can't find out what's going on inside these totalitarian entities. They are required legally to maximize power and profit no matter what effect that has on anyone else.

They are required to externalize costs, so if they can get the public or future generations to pay their costs, they are required to do that. It would be illegal for corporate executives to do anything else. They're granted rights way beyond persons. They are immortal, they are extraordinarily powerful, they are pathological by legal requirement, and that's the contemporary form of totalitarianism. Almost every aspect of what's called the "New Economy" is developed and designed at public cost and public risk: computers, electronics generally, telecommunications, the internet, lasers, whatever...

Q: Transnational corporations are sometimes called "de facto government" or the "virtual senate." They control nowadays to a significant extent the state, which was supposed to defend the interests of the people and not the interests of the "elites." Do you see the state as really dead?

Well, that's up to the public. I mean, traditionally states have been defenders of private power. Either they are the power or they defend private power. There are struggles over this going on constantly, that's why we have more freedom than people used to have, through constant popular struggle. By the end of the Second World War there was a mood of a sort of radical democracy, practically revolutionary, over almost all the world. The war had a tremendous effect, and actually the first post-war policies of Britain and the United States - the victors - were to try to destroy the anti-fascist resistance; that was the first chapter of post-war history in Europe, and in Japan. Destroy the anti-fascist resistance and restore the traditional societies, now subordinate to the victors. It happened with considerable brutality in many places, like in Greece, where Britain and mostly the United States probably killed about 150.000 people and left a residue which was basically fascist, and actually included a fascist coup and went up into the mid seventies.

In Italy, the United States intervened at once to try to prevent popular democracy, subvert Italian elections and so on; in fact Italy was the main focus of CIA subversive activities at least into the 1970s, including support for military coups, terror, and so on. And pretty much the same was true in Germany, France, Japan, and elsewhere.

So the first goal was restore the basic structure of the traditional society, undermine the anti-fascist resistance, crush the popular labor movements and so on, but it couldn't be done completely. And the power of the radical democratic thrust had to in part be accommodated, in the United States as well. So you get a period of "welfare state" systems, social democratic systems in which it's true that the state was compelled to act in ways that accommodated public demands, and it leads to the social market in Europe, the welfare state in the United States and England, and so on...

The first 25 years after the Second World War, often called "The Golden Age of Capitalism," there was very fast growth, there was nothing like it ever before or since, and to a degree egalitarian growth. So in the United States, which is the least egalitarian of the major countries, the bottom twenty percent actually gained more than the top twenty percent in that period. That went on up until the early seventies. At that time, there began a major reaction in order to destroy democracy, which is considered a great threat to elites, properly, and to undermine the system that allowed governments to respond to the public to create welfare state systems. The first move in fact was to eliminate controls on capital, which is understood are at the core of allowing the government any kind of space for independent decision making. Eliminate the controls, let currencies flow freely, so you get a huge explosion of speculation against currencies, and in many other ways.

In fact if you look at the neo-liberal programs, every single element of them is designed mainly to destroy democracy. That's true of elimination of fixing currencies amd freeing capital flight. Privatization by definition undermines democracy. It takes things out of the public arena. Turning services into private control takes away everything that the government might want to do."

Read the full interview...

Accelerator Deciphers Archimedes

2005-05-28T00:13:00.000+03:00

A particle accelerator is revealing parts of the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it during the Middle Ages. Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin deciphering sections of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed. The X-rays cause iron in the hidden ink to glow.

Scholars believe the treatise was copied by a scribe in the 10th century from Archimedes' original Greek scrolls, written in the third century B.C. It was erased about 200 years later by a monk who reused the parchment for a prayer book, creating a twice-used parchment book known as a "palimpsest." In the 12th century, parchment -- scraped and dried animal skins -- was rare and costly, and Archimedes' works were in less demand...

The palimpsest was bought at auction for $2 million in 1998 by an anonymous private collector who loaned it to the Baltimore museum and funded studies to reveal the text. The Archimedes Palimpsest includes the only copy of the treatise "Method of Mechanical Theorems," in which Archimedes explains how he used mechanical means to develop his mathematical theorems. It is also the only source in the original Greek for the treatise "On Floating Bodies," in which Archimedes deals with the physics of flotation and gravity.

Three of the undeciphered pages were imaged last week, and the rest are expected to take three to four years to complete, Noel said.

Read more...

Google Maps Sees Apparent UFO ...

2005-05-24T20:42:00.000+03:00

If this were from anything other than a satellite and showed up more than once it could be a drop of water on the lens. But it is an apparent UFO of some sort hovering over Florida. Then again, it could be planted by Google to draw attention to its new service.... :)

Google Maps - 33409

2050 - Download your brain onto computer

2005-05-24T20:20:00.000+03:00

According to Ian Pearson, by the mid-21st century, computer technology will be so sophisticated that it might be possible to "download" the contents of a brain on to a supercomputer.

The prediction is merely the product of extrapolations drawn from the current rate at which computers are evolving. However, this technology might be expensive enough to remain the preserve of the rich for a decade or two more.

Pearson said the next computing goal would be to replicate consciousness. "Not everyone agrees, but it's my conclusion that it's possible to make a conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence before 2020," he explains.

One of the "primary reasons" for such work would be to give computers emotions. This could involve such things as aeroplanes programmed to be more terrified of crashing than their passengers, meaning they would do whatever possible to stay airborne.

Pearson predicts an age of "virtual worlds" by about 2020. "We will spend a lot of time in virtual space, using high-quality, 3D, immersive, computer generated environments to socialise and do business in," he said. "When technology gives you a life-size 3D image and the links to your nervous system allow you to shake hands, it's like being in the other person's office. It's impossible to believe that won't be the normal way of communicating."

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Germans and Russians Used Fluoride to Make Prisoners 'Stupid and Docile'

2005-05-22T13:13:00.000+03:00

The following article may be hard for some to swallow, but fluoride compounds are a the darling of the drug industry.One can find many drugs rife with fluorides. These include SSRI's (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) all the way to some cholesterol drugs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa to Lepitor. It appears that the judicial use of this toxin can have many effects all the way from Stupidity...docility to aggression...

By: Devvy Kidd
May 14, 2005

..."At the end of the Second World War, the United States Government sent Charles Elliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology, to take charge of the vast Farven chemical plants in Germany. While there, he was told by German chemists of a scheme which had been worked out by them during the war and adopted by the German General Staff. This scheme was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water. In this scheme, sodium fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain, and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. Both the Germans and the Russians added fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile."

All of these fluoride chemicals are byproducts of the aluminum and chemical fertilization industries that are considered to be hazardous wastes by the EPA, says the scientific assessment of the health risks of fluorides in 1985 "omits 90% of the literature which suggests fluoride is a mutagen - causes cellular and genetic mutation. Several scientists in the United States and other countries have done research or written reports questioning the benefits of water fluoridation or suggesting health risks, were discouraged by their employers from actually publishing their findings. Anyone who questions the use of fluoride in the drinking water is labeled a nut case. Fluoride helps prevent tooth decay!"

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Paralyzed Rats Walk; Humans Next?

2005-05-20T23:35:00.000+03:00

Researchers studying embryonic stem cells have published long-awaited data in a peer-reviewed journal, revealing how they enabled rats with crushed spinal cords to walk again. Spinal cord injury patients are hopeful, but they're not all celebrating just yet. The study found that the technique worked only on recently injured rats, not those with chronic injuries. The researchers say they hope to begin human clinical trials sometime soon, but the tests will likely study only newly injured patients.

The scientists injected injured rats with cells derived from human embryonic stem cells, which usually come from embryos discarded at in vitro fertilization clinics. Keirstead and his colleagues coaxed the embryonic cells into becoming early-stage cells critical for normal electrical signal processing in the spine. The researchers then, injected one group of rats seven days after injury, and another group 10 months after injury.

In all of the mice, the cells became mature cells and migrated to areas of the spinal cord where they were most needed. In the recently injured rats, the cells, called oligodendrocytes, formed myelin, a protective insulator of neurons. The myelin wrapped around damaged neurons in the spinal cord, and within two months the rats were walking much better than injured rats that received no treatment. The rats with 10-month-old injuries failed to regain motor skills.

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Researchers make bendable concrete

2005-05-17T23:12:00.000+03:00

A new type of fiber-reinforced bendable concrete has been developed at the University of Michigan.

The new concrete is 500 times more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight. The materials in the concrete itself are designed for maximum flexibility.

Traditional concrete presents many problems: lack of durability and sustainability, failure under severe loading, and the resulting expenses of repair. ECC should address most of those problems. The ductile, or bendable, concrete is made mainly of the same ingredients in regular concrete minus the coarse aggregate. It looks exactly like regular concrete, but under excessive strain, the ECC concrete gives because the network of fibers veining the cement is allowed to slide within the cement, thus avoiding the inflexibility that causes brittleness and breakage.

Researchers make bendable concrete

NASA's silent speech system

2005-05-14T01:14:00.000+03:00

How do you talk to someone without opening your mouth? Psychics call it telepathy. NASA refers to it as subvocal speech. Scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center in California have developed a system of tiny sensors that read nerve signals in the throat that control speech. You may not make a sound when, say, you read silently, but your nervous system is buzzing with activity. Recently, they used the system to make the first subvocal cell phone call.

The electrical nerve signals are delivered from the sensors to an amplifier and a digital signal processor that filters out the noise. Finally, software scours the data to identify the signature patterns corresponding to words that the system was programmed to recognize. When the silent speech technology was unveiled, the software was trained to identify six words such as "stop," "go," "alpha," and "omega," and ten digits. Since then, they've increased its vocabulary, the first step in building a full-blown speech recognition system.

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The First Solar Sail

2005-05-11T21:54:00.000+03:00

The Planetary Society (home of SETI) is planning to launch the first Solar Sail Spacecraft, Cosmos 1, later this month. The exact launch date is scheduled to be announced on Monday, May 9. This event represents one of the first privately-funded space missions with the objective of pure research.

It will be launched from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. The spacecraft consists of a body surrounded by 8 triangular sails, that will use the tiny force of reflected sunlight to (potentially) accelerate to tremendous speeds. Unfortunately, the craft is not expected to leave Earth's orbit due to degradation of the mylar materials, but should be a proof of concept for subsequent missions

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Modified mice enjoy one-fifth more life

2005-05-09T01:08:00.000+03:00

A mouse with the ability to mop up free radicals at the cellular level - and live longer as a result - has been created by scientists at the University of Washington. The research is a boost for the free radical theory of ageing.

The transgenic mice created produce higher-than-normal levels of the antioxidant enzyme catalase. Cells use catalase to convert damaging hydrogen peroxide to harmless water and molecular oxygen, but the enzyme is usually found only in the cytoplasm of cells.

The team made mice that produce high levels of catalase in their mitochondria. They found that cellular damage, as well as age-related damage in the heart, decreased in comparison to control mice that produced catalase in just cytoplasm or in cell nuclei. The lifespan of the mitochondria-catalase mice was extended by more than five months - an increase of around 20%.

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Mars Telecommunications Orbiter

2005-05-07T21:52:00.000+03:00

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is expected to land a $500 million contract to build the Mars Telecommunication Orbiter, said Roger Gibbs, MTO project manager at JPL in Pasadena, California. The Mars Telecommunication Orbiter will be the first interplanetary spacecraft whose main mission is to provide communications services to other missions. It will orbit Mars at a higher altitude than most orbiters, about 2,800 miles above the Martian surface. This will provide an enhanced line of site to Earth.

The spacecraft will communicate with Earth via two radio bands and a new optical communications terminal, which will demonstrate the use of a near-infrared laser beam for interplanetary communications. Information from the spacecraft will be beamed to the 5-meter Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California. Optical communication provides the potential for transmission speeds that are orders of magnitude better than those currently available.

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Robots to help out blind shoppers

2005-05-07T21:31:00.000+03:00

Computer scientists in the US have developed a robot that could help blind people to shop or find their way around large buildings. It uses radio frequency identification tags to locate items and a laser range finder to avoid collisions.

The idea came to Prof Kulyukin after several visually impaired people told him that they had difficulty shopping independently. "The idea is that you simply come to the grocery store, grab the shopping assistant and it leads you to the different products. When you leave the store you leave it behind."

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Google Web Accelerator

2005-05-06T23:37:00.000+03:00

Google has introduced a technology designed to make Web sites load faster. A beta, or test version, of Web Accelerator was introduced via the Google Labs technology site late Wednesday. The tool, which must be downloaded, will tap into the power of Google's global computer network and thus help sites load faster, according to the company.

Web Accelerator works by sending URL requests through company servers designated specifically for speeding site downloads. The application also can compress site data before sending it to computers. The system stores copies of sites frequently accessed by individual PCs and automatically retrieves new data from those pages, so that a Web browser needs to process only updates to those sites when asked to load them. Google said the tool will not work on some pages, such as encrypted sites managed by financial services companies, and is not designed to speed downloads of multimedia files.

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Echoes of Da Vinci Code

2005-05-06T23:11:00.000+03:00

IT sounds like it could be a chapter straight from the pages of the international best-seller The Da Vinci Code. Just like Dan Brown's book, the dusty document contains long forgotten insights into the history and relationships of Jesus Christ.

Now scholars at a Welsh college believe they have unearthed their own version of the Da Vinci code with the discovery of a 400-year-old book. Entitled The Genealogy of Jesus Christ, it has spent the past 70 years locked in the dusty depths of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Peter Hogan, the warden at Llandovery College, happened on the school's lost document while trawling through archives. He said, "I was absolutely flabbergasted. There isn't anybody I know who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code, and we've found the sort of thing that would have been a major part of the plot."

A spokesman for Catholic newspaper The Tablet believed the find could be extremely significant.Philip Crispin, who writes for the national publication, said, "I think people should be excited about it because it sounds a fantastic find. Certainly if it is a genuine document, and not some sort of 19th century hoax, it is extremely interesting."

The leather-bound, hand-written book by William Spenser has nearly 600 A3-sized pages, split into two sections. One is about, "the names, people and empires recorded in the old and New Testaments". The other is titled "biographical reference of old Bible stories". It is an alphabetical way to find a seemingly endless list of religious characters.

The allegation at the centre of Dan Brown's novel is that the church has conspired for millennia to lie about the role of Mary Magdalene in Christ's life. It is an idea which Mr Hogan feels has echoes in his newly discovered tome. He said, "One name I was interested in was Mary Magdalene." The woman some believe to be the wife of Jesus Christ is a central figure in The Da Vinci Code, which claims Catholic historians have diminished her role in the early church.

Mr Hogan revealed, "The interesting thing is that about half of what's been written about her has been crossed off. It may be just a co-incidence, but there's not too many other crossings-off that I can see yet."

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Why Do Some People Have a Conscience?

2005-05-06T22:52:00.000+03:00

How are some people able to commit horrible crimes like serial killings—and actually enjoy doing this? It all comes down to the old-fashioned concept of empathy—the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. At one time, scientists didn't understand how ANYONE was able to do this. Psychologists have identified people they’ve labeled "sociopaths," who do not have a conscience and are unable to imagine how other people feel. We know these people are made, not born, usually by extensive abuse in early childhood. But how did the rest of us avoid this sad fate? The answer could be mirror neurons.

In 1996, scientists probing the part of a monkey's brain that controls movement noticed that these cells fired not only when the monkey performed a task, but also when it saw the same task performed by another monkey. Since these cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed others doing, they became known as "mirror neurons." We humans have mirror neurons as well, and their absence can lead to mental illness and autism.

Recent research shows that autism is a result of a form of heavy metal poisoning. Autistic children have a genetic defect that makes them especially vulnerable to this type of pollution, which has come to define modern life, since it is given off in auto exhausts and power plant emissions. Neurologists have long realized that autism must be a result of something relatively new in the environment, since it's not a condition that was described anywhere in the past. It could be that heavy metal poisoning disrupts the action of the mirror neurons in our brains.

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Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast (it's a devilish 616)

2005-05-06T22:22:00.000+03:00

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing.

Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. He said: "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."

The Book of Revelation is traditionally considered to be written by John, a disciple of Jesus; it identifies 666 as the mark of the Antichrist. In America, the fundamentalist Christian right often use the number in sermons about the coming Apocalypse.

They and satanists responded coolly to the new "Revelation". Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: "By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that."

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Scientists create animals that are part-human

2005-05-05T01:42:00.000+03:00

The biological co-mingling of animal and human is now evolving into exotic and unsettling mixes of species, evoking the Greek myth of the monstrous chimera, which was part lion, part goat and part serpent.

On a farm, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can’t wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus’ brain about two months ago.

Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep’s head? The “idea that human neuronal cells might participate in 'higher order' brain functions in a nonhuman animal, raises concerns that need to be considered,” the academies report warned.

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Understanding Engineers!

2005-05-04T23:33:00.000+03:00

Understanding Engineers - I
Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said,
"Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second engineer replied,
"Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."

The second engineer nodded approvingly,
"Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - II
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - III
A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.

The engineer fumed,
"What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!"

The doctor chimed in,
"I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"

The pastor said,
"Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him. Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greens keeper replied,
"Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said,
"That's so sad. I think I'll say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said,
"Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said,
"Why can't these guys play at night?"

Smart Nanocarriers to Combat Tumors

2005-05-04T21:12:00.000+03:00

Today, anticancer drugs are delivered to patients in such a way that they can destroy both infected and healthy cells. But now, researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), in Singapore, have designed 'smart' nanocarriers which deliver the drugs exactly where they are needed, reducing side effects and suppressing cancer growth. Their core-shell nanoparticles are both sensitive to temperature -- which has been done before -- and to acidic levels. When these nanocarriers encounter acidic environments such as tumor tissues, they break apart and release the molecules they contain. So far, this technology has only been tested on mice, but the researchers have filed an application patent in the U.S., so expect to see practical applications in a few years.

Read more...

The Time Traveler Convention - May 7, 2005

2005-05-04T20:48:00.000+03:00

If you're into time travel, mark your calendar for Saturday, May 7, 2005, when the first Time Traveler Convention will be held at MIT. Or if you miss it, perhaps you can wait a few years and attend anyway. That's kind of what organizer Amal Dorai is banking on. The gathering will be held at MIT's East Campus Courtyard. Dorai gave the specific coordinates for anyone needing to plug them into some futuristic machine: 42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W.

"We are doing this as a very low-risk, low-cost way to investigate the possibility of time travel. Of course the odds are against us, but imagine the scientific discovery we would have on our hands if a time traveler shows up. Of course, no time travelers doesn't rule out the possibility of time travel; they could have just decided not to come to our convention.

We have a basic party planned but we also hope to get speeches about time travel from a few MIT professors if they are interested," Dorai said. "In any case, the party is only a backup in case no time travelers come, since if they do show up they will of course be the center of attention."

And how might someone a few millennia from now find out about the event, should they wish to attend?

Dorai suggests those interested in helping "write the details down on a piece of acid-free paper, and slip them into obscure books in academic libraries," or "carve them into a clay tablet.". Anyone attending the convention from the future is advised by Dorai to bring proof, such as "a cure for AIDS or cancer, a solution for global poverty, or a cold fusion reactor."

The Time Traveler Convention - May 7, 2005 :)

Net-powered computer goes on show

2005-05-04T20:24:00.000+03:00

Soon you could be using one fewer cable to keep your computer running. UK firm DSP Design has made a PC that gets electric power via a network cable rather than through a wall socket. The net-powered PC has come out of a project to create specifications for powering almost any kind of computer hardware through Ethernet cables.

Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) works because when data is sent down network cables it is represented by voltages. Some PoE equipment uses spare wires in cables that link computers back to network hubs and pump power down these. Others pump power down the same lines as the data traffic. The current PoE specifications have an upper limit of 15.4 watts. This is enough for Voip handsets, network hubs, webcams, smart card readers and even video servers but it is far too low for most desktop PCs.

DSP Design has produced a PC, called the Poet 6000, that draws only 12 watts by replacing a monitor with a flat-panel screen and using low power components. A new spec is being developed for PoE that would be able to deliver as much as 35 watts, which should be enough to power some regular laptops out there.

Read more...

Amazonian ants ambush prey

2005-04-27T23:38:00.000+03:00

Using a home-made trap, a tiny species of ant is capable of ensnaring prey much larger than itself and tearing it to pieces.

The ants (Allomerus decemarticulatus), which live in Amazonian plants called Hirtella physophora, construct a honeycomb-like structure out of their host plant's fibres from which they can stage an ambush.

The worker ants hide in the holes of this death trap with their mouths open wide, waiting for locusts, butterflies or other insects to land. When prey arrives they quickly seize its extremities, pulling on legs, arms and antennae until the hostage is rendered immobile. Once trapped, other ants from the colony arrive to sting and bite the prey until it is paralyzed.

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Effects of Smoking May Be Passed Down through Generations

2005-04-27T20:38:00.000+03:00

The negative health effects of smoking are well documented, but new results suggest that the dangers for pregnant women may be even more far reaching than previously believed. Scientists have found that the grandchildren of women who smoked while they were pregnant may have up to double the risk of developing childhood asthma compared to grandchildren of women whose pregnancies were smoke-free.

"This is the first study to show that if a woman smokes while she is pregnant, both her children and grandchildren may be more likely to have asthma as a result, " Gilliland says. "The findings suggest that smoking could have a long-term impact on a family's health that has never before been realized."

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Antioxidan Diet Provides Protection during Stroke

2005-04-27T20:36:00.000+03:00

Antioxidant vitamins from fruits and vegetables have exhibited cholesterol-fighting properties and beneficial effects for heart function. Now a new study suggests that they could provide protection from a stroke by limiting the amount of inflicted brain damage.

"I was amazed at the extent of neuro-protection these antioxidant-rich diets provided,” Bickford remarks. “The size of the stroke was 50 to 75 percent less in rats treated with diets supplemented with blueberries, spinach or spirulina before the stroke.”

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Hoax paper fools cybernetic boffins

2005-04-27T18:24:00.000+03:00

In a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at an Orlando conference on Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics.

Jeremy Stribling, an MIT computer science student created the paper using the SCIgen, an Automatic CS Paper Generator. He said that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with "context-free grammar," charts and diagrams.

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Mind-reading machine knows what you see

2005-04-27T17:15:00.000+03:00

It is possible to read someone's mind by remotely measuring their brain activity using functional MRI scanning, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves.

So far, it has only been used to identify visual patterns a subject can see or has chosen to focus on. But the researchers speculate the approach might be extended to probe a person’s awareness, focus of attention, memory and movement intention. In the meantime, it could help doctors work out if patients apparently in a coma are actually conscious.

Scientists showed patterns of parallel lines in 1 of 8 orientations to four volunteers. By focussing on brain regions involved in visual perception they were able to recognise which orientation the subjects were observing. Each line orientation corresponded to a different pattern of brain activity, although the patterns were different in each person. What is more, when two sets of lines were superimposed and the subjects were asked to focus on one set, the researchers could work out which one they were thinking of from the brain images.

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Stink bomb gas puts mice into suspended animation

2005-04-24T14:12:00.000+03:00

Suspended animation has been induced in a species of mouse which does not naturally hibernate. The mice felt into their deep sleep after being exposed to hydrogen sulphide - the gas which gives rotten eggs and stink bombs their characteristic foul odour. The animals later revived in ordinary air, having suffered no ill effects.

Hydrogen sulphide sends cells into a state of dormancy. "You’re shutting down the cellular hunger for oxygen," delaying the cells’ oxygen-starvation and buying time for medical treatment, explains Mark Roth, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

High levels of hydrogen sulphide have killed people working in sewers and petrochemical plants. But certain low levels appeared to kill the animals, only for them to recover later. Roth notes that a similar "Lazarus effect" has been witnessed in patients pronounced dead after exposure to extreme cold.

In the future, agents which reduce metabolic rate in the same way that anaesthetics are used today could dull pain. It could also help prevent tissue damage and death in stroke or heart attack victims or help preserve transplantable organs for longer.

The breakthrough could be used to put astronauts into suspended animation on long-haul space flights.

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Portable Cancer Detector to Debut Next Year

2005-04-24T14:05:00.000+03:00

A team at Pohang University of Science and Technology in Korea has invented a portable medical kit that can detect various types of cancer and diabetes using a few drops of blood.

The "Digital Bio Disc" looks like a CD player and will allow people to check themselves for diseases without going to the doctor.

"All you need is a few drops of blood and some simple knowledge of cancer and diabetes," said Professor Yoo Jae-chun. "Just like operating a CD player, you push the button and wait for a result. But this is just for checking, not for treatment."

A disk-shaped device separates the elements in the blood and sends them to a sensor to check if they match genetic information about stomach cancer, liver cancer, intestine cancer, breast cancer, womb cancer and diabetes-related diseases. People can see the result through the screen about 40 minutes after putting in their blood.

Yoo said he is looking for ways to mass produce. The product has yet to get sanctions from the Korea Food and Drug Administration for sale next year, but the problem will be solved soon, he added.

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Artificial intelligence with common sense

2005-04-24T13:58:00.000+03:00

In the next few months, an artificial brain called Cyc will be put online for the world to interact with.

Cyc features a human trait no other AI system has managed to imitate: common sense. It should be able to recognise that in the phrase "the pen is in the box", the pen is a small writing implement, while in the sentence "the box is in the pen", the pen is a much larger corral.

Cyc relates each fact to others within the database. It knows for example, that in the sentence "each American has a president" there is only one president, whereas in the sentence "each American has a mother" there are many millions of mothers.

Cyc can also make deductions about things it has never learned about directly. It can tell whether two animals are related without having been programmed with the explicit relationship between each animal we know of.

When it will be released on the web, people will be able to contribute to its knowledge by submitting questions and correcting it if Cyc gets the answers wrong. Doug Lenat of Cycorp, the system's creator, envisages Cyc eventually being connected to webcams and other sensors monitoring environments around the globe, building its knowledge of the world more or less by itself.

At first, users will get answers to their questions only some of the time because it won't yet have the common sense to understand every question or have the knowledge to answer it. But with the critical mass looming, in three to five years users should expect to get an answer most of the time. Lenat has pledged to make access to Cyc freely available, allowing developers of other AI systems to tap into its fund of common sense to improve the performance of their own systems.

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Robot sex dolls

2005-04-24T13:52:00.000+03:00

Aircraft mechanic Michael Harriman claims to have created the world's most sophisticated robot sex doll. The sex androids have "hearts" that beat harder during sex, breathe harder and have internal heaters to raise the body temperature - but their feet stay cold "just like in real life".

The basic Andy dolls are sold for £4,000, with extra charges for adaptations like extra large breasts. The model can also be made to move by remote control, wiggling her hips under the bedclothes and making other suggestive movements. Harriman said his design was an improvement on the popular "real dolls" sold in the USA.

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AutoStitch

2005-04-24T04:53:00.000+03:00

AutoStitch is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. AutoStitch, developed at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, is truly amazing. It works very simply: you select a collection of pictures and AutoStich analyses their contents and returns you one (or several) panoramic images. AutoStitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. A must have for all digital photography lovers.

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Anti-HIV Bacterium Isolated?

2005-04-23T21:18:00.000+03:00

A harmless bacterium that binds to the HIV virus has been discovered by medical researchers. The find may lead to a cheap way to control infection. Lin Tao, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago's dentistry college, has found a strain of lactobacillus -- a common bacteria in our bodies -- that binds to the sugar envelope on the surface of HIV. The bacterium targets HIV because it uses the sugar as a food source.

Tao is taking the idea of probiotic food -- food containing beneficial bacteria -- to another level. Just as people might eat yogurt to prevent traveler's diarrhea, so Tao envisages using bacteria to prevent more serious infections. "Different bacteria have different sugar preferences," said Tao. "To block HIV, however, we needed to find bacteria that prefer the unusual sugar mannose and thus can capture it."

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Pandemic-causing 'Asian flu' accidentally released

2005-04-18T18:43:00.000+03:00

The virus that caused the 1957 "Asian flu" pandemic has been accidentally released by a lab in the US, and sent all over the world in test kits which scientists are now scrambling to destroy.

There are fears the virus could escape the labs, as the mistake was discovered after the virus escaped from a kit at a high-containment lab in Canada. Such an escape could spread worldwide, as demonstrated in Russia in the 1970s.

The flu testing kits were sent to some 3700 labs between October 2004 and February 2005 by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), a professional body which helps pathology laboratories improve their accuracy, by sending them unidentified samples of various germs to identify.

The CAP kits - prepared by private contractor Meridian Bioscience in Cincinnati, US - were to contain a particular strain of influenza A - the viral family that causes most flu worldwide. But instead of choosing a strain from the hundreds of recently circulating influenza A viruses, the firm chose the 1957 pandemic strain.

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World's fastest transistor

2005-04-18T18:30:00.000+03:00

The world's fastest transistor has been developed by a pair of US researchers, possibly paving the way for a new generation of super-charged electronic chips. Milton Feng and Walid Hafez at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, developed the record-breaking transistor by carefully blending different semiconducting materials within individual layers of the microscopic device. The prototype bipolar junction transistor has a maximum operating speed of 604 GHz, meaning it can carry out 604 billion operations per second.

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Bionic suit offers wearers super-strength

2005-04-18T18:27:00.000+03:00

A ROBOT suit has been developed that could help older people or those with disabilities to walk or lift heavy objects. University of Tsukuba researchers have developed a motor-driven metal exoskeleton dubbed HAL, or hybrid assistive limb, that you strap onto your legs to power-assist leg movements. The most fully developed prototype, HAL 3, is a motor-driven metal "exoskeleton" that you strap onto your legs to power-assist leg movements. A backpack holds a computer with a wireless network connection, and the batteries are on a belt.

Two control systems interact to help the wearer stand, walk and climb stairs. A "bio-cybernic" system uses bioelectric sensors attached to the skin on the legs to monitor signals transmitted from the brain to the muscles. HAL 3 weighs 22 kilograms, but the help it gives the user is more than enough to compensate for this. "It's like riding on a robot, rather than wearing one," says Sankai. He adds that HAL 4 will weigh 17 kilograms, and he hopes HAL 5 may be lighter still.

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The 25-Year Wait for Immortality

2005-04-18T18:21:00.000+03:00

"I think it's reasonable to suppose that one could oscillate between being biologically 20 and biologically 25 indefinitely," says Cambridge University researcher Aubrey de Grey.Time may indeed be on your side. If you can just last another quarter century.

By then, people will start lives that could last 1,000 years or more. Our human genomes will be modified to include the genetic material of microorganisms that live in the soil, enabling us to break down the junk proteins that our cells amass over time and which they can’t digest on their own. People will have the option of looking and feeling the way they did at 20 for the rest of their lives, or opt for an older look if they get bored. Of course, everyone will be required to go in for age rejuvenation therapy once every decade or so, but that will be a small price to pay for near-immortality.

This may sound like science fiction, but Aubrey de Grey thinks this could be our reality in as little as 25 years. Other scientists caution that it is far from clear whether and for how long science can stall the inevitable. De Grey, a Cambridge University researcher, heads the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) project, in which he has defined seven causes of aging, all of which he thinks can be dealt with. (Senescence is scientific jargon for aging.)

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British banks to provide extra Web security

2005-04-17T14:36:00.000+03:00

Major British banks are set to agree on a physical security device for all U.K. online customers to use. This move to two-factor authentication could make customers more secure when banking online. Such systems use a physical security device that generates a password to be used only once. Precise details of the two-factor device should be agreed upon in May, with the banks expected to roll out devices within nine to 12 months.

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MIT makes plastic that changes shape in light

2005-04-17T14:32:00.000+03:00

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a polymer that will change shape and return to its original form when hit with a blast of ultraviolet light. The material could one day lead to medical devices that build themselves inside a patient's body, or door latches that can be opened with a flashlight.

"This is really a new family of materials that can change from one shape to another by having light shined on them," MIT professor Robert Langer, one of the inventors, said in a statement. The shape-changing ability is accomplished by attaching photosensitive molecules to a polymer. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the photosensitive particles become active and link to one another, changing the shape of the plastic. Exposing it to light of a slightly different frequency reverses the first reaction, allowing the plastic to return to its original shape.

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Waking Up to Sleep Paralysis

2005-04-16T10:11:00.000+03:00

When it comes to "alien abduction" claims and any number of other sleep-related "paranormal" encounters--whether with ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or whatever else-- skeptics have long suspected the existence of a simple, overarching explanation. And now a string of papers by scientists at Harvard University, the latest of which was published by Transcultural Psychiatry in March, bolster the notion that such stories can be traced back to the common experience known as sleep paralysis, and the hallucinations that sometimes accompany it.

Sleep paralysis occurs in 30% of the general population. In it you wake up in bed, feel paralyzed, and tend to sense a terrifying presence in your room. Sometimes you see something; sometimes you hear noises or even feel electrical shocks throughout your body. People see ghosts, vampires--whatever they have in their minds or are particularly afraid of. Deceased relatives and loved ones are particularly good candidates for showing up during bouts of sleep paralysis.

What's really happening here, according to Harvard psychologists Richard McNally and Susan Clancy, is nothing out of the ordinary. Rather, REM sleep--the phase of sleep in which most dreaming occurs--is simply malfunctioning. Our bodies are paralyzed while we undergo REM sleep, and for good reason (lest we act out our dreams and injure ourselves). But in some small number of cases we can actually start to wake up before paralysis wears off, and yet still remain in a dreaming state. What results is hallucination, often of some extremely scary stuff. It appears that humans have always experienced sleep paralysis and sought to explain it, resulting in well known stories of incubi and succubi--demons thought to sexually attack people in their sleep--as well as related tales from other eras and cultures.

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Sony patents a brain manipulation technology

2005-04-14T23:33:00.000+03:00

Sony recently got a patent on using ultrasonic waves to beam sensory perceptions, like sights, sounds, and smells, directly into the brain. In a sense, Sony's patent is an improvement on The Matrix because Sony's method is non-invasive and doesn't require you to "jack in."

The technique could one day be used to create videogames in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf. The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images. "The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."

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Stem Cells From Hair Can Change into Neurons

2005-04-12T13:59:00.000+03:00

Much of the controversy surrounding research on stem cells hinges on the source of the cells--particularly whether they come from embryonic sources or adult ones. Now research published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides new insight into the abilities of stem cells taken from hair follicles. The results indicate that these adult stem cells can develop into neurons.

Inside a hair follicle is a small bulge that houses stem cells. As hair follicles cycle through growth and rest periods, these stem cells periodically differentiate into new follicle cells. Yasuyuki Amoh of AntiCancer, Inc. and his colleagues isolated stem cells from the whiskers of mice and tested their ability to become more sophisticated cell types. The researchers cultured the cells and after one week discovered that they had changed into neurons and two other cell types--known as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes--that are associated with neurons. According to the report, when left for longer periods lasting weeks or months, the stem cells could differentiate into a variety of cell types, including skin and muscle cells.

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Cure for cancers 'in five years'

2005-04-11T02:17:00.000+03:00

Scientists in Manchester say a cure for all types of cancer could be available on the NHS within five years. The world's first patient trials in a technique which genetically engineers cells will take place at the city's Christie Hospital later this year. The treatment - gene-modified t-cell therapy - could replace more intrusive treatments like chemotherapy. The cells are fitted with a "tracker" device to kill cancer cells before being injected back into the patient. Professor Robert Hawkins, clinical director of Medical oncology at the hospital, says the initial results of lab tests have been "spectacular".

The new system makes the body naturally seek out and kill tumours by boosting the infection-fighting t-cells. The body does not naturally have enough of these cells to combat huge tumours, and cancer cells often develop protective mechanisms to avoid them being recognised by the body as a disease. Doctors will take blood samples from cancer patients to extract t-cells. They then genetically modify the t-cells, attaching an antibody which works like a tracking device to enable the t-cells to zone in on cancer tumours. The t-cells are then multiplied a thousand-fold over a two-week period and injected back into the patient's body.

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