Posted in bioengineering, space | Leave a Comment on Russia Plans Mission to Land a Rocket on Jupiter’s Ganymede, Only Moon with its Own Magnetic Field –“100-Kilometer-Deep Ocean a Hotspot for Life”
In a video uploaded to YouTube on August 3rd (below), engineers from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, proposed an orbiter and lander mission to Ganymede. The video suggests a launch could come in the next decade. Although the commentary is in Russian, the video appears to suggest that Ganymede may be as good a candidate or better for life than Europa.
Singularity University Global Summit is the culmination of the Exponential Conference Series and the definitive place to witness converging exponential technologies and understand how they’ll impact the world.
How many cyborgs did you see during your morning commute today? I would guess at least five. Did they make you nervous? Probably not; you likely didn’t even realize they were there.
In a presentation titled “Biohacking and the Connected Body” at Singularity University Global Summit, Hannes Sjoblad informed the audience that we’re already living in the age of cyborgs. Sjoblad is co-founder of the Sweden-based biohacker network Bionyfiken, a chartered non-profit that unites DIY-biologists, hackers, makers, body modification artists and health and performance devotees to explore human-machine integration.
Luv this article because it hits a very important topic of how will things change with BMI/ mind control technology in general. For example with BMI will we need wearable devices? if so, what type and why? Also, how will banking, healthcare, businesses, hospitality, transportation, media and entertainment, communications, government, etc. in general will change with BMI and AI together? And, don’t forget cell circuitry, and DNA storage and processing capabilities that have been proven to date and advancing.
When you take into account what we are doing with synthetic biology, BMI, AI, and QC; we are definitely going to see some very amazing things just within the next 10 years alone.
Neuroscientists have just demonstrated that we can control drones with our minds. Find out how this shapes the future of digital marketing.
Excellent opportunity.
Dolomite microfluidic chips are helping researchers from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University (ASU) to develop novel enzymes capable of polymerising synthetic nucleotides.
Using these chips, the team has created a droplet-based optical polymerase sorting (DrOPS) technique allowing rapid screening for novel polymerase activities in uniform water-in-oil microcompartments. The team’s leader, Professor John C. Chaput – formerly at ASU and currently at the University of California, Irvine – explained: “The creation of synthetic nucleic acids is of great interest to synthetic biologists but, because they are not found in nature, wild type polymerases struggle to process them. To overcome this issue, we are developing novel polymerases using directed evolution in water-in-oil microcompartments. The DrOPS methodology has significant advantages over traditional methods, which are both labour intensive and impractical to perform on a large scale due to the amount of precious artificial nucleotide reagents required for screening.”
The Biodesign Institute turned to microfluidics to allow rapid sorting and screening of novel polymerases, taking advantage of the technique’s single-cell encapsulation capabilities and picolitre reaction volumes. Dr Andrew Larsen commented: “We needed very reproducible microfluidics, and so using commercially available chips was preferable. We already had experience with Dolomite’s chips for a variety of applications within the institute, and they have always been very consistent, so the choice was obvious. These chips give us the ability to consistently generate uniform droplets – both single and double emulsion droplets – offering spatial separation between cells and allowing fluorescence-based sorting using conventional FACS technologies. Dolomite has also been very supportive of our efforts, helping to accelerate this area of research.”
It’s an add-on for CRISPR.
Researchers have created a new genome editing technique called Target-AID, which induces point mutations instead of cutting DNA
Gene editing technology has fantastic potential, but there are remaining issues and questions over safety and specificity. The major contender is currently CRISPR-Cas9, but this induces a double stranded break in DNA which is a slightly riskier approach — particularly if it cuts in other locations too that you don’t want it to. Research teams across the world are both optimising and customising the CRISPR system; creating more accurate versions or versions that regulate gene expression as opposed to editing it. One such team has now built an add-on to CRISPR, Target-AID.
From selective breeding to genetic modification, our understanding of biology is now merging with the principles of engineering to bring us synthetic biology.
Written, animated and directed by James Hutson, Bridge8.
Transcript can be found here:
http://technyou.edu.au/fun-stuff/videos/video-transcripts/
BrainGate technology is no longer the stuff of science fiction. The science of interfacing human brains and other biological neurons with computers has been developing for well over a decade and now, the progress is amazing. While the human mind is an amazing organ, that surpasses any computer ever made. Many fantasize about improving on natural skills and abilities using technology in the form of some sort of brain implant. That dream is about to become a reality. In some ways, it already has according to the BrainGate website.
“BrainGate Company’s current and planned intellectual property (the technology) is based on technology that can sense, transmit, analyze and apply the language of neurons. BrainGate consists of a sensor that is implanted on the motor cortex of the brain and a device that analyzes brain signals.”
Cyborg and biohacking research history started in 1998 with Dr. Kevin Warwick and what he called Project Cyborg according to Digital Trends. Warwick began by implanting a simple radio-frequency identification chip or RFID in his own shoulder. He planned to use this chip to adjust lighting in his office and opening doors locked to others. The experiment was successful, and so Warwick went a bit further, experimenting on himself yet again. In 2002, Warwick had a surgeon implant a BrainGate technology device.
“Liquid Metals to “Soft-Wire” Elastic Electronics”
A few years ago, some friends shared with me an amazing experiment of theirs involving liquid/ fluid base circuitry. Definitely is amazing; and is going to be amazing in where we are taking this type of technology along with synthetic biology.
The shape-shifting metals behind the T-1000 android assassin in the sci-fi movie Terminator 2 may not remain science fiction for long with the development of self-propelling liquid metals that could lead to the replacement of solid state circuits by elastic electronics.
Modern electronics are mainly based on circuits that use solid state components with fixed metallic tracks. However, researchers are trying to create soft circuits that act more like live cells, moving around autonomously and communicating with each other to form new circuits rather than being stuck in a predefined configuration.
Liquid metal droplets have offered the most promising path for achieving this as they are malleable, contain a highly-conductive core and an atom-thin semiconducting oxide skin, all of which are needed to make electronic circuits.
