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Category: military

Is it possible to kill bacteria with bacteria?

This is the unorthodox question posed by a team of researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—a research and development organization within the U.S. Department of Defense—that is exploring whether an unusual type of bacteria that eats other bacteria could be a new weapon in the fight against drug-resistant infections.

Known as the Pathogen Predator program, the DARPA initiative (led by Dr. Barry Pallotta) is part of a growing effort to seek new and innovative ways to defeat drug-resistant superbugs, which are rapidly evolving to beat even our most powerful antibiotics.

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Has anyone besides NSA, NIST, DARPA, IARPA, etc. realize and thought about what type of cyber warfare will exist in a QC world? The skillsets alone will be so far advance than the techies that we have seen in most companies today as well as in most government agencies. Granted we’re simplifying things with the platform; however, skillsets will still need to be more advance than what we have seen with the standard techie.

Members of the cryptography community have expressed interest in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) recent call for an algorithm less susceptible to hacks from a computer that does not exist yet.

NIST announced a call for proposals for post-quantum cryptography standardization on Dec. 20. One or more of the proposed algorithms will ultimately replace some of NIST’s cryptographic standards that are most vulnerable to quantum computers. According to Dustin Moody, a mathematician at NIST, 40 people have joined the agency’s online cryptography forum since the call was announced two weeks ago. The forum had about 200 members before the call went out. Moody said that many people were anticipating the announcement, as cryptography enthusiasts tend to run in the same circles.

“Most people who are interested in the field already knew about it,” Moody said. “The call wasn’t a surprise.”

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The non-nuclear weapons states must resist that pressure, and continue their historic efforts to protect humanity from the grave threat posed by nuclear weapons. And the citizens of nuclear weapons states must hold their governments accountable for their unconscionable refusal to meet their treaty obligations and negotiate the elimination of these weapons, which are the greatest threat to the security of all peoples throughout the world.

The United Nations has the opportunity to take a major step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. It is an opportunity that must not be lost.

More than four decades ago, the nations with nuclear arsenals and the world’s non-nuclear states entered into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); the nuclear states — the US, Russia, UK, France and China — pledged that if the states that did not have nuclear weapons agreed not to develop them, they would enter into good-faith negotiations toward the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. During the ensuing years, the three nations that did not sign the NPT — namely India, Pakistan, and Israel — developed nuclear weapons. All of the non-nuclear weapons states that signed the treaty except North Korea have kept their pledge.

Unfortunately, the nuclear powers have not kept their part of the bargain. While the US and Russia have dismantled many of their nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War, they retain thousands of them, enough to destroy the world many times over.

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In Brief DARPA has created self-steering bullets which use a real-time optical guidance system to hit both moving and accelerating targets with high accuracy.

You may have seen the movie Wanted. Sure, the movie was almost unrecognizable from the Mark Millar comic book series it was very loosely based on. But that didn’t stop anyone from pretending to be a bullet-curving, badass, supervillain-with-a-heart sniper like Angelina Jolie after seeing it.

But the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) new self-steering bullet is about to change the pretend part into reality.

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After 15 years of development, an Israeli tech firm is optimistic it will finally get its 1,500 kilogramme (1.5 tonne) passenger carrying drone off the ground and into the market by 2020.

The Cormorant, billed as a flying car, is capable of transporting 500 kilogrammes (around half a tonne) of weight and travelling at 185 kilometres per hour. It completed its first automated solo flight over terrain in November. Its total price is estimated at $14 million.

Developers Urban Aeronautics believe the dark green drone, which uses internal rotors rather than helicopter propellers, could evacuate people from hostile environments and/or allow military forces safe access.

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New version of this out: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/01/02/americas-refusal-embrace-gene-editing-start-next-cold-war/ #transhumanism #biohacking

Unlike other epic scientific advances…the immediate effect of genetic editing technology is not dangerous. Yet, it stands to be just as divisive to humans as the 70-year proliferation of nuclear weaponry.

The playing field of geopolitics is pretty simple: If China or another country vows to increase its children’s intelligence via genetic editing, and America chooses to remain “au naturel” because they insist that’s how God made them, a conflict species-deep will quickly arise.

This type of idea takes racism and immigration to a whole new level. Will America close off its borders, its jobs, its schools, and its general openness to the world to stay pure, old-fashioned human?

In short, will genetic editing start a new cold war? One that bears much finger pointing and verbal reprimands, including the use of derogatory terms like mutants, cyborgs, and transhumanists.

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The age of widespread autonomous flight came another step closer as DARPA announced its Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) has completed Phase 2 of its development program. The drop-in, removable kit designed to convert conventional aircraft into advanced automated vehicles requiring fewer crew was installed in two different Cessna 208 Caravan fixed-wing aircraft, a Diamond DA-42 fixed-wing aircraft, and a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter.

According to DARPA, the ALIAS-equipped aircraft successfully completed flight demonstrations as well as responding to simulated flight emergencies while on the ground that included systems failures that could cause pilots to deviate from normal procedures. In both cases, the agency says that ALIAS worked without adversely affecting airworthiness.

ALIAS is intended as a way of automating various military aircraft without making bespoke modifications to each individual plane design. The idea is to develop a kit that can be installed in the cabin of an aircraft, where it can take control and fly missions from takeoff to landing as well as handling emergencies based on existing vehicle information, procedures, and flight mechanics.

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The newest version of the J-31, now renamed the FC-31 Gyrfalcon, took to the air for the first time on Friday, the China Daily reported.

The FC-31 first came under the spotlight in 2012 when the first prototype managed to stay airborne for as long as 11 minutes during a test.

Previously known as the J-31, the twin engine, radar evading aircraft is still under development by Shenyang Aircraft Corp, part of the Aviation Industry Corp of China.

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By 2018, China plans to land on the dark side of the moon; within 3 years Mars. Last year, we learned that China has interests in mining raw materials from the Moon particularly from the dark side of the moon. Also, researchers have discovered some very resilient raw materials for things such as concrete on Mars. SO, could we see in the next 5 years mining by China on Mars?

“To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is a dream we pursue unremittingly,” read a white paper setting out the country’s space strategy for the next five years. It says China aims to use space for peaceful purposes and to guarantee national security, and to carry out cutting-edge scientific research.

The white paper, released by the information office of China’s Cabinet, points to the growing ambitions of China’s already rapidly advancing space program. China places great emphasis on the development of its space industry, seen as a symbol of national prestige that will raise the country’s standing in the world. Although the white paper doesn’t mention it, China’s eventual goal is to land an astronaut on the moon.

While Russia and the United States have more experience in manned space travel, China’s military-backed program has made steady progress in a comparatively short time.

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