Category Archives: Transhuman News

In Brief Scientists from the University of Washington have constructed digital logic gates in living cells. Though they're not the first to do so, the researchers' living circuitry is the largest and most complex of any created thus far. Living Circuits

Thanks to projects like Elon Musks Neuralink, a future in which humankind merges with machinesis on everyones minds. While a brain computer interface (BCI) like the one Musk is proposing would involve making acomputer function as part ofa human body, other researchers are taking an opposite route. Instead of making machines that can imitate biology, theyre looking for ways to make biological systems function more like computers.

One such project is the topic of a study by researchers from the University of Washington (UW)that was justpublished inNature Communications. They have developed a new method of turning cells into computers that process information digitally instead of following their usual macromolecular processes. They did so by building cellular versions of logic gates commonly found in electric circuits.

The team built theirNOR gates, digital logic gates that pass a positive signal only when their two inputs are negative, in the DNA of yeast cells. Each of these cellular NOR gates was made up of three programmable DNA stretches, with two acting as inputs and one as an output. These specific DNA sequences were targeted using CRISPR-Cas9, with the Cas9 proteins serving as the molecular gatekeeper that determined if a certain gate shouldbe active or not.

This UW study isnt the first to buildcircuits in cells, but it is the most extensive one to date, with seven cellular NOR gates in a single eukaryotic cell. This added complexity puts us one step closer to transforming cells into biological computers witha number of potential medical applications.

While implementing simple programs in cells will never rival the speed or accuracy of computation in silicon, genetic programs can interact with the cells environment directly, senior author Eric Klavins explained in a press release. For example, reprogrammed cells in a patient could make targeted, therapeutic decisions in the most relevant tissues, obviating the need for complex diagnostics and broad spectrum approaches to treatment.

If given the ability to hackour biology in this way, we could potentially engineer immune cells to respond to cancer markers or cellular biosensors to diagnose infectious diseases. Essentially, wed have an effectiveway to fight diseases on the cellular level, ushering in a new era in human evolution.

The rest is here:
Scientists Are Using CRISPR To Program Living Cells - Futurism

Blockchain And Driverless Cars

At Consensus 2017 on Monday, Toyota announced a plan to useblockchain to amass driving data that will help themdevelopment driverless cars. The move could also decrease insurance costs for drivers, as well as pave the way for new carpooling solutions.Chris Ballinger, chief officer of Strategic Innovation at Toyota, said in a statement from the company:

Hundreds of billions of miles of human driving data may be needed to develop safe and reliable autonomous vehiclesBlockchains and distributed ledgers may enable pooling data from vehicle owners, fleet managers, and manufacturers to shorten the time for reaching this goal, thereby bringing forward the safety, efficiency, and convenience benefits of autonomous driving technology.

Customers willhave access to their own data, Toyota confirmed. If the information derived from sensors in a car is stored in a blockchain, customers will be able to give their insurance companies increased transparency to reduce fraud, plus granting them access to driving data to measure safe driving habits, Toyota wrote in the statement.Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, said in the statement that she was excited Toyota is spearheading this initiative that uses blockchain technology to create an open platform where users can control their driving data.

Toyotas use of blockchain shows that the system can extend far beyond the financial and cryptocurrency. It has the potential to be applied and revolutionize almost any sector. Its significance lies in its security, speed, and lack of middlemen or bureaucracy.

Simon Taylor, a former executive of Barclays who helped lead the banks blockchain efforts, said in a U.K. Government Office for Science video that if the internet bought us near instant digital communications, then the blockchain brings us near instant asset transfer, asset movement, and security of data movement.

Blockchain has already been used effectively in a number of areas: The U.N. is using Ethereum (one of the biggest blockchains) to ensure money reaches the people it was intended to, and they estimate they will help 500,000 by 2018; Imogen Heap is applying it to the music industry to try and ensure artists get paid fairly; and Walmart isusing it to track down contaminated food sources.Blockchains applications continue to expand, with some saying it evenpotentially has the power to change the very nature of the internet.

Read the original post:
Toyota Is Using Blockchain to Get Its Self-Driving Cars on the Roads Sooner - Futurism

Spooky Action

Perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting phenomena in quantum physics is what Einstein referred to as a spooky action at a distance also known as quantum entanglement. This quantum effect is behind what makes quantum computers work, as quantum bits (qubits) generally rely on entanglement to process data and information. Its also the working theory behind the possibility of quantum teleportation.

The long and short of it is this: entangled particles affect one another regardless of distance, where a measurement of the state of one would instantly influence the state of the other. However, it remains spooky because despite following the laws of quantum physics entanglement seems to reveal some deeper theory thats yet to be discovered. A number of physicists have been working on determining this deeper theory, butso far nothing definitive has come out.

As for entanglement itself, a very famous test was developed by physicist John Bell in 1964 to determine whether particles do, in fact, influence one another in this way. Simply put, the Bell testinvolves a pair of entangled particles: one is sent towards location A and the other to location B. At each of these points, a device measures the state of the particles. The settings in the measuring devices are set at random, so that its impossible for A to know the setting of B (and vice versa) at the time of measurement. Historically, the Bell test has supported the spooky theory.

Now, Lucien Hardy, a theoretical physicist from the Perimeter Institute in Canada, is suggesting that the measurements between A and B could be controlled by something that may potentially be separate from the material world: the human mind. His idea is derived from what French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes called the mind-matter duality, [where] the mind is outside of regular physics and intervenes on the physical world, asHardy explained.

To do this, Hardy proposed a version of the Bell test involving 100 humans, each hooked up to EEG headsets that would read their brain activity. These devices would be used to switch the settings on the measuring devices for A and B, set at 100 kilometers apart. The radical possibility we wish to investigate is that, when humans are used to decide the settings (rather than various types of random number generators), we might then expect to see a violation of Quantum Theory in agreement with the relevant Bell inequality, Hardywrote in a paper published online earlier this month.

If the correlation between the measurements dont match previous Bell tests, then there could be a violation of quantum theory that suggests A and B are being controlled by factors outside the realm of standard physics. [If] you only saw a violation of quantum theory when you had systems that might be regarded as conscious, humans or other animals, that would certainly be exciting. I cant imagine a more striking experimental result in physics than that, Hardy said. Wed want to debate as to what that meant.

What it could mean is this: that the human mind (consciousness) isnt made up of the same matter governed by physics. Furthermore, it could suggest that the mind is capable of overcoming physics with free will. This could potentially be the first time scientists gain a firm grasp on the problem of consciousness. It wouldnt settle the question, but it would certainly have a strong bearing on the issue of free will, said Hardy.

See more here:
Scientists Have an Experiment to See If the Human Mind Is Bound to the Physical World - Futurism

Spooky Action

Perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting phenomena in quantum physics is what Einstein referred to as a spooky action at a distance also known as quantum entanglement. This quantum effect is behind what makes quantum computers work, as quantum bits (qubits) generally rely on entanglement to process data and information. Its also the working theory behind the possibility of quantum teleportation.

The long and short of it is this: entangled particles affect one another regardless of distance, where a measurement of the state of one would instantly influence the state of the other. However, it remains spooky because despite following the laws of quantum physics entanglement seems to reveal some deeper theory thats yet to be discovered. A number of physicists have been working on determining this deeper theory, butso far nothing definitive has come out.

As for entanglement itself, a very famous test was developed by physicist John Bell in 1964 to determine whether particles do, in fact, influence one another in this way. Simply put, the Bell testinvolves a pair of entangled particles: one is sent towards location A and the other to location B. At each of these points, a device measures the state of the particles. The settings in the measuring devices are set at random, so that its impossible for A to know the setting of B (and vice versa) at the time of measurement. Historically, the Bell test has supported the spooky theory.

Now, Lucien Hardy, a theoretical physicist from the Perimeter Institute in Canada, is suggesting that the measurements between A and B could be controlled by something that may potentially be separate from the material world: the human mind. His idea is derived from what French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes called the mind-matter duality, [where] the mind is outside of regular physics and intervenes on the physical world, asHardy explained.

To do this, Hardy proposed a version of the Bell test involving 100 humans, each hooked up to EEG headsets that would read their brain activity. These devices would be used to switch the settings on the measuring devices for A and B, set at 100 kilometers apart. The radical possibility we wish to investigate is that, when humans are used to decide the settings (rather than various types of random number generators), we might then expect to see a violation of Quantum Theory in agreement with the relevant Bell inequality, Hardywrote in a paper published online earlier this month.

If the correlation between the measurements dont match previous Bell tests, then there could be a violation of quantum theory that suggests A and B are being controlled by factors outside the realm of standard physics. [If] you only saw a violation of quantum theory when you had systems that might be regarded as conscious, humans or other animals, that would certainly be exciting. I cant imagine a more striking experimental result in physics than that, Hardy said. Wed want to debate as to what that meant.

What it could mean is this: that the human mind (consciousness) isnt made up of the same matter governed by physics. Furthermore, it could suggest that the mind is capable of overcoming physics with free will. This could potentially be the first time scientists gain a firm grasp on the problem of consciousness. It wouldnt settle the question, but it would certainly have a strong bearing on the issue of free will, said Hardy.

See more here:
Scientists Have an Experiment to See If the Human Mind Is Bound to ... - Futurism