Category Archives: Transhuman News

Scientists are worried that spending prolonged periods of time in the microgravity of space could have negative effects on the spines of astronauts.

Without the continuous downward pressure from gravity, the living tissues of bones can lose density over time, as has been shown in previous research.

Spinal health is integral to postural control and facilitating the core trunk movements required for all activities on mission, explained Ashley Weaver, a biomedical engineer at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, in a NASA statement. So, its crucial that we understand how these muscle changes are influenced by long-duration exposure to microgravity.

By looking at how muscle and bone mass change after spending some time in space using magnetic resonance imaging, Weaver and her team are trying to figure out how one affects the other.

In 2016, a different team of researchers found that the muscles supporting the astronauts spines were weakening, causing some to experience back pain.

Without the downward pressure, spines also tend to lengthen, sometimes leading to unusual results.

Ive only been in space for three weeks and havent grown like this since middle school, Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai tweeted back in 2018, as translated by Newsweek, noting that he grew an astonishing nine centimeters in just three weeks.

Im a little worried if my body will fit in the Soyuz seat on my way home, Kanai added.

Most recently, Weaver and her team havecollected scans from nine astronauts who each spent more than half a year aboard the International Space Station.

Now that all scanning is complete, we re looking forward to learning what bone and muscle changes occur during space missions and how these relate to injury risk, Weaver said.

Fortunately, astronauts arent completely hopeless. Scientists are coming up with specific exercises to slow down the loss of bone and muscle tissues and have seen varying degrees of success but exercise wont be able to entirely slow down bone and muscle loss by itself.

Keeping astronauts and their spines healthy will only become more relevant as humans spend more and more time in space, completing journeys to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

READ MORE: Astronauts Spines Under Scrutiny [NASA]

More on bone loss: Researchers Built a Gravity Suit to Keep Astronauts Healthy

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NASA Concerned That Space Is Destroying Astronauts' Spines - Futurism

The Pentagon is currently making a big show of taking unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) seriously after a string of first-hand accounts emerged from Navy pilots.

The crux of the saga is that since at least as early as 2004, militarypersonnel have made several sightings of unfamiliar objects that acted in seemingly inexplicable ways.

Its hotly debated whether the encounters were with unknown foreign drones or aircraft, optical illusions, or something far stranger. Some officials, though, are convinced that the sightings have profound technological and security implications.

In a recent televised interview with CNN, retired US Navy Chief Master-at-Arms Sean Cahill expanded on a strange sighting he made in 2004, when he and one other fellow pilot saw a mysterious Tic Tac-shaped object that seemed to defy the laws of physics.

In 2004, I was the chief master at arms on board the USS Prince, Cahill told CNNs Chris Cuomo. The technology we witnessed with the Tic Tac was something that we would not have been able to defend our forces against at the time.

The bizarre unidentified object seemed out of this world.

Its a technology that outstrips our arsenal by at least 100 to 1,000 years at the moment, Cahill said.

It was like nothing the pilots had ever seen before.

First of all, the aircraft had zero control surfaces, Cahill explained. It had no means of propulsion we could detect. It moved at hypersonic velocities and it preceded the pilots to their CAP [combat air patrol rendezvous] point. It seemed to have some knowledge of where the pilots were headed ahead of time. We dont possess those abilities, to do that in our arsenal at the moment.

The news comes after former Navy lieutenant Ryan Graves told CBS on Friday that he encountered unusual objects flying above restricted airspace over Virginia Beach every day for almost two years.

Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, who served under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, told Cuomo in the CNN interview that the US should be concerned about the sightings.

Because we have recurring violations of US airspace by unidentified vehicles, he told Cuomo. They are very capable and in some cases more capable than anything in our own inventory.

Its a larger trend that will culminate in a report later this year by the Pentagons Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, a program set up to standardize collection and reporting on the strange sightings.

This has been going on for years, Mellon told CNN. The truth is just emerging. We had a massive intelligence failure, and we have an unknown threat that we need to figure out.

READ MORE: Retired US Navy Chief explains tech witnessed in UFO aircraft sighting [CNN]

More on UFOs: Former Navy Pilot Says Team Saw Unidentified Objects Every Day For Years

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Former US Military Official: Unidentified Objects "a Hundred to a Thousand Years" Ahead of Our Tech - Futurism

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests there may be a link between social media use and depression, NPR reports, with depression and suicide rates rising among teens for over a decade and some experts believe Facebook in particular is attempting to obfuscate any correlation between poor mental health outcomes and social media use.

Its a pertinent topic, since Facebook is trying to bring its products to a younger and younger demographic. Just last week, a group of 40 state attorneys general urged CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ditch plans to create a version of Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) aimed at under 13-year-olds, according to NBC.

Zuckerberg, however, called the research into question during a March congressional hearing that also included Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

I dont think that the research is conclusive on that, he told representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) during the hearing, after she asked him to acknowledge the connection between childrens worsening mental health and social media use.

Researchers disagree with Zuckerbergs assessment.

The correlational evidence showing that there is a link between social media use and depression is pretty definitive at this point, Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge told NPR.

The largest and most well-conducted studies that we have all show that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy, he added.

Still, the evidence is far from conclusive. Objective data is hard to come by,and funding is sparse.

And thats frustrating lawmakers.

You enjoy an outdated liability shield that incentivizes you to look the other way or take half-measures while you make billions at the expense of our kids, our health and the truth, representative Kathy Castor (D-FL) said during the hearing, as quoted by NPR.

During the same hearing, Zuckerberg revealed that his company is internally researching the mental health effects of social media on children but isnt willing to share its findings.

I believe that they have done the research, McMorris Rodgers, who attended the March hearing and grilled Zuckerberg on the topic,told NPR. Theyre not being transparent.

McMorris Rodgersis of the belief that Facebook is far more worried about its bottom line and that includes its motivation to sell advertisements based on engagement.

The companys profits are directly linked to how many people are engaged and how much they are engaged. And that often comes at the cost of not being aware of the mental health of its users.

Basically all of the things that would contribute to these platforms being healthier for people to use, which is basically spend less time, dont follow strangers, dont spend time passively scrolling through this random feed thats being suggested to you, University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Melissa Hunt told NPR. That completely undermines their whole business model.

As of late, academics who were first contacted by Facebook have heard little about the companys efforts to study the effects of its platforms on mental health.

Were collectively spending far more time on social media than ever before, and the COVID-19 pandemic hasnt helped.

It should be up to Facebook the company thats directly profiting to lead the charge into investigating those effects transparently.

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Scientists Say There's a Clear Link Between Facebook and Depression - Futurism

Until recently, blockchains were seen as an unhackable technology powering and securing cryptocurrencies but thats no longer the case.

Hackers have gotten away with nearly $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2017 by attacking the unique vulnerabilities of blockchains, MIT Technology Review reports. In other words, forget what you heard from Bitcoin boosters just because information or currency is on a blockchain doesnt necessarily mean that its more secure than any other form of storage.

In one recent attack, a hacker was able to gain control over Ethereum Classics networkand rewrite transaction history. As a result, the attacker was able to double spend cryptocurrencies, getting away with some $1.1 million.

In fact, the same qualities that make blockchain technology so secure may also be the source of several unique vulnerabilities a stark reminder that despite the hype, cryptocurrencies cant entirely sidestep the vulnerabilities of any other banking systems.

Until the Ethereum Classic incident, hackers were generally aiming their sights at exchanges, the places where people trade and hold cryptocurrencies.

By gaining the majority over the digital currencys computing power, the hacker was able to defraud other users by sending them payments and then rewriting the existing blockchain ledger to cover their tracks, as MIT Tech explains. This new ledger then exists as the authoritative one, a scheme known as a 51 percent attack.

While its an exceedingly expensive stunt to pull off when it comes to popular cryptocurrencies, smaller currencies are cheaper to take over. And we should expect far more 51 percent attacks in the near future.

Most cryptocurrency hacks are still phishing and malware attacks, which take advantage of gullible targets by tricking them into handing over their credentials.

Hackers have also been known to steal the keys to cryptocurrency wallets, the place where somebodys balance is stored in the blockchain.

Phishing, malware, and key theft target the exchanges and not the blockchain itself, as is the case in 51 percent attacks.

In response to this nefarious activity, more and more startups are popping up to claim they can make blockchains more secure and hack-proof. For instance, AnChain.ai is using artificial intelligence to keep track of any suspicious transactions on a given ledger to detect malicious bot activity.

But as blockchain technologies become more complex, hackers are also growing increasingly wise to their unique vulnerabilities, getting away with billions.

READ MORE: Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked [MIT Technology Review]

More on blockchain: New Cryptocurrency Kills Your Hard Drive to Mine New Coins

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Blockchains Were Supposed to Be "Unhackable." Now They're Getting Hacked. - Futurism

After China landed its Zhurong Mars rover on the Red Planet yesterday, there was just one important question on everyones minds: When are we going to see a robot battle between NASAs rover and Chinas?

Okay, maybe that wasnt immediately the first thing on your mind but a surprising amount of people are clamoring for an epic fight between the Zhurong lander and Perseverance. Many of them took to social media to voice their support for the battle.

From Twitter:

To Reddit:

To Facebook:

And who can blame them? An interplanetary robot fight would be awesome.

But lets get one thing out of the way: This is not going to happen.

Both countries spent billions upon billions of dollars and yuan not to mention the untold hours of human labor to get their craft to the Red Planet. Theyre not going to throw it away in a single (but admittedly epic) fight. Not only that, but Perseverance and Zhurong are hundreds of miles away from each other, according toNature.

BUT what if they did though? Who would win in a martian robot battle between NASAs Perseverance and Chinas Zhurong? Which rover is the pound-for-pound robot fighting champion of the galaxy?

To answer that question, were going to analyze each rover and score them against one another using four criteria: Weight, reach, speed, and heart.

Well be drawing on publicly available information about each rover though we should note that China is tight-lipped about its rover (as with most of its space operations). But we can make a few educated guesses to fill in the gaps.

Size is incredibly important when it comes to combat. Even the slightest difference in weight can make all the difference when it comes to human boxing and robot boxing is no different.

Zhurong weighs in at a respectable 530 pounds. Thats the same weight as a grizzly bear and is heavier than both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars in 2004.

But Percy has Zhurong beat by a whole lot.

NASAs Perseverance rover clocks in at a staggering 2,260 pounds, according to NASA. Its roughly the size of an SUV and more than four times the size of Zhurong.

This would be like if a fully grown man fought a Galapagos penguin.The winner here is clear.

Edge: Perseverance.

A fighter with long arms can keep their opponents at bay while punching them from afar. Rovers can do the same with their onboard instruments.

Zhurong is fairly limited in the instruments department. It has retractable solar panels that help power it and shake off martian dust, according to The New York Times. They can also be used to smack its opponents to death.

The rover also has a multi-spectral and terrain camera, ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, and weather sensors. All great for being able to see your opponent.

But alas, Perseverance has the Chinese rover beat by a mile and I mean that literally. With assistance from the Ingenuity helicopter, it can fight Zhurong from a mile away.

Even without Ingenuity, Perseverance still has a seven-foot arm with a drill at the end of it, along with an actual freakin laser beam powered by plutonium used to find and analyze samples. Again, this one is barely a contest.

Edge: Perseverance.

To quote one of the greatest fighting movies of all time, In the world of kung fu, speed determines the winner.

Unfortunately, both rovers are so slow they can make a sloth look like Usain Bolt but one is indeed faster than the other.

Perseverance drives with a top speed of .01 miles per hour, according to Space.com. Thats obviously not very fast, especially when you consider that Ingenuity can move at 20+ miles per hour.

On the other hand, Zhurong clocks in at a breakneck .12 miles per hour. Thats lightning fast compared to Perseverance. If we rule Ingenuity out of the equation, the winner here is clear.

Edge: Zhurong.

If you have two completely equal fighters in weight, speed, and fighting technique, what will separate the winner from the loser is their heart.

Were talking about the intangibles. The grit that gives fighters that killer instinct. So which rover has more heart?

Perseverance won the love of a lot of space enthusiasts when it landed on Mars in February. It also has a very well-maintained social media presence that frequently updates us on its explorations of the Red Planet.

Percy has personality, but does it have that killer instinct?

Zhurong is named after the god of fire in Chinese folk mythology. Thats pretty badass. It evokes destruction and domination.

Its the name of a rover thats too busy building a mountain made out of the skulls of its enemies to do things like drafting a tweet.

This ones close but I think we know who ends up on top.

Edge: Zhurong.

Based on our highly rigorous criteria, the answer is clear: Itd be a draw.

Where Perseverance wins the day with weight and reach, Zhurong edges it out with speed and a killer instinct.

And, as cheesy as it is, the real winner would be the fans of science and space exploration everywhere.The more we learn about our galaxy and distant planets, the better prepared well all be when it finally comes time to colonize space and thats something we can agree on no matter what country youre from.

More on fighting Mars rovers: Could I Defeat NASAs New Mars Rover in Hand-to-Hand Combat?

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People Want NASA's Mars Rover to Fight the Chinese Mars Rover - Futurism

Autonomous drones will seek and destroy bird nests near airfields.Fight or Flight

The US Navy and a company called Hitron Technologies are developing a new autonomous killer drone designed specifically to seek and destroy the Navys ultimate foe: birds.

The drones are a counterattack against the dangers of bird strikes at and around airfields, New Scientist reports, which can damage planes and have led to crashes and forced landings in the past. The drones, which are currently being tested in a lab while they await permits for field tests, will hunt out bird nests and spray eggs with an oil that prevents them from hatching.

Coating eggs in oil essentially deprives the bird embryos of oxygen, killing them without physically destroying the eggs, which can motivate parent birds to lay more.

Oiling is considered a humane way of controlling bird populations by the Humane Society of the United States, according to New Scientist. But experts have called into question whether the autonomous drones could effectively oil an egg, which would need to be entirely coated including the underside in order for it to work.

Egg oiling can cause welfare issues for the adult birds and, in addition, the oiling needs to be done carefully, Graham White, head of ecology at the UKs Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told New Scientist.

And, he adds, attacking these nests risks triggering all-out-war between bird and machine.

Adult gulls would very likely attack the drone, risking themselves and the drone, White said.

READ MORE: US Navy is developing drones to exterminate birds eggs near airfields [New Scientist]

More on bird strikes: Canadian Airport to Use Robotic Falcons to Stop Bird Strikes

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The US Navy Is Developing Drones to Kill Eggs in Wild Bird Nests - Futurism

Investigators arent sure if he had autopilot mode on at the time of the crash. Turn Off the Tiktok

A Tesla driver posted several videos of him driving with his hands off the steering wheel to TikTok before he was killed in a car accident.

Steven Hendrickson, 35, died on May 5 when his Tesla Model 3 crashed into an overturned truck in Fontana, California, according to Reuters. Hendrickson was killed in the accident while the truck driver and a good Samaritan who stopped to help him were injured.

The victim had previously posted two videos of him driving with his hands off the wheel to his TikTok account. Both captions suggest that he had been using Teslas full self-driving feature while filming the videos.

What would I do without my full self-driving Tesla after a long day at work, said a caption on one of his videos.

Coming home from LA after work, thank god, self drive, read another. Best car ever!

Despite Hendricksons videos, investigators still arent sure whether or not he was actually using Teslas controversial full self-driving feature at the time of the crash.

Police officers initially stated that the Autopilot system was engaged before the accident. However, they have since retracted that initial claim, saying that there has not been a final determination made as to what driving mode the Tesla was in, according to a statement obtained by Reuters.

If investigators do determine that Full Self-Driving was the cause of the crash, theyll be adding to a growing list of accidents, tragedies, and terrible press related to Teslas autopilot feature.

In April, authorities determined that Teslas Autopilot system was behind a fiery crash in Houston, Texas. That led Senator Richard Blumenthal to issue a strong condemnation of Musk.

In May, Teslas own director of Autopilot software CJ Moore admitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicles that Musk had grossly exaggerated their cars self-driving capabilities.

Whatever the case is with Hendricksons accident, one thing is clear: Tesla needs to be much clearer about the efficacy and capabilities of its Autopilot feature. Doing so now can quite literally be the difference between life and death.

READ MORE: Tesla crash victim lauded full self-driving in videos on Tiktok [Reuters]

More on Tesla Full Self-Driving: Remorseless Man Brags About Abusing Tesla Self-Driving Features

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Man Posted Video of Driving With Hands Off Wheel Before Fatal Tesla Crash - Futurism

The race is on to become the next mainstream cryptocurrency that doesnt contribute millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions due to unsustainable mining practices.

Now, a new cryptocurrency called Chia, founded by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, is promising to make mining cryptocurrencies at home a whole lot easier and sustainable.

But it may have an Achilles heel that could make it a lot less useful to the average person than the company likes to think, as Toms Guide reports.

Chias secret sauce is an entirely new way to mine, a process the company is calling farming.

Rather than completing complex and taxing calculations on beefy computational hardware such is the case for any proof of work-based cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Dogecoin Chia can be farmed by using unused storage on practically any device.

Chias farming concept relies on a consensus model called Proof of Space and Time (PoST).

Unlike most projects, coin ownership has nothing to do with the protocol this is not Proof of Stake, Chia COO Gene Hoffman told CoinDesk in February.

PoST works by provers showing that they can allocate unused hard drive space for storage space, according to the companys FAQ. In other words, its a way to prove that you are keeping some storage unused on your hard-disk drive.

Other users will seed unused space through a special software to build plots. New blockchain challenges then reveal which farmers seed comes closest, kind of like a massive game of Bingo.

The process also happens to be way more energy efficient according to the company, minimizing electricity waste.

While that may sound like a wholesome way of mining cryptocurrencies, the approach comes with a major downside.

According to Toms Guide, this back and forthof allocating and then freeing up space on storage devices could age solid state drives (SSD) incredibly fast. In fact, a consumer grade 512GB SSD could be killed in just 40 days while farming Chia, according to Toms Guides reporting.

Luckily, specialized storage devices are already hitting the market, with some of them designed specifically for Chia farming. Such drives will likely cost you a pretty penny, however.

Chia has gained significant momentum over the last week, jumping by more than 50 percent.

Its still far too early to tell if Chia has what it takes to join the big leagues but any cryptocurrency that sidesteps using vast amounts of electricity generated using coal and fossil fuels could have a pretty decent shot right now.

READ MORE: Chia crypto mining could kill your SSD in 40 days heres why [Toms Guide]

More on crypto: It Would Be Incredibly Hard to Make Bitcoin Sustainable, Experts Say

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New Cryptocurrency Kills Your Hard Drive to Mine New Coins - Futurism