Things Come To Life

Surely we won't see it until it's already infiltrating every kingdom and phylum -- what once was just a dumb robot, or a box of rocks, or a pile of dust, will soon be alive and trying to make its way in the world, commanding the same respect as the river in Ecuador that has rights, or the endangered animals in the Galapagos that have rights, or the dematerialized algorithms that exist as a dimensionally camouflaged meta-entity powered by economic incentive and psychological manipulation, which doesn't even need rights because it's the lifeline of global commerce. 

One day we'll all be held ethically liable for treating our stuff like inert, soul-less matter.

Image credit: Daniel Knop via Nikon Small World - Embryonic development of a clownfish on days 1 - 9 - 2020

Starfish embryos swim in formation like a 'living crystal,' could inform the design of self assembling 

Jul 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2022-07-starfish-embryos-formation-crystal-self-assembling.html

Fakhri says the team's observations of starfish crystals was a "serendipitous discovery." 

She and her colleagues fertilized thousands of starfish embryos, then watched as they swam to the surface of shallow dishes. "There are thousands of embryos in a dish, and they start forming this crystal structure that can grow very large," Fakhri says. "We call it a crystal because each embryo is surrounded by six neighboring embryos in a hexagon that is repeated across the entire structure, very similar to the crystal structure in graphene."

via MIT: Nikta Fakhri, Odd dynamics of living chiral crystals, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04889-6.

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04889-6

A step toward the creation of materials controlled by artificial genes

Aug 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-creation-materials-artificial-genes.html

"New types of soft material robots that are controlled by chemistry instead of electronics."

Say you're making artificial humans without saying you're making artificial humans.

"Engineering synthetic chemical systems that can emulate the complex behaviors of natural gene networks that operate inside diagnostic, self-healing materials rather than organisms."

via Johns Hopkins University: Samuel W. Schaffter et al, Standardized excitable elements for scalable engineering of far-from-equilibrium chemical networks, Nature Chemistry (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-022-01001-3

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41557-022-01001-3

Synthetic mouse embryo develops beating heart

Aug 2022, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62679322

Scientists in Cambridge have created synthetic mouse embryos in a lab, without using eggs or sperm, which show evidence of a brain and beating heart.

At present, UK law permits human embryos to be studied in the laboratory only up to the fourteenth day of development, but there are no rules around synthetic embryos.

via University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology: Synthetic embryos complete gastrulation to neurulation and organogenesis. Gianluca Amadei et al. Nature. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05246-3

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05246-3

Robo-bug: A rechargeable, remote-controllable cyborg cockroach

Sep 2022, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-robo-bug-rechargeable-remote-controllable-cyborg-cockroach.html

Powered by a solar cell which is funny because roaches hang out in the dark mostly.

RIKEN: Yujiro Kakei et al, Integration of body-mounted ultrasoft organic solar cell on cyborg insects with intact mobility, npj Flexible Electronics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41528-022-00207-2

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41528-022-00207-2

Nanotubes illuminate the way to living photovoltaics

Sep 2022, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2022-09-nanotubes-illuminate-photovoltaics.html

"We put nanotubes inside of bacteria" 

via Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne:  Ardemis Boghossian et al, Carbon nanotube uptake in cyanobacteria for near-infrared imaging and enhanced bioelectricity generation in living photovoltaics, Nature Nanotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-022-01198-x

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01198-x

Post Script:

GlyNAC supplementation reverses aging hallmarks in aging humans

Aug 2022, phys.org

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08-glynac-supplementation-reverses-aging-hallmarks.html

A randomized, double blind human clinical trial conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveals that supplementation with GlyNAC—a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine—improves many age-associated defects in older humans and powerfully promotes healthy aging. 

via Baylor College of Medicine:  Premranjan Kumar et al, Supplementing Glycine and N-Acetylcysteine (GlyNAC) in Older Adults Improves Glutathione Deficiency, Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Inflammation, Physical Function, and Aging Hallmarks: A Randomized Clinical Trial, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A (2022). DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glac135

https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glac135

Proponents of Free Will Synchronize Themselves

Here at Network Address, sociothermodynamics is a common topic; it's the idea that people, despite the illusion of control, behave like particles, bouncing around, and according to the very basic physical laws of thermodynamics.

The most obvious manifestation of this is synchronization, introduced in the above paper like this: "Many seemingly unrelated systems which exhibit repetitive behaviors, such as clocks, pacemaker cells in the heart, or a swarm of pulsing fireflies, are seen to undergo transitions from initial randomness to an ordered state." (Read more from the texts referenced below.)

The seemingly random intersections of all our lives are governed by the same rules that synchronize fireflies. This is why we can predict the gross domestic product of a city by how fast its people walk on its sidewalks. You can call up your free will and ask him to help you overturn this law, but he can't help. You're better off calling someone at the Santa Fe Institute; at least they can explain it for you. 

Image credit: Pulse Topology - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art - Jul 2021

From flashing fireflies to cheering crowds: Physicists unlock secret to synchronisation

Dec 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-12-fireflies-crowds-physicists-secret-synchronisation.html

This paper is exciting, not because it made the top headlines at the New York Times when it came out, but because of what they found at the bottom of all this: "This model may be derived from the complex Ginzburg-Landau equations for a lattice of driven-dissipative Bose-Einstein condensates of exciton polaritons."

That's right, Bose-Einstein condensates, which should make you think about quantum things, and even things metaphysical, like Zipf's Law, or Serpinski's Triangles. So not only are we a bunch of particles bouncing around, but quantum particles at that. 

via Trinity College Dublin: John P. Moroney et al, Synchronization in disordered oscillator lattices: Nonequilibrium phase transition for driven-dissipative bosons, Physical Review Research (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.043092

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.043092

[full text]

Notes: 

A. Pikovskij, M. Rosenblum, and J. Kurths, Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences, 1st ed., Cambridge Nonlinear Science Series No. 12 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003).

S. H. Strogatz, From Kuramoto to Crawford: Exploring the onset of synchronization in populations of coupled oscillators, Physica D 143, 1 (2000).

Sync or Swarm

On Entrainment

Svjetlana Tepavcevic

Means of Reproduction no. 627

Svjetlana Tepavcevic

Means of Reproduction no. 701

Steven Strogatz on Sync, TED2004

Mathematician Steven Strogatz shows how flocks of creatures (like birds, fireflies and fish) manage to synchronize and act as a unit -- when no one's giving orders. The powerful tendency extends into the realm of objects, too.

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html

“What do you need to produce spontaneous synchronization? Do you need to be alive? No. [There is a] Deep tendency towards order in nature that opposes what we've been taught about entropy. [The tendency towards spontaneous order is a counter force.]”

How swarms work, 3 (+1) rules:
1. all the individuals are only aware of their nearest neighbors
2. all the individuals have a tendency to line up
3. they're all attracted to each other, but they try and keep a small distance apart
(4.) when a predator is coming, get away

video still:

at ~14 minutes, he entrains de-synchronized metronomes via a common substrate

Entrainment (physics)

Entrainment has been used to refer to the process of mode locking of coupled driven oscillators, which is the process whereby two interacting oscillating systems, which have different periods when they function independently, assume a common period. The two oscillators may fall into synchrony, but other phase relationships are also possible. The system with the greater frequency slows down, and the other speeds up.

Entrainment (biomusicology)

Entrainment in the biomusicological sense refers to the synchronization of organisms to an external rhythm, usually produced by other organisms with whom they interact socially. Examples include firefly flashing, mosquito wing clapping as well as human music and dance such as foot tapping.

Brainwave entrainment

Brainwave entrainment or "brainwave synchronization," is any practice that aims to cause brainwave frequencies to fall into step with a periodic stimulus having a frequency corresponding to the intended brain-state (for example, to induce sleep), usually attempted with the use of specialized software.

see also:

Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age, David Borgo, 2006

syncbots - MIT firerly robot swarm

Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate, TED2012

In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams -- for construction, surveying disasters and far more.

How Music Works

David Byrne, in describing a process of whittling-down potential dancers in his group, recounts the following experience

Noemie began with an exercise I’ve never forgotten. It consisted of four simple rules:

1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight-count phrase. (In dance, a phrase is a short series of moves that can be repeated.)
2. When you find a phrase you like, loop (repeat) it.
3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.
4. When everyone is doing the same phrase the exercise is over.

It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent lifeform coming into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase. The copying had begun already, albeit just in one area. This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral, while yet another one now emerged on the other side of the room. One clump grew faster than the other, and within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. Unbelieavable! It only took four minutes for this evolutionary process to kick in, and for the “strongest” (unfortunate word, maybe) to dominate. It was one of the most amazing dance performances I’ve ever seen. Too bad it was over so quickly, and that one did have to know the rules that had been laid out to appreciate how such a simple algorithm could generate unity out of chaos.

After this rigorous athletic experiment, the dancers rested while we compared notes. I noticed a weird and quite loud wind like sound, rushing and pulsing. I didn’t know what it was; it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. It was like no sound I’d ever heard before. I realized it was the sound of fifty people catching their breath, breathing in and out, in an enclosed room. It then gradually faded away. For me that was part of the piece, too.

How Music Works, David Byrne, 2012, pp. 67-68

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/how-music-works