News These Days

Sometimes it's just too hard to keep up:


Walking crystals may lead to new field of crystal robotics
Feb 2018, phys.org

Researchers have demonstrated that tiny micrometer-sized crystals—just barely visible to the human eye—can "walk" inchworm-style across the slide of a microscope.

Other crystals are capable of different modes of locomotion such as rolling, flipping, bending, twisting, and jumping. In the future, these moving crystals may open the doors to the development of crystal-based robots. -phys.org


Scientists observe a new quantum particle with properties of ball lightning
Mar 2018, phys.org

"It is remarkable that we could create the synthetic electromagnetic knot, that is, quantum ball lightning..."


Want more efficient simulators? Store time in a quantum superposition
Mar 2018, phys.org

Want more efficient simulators? Store time in a quantum superposition.

[Really not following this one, but quantum time simulators? Yes.]


Graphene material strengthens nerve signaling in the brain
Mar 2018, phys.org

Just when you thought we were done talking about graphene for a while...

Not only can you grow brain cells on a sheet of graphene, but it also enhances signaling of those brain cells, AND, no surprise that all this comes as a complete surprise to the researchers (this happens a lot with graphene).

Blockhain-Breedable 256-bit Genomes For Sale

CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum
Dec 2017, BBC

But that's not how any of this works.

Digital currencies were supposed to be used to trade money online, not to serve as a lab for Frankensteined bit-genomes.

But of course, this IS how these things work. The internet was supposed to be for sending science articles among scientists.

Ether is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, supported by a record of transactions that is copied and stored on lots of different computers spread all over the world. In this case, that network is called Ethereum. People are using it to buy pizza and drugs, and to make money by speculation.

But people are also now using it to play with digipets, or cryptokitties. But more, they aren't just playing, they're breeding these things by turning a digital money transfer service into a bio-inspired creation-machine. 

Each kitty is unique, and their unique DNA can lead to four billion possible genetic variations when they breed. I wish I knew more about how numbers work. There is a lot of computation going on here in order to do this. People are worried that this "frivolous game" is holding up real business.

You know, until it turns out that the game is the real business.

Post Script
Absolutely completely unrelated - in case you haven't noticed, google owns pinterest, and when you image search, there's a high chance you're being directed to pinterest to see the full image of the thumbnail you're viewing in the google results. But you have to be a user to get in and see the image. Smart way for google to make sure everyone is using its other services. And a good way for folks to understand how monopolies work, and corporate/capitalistic culture in general.

Unless you would like to add "-site:pinterest.com" to you search results. For example, the search bar would contain "old school refrigerators -site:pinterest.com". Helps.

In fact, do it with and without and see just how much google has gamed the image image market.

Organs Galore

New lung 'organoids' in a dish mimic features of full-size lung
May 2017, phys.org

"Organoids are 3-D structures containing multiple cell types that look and function like a full-sized organ. By reproducing an organ in a dish, researchers hope to develop better models of human diseases, and find new ways of testing drugs and regenerating damaged tissue."

And for making distributed intelligence composite humans that can float in a tank on a spaceship that gets blinked to Proxima Centauri.

image source: link

Reprotech

HR Giger's Babies, the guy who did Alien

Baby Lynlee 'born twice' after life-saving tumour surgery
BBC News, Oct 2016

They take the baby out, perform surgery on her, and put her back in for 12 weeks.

I don't know what it is about advances in reproductive technology, but it always seems to scare the sh** out of me, like the three-people babies stuff.

I don't know what it is about advances in reproductive technology, but it always seems to scare the sh** out of me, like the three-people babies stuff.

For those who aren't up to it yet, "three-people babies" are when the mitochondrial DNA of one mother is implanted in another mother (who's mDNA is no good), which results in an organism with DNA from three people, which is totally unprecedented in life as we know it.

Gene Therapy To Prevent Inherited Diseases May Cause Other Ills
NPR, Jan 2017

On the dangers of using mitochondrial transplants:

"When the mother's nucleus is transferred, it's like a plant dug up out of ground — a bit of the original soil (in this case, the mother's mitochondria) is still clinging to the roots. That creates a situation that never happens in nature: Two different mitochondrial genomes from two different women are forced to live inside the same cell. In most cases, a tiny percentage (usually less than 2 percent) of the diseased mitochondria remain — but that tiny percentage can really matter."

Origami Supreme

Sounds to me like the thing that DNA does:

Programmable Shape Shifting Materials

Previous shape-shifting materials have needed some external trigger to tell them to transform, like light or heat.

Now, a US-based team has encoded a sequence of shape transformations into the very substance of a polymer, with each change occurring at a pre-determined time.

Materials programmed to shape shift
BBC News, Sep 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37486371