Mouse brain simulated on computer

The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.

In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.

Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.

(Via Reality Carnival.)

Your eyes don't deceive you; I'm upgrading Posthuman Blues to one of Blogger's supposedly better, more versatile templates. (I went with black-on-white text only after much deliberation.)

I'll reinstate the sidebar shortly.

Work begins on a tentative fiction blog . . .

A certain PB reader has requested pictures of me sporting my new minimalist hairdo.

Here you go:





I am beautiful.

Sweet! "The Old Negro Space Program" has been YouTubed. If you haven't seen this, now's your chance.

European Space Agency Test Drives Trip To Mars

Starting in spring next year, a crew of six will be sent on a 500 day simulated mission to Mars. In reality the crew will remain in a special isolation facility in Russia. To investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration mission, such as to Mars, ESA is looking for experiment proposals for research to be carried out during their stay.

My advice? Don't tell the volunteers it's a simulation. Make 'em think they're really going to Mars.

I think college students would find German literature considerably more intriguing if Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" had more in common with these alarming French AIDS awareness posters.





More here.

(Thanks to Aberrant News.)

Could black holes be portals to other universes?

One might hope to distinguish the two by something called Hawking radiation, an emission of particles and light which should only come from black holes and would have a characteristic energy spectrum. But this radiation is so weak that it would be completely swamped by other sources, such as the background glow of microwaves left over from the big bang, making it unobservable in practice.

Another difference one might hope to exploit is that unlike black holes, wormholes have no event horizon. This means that things could go in a wormhole and come back out again. In fact, theorists say one variety of wormhole wraps back onto itself, so that it leads not to another universe, but back to its own entrance.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Mmmm! Squirming octopus tentacles for dinner!



H.P. Lovecraft would have loved this.

(Hat tip: Boing Boing.)

Fusion Energy Breakthrough at Sandia Labs

This improved circuit is "the most significant advance in primary power generation in many decades," says Keith Matzen, director of Sandia's Pulsed Power Center and is a tremendous advancement for the internal confinement method of nuclear fusion.

This development may make it possible to provide humanity unlimited electrical energy from cheap, abundant seawater in the future.

Gress Aerospace begins development of Personal Air Vehicle

If successful, the control technology greatly simplifies flying, offers increased stability and functionality and requires a much smaller footprint than a traditional helicopter, hence it has wide application in commercial, industrial, and consumer markets, particularly for transportation and surveillance.

With any luck, I may still have a chance at a flying car.

Sealand offers asylum to UFO hacker Gary McKinnon

Gary Mckinnon, who faces extradition to the US for allegedly hacking into military computers, has been offered asylum by the self-styled breakaway state of Sealand, it was claimed at the Infosec security conference today. The "state", a World War II fort known as Roughs Tower in the North Sea just north of the Thames, was declared an independent principality in 1967 by a former major called Paddy Roy Bates.

The PEAR lab has closed - an open letter from Jahn and Dunne

The enormous databases produced by PEAR have provided clear evidence that human thought and emotion can produce small but measurable influences on physical reality and have established numerous insights into their major correlates. They have also established the basis for several conceptual models that attempt to accommodate the empirical results within a scientific framework. While there are still many important questions to be addressed before we can hope for a full understanding of the nature, function, purpose, and utility of these phenomena, productive further study will require a coordinated interdisciplinary approach to the topic that has not been feasible under the prevailing intellectual and technological constraints of our university environment.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Hawking takes zero-gravity flight

He has at least one other motive for taking the weightless flight: he believes private space ventures are vital to reduce the cost of space tourism and make it accessible to a greater number of people.

"I think the human race doesn't have a future if it doesn't go into space," Professor Hawking earlier told the BBC News website.

I suspect that's an understatement.

UCSF scientist tracks down suspect in honeybee deaths

A UCSF researcher who found the SARS virus in 2003 and later won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work thinks he has discovered a culprit in the alarming deaths of honeybees across the United States.

Tests of genetic material taken from a "collapsed colony" in Merced County point to a once-rare microbe that previously affected only Asian bees but might have evolved into a strain lethal to those in Europe and the United States, biochemist Joe DeRisi said Wednesday.

Also:

Taiwan Stung by Millions of Missing Bees

Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.

Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.

Actress Alba is 'sexiest female'





Dissenters . . . ?

Scientists to build robot society

Scientists say the robots will be organised into groups or "villages" and told to observe then copy each other's behaviour in different situations.

The team believes that when one robot copies another's behaviour it will be slightly different, creating unpredictable results.

Theoretical biologist Professor John Crawford said: "Of course the behaviours which emerge and evolve will not be human but decidedly robotic."

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

"E-Bow the Letter." Great video.

Paul Kimball's "Best Evidence: Top Ten UFO Sightings" debuts in Canada on May 10 (more here).

I confidently predict "Best Evidence" will be the best television documentary on the subject you're liable to view this millennium. Kimball dispenses with the requisite "spooky" effects, "dramatic" music and bug-eyed aliens that cripple other treatments and lets the evidence speak for itself.

I usually bemoan the very existence of television, but "Best Evidence" demands an exception. If you live in Canada, set your VCRs. And if you live elsewhere, hope that it comes your way as soon as possible.

Potentially habitable planet found

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

A "big" step? Try "fucking huge." This story just made my day.

Ladies and gentlemen, Frolix-8, another Philip K. Dick blog.

The new FLURB is online. My short-story "One Hundred Years" is rubbing shoulders with some mean company.

Charlie Chaplin: transhumanist?



(Hat tip: Cyborg Democracy.)

Alongside Steve Erickson's "Our Ecstatic Days" and Nick Redfern's "Three Men Seeking Monsters," I've been reading "Alien Abductions: Creating a Modern Phenomenon" by Terry Matheson. Resolutely skeptical (Matheson's book was published by Prometheus, the publishing arm of the Center for Scientific Inquiry), "Alien Abductions" takes on a subject almost as portentous as the purported phenomenon itself: the role of narrative technique used to convey the ever-evolving "truth" behind abduction accounts.





Unlike many would-be debunkers, Matheson's book reveals an astute familiarity with the principal texts (John Fuller's "The Interrupted Journey," Raymond Fowler's books on Betty Andreasson, etc.) Matheson raises valid points about the way popular authors present strange memes to an astonished (if often credulous) readership. In so doing, he sounds a scholarly alarm that writers of the paranormal ignore at their peril.

I happen to agree with Matheson insofar as the influence of narrative bias is concerned. And I'm sympathetic to the prospect that the popularly conceived alien abduction phenomenon offers a glimpse into a mythology in the making. (Refreshingly, Matheson takes issue with fellow debunkers who would have us ignore the phenomenon altogether simply because it seemingly fails to live up to the "nuts and bolts" standards of conformist ufology.)

"Alien Abductions" is an expose of best-known selections from the abduction literature, hardly a broad-spectrum analysis of the subject. As such, it remains a valid insight into the mythic potential of what might be a reality quite beyond our grasp. But its scope is severely limited. For example, Matheson appears content accepting the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis as the only sensible "pro-UFO" interpretation. I don't share this certainty. While there's no doubt that the phenomenon has fueled a disturbingly far-reaching contemporary mythology, exposing the questionable techniques employed by authors of abduction books does little to resolve larger, more troubling issues.

To his credit, Matheson pointedly distances the "abduction" epidemic from the UFO phenomenon; we have yet to establish that UFOs are here to snatch humans for the purposes of some alien agenda. On the other hand, some UFOs betray what can only be some form of intelligence, however rudimentary; this alone begs the question of what they're here for (assuming they came from elsewhere) and, more excitingly, what the implications might be for human consciousness.

Kevin Randle, co-author of the lucid "The Abduction Enigma," is a sincere proponent of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. He's also a critic of abductions; like Matheson, he views the UFO mystery as distinct from claims of alien intrusion. While I appreciate this much-ignored distinction, I'm not certain it's necessarily warranted, especially as the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis remains a stubborn controversy in its own right. We could very well be dealing with an indigenous nonhuman intelligence, in which case the assumptions of abduction debunkers, whose arguments are couched in extraterrestrial terminology, are stripped of their skeptical allure.

For the most part, the ufological landscape remains a sparring ground for entrenched notions of dispassionate ET visitors and equally tenacious claims of popular delusion. Consequently, we've gone about attempting to "debunk" a phenomenon that continues to defy definition. While many -- if not most -- well-known abduction narratives are indeed fallible, disquieting findings from emerging (or suppressed) disciplines promise to reframe the debate.

I suspect the truth, if we can find it, will be considerably weirder than "mere" extraterrestrial visitors or sociologically induced fantasy.

Microwave Beaming: A Fast Sail to Mars

We're at such an early stage in solar sail development that it will not be surprising if laboratory results lead us in entirely new directions. Consider James Benford's work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he and brother Gregory experimented with an ultralight 7.5 g/m2 carbon sail to test out microwave beam concepts.

"Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization."



In case you're wondering, this clip is taken from a fifty year-old film. Fifty years ago they saw it coming. The scenario must have seemed pretty far-out, but I doubt anyone flatly denied that it could ever happen.

Now that the icecaps are melting, we seem to have developed a capacity for delusion that would have left the film's climatologist reeling.

(Thanks: Beyond the Beyond.)

Your Virtual Clone

Now there's a Web-based service that, in essence, lets you set up your own Eliza and train it to mimic your own personality. No one will be fooled into thinking it's you, but MyCyberTwin, launched earlier this month, does a decent job of acting as your stand-in or virtual public-relations agent when you're not reachable. If you embed your cybertwin in your blog, website, or MySpace profile, visitors can learn about you through an open-ended conversation. You can program your cybertwin with as much factual information and as much of your personality as you like.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

OK, OK, I confess. I'm Mac's digital clone. I took over this blog two years ago. I've more or less stopped wondering where the "real" Mac is. Frankly, who cares? He was always such a dork, carrying on about UFOs and listening to Morrissey.

I foolishly missed my chance to see the Dark 30 Tour's Kansas City debut back in December. But if I should catch a future gig, I have a tentative arrangement with Nick Redfern: I'll put my newly shaved head to good use and work as a body double, luring away inevitable throngs of admirers so he can make a clean getaway. In return, I get to wear one of Nick's biker jackets.

Create an Alien, Win A-Prize!

We won't discover the first alien lifeforms out amongst the stars, says Dr. Alan Goldstein. We will create them in our own laboratories.

Goldstein is a professor of bio-materials at Alfred University (currently on leave). He writes about nanotechnology and biotechnology for Salon and other publications. Goldstein recently conceived of The A-Prize, which is "awarded to the person or organization responsible for creating an Animat/Artificial lifeform with an emphasis on the safety of the researchers, public, and environment OR the person or organization who shows that an Animat/Artificial life form has been created."

(Via Reality Carnival.)

The Disappearing Male

Davis suggests that environmental factors may be one explanation for the shrinking male birth rate. "The pattern of decline in the ratio of male to female births remains largely unexplained," she explained. "We know that men who work with some solvents, metals and pesticides father fewer baby boys. We also know that nutritional factors, physical health and chemical exposures of pregnant women affect their ability to have children and the health of their offspring. We suspect that some combination of these factors, along with older age of parents, may account for decreasing male births."

(Via PAG E-News.)

Robot Employed as Sex Club Tout

On the streets of Osaka Japan a humanoid robot dressed in a "sailor suit" high school uniform can be seen holding up an "Ask me!" banner and navigating people to an adult information center that directs potential customers to local sex clubs. The robot was designed to direct traffic around construction sites, but recently underwent a 500,000 yen ($4,000) upgrade to overcome a law preventing humans from soliciting business for sex clubs on the street.

Yep -- the Singularity is due any second now . . .

If you haven't yet discovered Paleo-Future, be sure to take a look. It's a marvelous collection of "yesterday's tomorrows" that makes the present seem brittle indeed.

Shape-shifting 'smart dust' may explore alien world

Thousands of miniscule wireless sensors, or "smart dust," could one day be used to explore other planets.

Several research groups are developing tiny smart dust devices. Each is a few cubic millimeters in volume and can perform simple sensing tasks and relay messages to other such devices over distances of less than a meter.

Together, they can be sprinkled across an area or throughout a building, and used to sense chemicals or vibrations, and relay messages from one another back to a central control.

I've argued that genuine extrasolar aliens would be more inclined to use a form of "smart dust" than rely on relatively cumbersome flying discs. The aliens themselves might even take the form of smart dust or its interstellar equivalent. Paradoxically, the UFO phenomenon, while physically real, presents us with the disconcerting specter of flesh-and-bone beings at the controls of comprehensible (if unconventional) vehicles.

Comments? The UFO looks like some sort of reconnaissance drone to me, but it seems to vanish more quickly than I'd expect. Of course, it could also be an outright hoax.

Hobbit hominids lived the island life

If true, it would mean that H. sapiens, who has been around for around 150,000-200,000 years, would have shared the planet with rival humans far more recently than thought.

And it implies that H. sapiens and H. floresiensis lived side by side on Flores for a while -- and, who knows, may even have interbred, which could have left "hobbit" genes in our DNA heritage.

In a study that appears on Wednesday in the British journal Biology Letters, evolutionary zoologists at Imperial College London believe the hobbits may well have achieved their tininess naturally, through evolutionary pressure.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Chimps Are More Evolved than Humans

"It's human egotism to put us on a pedestal," says molecular anthropologist Morris Goodman of Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. "I was attracted to the paper because it seemed to be chipping away at this desire to make us all that extra-special. At the molecular level, humans are not necessarily exceptional in terms of the adaptive changes."

To Zhang's surprise and disappointment, the positively selected genes were not related to brain or cognitive function but to more mundane cellular housekeeping duties. "One explanation might be that the number of genes responsible for evolution of the human brain may be very small," Zhang speculates.

(Via Beyond the Beyond.)

Turn it off. And leave it off.

LIMITATIONS ARE OUR FRIENDS

Limitations are our friends. They make our existence possible, and they make the universe comprehensible. I like that while some advanced technologies might seem to be indistinguishable from magic, they will not BE magic. I like the word 'impossible'. Not impossible in the sense of "beyond our current capabilities", but impossible in the sense that there is a level of reality that we can never touch, never change and never appeal to no matter how passionately we might dream of one day being gods.

'Fewer leaves' behind frog demise

A decline in the amount of leaves on the ground could be behind the rapid demise of frog species, a study of a rainforest in Costa Rica has suggested.

Of all the hypotheses put forth to explain the UFO phenomenon, perhaps the most overlooked (and controversial) is the "Clown Hypothesis."



In essence, the Clown Hypothesis holds that we're under siege by grotesque killer clowns from another planet (see reenactment above).

"Cyberspace" is so yesterday . . .





Meet the metaverse, your new digital home

The Internet in 2016 will be an all-encompassing digital playground where people will be immersed in an always-on flood of digital information, whether wandering through physical spaces or diving into virtual worlds.

[. . .]

Within 10 years, the report suggests, people may wear glasses that record everything around them. They will likely see little distinction between their real-world social lives and their interactions in digital, 3D virtual worlds. And they'll increasingly turn to services like an enhanced Google Earth that are able to present data on what's happening anywhere, at any time, as it unfolds.

Create your own "Wired" cover!

Author Rudy Rucker lectures on cyberpunk, "psipunk," blogging, Web-based intelligence, and death.

"Wiping out the human race? That's a great idea. That's great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals."

-- Jeffrey Goines, "Twelve Monkeys"

Have a few free minutes? Give Line Rider a whirl!

(Thanks: Yummy Wakame.)

New Laws of Robotics proposed for US kill-bots

Canning proposes that robot warriors should be allowed to mix it up among themselves freely, autonomously deciding to blast enemy weapon systems. Many enemy "systems" would, of course, be themselves robots, so it's clear that machine-on-machine violence isn't a problem. The difficulty comes when the automatic battlers need to target humans. In such cases Mr Canning says that permission from a human operator should be sought.

"Let machines target other machines," he writes, "and let men target men."

It almost sounds biblical, doesn't it?