WIREDNew research from the Japanese Tanpopo mission adds to scientists’ understanding of how living organisms can endure the hostile environment.
Bacteria that can help defuse highly toxic dioxin in sediments in the Passaic River—a Superfund hazardous waste site—could eventually aid cleanup efforts at other dioxin-contaminated sites around the world, according to Rutgers scientists.
Their research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, needs further work to realize the full potential of the beneficial bottom-dwelling microbes.
“The bacteria-driven process we observed greatly decreases the toxicity of dioxin,” said senior author Donna E. Fennell, a professor who chairs the Department of Environmental Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
Curtin University researchers have discovered a new way to more accurately analyze microscopic samples by essentially making them glow in the dark through the use of chemically luminescent molecules.
Lead researcher Dr. Yan Vogel from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences said current methods of microscopic imaging rely on fluorescence, which means a light needs to be shining on the sample while it is being analyzed. While this method is effective, it also has some drawbacks.
“Most biological cells and chemicals generally do not like exposure to light because it can destroy things—similar to how certain plastics lose their colors after prolonged sun exposure, or how our skin can get sunburned,” Dr. Vogel said. “The light that shines on the samples is often too damaging for the living specimens and can be too invasive, interfering with the biochemical process and potentially limiting the study and scientists’ understanding of the living organisms.”
Low levels of total cholesterol (TC) are associated with an increased all-cause mortality risk in both old and younger subjects, but low TC is also found in youth, so which is it? In this video, I present data showing that subjects that had high albumin and HDL, but low TC had a similar survival to subjects that had higher TC levels.
We now know that all extant living creatures derive from a single common ancestor, called the ‘Last Universal Common Ancestor’ (LUCA). It’s hard to think of a more unifying view of life. All living things are linked to a single-celled creature, the deepest root to the complex-branching tree of life. If we could play the movie of life backward, we would find this microscopic primogenitor at the starting point of biological evolution, the sole actor in what would become a very dramatic story, lasting some 3.5 billion years leading to us.
As transhumanists, we aim at the so-called continuity of subjectivity by the means of advanced technologies. Death in a common sense of the word becomes optional and cybernetic immortality is within our reach during our lifetimes. By definition, posthumanism (I choose to call it ‘cyberhumanism’) is to replace transhumanism at the center stage circa 2035. By then, mind uploading could become a reality with gradual neuronal replacement, rapid advancements in Strong AI, massively parallel computing, and nanotechnology allowing us to directly connect our brains to the Cloud-based infrastructure of the Global Brain. Via interaction with our AI assistants, the GB will know us better than we know ourselves in all respects, so mind-transfer, or rather “mind migration,” for billions of enhanced humans would be seamless, sometime by mid-century.
By 2040, mind-uploading may become a norm and a fact of life with a “critical mass” of uploads and cybernetic immortality. Any container with a sufficiently integrated network of information patterns, with a certain optimal complexity, especially complex dynamical systems with biological or artificial brains (say, the coming AGIs) could be filled with consciousness at large in order to host an individual “reality cell,” “unit,” or a “node” of consciousness. This kind of individuated unit of consciousness is always endowed with free will within the constraints of the applicable set of rules (“physical laws”), influenced by the larger consciousness system dynamics. Isn’t too naïve to presume that Universal Consciousness would instantiate phenomenality only in the form of “bio”-logical avatars?
“We expected that the hammer of natural selection also comes down randomly, but that is not what we found,” he said. “Rather, it does not act randomly but has a strong bias, favoring those mutations that provide the largest fitness advantage while it smashes down other less beneficial mutations, even though they also provide a benefit to the organism.”
In other words, evolution is not a multitasker when it comes to fixing problems.
“It seems that evolution is myopic,” Venkataram said. “It focuses on the most immediate problem, puts a Band-Aid on and then it moves on to the next problem, without thoroughly finishing the problem it was working on before.”
Continue reading “To understand the machinery of life, this scientist breaks it on purpose” »
AMOLF researchers have presented a theory that describes the friction between biological filaments that are crosslinked by proteins. Surprisingly, their theory predicts that the friction force scales highly nonlinearly with the number of crosslinkers. The authors believe that cells use this scaling not only to stabilize cellular structures, but also to control their size. The new findings are important for the understanding of the dynamics of cellular structures such as the mitotic spindle, which pulls chromosomes apart during cell division.
Motor proteins versus frictional forces
Many cellular structures consist of long filaments that are crosslinked by motor proteins and non-motor proteins (see figure). These so-called cytoskeletal structures not only give cells their mechanical stability, but also enable them to crawl over surfaces and to pull chromosome apart during cell division. Force generation is typically attributed to motor proteins, which, using chemical fuel, can move the filaments with respect to one another. However, these motor forces are opposed by frictional forces that are generated by passive, non–motor proteins. These frictional forces are a central determinant of the mechanical properties of cytoskeletal structures, and they limit the speed and efficiency with which these structures are formed. Moreover, they can even be vital for their stability, because if the motor forces are not opposed by the friction forces generated by the passive crosslinkers, the structures can even fall apart.
The terrorist or psychopath of the future, however, will have not just the Internet or drones—called “slaughterbots” in this video from the Future of Life Institute—but also synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and advanced AI systems at their disposal. These tools make wreaking havoc across international borders trivial, which raises the question: Will emerging technologies make the state system obsolete? It’s hard to see why not. What justifies the existence of the state, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued, is a “social contract.” People give up certain freedoms in exchange for state-provided security, whereby the state acts as a neutral “referee” that can intervene when people get into disputes, punish people who steal and murder, and enforce contracts signed by parties with competing interests.
The trouble is that if anyone anywhere can attack anyone anywhere else, then states will become—and are becoming—unable to satisfy their primary duty as referee.
Continue reading “Omniviolence Is Coming and the World Isn’t Ready” »
