Updates in bioscience & biotech

So, Pres. Biden and the U.N. and every futurist NGO are all setting up AI Advisory Councils and such, while the functional branch of Congress - the Senate (barely functional, a little) - holds hearings... and sage  conferences feature hand-wringing jeremiads by many of the very same geniuses who seem so surprised that their cyber-invented entities are behaving so cantankerously! I posted about many aspects of this 'crisis' in my previous posting here.  Let me now add a writeup on my 2017 speech that accurately (to the month) predicted (almost to the very month) when we'd face our "First AI Empathy Crisis." And many other aspects of the AI worry-fest that now surges all over.

And yet, despite cyber advances, it is way premature to write off the bio-organic world! Especially as it manifests in human brains... and minds. So let's dive into another bioscience roundup! 

Starting with those vaunted neural networks made of squishy wet stuff.

== Brain & neuroscience ==

Can we begin with one more prediction cred? Even back in Earth (1991) I said that neurons alone could not be doing all the processing in the brain. First off, glial and astrocyte cells had to be doing more than just ‘support.” 

Now comes news… “Previously, glial cells, especially astrocytes, were believed to merely support neuron functions. However, recent research highlights the ability of these cells to release neurotransmitters and directly influence neural circuits.” And probably much more!

An amazingly cool article about brain loci of memory and imagination! Where does imagination live in your brain?

Oxford researchers are developing a 3D printing method that could engineer cerebral cortex tissue to repair brain injuries.

And here's fascinating article about the brain-roots of both memory and imagination. Starting with the hippocampus and rats, we arrive at: “It’s amazing that we’re not all psychotic all the time, that we’re not all delusional, because our brains are clearly making stuff up a lot of the time about things that could be.”  Clearly this researcher needs to get out and see the level of delusion in politics 

Researchers have identified about 200 patients with hidden autoimmune diseases that had profound psychological effects, some institutionalized for years, A woman who has been comatose for two decades was awakened when her Lupus was discovered and treated. Fascinating tale and yes, a strong parallel with Oliver Sacks and Awakenings.

A common genus of microbe found in wet, boggy environments could play a key role in the development of Parkinson's disease.  

== Biotech updates ==

The completed human genome lacked one piece, the Y chromosome. That’s finally done, with some surprises. For one, Y chromosomes were vastly different sizes, ranging from 45.2 million to 84.9 million base pairs in length. A year or two ago we also improved knowledge of past “Y bottlenecks,’ when apparently only small numbers of males got to reproduce. (That event becomes even more striking, the closer we look! It apparently happened across a very wide area, and during a particular era of transition to intense agriculture, but before large towns. And this has many implications that we might discuss in comments.)

Want more? Well, some of the genes that enable the naked mole rat to get exceptional longevity (for a rodent) have been transferred to mice with positive results on lifespan "and there are hopes to apply these results to humans." Yeah, well don’t get excited. Longevity results in mice hardly ever translate into human span-extensions, for a simple reason that I describe here. 

For the first time, researchers have observed the beginnings of photosynthesis, starting with a single photon. 

A Chinese team’s extreme animal gene experiment may lead to super soldiers who survive nuclear fallout, they assert. Modified human embryonic stem cells showed high resistance against radiation, according to paper by the Beijing Academy of Military Sciences.

Unlike many other species, gorillas seem to be remarkably resilient to early-life adversity or even trauma. Researchers examined whether each animal experienced any of six types of early-life adversity before age six, including losing their mom or dad, living through group instability or witnessing the infanticide of a fellow young animal. If the gorilla lived past six, its life prospects were no worse than any other.

== Tech & physics updates ==

Brian Keating's latest "Into the Impossible" episode offers terrific perspectives on J Robert Oppenheimer, in light of the recent film. My own comments on the flick were posted here, a week or so ago.

Albert Einstein in his General theory of Relativity more than a hundred years ago, said that antimatter should behave just like matter in a gravitational field, and fall downwards. Researchers at Cern have now confirmed that Einstein was right; by carefully constructing thousands of atoms of anti-hydrogen and then letting them fall. Cool stuff? Well…  

DARPA is funding another look at MHD propulsion for submarines - as in The Hunt For Red October. 

Wind Wings sails are made from the same materials as windmill blades, but operate as rigid sails on a few freighters. They are designed to cut fuel consumption and therefore shipping's carbon footprint. I was an investor in an earlier (now alas defunct) avatar of this company. I hope this version does good for the world. 

And finally...

 For those of you near retirement or looking for a side bennie-gig, there is of course the Peace Corps and similar entities. Take  "Engineers Without Borders" modeled on the more famous Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. One member of this community worked from them years ago, and designed a sewer line for a village in Rwanda, from the comfort of his home.

And yes, I'll soon be nagging you about "proxy activism" or how you can live up to your beliefs and wishes for the world, at minimal cost and discomfort, by joining NGOs who will save the world for you!

Proxy Activism, the power of joining! It's getting to that time of year. I hope when I issue the annual nag, many of you will go to comments and chime in: "Already done, David! Here are MY five proxy groups using my dues to help make things better!" 

Science updates: A focus on biotech and biology wonders!

Ever more it is a world where biology becomes the foremost science. That is, if we can save science (and all other fact professions) from those seeking to impose a new Dark Age.

For starters: 

== Biotech updates ==

In the journal Neuron, a team of researchers expected to show biological neurons are more complex—they were surprised at just how much more complex they actually are. They found it took a five- to eight-layer neural network, or nearly 1,000 artificial neurons, to mimic the behavior of a single biological neuron from the brain’s cortex. They called this an upper bound to complexity, but I doubt that aspect, and predict we will find computational aspects to the glial and astrocyte cells that surround neurons in a functioning brain.

From where does this complexity arise? As it turns out, it’s mostly due to a type of chemical receptor in dendrites—the NMDA ion channel—and the branching of dendrites in space. “Take away one of those things, and a neuron turns [into] a simple device.” Alas, this model is actually theoretical. Measurement in actual neurons will have to wait.

And of course, all of this complexity is before admitting to the possibility that quantum effects are involved, akin to Penrose-Hameroff theory.

How are nerves controlled? Some invertebrates, such as the hydra, can regenerate their heads after decapitation. Researchers are studying "which genes are switched on and off during regeneration and how they're controlled."

Meanwhile, the origins of some of our ‘junk DNA” may go back to the origins of mammals, in ways creepily like my chilling-creepy story “Chrysalis.”

== More bio wonders ==

A decade after gene therapy, children born with deadly immune disorder remain healthy. 

An anti-aging vaccine? Japanese researchers are developing a vaccine to remove "zombie cells," senescent cells that accumulate with age - can can harm nearby cells by releasing chemicals that lead to inflammation.

Researchers discovered a bizarre way that a cancer cell can disarm its would-be cellular attackers by extending out nanoscale tentacles that can reach into an immune cell and pull out its powerpack mitochondria. One more reason to believe there must be something more to cancer than just wild, malfunctioning reproduction. Again, see my story "Chrysalis" for a theory about that... one that triggered correspondence with researchers! 

Almost yearly, we learn of yet another promising treatment for spinal injury and paralysis. This one using ‘dancing’ molecules appears to have truly breakthrough effects on neural connection restoration. 

The rise of multidrug-resistant bacteria has already led to a significant increase in human disease and death. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 2.8 million people worldwide are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, accounting for 35,000 deaths each year in the U.S. and 700,000 deaths around the globe.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have identified nanoparticles released from cells - supermeres - which transmit chemical 'messages' between cells. These may serve as biomarkers for disease.

Nanome is a UCSD spinoff that uses VR and Augmented Reality to visualize complex molecules for science, pharma and other advanced uses. Take a look at their great new demo video. Full disclosure: I am on the advisory board. 

Gradually, some companies are coming to realize what some of us forecast long ago, e.g. in novels of Vernor Vinge – that the ‘neurodivergent” or folks along the autism spectrum often have traits that make them superior employees at many kinds of tasks. Adjustments to interview processes have opened doors and assessments show good results and now the trend is growing in India. Oh, but there are five very different "spectrum people" with roles in my novel EXISTENCE.

Can poor nutrition and ultra-processed foods contribute to irritability and outbursts of angry rhetoric? 

== Adaptive animals ==

Increasingly, researchers are gaining up-close insights into animal behaviors in the wild - using bio-mimetic robots, realistic-looking programmed versions embedded in the swarm, herd, flock or school of animals. Robotic bees, falcons, termites and fish are some of the early experiments that have yielded fresh insights into animal's social behavior.

While it’s long been known that some fish and amphibians can do parthenogenesis… females producing young without contributions from a male… it is very rare among warm-blooded creatures. But lately it’s proved that California Condors have done it recently, much as in my novel Glory Season.

A fascinating article on The Post-Human Dog: Much like the History Channel show Life After People, a new book - A Dog's World: Imagining the lives of dogs in a world without humans - by J. Pierce and M. Bekoff imagines possible future evolutionary trajectories for how our canine friends would adapt and survive in the absence of humans. Though large numbers would die off in the beginning, others would go feral and spread to newly changed ecological niches across planet earth.

And a fascinating look backward: The bizarre dog types that time forgot: a vast variety of canines that no longer exist: wooly dogs, vegetarian dogs, lion-fighting dogs and other working dogs - chronicled in The Invention of the Modern Dog, when the Victorians instigated and propagated rigorous 'breeds' of dogs.

Talking with cetaceans? A project is underway, using advanced machine learning methods to parse the language (if any) of sperm whales. It will be an ambitious undertaking, calling for drones and robots to collect data on whale actions, to correlate with the utterances... hoping the robots won't interfere or bother the creatures, lest most of the translations turn out to be stuff like "I knew I shouldn't have swallowed that thing; it complains more than Jonah did!"

== And pig hearts... ==

Yes, sure. Xenotransplantation is a big deal. More later.

And finally....

The rapid progress true Science now makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried in a 1000 Years the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity & give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labour & double its Produce. All Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a Way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and the human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity. 

                        —Benjamin Franklin

Your Cell Phone becomes a tricorder!

See the heat. FLIR ONE, the first consumer-oriented thermal imaging system for a smartphone, displays a live thermal image on the phone’s screen, letting you see in complete darkness. A family can detect intruders in total darkness, find a lost pet, or see through smoke in an emergency.

This is just one element of the huge renaissance in detection and seeing which is about to proliferate into citizen hands. In this case though… it will also (let me predict here) let you see through skimpy clothing to the "warm" nudity beneath. (We went through all this 20 years ago with the SONY Handycam.)

Beyond the standard camera, microphone and GPS location sensors, smart phones are rapidly getting smarter. The growing array of capabilities includes accelerometers, proximity sensors, inertial and light sensors, as well as a magnetometer, digital compass, gyroscope, altimeter, and soon...chemical sensors to monitor toxins, radiation or air quality. How about sensors for pH levels, UV sensors, or carbon monoxide levels, plus healthcare monitors for heart rate, stress levels, body temperature, glucose or alcohol levels.

A new laser rangefinding and volume and location analysis device attaches to the back of your smartphone. It contains patented laser, compass, and bluetooth technology that integrates with your phone's camera and GPS.   Laser measurements are accurate to within +20 cm and correlates with GPS location within +1 meter.  Survey and map everything in front of you, outdoors, with a tool that fits in your pocket.

And is this for real? The GammaPix(TM) Lite App, developed initially for several federal agencies, turns your phone into a detector of ionizing radiation. 

All of which will pale in importance compared to facial recognition apps!  (The most dangerous thing we can do it to refuse them.) And soon after? Apps that turn face recog into a lie detector.  These are tools that - if some elite monopolizes them - will ensure Big Brother forever.  But if we all use them, it will mean freedom forever.  (Privacy is another matter.)

Next? You can expect localization features like iBeacon to tell stores that ping your device where you are, letting you have local, indoor mapping with varied degrees of info like store projections of what you might want or need.  Creepy factor aside - whether we finally reach a balance between Push and Pull - this will bring us augmented reality the way it must come.  Not with goggle-glasses (at first) but on carried screens.

Also, this year, Siri-style personal assistants will surge back.  Also on the horizon, tech-seer Mark Anderson predicts the under $100 smart phone and under $250 tablet. Low prices will be propelled by something very good… the arrival of two BILLION more consumers in the (lower) middle class, across Asia and the south.

That is, it will be good news if we can manage to provide them with that life style very very very efficiently. No tech will be more important than efficiency and sustainability tech. And those who obstruct such things are the purest villains ever produced.

 Oh but then there's this! A major breakthrough! Creating a virtual C. elegans nematode in a computer by reverse-engineering its biology—  has now developed software -- Open Worm -- that replicates the worm’s muscle movement. The failure to model C elegans - with just 302 neurons - has long been a glaring rebuke to neuroscience. If they truly have a model now, then mazel tov! Now… on to ants!

==Colonizing the Galaxy==

In “Virulence as a model for interplanetary and interstellar colonization – parasitism or mutualism?”  Jonathan Starling and Duncan H. Forgan  model the relationship between an intelligent civilization and its host planet as symbiotic, where the relationship between the symbiont and the host species (the civilization and the planet's ecology, respectively) determines the fitness and ultimate survival of both organisms. They perform a series of Monte Carlo Realization simulations, where civilizations pursue a variety of different relationships/strategies with their host planet, from mutualism to parasitism, and can consequently ‘infect’ other planets/hosts…..  As the colonization velocity is increased, the strategy of parasitism becomes more successful, until they dominate the ‘population’. This is in accordance with predictions based on island biogeography and r/K selection theory. 

Of course this scientific model appears to coincide remarkably with the more speculative and dramatic version that I present in my recent novel Existence. Their conclusion suggests that the galaxy might pass through very difficult times – waves of virulence – that eventually settle down to a pattern that rewards symbiosis and health.

Want a cool synergy? This is exactly the perspective that China's stunning new science fiction talent Liu Cixin developed for his amazing novel The Three Body Problem.  The galaxy may pass through very difficult phases, before growing up.

==A Rise in Infectious Disease?==

Back in 1980 I was a graduate student in physics with medical school housemates.  One of them asked me my view on what specialty to choose.  Without pause I said "Infectious disease."  He looked at me, puzzled and asked: "Isn't that kind of… well… over?"

"Mark my words, I answered.  We are living in a fool's paradise, a narrow window of time when infection only seems to have been conquered. Any time now, we'll learn how flexible parasites are, as they come roaring back."

My friend took my advice, and was at the Centers of Disease Control, in Atlanta, when AIDS struck society like a hammer blow. Since then, we've seen inanities like the addle-brained anti-vax movement, hospital generated diseases and countless other signs of resurgence by old and new enemies.  Read more about it here: Major Gaps in Country's Ability to Counter Infectious Diseases. A majority of states reach half or fewer key indicators.

Interesting, if true.  Fungi found growing on the walls of the highly radioactive Chernobyl reactor core might -- and let's keep that contingent "might" -- actually flourish on gamma radiation. Hmmmm

==Genetic Markers and Identity==

Male-female brain differences? This new result suggests that men have more connections forward and back… between sensing and action parts of the brain… and women have more lateral connections between left and right … logical and intuitive… portions.  This is consistent with known differences in spatial vs communication skills.

But… always remember that any such differences between classes of people only apply to averages.  The study found many exceptions.  And protecting an individual's right to BE an exception to any class/gender/race generalization was one of the great breakthroughs of our civilization.

A truly excellent (long) article about a new theory of autism -- that is is largely a problem of over-sensitivity and over-stimulation by an "intense world." (Not at all inconsistent with my depiction in Existence.)

Scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long.  This is getting complicated!  Nature had a long time to work this stuff out.

==The intersection of Bio and Tech==

Researchers have built a small vehicle whose flying motion resembles the movements of a jellyfish or moth — a new method of flight that could enable miniaturized future robots for surveillance, search-and-rescue.

While algae has long been considered a potential source of biofuel, and several companies have produced algae-based fuels on a research scale, the fuel has been projected to be expensive. Only now, Department of Energy researchers have found a new technology that harnesses algae’s energy potential efficiently and incorporates a number of methods to reduce the cost of producing algae fuel.  Add this to breakthroughs in continuously growing algae from CO2 from cement plants and agricultural runoff wastes, and you can see some of the promise that I describe (in passing) in Existence. The possibility of creating multi-path synergies .  This could be a large scale game-changer.

But this is the year for one medium scale game changer.  The year to start (if you haven't already) swapping out the light bulbs in your home (starting with high traffic areas) for super-efficient LEDs. Prices have dropped and the economics are so good, it isn't even "virtuous" anymore. Just practical.

IBM's predictions for five years from now seem a bit better and more on target, this time.  Some will make you go huh!  These are all plausible near-future developments.  They only require one thing.  That we go back to being people who believe in a can-do, pragmatic approach to progress and making things better,

Digital communication via -- aromas? Or pheromones or trace molecules?  In this research,  binary signals are “programmed” into pulses of evaporated alcohol molecules to demonstrate the potential of molecular communications. The first demonstration signal, performed in Canada, was “O Canada,” from the Canadian national anthem. It was sent several meters across open space before it was decoded by a receiver.

Message Passing Inference with Chemical Reaction Networks: In a related development, researchers showed that an important class of artificial intelligence algorithms could be implemented using chemical reactions. This kind of chemical-based AI will be necessary for constructing therapies that sense and adapt to their environment. The hope is to eventually have drugs that can specialize themselves to your personal chemistry. It also opens some sci-fi-ish possibilities for Chemical AI.

==Tech Run-down==

Three-D printing, using hot metals and other sophisticated techniques, has taken another step forward, making a complete, working loudspeaker.

Fascinating Infographic on temperature: a billion degrees of separation: from absolute zero to 'absolute hot.'

And now a tech run-down from Brian Wang - starting with:

A SANDIA roadmap for making 10 MW supercritical turbines commercially ready by 2020, using highly compressed CO2 as the working fluid. Combine this with molten salt cooling systems and fission power systems might shrink by a factor of 100 in volume and mass.

A real-life Turing Machine that does the whole thing mechanically… using LEGO pieces. "A group of students at the computer science department at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon built a working replica of a Turing Machine out of Lego bricks, with 20,000 elements used including 32 pneumatic cylinders, 50 meters of pneumatic tubing, and over a thousand gears!" Maker culture does great things. (Remember this from Infinity's Shore?)

The new "bushite" federal government of Canada appears to be bent on outdoing any US administration in its hatred of science. The latest example is egregious.  Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, with spectacular haste and almost no effort to either digitize or find new homes for materials going back to 1803. "…precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills."

An astronomical object called SBW2007 - sometimes nicknamed SBW1 - is a nebula with a giant star at center twenty times more massive than our Sun. Within its late-evolution nebula, SBW1 shows similarities with a star that went supernova 26 years ago, the famous SN 1987A. Early Hubble images of SN 1987A show eerie similarities to SBW1. Both stars had identical rings of the same size and age, located in similar HII regions… This blogger says that … "At a distance of more than 20 000 light-years it will be safe to watch when the supernova goes off. If we are very lucky it may happen in our own lifetimes…"  Hm…. I agree it would be spectacular.  And maybe that distance truly is "just right." Still. Let's do more calculations before wishing…

This YouTube video describes fascinating work done recently on how the brain distributes work on visual objects according to their type: e.g. "mammal-> living" or mobile objects or immobile objects. The layout, on an unfolded surface of the cortex, is fascinating! In other words...

Some version of mind-reading will be here in ten years.

We need a decent, open accountable, calm and truly worthwhile civilization, by then!

It's the one vital thing.