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Human Brain Robots

We have all seen countless movies in which robots take over the world and wipe out humanity, where robots behave like humans and form a whole force to fight against the beings that created them. Most of us didn’t really believe that one day, robots that behave like humans, would actually become real. Until now. Scientists have been able to make tiny human brains and hook them up to robots! For many, it is still unbelievable, but scientists are actually moving closer and closer to creating life in a laboratory.

The steps that have been taken are just the beginning and there is a very long way to go until scientists are able to completely replicate a human brain and successfully implant it into a metal body.

Scientists have been able to come up with ways to make robots behave like humans. They were able to produce organoids which generate brain waves that could show signs of consciousness, and reproduce qualities of the human brain like being capable of sentience (capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively) and of feeling pain, agony and distress.

It all started at the University of California, San Diego lab, of biologist Alysson Muotri, where the scientists used stem cells to grow organoids. These are tiny, self-organized three-dimensional tissue cultures. These organoids were then packed into a box and shipped to space to see how they develop in a zero gravity environment. As said by Muotri, they are most likely ‘replicating like crazy’ in space. It was then observed that the organoids produced were giving off brain waves or complex designs of neural activities. As the organoids matured, it was observed that they showed changes in the brain waves, similar to the changes that take place in the developing brain of a premature baby. This peculiar finding is forcing the scientists to revisit the limitations of lab-grown mini-organs and the ethical issues surrounding them.

To proceed with the experiment, Dr. Muotri hooked the mini brains up onto a spider-shaped robot in order to study the neural activity. The results that he got from this could possibly prove that scientists are now able to generate partially conscious life in a laboratory.

Dr. Muotri emphasized the fact that these are just clusters of replicating brain cells, not actual brains. Another point to state is that the mini brains barely scratch the surface of a human brain’s capabilities. The human brain is immensely complex, whereas the mini-brains are just a simple ball of neurons. But, of course, creating these simple balls of neurons, somewhat similar to the human brain, was also once believed to be an impossible task.

As the scientists agree, there is a long way to go to make human brain robots a success in the world of science and technology. But, this is also a huge landmark and many scientist across the globe are experimenting with and are hopeful that this research will not stop here.

Airships

Traveling by air is the fastest and safest mode of traveling. Today, it has become the most frequently used mode of travel, but long before commercial airplanes flew, the skies were dominated by Airships. Airships, as the name suggests, were tremendous in size and flew passengers locally. In terms of design, they consisted of a huge balloon-like structure which received its lift through gasbags. The gasbags generally contained helium but since it wasn’t cheap and an excessive amount of gas was required to keep the airship in the sky, Helium was later replaced with a much cheaper alternative; hydrogen which was notoriously known for being flammable.

There are three types of Airships, classed by structure – they are rigid airships, semi-rigid airships and non-rigid airships. The non-rigid airships have no structural framework and retain their shape solely by internal pressure. The rigid airships have a structural framework in addition to the gasbags. While the semi-rigid airship combines the structural properties of both rigid and non-rigid airships. Rigid airships were the most frequently used and had a better safety record. First flown by the German General Count Zeppelin, the rigid airships soon received a new name and were all referred to as the Zeppelin.

Developed in 1893, Zeppelin wasn’t commercially flown until the 19th century when a German airline took off carrying passengers in 1910. 4 years later and the airline had already completed more than one thousand flights carrying over ten thousand passengers. By then airships were being used commercially as a mode of travel on a larger scale. Apart from commercial uses, Zeppelins played a crucial role for Germany in World War 1. Used as bombers and deployers, Airships had proved to be useful for both military and commercial travel. This all changed when a German airship carrying 97 onboard abruptly caught fire on May 6th, 1937 in New Jersey, killing almost 37 people. This, along with a number of other incidents, took away people’s faith and marked the end of airships and the beginning of commercial airplanes on a broad scale which were much safer and faster and could fly internationally.

Now, almost 80 years later, airships are almost unheard of. However, a team of Austrian scientists are currently proposing an airship ten times greater than the Hindenburg for the sole purpose of carrying cargo. This new and unique airship will be capable of lifting more than 20,000 tons of cargo across land and sea. Furthermore, wind speeds at high altitudes can easily cross 150+ kilometers. Using this airspeed could allow the airship to travel around the world in just 14 days. As well as carrying cargo much faster than ships on the same route. Of course, the incident of Hindenburg is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about airships and safety. In this in mind, scientists propose to use carbon fiber as a durable framework as well as automating them so even if an incident is met, there is no loss of life.

Water Discovered On Another Planet

The universe we live in is vast beyond our wildest imagination, we know that it is infinite and the planet we live on is the only planet suited for life. But, Earth is just one of billions of planets that thrive in the vast universe.

To believe that Earth is the only planet suited to support life amongst is foolish. For years intellectuals have argued that there may exist a planet with conditions somewhat similar to Earth on which life could bloom but so far we have been unable to find it. Until recently, when a planet that goes by the name K2-18b fell under the sight of NASA’s Kepler telescope.

K2-18b is by far the first planet to be discovered that could potentially host life. Lying in the Goldilocks Zone in the Leo constellation, where liquid water has been found, at an ideal temperature to potentially host living organisms in addition to suitable gases that wrap around the planet. First discovered by NASA in 2015, it is approximately 110 lightyears away and behaves much like the Earth, with a few exceptions. For example; the Earth revolves around the sun while K2-18b revolves around a red dwarf that is much cooler than the Sun and only warms up the planet to 10 degrees Celsius. Orbiting at a distance of 14 miles from the dwarf, the planet is said to complete the orbit in approximately 33 days, compared to Earth which completes one orbit in approximately 365 days.

The most important aspect of determining whether a planet can sustain life or not is by determining if there is water present on the planet. Water compromises about 70% of the Earth, without it, life cannot survive let alone thrive. So, to find a planet that could potentially support life, water is the first priority. 2 years after K2-18b’s discovery, NASA’s sole objective was to search for water on the planet. They found that every time the planet moved in front of the dwarf, the wavelength absorbed by the water dropped. Similarly, as the planet crossed, the wavelength rose. For NASA, this confirmed the presence of water vapors. Further studies show that K2-18b is much bigger than Earth nearly twice the size and has a temperature ranging from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius which is optimal in regards to supporting life. In addition to that, studies show that it may be made up of 50% water.

Knowing that another planet besides Earth exists that can support life is an exciting prospect, but with more than a hundred lightyears between the Earth and its equal, we are not inhabiting it anytime soon. But, maybe one day.

Wormholes

Wormholes are passageways through space-time, that are essentially connecting points between two separate distances or locations in the universe. If visualized, a wormhole is a tunnel connecting the entry and exit points linking two different points in space time, or different galaxies. The best and simplest way to show this phenomenon is a paper example when two dots are drawn at the opposite end of the paper, the paper folded in half and a hole pierced through the dots connecting the two dots with a pencil.

Wormholes are based as a solution to Albert Einstein’s equation of general relativity – the equation for which accounts for the short child wormholes, or Einstein Rosen Bridges, which essentially acts as giant blackhole linking two areas of space time. The theory suggests that the matter and light that is absorbed from one end escapes out of the other at the point known as a whitehole. This whitehole will be located somewhere else in the galaxy or maybe even in some other dimension.

These theoretical wormholes could be utilized for a variety of different things. Some say that travelling through a wormhole would take less time than through actual space, creating an enormous shortcut between any two destinations. Traveling at light speed seems impossible but we can easily travel faster than light using a wormhole. If two massively separated points are connected in this way, it would be possible to travel conventionally between the two locations, therefore even though the object is travelling slow inside the wormhole itself, it would still reach its destination before a beam of light outside. There are also theories surrounding significant gravitational field. For example, if we can place one end of a wormhole close to a blackhole, which has an incredible amount of gravity and acts to slow down the apparent time, the link between that place and somewhere else could provide the means of time travel.

Next step into space travelling or travelling to other dimensions, this theory relies on the many-world’s hypothesis and interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that reveals infinite universes in timelines. According to this idea, every choice or branching path that we take, exits in the endless list of others. Experts like Stephen  Hawking suggest that the wormholes could be all around us but they are microscopically small existing in very deceptive spacetime as nothing is completely flat or solid. According to this theory, there are incredibly small holes in every piece of matter including the time itself, even smaller than the atoms. However, being so tiny we can’t even begin to imagine traveling between them or manipulating them.

Of all the options, these are imaginably the least likely scenario, primarily because we are not even sure if the many wormholes interpretations have any basis in reality because scientists are not even sure if wormholes exists. They do exist in theory, but there is no empirical proof that they are there. The whole idea is still far far more science fiction than fact.

Neom – Future city

Neom is a future city that is being planned by the Saudi government and especially the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman. He plans to create a city that will be out of a movie using all sorts of technology and advancements. Some of the features of the city were listed in a 2,300-page document that has been created by the Saudi government while planning for this mysterious and futuristic city.

The city will have many attractions that the tourists will love and will definitely want to see. They will have an artificial moon that will light up the night sky, every night. They plan to have Jurassic park inspired robotic dinosaurs that people interact and mingle with. They also will have robot maids, glow in the dark beaches and even flying cars! This ambitious city looks like something that will attract the whole world and will encourage people to visit Saudi Arabia, which hasn’t really been a hub for tourism, except the holy pilgrimage.

However, the downfall of this futuristic city is that it will force the local tribes to relocate that have existed in Saudi Arabia for centuries. It is also planned that a human gene-editing clinic will be placed within the city and the city will be under surveillance of the government 24 hours of the day. It seems that the city is more of a dystopian future in books rather than a futuristic, fun tourist spot.

The location that has been planned for this city is the North-west of Saudi Arabia, which at the moment is barren except for a few tribes that live there. The city is said to cost around 500 billion dollars and will need a lot of investment from very rich people and the crown prince himself, who will also be overseeing the construction of the city.

Right now the place where Neom is said to be created is barren and is a large desert, like most of Saudi Arabia. However, the crown prince plans on using the method of cloud seeding, which means that they engineer the clouds to produce rain and this will not only improve the climate of the city but also enable fresh produce to grow on a barren land.

According to the document, Neom plans to have more Michelin star restaurants in one city than anywhere around the world. The city also plans on having the best education provided to children who inhabit the city with holographic teachers. The crown prince wants to give people the best-paying jobs and wants to create a healthy economy where both parties are satisfied.

The chief executive of the city says that they plan on using the latest and most advanced technology; hence this is the reason why some of it is still theoretical and may take time to develop.

Facebook’s Mind Reading Headset

Have you ever imagined a world where you would just think things and they would happen? For example, you thought to send a happy birthday message to your grandmother and your phone does it automatically? Well, this concept seems to be coming closer to becoming reality very soon. In 2017, Facebook decided to create a device which would use your thoughts to type. So whatever you were thinking at that moment would be typed out by Facebook’s new brain-computer. Now Facebook has started to show how far they have come with this invention and how soon consumers can have it in their hands. It is something that will revolutionize technology as it will let the disabled speak and make our daily lives much easier.

Facebook says that they are in collaboration with scientists and researchers at the University of California to work on this new invention. They stated that they want to connect the world without any limitations whether they are geographical, physical or mental. They want to make the world instantly accessible and completely hands-free. So with collaboration from researchers, Facebook is trying to build a device that will let patients with neurological diseases have a voice again by examining their brain’s activity in real-time.

An experiment was conducted by the researchers where a neurological patient who had been surgically implanted with electrodes on the surface of his brain was asked to answer questions aloud. Around 61% of the time, the computer was able to comprehend and present the correct answer through brain signals alone. Researchers now believe that this could have a real impact on society as it would enable those who cannot speak to now have a voice and share their opinion with the world too.

However, there is much more work to be done. Right now the project is just at the beginning stage where it is starting to take form. What the researchers aim to achieve will take many years of trials and practice. The researchers want to decode around 100 words per minute with a vocabulary of 1000 words, and they want less than a 17% chance of error. This is a huge goal for the researchers and if this is achieved, it could transform the technological world.

However there are a few downfalls too, the procedure is surgically invasive, which in itself is a huge risk. This is a different model compared to the one aimed for normal consumers which will be manual headsets. Also in the initial trials, there was very limited vocabulary that was tested which means very limited answers could be provided. It leaves a great deal of scope for improvement. This device will take many years to be completed and to reach the consumers and patients, and will need much more money and effort to become a reality.