DARPA Wants to Override Evolution to Make Immortal Synthetic Organisms
By Jeremy Hsu for PopSci:
Death-resistant synthetic beings? Don’t worry, there’s a genetically encoded kill-switch
It’s been a long time since a Pentagon project from the DARPA labs truly evoked a “WTF DARPA?!” response, but our collective jaw dropped when we saw the details on a project known as BioDesign. DARPA hopes to dispense with evolutionary randomness and assemble biological creatures, genetically programmed to live indefinitely and presumably do whatever their human masters want. And, Wired’s Danger Room reports, when there’s the inevitable problem of said creatures going haywire or realizing that they’re intelligent and have feelings, there’s a planned self-destruct genetic code that could be triggered.
Unsurprisingly, molecular biologists have weighed in with huge caveats and raised fingers of objection. First, they say that DARPA has the wrong idea about hoping to overcome…
U.S. Military Prepares for Cyber War
Surfdaddy Orca writes in h+ magazine:
Ever wonder how exactly the U.S. military would fight a cyber war? In August 2009, the U.S. Air Force activated its new cyberspace combat unit, the 24th Air Force, to “provide combat-ready forces trained and equipped to conduct sustained cyber operations.”
It’s commanded by former Minuteman missile and satellite-jamming specialist Major General Richard Webber. (And under his command are two wings, the 688th Information Operations Wing and the 67th Network Warfare Wing, plus a combat communications units.)
Meanwhile, to counter the threat of cyber warfare, DARPA is still deploying the National Cyber Range, a test bed of networked computers to test countermeasures against “cyberwar”. (According to one report, it provides “a virtual network world . to be populated by mirror computers and inhabited by myriad software sim-people ‘replicants,’ and used as a firing range in which to develop the art of cyber warfare.”)
And the Obama administration has even added a military cybersecurity coordinator to the National Security team.
DARPA Tests Zombie Hibernation Formula
DARPA is funding research into “a zombie-like form of hibernation” — including a $9.9 million Texas program seeking to induce suspended animation. They’re testing chemical compounds on anesthetized pigs to keep them “as close to death as possible” — to improve emergency trauma care for soldiers on the battlefield.
Also being tested is a pancreatic enzyme found in squirrels “to put humans into a state of squirrel-like hibernation…
DARPA Seeks Means to Manipulate Lightning
Clay Dillow writes on Popular Science:
Lightning Mother Nature has it. DARPA wants it.
China and Russia try to control rain clouds and the Dutch use technology to keep low-lying inland areas from flooding, so why shouldn’t the United States be able to manipulate lightning? In an attempt to better understand one of nature’s most powerful processes, DARPA issued a broad agency announcement yesterday asking for ideas on how to best protect American personnel and resources from dangers and costs associated with lightning strikes. To wit:
Lightning causes more than $1B/year in direct damages to property in addition to the loss of lives, disruption of activities (for example, postponement of satellite launches) and their corresponding costs. A better understanding of the physics underlying lightning discharge, associated emissions, and related processes (for example, tribocharging…
Military Funds Tiny Flying “Spy Hummingbird”
“It looks like a hummingbird!” But it’s an unmanned military aerial vehicle with a 5-inch wingspan for which DARPA is providing a second round of funding!
The ’spy hummingbird’ weighs just 10 grams (about the weight of two nickels) and can perform “controlled hovering flight” using only an on-board power source and flapping its two wings…
This article appeared in the latest edition of H+ magazine.
CounterTech – A(F)I: Artificial (Feline) Intelligence
SittingNow.com have employed the A.I. powers of Disinformation the Podcast host Joe McFall to kick off their new and improved ‘CounterTech’ series.
This week, IBM scientists and their university partners announced a breakthrough in cognitive computing research: the simulation of a brain the size of a cat’s. Using 144 terabytes of RAM and almost 150,000 processors, scientists were able to model a neural cortex with 1 billion simulated neurons and 10 billion synaptic connections. The researchers have subsequently been awarded $16.1 million for completion of phase 0 of DARPA’s SYNAPSE project. The goal of SYNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics), according to DARPA, is “to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that scales to biological levels.” In layman’s terms, their goal is to put simulated brains onto microchips…
Darpa: Freeze Soldiers to Save Injured Brains
From Wired:
The Pentagon’s mad science division has a new way to deal with the 70,000+ troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injury: freeze ‘em.
Darpa, the military’s far-out research arm, is looking for research projects that would create a “therapeutic hypothermia device” to prevent traumatic brain injuries from causing permanent molecular damage to the brain. The idea is based on successful studies that used cortical cooling to treat survivors of strokes and cardiac arrest. According to Darpa’s solicitation, cooling down the brain after trauma can offer “dramatic neuroprotection” that will prevent long-term harm to cognition and motor skills.
So far, Darpa-funded studies suggest that traumatic brain injuries are caused by repeated exposure to blasts, specifically the “supersonic wave” of highly-pressurized air they emit. Within a fraction of a second after impact, brain cells, tissues and blood vessels are stretched,…
Pentagon Unveils New Chembot
via cnet
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to iRobot to create the flexible military bot. The maker of the Roomba and Scooba, along with University of Chicago researchers, showed off the oozy results at the Iros conference (the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) in St. Louis this week.
DARPA envisions the palm-size ChemBot as a mobile robot that can traverse soft terrain and navigate through small openings, such as tiny wall cracks, during reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions. It gets around by way of a process called “jamming,” in which material can transition between semiliquid and solid states with only a slight change in volume.
In ChemBot’s case, a flexible silicone skin encapsulates a series of pockets containing a mix of air and loosely packed particles. When air is removed from the compartments, the skin attempts to equalize the pressure differential by constricting the particles, which shift slightly to fill the void left by the evacuated air.
In that way, the weird little blob inflates and deflates parts of its body, changing size and shape–and scaring the living daylights out of us. We don’t know exactly when ChemBot will join the Armed Forces, but we can only beg: please, oh please, keep it away from us.
The Psychic Soldiers – Disinformation World News
Disinformation World News – Episode 8: The Psychic Soldiers
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Satanic rockers in Iran, Scientology’s European woes, and DARPA’s psychic soldiers of the future, this week on Disinformation World News.
Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!
The Friendliest Necromancer – Disinformation World News
Disinformation World New – Episode 6: The Friendliest Necromancer
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DARPA limb regeneration, a necromancer with a heart of gold, and the Strange Adventures of H. P. Lovecraft, this week on Disinformation World News.
Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!
Mystic Canine Suicide – Disinformation World News
Disinformation World News – Episode 2: Mystic Canine Suicide
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Conspiracy Theorists in Israel, DARPA’s robotic soldiers of the future, and mysterious dog suicides in Scotland, all on this week’s installment of Disinformation: World News.
Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!
Nikola Tesla vs. Zombie Cockroaches – Out There Radio: Episode 21
Out There Radio – Episode 21: Nikola Tesla vs. Zombie Cockroaches
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Alien Communications, Death Rays and Free Energy for all! The 21st episode of Out There Radio exposes the futuristic vision of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century. We’ll also talk about DARPA insect cyborgs and the ATF’s crackdown on ninjas and our civil liberties.
