The breakthrough involves harnessing the power of lithium-metal batteries, which are capable of holding substantially more energy and charge in a fraction of the time compared to lithium-ion batteries that are currently used in everything from smartphones to Tesla vehicles.

Until now, scientists have been unable to create a lithium-metal battery stable enough to be used in commercial applications.

The development, made by a team at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), allows this next-generation batter to be charged and discharge at least 10,000 times, which would increase the lifetime of electric vehicles to that of of their gasoline counterparts – while simultaneously increasing their range and reducing their charge time.

“A lithium-metal battery is considered the holy grail for battery chemistry because of its high capacity and energy density,” said Xin Li, an associate professor at SEAS.

“But the stability of these batteries has always been poor… By studying their fundamental thermodynamics, we can unlock superior performance and harness their abundant opportunities.”

The research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, involves an innovative multi-layer approach to assemble the battery, which allows it to be self-healing and solve the issue of degradation.

It is hoped that the design can be developed commercially in order to meet the growing needs of the electric vehicle industry.

“This proof-of-concept design shows that lithium-metal solid-state batteries could be competitive with commercial lithium-ion batteries. And the flexibility and versatility of our multilayer design makes it potentially compatible with mass production procedures in the battery industry,” said Dr Li.

“Scaling it up to the commercial battery won’t be easy and there are still some practical challenges, but we believe they will be overcome.”

Resource:  uk.movies.yahoo.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Researchers at the University of San Diego have developed a new artificial neuron device that can run neural computations with 100 to 1000 times less energy and area than the current CMOS-based hardware.

The recent report was published in a paper on March 18 in Nature Nanotechnology.

In order to generate the input for one of the connected layers of artificial neurons in neural networks, a mathematical calculation called a non-linear activation function must be applied. However, this application requires a lot of computer power and circuitry due to the need to transfer data between the memory and external processor.

The researchers at UC San Diego developed a new nano-meter sized device that can carry this activation function out much more efficiently.

Duygu Kuzum is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

“Neural network computation in hardware gets increasingly inefficient as the neural network models get larger and more complex,” said Kuzum. “We developed a single nanoscale artificial neuron device that implements these computations in hardware in a very area- and energy-efficient way.”

The study was led by both Kuzum and Ph.D student Shangheon Oh, and they collaborated with UC San Diego physics professor Ivan Schuller, who leads a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center. The center is involved with developing hardware implementations of energy-efficient artificial neural networks.

The New Device
The newly developed device relies on a rectified linear unit, which is one of the most common activation functions used in neural network training. It requires hardware that can undergo gradual changes in resistance, which is what the engineers aimed towards. The device can gradually switch from an insulating to conducting state with a small of amount of heat.

Termed a Mott transition, this switch occurs in an extremely thin layer of vanadium dioxide, and above this layer is a nanowire heater made of titanium and gold. The vanadium dioxide layer slowly heats up when current flows through the nanowire, and this causes a slow and controlled switch from insulating to conducting.

Oh is the study’s first author.

“This device architecture is very interesting and innovative,” said Oh. “In this case, we flow current through a nanowire on top of the material to heat it and induce a very gradual resistance change.”

Implementing the Device
For implementation, the team fabricated an array of activation devices and a synaptic device array, followed by the integration of the two on a custom printed circuit board. They were then connected together, resulting in a hardware version of a neural network.

The network was used to process an image through edge detection, identifying the outlines and edges of objects in the image. The integrated hardware system demonstrated its ability to perform convolution operations that are important for various types of deep neural networks.

“Right now, this is a proof of concept,” Kuzum said. “It’s a tiny system in which we only stacked one synapse layer with one activation layer. By stacking more of these together, you could make a more complex system for different applications.”

Source: www.unite.ai

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Clinical trials using magic mushrooms, ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs in potential breakthrough therapies for debilitating mental illnesses will be funded by the federal government as part of global efforts to advance innovative treatments.

There is growing international evidence showing substances such as ketamine, psilocybin and MDMA can successfully treat resistant mental illnesses, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, when used in a controlled environment and supported by psychiatric care.

Many standard treatments for illnesses, including addiction and eating disorders, can have varied efficacy and recovery rates and there have been few advances in novel pharmaceutical discoveries in recent years.

The Morrison government will on Wednesday launch a $15 million competitive grant round to kick-start Australian clinical trials of potential breakthrough combination therapies.

Advocates of psychedelic-assisted therapy – which include former federal trade minister Andrew Robb and retired chief of the defence force Christopher Barrie – have pushed for a national reclassification of the drugs from prohibited substances to controlled drugs, which includes morphine, methadone and oxycodone to advance research.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration last month published an interim decision to not amend its guidelines to give mental health professionals more access to the drugs.

Several of the substances have been granted “breakthrough therapy” status for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder by the US Food and Drug Administration.

But the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists have raised concerns about any potential rescheduling of the drugs, saying more research is needed to assess their safety and efficacy.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said early results of trials in Australia and internationally were extremely encouraging but more research was desperately needed before the approaches can be used by psychiatrists outside of controlled clinical trials.

“It is vital that we continue to support the search for new and better treatments for mental illness,” Mr Hunt said.

“This grant opportunity will boost local research into potentially life-saving therapies and offers hope to all those suffering from mental illness, including our veterans and emergency service personnel dealing with the devastating effects of PTSD,” Mr Hunt said.

It is estimated four million Australians experience a mental health disorder every year, and almost half of all Australians will be affected at some point in their lifetime. The most prevalent mental illnesses are anxiety disorders – affecting more than 14 per cent of adults each year – depression and substance abuse disorders. Up to 12 per cent of Australians experience PTSD during their lifetime.

Mind Medicine Australia, a mental health charity, has warned delaying mental practitioners ­access could result in a spike in suicides amid an ongoing national mental health crisis.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, David Coleman, said the issue was one of the government’s highest priorities.

“The prevalence and impact of mental illness is devastating for individuals, families and communities. This bold initiative is about ensuring that we explore every avenue of potential treatment for Australians diagnosed with a mental illness,” Mr Coleman said.

Funding will be through the Medical Research Future Fund’s innovative therapies grants. The government says they will accelerate global efforts by supporting Australian-led research into treating addiction disorders and eating disorders that impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The grants will be available for three years from 2021–22, with project activity up to five years.

Source: smh.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Engineers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in Spain, developed plastic beams with 3D printing that are more resistant than those of steel and concrete. In addition to the high resistance, the creation also presents greater versatility. That’s because the beams are made in small blocks that are easy to transport and that are assembled on site – somewhat reminiscent of Lego blocks.

Its versatility makes it possible to install it even in places of difficult access. In fact, although they do not have metallic components, the plastic beams are reinforced with elements that provide rigidity to the structure. According to engineers, this factor generates numerous technical benefits.

The main one is the weight: 80% less than metal or concrete beams, eliminating the need for cranes and trucks for transportation and installation. This alone saves time and money, both in material and labor.

“Our objective was to propose an alternative to the current reinforced concrete beams. They are made with profiles built along the length of the part, which require expensive installation and are difficult to transport,” said the team’s professor and coordinator, José Ramón Albiol. It is worth remembering that, because they are made of plastic, the beams still collaborate for recycling, collaborating for more sustainable constructions.

Source: somagnews.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

“Phoenix PT”, scheduled to fly next summer, is a prototype of a full-scale, two-passenger aircraft that will make its first flight in 2022.

While hydrogen-powered aircraft have been viewed with skepticism by many mainstream aviation experts, a team of students in the Netherlands plans to fly the world’s first aircraft with liquid-hydrogen fuel cells in July. The students from Delft University of Technology, calling themselves the AeroDelft team, just revealed a prototype called Phoenix PT.

Delft University also achieved another milestone last September, successfully demonstrating a prototype of the Flying V, a blended-wing design that promises to be much more fuel-efficient than traditional commercial aircraft.

AeroDelft just announced that it recently completed the ground tests for the crew-less Phoenix PT, which weighs about 113 pounds. It will carry two pounds of liquid hydrogen for its maiden flight. AeroDelft calculates Phoenix PT will have a range of 311 miles and flight time of up to seven hours. The students, comprising 23 nationalities, started the hydrogen aircraft project in September 2018.

AeroDelft began building a full-scale, two-passenger aircraft Phoenix FS last October. It is scheduled to make its first flight in 2022.

AeroDelft chose liquid hydrogen to fuel its Phoenix aircraft because hydrogen is not only the world’s lightest element, but it can pack three times the energy of fossil fuels without emitting any greenhouse gases. It emits only water vapor. Phoenix is also designed to have an unusually low noise profile, with a tail-mounted electric motor.

With a wingspan of 164 feet, the full-scale Phoenix FS will have a crew of two and hold up to 22 pounds of liquid hydrogen for an expected range of 1,243 miles and flight time of up to 10 hours. The two-passenger model’s 2022 flight will be powered by gaseous hydrogen. In 2024, Phoenix FS is expected to fly with liquid hydrogen.

AeroDelft’s sights are set beyond the flight of the Phoenix, with the team’s projection for the first hydrogen-powered flight around the world to happen by 2025, and the first commercial, hydrogen-powered aircraft to begin operations by 2035.

Airbus also plans to fly its first zero-emission commercial aircraft that year. Its ZEROe program is looking at different configurations and technologies for hydrogen power.

While liquid hydrogen is the fuel of choice for the space program, having it become the primary fuel for commercial aircraft has its challenges. Aircraft designers will need to ensure that its storage on board future aircraft will be as safe as existing commercial airliners, while also developing hydrogen storage facilities at airports. Current hydrogen extraction is highly energy intensive, so ways to harvest “green hydrogen” using water electrolysis are being explored.

“Cost-competitive green hydrogen and cross-industry partnerships will be mandatory to bring zero-emission flying to reality,” said Glenn Llewellyn, vice president of Zero-Emission Aircraft at Airbus, in a recent statement.

Source: robbreport.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

German urban air mobility (UAM) manufacturer Volocopter is in the final stages of providing new, sustainable fly taxi mobility option for the global cities. Its heavy-lift utility cargo drone, VoloDrone is intended to transport passengers and goods safely.
Intends to be UAM market leader
In a recent development, Volocopter closed its oversubscribed Series D funding round at €200M (nearly £173M). As a result, the company’s overall funding stands at €322M (nearly £278M).

New investors in Volocopter include funds managed by BlackRock, global infrastructure company Atlantia S.p.A., Avala Capital, mobility technology giant Continental AG, global technology-focused investment fund Jericho Capital, global technology and business solutions provider NTT via its venture capital arm, Tokyo Century, a leading Japanese leasing company, leading family offices, and others. Also, existing investors including Geely, Daimler, DB Schenker, Intel Capital, btov Partners, Team Europe and Klocke Holding took part in the investment round.

The funding will be used to solidify Volocopter’s leading position in the UAM market by bringing the VoloCity. The company will use the investment to take its battery-powered air taxi to certification and by accelerating the launch of its first commercial routes.

“Volocopter is ahead of the curve in the UAM industry, and we have the achievements to prove it,” said Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. “No other electric air taxi company has publicly performed as many flights in cities around the world, with full regulatory approval, as Volocopter has. Our VoloCity is the fifth generation of Volocopter aircraft and has a strong path to being the first certified electric air taxi for cities. Volocopter already has the extensive partnerships necessary to set up the UAM ecosystem for launching both our company and the industry into commercial operations. We are called the pioneers of UAM for a reason, and we plan to keep that title.”

“We are thrilled to welcome investors who share our belief that innovative technology like our Volocopter is one of the key enablers for a sustainable future,” said Rene Griemens, CFO of Volocopter. “Our shareholder structure remains well balanced with a healthy mix of strategic and financial partners spread as globally as our business ambitions.”

To launch services in 2 years
Having ten years of development experience, and as the first and only electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) company to receive Design Organisation Approval (DOA) by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Volocopter also informed in the company that now they expects their first commercial air taxi routes to be opened within the next two years.

Founded by Stephan Wolf and Alexander Zosel in 2011 by Bruchsal, Volocopter has developed multipurpose aircrafts – VoloCity and VoloDrone and physical and digital infrastructure – VoloPort and VoloIQ. Also, it has established partnerships with global leaders in their respective fields.

The company is building the world’s first sustainable and scalable urban air mobility business. With the VoloCity, the company is developing the first fully electric “eVTOL” aircraft in certification to transport passengers safely and quietly within cities.

In 2011, Volocopter performed the first-ever crewed flight of a purely electric multicopter and has since showcased numerous public flights with its full-scale aircraft. The most notable have been the public test flights at Singapore’s Marina Bay in October 2019 and the world’s first autonomous eVTOL flight in Dubai 2017. Volocopter has 300 employees in offices in Bruchsal, Munich, and Singapore.

While the first routes are yet to be announced, the company has committed to establish air taxi services in Singapore and Paris. Also, it has plans to expand many more routes in the US, Asia, and Europe.

Source: uktech.news

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

DO YOU take your lab-grown steak medium-rare or well-done?

This is the kind of question scientists behind a new study hope waiters around the world will be asking of their artificial steak.

Using regenerative science taken straight from drug development and the harm-free collection of bovine tissue cells, scientists in Japan report their new steak not only has a similar texture to a real beef steak but can stay bacteria-free for a much longer period of time — helping potentially cut down on food waste.

The only catch? The steak isn’t edible.

WHY IT MATTERS — While the final form of this artificial steak (and its ultimate reception from the meat-eating and non-meat eating communities alike) is still in flux, lab-grown meat stands to plug a hole in global food demand that plant-based alternatives like Beyond Beef might simply fail to satisfy.

Artificial steak and other meat products stand to not only lessen the ethical concerns of meat production but to lessen the environmental effects as well. Lab-grown means much lower water usage than traditional cattle farming.

The research was published Monday in the journal Science of Food.

HERE’S THE BACKGROUND — With over a decade of innovative meat alternatives under our belt (Beyond Meat is celebrating its 12th birthday this year) the idea of a plant-based or even lab-grown meat alternative is far from revolutionary.

But despite all the recent efforts being made in this space, the researchers behind this new work say that there are still some hurdles left to overcome. For example: Developing lab-grown meat capable of standing up to a juicy, 8oz steak instead of being relegated to the ground-beef section.

“As the bovine cultured muscle tissues constructed using these [previous] methods are small in size, these tissues can [only] be used as cultured minced meat,” write the authors, explaining the shortcomings of previous research attempts.

To truly satisfy the demand of a global population that might not accept plant-based or hamburger-based alternatives, the authors write that large cultured meat will also be “required to satisfy global dietary diversity.”

WHAT THEY DID — To achieve the kind of sumptuous mouthfeel that steak-fanatics might be missing, the team turned to a type of regenerative tissue development used in drug discovery.

Essentially, they collected bovine tissue samples via biopsies (the kind of tiny cut a doctor might make to suspicious mole to check for cancerous cells) and developed a Jenga-like scaffold to grow the tissue on.

By applying gentle electric shocks, as would be done in other tissue scaffolding work, the team was able to stimulate maturity and integration of the bovine tissue cells into one sinewy hunk.

To give their lab-meat a more natural hue, they injected it with red dye. Overall, it took 14 days for the lab-grown meat to reach maturity.

WHAT THEY DISCOVERED — To see how their lab-meat would compare to the real deal in terms of texture, the team performed a “breaking force” analysis between one lab meat sample and a natural meat sample after heating both for 1-hour in 158 degrees Fahrenheit water.

While both lumps of meat had similar stiffness in terms of their breaking force limits, the lab-grown meat still left a lot to be desired compared to its all-beef counterpart. For example, the natural beef lost only 40 percent of its weight while simmering whereas the lab-grown sample lost a whopping 90 percent of its weight.

The lab-grown sample also took on a freezer burnt, deep red color whereas the natural beef looked more like a piece of meat you might pull from a stew.

And there’s a good reason for that: Right now, write the authors, their meat is not edible, due in large part to the artificial materials (like hydrogels) holding the tissue sample together.

That said, it does have at least one advantage, write the scientists: superior microbial resistance.

“[T]he microbial content of the cultured millimeter-thick bovine muscle tissue was below the detection limit, showing that microbial contamination was lower than that in commercial beef tenderloin,” write the authors.

“The sterility of the cultured tissue will promote its use as safe steak meat with long shelf life and reduce food loss.”

WHAT’S NEXT — Several big hurdles lie in the way of this meat reaching primetime, in particular the fact that it can’t currently be classified as edible food.

Edible alternatives don’t yet exist for materials like hydrogels, but the researchers expect discovering one in the future could help their meat rise from obscurity. They’re also hopeful that adding key nutrients to these samples, similar to those used in plant-based products, will be a much simpler problem.

“[T]he proposed construction method for bovine muscle tissue of appropriate maturity and stiffness will be useful for the production of cultured steak meat of high bioethics without imposing a new burden on the livestock industry,” write the authors.

Source: inverse.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Bankrolled by a Japanese millionaire, the DearMoon mission plans to transport eight people around the moon and back in 2023

In 2023, will civilians fly around the moon for the first time? According to Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, the answer is yes. He is bankrolling the DearMoon mission, which is intended to take a group of eight people to the moon on SpaceX’s still-in-development Starship and loop around Earth’s natural satellite on a six-day mission.

The project, announced by Maezawa and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in 2018, originally planned to invite artists from around the world to experience. The criteria for “artists” was never clearly defined, but on Tuesday, in a new promotional video for the mission, Maezawa announced that DearMoon would be opened up to practically everyone across the globe.

“I began to think that maybe every single person who is doing something creative could be called an artist,” he says in the video.

Maezawa outlines “two key criteria” for the civilian passengers. These seem fairly flexible, too.

• “Whatever activity you are into, by going to space, I hope that you can push its envelope, to help other people and greater society in some way.”
• “You have to be willing and able to support other crew members who share similar aspirations.”In total, Maezawa says 10 to 12 people will be on board for the first flight around the moon. The billionaire entrepreneur had also begun to develop a “matchmaking” TV show around finding a girlfriend he could take to the moon on the mission, but Maezawa canceled the project shortly after its announcement.Musk makes an appearance in the video to explain the mission expects to take people “further than any human has ever gone from planet Earth” because it will fly past the moon and loop around it to head back home.

  Musk says he’s “highly confident” that the Starship will have reached orbit “many, many times” before 2023 and that it will be “safe enough for human transport” by the time the mission is scheduled to launch. Musk has been prone to making these kinds of claims before and missing a deadline or too, and the Starship prototypes are yet to make a successful landing. The next prototype is scheduled to fly and land this week — but that’s a long way from getting to the moon and back.

  The selection process is yet to be clearly defined for DearMoon, but the website’s schedule appears to have crew selection by July 2021. You can pre-register now and should hear more about the selection process sometime “after March 15, 2021.”

  We’ve reached out to the DearMoon team to clarify the details.

  Another SpaceX mission aims to send civilians to space very soon. Known as Inspiration4, it plans to send humans to orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, lifting off on top of a Falcon 9. It too is being bankrolled by a billionaire, Jared Isaacman, and it could fly before the end of the year.

Source: cnet.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

The history of humans’ use of technology has always been a history of coevolution. Philosophers from Rousseau to Heidegger to Carl Schmitt have argued that technology is never a neutral tool for achieving human ends. Technological innovations—from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated – reshape people as they use these innovations to control their environment. Artificial intelligence is a new and powerful tool, and it, too, is altering humanity.

Writing and, later, the printing press made it possible to carefully record history and easily disseminate knowledge, but it eliminated centuries-old traditions of oral storytelling. Ubiquitous digital and phone cameras have changed how people experience and perceive events. Widely available GPS systems have meant that drivers rarely get lost, but a reliance on them has also atrophied their native capacity to orient themselves.

AI is no different. While the term AI conjures up anxieties about killer robots, unemployment or a massive surveillance state, there are other, deeper implications. As AI increasingly shapes the human experience, how does this change what it means to be human? Central to the problem is a person’s capacity to make choices, particularly judgments that have moral implications.

Taking over our lives?

AI is being used for wide and rapidly expanding purposes. It is being used to predict which television shows or movies individuals will want to watch based on past preferences and to make decisions about who can borrow money based on past performance and other proxies for the likelihood of repayment. It’s being used to detect fraudulent commercial transactions and identify malignant tumors. It’s being used for hiring and firing decisions in large chain stores and public school districts. And it’s being used in law enforcement—from assessing the chances of recidivism, to police force allocation, to the facial identification of criminal suspects.

Many of these applications present relatively obvious risks. If the algorithms used for loan approval, facial recognition and hiring are trained on biased data, thereby building biased models, they tend to perpetuate existing prejudices and inequalities. But researchers believe that cleaned-up data and more rigorous modeling would reduce and potentially eliminate algorithmic bias. It’s even possible that AI could make predictions that are fairer and less biased than those made by humans.

Where algorithmic bias is a technical issue that can be solved, at least in theory, the question of how AI alters the abilities that define human beings is more fundamental. We have been studying this question for the last few years as part of the Artificial Intelligence and Experience project at UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center.

Losing the ability to choose

Aristotle argued that the capacity for making practical judgments depends on regularly making them – on habit and practice. We see the emergence of machines as substitute judges in a variety of workaday contexts as a potential threat to people learning how to effectively exercise judgment themselves.

In the workplace, managers routinely make decisions about whom to hire or fire, which loan to approve and where to send police officers, to name a few. These are areas where algorithmic prescription is replacing human judgment, and so people who might have had the chance to develop practical judgment in these areas no longer will.

Recommendation engines, which are increasingly prevalent intermediaries in people’s consumption of culture, may serve to constrain choice and minimize serendipity. By presenting consumers with algorithmically curated choices of what to watch, read, stream and visit next, companies are replacing human taste with machine taste. In one sense, this is helpful. After all, the machines can survey a wider range of choices than any individual is likely to have the time or energy to do on her own.

At the same time, though, this curation is optimizing for what people are likely to prefer based on what they’ve preferred in the past. We think there is some risk that people’s options will be constrained by their pasts in a new and unanticipated way—a generalization of the “echo chamber” people are already seeing in social media.

The advent of potent predictive technologies seems likely to affect basic political institutions, too. The idea of human rights, for example, is grounded in the insight that human beings are majestic, unpredictable, self-governing agents whose freedoms must be guaranteed by the state. If humanity—or at least its decision-making—becomes more predictable, will political institutions continue to protect human rights in the same way?

Utterly predictable

As machine learning algorithms, a common form of “narrow” or “weak” AI, improve and as they train on more extensive data sets, larger parts of everyday life are likely to become utterly predictable. The predictions are going to get better and better, and they will ultimately make common experiences more efficient and more pleasant.

Algorithms could soon—if they don’t already—have a better idea about which show you’d like to watch next and which job candidate you should hire than you do. One day, humans may even find a way machines can make these decisions without some of the biases that humans typically display.

But to the extent that unpredictability is part of how people understand themselves and part of what people like about themselves, humanity is in the process of losing something significant. As they become more and more predictable, the creatures inhabiting the increasingly AI-mediated world will become less and less like us.

Source: techxplore.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/

Scientists have utilized a technique to develop bile duct organoids, frequently called ‘mini-organs,’ in the laboratory and shown that they can fix impaired human livers. This is the first time that such a method has been applied to human organs.

EurekAlert reported, the study gave way to cell therapies for the treatment of liver disease. Meaning, growing ‘mini-bile ducts’ in the laboratory as replacement parts that can restore an individual’s own liver to health or repair impaired organ donor livers for them to be still used for transplantation.

Essentially, bile ducts function as the waste disposal system of the liver, and, according to the said report, “malfunctioning bile ducts are behind “one-third of adults, and 70 percent of liver transplantations of children, without any alternative treatment.

Shortage of Liver Donors
At present, there is a scarcity of liver donors. The National Health Service said the average waiting period for a liver transplant in the United Kingdom is “135 days for adults and 73 days for children.”

Meaning, only a limited number of patients can benefit from this treatment. Methods to increase the availability of the organ or offer a substitute to total organ transplantation are instantaneously needed.

Essentially, cell-based therapies could offer a beneficial substitute. Nevertheless, these new therapies’ progress is frequently damaged and deferred by the lack of a suitable model to have their safety and efficacy tested in humans before embarking on clinical tests.

In a study Science published, researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a new method, taking advantage of a recent perfusion system that can be applied to maintain donated organs outside the body.

‘Cholangiocytes’
Utilizing such a technology, for the first time, the scientists demonstrated that it is possible to “transplant biliary cells” developed and grown in the laboratory, also identified as “cholangiocytes” into an impaired human.

Using this technology, they demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to transplant biliary cells grown in the lab known as cholangiocytes into damaged human livers to repair them.

As proof-of-principle for their method, they repaired livers deemed unsuitable for transplantation due to bile duct damage. This approach could be applied to a diversity of organs and diseases to accelerate cell-based therapy’s clinical application.

According to Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute’s Dr. Fotios Sampaziotis, given the lingering shortage of donor organs, it is essential to look at ways of fixing impaired organs or even offer alternatives to organ transplantation.

The Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Method
The expert also said they have been using organoids for many years to understand both biology and their disease or their regeneration capacity in small animals. However, they have hoped they could use them to repair human impaired tissue.

This particular research is the first to present, in principle, that “this should be possible,” explained Dr. Sampaziotis.

Furthermore, using the method of single-cell RNA sequencing, as well as organoid culture, the scientists discovered that, even though duct cells differ, biliary cells from the gallbladder, which is typically spared by the disease, could be converted to the bile ducts’ cells destroyed in disease also identified as “intrahepatic ducts,” and the other way around through the use of a component of bile called the ‘bile acid.’

Source: sciencetimes.com

Jason Behrens

Jason R. Behrens is from Oklahoma City and has been interested in computers and new software forever and that led him to hacking and coding. He loves the nerdy world and reports for us on coming devices and tech. Jason also likes playing with his daughter and introducing her to the world wide web.

nerdnewsnightly.com/