Friday Thinking is a humble curation of my foraging in the digital environment. My purpose is to pick interesting pieces, based on my own curiosity (and the curiosity of the many interesting people I follow), about developments in some key domains (work, organization, social-economy, intelligence, domestication of DNA, energy, etc.) that suggest we are in the midst of a change in the conditions of change - a phase-transition. That tomorrow will be radically unlike yesterday.
Many thanks to those who enjoy this. ☺
In the 21st Century curiosity will SKILL the cat.
Jobs are dying - Work is just beginning.
Work that engages our whole self becomes play that works.
Techne = Knowledge-as-Know-How :: Technology = Embodied Know-How
In the 21st century - the planet is the little school house in the galaxy.
Citizenship is the battlefield of the 21st Century
“Be careful what you ‘insta-google-tweet-face’”
Woody Harrelson - Triple 9
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Quotes:
Articles:
The real danger is the slide toward autocracy, because, at the rate it is going, this planet could soon end up with global fascism. The recent experience of Venezuela, in the lead, so to speak, shows how easily tyranny can sweep aside constitutional protections—as if we needed more evidence of this. And it makes no difference if the autocracy is called communism, capitalism, or populism (whether Muslim, anti-Muslim, Jewish, anti-Semitic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or secular). Dogma is dogma, and demagogues are demagogues. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Fearing decency, the autocrats of the world unite. Angela Merkel was denounced for caring about refugees, while Saudi Arabia punished Canada for a single tweet about its arrest of two journalists. They united in the 1930s too, although eventually America came to the rescue. Imagine World War II without this and you may be seeing World War III.
Henry Mintzberg: GLOBAL DEVASTATION OR GROUNDED REFORMATION
Western metaphysics tends to rely on the paradigm of substances. We often see the world as a world of things, composed of atomic molecules, natural kinds, galaxies. Objects are the paradigmatic mode of existence, the basic building blocks of the Universe. What exists exists as an object. That is to say, things are of a certain kind, they have some specific qualities and well-defined spatial and temporal limits. For instance: Fido is my dog, he is grey, and was born one year ago. (It’s worth noting that such a simple statement will give rise to a litany of metaphysical disputes within substance metaphysics: realists believe that universals, such as the natural kind ‘dogs’, exist while nominalists believe them to be only intellectual abstractions.)
Though substance metaphysics seems to undergird Western ‘common sense’, I think it is wrong. To see this, consider the cliché about the glass of water: is it half-empty or half-full? The question assumes a static arrangement of things serving as a basis for either an optimistic or a pessimistic interpretation. One can engage in interminable disputes about the correct description of the physical set-up, or about the legitimacy of the psychological evaluations. But what if the isolated frame ‘a glass of water’ fails to give the relevant information? Anyone would prefer an emptier glass that is getting full to a fuller one getting empty. Any analysis lacking information about change misses the point, which is just what substance metaphysics is missing. Process philosophers, meanwhile, think we should go beyond looking at the world as a set of static unrelated items, and instead examine the processes that make up the world. Processes, not objects, are fundamental.
Looking at the world as a manifold of interconnected processes has scientific and philosophical advantages, but there are more prosaic benefits too. Process philosophy invites us to look at longer stretches of time, blurred boundaries and connected relations. Identity as a programmatic – but not deterministic – process welcomes innovation through small, recurring changes. Under these metaphysical assumptions, a meaningful life is less about finding your ‘real’ self than expanding its boundaries.
Which is more fundamental: processes or things?
At base, emotions are about the future, not the past. From an evolutionary standpoint, feeling pain or pleasure that can’t change anything would be a useless waste of the brain’s efforts. The true benefit of emotions comes from their power to guide decisions about what comes next.
In the case of gratitude, it’s long been clear that it nudges people to repay debts. As the German sociologist Georg Simmel described it at the start of the 20th century: ‘Gratitude… is the moral memory of mankind.’ It doesn’t let people forget that they must accept some future sacrifice to benefit a past benefactor. And as research from many labs, including my own, has shown empirically, Simmel was right. The more gratitude people feel toward those who have helped them, the more diligently they will work to pay them back.
People feeling grateful are more likely to help others who request assistance, to divide their profits in a more egalitarian way, to be loyal even at cost to themselves, to be less materialistic, and even to exercise as opposed to loafing.
The fast track to a life well lived is feeling grateful
This is a great signal of the emerging dimensions of mixed reality. One great novel that explores the implications for the future of life and work augmented with Mixed Reality is Canada’s own Karl Schroeder who’s “Stealing Worlds” is a must read. The 2.5 min video is worth the view.
Google used photogrammetry to create a detailed VR tour of Versailles
It's the largest photogrammetry capture ever done on the site.
Versailles palace is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, but fighting those crowds in person can be frustrating. Now, Google and the Château de Versailles have teamed up to take VR users on a private tour of Louis XIV's royal residence. It's the largest photogrammetry project ever done at the castle, with 21 rooms and 387,500 square feet of internal surfaces captured. HTC Vive and Oculus Rift users can handle and inspect over 100 sculptures, paintings and other works of art and see them with incredible close-up detail.
Google collected over 4TB of data and textured 15 billion pixels, it said. The app will give you a tour the King and Queen's State Apartments, the Royal Opera House, Royal Chapel and Hall of Mirrors, just to name a few of the iconic rooms. "Tapestries, paintings, ceilings, sculptures and furniture, everything is within reach of your controller to grant you unlimited and privileged access to the treasures of Versailles," reads the description on Steam. "For a more intimate experience, switch to night mode and explore the Palace by the light of chimney fires."
Along with the transformation of energy industries will come the transformation of transportation.
UPS has won approval to run the first drone delivery airline in the US
It will still be a while before you are able to order drone-delivered packages, however.
The news: The Federal Aviation Administration has granted UPS’s drone business a Part 135 certification, meaning it is treated as a full-fledged airline, able to operate as many drones in as many locations as it wishes (although there are a lot of obstacles and caveats before that can happen in reality). UPS has dubbed its new drone airline “UPS Flight Forward,” and it’s the first in the US to gain official recognition.
In practice: The certification sounds grand, but it’s just a first step. Although UPS can say it runs a drone airline, in reality it still needs to get approval from the FAA whenever it wants to run a flight beyond an operator’s visual line of sight (it tested this last week at the Raleigh site).
And although it’s free to launch its service elsewhere, each one must be individually approved by both the FAA and local regulators. UPS also needs to build up its own capabilities:
An early signal of human-computer-robotic interfaces that contributes to a possible new sense of the extended mind. The 1 min video is worth the view.
"We are working in the field of swarm of drones and my previous research in the field of haptics was very helpful in introducing a new frontier of tactile human-swarm interactions," Dzmitry Tsetserukou, Professor at Skoltech and head of Intelligent Space Robotics laboratory, told TechXplore. "During our experiments with the swarm, however, we understood that current interfaces are too unfriendly and difficult to operate."
SwarmTouch: A tactile interaction strategy for human-swarm communication
Researchers at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Russia have recently introduced a new strategy to enhance interactions between humans and robotic swarms, called SwarmTouch. This strategy, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows a human operator to communicate with a swarm of nano-quadrotor drones and guide their formation, while receiving tactile feedback in the form of vibrations.
The system devised by the researchers includes a wearable tactile display that delivers patterns of vibration onto a user's fingers in order to inform him/her of current swarm dynamics (i.e., if the swarm is expanding or shrinking). These vibration patterns allow human users to change the swarm dynamics so that the swarm can avoid obstacles simply by moving their hands at different speeds or in different directions.
The system detects the position of the user's hand using a highly precise motion capturing system called Vicon Vantage V5. In addition, the human operator and individual robots in the swarm are connected through impedance interlinks.
Another signal of the emergence of the extended mind and a new embodiment of entangled selves in the digital environment. Must view.
Paralysed man moves in mind-reading exoskeleton
A man has been able to move all four of his paralysed limbs with a mind-controlled exoskeleton suit, French researchers report.
Thibault, 30, said taking his first steps in the suit felt like being the "first man on the Moon".
His movements, particularly walking, are far from perfect and the robo-suit is being used only in the lab.
But researchers say the approach could one day improve patients' quality of life.
Thibault had surgery to place two implants on the surface of the brain, covering the parts of the brain that control movement
Sixty-four electrodes on each implant read the brain activity and beam the instructions to a nearby computer
Sophisticated computer software reads the brainwaves and turns them into instructions for controlling the exoskeleton
Thibault does need to be attached to a ceiling-harness in order to minimise the risk of him falling over in the exoskeleton - it means the device is not yet ready to move outside the laboratory.
"This is far from autonomous walking," Prof Alim-Louis Benabid, the president of the Clinatec executive board, told BBC News.
Another signal of the emerging environment of Internet-of-Things/Sensors.
By 2025, experts estimate the number of Internet of Things devices—including sensors that gather real-time data about infrastructure and the environment—could rise to 75 billion worldwide. As it stands, however, those sensors require batteries that must be replaced frequently, which can be problematic for long-term monitoring.
Photovoltaic-powered sensors for the 'Internet of Things'
MIT researchers have designed photovoltaic-powered sensors that could potentially transmit data for years before they need to be replaced. To do so, they mounted thin-film perovskite cells—known for their potential low cost, flexibility, and relative ease of fabrication—as energy-harvesters on inexpensive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags.
The cells could power the sensors in both bright sunlight and dimmer indoor conditions. Moreover, the team found the solar power actually gives the sensors a major power boost that enables greater data-transmission distances and the ability to integrate multiple sensors onto a single RFID tag.
In a pair of papers published in the journals Advanced Functional Materials and IEEE Sensors, MIT Auto-ID Laboratory and MIT Photovoltaics Research Laboratory researchers describe using the sensors to continuously monitor indoor and outdoor temperatures over several days. The sensors transmitted data continuously at distances five times greater than traditional RFID tags—with no batteries required. Longer data-transmission ranges mean, among other things, that one reader can be used to collect data from multiple sensors simultaneously.
The transformation of energy geopolitics is accelerating - the tipping point will be when it becomes obvious that stranded assets are no longer worth the sunk costs.
World's largest wind turbines to be built off Yorkshire coast
Biggest offshore windfarm in North Sea will generate electricity for 4.5m homes
The largest offshore wind turbines ever built will begin powering millions of British homes using blades more than 100 metres long by the early 2020s.
Each of the new mega-turbines planned for the world’s biggest offshore windfarm at Dogger Bank in the North Sea will reach 220 metres high and generate enough electricity for 16,000 homes.
The turbines are almost a third more powerful than typical turbines used today, each dwarfing the size of the London Eye, and will help to reduce the cost of generating wind power.
Together, the new generation turbines – built by GE Renewable Energy – will make up a windfarm capable of generating enough renewable electricity to power 4.5m homes from 130km (80 miles) off the Yorkshire coast, or 5% of the UK’s total power supply.
A good signal of an approaching tipping point in considering risks of investing in carbon based energy.
Tens of billions of dollars could be at risk and the prospective losses to natural gas power investors, utilities, their customers and investors will mount going forward given fluctuating, at times highly volatile, natural gas prices and continuing improvement in the overall cost and performance of CEP assets, according to the report authors.
It will be less expensive to operate new solar and clean energy portfolios than 90% of the proposed combined-cycle natural gas power capacity slated to come online by 2035—some 68 gigawatts’ (GW) worth
Natural Gas Power Stranded Asset Risk Reaches a Tipping Point
Investment risk in new and proposed natural gas power plants is on the rise. The risk of them becoming stranded assets has reached a tipping point, according to two companion reports produced by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).
Sharp declines in the costs and improving performance of clean energy portfolios (CEPs) that include solar and wind power generation, battery energy storage, energy efficiency and utility-customer demand-side response (DSR) by and large have driven the cost-competitiveness of CEPs below that for new natural gas power plants and electricity across the U.S. That includes investments in the latest, highest efficiency combined-cycle power plants, especially new “peaker” plants designed just to start up quickly and meet sudden, unexpected shortfalls in grid supply or spikes in demand, RMI highlights in The Growing Market for Clean Energy Portfolios and Economic Opportunities for a Shift from New Gas-Fired Generation to Clean Energy Across the United States Electricity Industry.
Energy and transportation and motors - entangled transformations.
This Inside-Out Motor for EVs Is Power Dense and (Finally) Practical
Belgian startup Magnax has found a way to mass-produce the axial-flux motor
The world is electrifying fast. Manufacturing processes, cars, trucks, motorcycles, and now airplanes are making the move to electrons that Edison predicted more than a century ago. And they are all doing so for much the same reasons: quieter operation, reduced maintenance requirements, better performance and efficiency, and a more flexible use of energy sources.
At the heart of this great process of electrification stands the electric machine, filling either the role of a generator, for turning mechanical energy into electricity, or that of a motor, for doing the opposite.
For a long time, electric machines have hewed to a standard design, which has had the advantage of being very easy to manufacture. However, our startup, Magnax, based in Belgium, has taken another design that in theory can wring much more power and torque from a given mass and has made it commercially practical. We believe this new design can supplant the old one in many applications, notably in electric vehicles, in which it is now being tested.
One of our designs has a peak power density of around 15 kilowatts per kilogram. Compare that with today’s motors, such as the one in the all-electric BMW i3, which delivers a peak power density of 3 kW/kg—or just one-fifth as much. And the Magnax machine is also more efficient.
This is an interesting signal with significant long term implications related climate and environmental events.
Tsunamis linked to spread of deadly fungal disease
A major earthquake in Alaska in 1964 triggered tsunamis that washed ashore a deadly tropical fungus, scientists say.
Researchers believe it then evolved to survive in the coasts and forest of the Pacific Northwest.
More than 300 people have been infected with the pneumonia-like cryptococcosis since the first case was discovered in the region in 1999, about 10% fatally.
If true the theory, published in the journal mBio, has implications for other areas hit by tsunamis.
And then again “Life finds a way” to do strange things and travel unconventional ways.
Assuming the insects ascend on their own, before being borne along on the wind, a mosquito might travel as far as 295 kilometers in a single, 9-hour nocturnal journey.
Windborne mosquitoes may carry malaria hundreds of kilometers
Conventional scientific wisdom has long held that mosquitoes have a limited range: They fly low to the ground and typically travel less than 5 kilometers during their brief lifetimes. Now, researchers have turned that wisdom on its head. In the Sahel, the semidesert region just south of the Sahara Desert, malaria-bearing mosquitoes are borne on winds that allow them to travel hundreds of kilometers—and as high as 290 meters above the ground—in a single night.
The findings, published today in Nature, help explain why mosquito populations can surge so suddenly—and mysteriously—in the Sahel. They also have big implications for efforts to eliminate malaria from entire countries or regions. Long-distance travel by mosquitoes could increase the risk of malaria reintroduction after it has been eliminated in a particular place. Mosquito flights could also aid the spread of insecticide-resistant mosquitoes and drug-resistant parasites.
“This is simply amazing and completely groundbreaking. This study is imaginative and unprecedented, completely changing our understanding of malaria vector ecology and gene flow,” says Gerry Killeen, a mosquito ecologist at the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, who was not involved with the project. “I’ll never look at my data in quite the same way!”
This is an interesting signal - it can likely make hospitals safer - but will we use it to perpetrate new forms of mass extinction.
The researchers suggested a single, custom-fit LIG filter could be efficient enough to replace the two filter beds currently required by federal standards for hospital ventilation systems.
"So many patients become infected by bacteria and their metabolic products, which for example can result in sepsis while in the hospital," Tour said. "We need more methods to combat the airborne transfer of not just bacteria but also their downstream products, which can cause severe reactions among patients.
Bacteria trapped—and terminated—by graphene filter
Airborne bacteria may see what looks like a comfy shag carpet on which to settle. But it's a trap.
Rice University scientists have transformed their laser-induced graphene (LIG) into self-sterilizing filters that grab pathogens out of the air and kill them with small pulses of electricity.
The flexible filter developed by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour may be of special interest to hospitals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, patients have a 1-in-31 chance of acquiring a potentially antibiotic-resistant infection during hospitalization.
The device described in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano captures bacteria, fungi, spores, prions, endotoxins and other biological contaminants carried by droplets, aerosols and particulate matter.
The filter then prevents the microbes and other contaminants from proliferating by periodically heating up to 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit), enough to obliterate pathogens and their toxic byproducts. The filter requires little power, and heats and cools within seconds.
This is an amazing signal - hinting at many more transformation that could enable all sorts of lifeforms to metabolize toxins and pollutants.
Gene editing can make fruit flies into ‘monarch flies’
Only three molecular changes are needed for fruit flies to digest milkweed toxins
Gene-edited fruit flies have gained some of monarch butterflies’ superpowers — specifically, the ability to digest milkweed toxins and become poisonous to predators.
Making just three genetic changes turned regular fruit flies into “monarch flies,” able to withstand plant toxins and store the chemicals as the flies transformed from maggots to adults, researchers report October 2 in Nature.
Researchers previously had suspected that three amino acid changes in a protein called the sodium pump alpha subunit, or ATPalpha, were involved in making butterflies insensitive to chemicals known as cardiac glycosides, which are found in milkweed and some other plants. The sodium pump is part of a cellular system that moves charged sodium and potassium atoms in and out of cells. But it still was possible that the changes were just coincidental.
So evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman of the University of California, Berkeley and colleagues used the gene editor CRISPR/Cas9 to alter the sodium pumps of fruit flies and retrace the evolutionary steps that resulted eventually in monarchs becoming resistant to the chemicals. Monarchs store some of the chemicals in their bodies, making them poisonous and unpalatable to predators.
Our understanding of evolution and adaptation is developing in profound ways. This is a great signal of this progress.
Each of the genomes had lost genes, but together they had the full complement of genes coding for enzymes in biosynthetic pathways for essential amino acids.
Cell-Bacteria Mergers Offer Clues to How Organelles Evolved
Cells in symbiotic partnership, nested one within the other and functioning like organelles, can borrow from their host’s genes to complete their own metabolic pathways.
There are few relationships in nature more intimate than those between cells and the symbiotic bacteria, or endosymbionts, that live inside them. In these partnerships, a host cell typically provides protection to its endosymbiont and gives it a way to propagate, while the endosymbiont provides key nutrients to the host. It’s a deeply cooperative arrangement, in which the genomes of the host and the endosymbiont even seem to contribute complementary pieces to each other’s metabolic and biosynthetic pathways.
The revealed intricacy of these partnerships continues to hold surprises. In a new study appearing today in Cell, scientists show that a complex three-way symbiosis between an insect cell and two species of bacteria — one an endosymbiont of the other — deeply intertwines the organisms’ genomes and physiologies. Those results may illuminate how mitochondria and other organelles arose from ancient endosymbionts in the earliest eukaryotic cells.
When cells need to quickly acquire a new metabolic trait to survive, their best option may be to borrow one from other organisms. Horizontal transfers can move a few genes between cells, but the chances of horizontally acquiring the complete suite of genes for a complex metabolic pathway are vanishingly small. So the easiest solution is often for cells with dissimilar abilities and complementary needs to merge, explains John McCutcheon, an endosymbiosis researcher at the University of Montana. These mergers are not uncommon in nature. Secondary and tertiary mergers are even known to have occurred, producing the cellular equivalent of a set of nested Russian dolls.
This is a good early signal of a whole new approach to antibiotic and antimicrobial treatments - but also probiotic treatments.
"It has the potential for development of next generation antimicrobial agents that would be effective even for bacteria that are resistant to all known antibiotics. This technology could also be used to help 'good' bacteria produce compounds to treat diseases caused by protein deficiencies."
Researchers unlock potential to use CRISPR to alter the microbiome
Researchers at Western University have developed a new way to deliver the DNA-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 into microorganisms in the lab, providing a way to efficiently launch a targeted attack on specific bacteria.
Published in Nature Communications, this study opens up the possibility of using CRISPR to alter the makeup of the human microbiome in a way that could be personalized and specific from person to person. It also presents a potential alternative to traditional antibiotics to kill bacteria like Staphyloccous aureus (Staph A) or Escherichia coli (E. coli).
Nano-Biological computation could lead to new forms of molecular memory, computation and AI.
His willingness to change perspective and cross disciplines — neuroscience, microbiology, engineering and even art — is unusual among scientists, says Roger Nicoll, a neuroscientist who oversaw Shipman’s Ph.D. work at UC San Francisco. “I get really antsy when I get outside of my comfort zone,” Nicoll says. “He has no comfort zone.”
Seth Shipman recorded a movie in DNA — and that’s just the beginning
He is developing tools that may reveal hidden biological processes
Seth Shipman is a magpie of biological innovation. He collects useful parts — from bacteria, nerve cells, reams of genetic data — and transforms them into tools that do amazing things.
One of his best creations so far is a collection of living bacterial cells with DNA that carries an iconic movie of a running horse. Recording images, or any other information, in the genetic material of living cells isn’t just for entertainment; it will give scientists views of processes that are usually hidden.
Imagine designing record-keeping cells capable of eavesdropping on the cellular destruction that precedes dementia in the brain. Or monitoring the elaborate genetic instructions that tell a brain cell how to develop. Or even seeing the exact moment when cellular missteps begin to create a disorder such as schizophrenia.
Scientists can’t do any of this yet. But Shipman, 36, is patient. “If you’re worried about what you can do right now, it’s hard to take a big step forward,” says Shipman, a biotechnologist at the University of California, San Francisco and the Gladstone Institutes, a nonprofit research organization on the UC San Francisco campus. To move forward often requires a pause, a careful reckoning to examine your tools and look around a bit, Shipman says.
This is a good signal of progress in the realm of 3D printing at the small and nano scale.
3-D printing technique accelerates nanoscale fabrication 1000-fold
Using a new time-based method to control light from an ultrafast laser, researchers have developed a nanoscale 3-D printing technique that can fabricate tiny structures 1000 times faster than conventional two-photon lithography (TPL) techniques, without sacrificing resolution.
The work, reported Oct. 3 in the journal Science, was done by researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Sourabh Saha, the paper's lead and corresponding author, is now an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"Instead of using a single point of light, we project a million points simultaneously," said Saha. "This scales up the process dramatically because instead of working with a single point that has to be scanned to create the structure, we can use an entire plane of projected light. Instead of focusing a single point, we have an entire focused plane that can be patterned into arbitrary structures."
Another still weak signal - but likely to be an inevitable - this brings some promise of carbon capture and new ways to transform such carbon into useable matter.
"Drawing inspiration from leaves and plants, we have developed an artificial photosynthesis method,"
Make like a leaf: Researchers developing method to convert carbon dioxide
Professor Jun Huang from the University of Sydney's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is developing a carbon capture method that aims to go one step beyond storage, instead converting and recycling carbon dioxide (CO2) into raw materials that can be used to create fuels and chemicals.
"To simulate photosynthesis, we have built microplates of carbon layered with carbon quantum dots with tiny pores that absorb CO2 and water.
"Once carbon dioxide and water are absorbed, a chemical process occurs that combines both compounds and turns them into hydrocarbon, an organic compound that can be used for fuels, pharmaceuticals, agrichemicals, clothing, and construction.
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