Category: Futurism, Fads, and Follies

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608073/gene-editing-companies-hit-back-at-paper-that-criticized-crispr/

The fear is that planned medical treatments using CRISPR could prove dangerous. A single erroneous cut could be disastrous for patients if it lands in a vital gene. Fifteen years ago, pioneering experiments in gene therapy were set back when unintentional genetic changes caused cancer in some children. Many scientists believe careful programming can eliminate most of the risk.

The ease of use of CRISPR means nearly any lab can try it. In China, some human experiments have already begun. The rush to use the method is part of what’s creating anxiety, since it makes mistakes more likely. Editas recently postponed its own planned study of CRISPR to correct an eye disease until next year.

According to Intellia, however, the authors showed “disregard” for what’s already known about CRISPR. “It is clear the authors are not experts on the CRISPR Cas9, whole genome sequencing, nor basic genetics. Their claim of ‘unexpected mutations’ clearly demonstrates their lack of scientific acumen around this topic,” the company said.

 Because cleaning up water is one of the substantial costs per barrel of fracking based extraction, it will be interesting to see how this technology is developed. And even more interesting to notice that it is happening in Texas… more potential bad news for OPEC…

https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/08/nanoparticles-and-magnets-remove-oil-from-water

AUSTIN, Texas — When oil mixes with or enters into water, conventional methods of cleaning the water and removing the oil can be challenging, expensive and environmentally risky. But researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin believe they may have developed a better method.

In a study published this spring in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research, the researchers used magnetic nanoparticles to separate oil from water through a simple process that relies on electrostatic force and a magnet. The engineers believe their new technique could improve water treatment for oil and gas production, more efficiently clean up oil spills and potentially remove lead from drinking water.

This matters. It will help facilitate a worldwide safety standard. But it will also introduce a competition between governments. This is an all-around good thing. 

http://longevityreporter.org/blog/2017/6/1/embryonic-stem-cells-trials-launching-in-china

In 2015 China adopted new regulations to facilitate the safe use of stem cells in trials – dealing with a previous unclear framework allowing unproven therapies to be marketed. As a result of these changes two new trials are set to begin very soon.

http://www.eejournal.com/article/sunshine-changing-the-world/
NovaSolix is a silicon valley startup developing a process to manufacture solar panels that use carbon nanotubes as antennas – combined with nanoscale rectifiers – to generate power from a much broader swath of the solar energy spectrum than conventional PV cells. The company claims that 80-90% efficiency may be possible. They are also working to develop a process to manufacture the panels on a substrate of glass, thus dramatically reducing the cost compared with silicon-based PV technology.
If the company is successful in hitting their efficiency and cost targets, they could quite literally change the world. The economics and practicality of solar versus other forms of energy is already at a tipping point, so tiny changes in the cost-per-watt of deploying solar can have massive effects on the economics of energy. Changes of the magnitude NovaSolix envisions could slam a brick on that balance scale, completely transforming the energy landscape (and wiping out entire major industries in the process).
In order to harness the full spectrum of visible and infrared light, we need antennas of varying lengths. NovaSolix is working to create just the right mix of manufacturing variation in their carbon nanotubes to give the optimal distribution of antenna lengths. The carbon nanotube antennas are “grown” between electrical contacts, and they create diodes at the interface point. Each successful nanotube pair creates an antenna and a full-wave rectifier. NovaSolix has now successfully created demo wafers, and the IV curve of the resulting devices is interesting. Conventional PV cells have a fairly flat IV curve, with current remaining relatively constant and voltage increasing proportional to output. The nanotube antennas, however, produce a more linear IV curve, which should allow for a simpler controller than conventional PV cells, as well as greater immunity to partial shading effects.
NovaSolix is currently doing wafer fabrication in the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and growing carbon nanotubes in their own labs. Their plan is to work toward a small-volume production capability with a “boutique” version of the technology aimed at specialty markets where power-per-area is the critical factor. This includes portable applications such as solar aircraft, wearables, and satellites. This production will be done using primarily older-generation semi-automated IC fabrication equipment. NovaSolix can see bringing the cost per watt down from $10 to around $1 with this approach.

https://theconversation.com/no-more-playing-games-alphago-ai-to-tackle-some-real-world-challenges-78472
The game of Go provided a nicely constrained development platform for optimising these learning algorithms. But many real world problems are messier than this, and have less opportunity for the equivalent of self-play (for instance self-driving cars).So are there problems to which the current algorithms can be fairly immediately applied?
One example may be optimisation in controlled industrial settings. Here the goal is often to complete a complex series of tasks while satisfying multiple constraints and minimising cost.
As long as the possibilities can be accurately simulated, these algorithms can explore and learn from a vastly larger space of outcomes than will ever be possible for humans. Thus DeepMind’s bold claims seem likely to be realised, and as the company says, we can’t wait to see what comes next.

An IBM Breakthrough Ensures Silicon Will Keep Shrinking – WIRED https://apple.news/Af8OwPEr9TyiJWyIQ0EijlQ

    Today, an IBM-led group of researchers have detailed a breakthrough transistor design, one that will enable processors to continue their Moore’s Law march toward smaller, more affordable iterations. Better still? They achieved it not with carbon nanotubes or some other theoretical solution, but with an inventive new process that actually works, and should scale up to the demands of mass manufacturing within several years

You can imagine that FinFET is now turned sideways, and stacked on top of each other,” says Khare. For a sense of scale, in this architecture electrical signals pass through a switch that’s the width of two or three strands of DNA.

    “It’s a big development,” says Hutcheson. “If I can make the transistor smaller, I get more transistors in the same area, which means I get more compute power in the same area.” In this case, that number leaps from 20 billion transistors in a 7nm process to 30 billion on a 5nm process, fingernail-sized chip. IBM pegs the gains at either 40 percent better performance at the same power, or 75 percent reduction in power at the same efficiency.

J

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/06/04/milton-friedman-told-us-the-answer-decades-ago-now-itll-probably-be-ibms-watson/#28b00be11bce
Physician specialty groups have created “societies” to provide education, establish clinical guidelines and handle public relations. These range from the Society of Surgical Oncology to the group that represents me and my ear, nose and throat colleagues, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. They are also lobbyists, charged with maximizing the incomes of member doctors by influencing pricing decisions made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Those prices become the benchmarks for private health insurance companies, too.

There are so many specialty organizations because each develops authority over a niche market and vigorously guards its turf. Imagine building a house by allowing each workman to do his own thing. The plumber would put a sink in every room. The electrician would install chandeliers on every ceiling. The carpenter would panel every room in luxurious wood. That’s how health care works.

This is good race commentary. And important to understand. But this is a long race…

Google Is Already Late to China’s AI Revolution – WIRED https://apple.news/A8flImUxTRAyf5GyBrNZTQQ

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/control-brain-cells-without-surgery
Researchers have come a step closer to treating diseases like Parkinson’s and epilepsy, without the need to place an implant into the brain.
These days, many regions in the brain can be modulated by electricity to help improve brain function, in a technique already used to treat Parkinson’s and epilepsy. But because these cells tend to be deep in the brain, controlling them requires neurosurgical implants. 
“If we could noninvasively stimulate deep regions, without hitting overlying regions, we might be able to help more people because we could stimulate deep regions selectively, without needing surgery,” Ed Boyden, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of the new paper, told WIRED.

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2017/Q2/instantly-rechargeable-battery-could-change-the-future-of-electric-and-hybrid-automobiles.html
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A technology developed by Purdue researchers could provide an “instantly rechargeable” method that is safe, affordable and environmentally friendly for recharging electric and hybrid vehicle batteries through a quick and easy process similar to refueling a car at a gas station.The innovation could expedite the adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles by eliminating the time needed to stop and re-charge a conventional electric car’s battery and dramatically reducing the need for new infrastructure to support re-charging stations.