Outlawing psychoactive drugs amounts to the worst case of scientific censorship in modern times, leading scientists have argued.

UN conventions on drugs in the 1960s and 1970s have not only compounded the harms of drugs but also produced the worst censorship of research for over 300 years. This has set back research in key areas such as consciousness by decades and effectively stopped the investigation of promising… read more

According to new research from the Monell Center and collaborating institutions, odors from human skin cells can be used to identify melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

The researchers also demonstrated that a nanotechnology-based sensor could reliably differentiate melanoma cells from normal skin cells.

The findings suggest that non-invasive odor analysis may be a valuable technique in the detection and early diagnosis of… read more

In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, Supreme Court justices held that human DNA isolated from a chromosome cannot be patented because it is a product of nature, The New York Times reports.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said “there would be considerable danger” in granting patents on natural phenomena because that approach would “inhibit future innovation” and “would be at odds with the very point… read more

Imagine a device using tactile vibrations for GPS-provided turn directions.

Such a device could free drivers from having to look at maps, and could also serve as a tactile guide for the visually and hearing impaired.

Lynette Jones, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, designs wearable tactile displays. Through her work, she’s observed that the skin is a… read more

Scientists at Aalto University and Utrecht University have created single-atom contacts between gold and graphene nanoribbons.

The challenge for graphene devices has been how design a contact (to connect the graphene to a circuit wire) without affecting the performance of the graphene nanostructures.

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. It is anticipated to be a revolutionizing material… read more

Thanks to its cat-modeled legs, EPFL’s four-legged “cheetah-cub robot” is small, light and the fastest in its category (small quadruped robots under 30Kg): it can run 5 kilometers per hour (3.1 mph) — nearly seven times its body length in one second. .

Developed by EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory (Biorob),  biomechanics, the robot will serve as a platform for research in locomotion and biomechanics.… read more

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to trigger reproduction in the laboratory of clusters of human cells that make insulin, potentially removing a significant obstacle to transplanting the cells as a treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes.

Efforts to make this treatment possible have been limited by a dearth of insulin-producing beta cells that can be… read more

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a method for tracking the locations of multiple individuals in complex, indoor settings using a network of video cameras, creating something similar to the fictional Marauder’s Map used by Harry Potter to track comings and goings at the Hogwarts School.

The method was able to automatically follow the movements of 13 people within a nursing home, even though… read more

A University of Manchester team led by Dr. Irina Grigorieva has discovered how to create elementary magnetic moments in graphene and then switch them on and off, opening a new avenue towards electronics with very low energy consumption..

This is the first time magnetism itself has been toggled, rather than the magnetization direction being reversed.

Each micro-magnet allows a bit of information (0 or… read more

A team under the direction of Stanford cell physiologist and neuroscientist Tom Sudhof, PhD, has shown that in human ESCs or iPSCs, just boosting the level of a single transcription factor results in an abundant and quite pure population of nerve cells within… read more

By quantum-mechanically coupling laser-cooled atoms to glass fiber cables, Vienna University of Technology researchers have developed a way to store quantum information over a long enough period of time to allow for entangling atoms hundreds of kilometers apart via fiber cables.

This finding is a fundamental building block for a global fiber-based quantum communication network, the researchers suggest.

Atoms and light

“In our… read more

To handle large amounts of data from detailed brain models used in the Blue Brain Project and the Human Brain Project, IBM Research, EPFL, and ETH Zürich are collaborating on a new hybrid memory strategy for supercomputers.

The Blue Brain Project, for example, is building detailed models of the rodent brain based on vast amounts of information — incorporating experimental data and a large number of parameters — to describe… read more

UC Berkeley researchers have developed an new method for inserting genes into retina cells that is easier and more effective, It could greatly expand gene therapy to help restore sight to patients with blinding diseases ranging from inherited defects like retinitis pigmentosa to degenerative illnesses of old age, such as macular degeneration.

Unlike current treatments, the new procedure delivers genes to hard-to-reach cells throughout the entire retina,… read more

Lone Signal believes that crowd sourcing messaging to intelligent life (METI) is the ideal approach to establishing a stable, cohesive, and well-resourced interstellar beacon on Earth.

Lone Signal allows anyone with Internet access to compose and transmit messages to strategically targeted stellar systems.

Launching June 18, 2013, Lone Signal’s unfettered access to the broadcasting capacity of Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, CA allows them to target the closest known… read more

Given recent revelations of intrusive government surveillance, this 2006 essay raises fundamental questions worth considering.

Criminals vs. Terrorists

In an attempt to make David Brin’s [1] privacy-free “transparent society” more palatable to civil libertarians, Robert Sawyer [2] has proposed an “Alibi Archive” in which everyone’s activities are meticulously recorded in a centralized, judicially controlled archive, with the archives legally accessible only under court order and only upon… read more

Most people know Timothy Leary as the “LSD guru” who encouraged people to “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” in the 1960s. But a surprising number of transhumanist types don’t know that he was one of them.

In fact, Leary may have been the first to signal a memeplex for the transhuman future — SMI2LE (Space Migration Intelligence Increase and Life Extension) — back in the mid-1970s.

My… read more

The Glowing Plants Kickstarter, the first-ever crowdfunded synthetic biology campaign, is winding down into the final hours. Launched on April 23, 2013, the campaign aimed to create a glow-in-the-dark plant while showcasing the technology of synthetic biology.  It also served as a vehicle to introduce two startups in the sector: Genome Compiler Corporation and Cambrian Genomics.

The campaign has been wildly popular, attracting widespread media attention that saw the… read more

Dear Mr. Raymond Kurzweil, hello,

How are you? My name is Noga, I’m a 16-year-old girl from Tel-Aviv, Israel.

First of all, I wanted to say that I’ve read one of your and it was fascinating. Secondly, I wanted to ask you a question. I’ll start from the beginning.

In my school, we have a course called “Human Rights.” It’s a course where we discuss many things… read more

Dear Ray:

If the development of computer-based intelligence will become equivalent to that of human intelligence within the next twenty or thirty years, this computer-based intelligence will be able to build even better computers.

Such computer intelligence will, no doubt, find a way to enhance the thought process of the human mind.

No doubt it will supersede the capacity of the human mind. This leads me to… read more

Hi, my name is Luke.

I’m contacting you now and asking you to please consider the following scenario. AD 2060 or later:

Humans can simulate multiple universes. We do so, and eventually intelligent life evolves in one and achieves a civilization with roughly the same science and computation as Earth 2010. This life will be a completely alien species, on a (simulated) alien planet.

That species figures… read more

Dan Brown’s latest action thriller Inferno follows art historian Robert Langdon in a fast-paced roller-coaster hunt for the source of a genetic hack delivered to everyone on the planet via a highly contagious airborne virus.

As in previous novels, Langdon works against the clock to decipher hints hidden in the treasures of the world’s art and literature, fighting intrigue and deception.

I… read more

In Dan Brown’s Inferno [see book review | Dan Brown’s Inferno], an airborne virus permanently modifies the DNA in human cells in one third of the population of the world.

We asked synthetic biologist/genomic futurist Andrew Hessel to comment on this scenario (his co-authored “The Bio-Crime Prophecy” is the cover story in the current issue of Wired UK).

Q: How realistic is Brown’s… read more

Why can’t a robot be like a servant (to paraphrase My Fair Lady)? You know, one who would anticipate your every need — even before you asked?

The folks at the Personal Robotics Lab of Ashutosh Saxena, Cornell assistant professor of computer science have gone and done just that.

When we last (virtually) visited the lab, we learned that the roboticists taught  “hallucinating” robots to arrange your room… read more

A recent article in EE Times discusses the future of Moore’s law: “Broadcom: Time to prepare for the end of Moore’s Law.” This comes up innumerable times. People assume that Moore’s law is synonymous with my law of accelerating returns, which it is not.

Moore’s law was the fifth, not the first, paradigm to bring exponential growth to the price-performance of computing. The law of accelerating returns does… read more

The International Space Development Conference (ISDC), produced by the National Space Society (NSS) — the happening place to learn about the future of space — kicks off Thursday May 23 and runs through Monday May 27 at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla in San Diego, California. ISDC speakers will discuss a wide range of breakthroughs in space development. Here are just two that I find especially interesting. (Full… read more

Zoltan Istvan’s The Transhumanist Wager is an epic story of radical libertarian ideas, their enemies, and the violent global conflict that ensues, painted in strong saturated colors with little room for intermediate shades and character development.

After reading cover to cover, and then reading it more carefully, I have mixed love/hate feelings about this novel.

It’s a page turner. Istvan — a former journalist… read more

This is a really interesting article about body and mind which I recently read. I wanted to share it with my readers:

The New York Times | “I am not this body”

Here is a compelling excerpt: “I do not identify with my body. I have a body but I am a mind.

“My body and I have an intimate but awkward relationship, like foreign roommates who share… read more

“Where’s my flying car?”

Skeptics have trashed predictions of flying cars with this annoying question ever since the Jetsons.

But now Terrafugia Inc. has announced feasibility studies of a four-seat, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) [similar to a helicopter] plug-in hybrid-electric flying car, the TF-X.

Just tell it where to go. It flies (and lands) for you — no runway needed — and… read more

“Google’s self-driving car gathers 750 megabytes of sensor data per SECOND! That is just mind-boggling to me. Here is a picture of what the car ‘sees’ while it is driving and about to make a left turn. It is capturing every single thing that it sees moving — cars, trucks, birds, rolling balls, dropped cigarette butts, and fusing all that together to make its decisions while driving. If it sees… read more