My last day of enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment….tomorrow I return to the world of ginned up issues, misinformation and bad acting….or as it is called in the media…..POLITICS!
Recently I posted on a computer that could make rational decisions on its own and I compared it with I, Robot……..but what about the idea of synthetic life?
I found this on the Live Science website…….
Synthetic organisms engineered to use carbon dioxide as a raw material could help humans settle Mars one day, a prominent biologist says.
Man-made, CO2-munching lifeforms are already in the works, geneticist Craig Venter told a crowd here during an event called TEDxNASA@SiliconValley Wednesday night (Aug. 17). Venter and his team, who made headlines last year by creating the world’s first synthetic organism, are trying to design cells that can use atmospheric carbon dioxide to make food, fuel, plastics and other products.
This ability would obviously have huge implications here on Earth, but it could also help make Mars — whose thin atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide — a more livable place, Venter said.
There is more on the artificial stuff made more human……
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new technology that may help robots feel, give the sense of touch back to those with prosthetic limbs, and ultimately help robots do the dishes without breaking them (and while they’re at it, maybe make a sandwich without turning it into land of the flatlanders).
The material is built using semiconductor nanowires that can operate using low voltages, and it’s more flexible than previous inorganic synthetic skins. This “e-skin” is also stronger than its competing organic materials. Organic materials are also poor semiconductors, and require a higher voltage to operate. The Berkeley group’s synthetic skin can either be transferred to another material like a plastic or glass by either directly transferring it over from a flat substrate which is then “rubbed” onto a polymer film made of polyamide. It can also be “rolled” onto the surface using a device that works much like a lint roller in reverse; the fibers are deposited to a sticky surface rather than picked up.
The e-skin can detect pressure in the range from 0 to 15 kilopascals, or similar to the pressure needed to perform normal daily tasks. In other words, when your cyber-being goes to clean the wine glasses from last night’s party, it won’t break them, and when your robot goes to make you a sandwich, it won’t flatten it to the size of your silicon microprocessor.
I do not know about you….but all this stuff is beginning to sound a bit like…..I, Robot!
If successful….it starts off small and morphs from there. So is this the beginning of the end……(a tease)……a super smart micro chip…..a computer that thinks for itself….and now able to invent synthetic life……How soon will it be before we have a “Bladerunner” scenario?
Thoughts?