Unbelievable video from the show Ants! Nature’s Secret Power. Cement is poured into a gigantic ant colony (we’re talking 538 sq.feet across!) and allowed to dry for a month. The anthill is then excavated to reveal the ants’ monstrous metropolis.
A few years ago I read about an experiment that used living cortical neurons from a rat brain to perform calculations. More specifically, the neurons were connected to the controls of an F-22 fighter jet simulator. After some training, the brain was able to fly the jet in tough weather conditions. Today Geylen brought my attention to another similar experiment. An associate professor at the Uni. of Arizona has built a robot chassis controlled by the brain of a moth. He predicts we’ll be using such organic-machine hybrid computers soon.
The Space Collective is a site under development, planning to launch a public beta of its site soon “Where forward thinking terrestrials share ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction.
When I was about sixteen years old, I read Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience — a book that confirmed and reaffirmed many of my views on science, as well as inspired me to look through entirely new keyholes. New Scientist recently published an excerpt from an essay Wilson wrote in an edition of four books by Darwin. Do read my following excerpt, and by all means read the full article — Wilson certainly knows his way around science (and words).
Boy is this an aesthetically superior post. Here are two liquids that only seem a voice away from whispering their dreams and ambitions.
A bug in my software had this rather amusing effect.
My brother called me today to tip me off on some exciting news: An article the New Journal of Physics reports evidence that inorganic space plasma might form life like structures. Fantastic! Simulations created by a Mr. Tsytovich and his colleagues at the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science, have provided evidence that under the right conditions, dust particles may allow plasma to self-organize and exhibit behavior normally associated with organisms, such as self-replication.
Exciting scientific developments descend upon us, as scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have successfully managed to transfer an entire genome of one species into another — which grew and multiplied into the first species. Why is this significant? Because the next experiment involves creating and implanting a synthetic genome — the success of which could mark the creation of the first artificial lifeform and enable greater possibilities for biological engineering.
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I first read about Twine today in a swedish newspaper...Think Artificial is a proud member of the 9rules blog community.
