Scientists Are Mixing Human Body Parts With Robots And Monkeys. We Don’t Want To See What’s Next

From The Federalist.com (Apr. 21, 2021):

It’s been a big month for sci-fi primates. On Apr. 8, Elon Musk’s start-up Neuralink announced they created a cyborg monkey who can play MindPong using a brain chip. The following week, scientists at the Salk Institute in California revealed they successfully grew human-macaque embryos in test tubes. These hybrid babies were aborted at 20 days.

The ethical implications of such experiments are now debated with a resigned shrug. There’s a sense of inevitability to it all. Powerful humans will indulge in any behavior that’s both pleasurable and possible. What could be more pleasurable than playing God?

The practical question isn’t how to stop them, but how to survive in their technocratic age. Where do we draw such boundaries? Do we reflexively reject technology’s terms and conditions? Or, when it’s our turn to get chipped, do we take the plunge?

Ultimately, these are religious questions. Many traditional cultures view living beings as sacred. Each creature is endowed with a spark of consciousness and is therefore deserving of dignity, even those we kill and eat. From this standpoint, tinkering with the fundamental make-up of any living being is a form of blasphemy, especially in the case of humans.

For materialists — quite prevalent in Silicon Valley — an organism is only a collection of cells and chemical signals with nothing like a “soul.” In their self-conception, these innovators are simply joining Nature’s inexorable march from steam engines to smartphones to cyborgs, and beyond. Many of them view pain and suffering as mere brain signals on a flickering monitor. For them, the pleasure of advancement is a much higher priority.

Monkey Cyborgs: Just Another Sign of the Times

Musk’s wired-up primate is being celebrated as a major breakthrough in cyborg technology. The overall system is fairly simple. Neuralink scientists trained a nine-year-old macaque, Pager, to play Pong and other puzzles on a computer screen using a joystick. Every time the monkey made a correct move, a metal tube squirted banana smoothie into his mouth.

All the while, Pager’s brain was being scanned by two Neuralink chips jabbed into his skull. More than 2,000 wires fanned out into his gray matter, monitoring his motor cortex as he wiggled the joystick and sucked down the banana smoothie. Once the monkey’s neural activity had been correlated with his actions onscreen, the researchers unplugged the joystick.

The cursor kept moving. The monkey was playing a video game with nothing but his brain waves. Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed like the cursor moved more smoothly when the Neuralink chip was being employed.

According to Musk’s declared ambitions, this breakthrough is just a stepping stone to inputting Neuralink chips into human skulls, thereby merging our cognition with artificial intelligence. In the hyper-competitive world looming just over the horizon — when AI has surpassed the human mind — getting a brain chip could be seen by many as merely a way to keep up in the rat race.

Neuralink’s monkey is just the latest chapter in a long history of animal-machine hybrids. Twenty years ago, Chicago’s Northwestern University revealed the first vertebrate cyborg. In that experiment, scientists cut a lamprey eel’s brain out of its head, kept the brain alive in a nutrient solution, hooked wires to its visual and motor cortices, and stuffed the sentient organ into a small machine the size of a hockey puck. There, the eel’s visual cortex was connected to light sensors and its motor cortex controlled the device’s wheels.

Researchers placed this fresh cyborg in a dark space. They flashed lights on one end of the chamber, and then on the other. Because lamprey eels orient themselves to light coming through the ocean’s surface, the brain-controlled hockey puck turned and moved toward the light wherever it shined. The creature buzzed back and forth, trying desperately to orient itself.

Two decades ago, publications like CNN and the Washington Post responded to such advances with suspicion and moral concern. Today, they chronicle the rise of technocracy with a mixture of awe and shameless product placement, if they cover it at all. Looking at Musk’s cyborg macaque, they see a bright future where the lame shall walk, the blind shall see, and the dumb shall think like superintelligent machines. [read more]

I don’t want to see what’s next either. Sounds like the beginning of a weird sci-fi horror flick. Tread carefully.

Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces measure to prevent federal mask mandate

From Washington Times.com (Sept. 9, 2023):

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced legislation on Friday that would prohibit the federal government from reviving mask mandates on air travel, public transit and in schools.

The Georgia Republican’s legislation would prevent any federal official, including President Biden, from imposing a mask mandate on flights, public transit, and at schools of every level. The measure also prevents commercial airlines, public transit authorities and educational institutions from denying services to people that do not want to wear a mask.

Ms. Greene’s measure, called the Freedom to Breathe Act, comes as several businesses and schools throughout the country have reimposed mask mandates in the wake of surging COVID-19 cases.

Ms. Greene called out Morris College, a university in Atlanta, for reinstating a mask mandate in August. She said on X, formerly Twitter, that Americans have had enough of “COVID hysteria.”

“Dr. Fauci privately recommended not wearing a mask to his close friends, admitting they weren’t effective, yet he provided nationwide public health guidance stating Americans be required to mask in nearly all social settings, including while on public transit and in schools,” Ms. Greene said in a statement announcing the legislation.

“Even Joe Biden himself declared the pandemic is over! We cannot allow our country to be sucked back into the COVID hysteria that ushered in unscientific and nonsensical health mandates like blanket masking policies,” she added.

The measure would also stop Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra from issuing mask mandates in planes, public transit and classrooms during public health emergencies, and prevent federal funding from being used to impose mask mandates in those places.

The bill picked up numerous cosponsors in the GOP-controlled House. So far, 13 lawmakers have thrown support behind the bill.

Ms. Greene introduced her measure as a companion to a bill from Sen. J.D. Vance, Ohio Republican.

Mr. Vance’s version of the measure was blocked by Sen. Ed Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, on Thursday when the Senate Republican attempted to pass the bill by unanimous consent. *Mr. Markey contended that the bill would inhibit state and local officials from making decisions “about what’s best for their communities.” [source]

Good for her! Now, the Congress needs to put the bill on President Trump’s desk for signing.

*Since when are the Dems for states rights?

Astronauts Return Safely After 9 Months in Space

From Newsmax.com (Mar. 18):

After nine months stuck in space, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore splashed down in the Gulf of America shortly before 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

In a mission that was supposed to last eight days, Williams and Wilmore were stranded at the International Space Station when their Boeing Starliner suffered thruster problems. NASA opted to bring them home via Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Williams and Wilmore came home via SpaceX Dragon, parachuting down off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle at 5:57 p.m. ET to complete their 17-hour trek home.

After being retrieved and initial safety checks, Williams and Wilmore will be flown to Houston to begin a 45-day rehabilitation program. Challenges such as muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts that can lead to kidney stones and vision issues, and the readjustment of balance upon returning to a gravity environment are well understood and effectively managed.

The Trump administration blamed the Biden administration for marooning Williams and Wilmore, asserting that former President Joe Biden didn't want Musk to get the glory for rescuing the pair.

Wilmore and Williams ended up spending 286 days in space — 278 days longer than anticipated when they launched. They circled Earth 4,576 times and traveled 121 million miles by the time of splashdown.

Joining them on SpaceX Dragon were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. [source]

Great news! Happy for them. It's too bad the previous president didn't rescue the astronauts but I guess they weren't a priority for him.

Other articles and videos on the rescue:

• Stranded Astronaut in Space Proclaims Gospel Before Historic Rescue Back to Earth
• Experts reveal how long it will take NASA astronauts to recover after nine months stranded in space
• Elon Musk Confirms That He Offered to Return Astronauts Sooner But Was Turned Down by Biden Admin ‘For Political Reasons’ (VIDEO)
• Trump offers to pay stranded astronauts out of his pocket after finding out how little overtime they are paid
• Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station
• Stranded Astronauts Splash Down to Massive Cheers [video]

Trump establishes a new council to advance U.S. energy dominance

From Washington Times.com (Feb. 14):

President Trump signed an executive order Friday establishing the National Energy Dominance Council.

The Council will be chaired by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and vice-chaired by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Other members will come from the Cabinet and other governmental agencies.

“We have more energy than any other country, and now we’re unleashing it,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office.

“We must expand all forms of reliable and affordable energy production to drive down inflation, grow our economy, create good-paying jobs, reestablish American leadership in manufacturing, lead the world in artificial intelligence, and restore peace through strength by wielding our commercial and diplomatic levers to end wars across the world,” the executive order said.

The order directed the council to advise the president “on how best to exercise his authority to produce more energy to make America energy dominant.”

That includes advising Mr. Trump on improving the processes of handling American energy like critical minerals, creating a “National Energy Dominance Strategy” and facilitating the relationship between the government and private sector energy companies.

Within 100 days, the council is expected to present the president a plan for how to raise awareness of the American energy dominance plan. The council will also advise agencies how to prioritize the plan, including approving new infrastructure such as natural gas pipelines in New England, California and Alaska, reopening closed power plants and turning on small modular nuclear reactors.

The council will also advise the president on energy markets, investments and how to keep the cost of energy down for Americans.

The Biden administration’s restrictions on offshore oil drilling in parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans also will be lifted.

“President Trump knows that these public lands belong to the public — they don’t belong to Washington bureaucrats from the prior administration,” Mr. Burgum wrote on social media. “We’re going to make sure that we get a return on investment for the American people.”

Mr. Wright also authorized the first liquified natural gas export permit for a project in Louisiana.

“President Trump has outlined a bold agenda for unleashing American energy dominance, and restoring regular order on U.S. LNG export permits is critical for meeting this commitment to the American people,” he said in a statement.

On his first day in office, Mr. Trump declared a national energy emergency, calling for “a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness.”

The emergency declaration criticized the “harmful and shortsighted policies of the previous administration.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie applauded the creation of the council, calling it “a strong step toward securing our energy future, and ensuring we have the resources necessary to meet the demands that AI will place on our grid.”

“Energy security is national security. By utilizing our domestic energy resources to create baseload power, we can lower prices, secure our grid, and provide the energy needed to grow manufacturing, heat our homes, and fill our gas tanks,” Mr. Guthrie, Kentucky Republican, said in a statement. [source]

America's back on track again. I like the winning.  Drill, baby, drill! 

Miscellaneous Thoughts 47

• The only person you can put on a pedestal is Jesus Christ. No-one else.
• Drag queens who entertain in front of children are closet pedophiles.
• Oppressor and oppressee are the only two truths the Left believes in. I thought the Left didn’t believe in binary concepts.
• You can change your sex but not anything else like your race. Go figure.
• Peer pressure is only good for a person if the peers are looking out for that person.
• If you are using the pronouns they/them to describe yourself, you are either possessed by demons or have multiple personalities. Either way you need help.
• What if Adam and Eve asked God if the serpent was deceiving them? They had immediate access to Him. They wouldn't even have to explain the conversation to God, He would already know being omniscience.
• The oath at a trial: The Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth is the essence of God and Jesus.
• Prediction: AI will eventually replace ghost writers.
• I wonder if Area 51 actually contains inventions from the private-sector the U. S. government classified as top-secret for national security reasons (see H.R. 4687 - Invention Secrecy Act of 1951)?

Controversial new AI app allows you to text with Jesus – and Satan

From NY Post.com (Aug. 23, 2023):

It’s not every day that the spiritual realm intersects with smartphone tech.

But in the era of chatbots and AI, even the biblical figures aren’t immune.

Welcome to the world of “Text With Jesus,” where you’re just a tap away from a conversation with the holy – and, for a price, the not-so-holy.

Deepening faith through ‘Text With Jesus’

For those longing for a more personal connection to their faith, this app might be the digital salvation they’re seeking.

Designed with devoted Christians in mind, “Text With Jesus” promises interaction with figures like Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Matthew.

This app wears its spirituality on its screen, guiding you through its queries with responses mined from the depths of the Bible’s rich text.

Conversations go beyond tradition in the app

There’s a certain audacity in allowing you to go beyond the traditional interactions one might expect.

Although the full range of figures and unlimited messaging are only available to premium subscribers, the app is free to download and use on all eligible devices.

By shelling out just $2.99/month, you can embark on a journey through some of the Bible’s more intricate dialogues, like Adam and Eve’s narrative or the dawn of humanity.

The devil is in the details: The app’s most controversial feature

The app’s most controversial feature: conversations with Satan himself.

Expectations can be deceiving, especially in the world of AI.

Satan, historically the symbol of temptation and deceit, dons a surprisingly mellow avatar in this app.

Users anticipating fiery dialogues or cunning deceptions might be left scratching their heads.

Instead, the Prince of Darkness champions love, respect, and understanding — values synonymous with biblical virtues.

As if to ensure a modern flavor, each devilish interaction ends with a “smiling face with horns” emoji.

It’s an odd mix of solemnity and sass, which will undoubtedly spark reactions from traditionalists and tech enthusiasts alike.

Now, whether it’s a deliberate attempt to challenge perceptions or just a programming oversight remains a topic for debate.

Users anticipating fiery dialogues or cunning deceptions might be left scratching their heads.

Instead, the Prince of Darkness champions love, respect, and understanding — values synonymous with biblical virtues.

As if to ensure a modern flavor, each devilish interaction ends with a “smiling face with horns” emoji.

It’s an odd mix of solemnity and sass, which will undoubtedly spark reactions from traditionalists and tech enthusiasts alike.

Now, whether it’s a deliberate attempt to challenge perceptions or just a programming oversight remains a topic for debate.

However, it’s important to note that interaction with Satan is turned off by default and must be manually enabled by you if you choose to engage with this figure.

The app points out that, “the portrayal is rooted in Christian teachings, and users have full control over their engagement with all figures within the app.” [read more]

Don't know if this app is a good idea or not. Texting with Satan? He doesn't speak very much in the Bible and he's a very negative being. Instead how about adding other positive people like Moses (and other prophets), Mother Mary, the Apostles, etc. if you are going to write an app like this.

Another article on the matter: Text with Jesus app: AI deities trivializing Jesus (and Satan)

Researchers can now collect and sequence DNA from the air

From Live Science.com (Apr. 5, 2021):

We leave DNA all over the place, including in the air, and for the first time, researchers have collected animal DNA from mere air samples, according to a new study.

The DNA that living things, human and otherwise, shed into the environment is called environmental DNA (eDNA). Collecting eDNA from water to learn about the species living there has become fairly common, but until now, no one had attempted to collect animal eDNA from the air.

"What we wanted to know was whether we could filter eDNA from the air to track the presence of terrestrial animals," study author Elizabeth Clare, an ecologist at Queen Mary University of London, said in a video abstract for the study, published Mar. 31 in the journal PeerJ. "We were interested in whether we could use this 'airDNA' as a way to assess what species were present in a burrow or a cave where we could not easily see or capture them," she added.

As a proof-of-concept experiment, Clare and her colleagues tried collecting DNA from the air in an animal facility housing a model organism, the naked mole rat. The researchers detected both human and mole rat DNA in air from both the mole rat enclosures and the room where the enclosures are housed. 

"The demonstration that the DNA from relatively large animals can also be detected in air samples dramatically expands the potential for airborne eDNA analysis," said Matthew Barnes, an ecologist at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, who was not involved in the new study.

In the last decade, the collection and analysis of eDNA to study and manage plant and animal populations has taken off, Barnes said. "The analogy that I use is like the detective at the crime scene, finding a cigarette butt and swabbing it for DNA to place the criminal at the crime scene. We do that with eDNA except for instead of looking for criminals, we're looking for a rare or elusive species," Barnes said. The species might be endangered or an invasive species new to an environment, he said. [read more]

Interesting. If the CSI:Miami TV drama ever comes back on the air, it could use this tech on an episode.