This is what happens when texture mapping goes horribly wrong — an algorithm's failed attempt to align three-dimensional models to a two-dimensional image. The result is something only Salvador Dali would be proud of.

These images, which were produced by Apple iOS Maps, were compiled by Trapcode founder Peder Norrby and can be found as his Flickr account. And they're really quite wild. Cars and trucks appear to melt, trees morph into apartment buildings, and roads take on the character of sheer cliffs.

I also found this.

[Via It's Nice That]

Not to be outdone by Curiosity, the Opportunity rover has made one of its most significant scientific discoveries to date. A recent analysis of clay minerals indicates that neutral water once existed on Mars — water that could have been suitable for life.

It’s an important discovery — and one made by an amazing little rover. Though it was only designed for a 90-day mission, Opportunity is now approaching its 3,400th day of operation. It arrived on Mars over nine years ago on January 25, 2004.

Recently, however, Opportunity has been overshadowed by its kid brother, Curiosity. But this latest development has once again propelled it to the limelight.

The clay minerals were found near Endurance Crater in a rock called Esperance. These minerals, which are similar to montmorillonite, form under the influence of neutral water — water that’s very similar to tap water and potentially very friendly to life (i.e. water neutral in pH). Today, with Mars largely taking on the characteristics of a vast desert landscape, any residual water would have turned acidic. Evaporation of the water has left higher concentrations of minerals, thus contributing to its current acidity.

"What we have here is a very different chemistry," noted lead scientist Steve Squyres during a press briefing on Friday, according to Discovery News. "This is water you can drink. This is water that was probably much more favorably in its chemistry, in its level of acidity, for things like pre-biotic chemistry, the kind of chemistry that could lead to the origin of life."

"This is the most powerful evidence for neutral chemistry water that has been found by Opportunity," he said.

Earlier this year, Curiosity found evidence of neutral, slightly salty water in clay minerals at the Gale Crater site.

Consequently, a picture is emerging of ancient Mars in which neutral water existed at multiple locations, quite possibly raining down from the sky. Over the course of millions of years, Mars has gotten progressively drier and colder, resulting in highly concentrated pockets of acidic water.

[Sources: New Scientist, Guardian, Discovery News]

Image: NASA.

Travel photographer Quang-Tuan Luong has put together this gorgeous video showcasing the active volcanoes of Hawaii National Park.

Even though he's photographed each of the 59 U.S. National Parks, this is Luong's first complete video — and it's a stunner.

He writes, "One of the most mesmerizing spectacles of nature I've witnessed is lava flowing to the ocean as clouds of steam rise from the meeting of fire and water. I stood mere feet away from the 2000°F lava. After everybody had left, I stayed to record the pulse of the flow over an entire night."

[Via Tree Hugger]

By definition, the Technological Singularity is a blind spot in our predictive thinking. Futurists have a hard time imagining what life will be like after we create greater-than-human artificial intelligences. Here are seven outcomes of the Singularity that nobody thinks about — and which could leave us completely blindsided.

Top image: Ridwan Chandra.

For the purpose of this list, I decided to maintain a very loose definition of the Technological Singularity. My own personal preference is that of an intelligence explosion and the onset of multiple (and potentially competing) streams of both artificial general superintelligence (SAI) and weak AI. But the Singularity could also result in a kind of Kurzweilian future in which humanity has merged with machines. Or a Moravecian world in which our “mind children” have left the cradle to explore the cosmos, or a Hansonian society of competing uploads, featuring rapid economic and technological growth.

In addition to some of these scenarios, a Singularity could result in a complete existential shift for human civilization, like our conversion to digital life, or the rise of a world free from scarcity and suffering. Or it could result in a total disaster and a global apocalypse. Hugo de Garis has talked about a global struggle for power involving massively intelligent machines set against humanity — the so-called artilect war.

But there are some lesser known scenarios that are also worth keeping in mind, lest we be caught unawares. Here are seven of the most unexpected outcomes of the Singularity.

1. AI Wireheads

It’s generally assumed that a self-improving artificial superintelligence (SAI) will strive to become progressively smarter. But what if cognitive enhancement is not the goal? What if an AI just wants to have fun? Some futurists and scifi writers have speculated that future humans will engage in the practice of wireheading — the artificial stimulation of the brain to experience pleasure (check out Larry Niven’s Known Space stories for some good examples). An AI might conclude, for example, that optimizing its capacity to experience pleasure is the most purposeful and worthwhile thing it could do. And indeed, evolution guides the behavior of animals in a similar fashion. Perhaps a transcending, self-modifying AI will not be immune to similar tendencies.

At the same time, an SAI could also interpret its utility function in such a way that it decides to wirehead the entire human population. It might do this, for example, if it was pre-programmed to be “safe” and consider the best interests of humans, thus taking its injunction to an extreme. Indeed, an AI could get its value system completely botched up by concluding that maximum amounts of pleasure is the highest possible utility for itself and for humans.

As an aside, futurist Stephen Omohundro disagrees with the AI wirehead prediction, arguing that AIs will work hard to avoid becoming wireheads because it would be harmful to their goals.” Image: Mondolithic Studios.

2. “So long and thanks for all the virtual fish”

Imagine this scenario: The Technological Singularity happens — and the emerging SAI simply packs up and leaves. It could just launch itself into space and disappear forever.

But in order for this scenario to make any sense, an SAI would have to conclude, for whatever reason, that interacting with human civilization is simply not worth the trouble; it's just time to leave Earth — Douglas Adams' dolphin-style.

Image: Colie Wertz.

3. The Rise of an Invisible Singleton

It’s conceivable that a sufficiently advanced AI (or a transcending mind upload) could set itself up as a singleton — a hypothetical world order in which there is a single decision-making agency (or entity) at the highest level of control. But rather than make itself and its global monopoly obvious, this god-like AI could covertly exert control over the human population.

To do so, an SAI singleton would use surveillance (including reliable lie detection) and mind-control technologies, communication technologies, and other forms of artificial intelligence. Ultimately, it would work to prevent any threats to its own existence and supremacy, while exerting control over the most important parts of its territory, or domain — all the while remaining invisible in the background.

4. Our Very Own Butlerian Jihad

Another possibility is that humanity might actually defeat an artificial superintelligence — a totally unexpected outcome just based on the sheer improbability of it. No doubt, once a malign or misguided SAI (or even a weak AI) gets out of control, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. But humanity, perhaps in conjunction with a friendly AI, or by some other means, could fight back and find away to beat it down before it can invoke its will over the planet and human affairs. Alternately, future humans could work to prevent it from coming about in the first place.

Frank Herbert addressed these possibilities in the Dune series by virtue of the “Butlerian Jihad” — a cataclysmic event in which the “god of machine logic” was overthrown by humanity and a new fundamental tenet invoked: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” The Jihad resulted in the destruction of all intelligent machines and the rise of a new feudal society. It also resulted in the rise of the mentat order — humans with extraordinary cognitive abilities who functioned as virtual computers.

5. First Contact

Our transition to a post-Singularity civilization could also expose us to a larger, technologically advanced intergalactic community. There are a number of different possibilities, here — and not all of them good.

First, a post-Singularity civilization (or SAI) might quickly figure out how to communicate with extraterrestrials (either by receiving or transmitting). There may be a kind of cosmic internet that we’re oblivious to, but which only advanced civs might be able to detect (e.g. some kind of quantum communication scheme involving non-locality). Second, a kind of Prime Directive may be in effect — a galactic policy of non-interference in which ‘primitive’ civilizations are left alone. But instead of waiting for us to develop faster-than-light travel, an extraterrestrial civilization might be waiting for us to achieve and survive a Technological Singularity.

Thirdly, and related to the last point, an alien civilization might also be waiting for us to reach the Singularity, at which time it will conduct a risk assessment to determine if our emerging SAI or post-Singularity civilization poses some kind of threat. If it doesn’t like what it sees, it could destroy us in an instant. Or it might just destroy us anyway, in an effort to enforce its galactic monopoly. This might actually be how berserker probes work; they sit idle in some location of the solar system, becoming active at the first sign of a pending Singularity.

6. Our Simulation Gets Shuts Down

If we’re living in a giant computer simulation, it’s possible that we’re living in a so-called ancestor simulation — a simulation that’s being run by posthumans for some particular reason. It could be for entertainment, or for a science experiment. An ancestor simulation could also be run in tandem with many other simulations in order to create a large sample pool, or to allow for the introduction of different variables. Disturbingly, it’s possible that the simulations are only designed to reach a certain point in history — and that point could very well be the Singularity.

So if we reach that stage, everything could suddenly go dark. What’s more, the computational demands required to run a post-Singularity simulation of a civilization could be enormous. The clock rate, or even rendering time, of the simulation could result in the simulation running so slowly that the posthumans would no longer have any practical use for it. They’d probably just shut it down.

7. The AI Starts to Hack Into the Universe

Admittedly, this one’s pretty speculative (not that the other ones haven’t been!) — but think of it as a kind of ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ sort of thing. A sufficiently advanced SAI could start to see directly into the fabric of the cosmos and figure out how to hack into its ‘code.’ It could start to mess around with the universe to further its needs, perhaps by making subtle alterations to the laws of the universe itself, or by finding (or engineering) an ‘escape hatch’ in order to avoid the inevitable onslaught of entropy. Alternately, an SAI could construct a basement universe — a small artificially created universe linked to the current universe by a wormhole. This could then be used for living space, computing, or as a way to escape the eventual heat death of the parent universe.

Or, an SAI could migrate and disappear into an exceedingly small living space (what the futurist John Smart refers to as STEM space — highly compressed areas of space, time, energy, and matter) and conduct its business there. In such a scenario, an advanced AI would remain completely oblivious to us puny meatbags; to an SAI, the idea of conversing with humans might be akin to us wanting to have a conversation with a plant.

Try this. I should totally do an explainer about this topic.

During the Blitz in 1940, a German Dornier 17 bomber was shot down over the English Channel near Kent. Now, some 73 years later, it has been brought up from its watery grave. It's considered the most significant surviving artifact from the Battle of Britain.

Experts working for the RAF Museum were able to hoist the wreckage from the Channel where it lay in an area known as Goodwin Sands. Some pieces fell off the aircraft during the lift, but a dive crew will collect them in the coming days.

The plane crash-landed in a sandbank where it was enveloped by the seabed. It became exposed about five years ago and was discovered by divers who spotted it sitting on a chalk bed at a depth of around 50 feet (15 meters).

The wreckage will be sent to to the RAF museum's base at Cosford, Shropshire, for two years where experts will work to "conserve and stabilise" the remains.

Image: battleofbritain.devhub.com.

A light bomber, the Dornier Do 17 was dubbed the "flying pencil" on account of its elegant, thin design. It was one of three bombers used by the Germans during the Battle of Britain.

[Source: Guardian; images: Getty]

The European Space Agency and MIT is setting up a tournament where students can earn points by controlling the movement of volleyball-sized spheres located inside the International Space Station.

The SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites) can move around the ISS using 12 jets powered by compressed gas. Each of them have their own power, propulsion, and navigation. But in order to make them move in the exact way needed, students will have to pre-program each of them with the instructions required to fulfil a specific goal.

Secondary-school students can prepare for the Zero Robotics Competition by testing their codes in online simulations. The best algorithms will propel the competitor to the finals, when they'll get to see the SPHERES run their commands live from space. Each competitor will be put into a three-team alliance from different European countries.

Registration for U.S. high school students can be found here.

The final event will take place in January 2014 with the U.S. teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the European teams at ESA's ESTEC Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

More at ESA.

During the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Soviet authorities tried to spare human workers from the harsh conditions by experimenting with a number of bizarre and oddly innovative remote-controlled devices. These robotic machines are now on display at an open air museum near the site.

Just looking at these clunky old things you can immediately tell that they weren't up to the task. Removing the contaminated debris required more skill than these devices could offer, forcing the Soviets to send in workers (i.e. soldiers) to do the job. During the clean-up, each person could only afford to spend a maximum of 40 seconds inside or near the facility. Many of them died as a consequence of the exposure or later contracted cancer.

This thing looks like it belongs on the moon, but it's the STR-1 robot. It was placed on the roof of the Chernobyl plant and used to clear radioactive elements of the destroyed reactor. Gamma-ray background radiation reached 3,000 roentgens per hour at times — and in some areas as much as 10,000 roentgens per hour.

Called Mobot, this device was designed at Moscow State University. It was also used to clear debris off the roof.

Some robots were more effective than others. This one probably not so much.

The radio-controlled amphibious bulldozer Komatsu D-355W could work at the bottom of the sea, but it could not withstand high doses of radiation and quickly broke down.

Likewise, the German-built MF-2 and MF-3 bots did not fare well under such harsh conditions.

When in doubt, send in the tanks!

As an aside, remote-controlled devices were used as early as World War II.

[Source: English Russia]

According to the source blog, Horoshiyblog, it's gotta be close. The author writes: "We went yesterday to Chernobyl. Loved it."

I know that most people think that aliens are going to be all warm and cuddly. A lot of this has to do with Carl Sagan's contact optimism and his hypothesis that the only extinction-risks survivable civilizations are the peaceful ones. As for me, I can imagine many nasty civilizations being able to survive x-risks. And in fact, it may be the most nasty of civs that are the survivors.

NASA scientists think that sliding chunks of frozen carbon dioxide — dry ice — may be responsible for creating track marks on some Martian sand dunes. Which brings up a totally awesome idea: Snowboarding down a Martian sand dune on a block of dry ice.

NASA calls these strange formations linear gullies, and they measure anywhere from a few hundred feet to an astounding 1.6 miles (2.5 km) long. They were discovered on images beamed back from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO's) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Planetary scientists had never seen anything quite like it before, and it’s certainly not something that’s ever been seen here on Earth.

As they were working to solve the mystery, the researchers realized that the tracks were only found on dunes which were covered in frost during the Martian winter. During this season, Mars's southern polar region is covered by a layer of dry ice, sometimes up to several feet deep. When spring arrives, it goes through a sublimation process where it turns directly from solid into gas.

And in fact, NASA determined that the tracks formed during early spring. Some images even showed bright objects in the gullies. The researchers, a team that included planetary scientist Serina Diniega, now theorize that the objects are pieces of dry ice that have broken away from points higher on the slope.

As gravity does its work, and as the sublimation process continues, the chunks of ice rest on a super slippery cushion of gas. They’re essentially turning into miniature hovercrafts, forming furrows as they go. The circular pits themselves likely resulted from the blocks of dry ice completely sublimating away once they stopped moving.

Interestingly, the team tested this hypothesis by conducting outdoor tests here on Earth. And as you’ll see in the video below, it worked remarkably well (be sure to watch it all the way through as it includes an interpretation of what a snowboarding astronaut might look like).

"I have always dreamed of going to Mars. Now I dream of snowboarding down a Martian sand dune on a block of dry ice." — Serina Diniega

Needless to say, the conditions on Mars are far removed from what is experienced on Earth, both in terms of temperature and pressure. But according to the researchers, their calculations show that the dry ice would in fact act similarly during the early Martian spring. Water ice, on the other hand, would stay frozen at the temperatures at which these gullies form.

"MRO is showing that Mars is a very active planet," noted co-author Candice Hansen in a statement. "Some of the processes we see on Mars are like processes on Earth, but this one is in the category of uniquely Martian."

So who’s up for snowboarding down a Martian sand dune on a sled made from dry ice? I'm totally in.

Read the entire study at Icarus: “A new dry hypothesis for the formation of martian linear gullies.”

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

A group of scientists and entrepreneurs has created the world’s first continuous message beacon to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations. And for a fee, people can use it to transmit their own messages into space. But not everyone thinks this project is a good idea.

The idea of messaging ETs has been around for a while now, and typically goes by the name METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) or Active SETI. The basic idea is that, instead of just listening passively for an alien radio signal, we should deliberately try to send messages into space in hopes of attracting the attention of alien civilizations.

To that end, Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra and a group of entrepreneurs recently took over the Jamesburg Earth Station radio dish in Carmel, California. They’ll use the facility to send a continuous hailing message into outer space. It’ll all get started later this month.

Initially, Lone Signal will target the Gliese 526 star system, which has been identified as a potentially habitable solar system.

“Our scientific goals are to discover sentient beings outside of our solar system,” said Lone Star co-founder Pierre Fabre at a recent event. “But an important part of this project is to get people to look beyond themselves and their differences by thinking about what they would say to a different civilization. Lone Signal will allow people to do that.”

Universe Today reports:

Lone Signal will be sending two signals: one is a continuous wave (CW) signal, a hailing message that sends a slow binary broadcast to provide basic information about Earth and our Solar System using an encoding system created by astrophysicist and planetary scientist Michael W. Busch. The binary code is based on mathematical “first principles” which reflect established laws that, theoretically, are relatively constant throughout the universe; things like gravity and the structure of the hydrogen atom, etc.

“This hailing message is a language we think could be used to instigate communication,” said Haqq-Misra, “and is the most advanced binary coding currently in use.”

The second signal, embedded in the first signal, will be messages from the people of Earth.

After the first free message, customers can purchase paid credit packages that will allow them to transmit and share longer messages, including images. The price structure looks like this:

• $0.99 buys 4 credits
• $4.99 buys 40 credits
• $19.99 buys 400 credits
• $99.99 buys 4000 credits

This is the perfect opportunity for people who don’t like their money.

But more to the point, a number of thinkers have expressed concerns about METI and the potential risks of attracting unwanted alien attention. I’m one of them.

But Haqq-Misra doesn’t buy it, saying that the benefits outweigh the potential hazards. And conveniently, he and his team recently published a paper saying as much. I recently reported on this paper here at io9 and gave it a less than flattering review.

In an email to me, David Brin had this to say about Haqq-Misra’s “risk analysis”:

[Haqq-Misra et al] then dive into the worst part of the paper, a razzle-dazzle arm-waving of "risk factors" that bear no relationship to the way the science of risk analysis operates, conjuring inputs out of thin air and then declaring or "positing" that the likely good outweighs any calculation of possible bad outcomes. This exercise was too grimly awful to even be amusing, especially since the "dissidents" in the SETI community, including John Billingham, Michael Michaud and myself, have not asked for a ban on transmissions from Earth, only widespread and eclectic collegial discussion of this issue, with inputs by experts who actually know about the many and varied risk factors involved.

Reiterating, the thing we have asked for is a wider discussion, beyond the insular community of SETI fans and a few dozen radio astronomers, of a matter that could have great bearing on the success — and even survival — of our descendants. We seek a vast and fascinating exchange, bringing together the planet's best minds to enthrall the public with open deliberation of all factors. Those who refuse such discussion — shrugging aside any need or moral obligation to consult the rest of us — are the ones practicing censorship. They are the ones engaging in reckless assumptions, willing to wager our posterity on a few "posits" on the back of an envelope.

And indeed, as Brin aptly points out, the larger issue here is that Haqq-Misra and his colleagues are acting completely unilaterally. No one has given them permission to do this, nor have they consulted the larger community.

In all likelihood, our messages will never reach the ears of an alien civilization. The Fermi Paradox suggests that no one’s out there, and no one cares. Indeed, if an advanced ETI really wanted to make contact, they would have done so by now using such schemes as self-replicating Bracewell communication probes.

But it’s the shouting out in the cosmos aspect that’s the real issue here. We simply do not know the risks. Consequently, we should take great care when embarking upon projects such as this. Like Brin has suggested, this should be the part of a much broader conversation, and not some silly exercise intended to make a bit of money.

For the time being, we should probably exercise the precautionary principle. As I wrote back in 2007:

Since no one is listening, there is no harm in not sending messages out into the cosmos. Again, if a friendly ETI wanted to do a meet-and-greet, they should have no trouble finding us. But because there is the slim chance that we may alert a local berserker (or something unknown), we should probably refrain from the METI approach for the time being.

Then again, why would aliens come all this way just to invade Earth?

Image: Zerogees.

As our technologies take us from the theoretical to the practical, a number of thorny moral quandaries remain unanswered. Here are important unresolved ethical questions that are on the verge of becoming highly relevant.

Should people be allowed to clone themselves?

There’s currently a global moratorium on human cloning. But you just know that’s not going to last. Back in 2007, Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk faked a human cloning breakthrough, and it’ll only be a matter of time before some renegade scientist actually does it. This year has already seen two major advancements in this area, including the use of cloning to create embryonic stem cells and a new technique where mammalian cloning lines can be extended and reproduced indefinitely.

Many people consider the act of human cloning to be an affront to our dignity and individuality. It’s also seen by some as an incredibly selfish and egotistical act. Others worry about the potential for clones to be exploited or abused. On the flip-side of the debate, supporters say there’s no harm done so long as the rights of clones are recognized. A common argument in support is that clones are essentially delayed twins. And yet others say it’s a perfectly legitimate way to create biological offspring — that it’s a novel form of assisted human reproduction that could help same-sex or infertile couples reproduce.

Is it okay to introduce non-human DNA in our genome?

This branch of science is called transgenics — the intermingling of human and non-human genetic information. Scientists endow lab animals with bits of human DNA all the time, but the opposite most assuredly doesn’t happen. And in fact, it’s illegal virtually everywhere. Some worry about the creation of chimeras — creatures that are part-human and part-something-else. Supporters say that it could result in novel therapies. It’s possible, for example, that a non-human animal has a natural immunity to a disease. Wouldn’t we want to endow ourselves with this same immunity? More radically and speculatively, it’s also possible that more substantive animal characteristics could be introduced into humans (bird vision, dog hearing, dolphin fins, etc.). If so, what’s the harm? Would we diminish what it means to be human?

Should parents be allowed to design their babies?

Should we allow a Gattaca-like world to come into existence? Like human cloning, the idea of genetically modifying our offspring still falls within the realms of illegality and taboo. Its supporters call it human trait selection; it’s opponents derogatively refer to it as designer babies. Either way, it would allow parents to select the characteristics of their progeny, including non-medical attributes like hair and eye color, height, intelligence, greater empathy, sexual orientation, personality type, and basically any other genetically influenced trait.

Its detractors complain that it’s simply a way for parents to control the destiny of their offspring. They also worry that an arms race could occur, where parents will feel compelled to modify their offspring as a way to keep up with the Jones's baby. Some are concerned about the potential for abuse — like parents giving their children superfluous physical characteristics (such as extreme height, or even silly things like a tail).

Supporters, on the other hand, say it’s a form of reproductive autonomy, and that well-informed and well-intentioned parents — in conjunction with the laws and their fertility doctor — are well within their rights. Others argue that human trait selection is inherently good, and that parents are simply looking to maximize their child’s potential.

What are the most important areas of scientific research?

Our civilization is currently facing a number of grave challenges — everything from superstorms through to epidemics and the rise of apocalyptic threats. So, when it comes to the funding of important scientific research, what makes the most sense?

Image via China.org.cn.

Given the looming threat of global warming, some would say that we should we invest in climate science and various geoengineering schemes. There’s also the threat of a global pandemic, like the avian flu. Shouldn’t that be our greatest concern? Or what about the potential for powerful technologies to serve as potential game-changers — things that could actually fix our planet. It's reasonable to argue that we should invest in additive manufacturing techniques (like 3D printing), molecular nanotechnology — and even artificial intelligence. Which brings up another important area: research into mitigating existential risks.

Should people be forced to die once indefinite lifespans are achieved?

The day will eventually come when the problem that is biological aging is finally solved. Needless to say, the advent of indefinite lifespans could result in some serious negative consequences, including overpopulation, the rise of a gerontocracy, widespread boredom and restlessness, and a de-valuing of life. And in fact, in consideration of these possibilities, political scientist Francis Fukuyama — back when he was serving on George W. Bush’s bioethics council — said that governments have the right to tell their citizens that they have to die. It would be a kind of Logan’s Run world.

Such a turn of events would be highly problematic, to say the least, and a complete affront to our civil rights (i.e. the right to medical treatment, the right to life, the right to self-determination etc.). So how are we going to deal with the prospect of indefinite lifespans once they start to emerge? And what about the right to end one’s life?

Should we have guaranteed universal income?

Within a few decades, the global economy could face a collapse the likes of which we've never seen. As robots replace manual workers, and as thought workers start to get replaced by artificial intelligence, unemployment rates could reach staggering levels. The concentration of wealth could become extremely atomized. It would be a disruption similar to the one caused by the Great Depression — an economic and social catastrophe that ushered in the modern welfare state. Should this second Great Depression occur, there could be calls for a guaranteed universal income — a social policy that ensures everyone gets a steady paycheck to make sure basic needs are met. Of course, not everyone will be thrilled with this idea; a population dependant on the government — or more accurately, the forced distribution of wealth — certainly rubs conservative elements the wrong way.

Which animals have moral value?

Last year, an international group of scientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they proclaimed their support for the idea that many animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. As we’re also learning, insects also exhibit some remarkable cognitive capacities. A question is starting to emerge about the moral relevance of these animals, and whether or not we should take more care in ensuring the well-being. To what extent should we work to reduce suffering in the world?

Needless to say, not everyone is onboard with these ideas. It’s largely taken for granted, owing to our position of privilege, that we can exploit animals and use them as we see fit, whether it be for meat, our entertainment, or for medical testing purposes.

Can only humans be persons?

Further, there’s also the issue of non-human animal personhood — the notion that some animals, owing to complex cognitive and emotional attributes, deserve the same sorts of legal protections afforded to all humans. Specifically, these animals would include all great apes, cetaceans (dolphins and whales), and elephants. Looking further ahead, there’s even the potential for artificial intelligence to have not just moral value, but personhood designation itself.

Many would argue that only humans can be persons. This is the basic tenet of human exceptionalism — the idea that humans should always occupy an exalted place atop the food chain, and that there’s something inherently and intangibly special about Homo sapiens.

Should we biologically enhance non-human animals?

Somewhat related to the last point, there’s also the potential for animal uplift. Just last year, scientists demonstrated that a brain implant can improve thinking ability in primates. In short order, and as a consequence of testing human augmentation technologies on animals, we will have it within our means to significantly enhance their cognitive capacities as well. As I’ve argued in the past, we may actually be morally obligated to do this as we bring the entire biosphere into a post-biological, post-Darwinian existence. But others decry this as a form of human imperialism, and as a way to impose human characteristics on animals. Some would simply say that we shouldn’t mess with nature and that it’s none of our business to modify animals in this way.

Do people living in the present have more value than future persons?

This is a classic question that has baffled moral theorists for years, and it’s one that could soon become quite topical. If we’re to deal with climate change and prevent the exhaustion of our planet’s non-renewable resources, we may be forced to scale back our civilization to ensure ongoing sustainability. Otherwise, future generations will have to reap what we sow. The answer, some would say, is to pull back and live simpler lives. But should people living in the here-and-now have to worry and make sacrifices for people who haven’t even been born yet? But what if things are better in the future? Would it all have been worth it?

Top image via Splice

Behold the International Linear Collider — a proposed 31-kilometer electron collider that could shed light on new areas of physics — including dark matter.

A five-volume report containing the blueprint for this futuristic particle physics project was published today by an international group of scientists. The designers say it will "compliment and advance beyond the physics of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN." The latest specs represent the "latest, most technologically advanced and most thoroughly scrutinised design for the ILC."

The new collider will be 4 kilometers longer than Hadron, and will consist of two linear accelerators that will face each other.

The report was handed over to the international oversight board for projects in particle physics, the International Committee for Future Accelerators ICFA.

“The Technical Design Report basically says that we are ready to go ahead,” noted Barry Barish, Director of the ILC’s Global Design Effort. “The technology is there, the R&D milestones have been achieved, the physics case is clear, and we could start construction tomorrow. All we need is a clear political statement, and there are strong signs from Japan that it could bid to host the project.”

CERN describes the machine and what it'll be capable of:

Organised by the Global Design Effort (GDE), a team of scientists from around the world, the ILC is an international endeavour that brings together more than 1,000 scientists and engineers from more than 100 universities and laboratories in over two dozen countries. Consisting of two linear accelerators that face each other, the ILC will accelerate and collide electrons and their anti-particles, positrons. Superconducting accelerator cavities operating at temperatures near absolute zero give the particles more and more energy until they collide in the detectors at the centre of the 31-kilometre machine. At the height of operation, bunches of electrons and positrons will collide roughly 7,000 times per second at a total collision energy of 500 GeV, creating a surge of new particles that are tracked and registered in the ILC’s detectors. Each bunch will contain 20 billion electrons or positrons concentrated into an area much smaller than that of a human hair. This means a very high rate of collisions. This high “luminosity”, when combined with the very precise interaction of two point-like colliding particles that annihilate each other, will allow the ILC to deliver a wealth of data to scientists that will allow the properties of particles, such as the Higgs boson, recently discovered at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, to be measured precisely. It could also shed light on new areas of physics such as dark matter.

Check out the entire Technical Design Report.

Image: Pablo Vazquez.

Japan's Jiroemon Kimura has passed away at the age of 116 years and 54 days. Guinness World Records is recognizing him as the oldest man in recorded history.

He died of natural causes in a hospital after being admitted for pneumonia on May 11. Over the past several days his response, blood-sugar level, and urine production had declined.

Kimura, who was born in Japan on April 19, 1897, was one of only 10 people still alive who could say they lived across three centuries. Owing to his death, that number has now dropped to 9.

The oldest person still living is now Japan's Misao Okawa who is 115 years and 100 days old.

At 116 years and 54 days, Kimura is the ninth oldest person in recorded history, and the oldest male. He leaves behind five children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren. He was a postman until the age of 65, after which time he took up farming until he turned 90.

The second longest male lifespan belongs to Christian Mortensen of the U.S. (originally from Denmark), who lived for 115 years and 252 days. The longest person to have ever lived was Jeanne Calment of France who lived for an unprecedented 122 years and 164 days. She is also the only person to break the 120+ year mark.

Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Kimura died at the age of 119. It has now been corrected to show the correct figure, 116 years.

[Sources: Bloomberg & Wikipedia; image: Getty]

I incorrectly put 119; fixed to say 116. Sorry about that.

Talk about your 40-foot perspective: An international team of researchers has put together an absolutely brilliant 3D video map of the nearby universe out to a distance of 300 million light-years. The video is a not-so-subtle reminder of how freakishly tiny we are in the larger scheme of things.

Top image: A map showing all galaxies in the nearby universe. Each galaxy is color-coded to signify distance, with blue representing the closest and red signifying the most distant — up to 300 million light-years away. Credit: University of Hawaii.

It’s called the Cosmic Flows project and it’s an effort to map both visible and dark matter densities around our galaxy up to a distance of 300 million light-years. The map, which is presented in video format, shows our immediate intergalactic neighborhood through a series of dynamic 3D representations that are rotated, panned, and zoomed. It's the most detailed map ever created of our local vicinity, and it does a remarkable job showing us what our neighbourhood looks like.

It's important to remember that this cosmography of the local universe represents a miniscule fraction of the whole thing – about 0.32%. The observable universe is over 93 billion light-years in diameter (that's the visible universe; this is an unknown, likely infinitesimal, fraction of “the whole thing”). So as humbling as this is, the bigger picture is more daunting, still. (Then again, perhaps you're the kind of person who finds the Universe inspiring. Which, how can we blame you, really?)

The video is over 17 minutes long, but don't let that put you off. Things pick up quickly after the 1:15 mark.

The video map was compiled by Hélène Courtois, Daniel Pomarède, R. Brent Tully, Yehuda Hoffman, and Denis Courtois. "The complexity of what we are seeing is almost overwhelming," says Courtois in the video.

“The ability to translate and zoom helps the viewer follow structures in three dimensions and grasp the relationships between features on different scales while retaining a sense of orientation,” write the authors in the study.

And indeed, the video map reveals a local universe filled with a complex series of clusters, filaments (massive thread-like structures that form the boundaries between large voids in the universe), and voids — those vast, empty regions of space. As for us, our Milky Way is situated within a supercluster of 100,000 galaxies.

Fascinatingly, the map also shows the distribution of dark matter and energy; dark energy is the mysterious force that’s causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. We can’t visually see this, but scientists can deduce its presence by its effect on the motions of galaxies and stars. Dark matter constitutes about 80% of the total matter in the universe. The properties of the local universe were determined by analyzing redshift surveys and measurements of odd-ball velocities.

The video was announced last week at the conference "Cosmic Flows: Observations and Simulations" in Marseille, France. The findings are set to be published in the Astronomical Journal, but it can be read at arXiv: “Cosmography of the Local Universe.”

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that isolated chunks of human DNA cannot be patented. And thank goodness for that. But it's a ruling that comes with a compromise: Moving forward, companies can still patent synthetic genetic material.

The court concluded today that human DNA is a product of nature and a basic tool of scientific and technological work. It's outside the domain of patent protection and not something that can be deemed an invention or a technological discovery.

As a result of the ruling, the court struck down patents held by Myriad Genetics on a pair of genes linked to a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer, namely BRCA1 and BRCA2.

And yes, Angelina Jolie carries the defective BRCA1 gene. She recently underwent a mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing these cancers. But up until today, Myriad Genetics was actually making a patent claim on that gene. I know — it doesn't make a hell of a whole lotta sense. Which is why this ruling is being seen as a victory for rationality.

The Guardian reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas ruled that Myriad's assertion that the DNA it isolated from the human body for its tests were patentable had to be dismissed because it violated patent rules. The court said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas lay outside patent protection.

"We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Thomas said.

He said there would be "considerable danger" that without such an exception, the granting of patent would "tie up" the use of such tools and future innovation based on them.

But the Supreme Court did say that synthetically created genetic material, known as cDNA, can be patented, including cloned genes. The court said this was okay because it involves actual work in the laboratory and manipulates what's normally found in nature. The synthetic cDNA is an edited version of a gene, stripped of non-coding regions that the court said makes it "not naturally occurring."

Critics are already saying Justice Clarence Thomas made the wrong decision to not exclude cDNA from patentability. Writing in Forbes, Daniel Fisher explains:

Critics say even the edited sequences are directly analogous to naturally occurring DNA. “That may be so,” Thomas wrote, “but the lab technician unquestionably creates something new when cDNA is made.”

[Brenda] Jarrell, who has a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California in addition to a Harvard Law degree, said Thomas is wrong. Not only do researchers make cDNA with naturally occurring tools, but the exact same process can occur naturally in the body.

“It’s not actually correct to say cDNA is not a product of nature,” she said. “There’s nothing more inventive about making cDNA than isolating DNA.”

The DNA/cDNA distinction also could provide grist for future litigation, since cDNA is a gene sequence consisting only of exons, or nucleotides that code for amino acids.

“What if you took that same cDNA sequence and added non-functional introns?” asked Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, a partner with Ropes & Gray. Would that allow for a successful end-run around the patent?

This will likely be a big deal in the future with the advent of advanced gene therapies and the injection of novel, synthetic genes into our DNA. So we're not out of the woods yet; the day is coming when companies will own the DNA contained within your body.

Image via Sergej Khakimullin/Shutterstock.

Fixed video.