Futurology  

Futurist Juan Enriquez asks: Is it ethical to evolve the human body? In a visionary TED talk that ranges from medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, Enriquez sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.

When Juan Enriquez gives a TED Talk, it is always worth checking out. In his latest, Enriquez examines medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, and sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.

"When you're talking about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic, you're talking about something that isn't just, 'I'm missing my leg,' it's, 'if I don't have this, I can die.' And at that point, a prosthetic becomes a symbiotic relationship with the human body," states Enriquez.

Enriquez has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. He is the managing director of Excel Venture Management, a life sciences VC firm. He is a member of the board of Synthetic Genomics, which recently introduced the smallest synthetic living cell. Called “JCVI-syn 3.0,” it has 473 genes (about half the previous smallest cell). The organism would die if one of the genes is removed. In other words, this is the minimum genetic instruction set for a living organism.

"All of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different."

In the talk (video below), Enriquez mentions the new MIT Media Lab Center for Extreme Bionics headed up by Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, and Bob Lander. Bionic prosthetics are now being integrated into bone, muscle and skin. Boyden been examining how to connect bionics directly into the brain using light or other mechanisms "If you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity," says Enriquez.

Enriquez, co-author of Evolving Ourselves: Redesigning the Future of Humanity--One Gene at a Time, also discusses genomics work being done by the likes of George Church and others. Using genetic engineering and regenerative medicine, the promise is becoming open for more than just simple fixes to our DNA. We are on the forefront of potentially being able to rewrite our code completely.

All of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chess board where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS, or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases, or we can change the environment, and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations. And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.

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Enriquez brilliantly links the work being done in genomics and bionics to the development of humanity to the next levels of the Kardashev scale. The scale was originally designed in 1964 by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev, who was searching for signs of extraterrestrial life in cosmic signals.

The Kardashev scale has three main classes, each with an energy disposal level: Type I (10¹⁶W), Type II (10²⁶W), and Type III (10³⁶W), a civilization in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy. Other astronomers have extended the scale to Type IV and Type V. Due to the necessities of space travel, Type II and Type III civilizations alters fundamental aspects of their bodies. "We can't even begin to imagine what that might look like," says Enriquez, "But we're beginning to get glimpses of instruments that might take us even that far."

SOURCE  TED

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Robotics  

A new study of African mudskipper, including development of a robotic model inspired by the animal has found the animals needed to use their tails to propel themselves forward. Shedding new light on the evolution of the first terrestrial animals, the work shows that the powerful tails the animals used as fish may have been more important than scientists previously realized. 

A new study could help designers create amphibious robots able to move across granular surfaces more efficiently and with less likelihood of getting stuck in the mud.

The project, published recently in the journal Science involved a multidisciplinary team of physicists, biologists and roboticists from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Clemson University and Carnegie Mellon University. Following a detailed study of the mudskipper, the team developed of a robot model that used the animal’s locomotion techniques. The study also examined flow and drag conditions in representative granular materials, and applied a mathematical model incorporating new physics based on the drag research.

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“Most robots have trouble moving on terrain that includes sandy slopes,” said Dan Goldman, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics. “We noted that not only did the mudskippers use their limbs to propel themselves in a kind of crutching motion on sand and sandy slopes, but that when the going got tough, they used their tails in concert with limb propulsion to ascend a slope. Our robot model was only able to climb sandy slopes when it similarly used its tail in coordination with its appendages.”

Using fossil records, scientists have long studied how early land animals may have gotten around, and the new study suggests their tails – which played a key role in swimming as fish – may have helped supplement the work of fins, especially on sloping granular surfaces such as beaches and mudflats.

"We were interested in examining one of the most important evolutionary events in our history as animals: the transition from living in water to living on land."

“We were interested in examining one of the most important evolutionary events in our history as animals: the transition from living in water to living on land,” said Richard Blob, alumni distinguished professor of biological sciences at Clemson University. “Because of the focus on limbs, the role of the tail may not have been considered very strongly in the past. In some ways, it was hiding in plain sight. Some of the features that the animals used were new, such as limbs, but some of them were existing features that they simply co-opted to allow them to move into a new habitat.”

The research team recorded how the mudskippers (Periopthalmus barbaratus) moved on a variety of loose surfaces, providing data and video to Goldman’s laboratory. The small fish, which uses its front fins and tail to move on land, lives in tidal areas near shore, spending time in the water and on sandy and muddy surfaces.

The team then applied the principles to a robot model known as MuddyBot that has two limbs and a powerful tail, with motion provided by electric motors. Information from both the mudskipper and robotic studies were also factored into a mathematical model provided by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Carnegie Mellon University researchers, who have worked with Goldman on relating the locomotion of other animals to robots, demonstrated that theoretical models developed to describe the complex motion of robots can also be used to understand locomotion in the natural world.

“Our computer modeling tools allow us to visualize, and therefore better understand, how the mudskipper incorporates its tail and flipper motions to locomote,” said Howie Choset, a professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “This work also will advance robotics in those cases where a robot needs to surmount challenging terrains with various inclinations.”

Information from the study could help in the design of robots that may need to move on surfaces such as sand that flows around limbs, said Goldman. Such flow of the substrate can impede motion, depending on the shape of the appendage entering the sand and the type of motion.

But the study’s most significant impact may be to provide new insights into how vertebrates made the transition from water to land.

“We want to ultimately know how natural selection can act to modify structures already present in organisms to allow for locomotion in a fundamentally different environment,” Goldman said. “Swimming and walking on land are fundamentally different, yet these early animals had to make the transition.”

SOURCE  Georgia Tech

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Videos  

If we hope to one day leave Earth and explore the universe, our bodies are going to have to get a lot better at surviving the harsh conditions of space. Using synthetic biology, Lisa Nip hopes to harness special powers from microbes on Earth — such as the ability to withstand radiation — to make humans more fit for exploring space. "We're approaching a time during which we'll have the capacity to decide our own genetic destiny," Nip says. "Augmenting the human body with new abilities is no longer a question of how, but of when."

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SOURCE  TED

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Genetic Algorithms  

Scientists have demonstrated working electronic circuits that have been 'designed' in a radically new way, using methods that resemble Darwinian evolution. The size of these circuits is comparable to the size of their conventional counterparts, but they are much closer in operation to natural networks like our brain.

Scientists of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology and the CTIT Institute for ICT Research at the University of Twente in The Netherlands have demonstrated working electronic circuits that have been produced in a novel way, using methods that resemble Darwinian evolution. The size of these circuits is comparable to the size of their conventional counterparts, but they are much closer to natural networks like the human brain.

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The findings promise a new generation of powerful, energy-efficient electronics, and have been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

During the last few years computers have become more and more powerful by integrating ever smaller components on silicon chips, in the familiar pattern of Moore's Law. The technology has reached a point where it is becoming increasingly difficult and extremely expensive to continue this miniaturization. 

Current transistors consist of only a handful of atoms. It is a major challenge to produce chips in which the millions of transistors have the same characteristics, and thus to make the chips operate without error. Another drawback is that their energy consumption is reaching unacceptable levels. It is obvious that one has to look for alternative directions, and it is interesting to see what we can learn from nature. Natural evolution has led to powerful ‘computers’ like the human brain, which can solve complex problems in an energy-efficient way. Nature exploits complex networks that can execute many tasks in parallel.

The approach of the researchers at the University of Twente is based on methods that resemble those found in nature. They have used networks of gold nanoparticles for the execution of essential computational tasks. Also, unlike conventional electronics, they have moved away from designed circuits. 

Using 'designless' systems, costly design mistakes are avoided. The computational power of their networks is enabled by applying artificial evolution, also known as genetic algorithms. This evolution takes less than an hour, rather than millions of years. By applying electrical signals, one and the same network can be configured into 16 different logical gates. The evolutionary approach works around - or can even take advantage of - possible material defects that can be fatal in conventional electronics.

It is the first time that scientists have succeeded in this way in realizing robust electronics with dimensions that can compete with commercial technology. 

"With this research we have delivered proof of principle: demonstrated that our approach works in practice."

According to lead researcher Wilfred van der Wiel, the circuits currently generated with the artificial evolution method still have limited computing power. “But with this research we have delivered proof of principle: demonstrated that our approach works in practice. By scaling up the system, real added value will be produced in the future. Take for example the efforts to recognize patterns, such as with face recognition. This is very difficult for a regular computer, while humans and possibly also our circuits can do this much better." 

Another key advantage may be that this type of circuitry uses much less energy, both in the production, and during use. The researchers anticipate a wide range of applications, in portable electronics and in the medical field.

SOURCE  University of Twente

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 Evolution  

The author of a new study of evolutionary convergence argues that the development of life on Earth is predictable, meaning that similar organisms should therefore have appeared on other, Earth-like planets by now. So why do we appear to be all alone in the universe?

Extra-terrestrials that resemble humans should have evolved on other, Earth-like planets, making it increasingly paradoxical that we still appear to be alone in the universe, according to the author of a new study on convergent evolution.

The argument is one of several that emerge from The Runes of Evolution: How the Universe became Self-Aware, a new book in which the leading evolutionary biologist, Professor Simon Conway Morris, makes the case for a ubiquitous “map of life” that governs the way in which all living things develop.

Morris's theory builds on the established principle of convergent evolution, a widely-supported theory – although one still disputed by some biologists – that different species will independently evolve similar features. 

Morris argues that convergence is not just common, but everywhere, and that it has governed every aspect of life’s development on Earth. Proteins, eyes, limbs, intelligence, tool-making – even our capacity to experience orgasms – are, he argues, inevitable once life emerges. The book claims that evolution is therefore far from random, but a predictable process that operates according to a fairly rigid set of rules. 

If that is the case, then it follows that life similar to that on Earth would also develop in the right conditions on other, equivalent planets. Given the growing number of Earth-like planets of which astronomers are now aware, it is increasingly extraordinary that aliens that look and behave something like us have not been found, he suggests. 

“Convergence is one of the best arguments for Darwinian adaptation, but its sheer ubiquity has not been appreciated,” Morris, who is a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, said. “Often, research into convergence is accompanied by exclamations of surprise, describing it as uncanny, remarkable and astonishing. In fact it is everywhere, and that is a remarkable indication that evolution is far from a random process. And if the outcomes of evolution are at least broadly predictable, then what applies on Earth will apply across the Milky Way, and beyond.” 

"The consensus offered by convergence, however, is that life is going to evolve wherever it can."

Morris has previously raised the prospect that alien life, if out there, would resemble earthlings – with limbs, heads, and bodies. His new book goes even further, however, adding that any Earth-like planet should also evolve thunniform predators (like sharks), pitcher plants, mangroves, and mushrooms, among many other things. Limbs, brains and intelligence would, similarly, be “almost guaranteed”. 

The traits of human-like intelligence have evolved in other species – the octopus and some birds, for example, both exhibit social playfulness – and this, the book suggests, indicates that intelligence is an inevitable consequence of evolution that would characterize extraterrestrials as well. Underpinning this is Morris’ claim that convergence is demonstrable at every major stepping stone in evolutionary history, from early cells, through to the emergence of tissues, sensory systems, limbs, and the ability to make and use tools. The theory, in essence, is that different species will evolve similar solutions to problems via different paths. 

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A commonly-cited example is the octopus, which has evolved a camera eye that is closely similar to that of humans, although distinctive in important ways that reflect its own history. Although octopi and humans have a common ancestor, possibly a slug-like creature, this lived 550 million years ago and lacked numerous complex features that the two now share. The camera eye of each must therefore have evolved independently. 

Morris argues that this process provides an underlying evolutionary framework that defines all life, and leads to innumerable surprises in the natural world. The book cites examples such as collagen, the protein found in connective tissue, which has emerged independently in both fungi and bacteria; or the fact that fruit flies seem to get drunk in the same manner as humans. 

Morris contends that all life navigates across this evolutionary map, the basis of what he describes as a “predictive biology”. “Biology travels through history,” he writes, “but ends up at much the same destination”. This, however, raises fascinating and problematic questions about the possibility of life occurring on other planets. 

“The number of Earth-like planets seems to be far greater than was thought possible even a few years ago,” Morris said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have life, because we don’t necessarily understand how life originates. The consensus offered by convergence, however, is that life is going to evolve wherever it can.” 

“I would argue that in any habitable zone that doesn’t boil or freeze, intelligent life is going to emerge, because intelligence is convergent. One can say with reasonable confidence that the likelihood of something analogous to a human evolving is really pretty high," he says. "Given the number of potential planets that we now have good reason to think exist, even if the dice only come up the right way every one in 100 throws, that still leads to a very large number of intelligences scattered around, that are likely to be similar to us.” 

If this is so, as the book suggests in its introduction, then it makes Enrico Fermi’s famous paradox – why, if aliens exist, we have not yet been contacted – even more perplexing. 

“The almost-certainty of ET being out there means that something does not add up, and badly,” Morris said. “We should not be alone, but we are.” 

SOURCE  University of Cambridge

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 Biotechnology  

Future humans could become great caretakers of our planet, as well as a more diverse, more resilient, gentler, and more intelligent species, write Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans in their new book, "Evolving Ourselves."

Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans recently spoke at Google's Cambridge, Massachusetts office to discuss their new book, Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth (video below).

The book's premise is that new advances in biotechnology help us mitigate the cruel forces of natural selection, from saving prematurely born babies to gene therapies for sickle cell anemia and other conditions. As technology enables us to take control of our genes, we will be able to alter our own species and many others. Future humans could become great caretakers of the planet, as well as a more diverse, more resilient, gentler, and more intelligent species —but only if we make the right choices now.

With the recent announcement that Chinese researchers have begun modifying human embryos, the discussion is more relevant than ever.

“We are the primary drivers of change. We will directly and indirectly determine what lives, what dies, where, and when. We are in a different phase of evolution; the future of life is now in our hands,” Enriquez and Gullans write.

"Have we become a different domestic species?"

Why are rates of conditions like autism, asthma, obesity, and allergies exploding at an unprecedented pace? Why are humans living longer, getting smarter, and having far fewer kids? How might your lifestyle affect your unborn children and grandchildren? If Darwin were alive today, how would he explain this new world? Could our progeny eventually become a different species—or several?

In Evolving Ourselves, futurist Enriquez and scientist Gullans conduct a sweeping tour of how humans are changing the course of evolution—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. For example:

• -Globally, rates of obesity in humans nearly doubled between 1980 and 2014. What’s more, there’s evidence that other species, from pasture-fed horses to lab animals to house cats, are also getting fatter.

• -As reported by U.S. government agencies, the rate of autism rose by 131 percent from 2001 to 2010, an increase that cannot be attributed simply to increases in diagnosis rates.

• -Three hundred years ago, almost no one with a serious nut allergy lived long enough to reproduce. Today, despite an environment in which food allergies have increased by 50 percent in just over a decade, 17 million Americans who suffer from food allergies survive, thrive, and pass their genes and behaviors on to the next generation.

• -In the pre-Twinkie era, early humans had quite healthy mouths. As we began cooking, bathing, and using antibiotics, the bacteria in our bodies changed dramatically and became far less diverse. Today the consequences are evident not only in our teeth but throughout our bodies and minds.

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Though these harbingers of change are deeply unsettling, the authors argue that we are also in an epoch of tremendous opportunity. New advances in biotechnology help us mitigate the cruel forces of natural selection, from saving prematurely born babies to gene therapies for sickle cell anemia and other conditions.

As technology enables us to take control of our genes, we will be able to alter our own species and many others—a good thing, given that our eventual survival will require space travel and colonization, enabled by a fundamental redesign of our bodies.

Future humans could become great caretakers of the planet, as well as a more diverse, more resilient, gentler, and more intelligent species—but only if we make the right choices now.

“We are going from evolution by natural selection to evolution by human design. The game has changed, and this book provides the new rules of engagement,” says XPRIZE and Singularity University co-founder Peter Diamandis.

Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans are cofounders of Excel Venture Management, which builds startups in synthetic biology, big data, and new genetic technologies. Enriquez is a bestselling author and a global authority on the economic and political impacts of the life sciences. He is a TED “all-star,” lectures around the world, chairs the Genetics Advisory Council at Harvard Medical School, and was the founding director of Harvard Business School’s Life Science Project. 

Gullans was a professor at Harvard Medical School for eighteen years, applying breakthrough technologies to diseases such as cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. He has published more than 130 scientific papers in leading journals. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1998.

SOURCE  Talks at Google

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 Biology  

Researchers have made progress towards the possibility of creating synthetic life with the development of a form of artificial evolution in a simple chemistry set at the University of Glasgow.

Scientists have taken an important step towards the possibility of creating synthetic life with the development of a form of artificial evolution in a simple chemistry set without DNA.

A team from the University of Glasgow’s School of Chemistry report in a new paper in the journal Nature Communications on how they have managed to create an evolving chemical system for the first time. The process uses a robotic ‘aid’ and could be used in the future to ‘evolve’ new chemicals capable of performing specific tasks.

"This is the first time that an evolvable chemical system has existed outside of biology. Biological evolution has given rise to enormously complex and sophisticated forms of life, and our robot-driven form of evolution could have the potential to do something similar for chemical systems."

The project is the latest of the Cronin Group’s efforts to explore evolution outside organic biology. Other projects have included the development of inorganic chemical cells known as iCHELLs, which are built from molecules of metal and exhibit some of the same abilities as living cells.

The researchers used a specially-designed open source robot based upon a cheap 3D printer to create and monitor droplets of oil in water-filled Petri dishes in their lab. Each droplet was composed from a slightly different mixture of four chemical compounds.

Droplets of oil move in water like primitive chemical machines, transferring chemical energy to kinetic energy. The researchers’ robot used a video camera to monitor, process and analyse the behaviour of 225 differently-composed droplets, identifying a number of distinct characteristics such as vibration or clustering.

The research team was led by Professor Lee Cronin, the University of Glasgow’s Regius Chair of Chemistry.

The team picked out three types of droplet behavior – division, movement and vibration – to focus on in the next stage of the research. They used the robot to deposit populations of droplets of the same composition, then ranked these populations in order of how closely they fit the criteria of behavior identified by the researchers. The chemical composition of the ‘fittest’ population was then carried over into a second generation of droplets, and the process of robotic selection was begun again.

Over the course of 20 repetitions of the process, the researchers found that the droplets became more stable, mimicking the natural selection of evolution.

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Professor Cronin said: “This is the first time that an evolvable chemical system has existed outside of biology. Biological evolution has given rise to enormously complex and sophisticated forms of life, and our robot-driven form of evolution could have the potential to do something similar for chemical systems.

“This initial phase of research has shown that the system we’ve designed is capable of facilitating an evolutionary process, so we could in the future create models to perform specific tasks, such as splitting, then seeking out other droplets and fusing with them. We’re also keen to explore in future experiments how the emergence of unexpected features, functions and behaviors might be selected for.

“In recent years, we’ve learned a great deal about the process of biological evolution through computer simulations. However, this research provides the possibility of new ways of looking at the origins of life as well as creating new simple chemical life forms.”

Below is a TED Talk Cronin presented a few years ago on, "Making Matter Come Alive."




SOURCE  University of Glasgow

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 Evolution  

Evolve and resequence (E&R) is a new approach for investigating the genomic responses to selection during experimental evolution. By using whole genome sequencing of pools of individuals (Pool-Seq), this method can identify select variables that, over the long term, control evolution.

Life implies change. And this holds true for genes as well. Organisms require a flexible genome in order to adapt to changes in the local environment. Christian Schlötterer and his team from the Institute for Population Genetics at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna study the genomes of entire populations.

The scientists want to know why individuals differ from each other and how these differences are encoded in the DNA. In two review papers published in the journals Nature Reviews Genetics and Heredity, they discuss why DNA sequencing of entire groups can be an efficient and cost-effective way to answer these questions.

Overview of E&R studies - C Schlötterer, R Kofler, E Versace, R Tobler and S U Franssen / Heredity

"We are using this method to address a broad range of questions, ranging from the identification of genes which influence aging, or genes protecting against diseases and finally to understand the genetic changes which reduce the impact of climate change."

DNA analysis has become increasingly efficient and cost-effective since the human genome was first fully sequenced in the year 2001. Sequencing a complete genome, however, still costs around US$1,000. Sequencing the genetic code of hundreds of individuals would therefore be very expensive and time-consuming. In particular for non-human studies, researchers very quickly hit the limit of financial feasibility.

The solution to this problem is pool sequencing (Pool-Seq). Schlötterer and his team sequence entire groups of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) at once instead of carrying out many individual sequencing reactions. While the resulting genetic information cannot be attributed to a single individual, the complete data set still provides important genetic information about the entire population.

In the two publications, Schlötterer and colleagues discuss the breadth of questions that can be addressed by Pool-Seq.

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In order to understand how organisms react to changes in the local environment, the genomes of entire populations can be analysed using Pool-Seq, before and after changed conditions. To do so, the researchers use the method of evolve and resequence (E&R).

After exposing the descendants of this group for several generations to a certain stress, such as high temperature, extreme cold or UV radiation, the evolved group is sequenced again. A comparison of the two data sets uncovers genes that have changed in response to the selective stress. The approach makes it possible, to filter out the genes that are involved in a darker pigmentation in response to UV radiation.

“Using this principle, we can perform evolution experiments at high speed. We are using this method to address a broad range of questions, ranging from the identification of genes which influence aging, or genes protecting against diseases and finally to understand the genetic changes which reduce the impact of climate change,” Schlötterer explains.

The evolve-and-resequence approach also makes it also possible to filter out the genes that regulate aging. This process involves selecting flies from a population, repeatedly over generations, that reach an especially old age.  Several generations later, the researchers then compare the genomes of the “Methuselah” flies with those from normally aging flies in order to extract the genes that are involved in the aging process. This method also works to locate genes that provide resistance against certain diseases.

Bioinformatician and co-author, Robert Kofler, explains: “We are dealing with genetic change processes and are searching for variations in the genomes. The variations can help us to understand how evolution works.”


SOURCE  University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna

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 Chimpanzees  

Social networks are known to be incredibly important for humans, and as researchers have found, the ability of individuals to learn from one another may have originated long ago in a common ancestor of chimpanzees and human.

Researchers have observed wild chimpanzees that see a friend making and using a new kind of tool, and then making one for themselves.

"Our study adds new evidence supporting the hypothesis that some of the behavioral diversity seen in wild chimpanzees is the result of social transmission and can therefore be interpreted as cultural," the team has reported in journal PLOS ONE.

The research points to the ability of individuals to learn from one another originated long ago in a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, they suggest.

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"This study tells us that chimpanzee culture changes over time, little by little, by building on previous knowledge found within the community," said Thibaud Gruber, a co-author of the study, in a statement. "This is probably how our early ancestors' cultures also changed over time."

Scientists already knew that chimpanzees in different groups have certain behaviors unique to their group, such as using a particular kind of tool. They suspected that wild chimpanzees learn those behaviors from other chimpanzees within their group, as scientists have observed in captive chimps. But they could never be sure.

Visualization of the static interaction networks for the RU1 behavior for all 30 individuals
- Image Source Hobaiter et al./PLOS ONE

The new study documents the spread of two new behaviors among chimpanzees living in Uganda's Budongo Forest. It shows that chimps learned one of them —  the making and use of a new tool called a moss sponge — by observing other chimps who had already adopted the behaviour. Chimps dip the tool in water and then put it in their mouth to drink.

In the video below, an individual extracts a leaf-sponge from his mother’s mouth before using it at the waterhole.

"Our study adds new evidence supporting the hypothesis that some of the behavioral diversity seen in wild chimpanzees is the result of social transmission and can therefore be interpreted as cultural."

The other behavior, picking up and re-using a similar tool called a leaf sponge discarded by another chimp, didn't appear to be learned by observing other chimps.

"We were incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time to document the appearance and spread of two novel tool-use behaviors, something that is extraordinarily rare in the wild," said Catherine Hobaiter, a lecturer in psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland who filmed the chimpanzees.

The first chimpanzee in the group ever seen making a moss sponge was "Nick," the 29-year-old alpha male — the top-ranked male in the group. Over the next six days, the researchers saw another seven chimps making and using moss sponges. In six of the cases, the chimps had recently watched another chimp making and using a moss sponge.

An analysis showed the chimps were 15 times more likely to start making and using a moss sponge if they had previously seen another chimp do it. That was not the case for the other new behavior, re-using discarded leaf sponges.

The researchers acknowledged that while the chimpanzees appeared to learn to make moss sponges from other chimps, they weren't exactly sure how — whether it was by direct observation, or independently trying to come up with a similar design, for example. That means they don't necessarily learn in the same way as humans.

Thibaud also noted that there is a difference in what humans can transmit to one another compared to apes that allows human culture to be far more complex than that of apes.




SOURCE  PLOS Biology

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 Aging  

Arguably human evolution is now being driven solely by cultural evolution, which may suggest some deeper evolutionary  transition away from biological evolution is already in the process of occurring. An anthropologist now suggests that life extension technology may yield a new human species by as early as 2050.

According to new research by evolutionary anthropologist, Cadell Last your grandchildren be an entirely new kind of human being. The researcher says mankind is undergoing an evolutionary transition as big as previous jumps from monkeys to apes, and apes to humans.

Last's theory was recently published in the journal Current Aging Science.

"The whole of human evolution in some sense can be viewed as our species trying to abolish the category of adulthood. We want to keep the creativity of cultural reproduction into adulthood."

Instead of the biological evolution that caused massive physical changes over millions of years, Last a and researcher at the Global Brain Institute, believes that cultural evolution is changing the human species in a matter of decades.

He thinks that as early as 2050, we'll be living to an average age of 120, making the the biological clock essentially obsolete.

"Humans are naturally interested in music, movies, mathematics, and science and all of these things. So we're just entering a world where we can own our own cultural reproduction, and we can engage in this for an entire lifetime," Last told Aol. "We're not in this world yet, but this is sort of where we're going."

He says human evolution is a long transition from quote, "living fast and dying young" to "living slow and dying old."

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"These are sort of the beginning signs that we're making a transition to a radical life extension — within 20 or 30 years," Last told Business Insider.

"What my paper tries to show is that the whole of human evolution in some sense can be viewed as our species trying to abolish the category of adulthood," Last said. "We want to keep the creativity of cultural reproduction into adulthood."

In Last's paper, he writes:

I predict that the full realization of this life history transition should occur before 2050, which suggests that this theory could be in some way connected to the hypothesized metasystem transition commonly referred to as Global Brain. In order to take this 21st century future seriously we need only assume that the pressures of the modern developed world hold and accelerate globally. First and foremost, the pressures for the acquisition of more advanced cultural information must accelerate as a result of advanced ICT [information and communication technologies]. This will continue to force an extension of a widespread postponement of biological reproduction. Secondly, continued advances in our understanding of aging and degenerative diseases must accelerate dramatically, allowing us to radically extend life expectancy and possibly usher us into a post-aging world. This will remove the evolutionary imperative to create complexity through biological reproduction, as delaying current reproduction would always be preferred in favour of dedication of energy towards culturally mediated growth and maintenance.

"We'll be having babies later in life, and fewer of them, in order to focus on their cultural development," he explained.

"People are going to be able to have more control over how they spend their time and energy, culturally speaking. And that will be a big change, that will be a fundamental difference between industrial society and the society we're making."


SOURCE  Aol

By 33rd Square

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 Artificial Intelligence  

At the Evolving Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Wyoming, director Jeff Clune works to reproduce evolution in robotics. The goal is to ultimately evolve artificially intelligent robots that can rival natural animals in intelligence and agility.

At the University of Wyoming, Jeffrey Clune started up the Evolving Artificial Intelligence Lab last year and since then, four students have published research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Several of his students have won national awards from Associated for Computing Machinery to NASA space grants.

Evolutionary computing simulates natural selection using a ‘survival of the fittest’ rule. The difference is that, instead of plants and animals competing, different versions of Clune's software are battling for their place in the next generation.

A Darwinian process is set up so that the better programs will have lots of copies (versions similar or identical) in the next generation and less desirable software is eliminated.

What makes some programs 'better' than others is determined by the person setting up the experiment (e.g., the ability to get out of mazes, drive a car without crashing, control a legged robot, etc.). Over time the software gets better and better since mutations (random changes in the programs) and 'sex' (combining a portion of the code of one program with a portion of another) will occasionally produce a program that is a slight improvement over its parents. This slightly better software will thrive for a while until it too is replaced by the next slightly better software.

Given enough generations, writes Clune, "These small changes can add up to produce jaguars, whales, Olympians and poets".

"We’re trying to harness the power of evolution. It’s an extremely creative and powerful design force. Can we use that process to evolve robots? We can harness it, and when we do, evolution comes up with something smarter than humans can design."

Clune and his team also apply the algorithms directly to physical robots. “To me, they look alive, not robotic,” Clune, told the Laramie Boomerang of the robots his team has made. “They’re quirky but still functional. They have that ‘je ne sais quoi’ of nature, with no human input.”

Artificial intelligence in robots is a software limitation, and most robots can’t walk across a floor without tripping, Clune said.

“When I read news like firefighters dying, I think we should be sending in robots to do that,” Clune said. “We’re trying to harness the power of evolution. It’s an extremely creative and powerful design force. Can we use that process to evolve robots? We can harness it, and when we do, evolution comes up with something smarter than humans can design.”

At it's core, the concept is Darwinian evolution and survival of the fittest, according to Clune.

As a visiting scientist at Cornell University, working with Hod Lipson, Clune successfully attempted the same process on a robot. He said other techniques were used to try to program the robot, but evolution was the only process to successfully make it walk.

“Nature already produced these designs,” Clune said. “We want to engineer robots that rival nature and are as agile and smart. If you tried writing code to do it, you probably couldn’t.

“Evolution has figured out how to build self-assembling molecules.”

Along with designing, building and evolving robots, Clune created endlessforms.com, a website named after Darwin's ""... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

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At the site users can apply the same evolutionary techniques to common objects such as lamps or jewelry. By selecting a starting point, users then choose which attributes they want in their designs. Once the object looks as desired, it can be printed on a three-dimensional printer using any material.

The evolution of artificial intelligence — raises ethical concerns such as developing robots smarter and more powerful than humans. One of Clune’s lecture days is devoted to the topic of the ethics of his and similar work.

After earning two philosophy degrees, Clune decided to pursue computer science because he was fascinated by how intelligence works. He said he marveled at what nature produced and how a sense of being emerges from a collection of cells, leading him to try to understand evolving artificial intelligence.

“You as the designer get to say what you want and it’s up to evolution to produce and accomplish that goal,” Clune said. “I thought the best way to understand my own brain was to build one. I’m learning a lot about how evolution did it by doing it myself.”




SOURCES  Jeff Clune / Evolving AI Lab and Laramie Boomerang

By 33rd Square

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