The Dark Side / Army Working on Science’s Outer Limits

[junglelord]

It's like something out of "The Terminator." Self-aware virtual humans, regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding," mind controlled weapons - all the stuff of movie robots, comic heroes and otherworldly tomes.

But for some, this kind of higher-than-high tech is as real as life and death.

Dr. John Parmentola, Director of Research and Laboratory Management with the Army's science and technology office, told military bloggers Nov. 3 that the Army is "making science fiction into reality" by creating realistic holographic images, generating virtual humans and diving into quantum computing.

It may sound like a trailer for the next "Star Trek" installment, but Parmentola is deadly serious.

For the last several years, the Army has kept a close eye on research into areas of science that might have once been called "paranormal;" its practitioners drummed out of the academy as kooks and nut-jobs. But now the idea of implanting specific memories or erasing damaging ones, for example, isn't mere fantasy.

Dr. Joe Tsien, a neurobiologist at the Medical College of Georgia and co-director of the Brain Discovery Institute, has been able to erase certain memories from mice subjected to traumatic experiences in a laboratory environment, Parmentola said. From a practical standpoint, the Army could use this kind of technology to help Soldiers who've been psychologically scarred by staring death straight in the eye.

"You can imagine people who have horrifying memories, it would be great if we could eliminate them so this way they're not plagued by these memories uncontrollably," Parmentola said. "We have Soldiers that have this problem, like PTSD and traumatic brain injury, but there are many other examples that occur in the civilian world."

The Army plans to highlight Tsien's and other research into the ragged edges of science fiction at the 26th Army Science Conference in Orlando next month, where experts in neurorobotics, high-tech computer displays and quantum physics will explain how Soldiers could benefit from the types of radical science most have only seen on episodes of the "X-Files."

Take mind communication, for example. Experiments have shown that certain thoughts generate electrical impulses on the surface of the scalp, Parmentola said. Think commandos who can stealthily communicate without using their voice or Soldiers who control weapons with their thoughts from a distance over a wireless connection.

"You could wear a cap that is sensitive to these electrical impulses, pick up the pattern and amplify those small signals send it over a wire [or wirelessly] connect it to a device," Parmentola said. "So if you think of a thought 'turn on,' it will automatically turn on a computer or that device."

Or how about regenerative medicine? Parmentola said researchers aren't far away from being able to grow back body parts - both internal organs and limbs - that have been lost in combat or other accidents. The technique focuses on the use if molecular-sized particles that act as a kind of scaffolding to support the growth of body tissue - say, a finger - and dissolves as the biological material solidifies.

It's not that unlike what a salamander can do when it loses a limb.

"We're beginning to understand how this occurs and if we can, it holds the hope of, being able to regrow limbs on people," Parmentola said.

Then some of this space-aged research takes a turn into the Einsteinian world of quantum mechanics and particle physics - places most mere mortals who simply hump hills with ammo-laden rucks fear to tread.

"Quantum ghost imaging," for example, is as complicated as it sounds. Basically it's a phenomenon of physics that allows images to be rendered through the pairing of photons that do not reflect or bounce off an object, but off of other photons that did, thereby creating a sort of "ghost" image of it. This technology would enable the Army to generate images of personnel and equipment through clouds and smoke.

"It's like having a tracing tool … that goes over the image and that's connected to another one on a piece of paper that exactly imitates what it is that you are tracing with the other pen," Parmentola said. "It takes advantage of a remarkable property of quantum mechanics to try and do this."

And if you do end up at the Army Science Conference next month, don't be startled by the three-dimensional holographic image of a soldier talking to you (not that the regenerated arm, mind-controlled computer or implanted memories won't freak you out enough) as you walk down the hall. It might just be the virtual human Army researchers are creating to make simulators and war games more realistic for training, Parmentola said.

They're working on creating "photorealistic looking and acting human beings" that can think on their own, have emotions and talk in local slang.

"I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they're responding," Parmentola said.

To test out the computer generated humans' "humanity," Parmentola and his researchers want to unleash some of their cyber Soldiers into so-called "massively multi-player online games" such as "World of Warcraft" or "Eve Online" - games frequented by thousands of super-competitive human players in teams of virtual characters fighting battles that can last for days.

"We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they're good enough to convince humans that they're actually human," he said.

http://www.military.com/news/article/ar ... 6032310810

[lizzie]

We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they're good enough to convince humans that they're actually human," he said.
http://www.military.com/news/article/ar ... 6032310810

What happens when people can no longer tell the difference between virtual and physical reality?

The Killing Game
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=31755

What Happens when the Military and the Media "cooperate"?

Psychological Operations
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-30.pdf

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
--- William Casey, Director CIA (Quote from internal staff meeting notes 1981)

Can biological humans be replaced by self-replicating robots?

Simple but seminal: Cornell researchers build a robot that can reproduce
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/may ... ep.ws.html

Self-replicating machines have been the subject of theoretical discussion since the early days of computing and robotics, but only two physical devices that can replicate have been reported. One uses Lego parts assembled in a two-dimensional pattern by moving along tracks; another uses an arrangement of wooden tiles that tumble into a new arrangement when given a shove.

Self Replication
http://ccsl.mae.cornell.edu/research/selfrep/

Self-replication is a fundamental property of many interesting physical, formal and biological systems, such as crystals, waves, automata, and especially forms of natural and artificial life. Our research focuses both on a new information-theoretic understanding of self-replication phenomena, and the design and implementation of scalable physical robotic systems where various forms of artificial self replication can occur. Our goal is twofold: To understand principles of self-replication in nature, and to explore the use of these principles to design more robust, self-sustaining and adaptive machines.

For example, the researchers point out that human beings reproduce but don't literally self-replicate, since the offspring are not exact copies. And in many cases, the ability to replicate depends on the environment.

The Centrality of Self-Replication
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/micha ... plication/

Anything that truly impacts the world either self-replicates, has existed in abundance for a very long time, or depends on self-replicators to produce it. Some obvious examples are humans and wheat. The relatively low cost of food products is attributable to their self-replicating nature.
How to replace Nature’s genes with those created by man

Nanotechnology delivers DNA as possible gene therapy tool
http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1671.php

When placed in or near a body tissue, the films are designed to degrade and release the DNA. Large strands of DNA cannot normally penetrate cells, so Lynn constructs his films with special polymers designed to bundle the genes into small tight packages that cells can import. Once inside, the genes instruct the cells to make proteins.

Scientists Prepare to Use Nanotechnology to Poison Us All?
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/nano ... 032604.cfm

A nanotech research initiative in Thailand aims to atomically modify the characteristics of local rice varieties - including the country's famous jasmine rice- and to circumvent the controversy over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Nanobiotech takes agriculture from the battleground of GMOs to the brave new world of Atomically Modified Organisms (AMOs).

What if they could replace carbon-based with silicon-based life?

Silicon-based life
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... nlife.html

All known life on Earth is built upon carbon and carbon-based compounds. Yet the possibility has been discussed that life elsewhere may have a different chemical foundation – one based on the element silicon.

In 1891, the German astrophysicist Julius Scheiner became perhaps the first person to speculate on the suitability of silicon as a basis for life. This idea was taken up by the British chemist James Emerson Reynolds who, in 1893, in his opening address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science,1 pointed out that the heat stability of silicon compounds might allow life to exist at very high temperatures (see thermophiles).

At first sight, silicon does look like a promising organic alternative to carbon. It is common in the universe and is also a p-block element of group IV, lying directly below carbon in the periodic table of elements, so that much of its basic chemistry is similar.

Even so, it has been pointed out, silicon may have had a part to play in the origin of life on Earth. A curious fact is that terrestrial life-forms utilize exclusively right-handed carbohydrates and left-handed amino acids. One theory to account for this is that the first prebiotic carbon compounds formed in a pool of "primordial soup" on a silica surface having a certain handedness. This handedness of the silicon compound determined the preferred handedness of the carbon compounds now found in terrestrial life. An entirely different possibility is that of artificial life or intelligence with a significant silicon content.