That’s the point. These are artificial colors, most night vision systems are monochrome, which takes away a lot of detail, specially when you want to use them to read anything, like that road sign.
lads i was really just going about my life today and i came into my genetics lecture and my professor put both hands on the podium and explained to our suddenly silent 200+ person lecture hall that a chinese scientist has just created the world’s first GMO babies by taking human embryos and modifying them to be resistant to HIV. there are two of them and they’re twins. apparently we don’t know yet if it’s successful but it was at a conference where a ton of GMO researchers were discussing if genetic modification of humans should be allowed and if so to what extent and apparently this dude got the microphone and said ‘ive already done it’ and showed some data (apparently not a lot though) and there’s a ton of drama happening right now because ‘what the FUCK do you MEAN you already did it????? what the FUCK dude?????’. my professor kept saying to us with complete sincerity ‘this is important, this is really, really important’ and anyway i just…….what a time to be alive, you know?
like i dont feel comfortable taking a stance on any of this without more information but i do know for certain that god, i wish i could have witnessed that room of GMO researchers when this dude got the mic and was really like ‘i have modified human embryos’
Hey! I’m a scientist who works with gene editing and can def give you more context on the gmo babies! tldr it’s unethical and Not Great, but basically there’s been an (unenforceable) international moratorium on gene editing humans since 2015. It’s maybe illegal, maybe just advised against in China. The university, hospital, and government are all denying knowledge of it tho, which makes this super shady. (1/?)
Here’s the thing: gene editing has been used in therapy in humans, but 1. patients give full consent and 2. cells are removed from the body, CHECKED, double-checked, then put back in, because gene editing can have off-target effects and we want to avoid those, and 3. only cells that can’t be inherited are edited, so that an individual is only giving consent to alter their own body, not their children and/or the general gene population. NONE OF THOSE THREE HAPPENED IN THIS CASE. (2/?)
It’s extremely unclear if the parents knew what was happening, other than that the dad was HIV+ and the research was supposed to prevent the kids from getting HIV. (There are a LOT of cheaper and more accessible ways to do this than gene editing). So far, the scientist hasn’t proven that he checked for (or prevented) off target effects – but we do know one of the kids is a mosaic, meaning only SOME of her cells were altered. This could be really bad for her health, we literally don’t know (3/?)
This guy waited until he had produced human beings to make his announcement, didn’t consult the public, other scientists, or regulatory boards, and sprung the announcement RIGHT before the human gene editing conference – which signals that he did this for his own sake, not for science. He’s set a dangerous precedent and potentially damaged the public perception of gene editing, not to mention endangering those children (the edit made them more susceptible to West Nile). So. Fuck that guy. (4/4)
……👀
this is…quite literally the wildest shit like i understand the incredible temptation to try something just to see if it could be done, every scientist understands that, but holy shit dude what the fuck?
idk this has a LOT happening and im not gonna be able to address all of it but my thoughts right off the bat: current gene editing (see: modifying someone’s existing genome. different from this case because in gene editing, the person is born and is displaying symptoms of a genetic disease, where here the embryos are being modified before birth) is pretty life changing and very safe and effective from my understanding of it and what i’ve been taught, and it makes me angrier knowing that this might set back that kind of science that’s more ethical in terms of consent. i also don’t like that the lives of these kids are gonna be inherently controversial. i also don’t like……………uh…..almost all of this, actually. like this is A Lot, holy shit.
The internet went from showing food recipe videos to alchemy in less than a decade. There’s going to be a quick video on how to make the philosopher’s stone from tomato sauce next week.
Some researchers spend years working to conduct an experiment in space, but for a group of young Toronto scientists, all it took was a school project.
The four students were in grades 8 through 12 when they first proposed shooting a tube of microscopic worms into orbit so they could study the effects of low gravity on muscle deterioration.
Now, the young women are all published scientists — half before earning a high school diploma — after their experiment’s unexpected findings were featured in the peer-reviewed academic journal “Gravitational Space Research” recently.
i found out recently that the very first trees did not rot when they died because the microbes that decompose trees hadnt evolved yet…which makes sense but it’s weird to think about. this actually caused a huge change in the climate at the time and many of these trees turned into coal because of it…
like imagine a tree falling in the forest and the trunk just stays there for years and years with little change, and it only goes away when it is buried under dirt. that’s weird.
obviously they were still working on the worldbuilding back then
imagine all the lag from those trunks laying around. glad they patched those microbes in
So y’all talk about this like it’s a joke, but the exact same time is happening today with plastics, except today’s microbes are a bit quicker on the uptake. They’re still new at it, but Earth’s decomposers are hard at work learning how to eat polyester.
*ancient microbe voice* kids these days have it so easy. mutating to feed on new materials within a century? In my day it took us a millenium at minimum! we had to metabolize uphill in the snow both ways!
*even more ancient microbe voice* pfeh, typical oxygen-breather attitude. you think you had it rough but YOU have those fancy MITOCHONDRIA.
It wrinkles my brain that Jupiter’s moon Europa has oceans that are sixty miles deep, while Earth’s oceans only reach seven miles deep at most. I’m willing to bet good money that there’s life in Europa’s oceans. Like five bucks. You hear me, NASA? I bet you five bucks that there’s life on Europa… Now that there’s money and reputation on the line, I bet they send a mission there real quick.
I have no idea when this was originally posted, but NASA is working on their Europa mission RIGHT NOW to look for alien life! But get this, they theorize that because of the depth, gravity, and composition of the oceans, any organisms that lived there would be waaay bigger than aquatic life on Earth. So far everything’s going well with regards to their Europa mission so they should have a spacecraft on its way to look for giant sea monsters in space in only a few years. (The planned date is in the early 2020s.)
Looks like my negotiations worked. You’re welcome, humanity.
I’ve never been gripped with such cold terror and pure delight in my LIFE
I’m caught between desperately wanting us to find nothing big and expecting kaiju
Androids are my special interest so i’ve been following discussion about them and development of them for almost ten years and I’m stupid passionate about it. If anyone is wondering where we are at in our ethical discussion of robot development, this is whats going on.
Most of the discussion seems to be between these 5 fields:
Robot makers of all kinds (from animatronics all the way to industrial robotics) Psychologists Sociologists Lawyers/Lawmakers Ethicists
The general consensus has been:
All: Humanity clearly wants these robots and are getting blisteringly close to being able to build them to Chobits level, but not Blade Runner level, so while we have some free time between those phases lets talk about potential outcomes.
Psychologists: hem hem. we are concerned about what happens to the way we develop relationships. Humans imprint on things hardcore and because of this we are concerned.
Sociologists: I mean… yeah thats a concern, but its not nearly as concerning as what introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people dont have rights
Lawyers: speaking of rights, what happens if you kill one. Like. do we call it “kill” or is it “break?” can you kill something that’s technically not alive??? what if you rape it?? Can you rape a robot? I feel lawsuits coming and its making me itchy.
Robot Makers: Everyone calm down. They’re just objects, they’re toys. Its chill.. See, we’ll make something like it and see what hap–they broke it. they fuckin destroyed it. They destroyed it in a creepy way too….We are now also concerned.
Psychologists: Maybe we should be less concerned about people falling in love with robots and more concerned about what all this might do to their understanding of the disposability of concent and personhood.
Sociologists: YEAH MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE, PSYCHOLOGIST.
Ethicist: While you were all talking I’ve been thinking about what Lawyer said about raping a robot. While technically it wouldn’t be “rape” by our laws, would the robot perceive it that way? Do robots have concepts of justice?
Robot Makers: They don’t if we don’t program it into them. See I’ll just make this prototype and–wow. it can comprehend fairness and concern. I only taught it the difference between a safe and unsafe situation under the circumstances of it rolling off a table or not. huh. uh. ok…thats. hm.
Lawyers: If it can be concerned for its well being, does that give it personhood? Becuase if its got personhood, its gotta have rights. And if it needs rights, we gotta make laws.
Ethicist: The question is not whether we think it has personhood, but more whether IT considers ITSELF to have personhood. Because historically, people have decided other groups of people dont have personhood regardless of the opinon of individuals within that group and it was bad. Like… real bad.
Sociologist: Does anyone remember what i said 20 years ago about being concerned about introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people don’t have rights? Can we be concerned about that now?
All, chagrined: Yes.
Sociologist: Cool, lets move on. Ethicist brought up an interesting point about personhood and Lawyer brought up an interesting threat about personhood and Robot Maker is having an existential crisis about what it means to become God. So let’s condense our viewpoints and overview potential consequences:
1. we agree that society frames the use and consequences of all products/entities developed in it.
2. personhood is self-defined, and thanks to Robot Maker we now know that adding components to a robot that seem benign can have the added effect of them developing aspects of personhood.
Robot Maker, interrupting: And I think that the more complex the android, the more immediate and complex their understanding of personhood would develop–
Sociologist: Yes, we get that. This is a review. Anyway, 3. When they develop that personhood, they should be eligible for rights??
Lawyer: Get back to us on that, we’re trying to figure out whether this is going to make us a lot of money or just be a giant red-tape headache and you know how much we hate those. But also, if we give them rights they might not kill us all later, so we’re taking that into consideration.
Sociologist: Noted. 4. when they develop personhood, denying them rights is unethical????
Ethicist: Technically yes, but that’s dependant on the definition of personhood within our legal systems ethics. You see Kant believes–
Sociologist:
Psychologist:
Robot Maker: while you guys were talking I made a robot that has opinions, can understand the nuances of humor, can teach itself to walk, and also doesn’t like humans much apparently so can you tALK FASTER PLEASE
And that’s where we’re at now. That was 35-ish years of intracommunity discussion condensed.
I'm Still Kicking 