Interesting Sci-Tech News 2012

In 2012 various news reports constituted noteworthy indicators regarding our Singular future occurring by 2045 at the latest. This blog post is regarding some noteworthy news, which I shared via an archiving service called BOLT but BOLT has since died. Here are the archives of the defunct bo.lt page:

archive.is/QVQz
pastehtml.com/view/cb9ovpx40.html
bo.lt/app/account/2045singularity/important_scitech_news_2012

See the excerpts below, of which here's one taste, regarding number 7, self-calibratable MEMS which "...could lead to high-performance data storage technologies and advanced lithography to create next generation computer circuits and nanodevices."

1.  Medusoid Jellyfish bio with synbio mix (silicone and rat's heart cells).
2. 3D-printing, a Post-Scarcity precursor.
3. Pharmaceutical printer. Prospective 3D-printing of drugs.
4. Nanotech Self assembly, integrated circuits, hard disks.
5. First complete computer model of an virtual organism.
6. Molecular machines inside solid materials.
7. Self-calibratable micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).
8. Metallized DNA nanowires.

Sci-Tech News 2012

1. Synthetic biology, biotech, cells from a rat's heart combined with silicone to create a new type of bio-machine jellyfish. "Nawroth and colleagues looked at several materials from which to fashion the body of their beast, eventually settling on an elastic material that is relatively similar to the "jelly" found in a real jellyfish. The team at Harvard—with the help of Nawroth, who spent time on both campuses during the length of the project—fashioned the silicone polymer that makes up the body of the Medusoid into a thin membrane that resembles a small jellyfish, with eight arm-like appendages. Next, they printed a pattern made of protein onto the membrane that resembled the muscle architecture in the real animal. The protein pattern serves as a road map for growth and organization of dissociated rat tissue—individual heart muscle cells that retain the ability to contract—into a coherent swimming muscle." See also: youtu.be/2spbFpzyiJ0

2. This article is a good example of increasing Post-Scarcity awareness regarding 3D-Printing. Here is a direct link to the video, which was produced by the PBS Ideas Channel: youtu.be/klQ7bb8bBsQ

3. The idea is still in its fledgling stages, but a pharmaceutical 3D printer would be loaded with simple molecules that would allow it to easily handle carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, plus vegetable oils, paraffin, and other common pharmaceutical ingredients. Cronin told the Guardian that with a relatively small number of "inks," "you can make any organic molecule." Jul 22, 2012. io9.com/5928050/3d-printing-technology-could-let-you-print-your-pharmaceuticals-at-home See also: bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17760085

4. Self-Assembly Takes Shape Researchers exploit new ways to make integrated circuits and hard disks pull themselves together. By Rachel Courtland / February 2012. spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/nanotechnology/selfassembly-takes-shape

5. In a breakthrough effort for computational biology, the world's first complete computer model of an organism has been completed, Stanford researchers reported last week in the journal Cell. July 19, 2012. news.stanford.edu/news/2012/july/computer-model-organism-071812.html

6. A graduate student and his team of researchers have turned the chemistry world on its ear by becoming the first ever to prove that tiny interlocked molecules can function inside solid materials, laying the important groundwork for the future creation of molecular machines. “Until now, this has only ever been done in solution,” explained Chemistry & Biochemistry PhD student Nick Vukotic, lead author on a front page article recently published in the June issue of the journal Nature Chemistry. “We’re the first ones to put this into a solid state material.” Published on Jun 18, 2012. uwindsor.ca/dailynews/2012-06-15/chemists-break-new-ground-in-molecular-machine-research

7. New 'self-calibrating MEMS' bringing accuracy to nanotech. Researchers have demonstrated tiny machines that could make possible super-accurate sensors and motors, with far-reaching applications from computer storage to altimeters, detecting petroleum deposits to measuring DNA-binding forces. July 11, 2012. http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120711ClarkMEMSCalibrate.html

8. DNA nanowires. DNA as future electronic components: Conducting nanostructures based on metallized DNA. July 5, 2012. phys.org/news/2012-07-dna-future-electronic-components-nanostructures.html See also: chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/2113891/DNA_as_Future_Electronic_Components.html

Finally, after contemplating the ephemeral nature of information on the Internet, the tendency for things to change, which requires blog-posts to be created (sigh), here are a couple of quotes regarding a Chinese supercomputer so you can see how much it has progressed in three years. From Tianhe-1A in 2010 to Tianhe-2 in 2013.

In 2013 IEEE wrote: "The Tianhe-2, a massive system that clocked 33.86 petaflops, or 33.86 thousand trillion floating point operations per second, represents China's return to the No. 1 spot—a distinction it has not held since November 2010, when its Tianhe-1A was considered the world's finest computing system."

In 2010, the Daily Telegraph wrote regarding Tianhe-1A: "According to Nvidia, a technology company that supplied parts for the Chinese computer, the Tianhe-1A was clocked at 2.507 petaflops, or more than two quadrillion calculations per second. It has the power of 175,000 high-end laptops."