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In late 2021, Elon Musk tweeted his fears about the end of humanity. “We should be much more worried about population collapse….If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars,” he opined. Musk’s statements brought the world’s falling birthrate to the forefront of social consciousness. For nearly a century, fertility rates have been decreasing globally. The result is what scientists are describing as a “worldwide infertility crisis.” But there’s a solution looming on the horizon — artificial wombs. In 2017, scientists created a “BioBag” that functioned as an artificial womb, and they used it...

On Friday, a German molecular biologist by trade unveiled a new concept for the world’s first artificial womb facility, EctoLife, which could incubate up to 30,000 babies a year. “My new concept will be unveiled early December, something that I have been working on for a while,” said Hashem Al-Ghaili in November. “The new concept relies on over 50 years of groundbreaking scientific research.”

Two journalists surface today with two different aspects to the same big picture story. First, Julie Kelly notes the DOJ is using social media chat messages as evidence in court against J6 detainees: “DOJ and Big Tech are working seamlessly to excavate private messages and info from deleted accounts to use as incriminating evidence for J6ers.” (link) Second, Miranda Devine is writing in the New York Post about Facebook spying on private messages to identify people who questioned the outcome of the 2020 election (link) This ‘surveillance system‘ has been of great interest to CTH for several years, in part...

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing towards innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, supply chain resilience, and national and economic security. Central to this policy and its outcomes are principles of equity, ethics, safety, and security that enable access to technologies, processes, and products in a manner that benefits all Americans and the global community and that maintains United States technological leadership and economic competitiveness. Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow...

In a report this week from the science journal SciTechDaily, we learn of a scientific breakthrough that it clearly intended to be exciting and startling, but potentially worrisome as well. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have created a series of “model embryos” that include a functioning brain, a beating heart, and the foundation for all of the other bodily organs you would expect. But unlike previous generations of these sorts of experiments, they did not use any eggs or sperm. The entire embryo was crafted from stem cells that were “trained” to begin forming the organs. The future potential...

cientifically, it’s called ectogenesis, a term coined by J.B.S. Haldane in 1924. A hugely influential science popularizer, Haldane did for his generation what Carl Sagan did later in the century. He got people thinking and talking about the implications of science and technology on our civilization, and did not shy away from inventing new words in order to do so. Describing ectogenesis as pregnancy occurring in an artificial environment, from fertilization to birth, Haldane predicted that by 2074 this would account for more than 70 percent of human births. His prediction may yet be on target. In discussing the idea...

Russian National Defense Control Center head Mikhail Mizintsev warned on Thursday, during a briefing, that Ukraine continues to store its ammunition and weapons in residential spaces, as well as in "educational institutions and other social infrastructure for military purposes." Mizintsev underlined that while the Ukrainian military is doing this, proper evacuation of civilians from the aforementioned spaces is not being carried out.Furthermore, Mizintsev noted that on the territory of Donetsk People's Republic, the militants of nationalist battalions are "systematically firing at the positions of the Russian army" so as to provoke the latter to "return fire."

A pill that could stop men from cheating could "potentially" soon be in the pipeline, following a new study by scientists. The study, published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that men with “hypersexual disorder” have “significantly higher” levels of oxytocin in their system. Oxytocin — often referred to as the “love hormone” — is produced by both men and women and helps fuel positive emotions, like other hormones such as dopamine and serotonin. It's also responsible for increasing levels of relaxation and trust. However, the study - which examined 64 men with hypersexual disorder,...

A “synthetic womb” is what is lately on the agenda of tech billionaires around the globe as they seek out a ways to set aside natural birth entirely. A look into a mind of these individuals do reveal quite curious stances.Possibility of replacing natural birth with synthetic wombs is a matter of discussion among several prominent tech entrepreneurs arguing that such technology would remove the “burden” of pregnancy and allow women to work more. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s fellow tech leaders came up with one solution for declining birth rates, after Muskwarned on Tuesday that society “should be...

Are we there yet? Yes, we are. A look at Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: Revisited (1958). This man was a visionary.

By Jeffrey Dastin and Paresh Dave (Reuters) -Google research manager Samy Bengio on Tuesday said he is resigning, according to an internal email seen by Reuters, in a blow to the Alphabet Inc unit after the firings of his colleagues who questioned paper review and diversity practices. Though at least two Google engineers had earlier resigned in protest of the dismissal of artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Timnit Gebru, Bengio is the highest-profile yet to depart. Google and Bengio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg earlier reported the news. A distinguished scientist at Google, Bengio spent about 14...

In a 1958 television interview, Aldous Huxley predicted the technological capability to bypass reason and manipulate behavior through subliminal means. Today, social media platforms and search engines use sophisticated artificial-intelligence algorithms to control the information we see. Story at-a-glance: Aldous Huxley wrote “Brave New World,” a nightmarish vision of a future society known as the “World State,” ruled by science and efficiency, where emotions and individuality have been eradicated and personal relationships are few. When Huxley wrote the book, optimism about technological advancements were high and there was widespread belief that technology would solve many of the world’s problems. “Brave...

You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy. This is how our world could change by 2030.

Part funded by King’s College London, the study is a meta-analysis of three decades of research in Austria, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, UK, Japan and USA. It concludes that lithium’s “protective” abilities could be further tested by “randomised community trials of lithium supplementation of the water supply” in communities with high prevalence of mental health conditions and risk of suicide. Deliberately lacing the water supply with a mind-altering chemical in some zones might seem like something out of a science fiction novel [duh], but the authors of the report...think it’s an idea worth experimenting. You cannot blame scientists for thinking outside...

Ready for a thought experiment? Imagine a society that has solved the problems of overpopulation and environmental collapse. Crime is a nonissue, as are homelessness and hunger. Racism? Sexism? Homophobia? Sorted. Science has conquered disease and disability. Everyone has useful work, perfect skin, total emotional equilibrium. Every day is a pleasure. Every night is a party.

Brave New World is an adaptation of the classic Aldous Huxley novel and will broadcast on NBC's streaming service, Peacock which launched in the US this week. The dystopian story is centred around the futuristic New London where people are sorted into an intelligence based hierachy. Demi, 57, plays Linda who moved from New London to an outlying reservation with her son John. Peace has been achieved in the seemingly utopian New London thanks to prohibiting monogamy, privacy, money, family, and history itself. Other cast members include Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo),...

"The updates will come to Android 6.0 Marshmallow phones and above"... Freeper Mobile Developers - This is what you trained for. Make us proud.

When Jennifer Gobrecht was 17, doctors told her that she would never carry her own child. But Thursday, researchers at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia announced that Gobrecht had delivered a son by cesarean section in November, the second baby in the United States to be born using a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor. “We were beyond lucky,” Gobrecht said. Gobrecht, now 33, was born with a congenital condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, meaning she was born with ovaries, but without a uterus. In 2017, she and her husband were exploring the possibility of implanting frozen embryos into a surrogate when...

The DNA test claims to let prospective parents weed out IVF embryos with a high risk of disease or low intelligence. Anxious couples are approaching fertility doctors in the US with requests for a hotly debated new genetic test being called “23andMe, but on embryos.” The baby-picking test is being offered by a New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, whose plans we first reported on two years ago. The company says it can use DNA measurements to predict which embryos from an IVF procedure are least likely to end up with any of 11 different common diseases.

Scientists have invented a device that can quickly produce large numbers of living entities that resemble very primitive human embryos.Researchers welcomed the development, described Wednesday in the journal Nature, as an important advance for studying the earliest days of human embryonic development. But it also raises questions about where to draw the line in manufacturing "synthetic" human life.Other scientists have previously created synthetic embryos, which are also known as embryoids. These entities are made by coaxing human stem cells to form structures found in very early human embryos. The research has raised questions about how similar to complete embryos they could and should be...