Innovative ‘Design Of The Year’ Will Replace Animals In Lab Tests

Bio-inspired micro-devices could potentially replace animal testing and bring new therapies to patients faster and at lower cost in the future

The Design Museum in London has chosen its Best Design of the Year: a chip that replaces animal test subjects with a complex package of human cells. This radical invention has the potential to eliminate animal experimentation, and in effect save millions of species’ lives worldwide.

The lung-on-a-chip, called so because that’s what it actually is, was designed at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. It may look simple, but the chip contains complex human cells arranged similarly to the way a lung works. In fact, it even breathes like a human does!

Scientists at the Wyss explained the far-reaching potential of these chips. For example, they can use the lung-on-a-chip to introduce bacteria to the channels to mimic and infection, or introduce the chemicals one breathes in regularly to mimic air pollution and test its effect on the lungs. Or, they can even test new medications and determine the effects they’ll have on human physiology.

But not only that, the ‘Design of the Year’ can ultimately end the cruel practice of animal testing while offering a more accurate testing method.

“Bio-inspired micro-devices that mimic whole human organs, such as the lung on a chip, could potentially replace animal testing and bring new therapies to patients faster and at lower cost in the future,” the design team explains in their video (below).

The ultimate goal of the Wyss scientists is to build ten different organs and link them to create a whole body (how incredible!).

Below is the video detailing how the chip mimics a human lung:

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Stephen Hawking and 1,000 Experts Sign Letter Warning To Stop Autonomous Weaponized Robots

What do Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniac have in common? They all think that artificially intelligent weaponized robots could wreak havoc on Earth.

(ANTIMEDIA) Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Google executive Demis Hassabis, and professor Stephen Hawking are among over 1,000 artificial intelligence experts who have recently signed an open letter warning the world about the dangers of weaponized robots and a “military artificial intelligence arms race” currently taking place between the world’s military powers.

According to the letter, “AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.”

“The endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting,”the letter continues.

The current military technology available to the world’s governments is already a massive danger to the planet and everyone that lives here, and it is obvious, as the letter states, that the addition of artificial intelligence could make the global arms race significantly more threatening.

Many people have a hard time grasping how close this scenario is to becoming a reality, but the industry’s leading experts, who have a deep knowledge and understanding of the technology and how it is developing, can see the danger represented by military applications of artificial intelligence.

How this situation can actually be handled is extremely complicated because there is actually no ability for the general population of any country to ensure that their governments don’t develop military artificial intelligence.

According to the Guardian, Toby Walsh, professor of AI at the University of New South Wales, has suggested that the United Nations oversee a ban of these weapons, however a ban of this nature would only ensure that the countries in control of the UN and NATO would have exclusive access to weaponized AI. This is similar to the way the United Nations currently bans nuclear weapons while allowing larger NATO nations to continue developing them.

The solution to this problem will not be enacted by any of the governments or government-affiliated agencies that will benefit from the development of military AI, but a letter from over 1,000 of the industries leading experts is a start towards actually finding a real ground-up solution.

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This article (Stephen Hawking and 1,000 Experts Sign Letter Warning Of Weaponized Robots) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TheAntiMedia.org. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: BagoGames. Help us fix our typos:edits@theantimedia.org. By John Vibes

More info on the production of these killer robots now: They call them "LAWS"

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=33401

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