The Singularity Summit at Stanford - an amazing free event on Saturday, May 13, 2006.

Speakers include: Steve Jurvetson, Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, Douglas R. Hofstadter, K. Eric Drexler, Max More, Christine L. Peterson, John Smart, Cory Doctorow, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky and Tyler Emerson.

Organized by the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University, and co-sponsored by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and KurzweilAI.net.

Full details here

via Reuters and Physorg.com

Researchers have found a way to target cancer cells by injecting tiny particles that will attack only the diseased cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed, according to a study released on Monday.

A team of researchers working at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston laced tiny particles with lethal doses of chemotherapy and when injected they targeted cancer cells alone.

…”A single injection of our nanoparticles completely eradicated the tumors in five of the seven treated animals, and the remaining animals also had a significant tumor reduction, compared to the controls,” said Dr. Omid Farokhzad, assistant professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

… To make sure that only the correct cells are hit, the nanoparticles are “decorated” on the outside with targeting molecules called aptamers, or tiny chunks of genetic material.

Like homing devices, the aptamers specifically recognize the surface molecules on cancer cells, while avoiding normal cells.

The team chose nanoparticles as drug-delivery vehicles because they are so small that living cells will readily swallow them when at the cell’s surface.

via Biosingularity

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have published findings that show, for the first time, that bone cells can grow and proliferate on a scaffold of carbon nanotubes. Scientists found that the nanotubes, 100,000 times finer than a human hair, are an excellent scaffold for bone cells to grow on.

…Because carbon nanotubes are not biodegradable, they behave like an inert matrix on which cells can proliferate and deposit new living material, which becomes functional, normal bone…

…“We hope to look at the atomic interactions between living matter and synthetic scaffolds so we can come up with material that can interact at the nanolevel with living cells,” Zanello said.

via Biosingularity

The first human recipients of laboratory-grown organs were reported today by Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In The Lancet, Atala describes long-term success in children and teenagers who received bladders grown from their own cells.

“We wanted to go slowly and carefully and make sure we did it the right way,” said Atala. “This is a small, limited experience, but it has enough follow-up to show us that tissue engineering is a viable tool that will allow us to tackle problems of similar magnitude.”

via TCS Daily

Essay by Glenn Harlan Reynolds on a recent Singularity backlash, including the “reappearance of Ken MacLeod’s dismissal of the Singularity as ‘the Rapture for nerds.’”

Yes, it’s possible to draw parallels between the Christian idea of The Rapture — and, even more generally, between religious ideas of transcendence generally — and the notion that, once human technology passes a certain threshold, roughly that described by Vinge and other Singularity enthusiasts, human beings will potentially enjoy the kind of powers and pleasures traditionally assigned to gods or beings in heaven: Limitless lifespans, if not immortality, superhuman powers, virtually limitless wealth, fleshly pleasures on demand, etc.

In fact, rather than serving as a dismissal of the Singularity, it seems to me that the Singularity-as-religion argument cuts the other way. How do we know that people want the kinds of things that advanced technology is supposed to offer? Because they’ve been trying to get them through non-technological means for all of recorded history…

via KurzweilAI.net and The Herald Journal

Robots will dominate, and countdown is underway…

The division between the two parties will become so heated that assassinations and intrigue will culminate with a war unlike any the world has ever seen. The number of fatalities will be so high that the event will be referred to as “gigadeath.”

De Garis’ 2005 book “The Artilect War: Cosmists vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines” reads a lot like the premise for a sci-fi summer blockbuster. But de Garis isn’t just musing.

Also see Daniel H. Wilson’s new book How to Survive a Robot Uprising

via c|net

Three researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a device that “reads minds” and alerts wearers to the emotional state of the person they’re conversing with.

Project website

via Yahoo! News

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed “neuro-chips” in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

…To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

…The proteins allowed the neuro-chip’s electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip’s transistors, while the chip’s capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

Related New Scientist article