#WAIT and the chip that manages a human’s motor functions

[psychoticwillgraham]

oh FUCK yeah I can’t wait to work on this

[pilot-boi]

Crushing Hard

Jaune liked bars for the atmosphere, not for the alcohol. He couldn't drink after all. But sometimes the atmosphere wasn't exactly the safest. And somehow he always seemed to find the ones that weren't safe. And Ren couldn't always come to his rescue.

So if someone else swooped in to rescue him, like an avenging angle armed with a beer stein... Well he was a romantic. How could his heart hope to fight such a fairy tale moment?

He was having a stroke. Or a heart attack. This is what dying was like, right?

AO3 LINK

“You guys go on ahead,” Jaune said. “I’m going to take a breather.”

“At a bar?” Oscar asked, glancing back and forth between Jaune and the lopsided bar. “You can’t even drink.”

“He likes the atmosphere,” Ren said, pushing Oscar along. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

Jaune waved goodbye as the rest of his crew walked down the faintly lit street. They’d stopped on this small planet to get supplies and see the sights. It was nice, but they’d been walking for a few hours now, and Jaune was getting tired. None of the rest of the crew got exhausted as easily, but Jaune was human, and needed to rest his feet.

He also liked being alone sometimes. Jaune loved his crew. He and Ren had been on this adventure for nearly a year now. But he liked being by himself. Sometimes that was just spending a few minutes in a bar, or taking a pod out into space to look at the stars. Being alone, with just him and his thoughts was nice.

The bar was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Old lanterns hung from the ceiling, and the place was made out of ancient wood, giving the whole place a warm, cozy feel. The floor was sticky, and every piece of furniture was chipped and stained. 

The run-down look only added to the charm. It was obvious someone cared about this place, even if they couldn’t afford to keep up with renovations.

Jaune coughed as he inhaled some sort of smoke. The air was thick with it, but bearable once he got used to it. He pulled his jacket up to his mouth and walked over to the bar, taking a seat on a very creaky stool.

“Can I get some water?” he asked, lowering his makeshift mask.

The bartender raised their eyebrow at him but complied. Taking the glass of water, he started nursing it while looking around at the other patrons. It seemed to be mostly filled with regulars, all either drinking or smoking. Lively music played from several speakers hanging from the walls, and a handful of patrons danced together on a small stage.

As Jaune was scanning the bar, he noticed a woman standing near the back in the shadows. He couldn’t make out any of her features, but she stood in a way that indicated she definitely wasn’t one of the customers. Much too attentive and watchful. Totally a bouncer.

She looked his way, and he quickly looked back at his water.

“So what brings you around these parts?” the bartender asked, making light conversation.

“Just restocking our ship. Seeing the sights,” Jaune answered. Something about the bartender didn’t sit well with him.

“Oh? You here with others?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jaune was starting to wish he’d held out a little longer until they’d gotten to a nicer part of town. “Got a Graeldur with me. Big guy. Very scary.”

“I’m sure he is,” the bartender said, laughing jovially. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about here. Nikos-” he jerked his thumb to the woman Jaune had noticed earlier- “has got her eye on the place.”

Jaune looked back at the bouncer. She wasn’t watching him anymore. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a group of loud men who had just entered the bar.

“Junior! Get a round for me and the guys!” The leader of the group roared at the bartender. “The night is ours!”

The leader, a big Velm with a scruff of rusty red hair, sat down on the stool next to Jaune, causing his seat to creak and bend under his weight. They were clearly already drunk, the smell of beer and sweat saturating the air around them. 

Jaune felt miniscule next to them, his head reaching the shortest one’s elbow. He shrunk in on himself, attempting to go unnoticed by the newcomers.

There went Jaune’s quiet moment alone.

Junior handed out huge steins of beer to the cheers of the group. Jaune was nearly pushed off his stool as the leader raised his glass in the air. Scrambling to not fall onto the floor, he accidentally grabbed the man’s shirt.

He managed to stay upright, but at what cost?

The large man looked down at Jaune, who quickly took his hands off of his shirt and back onto the bar. If Jaune didn’t make eye contact, then it wasn’t a big deal. If Jaune just quietly slipped out of here then they wouldn’t care. If Jaune just…

The man grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “What's your problem?” he asked, voice half-slurred. His breath was putrid, smelling like beer, and several other things Jaune didn’t want to think about. His lizard-like slitted pupils were blown wide with alcohol, but the measure of focus in them didn’t bode well for Jaune.

“I was just leav- ” Jaune tried to say, but was interrupted by the man taking a deep, long sniff, his eyes narrowing on Jaune.

“Gret,” he muttered. “You smell like a fuckin’ gret.”

“It must just be the atmosphere,” Jaune chuckled anxiously, trying not to make eye contact. “There are a lot of different aliens around here, I’m sure you’re just-”

“I know what I smelled, gret,” the man snorted. “Don'tchu try’n tell me what I’m smellin’.”

Before Jaune could say anything else, the man stood and slammed him against the wall. Jaune gasped, all the air leaving his lungs. “We don’t want your kind ‘round here,” he snarled, some spit flying out of his mouth and landing on Jaune’s face. It felt sticky, and Jaune would have gagged at the smell if he weren’t so focused on getting air back in his lungs.

“Get him!”

“Kick his ass, Cardin!”

“Show that gret what we think of his kind!”

Jaune closed his eyes, bracing for whatever came next. There was a moment, and then the hand holding him to the wall disappeared, letting him fall to the ground. Jaune’s eyes flew open to see the bouncer on top of the man’s shoulders, her legs choking him out and her one cyborg arm slamming into his head. 

Flaming red hair flew as the man squealed and struggled, attempting to shake Nikos off. She was grinning, a fierce light in her brilliant green eyes. The rest of his gang seemed stunned into silence for a moment, then began cheering their boss on.

“Show that bitch who’s boss!” One of them cheered, standing up. As the two passed the bar, Nikos snatched up one of the steins and flung it at the man. It hit his skull with a dull thunk and he was down. The rest of them thought better about trying the same thing.

Jaune was still stunned. He couldn’t move. His breath had returned, but he was still struggling to breathe. Nikos caught his eyes, flashing him a grin that made his heart stutter.

What the fuck was going on?

Nikos had grabbed another stein and was using it as a bludgeoning weapon, bashing against the leader’s thick skull and holding on with only her legs. He was trying desperately to pull her off, but having a thick glass beer stein slammed against his head was clearly having an effect on his motor functions. 

Eventually they got close enough to the wall that Nikos kicked off him, forcing his head to slam into the hard wooden surface.

He fell to the ground.

The rest of his gang seemed unsure of what to do. They glanced at each other, and then back at their boss. He had just been defeated by a woman not even half his size. In a panic, they all got up and ran out, two of them dragging their boss by his arms.

“Good work, Nikos,” Junior said, smiling cheerfully. He hadn’t even looked up from cleaning the glass in his hands.

She flashed him another grin, striding over to where Jaune was still slumped on the ground.

“Are you okay? He slammed you very hard there.” She offered him her biological hand with a smile.

“I- I’m good,” Jaune stammered, missing her hand once before finally getting a hold on it. It was rough and calloused around his own. She hoisted him to his feet.

“Those guys are horrible,” she said. “They’re in here all the time, always causing a ruckus. I’ve been waiting for a moment to beat them up. Thank you for the excuse.”

“You’re welcome?” Maybe he had hit his head a little harder than he first thought because things were starting to waver. He swayed a little, the lights bright.

“You don’t look okay,” Nikos said, helping him sit at one of the tables. “Stay here, I’ll get you some ice. You with anyone?”

“No I’m single,” Jaune was saying before he had time to screen his words. From behind the bar, Junior gave him a discerning look, but thank the gods Nikos didn’t seem to notice.

“M-my friends,” Jaune managed to stutter, after a moment of thinking of what she actually meant. “They’re not here though.”

“Okay. I’ll stay with you until they come back, then. Let me run into the back and get that ice, though.” Her smile was so bright. How was that possible for someone to look that happy after beating the absolute shit out of someone three times as big as them?

And why was his face feeling so warm every time she looked at him? His hands were shaking as he put them up to his forehead. He felt warm. Was he coming down with something? He couldn’t be. He was fine earlier.

Nikos returned with ice, which he eagerly pressed against his head. “Thanks,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

She sat next to him, leaning on the table with her elbow and her cheek cupped in her hand. Now that things had calmed down, he noticed that one of her eyes- along with her left arm- was robotic.

She noticed him staring. “You’ve never seen a cyborg before?”

“No! No, I have! I just… I just didn’t notice with all the fighting going on. You have a good… arm.”

Why the fuck did he say that?

She laughed, “Thanks? I lost it in an accident when I was younger. Wild animal attacked, but at least I got this arm and eye out of it.”

Silence fell between them. It felt natural, though. Almost like the silence you could share with someone you had known forever. Nikos signaled the bartender, “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh, I don’t drink,” Jaune said.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “But you’re in a bar?”

“I like the atmosphere.”

“But you don’t drink.”

“It, uh, it’ll kill me,” Jaune said, staring at his hands. “Alcohol. It’s toxic to me.”

“You get that from your other parent?”

Jaune nodded, wincing slightly.

“Don’t worry,” Nikos waved him off. “We aren’t all bigots like them. Having parents of different species is totally normal. This part of town is just… very backwards is all.”

“Yeah,” Jaune said, smiling. Why was he smiling? “I noticed.”

She laughed. Wow, she had a nice laugh. “Junior, can I have my usual and a glass of water for him?”

The bartender brought them each a drink. Water for Jaune, and some dark liquid for Nikos that smelled like citrus.

“Tea,” she explained, noticing Jaune’s quizzical expression. “I can’t drink on the job.”

“Makes sense.” He took a deep drink before realizing he’d never introduced himself. He choked on his water, coughing before getting out, “Oh shit, I’m Jaune by the way.”

“Pyrrha,” she said. “Pyrrha Nikos.” She extended her hand for a handshake. Jaune almost hesitated before taking it.

Pyrrha was a fantastic name.

“So what do you do?” she asked. “Other than getting beat up by purists.”

“Me and my crew do odd-jobs,” Jaune began. “Transports, saving people, sometimes pick-up work on planets we land on. Whatever comes our way.”

Pyrrha sighed and took a sip of her tea. “Wish I could do that,” she muttered. “I’ve been stuck on this stupid planet for years now. Same job. Same people. Day after day.”

“You could come with us,” Jaune said out of nowhere, surprising even himself. Why did he say that? He should talk to Ren first. Or Nora. He couldn’t just make decisions for the whole crew.

Pyrrha blinked in surprise before laughing, “Really? You barely know me.”

“Yeah, but you… uh… fight good,” Jaune stammered, looking for a convincing argument. “And we don’t have much muscle on board. We transport some valuable stuff sometimes. We could use a bodyguard.”

Pyrrha traced the edge of her glass with a finger. She seemed torn about something. He could practically see her fighting with herself before she looked up at him. “How do you feel about dogs?”

Jaune grinned. “I love dogs,” he said. “I’ve got a Dulcosi myself. Sweetest pup you’ll ever meet.”

The tension went out of Pyrrha’s shoulders. “Wait here.”

She stood up quickly and rushed up the stairs in the back. A few minutes later, she returned carrying a small golden dog in her arms. Three of the dog's legs were replaced with red metal cyborg replacements, and one of his eyes and part of his head was plated with metal.

“This is Milo!” Pyrrha sat down, scooting back slightly farther away from Jaune. The dog looked nervous, curling into Pyrrha and hiding his face in the crook of her arm. “He’s a little shy, but he is so sweet.”

“It’s okay, boy,” Jaune said, slowly extending his hand towards the puppy. Milo glanced at the strange hand and slowly removed his head from under Pyrrha’s arm. “That’s it. I’m nice, see? Nice Jaune.”

Pyrrha watched with wide eyes as Milo leaned in to sniff Jaune’s hand. He stayed still as the puppy inspected his hand and then began to lick it gently. Jaune giggled as Milo nudged his hand, letting him pet his head.

“He never warms up to anyone this fast,” Pyrrha said, clearly shocked.

“Maybe he smells Petey,” Jaune said. “She’s, uh, my Dulcosi.”

Pyrrha shook her head, “Milo was abused on the streets by other dogs and put into a fighting ring before I rescued him. He’s usually petrified around other people. He must really like you.”

“Guess it’s just my natural charm,” Jaune grinned, scratching behind Milo’s ear.

Pyrrha chuckled, and Jaune’s heart flipped again. Why did it keep doing that?

At that moment, Ren, Nora, and Oscar walked into the bar, looking around anxiously for Jaune. Once they spotted him, they all rushed towards him.

“This gang passed us and they said something about beating up a, uh, gret.” Ren coughed after saying the slur. “Are you okay? What happened?” Ren looked Jaune over, trying to find any sign of injuries from a fight.

“I’m fine,” Jaune shrugged him off. “Pyrrha saved me.”

Pyrrha waved. “Hello!” she said, smiling and making Jaune’s face feel warm again.

Nora noticed and started grinning. “Oh, did she?”

“Uh, guys, can we talk? Alone,” he added apologetically to Pyrrha.

“Talk things out with your crew.” She stood, gathering Milo into her arms. “It was nice meeting you, Jaune.” She patted his arm, every nerve in that spot screaming at him.

“Yeah, you too,” Jaune said, his voice breaking a little.

The moment she was out of earshot, he whipped around to Ren. “Can she come with us? Also my heart is pounding, my face feels hot, and I feel like every nerve in my body is alive. Am I coming down with something?”

Oscar snorted, “As your doctor, I can assure you, you are not.”

“Are you sure? Double check,” Jaune begged, but Nora punched his arm. Ouch.

“What was that about Pyrrha joining?” Ren interrupted.

“Oh, yeah! We don’t have much protection around the Berry, and no offense; you’re tough but you couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Ren huffed, but didn’t dispute this.

“So I was thinking she could join us. She took down two guys three times her size, and looked like she was having the time of her life doing it. Also… she’s nice. And she has a dog.”

Ren let out a low chuckle. “Alright,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re sure those are the only reasons you want her to join?”

Jaune narrowed his eyes. “Yes? What else would there be?”

Nora burst out laughing, walking away holding her stomach, “Oh wow.”

Oscar shook his head, smiling at Jaune. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

Figure out what?! What was there to figure out?!

Continuing to narrow his eyes at his so-called friends, Jaune got up and walked to where Pyrrha was leaning against the bar, casually chatting with Junior. She stood up straight as he approached. Her eyes looked hopeful, but also reserved. She was ready for him to reject her.

“They said you could come,” Jaune said, smiling reassuringly. Pyrrha lunged forward, pulling Jaune into a tight hug.

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. Jaune was stunned for a second, then hugged her back. “You have no idea what this means to me!” The embrace was over as quickly as it had begun, leaving behind a faint scent of metal and citrus. Jaune blinked. His face felt warm again, but he didn’t mind.

Pyrrha had scooped up Milo from off the bar stool he was sitting on. “I’ll go get my things,” she said, still beaming. “Junior?” The bartender only waved her off, huffing but smiling.

“I’ll find someone else to watch my bar,” he said, chuckling. “Go on now.”

Pyrrha probably would have given the old man a hug too if she hadn’t been holding Milo. Instead, she nodded and smiled at him, and then ran to the back and up the stairs, a spring in her step.

Jaune turned back to face his crew when it suddenly hit him.

Oh fuck.

Pyrrha was cute.

He liked Pyrrha.

He liked Pyrrha a lot.

Ren and Oscar were both smiling knowingly, while Nora was bent over double laughing. Those bastards!

At that moment Pyrrha appeared next to him, a pack slung over her shoulders and Milo in her arms. “I’m ready!”

“Okay!” His voice squeaked like a pubescent 12-year old.

She gave him a weird look.

“Don’t worry about Jaune,” Ren said, holding the door open for her. “He’s just coming to terms with some new developments in his life.”

“Okay?” Pyrrha said, chuckling with confusion. “I don’t know what that means, but sure.” She smiled at Jaune again before practically bouncing out the door.

She needed to stop doing that. Jaune’s heart couldn’t take it.

Everyone left until it was just Jaune bringing up the rear. As he exited the bar, Junior called after him.

“Take care of that girl, you hear me?” the old man called, smiling conspiratorially.

Jaune gave the man a thumbs up.

The trip back to the Berry took no time. Jaune trailed along after everybody, listening to Nora ramble about their adventures and Oscar talk about the ship. He felt like he had just run a marathon, and he was dead last. It didn’t matter who came in first, but he was the last one to see the finish line.

They boarded the Berry. Petey greeted them, climbing all over them in her excitement. Milo froze in Pyrrha’s arms, and she stepped away from the excited dog.

“Maybe we’ll take that introduction slow,” she said.

Ren nodded, ushering Petey into another room.

“This is our home!” Nora said, spinning in a circle with his arms spread wide. “Jaune sometimes leaves his dirty socks ev-” Jaune slapped his hand over Nora’s mouth.

“I keep the Berry nice and clean,” Jaune said, forcing a smile that wished only pain upon Nora. “And my dirty socks go in the laundry, where they belong.”

Nora squirmed out of his grasp. Pyrrha giggled, peering around a corner and letting Milo down onto the floor. Jaune thanked every deity that he could think of that he had cleaned the Berry last week.

“It’s nice,” she said. “Um, weird question. Do you have a room with good ventilation?”

“Yeah, down the hall that way. Why?” Oscar asked.

“It’s right next to Jaune’s room!” Nora exclaimed before Jaune could tackle her down again.

“I make things,” she said. “Sculptures usually, metal working. Just out of spare parts I find. I need a room with good ventilation for the welding fumes.”

“Oh, cool!” Oscar said. “Let me show you around.”

“Jaune would like to go with you!” Nora skipped out of Jaune’s grasp, making her way towards her room. “And I have to go. For other unrelated reasons.” She winked and stuck out her tongue at Jaune before slipping down the hall.

“Come on,” Oscar took Pyrrha’s hand. “Ignore them. We can set you up in the room next to your welding room.”

Jaune was torn between following them and not following them. He ended up just sort of… leaning towards them.

“You’re a mess,” Ren laughed. “Come on, let’s get dinner going.”

Jaune took one last look at Pyrrha’s retreating figure. “Yeah, sure,” he said, hardly paying Ren any attention. He followed Ren slowly.

“You got it bad,” Ren said when they reached their kitchen, pulling down a pot and getting some water boiling. “What’s so special about her?”

Jaune shook his head, taking a seat at the kitchen island, “You should have seen it, dude. I was pinned against the wall, about to have my skull smashed like a pancake. 

He waved his hands around vaguely. “There was no way I could have gotten myself out of it. I was ready to get my ass handed to me…  and then she just came out of nowhere. It was… angelic.” He sighed, leaning his chin on his hand.

Ren snorted, “Angelic?”

“Avenging angel, angelic. She was choking that brute with her legs, while bashing his brains in with a beer stein. She was having fun too! God… she just destroyed them.” Jaune smiled wistfully, conjuring up the scene again in his mind.

“Hand me that?” Ren gestured to a spoon. “Lucky you. I would have hated to come back to find you a pancake.”

“Me too,” Jaune said, absentmindedly grabbing the spoon and handing it to Ren. “Do… do you think she likes me?”

“Who knows,” Ren said, throwing some pasta into the water. “Just don’t be weird about it, okay?”

“What?” Jaune sat up straight. “I’m not weird. I won’t be weird about it. Why would I be weird about it? I’m never weird about anything.”

Ren only shook his head. “If you say so.”

Pyrrha and Nora walked into the room chatting like they’d been friends for years. Jaune slammed his elbow onto the table, attempting to look casual. “You like your room?”

“It’s great,” Pyrrha said. She sat down next to him, touching his arm. “Honestly, thank you for letting me join your team. It means a lot to me.”

Jaune grinned as he felt his face warm up again. “Ye-yeah, no problem.” He stuttered out, He really needed to get that under control. “Thanks for saving me back there.”

Ren chuckled, continuing to stir the noodles he had put into the pot. “And thanks in advance for all the saving you’ll no doubt have to do in the future. Jaune has a habit of, uh, getting himself into unsavory situations.”

Pyrrha laughed.” I’ll look forward to that then.”

[prompt-master]

@raptorattax asked: Soooo, I have a DBH prompt. Say there's some kind of engineer out there that develops a sensor for pain, and kidnaps Connor to implant them. I just kinda wanna see where you take it from there... maybe have him wake up confused and disoriented on hanks doorstep, or in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the dude keeps Connor to test it out. Just be sure to make him feel it 😊.... sorry if it's kind of vague or not interesting, I've had this thought in my head for a while!!

Connor booted up knowing something was wrong, but he just couldn't remember what. He tried to remember what he was doing before hand, but all he knew was he had shut down suddenly.

When Connor had opened his eyes he found himself completely unable to move. His arms were stuck by his sides, he was kneeling on the floor of a cold basement. He couldn't move anything but his eyes, but from what he could tell he was in some sort of basement lab. There was a wooden work bench with tools lined up. Along the ceiling were hung up android parts and tools. There was a minifridge with a clear door, full of bags of thirium from all sorts of models. He tried to move again, but something was disconnected.

RUNNING SELF-DIAGNOSIS

MOTOR FUNCTIONS DISCONNECTED

ISSUE DETECTED: FAULTY WIRING.

Connor then tried to call Hank, but that wasn't working either. Whoever brought Connor down here must have fucked with his wiring, and even worse they definitely knew what they were doing. He could hear footsteps upstairs, he either had to figure out how to get out of this situation or wait until they checked on him.

But he couldn't move...there wasn't much he could do besides try to remember.

Whatever his captor did to knock him out stopped some memory from being saved. But he could try to fill in the blanks. He wasn't with Hank at the time, he knew that because Hank was at a doctor's appointment. He remembers being at home with Sumo, when he registered a strange noise.

There was the sound of a door opening, followed by thuds against wooden stairs.

"Have you finished rebooting already?" The voice said, quickly nearing closer to him Connor chose not to reply.

The second Connor could see his kidnapper he ran a facial recognition scan. He recognized the man almost instantly, he was Derek Gillings, a robotics engineer he had arrested a while ago.

That was the thing about this line of work, you made a lot of enemies.

"Oh you're awake" Derek made way to his work bench, checking out his collection of android parts, "how are you doing, RX800, or 'Connor' as they call you."

"How did you get out of prison? I thought you still had a year left."

"Well if you play nice you can get out early on good behavior, a lot of the brutes in there can't handle themselves long enough to understand that. But I'm not like them, RX800, that's why I don't belong there"

"You killed a man, Gillings, I'd say you belong there."

"I didn't just kill a man" he rolled his eyes, taking a chip into his hand and rolling it between his fingers, "I was trying to make things better for everyone. If you hadn't stopped me, we humans could live forever on robotic hearts."

Connor cringed at the memory of investigating Gillings house. They'd found a man dead on a hospital like bed, after a failed surgery. It was gruesome to say the least.

"But I'm not here because of that. And neither are you. You see I couldn't stop thinking about how you managed to catch me. I almost got away, didn't I? You remember, right?" He turned to Connor expectantly, screwdriver in hand.

Connor frowned, "...Yes. You I had restrained you after you stabbed my hand."

Derek nodded three times precisely, and put his hands together, "Yes yes that's correct. But I can't stop thinking about what you said. Do you remember that part? How you said 'sorry, but androids don't feel pain'"

He knelt down behind Connor, feeling the back of his neck. Connor felt more scared then he liked to admit, but he held up his neutral expression. Hank would come looking for him, he just had to hold out.

"Luckily, I think I've figured out the answer to that"

He hated the feeling of those calloused hands ghosted over the back of his neck. Then he opened up a panel, Connor wanted to shiver when he tapped the inside of it.

"You're a deviant, yes Connor? Well don't most deviants want to be as human as possible?"

Connor didn't respond, even when he took out the chip that handled all of his sensory input related to feeling. Suddenly Connor couldn't feel the sharp cold of the basement, couldn't feel the man's fingers on him. It was a blessing and a curse. He got a break from the sensations he hated, but now he had no idea what he was doing.

"In a way, you should be thanking me for this"

The fear that struck him at that sentence had him speaking again, "What are you doing to me?" Simple and tense.

"Oh you'll see." He plugged another chip, the one he was holding earlier.

Connor shuddered when feelings slammed back into place, the cold not welcomed back in the slightest.

"Well?" Derek stepped in front of Connor, tilting his head, "how do you feel?"

Connor took a moment to run self diagnosis. He was...so confused. Nothing felt wrong. Nothing was going to hell. He worried his answer wouldn't be satisfactory and cause the man to make the situation worse, but what other choice did he have but to cooperate.

"...fine."

Derek kneeled down, grabbing Connor's chin, "fine huh?" He smiled, digging in his nails into his cheeks.

Connor's eyes widened at the new unpleasant sensation he felt. The nails digging it..it was sharp, he wanted to get away from it. It...it hurt. It was painful. Connor had never felt pain before but he already knew he didn't like it.

Connor looked into Derek's eyes and in a shaky voice said, "stop"

Connor didn't know how much pain he was supposed to feel. He didn't know what small pain was what bad pain was. It was like a kid scrapping their knee. This was the end of the world to Connor and it felt awful.

"How cute. You think this is bad?" Derek took the screw driver and smacked Connor across the face with the handle of it.

Connor gasped at the pain spreading across his cheek. If it wasn't for the fact that he couldn't move at all, he'd be trembling. He thought it had hurt before but this? This had to be the worse. It wouldn't fade either, his face felt sore.

"Please stop... I'm sorry I arrested you."

"You think an apology can fix this? Oh no no, I wanna see how much you can feel. How human you can be." He dug the screw driver into Connor's shoulder, and Connor SCREAMED.

Connor couldn't even speak after that one. He could feel the pain up and down the wound. It sent a spark across his shoulder blade, somehow even hurting the area around it. Pain was too much. This had to be the worst, it couldn't get any worse-

Another stab. Another. A punch. He was on his side now getting kicked over and over and over and over-

With tears in his eyes, a strange gasping noise from his mouth, Connor quickly realized pain could keep building up. Oh god how could humans live like this, so fragile? Connor let out a sob, his shoulders a bloody mess of thirium. His stomach so beated there were dents in the metal.

It only got worse when he broke one of Connor's fingers. The android screamed again, resorting to begging. He was so fucking scared. None of this was normal, he couldn't do this. This was too much too soon, he couldn't get used to it or handle it, he just wanted to pass out.

"Please...please oh god no more...please..."

Gillings stepped back, admiring the sobbing mess he made Connor into. "It seems successful...but how do I know you're not just successful mimicking human behavior?"

"W-what....?"

"Sure you're reacting like it hurt, but I can't really tell if you're actually hurt"

"I-i am. It hurts. It's hurts a lot dammit!"

He shrugged, "I guess I'll just have to keep you here longer. You won't mind that, right?"

Connor glared at him, "you're going to be stopped. You took the DPD top detective, they'll find me and-"

Connor was kicked right in the eye. That one hurt a hell of a lot. It was so sharp, it went straight to the back of his head. His vision flooded with static. Connor thought his eye was gonna fall out.

"Quiet. They aren't gonna find you, and even if they did you'll be scrap metal by then. So let's just enjoy out time together" he smiled, grabbing a band saw off the work bench.

Connor closed his eyes shut, trying to think of anywhere but here. Oh god, Hank, please save him.

[planetarduino]

Creating an online robot fighting game using Arduino MKR1000 WiFi

This is a guest post from Surrogate, a team of developers building games that people play in real-life over the internet.

We introduced this concept last year, and have launched three games so far. Our final game of 2019 was SumoBots Battle Royale — where players from anywhere in the world can fight real robots in a battle royale-style arena. The aim of the project was to have the game run semi-autonomously, meaning that the bots could self-reset in between the games, and the arena could run by itself with no human interaction. This was our most complex project to date, and we wanted to share some parts of the build process in more detail, specifically, how we’ve built these robots and hooked them online for people to control remotely.

Robot selection

We’ve started our process by choosing which robots we’d want to use for the game. There were a couple of requirements for the robots when making the evaluation:

Are able to withstand 24/7 collision

Easily modifiable and fixable

Can rotate on the same spot

Must have enough space to fit the electronics

After looking at a lot of different consumer robots, maker projects, and competitive fighting bots, we’ve decided to use the JSUMO BB1 robots for this game. We liked the fact that these bots have a metal casing which makes them very durable, all parts are easily replaceable and can be bought separately, and it has 4 independent motors (motor shields included), one for each wheel, which allows it to rotate on the same spot.

We were pretty skeptical of being able to fit all the electronics into the original casing, but we decided to go with this robot anyways, as it had the best overall characteristics. As this robot is easily modifiable, we can always 3D print an extra casing to fit all the parts.

What is the board?

Now that we’ve decided on the robot, it was the time to define what electronics should we use in this build. As usual, it all starts with the requirements. Here’s what we need for the game to run smoothly:

The robot should be able to recover from any position

Can stay online while charging

Supports WiFi network connection and offers reliable connectivity

Easily programmable and supports OTA updates

Can control four motors simultaneously

Based on these requirements we had the following electronics layout in mind:

We had to find a board that is energy efficient, can send commands to motors, supports parallel charging and has a small footprint on the robot size. With so many requirements, finding the perfect board can be a challenge.

Arduino to the rescue

Fortunately, Arduino was there to help us out. They offer a rich selection of boards to fit every possible robotics project out there and have very detailed documentation for each of the boards.  More importantly, Arduino is known for its high quality, something that is crucial for semi-autonomous types of applications. Coming from an embedded software background and having to work with all sorts of hardware, we often see that some features or board functionalities are not fully finished which can lead to all sorts of unpleasant situations.

After looking at the Arduino’s collection of boards we quickly found a perfect candidate for our project, the Arduino MKR1000 WiFi. This board fits all of our main requirements for the motor controls, is easily programmable via Arduino IDE, and due to its low power design is extremely power efficient, allowing us to have a lower capacity battery. Additionally, it has a separate WiFi chip onboard, which solely focuses on providing a reliable WiFi connection, something that is very important in our use case.

Now that we’ve decided on the “brain” of our robot, it was time to choose the rest of the components.

Robust hardware means working software

Something to keep in mind is that when working with hardware, you should always try to avoid any possible risks. This means that you should always over-do your minimal hardware requirements where possible. The reason is — if your hardware doesn’t work as intended, your whole software stack becomes unusable too. Always chose reliable hardware components for mission-critical applications.

Some of our electric components might look a bit overkill, but due to the nature of our projects, they are a critical requirement.

Avoiding the battery explosions

As there is a lot of robot collision involved in the game, we decided to go with a high safety standard battery solution. After evaluating multiple options on the market, we decided to go with the RRC2040 from RRC (Germany). It has a capacity of 2950 mAh that allows us to run the robots for up to five hours on a single charge. It has an internal circuitry for power management, protection features and it supports SMBUS communications (almost like I2C), and is certified for all of the consumer electronics battery standards. For charging, we used RRC’s charging solution designed specifically for this battery and that offers the possibility to feed power to the application while the battery is being charged.

Note: the Arduino MKR1000 has a pretty neat charging solution on the board itself. You can connect the battery to the board directly as the main power source, and you charge it directly through the MKR1000’s micro USB port. We really wanted to use it to save space and have a more robust design, but due to the large capacity of our battery, we couldn’t use it at full potential. In our future projects with smaller scale robots, we definitely plan to use the board’s internal charging system, as it works perfectly for 700-1800 mAh power packs.

Bot recovery

For the bot to be able to recover from falling on its head, we’ve implemented a flipping servo. We didn’t want to have any risk of not enough torque, so we went with DS3218, which is capable of lifting up to 20KG of weight. Here’s how it works:

Hooking everything together

Now that we’ve decided on all of the crucial elements of this setup, it was time to connect all the elements together. As the first step, we figured what would be the best step way to locate all the pieces within the bot. We then 3D-printed a casing to protect the electronics. With all of the preliminary steps completed, we’ve wired all of the components together and mounted them inside of the casing. Here’s how it looks:

It was really convenient for us that all the pins on the board could be connected just by plugging them in, this avoids a lot of time spent on soldering the cables for 12 robots and more importantly, allowed us to cut out the risk of bad soldering that usually can’t be easily identified.

Arduino = Quick code

Arduino MKR1000 offered us the connectivity we needed for the project. Each sumo robot hosts their own UDP server using MKR1000 WiFi libraries to receive their control commands for a central control PC and broadcasting their battery charge status. The user commands are translated to three different PWM signals using Arduino Servo library for the flipping, left and right side motor controllers. The board used has support for hardware PWM output which was useful for us.  Overall we managed to keep the whole Arduino code in a few hundred lines of code due to the availability of Servo and Wifi libraries.

The out of the box ArduinoOTA support for updating the code over the WiFi came in handy during the development phase, but also anytime we update the firmware for multiple robots at the same time. No need to open the covers and attach a USB cable! We created a simple Bash script using the OTA update tool bundled in Arduino IDE to send firmware updates to every robot at the same time.  

To summarize

It’s pretty amazing that we live in the age where you can use a mass market, small form factor board like the Arduino MKR1000 and have so much functionality. We’ve had a great experience developing our SumoBots Battle Royale game using the board. It made the whole process very smooth and streamlined, the documentation was right on point, and we never had to hit a bottleneck where the hardware wouldn’t work as expected.

More importantly, the boards have proven to be very robust throughout the time. These SumoBots have been used for more than 3,000 games already, and we haven’t seen a single failure from the MKR1000. For a game where you literally slam the robots in to each other at a high speed, that’s pretty impressive to say the least.

We look forward to working with Arduino on our future games, and we can’t wait to see what they will be announcing in 2020!

Creating an online robot fighting game using Arduino MKR1000 WiFi was originally published on PlanetArduino

[erinemmrich-blog]

Anthology Project

            During this fall semester, our class learned a great detail about five particular topics. These topics were techno-panic, the future of the body, intelligent systems, making and things, and cyborgs and bioart. The world around us is constantly evolving and changing. The way people live now is not how people lived before technological devices were invented. More and more people rely on technology as the days go by. Technology is being used by people every day to do their everyday tasks.  Each day, technology is being reinvented to accomplish things that most people would have never dreamed about. As these new technological advances are being discovered and invented, people can’t imagine how they ever got through life without this technology. A lot of these new technological advancements focus on how to make the lives of others easier and more manageable. Technology will always be present in people’s lives, and it will keep advancing and changing the lives of others for the better.

           The first topic we discussed this semester was techno-panic. Techno-panic is societal fear based on new technological advancements. This fear often results from lack of information. In the article “The Six Things that Drive ‘Technopanics’”, Adam Thierer discusses six major themes that most commonly drive society into a techno-panic. Adam Thierer says, “Fear-based tactics and inflated threat scenarios can lead to situations where individuals and society ignore quite serious risks because they are overshadowed by unnecessary panics over non-problems” (Thierer, 2012).  In some cases, people fear technology because they don’t understand how to use it or how it will fit into their life. Adam Thierer is trying to explain that when people obsess over these advancements in a negative way, they might end up pushing more important issues aside. Adam Thierer also wrote the article “Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle”. This article deconstructs cultural and economic myths that come from fear arguments in the technology policy debate. Adam Thierer states that techno-panics could, “Lead to dangerous tensions throughout society and foster animosity among the citizenry. This result could prevent people from using certain technologies that would otherwise benefit society” (Thierer, 2013). People could end up turning their backs on new technologies because there is false information and fear being spread around regarding the invention. This could hinder the possibility of people actually benefiting from the product. Techno-panic will always be seen as time goes on. However, it is important to have an open mind and allow these technological advancements a chance to prove their worth to society.

           The future of the body was the next topic discussed during the semester.  In this section, we explored a lot of the technological advancements that revolved around bettering the human body and the advancements that are predicted to come in the future. In the article “20 Medical Technology Advances: Medicine In The Future – Part I”, there is discussion on how new technological advancements are being used to help the human body. This technology is being used to help and restore basic human motor functions to give people a better quality of life. The article states that, “Rarer, but also in use, are brain implant therapies for people paralyzed by spinal cord injury or other neurological damage. A chip inserted into the brain reads off electrical signals that are translated by a computer to restore some movement and communication” (The Medical Futurist, 2019). This invention is life changing. So many people are involved in accidents and become paralyzed. This invention allows people who are paralyzed to have a fuller life with more opportunities. In the article “10 Medical Advances That Will Shape the Future of Healthcare”, Christian Millman reports on some of the major groundbreaking technological advancements in the medical field that will change healthcare and the lives of others in a positive way. Christian Millman reports that, “In ongoing trials at Georgia Tech, a $100 Breathalyzer-style device has been detecting lung and breast cancer in patients with up to 80 percent accuracy” (Millman, 2019). This new device will help so many people around the world. It is stated that, “The Georgia Tech researchers note that when lung cancer is caught in Stage 1, which is the earliest stage, it has a 70 percent cure rate. Most lung cancers, however, aren’t caught until Stage 3, when symptoms become more obvious. The cure rate at that point, however, plummets to less than 25 percent” (Millman, 2019) Not only will this Breathalyzer-style device provide an earlier cancer detection and diagnosis, but it will allow for an increased survival rate among those diagnosed. The common theme among articles relating to the future of the body is the desire to help others. Most people, when given the opportunity and the resources, want to provide others with care and the help that they need.

           Another topic discussed this semester was intelligent systems. Intelligent systems are quickly becoming part of our everyday lives. The article “What are Intelligent Systems?” describes what intelligent system are and how they are used. The article states, “Even some not-so-highly-priced cars can now sense that there is an impending collision about to happen or there’s somebody in your blind spot. The cars’ cameras use computer vision by taking in the scene, and as it processes all these images of its environment, the system pieces them together to detect whether a collision is about to occur” (Lewis University, 2019). These systems are being used as a precaution and a helpful way to avoid harmful situations. In the article “Smart House – Intelligent Home with Internet of Things”, there is a description of all the possible things a smart house should be able to do in the future. The article says that, “A smart house should talk with you” (Geekstips.com, 2019). It is predicted that people will be able to interact with these smart homes. The author says, “I’d like to tell my house that I’m coming home in 1 hour, and then the house will start the air conditioning unit, prepare the security system, start refreshing the air and maybe turn on the TV” (Geekstips.com, 2019). The smart home will be made to be a convenience for others and to help make the lives of others easier. The smart home should be reliable and interactive. Each home should be adjusted to meet the different needs of each family,

           The next topic we discussed in class was making and things. This section was mainly focused on 3-D printing and all of the possibilities brought about through the availability of the 3-D printer. Many products are made more time and cost efficient with the use of a 3-D printer. It’s amazing to recognize all of the outcomes that are made possible by 3-D printing. The article “The Future of 3D Printing: How will it impact your life?” informs us on how 3-D printing will impact our lives for the better in the future. Howard Lea says that, “It is predicted that 3D printers will create an unlimited supply of organs. The impact this will have on our healthcare is phenomenal; by being able to print human organs by using reprogrammed stem cells, we will be able to repair organs. This means that, if you or someone close to you suffers from a heart attack, or needs a transplant, then the heart can be repaired rather than replaced” (Lea, 2017). Being able to 3-D print organs would be a huge advancement in the medical field, and it would better the lives of so many people. In a lot of cases, the longest and hardest part of the organ donation process is finding a match for each particular person and then waiting to see if the body accepts or rejects the new organ. With the use of 3-D printing, this process would be taken out of the equation because the 3-D printer uses the person’s own DNA to repair the original organ. In the article “The Future of 3D Printing: A Glimpse at the Next Generation”, there is a discussion of the history of 3-D printing and the possible positive outcomes of using 3-D printers for products now and in the future. Mika Yeap says, “Researchers are currently trying to fabricate consumable medicine using a number of technologies” (Yeap, 2019). He also says that, “This could include integrating multiple patient-specific drugs into a single form as well as adjusting the rates at which various medications dissolve” (Yeap, 2019). By 3-D printing drugs, people could have their medicines specifically altered for their own needs. This would help many people all over the world to have the best possible outcomes while taking their prescribed medications.

           The final topic of the semester was about cyborgs and bioart. Cyborgs are becoming further introduced into our society, and bioart is sparking conversation on how traditional art is viewed. The article “From Human To Cyborg: Are You Willing To Augment Your Body?” informs readers on how life will be affected by allowing cyborg qualities become a part of normal life and the ethical side to these possibilities. In the article, the idea of entirely removable cyborg-extensions is introduced. The article says that, “Robotic structures called exoskeletons will truly give the sense of invincibility to people by helping human beings move around and lift heavy weights” (The Medical Futurist, 2019). This invention would help paralyzed people be able to stand and bear the weight of themselves. This invention would also help people in the work field get through a long day of work with minimal wear-and-tear on their bodies. The article “Of microbes and machines: How art and science fuse in bio-art” introduces a relatively knew concept of art. Bioart encourages viewers to see all forms of the human body, and is used to spark questions among society. The article says, “In the interactive art-science exhibition Morbis Artis: Diseases of the Arts, actual and metaphoric communicative diseases are employed to explore the often-toxic relationship between human and non-human life” (Redmond & Verhagen, 2017). Bioart opens the door to understanding the human body, and encourages others to explore the world. The article goes on to explain that, “The exhibition explores the thin doorway that exists between life and death in a vexing age of species and habitat destruction, and the increasingly permeable tissues of contemporary bodies.  The discourses of science in particular train us to see and to look for disease in every location. Science's microscopic and bio-technological powers allow it to reach into every atom” (Redmond & Verhagen, 2017).  Bioart opens our eyes to the world around us, and makes us more aware of our surroundings. Bioart encourages us to start conversations about life and question the concepts of life starting from the molecular form.  

           Most of today’s technological advancements are invented solely to help others. These inventions are changing the world around us, and are allowing people to live a fuller life with fewer limits. It is nice to know that people want to help each other. There are so many negative things in our world today, and it is nice to focus on something positive for a change. If people have the knowledge and the resources to make a difference in the lives of others in a good way, they should take advantage of that opportunity and make the world a better place by doing so. These articles allow others to see what kind of world we could possibly have in the future. All of the articles choose to focus on the beneficial aspects that these advancements will provide once every detail is figured out, and they highlight the progress that has already been made up to this point in time. While there might be some hesitation when introducing new advancements in the technological fields, it is important to be open to the idea of change and to embrace the world around us. As we have learned from all of the phases throughout the semester, we need to educate ourselves on new technologies and welcome them into the future to better promote change.

 References

From Human To Cyborg: Are You Willing To Augment Your Body? (2019, March 30). In TMF. Retrieved from https://medicalfuturist.com/from-human-to-cyborg/

Lea, H. (2017, March 7). The Future of 3D Printing: How will it impact your life?. In Manufacturing Tomorrow. Retrieved from https://www.manufacturingtomorrow.com/article/2017/03/the-future-of-3d-printing-how-will-it-impact-your-life/9258

Millman, C. (2019, October 23). 10 Medical Advances That Will Shape the Future of Healthcare. In Discover. Retrieved from https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/10-medical-advances-that-will-shape-the-future-of-healthcare

Redmond, S., & Vehagen, D. S. (2017, February 6). Of microbes and machines: How art and science fuse in bio-art. In CNN Style. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/style/article/bio-art-microbes-and-machines/index.html

Smart House – Intelligent Home with Internet of Things (2019, November 25). In Geekstips.com. Retrieved from https://www.geekstips.com/smart-house-intelligent-home-internet-of-things/

Thierer, A. (2012, March 4). The Six Things that Drive "Technopanics". In Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamthierer/2012/03/04/the-six-things-that-drive-technopanics/#581fa91970b0

Thierer, A. (2013, January 25). Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle. In Mercatus Center. Retrieved from https://www.mercatus.org/publications/technology-and-innovation/technopanics-threat-inflation-and-danger-information

What are Intelligent Systems? (2019). In Lewis University. Retrieved from https://online.lewisu.edu/mscs/resources/what-are-intelligent-systems

Yeap, M. (2019, March 1). The Future of 3D Printing: A Glimpse at the Next Generation. In ALL3DP. Retrieved from https://all3dp.com/2/future-of-3d-printing-a-glimpse-at-next-generation-making/

20 Medical Technology Advances: Medicine In The Future – Part I (2019, October 17). In TMF. Retrieved from https://medicalfuturist.com/20-potential-technological-advances-in-the-future-of-medicine-part-i/

[catesle02-blog]

Appear Here For Excellent Tips About Vehicle Restore That Any person Can Merely Follow

How can you deal with auto difficulties? Have you ever thought about managing elements and labor your self? You may possibly just want to much better recognize how to pick a mechanic. Go through on to recognize your alternatives. Make positive the oil in your automobile is transformed about every single 3,000 miles. Waiting around lengthier for an oil adjust can outcome in grime and debris fouling your oil and that can harm your motor. If you use artificial oil in your vehicle, you only need to have to modify the filter each other oil modify.

Always inquire lots of questions when you just take your vehicle to get fixed. Don't allow the mechanic intimidate you. Request why anything wants to be fixed or how it will be completed. If the mechanic tries to brush you off, will not seem at you, or refuses to reply your queries, contemplate having your automobile to somebody else. When you are in want of an auto repair, store all around to make sure that you get the very best offer. Go to at minimum a few distinct fix outlets to get a quotation. If anybody fees something that is unrealistically reduced or substantial, you need to find somebody else to do the work. Keep on hand all of your car's documentation. Retaining them in the glove compartment is wise. Repair specialists may want to see these documents for fix functions. This will aid to diagnose any problems. Check your tire strain often. Tires with a low pressure are a really hazardous liability. Verify the strain in your tires at least when a month or at any time you notice a tire would seem to be losing air. Invest in new high quality tires if you usually have to modify the stress in your tires. Do not disregard modest bothersome sounds or issues. These tiny annoyances, such as noisy brakes, are usually cheap to repair. If ignored, even so, they can generally direct to significantly more comprehensive difficulties and high-priced repairs. Replacing worn brake pads now is considerably less costly than possessing to replace the pads, rotors, brake lines, and calipers later. Never go away valuables in your automobile when you bring it to be fixed. It is correct that most retailers have quite trust worthy employees, but not all do, and you do not want to be a victim of theft. Rather, defend oneself by cleansing your motor vehicle and taking away anything at all that is not attached to the auto. 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Inquire how much any alternative parts will value and how prolonged the repair is estimated to get so you know how many hrs of labor you will be billed for. If you go to an automobile mechanic and you are asking a good deal of inquiries, take notice of his demeanor. It is perfectly standard for men and women to have concerns about automobile repairs. If he looks like he is bothered by you inquiring questions, you must possibly go elsewhere to get your repairs carried out. Will not neglect asking your friends for their tips on what automobile shop is best. This is the greatest way to locate a mechanic simply because his abilities have been proven primarily based on your friend's knowledge. It truly is better than hoping the mechanic is trustworthy. Safeguard your car's carpeting with weighty-obligation, rubber mats in the course of the winter when the inside of the auto is vulnerable to harm. These mats are excellent at trying to keep slush and issues like salt from obtaining by way of to your carpet. These mats are necessary if you stay in an area in which winters are extremely cold. Use a hose on your auto mats when giving your vehicle a clean. Dirt will get trapped in the rubber, which can guide to tearing. A mat with holes is unattractive and it cannot shield your car's carpeting underneath. Paint is your car's protection from rust and it aids the automobile seem fantastic, so park your automobile in the shade to hold the paint looking fantastic. The Sun's ultraviolet rays break the paint down and lead to fast chippings to split absent. A couple of times in the solar can ruin a great paint task. Never get stuck figuring that you are not ready to get issues on your motor vehicle fixed swiftly. Start off implementing the tips you just read through, do far more analysis on auto repairs and uncover somebody who can demonstrate you how to do slight repairs. You must now see that you can do something in particular restrictions and not be still left high and dry.

[solomonfiore]

The Bull (for Severin)

Published in “Yellow Mama Magazine”.

I was horsing around, teasing my little sister in our room at bedtime one night. She cried out for our mother but our father came to the door instead.

"Sator is bothering me!" she whined and pointed at me.

"If you don't leave your sister alone, the bull will get you," he warned me with a knowing smile.

That was all he needed to say to get me under the covers and facing the wall away from her, still as a board without a peep for the rest of the evening.

The bull was one of my earliest memories from childhood. A friend had given the animal to my father as a favor for helping him move. He kept the bull chained up in the basement beneath our family's modest home in Samarkand with the intention of fattening him up for a feast.

Though I had never actually seen the bull, the ominous impression my dad managed to instill in me kept me awake for hours that night before I finally fell asleep, but not before my five-year-old mind had been thoroughly accosted by the image of a terrifying beast standing over me, its red eyes gleaming with hatred for the whole of mankind, which had laid the yoke of its avarice upon him and his brethren for as long as hooves and human feet had trod the same soil beside one another, his glowering nostrils exhaling blasts of hot smoke as he focused his wrath in my immediate direction, sizing up my tiny frame within the range of his massive horns, his taut, ebony muscles, as sleek and firm as oversized tires at a monster truck show, bursting proudly from his neck and shoulders in the fashion of a gun that is cocked and ready to fire. I could not get the eyes of the bull out of my head. Those eyes, burning like embers from out of the coal mines of hell, which lurked in the darkness of the basement below me, hypnotically wavering in the dusty air like the headlights of a hearse leaving the scene of a murder.

I think my father could sense my fear of the bull while we passed by the steps leading to the basement of our flat the next morning. He engaged in a little horseplay of his own. “Is that the bull I hear, Sator?” he teased. “I can hear his hooves stomping on the ground down there. I think he’s angry at you for being a bad, little boy.”

These words sent me running into the courtyard, kicking up sand behind me as my father laughed in the background. Throughout that sweltering summer in Uzbekistan he used the bull to coax me into doing whatever he wanted. Much to my chagrin, it became a continuous source of amusement for him.

xxx

It was late August when he asked me to feed the bull one day. His cheeks and forehead stained with motor oil from working on the car, he had been underneath the stubborn machine for the majority of the afternoon and was in an especially sour mood. At first I thought he was kidding. I pivoted back around to where he lay and was about to talk my way out of the errand until he shot me a look that told me he meant business and not to test his patience.

I worked especially slow in gathering up the hay, silage, and a bucket of water to bring to the bull, hoping that perhaps the sudden arrival of my grandmother or a similar twist of fate would relinquish me from the responsibility of feeding the dreaded monster lurking below our home in wait for a dumb little boy like me to stumble into his midst. Reluctantly, I emerged from the garage and onto the sandy road outside where the sun beat down on my bony arms. I crept my way over to the first step leading down into the bull’s abysmal lair, the pistons in my stomach pumping out steady streams of acid in nervous anticipation of my final meeting with the beast. I frantically rifled through a list of every possible excuse I could imagine which might enable me to abort this mission and cursed my father for his cruelty while descending each stair, one by one, until I came to the doorway of the basement. With the chipped remnants of a faded coat of red paint, the door laid hanging to the side by one hinge – a dilapidated usher to the uncomely dwelling. Twenty feet away from me hovered a pair of eyes, but they were not red like I had imagined. They were a milky jade, soft but cautious. As my eyesight adjusted to the lack of light, I assessed that the animal was far slighter than I had imagined. The bull’s head was bowed, but in subordination, not as if to pounce. I made out the chains around his neck and legs thanks to the sliver of sun that the disheveled entrance had permitted. This, in addition to the gentle expression on the bovine’s face, gave me the courage to approach my family’s four-legged prisoner.

When I came to stand beside the bull, I was struck by the contrast he embodied in reality versus the frightful character I had dreamed up. His shoulders resembled the peaks of two rickety tents emerging from behind his sunken neck and the horns on his brooding head acted as a symbol of mockery, serving the same function as would a dunce cap on a child assigned to the corner of a classroom. The lower lids of his cataract-infused eyes drooped down over his cheeks to reveal webs of pink and white flesh brimming over with silver tears, the gleaming linings of which reflected eternal pastures of deathly calm - a place looming somewhere on the horizon between his mother's womb and the butcher's bloody saw. On impulse, I scooped up a handful of his feed and held it under his muzzle. He wagged his tail and closed his eyes momentarily as he gently ate from my hand as if trying to savor what little flavor the rotting corn might have retained, the mild stimulation of his palette possibly one of the only comforts granted to him in the drudgery of his everyday existence. At that moment, just outside the cellar, I heard the neighbor predictably reciting his afternoon prayers from the roof of his one-story house.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the bull. “I am so, so sorry.”

Solomon Fiore – August 30, 2016

<artwork: Irina Rumyantseva - “Cow with the Pink Nose 2”>

[marilynngmesalo]

At least 56,800 migrants dead and missing worldwide in 4 years: Report

At least 56,800 migrants dead and missing worldwide in 4 years: Report At least 56,800 migrants dead and missing worldwide in 4 years: Report https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

JOHANNESBURG — One by one, five to a grave, the coffins are buried in the red earth of this ill-kept corner of a South African cemetery. The scrawl on the cheap wood attests to their anonymity: “Unknown B/Male.”

These men were migrants from elsewhere in Africa with next to nothing who sought a living in the thriving underground economy of Gauteng province, a name that roughly translates to “land of gold.” Instead of fortune, many found death, their bodies unnamed and unclaimed — more than 4,300 in Gauteng between 2014 and 2017 alone.

Some of those lives ended here at the Olifantsvlei cemetery, in silence, among tufts of grass growing over tiny placards that read: Pauper Block. There are coffins so tiny that they could only belong to children.

As people worldwide flee war, hunger and a lack of jobs, global migration has soared to record highs, with more than 258 million international migrants in 2017. That is an increase of 49 per cent from the turn of the century, according to the United Nations.

Far less visible, however, has been the toll of this mass migration: The tens of thousands of people who die or simply disappear during their journeys, never to be seen again. A growing number of migrants have drowned, died in deserts or fallen prey to traffickers, leaving their families to wonder what on earth happened to them. At the same time, anonymous bodies are filling cemeteries around the world, like the one in Gauteng.

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In most cases, nobody is keeping track: Barely counted in life, these people don’t register in death, as if they never lived at all.

An Associated Press tally has documented at least 56,800 migrants dead or missing worldwide since 2014 — almost double the number found in the world’s only official attempt to try to count them, by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration . The IOM toll as of Oct. 1 was more than 28,500. The AP came up with almost 28,300 additional dead or missing migrants by compiling information from other international groups, requesting forensic records, missing persons reports and death records, and sifting through data from thousands of interviews with migrants.

The AP’s tally is still low. Bodies of migrants lie undiscovered in desert sands or at the bottom of the sea. And families don’t always report loved ones as missing because they migrated illegally, or because they left home without saying exactly where they were headed.

The official U.N. toll focuses mostly on Europe, but even there cases fall through the cracks. The political tide is turning against migrants in Europe just as in the United States, where the government is cracking down heavily on caravans of Central Americans trying to get in. One result is that money is drying up for projects to track migration and its costs.

For example, when more than 800 people died in an April 2015 shipwreck off the coast of Italy, Europe’s deadliest migrant sea disaster, Italian investigators pledged to identify them and find their families. More than three years later, under a new populist government, funding for this work is being cut off.

Beyond Europe, information is even more scarce. Little is known about the toll in South America, where the Venezuelan migration is among the world’s biggest today, and in Asia, the top region for numbers of migrants.

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The result is that governments vastly underestimate the toll of migration, a major political and social issue in most of the world today.

“No matter where you stand on the whole migration management debate….these are still human beings on the move,” said Bram Frouws, the head of the Mixed Migration Centre , based in Geneva, which has done surveys of more than 20,000 migrants in its 4Mi project since 2014. “Whether it’s refugees or people moving for jobs, they are human beings.”

They leave behind families caught between hope and mourning, like that of Safi al-Bahri. Her son, Majdi Barhoumi, left their hometown of Ras Jebel, Tunisia, on May 7, 2011, headed for Europe in a small boat with a dozen other migrants. The boat sank and Barhoumi hasn’t been heard from since. In a sign of faith that he is still alive, his parents built an animal pen with a brood of hens, a few cows and a dog to stand watch until he returns.

“I just wait for him. I always imagine him behind me, at home, in the market, everywhere,” said al-Bahari. “When I hear a voice at night, I think he’s come back. When I hear the sound of a motorcycle, I think my son is back.”

———————————————-

EUROPE: BOATS THAT NEVER ARRIVE

Of the world’s migration crises, Europe’s has been the most cruelly visible. Images of the lifeless body of a Kurdish toddler on a beach, frozen tent camps in Eastern Europe, and a nearly numbing succession of deadly shipwrecks have been transmitted around the world, adding to the furor over migration.

In the Mediterranean, scores of tankers, cargo boats, cruise ships and military vessels tower over tiny, crowded rafts powered by an outboard motor for a one-way trip. Even larger boats carrying hundreds of migrants may go down when soft breezes turn into battering winds and thrashing waves further from shore.

Two shipwrecks and the deaths of at least 368 people off the coast of Italy in October 2013 prompted the IOM’s research into migrant deaths. The organization has focused on deaths in the Mediterranean, although its researchers plead for more data from elsewhere in the world. This year alone, the IOM has found more than 1,700 deaths in the waters that divide Africa and Europe.

Like the lost Tunisians of Ras Jebel, most of them set off to look for work. Barhoumi, his friends, cousins and other would-be migrants camped in the seaside brush the night before their departure, listening to the crash of the waves that ultimately would sink their raft.

Khalid Arfaoui had planned to be among them. When the group knocked at his door, it wasn’t fear that held him back, but a lack of cash. Everyone needed to chip in to pay for the boat, gas and supplies, and he was short about $100. So he sat inside and watched as they left for the beachside campsite where even today locals spend the night before embarking to Europe.

Propelled by a feeble outboard motor and overburdened with its passengers, the rubber raft flipped, possibly after grazing rocks below the surface on an uninhabited island just offshore. Two bodies were retrieved. The lone survivor was found clinging to debris eight hours later.

The Tunisian government has never tallied its missing, and the group never made it close enough to Europe to catch the attention of authorities there. So these migrants never have been counted among the dead and missing.

“If I had gone with them, I’d be lost like the others,” Arfaoui said recently, standing on the rocky shoreline with a group of friends, all of whom vaguely planned to leave for Europe. “If I get the chance, I’ll do it. Even if I fear the sea and I know I might die, I’ll do it.”

With him that day was 30-year-old Mounir Aguida, who had already made the trip once, drifting for 19 hours after the boat engine cut out. In late August this year, he crammed into another raft with seven friends, feeling the waves slam the flimsy bow. At the last minute he and another young man jumped out.

“It didn’t feel right,” Aguida said.

There has been no word from the other six — yet another group of Ras Jebel’s youth lost to the sea. With no shipwreck reported, no survivors to rescue and no bodies to identify, the six young men are not counted in any toll.

In addition to watching its own youth flee, Tunisia and to a lesser degree neighbouring Algeria are transit points for other Africans north bound for Europe. Tunisia has its own cemetery for unidentified migrants, as do Greece, Italy and Turkey. The one at Tunisia’s southern coast is tended by an unemployed sailor named Chamseddin Marzouk.

Of around 400 bodies interred in the coastal graveyard since it opened in 2005, only one has ever been identified. As for the others who lie beneath piles of dirt, Marzouk couldn’t imagine how their families would ever learn their fate.

“Their families may think that the person is still alive, or that he’ll return one day to visit,” Marzouk said. “They don’t know that those they await are buried here, in Zarzis, Tunisia.”

————

AFRICA: VANISHING WITHOUT A TRACE

Despite talk of the ‘waves’ of African migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean, as many migrate within Africa — 16 million — as leave for Europe. In all, since 2014, at least 18,400 African migrants have died travelling within Africa, according to the figures compiled from AP and IOM records. That includes more than 4,300 unidentified bodies in a single South African province, and 8,700 whose travelling companions reported their disappearance en route out of the Horn of Africa in interviews with 4Mi.

When people vanish while migrating in Africa, it is often without a trace. The IOM says the Sahara Desert may well have killed more migrants than the Mediterranean. But no one will ever know for sure in a region where borders are little more than lines drawn on maps and no government is searching an expanse as large as the continental United States. The harsh sun and swirling desert sands quickly decompose and bury bodies of migrants, so that even when they turn up, they are usually impossible to identify .

With a prosperous economy and stable government, South Africa draws more migrants than any other country in Africa. The government is a meticulous collector of fingerprints — nearly every legal resident and citizen has a file somewhere — so bodies without any records are assumed to have been living and working in the country illegally. The corpses are fingerprinted when possible, but there is no regular DNA collection.

South Africa also has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime and police are more focused on solving domestic cases than identifying migrants.

“There’s logic to that, as sad as it is….You want to find the killer if you’re a policeman, because the killer could kill more people,” said Jeanine Vellema, the chief specialist of the province’s eight mortuaries. Migrant identification, meanwhile, is largely an issue for foreign families — and poor ones at that.

Vellema has tried to patch into the police missing persons system, to build a system of electronic mortuary records and to establish a protocol where a DNA sample is taken from every set of remains that arrive at the morgue. She sighs: “Resources.” It’s a word that comes up 10 times in a half-hour conversation.

So the bodies end up at Olifantsvlei or a cemetery like it, in unnamed graves. On a recent visit by AP, a series of open rectangles awaited the bodies of the unidentified and unclaimed. They did not wait long: a pickup truck drove up, piled with about 10 coffins, five per grave. There were at least 180 grave markers for the anonymous dead, with multiple bodies in each grave.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is working with Vellema, has started a pilot project with one Gauteng morgue to take detailed photos, fingerprints, dental information and DNA samples of unidentified bodies. That information goes to a database where, in theory, the bodies can be traced.

“Every person has a right to their dignity. And to their identity,” said Stephen Fonseca, the ICRC regional forensic manager.

————————

THE UNITED STATES: “THAT’S HOW MY BROTHER USED TO SLEEP”

More than 6,000 miles (9,000 kilometres) away, in the deserts that straddle the U.S.-Mexico border, lie the bodies of migrants who perished trying to cross land as unforgiving as the waters of the Mediterranean. Many fled the violence and poverty of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Mexico. Some are found months or years later as mere skeletons. Others make a last, desperate phone call and are never heard from again.

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In 2010 the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the local morgue in Pima County, Ariz., began to organize efforts to put names to the anonymous bodies found on both sides of the border. The “Border Project” has since identified more than 183 people — a fraction of the total.

At least 3,861 migrants are dead and missing on the route from Mexico to the United States since 2014, according to the combined AP and IOM total. The tally includes missing person reports from the Colibri Center for Human Rights on the U.S. side as well as the Argentine group’s data from the Mexican side. The painstaking work of identification can take years, hampered by a lack of resources, official records and co-ordination between countries — and even between states.

For many families of the missing, it is their only hope, but for the families of Juan Lorenzo Luna and Armando Reyes, that hope is fading.

Luna, 27, and Reyes, 22, were brothers-in-law who left their small northern Mexico town of Gomez Palacio in August 2016. They had tried to cross to the U.S. four months earlier, but surrendered to border patrol agents in exhaustion and were deported.

They knew they were risking their lives — Reyes’ father died migrating in 1995, and an uncle went missing in 2004. But Luna, a quiet family man, wanted to make enough money to buy a pickup truck and then return to his wife and two children. Reyes wanted a job where he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty and could give his newborn daughter a better life.

Of the five who left Gomez Palacio together, two men made it to safety, and one man turned back. The only information he gave was that the brothers-in-law had stopped walking and planned to turn themselves in again. That is the last that is known of them.

Officials told their families that they had scoured prisons and detention centres, but there was no sign of the missing men. Cesaria Orona even consulted a fortune teller about her missing son, Armando, and was told he had died in the desert.

One weekend in June 2017, volunteers found eight bodies next to a military area of the Arizona desert and posted the images online in the hopes of finding family. Maria Elena Luna came across a Facebook photo of a decaying body found in an arid landscape dotted with cactus and shrubs, lying face-up with one leg bent outward. There was something horribly familiar about the pose.

“That’s how my brother used to sleep,” she whispered.

Along with the bodies, the volunteers found a credential of a boy from Guatemala, a photo and a piece of paper with a number written on it. The photo was of Juan Lorenzo Luna, and the number on the paper was for cousins of the family. But investigators warned that a wallet or credential could have been stolen, as migrants are frequently robbed.

“We all cried,” Luna recalled. “But I said, we cannot be sure until we have the DNA test. Let’s wait.”

Luna and Orona gave DNA samples to the Mexican government and the Argentine group. In November 2017, Orona received a letter from the Mexican government saying that there was the possibility of a match for Armando with some bone remains found in Nuevo Leon, a state that borders Texas. But the test was negative.

The women are still waiting for results from the Argentine pathologists. Until then, their relatives remain among the uncounted.

Orona holds out hope that the men may be locked up, or held by “bad people.” Every time Luna hears about clandestine graves or unidentified bodies in the news, the anguish is sharp.

“Suddenly all the memories come back,” she said. “I do not want to think.”

—————-

SOUTH AMERICA: “NO ONE WANTS TO ADMIT THIS IS A REALITY”

The toll of the dead and the missing has been all but ignored in one of the largest population movements in the world today — that of nearly 2 million Venezuelans fleeing from their country’s collapse. These migrants have hopped buses across the borders, boarded flimsy boats in the Caribbean, and — when all else failed — walked for days along scorching highways and freezing mountain trails. Vulnerable to violence from drug cartels, hunger and illness that lingers even after reaching their destination, they have disappeared or died by the hundreds.

“They can’t withstand a trip that hard, because the journey is very long,” said Carlos Valdes, director of neighbouring Colombia’s national forensic institute. “And many times, they only eat once a day. They don’t eat. And they die.” Valdes said authorities don’t always recover the bodies of those who die, as some migrants who have entered the country illegally are afraid to seek help.

Valdes believes hypothermia has killed some as they trek through the mountain tundra region, but he had no idea how many. One migrant told the AP he saw a family burying someone wrapped in a white blanket with red flowers along the frigid journey.

Marta Duque, 55, has had a front seat to the Venezuela migration crisis from her home in Pamplona, Colombia. She opens her doors nightly to provide shelter for families with young children. Pamplona is one of the last cities migrants reach before venturing up a frigid mountain paramo, one of the most dangerous parts of the trip for migrants travelling by foot. Temperatures dip well below freezing.

She said inaction from authorities has forced citizens like her to step in.

“Everyone just seems to pass the ball,” she said. “No one wants to admit this is a reality.”

Those deaths are uncounted, as are dozens in the sea. Also uncounted are those reported missing in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. In all at least 3,410 Venezuelans have been reported missing or dead in a migration within Latin America whose dangers have gone relatively unnoticed; many of the dead perished from illnesses on the rise in Venezuela that easily would have found treatment in better times.

Among the missing is Randy Javier Gutierrez, who was walking through Colombia with a cousin and his aunt in hopes of reaching Peru to reunite with his mother.

Gutierrez’s mother, Mariela Gamboa, said that a driver offered a ride to the two women, but refused to take her son. The women agreed to wait for him at the bus station in Cali, about 160 miles (257 kilometres) ahead, but he never arrived. Messages sent to his phone since that day four months ago have gone unread.

“I’m very worried,” his mother said. “I don’t even know what to do.”

———————-

ASIA: A VAST UNKNOWN

The region with the largest overall migration, Asia, also has the least information on the fate of those who disappear after leaving their homelands. Governments are unwilling or unable to account for citizens who leave for elsewhere in the region or in the Mideast, two of the most common destinations, although there’s a growing push to do so.

Asians make up 40 per cent of the world’s migrants, and more than half of them never leave the region. The Associated Press was able to document more than 8,200 migrants who disappeared or died after leaving home in Asia and the Mideast, including thousands in the Philippines and Indonesia.

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Thirteen of the top 20 migration pathways from Asia take place within the region. These include Indian workers heading to the United Arab Emirates, Bangladeshis heading to India, Rohingya Muslims escaping persecution in Myanmar, and Afghans crossing the nearest border to escape war. But with large-scale smuggling and trafficking of labour, and violent displacements, the low numbers of dead and missing indicate not safe travel but rather a vast unknown.

Almass was just 14 when his widowed mother reluctantly sent him and his 11-year-old brother from their home in Khost, Afghanistan, into that unknown. The payment for their trip was supposed to get them away from the Taliban and all the way to Germany via a chain of smugglers. The pair crammed first into a pickup with around 40 people, walked for a few days at the border, crammed into a car, waited a bit in Tehran, and walked a few more days.

His brother Murtaza was exhausted by the time they reached the Iran-Turkey border. But the smuggler said it wasn’t the time to rest — there were at least two border posts nearby and the risk that children far younger travelling with them would make noise.

Almass was carrying a baby in his arms and holding his brother’s hand when they heard the shout of Iranian guards. Bullets whistled past as he tumbled head over heels into a ravine and lost consciousness.

Alone all that day and the next, Almass stumbled upon three other boys in the ravine who had also become separated from the group, then another four. No one had seen his brother. And although the younger boy had his ID, it had been up to Almass to memorize the crucial contact information for the smuggler.

When Almass eventually called home, from Turkey, he couldn’t bear to tell his mother what had happened. He said Murtaza couldn’t come to the phone but sent his love.

That was in early 2014. Almass, who is now 18, hasn’t spoken to his family since.

Almass said he searched for his brother among the 2,773 children reported to the Red Cross as missing en route to Europe. He also looked for himself among the 2,097 adults reported missing by children. They weren’t on the list.

With one of the world’s longest-running exoduses, Afghans face particular dangers in bordering countries that are neither safe nor welcoming. Over a period of 10 months from June 2017 to April 2018, 4Mi carried out a total of 962 interviews with Afghan migrants and refugees in their native languages around the world, systematically asking a series of questions about the specific dangers they had faced and what they had witnessed.

A total of 247 migrant deaths were witnessed by the interviewed migrants, who reported seeing people killed in violence from security forces or starving to death. The effort is the first time any organization has successfully captured the perils facing Afghans in transit to destinations in Asia and Europe.

Almass made it from Asia to Europe and speaks halting French now to the woman who has given him a home in a drafty 400-year-old farmhouse in France’s Limousin region. But his family is lost to him. Their phone number in Afghanistan no longer works, their village is overrun with Taliban, and he has no idea how to find them — or the child whose hand slipped from his grasp four years ago.

“I don’t know now where they are,” he said, his face anguished, as he sat on a sun-dappled bench. “They also don’t know where I am.”

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[marianocurtis73-blog]

PS4 (Slim) Assessment Deserving Of An Upgrade?

This start-up company belongs to a group from business on a mission to own the embracement from electrical cars and trucks for public health and worldwide warming factors via an electric vehicle rental company and an overnight billing service for people without a garage. She loses every thing, goes back to San Francisco to present her aspects and also to state the reddish cars and truck that was actually endowed to her. Specialist providers such as Google, Uber and Apple, and also chip producer Nvidia, have actually all been working toward autonomous motor vehicle technology in competition along with both each other as well as automobile suppliers. However, Mr McSpadden, 47, and also his wife, 49, profess the authentic deeds provided each property 2.1 m of automobile parking space and that they are actually utilizing theirs accurately. 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The Kia Optima user interface allows vehicle drivers enjoy music by means of the auto's sources while allowing Android Vehicle consume the display screen for Google Right now memory cards or even Google Maps navigating. Like the VR facet, that is actually extremely amazing, as well as internally, we are actually moving focus to Task CARS 2 now, but also there's one more staff working on Reddish Bull. However it is actually reasonable to point out that these vehicles are currently closer to become 'classics' in comparison to Corsas from the exact same vintage. Audi has performed its very own test runs, consisting of a trial on a part of a Fla highway that was reserved for autonomous cars and truck research study. 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Due to the fact that they will certainly encourage those extra vacations, a research study at the University of Michigan this year claimed that driverless cars are going to definitely use more gas than cars and trucks along with vehicle drivers. The proposal, if taken in, would demand people to have management of the cars and trucks when necessary and take accountability for tickets as well as mishaps. Task CARS AND TRUCKS is actually now on call. for the PS4, Xbox One and also PC. For extra on the activity check out our total testimonial as well as permit us understand in the reviews segment here if you have any sort of concerns. Fortunately is that car managers with thorough insurance coverage are actually covered for water events, as well as probably will not deal with the same type of obstacles with insurance companies as residents which could possess several component of coverage rejected or haggled above. In this particular situation, the most effective method to validate that the automobile is actually secured is actually to look through the windows to inspect the internal latching mechanism.

[thrivous]

This is a double issue of Pulse: I skipped last week’s issue. I have this to say in my defense: I wrote last week’s Pulse, but forgot sending it to our esteemed editor. I guess the time has come for me to start taking nootropics to combat cognitive decline. I should also play more video games (see below), while impatiently waiting for advanced neurotechnology.

Brain science and neurotechnology news feature prominently in recent science and human enhancement headlines. "That may sound like an outtake from 'The Matrix,'" notes The New York Times. "But now two neuroscientists at the University of Rochester [see below] say they have managed to introduce information directly into the premotor cortex of monkeys."

An Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm learned to identify patterns of brain activity associated with the onset of a seizure (see below). "IBM runs the neural networks on TrueNorth, its ultra-low power neuromorphic computing chip," notes IEEE Spectrum. "At the size of a postage stamp, the chip could be used in a wearable device for people with epilepsy, or connected to a mobile device."

"The hope is that one day this could be applied as a wearable seizure warning system, meaning patients could be alerted via text message or an app that a seizure is likely to occur. This could mean they could take measures such as ensuring they are in a safe environment for the seizure, family or friends could be alerted, or a patient could choose to take medication to prevent a seizure," an IBM spokesperson told ZDNet.

Rewiring the brain with electrical stimulation. Scientists at the the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Neurology and the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience have found a way to harness the brain’s plasticity to rewire lost neural connections, an advance that could accelerate the development of neuro-prosthetics. A study published in Neuron shows that, in experiments with monkeys, very low levels of electrical stimulation delivered directly to an area of the brain responsible for motor function can instruct an appropriate response or action, essentially replacing sensory signals. According to the researchers, the findings could have significant implications for the development of brain-computer interfaces and neuro-prosthetics, which would allow a person to control a prosthetic device by tapping into the electrical activity of their brain.

Predicting epileptic seizures with neuromorphic chips and deep learning. Researchers at the University of Melbourne and IBM Research-Australia have used a mobile, brain-inspired processor, running deep learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, to analyze brain signals from retrospective patient data recorded under the skull, successfully predicting an average of 69 per cent of seizures across all patients. The system is based on IBM’s neuromorphic computing chips that, taking inspiration from how the brain processes data, permit running deep learning algorithms in an extremely power efficient way. The research has been presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society and detailed in a study titled “Epileptic Seizure Prediction using Big Data and Deep Learning: Toward a Mobile System,” to be published in EBioMedicine.

Video game training is good for the older brain. Scientists at the University of Montreal have found that seniors could benefit from playing games like Super Mario 64 to stave off mild cognitive impairment and perhaps even prevent Alzheimer's disease. A study published in PLoS ONE reports that patients between 55 and 75 years old, who participated in video game training, saw increases in gray matter volume in the hippocampus and cerebellum. Their short-term memory also improved.

Synthetic, evolving protein assemblies could permit better delivery of therapies. Researchers at the University of Washington have created computationally designed protein assemblies, which display some functions normally associated with living things. The research work, published in Nature, shows how synthetic protein assemblies that encapsulate their own genetic materials, and evolve new traits in complex environments, could permit developing ways to transport therapeutic cargos into specific types of cells without using viruses as vehicles.

3D printing living tissue for low-cost tissue engineering. Scientists at Penn State have found a way to create the structural framework for growing living tissue using an off-the-shelf 3D printer. A research paper published in Advanced Healthcare Materials shows how the researchers, using a combination of 3D printing and electrospinning (a method that uses electric charge to spin nanometer threads), have developed a low-cost and efficient method to fabricate high-resolution and repeatable 3D polymer fiber patterns on nonconductive materials for tissue engineering with available hobbyist-grade 3D printers.

Precision nanomaterials could  selectively kill cancer cells. Researchers at Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) have advanced toward using man-made nanoscale compounds in the fight against cancer. A recent proof-of-concept study published in Journal of the American Chemical Society shows  that dendrimers, organically synthesized large molecules that match nature's peptides and proteins with respect to size and structure, may be used to introduce compounds that essentially trick cancer cells into performing self-destructive tasks.

Toward programmable cancer immunotherapy. Scripps Research Institute researchers have discovered that a protein called “Runx3” programs killer T cells to establish residence in tumors and infection sites. The research results, published in Nature, indicate that Runx3 works on chromosomes inside killer T cells to program genes in a way that enables the T cells to accumulate in a solid tumor, and also plays a role in directing white blood cells that attack solid tumors in mouse melanoma models. The scientists expressed confidence that Runx3 could open new opportunities for improving cancer immunotherapy.

Modified CRISPR technology treats diabetes, kidney disease, muscular dystrophy in mice. Scientists at Salk Institute have created a new version of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology that allows activation of genes without creating breaks in the DNA, potentially circumventing a major hurdle to using gene editing technologies to treat human diseases. As a proof of concept, the Salk group used their new approach to treat several diseases, including diabetes, acute kidney disease, and muscular dystrophy, in mouse models. The research results have been published in Cell.

Self-assembling DNA nanotech with 3D DNA bricks. Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and around the world have developed ways to allow DNA strands to self-assemble into increasingly complex 3D structures such as scaffolded DNA origamis. A study published in Nature describes how the scientists improved 100-fold on their own previously published results, enabling next-generation DNA bricks to self-assemble into 3D nanostructures with more than 10,000 unique components, which are 100 times more complex than those created with existing methods. The researchers noted that these “DNA bricks,” able to carry out assembly and enzymatic processes, could be converted into powerful tools for commercial and biomedical nanofabrication processes on a new scale.

3D-printing lifelike artificial organs. Scientists at the University of Minnesota have built 3D-printed lifelike artificial organ models that mimic the exact anatomical structure, mechanical properties, and look and feel of real organs. A study published in Advanced Materials Technologies describes patient-specific organ models built with a custom 3D-printer. The artificial organs, which include integrated soft sensors, can be used for practice surgeries to improve surgical outcomes in thousands of patients worldwide.

Protein confirmed to act against cancer metastases. Researchers at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology have confirmed that the protein Caveolin-1 has high potential in the fight against cancer. The research results, published in Cell Reports, confirm that the protein has has both tumor-promoting and tumor-suppressive functions, and indicate that Caveolin-1 acts as an anti-metastatic regulator in mouse models of lung and breast cancer pulmonary metastasis. Since metastases cause 90 percent of human cancer deaths, the scientists are persuaded that the protein could offer promising therapeutic perspectives.

Programmable drug delivery systems combats diseased cells at genetic level. Scientists at the University of Connecticut have developed a new drug delivery system that uses a synthetic-biological hybrid nanocapsule. A study published in Bioconjugate Chemistry describes a programmable, modular delivery platform that combines synthetic peptides, surfactants, and nucleic acids to form a nanocapsule that allows time-appropriate, enzyme-specific co-release of a given pharmaceutical and an oligonucleotide (DNA or RNA), and can be tailored to combat new disease challenges as they emerge.The researchers are persuaded that the findings could provide a smart technology for targeted treatment of a variety of serious diseases at the genetic level.

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Originally published at thrivous.com on December 18, 2017 at 10:33AM.