Hoover Institution: Anticipating and Navigating Strategic Technological Surprise. Really!

This subject has been frequently regurgitated at least since about 1945! It was a constant, recurring subject during the entire Cold War!

Deepseek's R1 model release in January 2025 is not a great example! Chinese AI research has been cutting edge for years! Just think of all the many preeminent Chinese machine learning & artificial intelligence scientists working in the US alone!

"Hoover Institution Research Fellow Herb Lin and researcher Maria Langan-Riekhof argue in this new essay that rapid technological advancement creates strategic surprises that governments and institutions struggle to anticipate. They define strategic technological surprises as disruptions that overturn prevailing assumptions, shift power dynamics, and demand significant and rapid societal responses.

China’s development of the DeepSeek AI R1 model exemplified this, shattering assumptions about China’s ability to produce competitive AI at scale. ..."

"DeepSeek's R1 release in January 2025 caught U.S. policymakers flat-footed. The AI research community had seen it coming for months in Chinese academic papers and patent filings. A new framework from Hoover's Tech Futures Lab asks why that gap, the one between what is knowable and what gets acted on, keeps opening, and how to close it before the next surprise arrives. ..."

The Next DeepSeek Moment Is Right Around the Corner

Anticipating And Navigating Strategic Technological Surprise

ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly

Cause for concern!

Unfortunately, it appears I can not access the ASPI website from behind the Great Firewall despite VPN software.

"ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: in ever more technologies, China is moving towards monopoly ...

China is no longer merely leading the research in major technology fields. It’s also moving towards a monopolistic position in most of them, the latest update of ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker shows. As wars in ..."

Today on The Strategist

Sub-$200 Lidar Could be installed in every car

Good news!

"MicroVision, a solid-state sensor technology company located in Redmond, Wash., says it has designed a solid-state automotive lidar sensor intended to reach production pricing below US $200. That’s less than half of typical prices now, and it’s not even the full extent of the company’s ambition. The company says its longer-term goal is $100 per unit. MicroVision’s claim, which, if realized, would place lidar within reach of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) rather than limiting it to high-end autonomous vehicle programs. Lidar’s limited market penetration comes down to one issue: cost. ..."

Low-Cost Solid State Lidar Aims for ADAS Integration - IEEE Spectrum "MicroVision says its sensor could one day break the $100 barrier"

MicroVision hopes to produce a lidar unit costing under US $200—half of typical prices today.

How China is Trying to Sabotage India’s Smartphone Manufacturing with Palki Sharma

Serious stuff! The superpower rivalry between China and India.

Agile and versatile climbing quadrupedal robot on vertical walls and ceilings with ferromagnetic surfaces

We are getting there! Today its magnet feet (not too impressive), tomorrow ...

However, even with magnetic feet it is an impressive feat! Important lessons probably learnt going forward (pardon my pun)!

From the abstract:

"A climbing robot that can rapidly move on diverse surfaces such as floors, walls, and ceilings will have an enlarged operational workspace compared with other terrestrial robots. However, the climbing skill of robots in such environments has been limited to low speeds or simple locomotion tasks. Here, we present an untethered quadrupedal climbing robot called MARVEL (magnetically adhesive robot for versatile and expeditious locomotion), capable of agile and versatile climbing locomotion in ferromagnetic environments. MARVEL excels over prior climbing robots in terms of climbing speed and ability to execute various motions. It demonstrates the fastest vertical and inverted walking speed, whereas its versatile locomotion ability enables the highest number of gaits and locomotion tasks. The key innovations are an integrated foot design using electropermanent magnets and magnetorheological elastomers that provide large adhesion and traction forces, torque control actuators, and a model predictive control framework adapted for stable climbing. In experiments, the robot achieved locomotion on ceilings and vertical walls up to 0.5 meter (1.51 body lengths) per second and 0.7 meter (2.12 body lengths) per second, respectively. Furthermore, the robot exhibited complex behaviors such as stepping over 10-centimeter-wide gaps; overcoming 5-centimeter-high obstacles; and making transitions between floors, walls, and ceilings. We also show that MARVEL could climb on a curved surface of a storage tank covered with up to 0.3-millimeter-thick paint with rust and dust."

Agile and versatile climbing on ferromagnetic surfaces with a quadrupedal robot | Science Robotics (open access)

Credits: Marvel lernt extremklettern

Fig. 1. MARVEL performing various locomotion tasks.

Why the industrial metaverse will eclipse the consumer one

Recommendable! This is a long and interesting interview with an expert on this matter.

Why the industrial metaverse will eclipse the consumer one | VentureBeat

U.S. FAA Publishes Proposed Airworthiness Criteria for Archer’s Midnight eVTOL

Good news! Will there be the first air taxis by about 2025?

"The Airworthiness Criteria for the electric aircraft designed by Archer Aviation have been published by the Federal Aviation Administration. This is an important achievement for the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) developer on the path to beginning commercial urban air mobility operations in the U.S. ..."

Federal Register :: Airworthiness Criteria: Special Class Airworthiness Criteria for the Archer Aviation Inc. Model M001 Powered-Lift

FAA Publishes Proposed Airworthiness Criteria for Archer’s Midnight eVTOL

Wie China die europäische Wissenschaft für militärische Zwecke ausbeutet

Empfehlenswert! 

Sehr clever diese massive und gross angelegte Verbindung von als Wissenschaft verkleidete Spionage!

Ich bin sehr zuversichtlich, dass bei 2049 die Kommunistische Diktatur über die chinesischen Menschen längst der Vergangenheit angehören. Nur noch Historiker werden sich dann mit diesem brutalen Irrweg der ältesten, kontinuierlichen Hochzivilisation der Menschheit auseinander setzen und kritisch würdigen! 😄

"Wie sich der chinesische Präsident Xi Jinping die Welt im Jahr 2049, also zum hundertsten Geburtstag der Volksrepublik, vorstellt, hat er oft genug deutlich gemacht. China ist dann die mächtigste Nation der Welt.
Dazu braucht es die stärkste Armee, und weil man das aus eigenen Kräften nicht erreichen kann, die freundliche Unterstützung der europäischen Wissenschaft. Schon 2007 wurden über das Tausend-Talente-Programm chinesische Wissenschaftler in alle Welt geschickt, um mit dem dort erworbenen Wissen den Aufstieg zu beschleunigen.
Die Militärbehörden fungierten als heimliche Verbindungsoffiziere und brachten ihre Landsleute gezielt in Forschungsprojekten unter, die für China militärisch gewinnbringende Erkenntnisse versprachen. Die deutschen Hochschulen und Institute nahmen das Geld dankend an, für das sie sich ausnahmsweise einmal nicht selbst bewerben mussten.
Wie stark sich die europäische Wissenschaft für Chinas militärischen Aufstieg hat einspannen lassen, hat jetzt ein Konsortium aus elf europäischen Medien um die Investigativ-Netzwerke Correctiv und Follow the Money enthüllt. Das Rechercheteam untersuchte dreißigtausend Publikationen aus den Jahren 2000 bis 2022 auf Verbindungen zum chinesischen Militär. Europaweit wurde man in knapp dreitausend Fällen fündig. ..."

Wie China die europäische Wissenschaft ausbeutet Ein Recherchenetzwerk findet heraus, dass China die europäische Wissenschaft gezielt für den Aufbau seiner Armee einspannt. Auch hier ist es Zeit für einen Kurswechsel.

China: How science made a superpower

Recommendable! There is no doubt that Chinese researchers will significantly contribute to drive the advancement of science & technology in the coming decades!


China: How science made a superpower: China: How science made a superpower
Shellen Wu traces the rise of the dominant force in science, in the second of a series of essays on the ways in which the past 150 years have shaped today’s research system, marking Nature’s anniversary.

Hot Recent Science & Technology Articles (35)

Posted: 5/24/2017

1. 'Smart genes' account for 20% of intelligence: study (Hope, we will be smarter soon!)
2. Fullerene nanoflask captures reactivity of atomic nitrogen (This is highly promising!)
3. Machine learning dramatically streamlines search for more efficient chemical reactions
4. Team cures diabetes [type 1] in mice without side effects (“... The pancreas has many other cell types besides beta cells, and our approach is to alter these cells so that they start to secrete insulin, but only in response to glucose [sugar]”... The therapy is accomplished by a technique called gene transfer. A virus is used as a vector, or carrier, to introduce selected genes into the pancreas. These genes become incorporated and cause digestive enzymes and other cell types to make insulin. Gene transfer using a viral vector has been approved nearly 50 times by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to treat various diseases … It is proven in treating rare childhood diseases, and Good Manufacturing Processes ensure safety.)
5. Researchers achieve direct counterfactual quantum communication
6. Seeing through fog using noisy light
7. Scientist invents way to trigger artificial photosynthesis to clean air
8. Enzyme saves us from insect dust and worm skin
9. Surprising Brain Change Appears to Drive Alcohol Dependence
10. Buried lasers will sense Earth's spin and quakes doing the twist (“.... In doing so, ROMY [the tetrahedron, Rotational Motions in Seismology] will measure minuscule changes in Earth's spin rate and spin axis. The speed and pace of those measurements promise to add an increment of precision to GPS navigation, and ROMY may even be able to detect a subtle effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity: the drag of the rotating planet on nearby spacetime, … ROMY also will be sensitive to the weak rotations that accompany earthquakes, long-ignored motions that contain clues to the interior structure of Earth … With its 12-meter arms, ROMY is more sensitive than previous ring lasers, capable of sensing Earth's spin to better than one part per billion. And instead of one square ring, it has four triangular ones. Three of them are required to pin down rotations in any direction, and the fourth adds redundancy. Construction began in March 2016 and finished 6 months later. Last month, engineers achieved first light in all four rings at the same time—a sign that the geometry of the tetrahedron is precise enough to keep all the lasers resonating properly.”)
11. Giant space magnet may have trapped antihelium, raising idea of lingering pools of antimatter in the cosmos (If confirmed, this could be huge! “The AMS [Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. In 2011, NASA launched the 8.5-metric-ton magnet on the penultimate space shuttle flight and attached it to the International Space Station (ISS)] … has seen a handful of candidate particles of antihelium-3, made of two antiprotons and an antineutron. In labs on Earth, physicists have made antihelium for a few fleeting instants, but no one has ever detected it in space.”)
12. Immune cells unexpectedly help the heart keep its beat (“The researchers then discovered that macrophages were common in AV [atrioventricular] nodes from mouse and human hearts ... When the researchers grew macrophages and heart muscle cells together in culture dishes, they found that the two types of cells were connected physically and synchronized electrically. Because of these interactions, macrophages made it easier for their muscular neighbors to fire … When the team began examining mice that lacked macrophages, a technician noticed that the electrical rhythms of the animals’ hearts were abnormal. … the rodents appeared to have an AV block, in which the AV node doesn’t forward the atrial signal to the ventricles. ...”)
13. Naked mole-rats turn into plants when oxygen is low (Naked mole rats are absolutely amazing animals! They live up to 30 years (about 10 times longer than other, comparable rodents); rarely have cancer; do not feel many types of pain. “But naked mole-rats have a backup: their brain cells start burning fructose, which produces energy anaerobically through a metabolic pathway that is only used by plants ... In the new study, the researchers exposed naked mole-rats to low oxygen conditions in the laboratory and found that they released large amounts of fructose into the bloodstream. The fructose, the scientists found, was transported into brain cells by molecular fructose pumps that in all other mammals are found only on cells of the intestine. … The naked mole-rat has simply rearranged some basic building-blocks of metabolism to make it super-tolerant to low oxygen conditions," … At oxygen levels low enough to kill a human within minutes, naked mole-rats can survive for at least five hours … They go into a state of suspended animation, reducing their movement and dramatically slowing their pulse and breathing rate to conserve energy. And they begin using fructose until oxygen is available again.
14. The naked mole-rat is the only known mammal to use suspended animation to survive oxygen deprivation. … an adaptation for living in their oxygen-poor burrows. Unlike other subterranean mammals, naked mole-rats live in hyper-crowded conditions, packed in with hundreds of colony mates. With so many animals living together in unventilated tunnels, oxygen supplies are quickly depleted.”)
15. First evidence for higher state of consciousness found
16. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-physicists-negative-mass.html
17. Atomic Spins Evade Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle New measurements revise the limits of quantum fuzziness
18. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-ancient-teeth-evidence-ice-age.html
19. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-physicists-hidden-aspects-electrodynamics.html
20. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-star-wars-superlaser-longer-sci-fi.html (This could be huge! But no details are provided!)
21. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-vacuum-channel-transistor-combines-semiconductors.html
22. http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_20170403/lander.html
23. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-03-brain-tranquility.html
24. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/millions-atoms-entangled-record-breaking-quantum-tests
25. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-reshape-basic-plasma-physics.html (Advances in nuclear fusion!
26. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-physicists-reveal-experimental-verification-key.html (More advances in nuclear fusion)

Hot Recent Science & Technology Articles (34)

Posted: 4/24/2017

1. Mars rover spots clouds shaped by gravity waves (“NASA’s Curiosity rover … Well into its fifth year, the rover has now shot more than 500 movies of the clouds above it, including the first ground-based view of martian clouds shaped by gravity waves … Gravity waves, common atmospheric ripples on Earth that result from air trying to regain its vertical balance … ”)
2. Rewriting Life  Protein Hints at a Fountain of Youth in Blood  It’s another tantalizing finding in an area of anti-aging research that has had mixed results. (“... researchers discovered that older mice had low levels of a protein called osteopontin, and that stem cells injected into the mice quickly aged. The reverse—putting old stem cells into a dish filled with osteopontin—appeared to rejuvenate them. … What it comes down to is that no one knows what it is about young blood that causes the rejuvenation effect—or whether blood is even the most important part of the equation.”)
3. Molecule kills elderly cells, reduces signs of aging in mice (Closing in on the fountain of youth. “... Now, researchers have developed a molecule [there is no description of the molecule] that selectively destroys these so-called senescent cells. The compound makes old mice act and appear more youthful, ...”)
4. Most Cancer Cases Arise from "Bad Luck" Environment and heredity are smaller players than researchers previously believed (This article generated some controversy! In my understanding, this boils down to the law of great numbers or statistics. Cells that divide frequently, suffer more from inevitable, random mutations than other cells)
5. It wasn't just Greece: Archaeologists find early democratic societies in the Americas (Sounds more Spartan than Athens to me! “The candidate for political office stood in a plaza, naked, bracing himself against the punches and kicks. … People for whom he had risked his life in war after war hurled blows and insults from all directions. ... Trained as a warrior, he knew he had to stay calm to reach the next phase of his candidacy. This ordeal ... was merely the beginning of the long process of joining the government of the Mesoamerican city of Tlaxcallan, built around 1250 C.E. …, Mexico. After this trial ended, the candidate would enter the temple … and stay for up to 2 years, while priests drilled him in ... moral and legal code. He would be starved, beaten with spiked whips when he fell asleep, and required to cut himself in bloodletting rituals. But when he walked out of the temple, he would be more than a warrior: He would be a member of … senate, one of the 100 or so men who made the city's most important military and economic decisions.”)
6. Earth’s Lost History of Planet-Altering Eruptions Revealed Geologists unearth signs of major volcanic events stretching back 3 billion years (“Enormous volcanoes vomited [sic!] lava over the ancient Earth much more often than geologists had suspected. Eruptions as big as the biggest previously known ones happened at least 10 times in the past 3 billion years, an analysis of the geological record shows. … Technically, the eruptions are known as ‘large igneous provinces’ (LIPs). They can spew more than one million cubic kilometres of rock in a few million years. By comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state put out just 10 cubic kilometres. … These large events also emit gases that can change atmospheric temperature and ocean chemistry in a geological blink of an eye. A modelling study published last month suggests that global temperatures could have soared by as much as 7 °C per year at the height of the Siberian eruptions …  Sulfur particles from the eruptions would have soon led to global cooling and acid rain; more than 96% of marine species went extinct. … On average, LIPs occur every 20 million years or so. The most recent one was the Columbia River eruption 17 million years ago, in what is now the northwestern United States. … Venus, Mars, Mercury and the Moon all show signs of enormous eruptions, Gregg notes. On the Moon, LIP-style volcanism started as early as 3.8 billion years ago; on Mars, possibly 3.5 billion years ago. But without plate tectonics to keep the surface active, those eruptions eventually ceased.”)
7. Nanoscale logic machines go beyond binary computing (“... the possibility of a new class of tiny analog computers that can solve computationally difficult problems by simple statistical algorithms running in nanoscale solid-state physical devices … The new nanologic machines consist of individual phosphorous atoms that are precisely positioned and embedded in a silicon crystal at a density of about 200 billion atoms per square centimeter. Single electrons randomly move in and out of the atoms due to quantum tunneling. Since each atom can hold one or two of these electrons, and each electron can occupy a few different energy levels, each atom can occupy one of four possible states. Each atom is constantly transitioning between its four states according to a certain set of probabilities, corresponding to the random movement of electrons tunneling in and out of the atom and changing their energy levels.”)
8. Glass shield may protect water bears from dehydration (“... their ability to survive droughts by drying up and then rehydrating years or maybe even decades later … During the process, they essentially lose all the water in their body and cells. The creatures also start pumping out unique, amorphous proteins that form a glasslike material inside of their cells, ... The material may encase and shelter vital molecules, such as other proteins, until the dry spell is over.”)
9. World’s first full-body PET scanner could aid drug development, monitor environmental toxins (“... Obviously when developing new treatments, pharmaceutical companies have a target of interest. But the problem when you get into human clinical trials is toxic side effects in other parts of the body. And so one thing that EXPLORER [full body PET scanner] does that I think will be very exciting for drug development is that we can radioactively label that drug and watch where it goes in the body over time. We can see its concentration in every single tissue and organ in the body. Drug companies are very excited about that prospect ...”)
10. Running away from Einstein (“Einstein's theory of gravity may have to be rewritten, after researchers at the University of St Andrews found a gigantic ring of galaxies darting away from us much faster than predicted. This 10 million light year-wide ring made up of small galaxies is expanding rapidly like a mini Big Bang. The team believe our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, once flew past our own galaxy at close range, creating a sling-shot of several small galaxies. … ”)
11. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-wi-fi-rays-light100-faster-overloaded.html (This could be huge! Powerful indoor optical wireless networks)
12. The Tiny Robots Will See You Now
13. Brain is 10 times more active than previously measured, researchers find
14. The K factor
15. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-facebooks-machine-learning-algorithms-accurately-predict-suicide/
16. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-world-oldest-fossils-unearthed.html
17. Optical clocks hit the road
18. Bumble bees are surprisingly innovative
19. Brain Imaging Identifies Different Types of Depression Biological markers could enable tailored therapies that target individual differences in symptoms (Hopefully, this finally is a breakthrough in being able to properly diagnose depression! “The researchers used a noninvasive technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the strength of connections between neural circuits in the brain. Analyzing fMRI scans from more than 1,000 people, of whom about 40 percent had been diagnosed as depressive, the team identified four subtypes of depression. If confirmed in additional studies, the findings could enable clearer diagnoses and pave the way for personalized therapies targeting brain networks found to be awry in individual patients. … the fMRI-based subdivisions could be linked to particular symptoms. Patients falling into the first two subtypes reported more fatigue whereas those in the other two reported more trouble feeling pleasure. This subtyping has implications not just for diagnosis but potentially for non pharmaceutical treatment. Relative to groups two and four, people with depression subtype 1 were three times as likely benefit from a newer therapy known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS. ”)
20. Seven Earth-sized planets around a tiny star (We are not alone! Only 39 light years away “An international team has discovered that the ultracold dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 is orbited by seven planets comparable to Earth in size. For all but the outermost planet, the researchers were also able to obtain density estimates and concluded that the data “broadly suggest rocky compositions.” Most intriguingly, all the planets could potentially house liquid water on at least limited regions of their surfaces. ”)
21. An alternative to opioids? Compound from marine snail is potent pain reliever (Good news! Perhaps finally a powerful non-addictive pain killer? “Conus regius, a small marine cone snail common to the Caribbean Sea, packs a venomous punch, capable of paralyzing and killing its prey. In this study, the researchers found that a compound isolated from snail's venom, Rg1A, acts on a pain pathway distinct from that targeted by opioid drugs. Using rodent models, the scientists showed that α9α10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) functions as a pain pathway receptor and that RgIA4 is an effective compound to block this receptor. The pathway adds to a small number of nonopioid-based pathways that could be further developed to treat chronic pain. Interestingly, the duration of the pain relief is long, greatly outlasting the presence of the compound in the animal's system.”)