The US Department of Defense has a unique scientific division DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) - the Agency for Advanced Defense Research Projects.
The scientists working here are called the dark geniuses of the Pentagon, and the agency itself is the main forge of revolutionary innovations. With a huge ($ 3.2 billion a year) funding, the agency is able to support any project - even if it seems to have descended from the pages of a fantasy novel.
Artificial soldiers
DARPA was founded in 1958 in response to the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite in the USSR. It has about 240 employees, each of whom works as part of a small team dealing with a promising problem.
Individual DARPA projects, as a rule, are financed in the amount of 10 to 40 million dollars, their implementation is calculated on average for 2-3 years. Up to 10 contractor organizations and 1-2 universities can be involved in the work. The salary of the project manager is at least 130 thousand dollars a year, the salary of a researcher - from 90 to 150 thousand dollars, depending on the prospects of his research.
Mule robots
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But in reality, the wages of DARPA employees can be safely increased at least twice - through additional bonuses and grants.
About 5% of the research is top secret, information about the rest is posted on the website
agencies - so that scientists can become familiar with their topics and offer their services.
In 2011, the agency announced the opening of a new division - the Biological Technologies Office. His task is to put biology at the service of national security, right up to the creation of artificial soldiers.
DARPA chief Arati Prabhakar, speaking to US congressmen, said that biology is now at the forefront of projects that represent the future of defense technology.
What do biological projects of the secret geniuses of the Pentagon offer the world?
Creatures with an everlasting life span
One of the projects being developed by DARPA, called BioDesign ("Bio-design"), Its goal is to create living and breathable creatures.
It is assumed that such organisms will become completely obedient to their masters and can live almost forever, unless it is decided that it is time for them to die.
According to DARPA executives, the project uses the latest advances in biotechnology. It is emphasized that cells of an artificial organism will have resistance to aging and death processes (cancer cells have similar properties).
Information about the creature's creators will be recorded in its DNA, thanks to which scientists hope to avoid interception of immortal organisms by the enemy. In the same way, it is planned to implement the complete subordination of artificial beings - the sequence of their actions will also be recorded in DNA.
In case the creature gets out of control, DARPA intends to provide a "cell switch", which will lead to the immediate death of the organism. True, how this is planned to be implemented is still unknown.
To make BioDesign a success, DARPA is committed to investing $ 20 million in synthetic biology and $ 7.5 million in genome analysis and modification research.
The prosthesis is like a normal hand
Among the specific tasks that stand out is the creation of mind-controlled hand and leg prostheses. Scientists from Johns Hopkins University, with the support of DARPA, have taken a huge step in this area. One of the revolutionary prostheses, called the Arm System Gen-Z ("3rd Generation System Bracket"), has already been inspected and licensed by the US Department of Healthcare.
The agency's website says that such artificial limbs are completely close to the functionality of real human hands. This has been facilitated by advances in the technology of special microelectrodes, which are implanted in the head and provide a connection between the nervous system and artificial body parts.
Scientists are currently working to ensure that the prosthesis is not only controlled by the brain, but also sends signals to the nervous system itself, causing a sense of genuine physical functioning.
Moreover, this is far from the first project to create artificial limbs as close as possible to the present. In particular, prostheses already exist, commands to which are transmitted by electrical signals through muscles. The experience of scientists at the University of Pittsburgh with macaques is also known, sending mental commands to a mechanical hand that peeled bananas for them.
The fundamental novelty of the prosthesis, created by scientists at Johns Hopkins University, is that for the first time a neural interface was implanted into the human brain. DARPA allocated $ 34.5 million for the implementation of the project.
Five volunteers tested prostheses weighing about nine pounds, about the same as a normal human hand. The prosthesis has 22 degrees of freedom, including independent movements of each finger, and some feedback, in particular - separate functions of touch.
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh are supporting this research by creating microcircuits with electrodes that resemble small hairs - with the goal of significantly extending their life, without which patients are doomed to regularly expose themselves to serious risks of periodic brain surgery.
Bone Fusion Putty
Another goal of DARPA research is to create artificial, yet living materials such as putty or putty to treat bone fractures. After the fusion of bone tissue with open fractures takes a long time, the patient often requires numerous operations and long-term treatment.
DARPA has launched a program called Fracture Putty, in which researchers create an active material that, when applied to or around an open fracture, restores bone bearing properties within days.
It creates a kind of bone-like structure, and when the fracture heals, it decomposes into harmless absorbable products.
If the experiment is successful, the bone healing process will be drastically reduced. True, within the framework of the project, scientists will have to solve a number of technological issues. For example, new absorbable adhesives have to be created that will have the same mechanical properties as bone tissue - as well as biomaterials that create a bone-like internal structure.
A world without disease
But perhaps the most ambitious project of the DARPA agency is related to the desire to completely eradicate infectious diseases. According to US statistics, 44% of all registered pathogens are RNA viruses (that is, their genetic information is encoded in ribonucleic acid molecules that are found in the cells of all living organisms).
In particular, influenza and hepatitis viruses are RNA viruses. They are characterized by a high mutation rate and the ability to adapt to a changing environment, as happened in the 2009 H1N1 (“swine flu”) pandemic. But the main thing is that even the most powerful antibiotics become useless in the fight against them, since infections have learned to quickly adapt to them.
The Prophecy program examines the evolution of viruses. The ultimate goal is to create medicines to fight diseases that may threaten humanity in the future. Already several laboratories on the instructions of the agency are engaged in breeding viruses and diagnosing their mutations.
Exoskeleton
Scientists are confident that on the basis of these data, it will very soon be possible to accurately predict in which direction this or that common disease will evolve - and the timely release of drugs to combat it will avoid the spread of the disease.
This, of course, is only a small part of DARPA's biological research. Chemicals have already been tested that, when injected into the body without surgery, heal internal wounds and bleeding.
There is a project, the development of which will allow people with visual impairments to drive a car - using electronic sensors mounted in gloves. A flexible and lightweight support suit is being developed, completely eliminating injuries in any type of activity.
Almost all of the revolutionary technologies of the secret geniuses of the Pentagon look incredible at first. But their successful implementation can completely change the life of humanity in the future.
Nikolay MIKHAILOV