This topic emerged through a screening of emerging issues in science, technology and society in the context of the FET CSA OBSERVE.

http://www.horizon-observatory.eu/radar-en/index.php

The big picture

Our perception of what it means to be human and what characterises other species is shifting. Boundaries between humans and animals on the one hand and humans animals and machines on the other are blurring. New research methods transform the way we analyse species evolution.

Plant communication

Several studies point out that plants weave complex social relations and can communicate with themselves and with animals. Some argue that their right should be more considered especially in the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction.Source: the guardian, Book: Brilliant Green;

Human animal relationship

The relationship between animals and human beings is changing. Firstly, there is a kind of technical domestication apparent in developments like remotely controlled bugs (biodrones), fish-guiding robots or genetically altered pets. With science increasingly pointing to animal culture and self awareness there is debate on (human) rights for animals and ever more people adopt vegetarism and veganism. Furthermore, some people modify their body in order to become like animals. Source: Aggregation of several;

Technological Singularity

The technological singularity is a hypothetical event in which artificial general intelligence would be capable of recursive self-improvement and thereby ultimately surpass human control or understanding. This expectation has long been voiced in Science Fiction but is also expected and discussed by several researchers. More and more such as physicist Stephen Hawking warn that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. FET proposals point out that groundwork in fields like ontologies, knowledge representation, computational linguistics and cognitive systems is still necessary. Source: Aggregation of several;

Robot reasoning

A new generation of robots with cognitive planning and reasoning capabilities is being developed. They can handle uncertainty, act in messy unpredictable situations and carry out creative tasks like participating in a cartoon contest. Furthermore some re-searchers focus on a kind of artificial consciousness and self awareness - a concept that is highly contested by some philosophers. Source: Aggregation of several;

Research front: Models for predicting potential distributions of species

Species distribution models (SDMs) that help to estimate the development of ecological niches of species and their preference for habitats are an increasingly hot research area in environmental science with many practical applications. Source: Thomson Reuters Research Fronts 2014;

Bacteria-robot model systems

In a recent paper a Virginia Tech scientist used a mathematical model to demonstrate that bacteria can control the behaviour of an inanimate device like a robot. In agriculture, bacteria-robot model systems could enable robust studies that explore the interactions between soil bacteria and livestock. Source: DEEPSTUFF.ORG;