THE LIVING ROBOTIC FROG

This wildly weird story was spotted and shared by C.R.G., but it requires a little trip around Harvey's Barn before we get to it. In fact, that little trip around "Harvey's Barn" - or rather, the expression "a trip around Harvey's Barn" - requires its own little trip around Harvey's Barn for those who may be new to this site. That "trip around Harvey's Barn" was an expression my mother used to indicate my father's, and my, propensity to indulge in long preambles before coming to the main point. For me, it's a necessary thing: the journey, or the context, is as often as important as the point of an argument itself. Hence, those long trips around Harvey's Barn only to arrive back at the same point are important, for we now have a context - the whole barn so to speak - in which to appreciate the particular view of the barn from where we started and where we ended up.

So much for our first little excursion around Harvey's Barn. Our second trip, one much more germane to the topic at hand, is this: Catherine Austin Fitts has remarked on a few occasions of her quarterly Solari wrap-ups with me that she strongly suspects that one reason that Mr. Globaloney is pushing the "harvesting" of aborted human fetal tissue - usually for organs and stem cells - is that she thinks that they have discovered its an important component of making artificial intelligences really work. That insightful speculation was constantly in the back of my mind as I read this story that C.R.G. shared:

Note that in spite of the rather provocative (and scary) picture of a robotic frog that accompanies the article, the reality is not quite as Frankensteinish (or is it?):

Scientists have invented the first ever living robots. The robotic devices are made from the embryonic skin and heart cells of frogs. They’re known as Xenobots, getting their name from the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, whose stem cells are used to make the robots. This species of frogs is found in the streams and ponds of sub-Saharan Africa, where they search for food. The frogs are renowned for their claws that they use to tear the food they find.

Xenobots, developed by scientists from Tufts University and the University of Vermont, are the first-ever robots to be created entirely from living material. The machines are tiny creatures, less than a millimeter (0.04 inches) wide, and can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food, and work together in groups. They, however, can’t evolve or recreate. What’s unique about these creatures is that they can heal by themselves when wounded.

Xenobots are devised on a supercomputer running software that imitates natural selection. Algorithms are then instructed to optimize each Xenobot for a different basic function such as moving back and forth or manipulating objects like carrying a payload. The algorithm forwards the digital blueprints it believes are best suited to the task at hand. The best plans are molded with small forceps and searing irons then released into Petri dishes, where the fragments of amphibian flesh live for a week before decaying. (Emphasis added)

And there you have it. Nothing to see here, no actual digital-living robotic "designer frog" as depicted in the picture; move along.

Doubtless there are some that will hail all this as being potentially "just wonderful", especially that part about the ability to heal themselves. Ahhh.... science!  (And when I say "just wonderful", I'm thinking of the character Opec in the P.D.Q. Bach opera The Abduction of Figaro, and his aria of praise in the second act to the Pasha Shaboom [another character in said opera].)

But as always, there's some high octane speculation to be indulged in when an article like this comes along. Note firstly the general connection between the robotic-frog "organism" and super-computer algorithms. As one might expect, I suspect there may be more going on here than meets the eye, or is being disclosed, particularly when we're told that they were designed by software that "imitates natural selection." The bow to the Great God "Evolution" seems to be rather obvious. But I have to wonder which version of "natural selection" on the endlessly patched quiltwork of evolutionary theory we're talking about here? Darwin's gradualism? The "hopeful monster" version? Gould's "punctuated equilibrium"? All of these thoughts remind me of the opening lines of C.S. Lewis' poem on the subject titled Evolutionary Hymn:

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

There is, however, a more disturbing thought that occurred to me than just this bow to computer-modeling of an "evolutionary algorithm" that is being used to blueprint "designer frogs." And that more disturbing thought is really the heart of my high octane speculation for today. The article, as noted, has a somewhat shocking picture of a robotic "designer frog" at its very beginning. The article itself quickly dispels any such notions by pointing out that the "robotic frog" in this instance is very small and doesn't even look like a frog. It merely uses frog stem cells engineered with a specific algorithm to accomplish a specific task.

But here's the rub: most readers here probably have seen those pictures or videos - and there are plenty - of humanoid robots climbing stairs, or doing other tasks. My constant complaint about robots in human roles - police, garbage collecting, waiters or waitresses (wait-entities?), is the lack of human responses. A robo-cop is far more likely to arrest you and give you a speeding ticket for being three tenths of a mile over the speed limit than a human policeman would be. It's the inability to reason with nuance and context, in other words, that disturbs me about robots.

So I have to wonder, as I ponder those pictures and videos of humanoid robots performing certain tasks, if they are not already using stem cells to give them that nuance. Human stem cells. And from whom? (And I'll give you one guess, and chances are, your guess is likely to be correct.)  Is there a dark side to what we've been seeing in those pictures and videos? One being deliberately kept secret?

It wouldn't surprise me.

And I'll bet it wouldn't surprise you either.

See you on the flip side...

 

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

32 Comments

  1. Pierre on January 20, 2021 at 7:36 pm

    reminds me of the 1972 ‘drive in’ B grade Frogs
    movie ‘today the pond, tomorrow the world’
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068615/mediaviewer/rm3200162561?ref_=tt_ov_i
    They are working on the Boiling Frog model (I am sure you all know of it) to make it a reality.. today frogs, tomorrow…. so we dont jump out of the pot (or kick out those who are producing the heat and telling us there is only fire outside.
    ( the https://yourblackworld.net/ is undated, as are more and more web pages of topical interest and not a few news services, and their link to discovermagazine is 403)



  2. Robert Barricklow on January 20, 2021 at 11:29 am

    A true sign of these cognitive/dissonance times:
    a forever croaking frog that never croaks.



  3. FiatLux on January 19, 2021 at 11:48 pm

    In Brave New World, if I recall correctly, humans didn’t procreate, but were produced in labs and only given the mental/physical attributes needed for them to fulfill their assigned role in society. That’s where I think this frog technology is leading.



    • Kaibosch on January 20, 2021 at 6:53 am

      Apropos of that; they already have neuro drugs for enhancing certain cognitive functions for military personnel according to their role.



  4. marcos toledo on January 19, 2021 at 7:38 pm

    It was the eighties Don B well the want to be are at it again their arrogance and ignorance never end. I dought these fools ever read Frankstein or science fiction, fantasy, mythology or folk tales. The danger has always been they always think or really dream that they know more than they do. It what they don’t know that will always bring trouble and disaster to the world. A wise man is one who knows that he-she the limits of their knowledge and ignorance of what they studying and the blindness of their beliefs and dogmas.



    • Don B on January 20, 2021 at 8:28 am

      Much thanks Marcos. I knew it was many years ago.



  5. Richard on January 19, 2021 at 6:30 pm

    Sounds typical of other experiments that have been going on behind what use to be the iron-curtain and now in earnest by big money, big tech, billionaires with something to prove (to their fanatical fantasy laden fraternity and sorority groups). It’s already been observed that frogs undergo changes under certain chemical exposures such as to concentrating herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. What’s a little boost from nanotechnology by those Dr Monroe affiliates? A little tweak here and there during artificial spawning and poof, another hybrid to see if it can be programmed with an OS.

    Makes one wonder what the biology dissection laboratories have been teaching new initiates behind closed doors. Probably gone from hard wiring tissues to GPS controlled wireless.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:09 pm

      Boris Karloff’s, The Hand, was wireless tech;
      wasn’t it?



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:55 pm

      Did you mean the famous
      Dr. Moreau of H.G. Well’s Island?



      • Richard on January 19, 2021 at 8:26 pm

        Heh, you’re right, I guess I did. Better have my DNA checked against previous samplings – There’s been three. The Others might have tweaked when one twitched last year. Either that or maybe a lightning bolt hit the time machine while en route back home.



  6. Winston1984 on January 19, 2021 at 6:29 pm

    Creepy…Just Creepy…Yeah this is exactly what we should be replacing nature with…NOT! Nyet, No, Nein.



    • Don B on January 21, 2021 at 11:48 am

      “Creepy…Just Creepy”..huh? Are you talking about joe bidet (in Robert’s parlance) ?



  7. Marco on January 19, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    What caught my eye was the phrase They, however, can’t evolve or recreate. We, the human beings, are the co-creators of or universe by having the ability to recreate via our stemcells. To me, this is where TPTB are after, so that they dont need “us” anymore in this simulation and can take us to the next layer of a simulation of our real world. We are hacked by a virus system.



    • Laura on January 19, 2021 at 7:26 pm

      If Xenobots were proven to be ‘safe and effective’ and the living tissue was harvested in a manner that violated no principle or universal law that supported a pathway of divinely inspired thought or action, I might try them. Seems like accepting the Xenobots would be subject to a safe and effective method to remove them. Is it reassuring the Xenobots begin their journey as real living tissue as opposed to that horrid synthetic variety?
      https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07289-x

      What if the nuance of sentient organic life or humanness is connected to the procreation urge or related life force, and if a critical mass of processes in the human body become influenced by AI, and then procreation of humans is nullified, but AI remains enhanced ?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpI_tpVft-Q



      • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 8:17 pm

        Can wait for the new cereal box.
        What will they call it?
        “CRISPRY Tricks”



  8. Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 12:09 pm

    My stomach is getting queasy from just the title.
    Eaaasy stomach, easy.
    [onto the blog]

    Yes! CAF is sharp, intuitive, and knows the enemy well. She’s not only able to connect the dots; she sees the whole picture immediately; and the holes w/in it.
    Aborted fetal tissue as “their” lego’s[logo] of construction[symbolic inhumanity].
    That pictures, in reality, immediately shows the con-artist signature of a wannabe god. A Dr. Frankenstein himself; an engineered life-like form, jealously mad w/envy of his “real” maker[which can be taken, in context, more than one and/or two ways].
    Oh my God! “Xenobots!”
    I have to tell you,
    the dark humor is deliciously evil.
    “Imitates natural selection”. A whole slew of lies in just those few words. Again, probably written w/o even knowing what they’re doing.
    Ultimately, their dark creations are going to be consumed by a darker lord, that they know next to nothing of.
    Again, a work in progress?
    What was that saying about the road to hell? Oops! The road to progress, I mean?

    It, and I do mean it; is NOT living!
    “They” are endless in this wicked “living robot” propaganda; to jam-down the throats and minds of all willing to believe it. As if man can engineer “real” life. He can procreate[the nice adjective] w/life and have women give birth; but play God? Yes, he can play at it; but not create it by hand, nor touch, nor black magick.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 12:16 pm

      Just got a few minutes before
      I zip-off to the mad tea party…

      Oh, they had to find the right subject to bring to robotic life. A clawed frog. Well, the evil villain in Bond movie was nicknamed “Jaws”; and that “living” frog going to get some sharp teeth sooner than later, I bet.
      It gets worse!:
      “Created entirely from living material”.
      Jesus Christ!
      Where are you when we need you!

      White Rabbit.



      • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:49 pm

        Loved it, “designer frog”!
        Ability to heal themselves?
        Too bad their makers can’t heal thyself.
        Designed by software[written by what generation algorithms?]
        Certainly, the metaphor version
        of “evolution” isn’t being welded
        into the live-in-action circuits.

        First time I’ve seen the poem;
        and it succinctly says it all.

        Yes, that’s “natural” for “them”
        to attempt to abominate
        the human spirit
        from here; to hell’s eternity.
        “They’ve” become “progress”,
        unbound and unconscionable.



  9. OrigensChild on January 19, 2021 at 11:06 am

    This one reminds me of the classic X-File episode from Season 4 called “Kaddish”. In this episode a grief torn wife creates a golem of her dead husband to exact revenge on a group of neo-Nazis responsible for his death. Every ancient text that I know of cautions us about the creation of golems. If programming was the only issue associated with the practice, why the prohibition?



    • Christine on January 19, 2021 at 6:56 pm

      If I remember correctly a golem eventually will revolt against its makers because though it has the appearence of being alive. It usually goes from being neutral to not so much. I.e. the Golem of Prague.

      I also remember watching a yt video quite sometime ago about plants natural ability to communicate with each other. We can not hear it with the naked ear but it can be translated into musical note. They sing so to speak. One experiment invovled a gmo tomato plant. It shown absolutely no ability to communicate on its own but was able to after exposure to natural plants that do.
      Either way this is the creepy stuff B movies are made from. Ed Wood would have loved it!



      • Christine on January 19, 2021 at 6:57 pm

        P.S. the Golem revolts because it has no soul. Should have proof read!



  10. Randy on January 19, 2021 at 10:38 am

    Is there a dark side to what we’ve been seeing in those pictures and videos? One being deliberately kept secret? …umm some of the “missing people” … being “harvested” ON this planet & OFF ?¿? & folks THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR AN very Very VERY VERY long time ? I read an “white paper” once bout that critter wit an “S” on his uni being made up of “artificial” “parts” & “stuff ” ?¿?



  11. anakephalaiosis on January 19, 2021 at 8:02 am

    Breaking the sixth seal!

    When Trumpy travels to hell, he will encounter his own shadow on the wall – in Plato’s Cave – and there he will, either make a run for it, like Dale Cooper, or defeat the black knight, and become lord of darkness.

    When traveling far enough, one meets oneself, staring back from the abyss, in the outer rim, at the end of the world, where the ego dies.

    KING ARTHUR’S GRAIL TOAST 3

    ᛠ WINTER DEATH
    Then I fell rock bottom clash,
    like rotten apple trash,
    and my wild rover
    in hangover,
    was dead drunk backlash.

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ccsirsai003ocg3/featherless-chicken.jpg



  12. goshawks on January 19, 2021 at 6:58 am

    A darker version, from the Sheldrake side:

    Joseph: “…frog stem cells engineered with a specific algorithm to accomplish a specific task.”

    The frog’s ‘Morphogenetic Field’ has been more-or-less stable for a long time. Lots of minor variations, i.e. sub-species, but stable. Now, scientists are kicking-open the door of that MF by changing the frog’s most-basic life force: its stem cell.

    There is a funny side of MFs, as discovered by Sheldrake: Accomplishing a new MF for the first time is incredibly difficult; there is no template in Nature*. However, each time the new MF is activated, the easier it becomes to do the next time. In essence, it is like building a habit.

    So, each time scientists produce a living monstrosity like this, they are messing with the MF of the frog population. Do this enough times, and something ‘fundamental’ may shift. Especially, if these ‘living tools’ are geared-up to industrial quantities…
    .
    .
    * One of the most famous examples cited as evidence for MFs was in the creation of new types of crystals. One theoretical type was very hard to create in practice. However, once one lab had managed to create that type, it suddenly became much easier to create in distant labs. Same procedures; different outcomes…



    • goshawks on January 19, 2021 at 7:09 am

      A side thought: What happens to the MF of all of humanity when ‘new’ mRNA is injected into, say, a billion humans in a biologically-brief time?



      • acorn on January 19, 2021 at 10:37 am

        So just refusing the-thing-they-call-a-vaccine-but-isn’t won’t be enough to keep from being affected and effected?
        I really dislike living in “interesting times.”



      • Alex on January 19, 2021 at 2:26 pm


      • Westcoaster on January 19, 2021 at 4:23 pm

        What happens is the prequel to “The Walking Dead”. BTW how does one “upvote”??



      • Richard on January 19, 2021 at 6:30 pm

        Probably become the docile dolts of dummkopfs.



      • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:32 pm

        The Twilight Zone goes Turtle Man:
        “Live Action Yee, Yee, Yeee!”.

        Rod Sterling would certainly
        ascribe living in these times as:
        Truth is stranger than fiction.



    • Don B on January 19, 2021 at 8:22 am

      Goshawks, when you mentioned crystals, it reminded me of the movie Stargate…. back in the 70s or 80s. I ‘m sure our friend Marcos knows which decade that was.



    • Robert Barricklow on January 19, 2021 at 7:20 pm

      “They” certainly live up to
      that twisted other MF, habitual meaning.
      [yes; and I do mean, a mean meaning]



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