BEIJING, April 13 (RIA Novosti) – Chinese health authorities reported on Saturday the first human infection with a new strain of bird flu in Beijing since the occurrence of the deadly virus in eastern parts of the country late last month, Xinhua news agency said. A test by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention early on Saturday confirmed that a seven-year-old girl whose father is involved in live poultry trading has been infected with the H7N9 strain of avian influenza. The new strain has already claimed the lives of 11 people in China. The new case raises the number of H7N9 infections in China to 44, with all the other 43 in the eastern parts of the country, Xinhua said. According to official statistics, a total of 20 cases, including seven ending in fatalities, have been registered in Shanghai. Twelve cases, including one death, have been reported in Jiangsu, and …

The next frontier for the robotics industry is to build machines that think like humans. Scientists have pursued that elusive goal for decades, and they believe they are now just inches away from the finish line. A Pentagon-funded team of researchers has constructed a tiny machine that would allow robots to act independently. Unlike traditional artificial intelligence systems that rely on conventional computer programming, this one “looks and ‘thinks’ like a human brain,” said James K. Gimzewski, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gimsewski is a member of the team that has been working under sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on a program called “physical intelligence.” This technology could be the secret to making robots that are truly autonomous, Gimzewski said during a conference call hosted by Technolink, a Los Angeles-based industry group. This project does not use standard robot hardware with integrated …

Dr He Jiankui, an associate professor at South University of Science and Technology of China, said yesterday that the authorities should be alarmed by the results of their research and step up monitoring and control efforts to prevent a possible pandemic. With genetic code of the virus obtained from mainland authorities, the team scrutinised haemagglutinin, a protein that plays a crucial rule in the process of infection. The protein binds the virus to an animal cell, such as respiratory cells in humans, and bores a hole in the cell’s membrane to allow entry by the virus. The researchers found dramatic mutation of haemagglutinin in one of the four flu strains released for study by the central government. Nine of the protein’s 560 amino acids had changed. In a typical flu virus, only one or two amino acids could change in such a short period of time, he said. “It happened …

Kyle Bass, Martin Armstrong, Larry Edelson, Charles Nenner, James Dines, Nouriel Roubini, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber and Jim Rickards Warn of War We’re already at war in numerous countries all over the world. But top economic advisers warn that economic factors could lead to a new world war. Kyle Bass writes: Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation. Martin Armstrong writes this week: We will be updating the Cycle of War. Obviously, it is time once …

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are heating up, with rhetoric from the North Koreans suggesting that an attack of some kind is being planned. This isn’t the first time the North Koreans have made threats against western powers and their southern neighbor, but the level of American response is unprecedented. The United States and our allies have re-positioned Naval battle groups, deployed Aegis missile defense systems, and a host of other technology to counter-act any potential threat. Military analysts have already warned about the possibility of North Korea exploding a high altitude nuclear device high above the continental United States using a “Super EMP” weapon capable of disabling the power grid in the lower 48 states. The North Korean space launch vehicle, a ‘weather’ satellite put into space in December of 2012 and carrying an unknown payload, will be passing over the geographic heart of the United States on April 10th. Curiously, the 10th is the same …