The story could have been straight out of science fiction – scientists have grown human brain cells in a lab, and taught them to play the video game Pong, similar to squash or tennis. But this didn’t happen on the big screen. It happened in a lab in Melbourne, Australia, and it raises the fundamental question of the legal status of these so-called neural networks.
Are they the property of the team that created them, or do they deserve some kind of special status – or even rights?
The reason this question needs to be asked is because the ability to play Pong may be a sign that these lab-grown brain cells have achieved sentience – often defined as the capacity to sense and respond to a world that is external to yourself.
And there is widespread consensus that sentience is an important threshold for moral status. Ethicists believe that sentient beings are capable of having the moral right not to be treated badly, and an awareness of the implications of sentience is increasingly embedded in research practices involving animals. READ MORE...
In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia.
Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay.
He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the rock – after all, Maryborough is in the Goldfields region, where the Australian gold rush peaked in the 19th century.
To break open his find, Hole tried a rock saw, an angle grinder, a drill, even dousing the thing in acid. However, not even a sledgehammer could make a crack. That's because what he was trying so hard to open was no gold nugget. As he found out years later, it was a rare meteorite.
"It had this sculpted, dimpled look to it," Melbourne museum geologist Dermot Henry told The Sydney Morning Herald.
"That's formed when they come through the atmosphere, they are melting on the outside, and the atmosphere sculpts them."
Unable to open the 'rock', but still intrigued, Hole took the nugget to the Melbourne Museum for identification.
"I've looked at a lot of rocks that people think are meteorites," Henry told Channel 10 News.
In fact, after 37 years of working at the museum and examining thousands of rocks, Henry explains only two of the offerings have ever turned out to be real meteorites.
This was one of the two. TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS ROCK, CLICK HERE...
Rugby Australia has offered to host this summer's British and Irish Lions series against South Africa.
The Lions are due to visit South Africa in July and August with a three-Test series against the world champ. But issues around Covid-19, including the emergence of a new variant in South Africa, has led to uncertainty over the viability of the tour.
"We're here to help," Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"What we learnt from the Tri Nations last year and the tennis that's happening now is that Australia can successfully stage global tournaments in a Covid world.
"It's particularly tough in the UK and South Africa at the moment and I believe the more international rugby that gets played here, the better."
McLennan says profits from the tour would be split between the Lions and South Africa, with Rugby Australia covering their costs.
The Lions board have been discussing contingency plans in the event the trip has to be abandoned, including the possibility of hosting games in the UK and Ireland.
Crowds have returned to watch live sport in Australia, with up to 30,000 fans allowed to watch next month's Australian Open in Melbourne.
