Science & Technology

This looks like a really interesting interactive site looking at the history of the Royal Society. See Trailblazing - Royal Society.

Seen on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog - Cool Tools: The Geek Atlas - a book about a large number of different places to visit that have special geeky significance. I wonder if it’s on sale here?

The Secret Life of Scientists is a PBS web series with videos about different scientists and what they do out of the lab. Maybe a ‘Secret Life of Theologians’ at some point?

Possibly the coldest object in space they reckon. See BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Planck achieves ultra-cold state.

(Of course, scientific measurements fail to accurately measure the temperature of sideline spectators watching their children play sport in the winter).

Attitudes towards technology include techno-optimism (the good features outweigh the bad), techno-pessimism (the bad features always outweigh the good), and instrumentalism (where technology might be value-neutral). Here’s an interesting mini-essay that picks up on the first of these attitudes - techno-optimism.

See: The Technium: Technophilia

When I can get a moment on the PC at home I’ll download and have a play with WorldWide Telescope. Looks interesting, but I need the PC to run it - no Mac version.

And I’ll get around to looking at Google Sky too.

When I was at high school I used to make regular trips into Wellington’s Carter Observatory to attend astronomical society meetings, so I was sad to see this article today noting the loss of jobs and national status there. Many good memories of heading up the cable car to the observatory and planetarium at the top of the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Places like that fired my imagination to engage with science by firstly wanting to become a scientist, and then more recently to look at science’s relationship with other things like religion. It appears, like many of these things, that the money could only stretch so far - concentrate on education and the research drops, on the research only and it becomes disconnected from the public (and stimulating young scientists). So much, perhaps, for funding a broad ‘knowledge economy’.

See: Jobs lost in Carter Observatory restructuring - Stuff.co.nz.

Hopefully, once the dust settles, there’s something to continue in some positive form.

Other links:

• Carter Observatory, Carter Observatory Distance Education, Carter Observatory (academic), and Carter Observatory - Wikipedia
• Auckland Stardome
• Mt John - Physics and Astronomy - University of Canterbury - New Zealand, Mt John observatory in Lake Tekapo - Tekapo Tourism, and Mt John observatory with Earth and Sky - Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.

This report on the announcement of an extra-solar planet (ie. one orbiting another star) that lies within the zone where water would be a fluid and is relatively small looks interesting. See SPACE.com — Major Discovery: New Planet Could Harbor Water and Life.

New images and other media from the ongoing Cassini-Huygens probe to Saturn. I’m continually amazed at probes like this, and the ability of the technical staff to extract/construct images etc. from the raw data supplied by the probe.
See:

• Cassini Imaging Diary
• NASA - Cassini-Huygens: Close Encounter with Saturn
• JPL - Cassini-Huygens Home

Brief article about access and use of information techonology in US education arena at CNN.com - Digital divide separates students - Sep 5, 2006. It points out that while getting educational institutions online helps improve access and skills for students that does not address the “out of school” access that complements it, and which is significant in shaping students opportunities and skills.

I hope something like this can work in the real world. Producing plastic from biomass, that in turn can be recycled does seem much better than just producing it from oil. See Wired News: Just One Word: Fructose.

The article here at Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact: Cheap Drinking Water from the Ocean talks about developments using carbon nanotube-based membranes for desalination. If implemented the technology could significantly reduce the cost of desalination and help alleviate water shortages. The membranes might also be able to be used to filter out various gaseous emissions such as CO2.

For the interesting things that happened this week in science file.

Genetic study reveals surprises in human evolution | Reuters.com
Last chromosome in human genome sequenced | Reuters.com
Chile telescope discovers three planets | Reuters.com

The latest Australian Sky and Telescope magazine (Jan/Feb 2006) comes with a DVD on the cover with a 2 hour long documentary produced by ESA on the history, work and future of the Hubble space telescope. I started to watch it and the kids drifted in and stayed to watch it too. A mixture of video and still footage, talking heads and CGI that seems to work quite well.

The magazine, which I don’t normally get as I tend to buy Astronomy every now and then, was not bad with (as one might expect) more Australian and New Zealand related material and sky charts.

These look interesting. Glasses that contain controllable pixels that can compensate for aberations in the eye giving enhanced vision. See Wired News: Super Vision Sans Bionics.

From the New Zealand Herald’s technology section - New Zealand Herald - Medical students learn on ‘breathing’ robots

MEXICO CITY - Faced with a growing number of medical students and few training hospitals, a Mexican university is turning to robotic patients to better train future doctors.

The New Zealand Herald : Technology and Science : Mind-enhancing drugs likely to be developed over next 20 years.

“We are on the verge of developments which could possibly move us into a world where we could take a drug to help us learn, think faster, relax, sleep more efficiently or even subtly alter our mood to match that of our friends,” Sir David said.
“This would have implications for individuals, and could lead to a fundamental change in the way we behave as a society,” he said.

Similar to the stuff I heard Eric Kandell talk about at Auckland Uni last year-the use of particular chemical compounds to enhance long-term memory.

IBM and The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland will work together to develop a detailed digital model of the brain, focusing upon the neocortex. See: IBM News - United States 2005-06-06 “Blue Brain” project explores thought at molecular level.

Shades of “RePet” from The 6th Day with this Guardian story.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The world’s first cloned pet (cost $50,000)

A cat lover in Texas has become the world’s first owner of a cloned-to-order feline, paying $50,000 for a genetic duplicate of her dead pet.

Wired News: U.N. Deadlocks on Cloning Ban

Tied up with this is the ongoing debate about is a “human life” different from a “human being”.

Italy’s proposal asks member states to “prohibit any attempts at the creation of human life through cloning processes and any research intended to achieve that aim.”

Human life tends to be a broader definition including early embryoic life, rather than human being which is often seen as a narrower definition.

RAILhead Design: APOD Grabber is a cool, little Mac OS X app that gives you the ability to quickly and easily view, browse, and download images from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day web site. It also grabs information about the picture and allows you to set the Desktop background too.

Found this excellent image of the night-time Earth today using it. See Earth at Night. You can grab the images as various resolutions but this would make an excellent poster or background.

From the NZ Greenpeace web site: Greenpeace : McDonalds go for non-GE feed

21 April 2004, Auckland, New Zealand: Ronald McDonald being forcibly removed by management at the Queen Street McDonald’s after resigning as the company mascot, over GE feed used in McDonalds meat products. (C) FOTOPRESS/Geoff Dale.

Click on image for larger (in-focus) picture.

Free Images of Ronald’s arrest: greenpeace.org.nz/photos/11may04
Free Images of Ronald’s resignation: greenpeace.org.nz/photos/21April04/

Recent article on the use of robots for the care of the elderly. Early work so far, working on supporting those with failing memories, but I remember seeing a video of Pearl (the robot in question) last year and it looked promising.

Robot helps elderly with personal care.

Video clips available at CMU/Pitt Nursebot Project.

Socks that plug into a battery and keep your feet warm using special conductive wool developed here in NZ.

Fly fishermen, skiers, hikers and sports fans, take note: Soon, all you will need to keep your toes toasty warm are special wool socks and a 7-volt battery.

See: Wired News: Warm Toes Are Happy Toes

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany and the University of Calgary in Canada have used a silicon chip to coax a pair of nerve cells to communicate. See:

• Chip Controls Neural Connection
• Cdn. researcher: Cells can grow on silicon
• The brain on a microchip

A lightweight piece on commercial robots from C-Net. I quite like the idea of the one that comes out each day and vacuums the house. See Invasion of the robots

Interesting article on addiction to television at Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor.

For growing numbers of people, the life they lead online may often seem more important, more immediate and more intense than the life they lead face-to-face. Maintaining control over one’s media habits is more of a challenge today than it has ever been. TV sets and computers are everywhere. But the small screen and the Internet need not interfere with the quality of the rest of one’s life. In its easy provision of relaxation and escape, television can be beneficial in limited doses. Yet when the habit interferes with the ability to grow, to learn new things, to lead an active life, then it does constitute a kind of dependence and should be taken seriously.

Now blogging wouldn’t be addictive, would it?

Jaron Lanier coined the term “virtual reality” in 1986 and was (is) one of the leading inventors of VR technology. Originally a strong proponent of technology and its benefits he now worries about the future of human culture more than the gadgets.

Lanier is also a an artist and musician of note and the PDF article below is an interview about what he calls ‘cybernetic totalism’ and the effects of technology on and in society. In his writings you can pick up a definite sense of an understanding of the spiritual nature of technology as well as its economic and social effect.

Out in the wider world, though, there’s a rebellion brewing precisely as a result of the sort of wild pronouncements about technology you see more and more often in press releases from places like MIT and Berkeley. There has long been a sense of economic injustice, but there’s a brewing sense of spiritual injustice. There’s this sense that it’s one thing if rich people in America drive fancy cars and have lower infant mortality, but this notion that some elite somewhere is defining the soul or making the soul into an obsolete idea or is going to transform what it means to be human or is going to be first in line for immortality - that idea strikes so deep it creates a sense of panic. And I believe this is the explanation for one of the weird features of our time, that every major religion has a terribly violent fundamentalist wing at the same time.

Interesting stuff.

The PDF is available here: What Keeps Jaron Lanier Awake at Night?

A cyberpunk short story about programmers who hack their own bodies, don’t need exercise and never get sick by Cory Doctorow. A nice fictional example of the posthuman intent that my research is examining. From Salon.com’s web site: “0wnz0red”

If you need help decoding some of the geekspeak see Glossary for the Jargon File and Leet - Wikipedia

An recent article on the blurring of real and virtual actors and stunt people, and the quest to make them more human. And the possible loss of work for the current stunt people.

newsobserver.com - A new risk in world of film stunts: computers

From the “Tech Files” it appears the the sci-tech people have been at it again. If you need is for fully flavoured coffee without the caffeine hit then someday this may be what you’re drinking.

Decaffeinated coffee beans now a possibility