Science & TechnologyS


Monkey Wrench

Rise of the Machines: Military robots to be armed with Tasers

Mark Jewell
Physorg.com / AP
Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:17 UTC
RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled 'bots for police and the Pentagon.

By adding Tasers to robots it already makes for the military, iRobot Corp. says it hopes to give soldiers and law enforcement a defensive, non-lethal tool.

But some observers fear such developments could ultimately lead to robots capable of deciding on their own when to shoot and kill.

Comment: But questions of moral agency do arise.

What is the difference between a robot and a psychopath taking life or death decisions over others if they are both equally heartless?

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Telescope

Huge Dust Storm Breaks Out on Mars

Dave Mosher
Yahoo! News / Space.com
Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:40 UTC
A major dust storm has developed on the red planet, blocking sunlight and prompting Mars mission managers to keep a close eye on it, SPACE.com has learned.

It is not known how large the storm might grow, but already it is thousands of miles across. If it balloons, as dust storms have done in the past, it could hamper operations of NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Comment: Bad weather on Earth, bad weather on Mars. Coincidence?

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Attention

Hubble Catches Jupiter Changing Its Stripes


Newswise
Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:09 UTC
Massive Jupiter is undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes that have never been seen before with the keen "eye" of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Jupiter's turbulent clouds are always changing as they encounter atmospheric disturbances while sweeping around the planet at hundreds of miles per hour. But these Hubble images reveal a rapid transformation in the shape and color of Jupiter's clouds near the equator, marking an entire face of the globe.

©NASA
Between March 25 and June 5, Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 captured entire bands of clouds changing color. Zones have darkened into belts and belts have lightened and transformed into zones. Cloud features have rapidly altered in shape and size.
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Ark

Egypt Says Mummy Is Queen Hatshepsut

KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press
Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:06 UTC


©AP Photo/Amr Nabil
The mummy of Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut is displayed at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt - A tooth found in a relic box led archaeologists to identify a long-overlooked mummy as that of Egypt's most powerful female pharoah _ possibly the most significant find since King Tutankhamun's tomb was uncovered in 1922, experts said Wednesday.
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Bulb

What are dogs thinking? Pups imitate behaviors

Rob Stein
Washington Post
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:10 UTC
Dog owners have long maintained that their pooches have a lot more going on between their furry ears than scientists acknowledge. Now, new research is adding to the growing evidence that man's best friend thinks a lot more than many humans have believed.

The provocative new experiment indicated that dogs can do something that previously only humans, including infants, have been shown capable of doing: decide how to imitate a behavior based on the specific circumstances in which the action takes place.
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Magnify

Crater Could Solve 1908 Tunguska Meteor Mystery

Dave Mosher
Space.com
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:44 UTC
In late June of 1908, a fireball exploded above the remote Russian forests of Tunguska, Siberia, flattening more than 800 square miles of trees. Researchers think a meteor was responsible for the devastation, but neither its fragments nor any impact craters have been discovered.

Astronomers have been left to guess whether the object was an asteroid or a comet, and figuring out what it was would allow better modeling of potential future calamities.

©www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska / University of Bologna
A three-dimensional rendering of Lake Cheko in Tunguska, Siberia. The level of the lake is lowered 40 meters (131 feet) to emphasize its cone-like shape.

Italian researchers now think they've found a smoking gun: The 164-foot-deep Lake Cheko, located just 5 miles northwest of the epicenter of destruction.
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Question

Archaeological sensation in Oestfold, find indicates Inca Indian died, buried in Norway


The Norway Post
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:56 UTC
The remains of two elderly men and a baby were discovered during work in a garden, and one of the skulls indicates that the man was an Inca Indian.

- There is a genetic flaw in the neck, which is believed to be limited to the Incas in Peru, says arahaeologist Mona Beate Buckholm.
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Display

Lemon, Rose-Flavored Tomato Developed


AFP
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:41 UTC
Israeli researchers say they have genetically engineered tomatoes to give hints of lemon and rose aromas that have done well in testing on volunteers.

The transgenic tomato includes a gene from a variety of lemon basil, Ocimum basilicum, that produces an aroma-making enzyme called geraniol synthase, Efraim Lewinsohn of Newe Yaar Research Center and colleagues report.

Comment: What's wrong with letting a tomato be a tomato?

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Question

Mysterious rock found embedded in Sandstone, South Point rock one for the ages

Kirsten Stanley
Ironton Tribune
Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:30 UTC
Ohio - Bill Gaskin is amused by all the attention that one big rock can bring.

The South Point mayor said a mysterious rock found after a recent rockslide on old U.S. 52, just above the railroad bridge, has interested a lot of people.

The rock, about 4-foot-by-4-foot, was found embedded in sandstone when crews were removing debris. "It just rolled out," when workers started breaking up the larger stone with machinery, the mayor said.
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Star

NASA's Swift Sees Double Supernova in Galaxy


NASA
Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:23 UTC
In just the past six weeks, two supernovae have flared up in an obscure galaxy in the constellation Hercules. Never before have astronomers observed two of these powerful stellar explosions occurring in the same galaxy so close together in time.

The galaxy, known as MCG +05-43-16, is 380 million light-years from Earth. Until this year, astronomers had never sighted a supernova popping off in this stellar congregation. A supernova is an extremely energetic and life-ending explosion of a star.

Making the event even more unusual is the fact that the two supernovae belong to different types. Supernova 2007ck is a Type II event - which is triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses gravitationally, producing a shock wave that blows the star to smithereens. Supernova 2007ck was first observed on May 19.
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