Science & Technology
European researchers have developed technology enabling robots to obey Asimov's golden rules of robotics: to do no harm to humans and to obey them.
In Abraham Stroock's lab at Cornell, the world's first synthetic tree sits in a palm-sized piece of clear, flexible hydrogel -- the type found in soft contact lenses.
Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a "tree" that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.
The researchers' work, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Nature, bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Of course, the synthetic tree doesn't look much like a tree at all. It consists of two circles side by side in the gel, patterned with evenly spaced microfluidic channels to mimic a tree's vascular system.
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| ©Abraham Stroock and Tobias Wheeler |
| A transparent sheet of pHEMA, 1 millimeter thick, is etched with 80 parallel channels of varying lengths arranged to form a circle and connected by a single channel. The inset shows an optical micrograph of the cross-section of one microchannel. |
Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a "tree" that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.
The researchers' work, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Nature, bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Of course, the synthetic tree doesn't look much like a tree at all. It consists of two circles side by side in the gel, patterned with evenly spaced microfluidic channels to mimic a tree's vascular system.
Astronomers from around the world combined data from ground- and space-based telescopes to paint a detailed portrait of the brightest explosion ever seen. The observations reveal that the jets of the gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B were aimed almost directly at the Earth.
GRB 080319B was so intense that, despite happening halfway across the Universe, it could have been seen briefly with the unaided eye (ESO 08/08). In a paper to appear in the 11 September issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University, Pennsylvania (USA), and a team of 92 co-authors report observations across the electromagnetic spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed it for months afterwards.
"We conclude that the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material almost directly towards Earth at almost the speed of light - the difference is only 1 part in 20 000," says Guido Chincarini, a member of the team.
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| ©Unknown |
GRB 080319B was so intense that, despite happening halfway across the Universe, it could have been seen briefly with the unaided eye (ESO 08/08). In a paper to appear in the 11 September issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University, Pennsylvania (USA), and a team of 92 co-authors report observations across the electromagnetic spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed it for months afterwards.
"We conclude that the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material almost directly towards Earth at almost the speed of light - the difference is only 1 part in 20 000," says Guido Chincarini, a member of the team.
Memories of highly charged events such as the July 7 bombings can be totally inaccurate and too unreliable to use in court, a psychologist has found.
More than a third of people questioned in a survey about one of the London terror incidents claimed to have seen footage which does not exist.
Dr James Ost, of the University of Portsmouth, said people create false memories which can pose problems for police investigating major crimes, social workers investigating families where abuse is suspected, adults who believe they have "recovered" memories from childhood trauma and for the courts where witness testimony is relied upon. He told the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool many people can be persuaded they have seen things which never happened.
His findings were based on a study carried out over a two-week period in October 2005, three months after the attacks on the Underground and a bus in central London.
More than a third of people questioned in a survey about one of the London terror incidents claimed to have seen footage which does not exist.
Dr James Ost, of the University of Portsmouth, said people create false memories which can pose problems for police investigating major crimes, social workers investigating families where abuse is suspected, adults who believe they have "recovered" memories from childhood trauma and for the courts where witness testimony is relied upon. He told the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool many people can be persuaded they have seen things which never happened.
His findings were based on a study carried out over a two-week period in October 2005, three months after the attacks on the Underground and a bus in central London.
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| ©NASA |
| A Hubble Space Telescope image of the massive star Eta Carinae shows two large bubbles of gas expanding in opposite directions from its bright central region. |
Stars have onion-like layers that blow off in fiery explosions before a final killing blow - a supernova - turns them into black holes, according to a new theory of star death.
These repetitive blasts are too powerful to be caused by stellar winds, as previously believed - so they must come from a new type of explosion originating in the star's interior, astronomers say.
Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.
From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.
From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.
There appears to be an upper limit to how big the Universe's most massive black holes can get, according to new research led by a Yale University astrophysicist and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Once considered rare and exotic objects, black holes are now known to exist throughout the Universe, with the largest and most massive found at the centres of the largest galaxies. These "ultra-massive" black holes have been shown to have masses upwards of one billion times that of our own Sun. Now, Priyamvada Natarajan, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, has shown that even the biggest of these gravitational monsters can't keep growing forever. Instead, they appear to curb their own growth - once they accumulate about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.
These ultra-massive black holes, found at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies in huge galaxy clusters, are the biggest in the known Universe. Even the large black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy is thousands of times less massive than these behemoths. But these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighbouring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where - and when - they appear in the Universe. "It's not just happening today," said Natarajan. "They shut off at every epoch in the Universe."
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| ©NASA |
| Researchers have found that ultra-massive black holes, which lurk in the centers of huge galaxy clusters like the one above, seem to have an upper mass limit of 10 billion times that of the Sun. |
Once considered rare and exotic objects, black holes are now known to exist throughout the Universe, with the largest and most massive found at the centres of the largest galaxies. These "ultra-massive" black holes have been shown to have masses upwards of one billion times that of our own Sun. Now, Priyamvada Natarajan, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, has shown that even the biggest of these gravitational monsters can't keep growing forever. Instead, they appear to curb their own growth - once they accumulate about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.
These ultra-massive black holes, found at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies in huge galaxy clusters, are the biggest in the known Universe. Even the large black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy is thousands of times less massive than these behemoths. But these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighbouring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where - and when - they appear in the Universe. "It's not just happening today," said Natarajan. "They shut off at every epoch in the Universe."
Geneva - The world's largest particle collider passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.
London - Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday.
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| ©Fabrice Coffrini/Pool/Reuters |
| Scientists look at a computer screen at the control centre of the CERN in Geneva September 10, 2008. Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) started up a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday, aiming to re-enact the conditions of the 'Big Bang' that created the universe. |
If we see a shadowy figure walking down a dark street, our sense of whether it is coming at us or walking away depends on whether we see it as a he or a she, new research finds.
This new result sheds light on the subtle judgments the brain makes when it notices motion.
This new result sheds light on the subtle judgments the brain makes when it notices motion.
Comment: Though the author makes some good points regarding the results of scientific advancement without the parallel development of conscience, what is missing from his account is the awareness that some of these technologies are deliberately invented to be used against the majority of common people, by the pathocratic elite.