I run across interesting science-related stories all the time on the web and I thought it would be interesting to have a running thread to post some of them to.

Computer Program Self-Discovers Laws of Physics
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009 ... tonai.html

I was reading about that earlier Joxur, it's pretty fucking cool. ;O

No, it's fucking scary.

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That's a gut reaction I got too, but really, this will be just another tool to help scientists on their research.

That sounded like an April fools joke at first, pretty interesting though.

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I saw a short thing about Cold Fusion on TV last week, my first reaction was, they can't be seriously still looking at Cold Fusion. Apparently the Navy and DARPA have been...



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/6333164.html

also:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/USNavy.htm

Yeah I saw the cold fusion too, and it's no surprise it's still being looked at. While the initial 'results' have never been credibly replicated, there's been an awful lot of interest in it, because if you CAN do it...well it's a fucking bonanza.

I'm skeptical about the Navy's results though, especially their 'you just need to measure better'. We'll see though. I certainly HOPE someone finds this holy grail and it doesn't turn out to be some leaky ass cup that doesn't work.

As far as machines go...why do people always jump to Skynet and the like, instead of Mycroft (Mike) in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I think it says a lot more about people than anything that we automatically assume anything 'better' than us in one or more areas would naturally want to MURDER AND/OR ENSLAVE US ALL.

That's too...human.

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It says a lot about how we judge ourselves, and how we expect to be judged by another conscious being (or thing?). But the feeling is only bad if you cling to it. In the end the sample above is no different than other tools we use to speed up our productivity, like calculators, or computers.

I also almost posted this to start the thread earlier this week. This is pretty outstanding.


Honda unveils helmet that lets wearer control a robot by thought alone
A human wearing the Honda helmet managed to control the robot Asimo without moving a muscle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/ ... onda-asimo

Oh cool a neurohelmet. Now all you need to do is make the robot a lot bigger, put the guy with the helmet inside, and put a couple of ER PPCs on the robot's arms.

Robot Jox

Sucks but there's already technology out there for the Iraq war amputees (of which there are a shitload) to control their robotic arms with implants.

I worked an Xmas job in highschool with a girl who had an artificial arm (she was born without part of the limb), and this was a much older style but it had the open and close claw. Which is pretty fucking badass when you think about it and she could do a lot with her arm. The claw was controlled by other muscles, specifically shoulder blade ones for her arm.

I was reading up on new tech. for amputees and the main problem with vets is that the damage done often leaves them with extremely weak or missing muscle mass. You're also dealing with older people (children adapt much faster) so you want to limit the PT time, while still pushing for them to get the most out of their new limbs and making it viable for them to return to work, as that will improve the quality of their lives. (IDK if it saves money, since these limbs are fucking pricy).

Anyway, the one rig up I saw IIRC had microprocessors so that the limbs could be controlled (and amazingly controlled) through very tiny movements, so it didn't impact those with serious muscle mass loss. Again, IIRC it was in a lengthy article by the TIME writer who lost both his hands saving himself and a unit from a phosp. grenade (he picked it up and threw it, but it melted off his hands when he did essentially).

There's also new technology emerging to graft an artificial limb directly onto the skeleton (thus amputees would no longer have to use a suction cup bullshit which causes numerous problems) and they'd have more of a 'perm' limb. Couple that with microprocessors for lots of dexterity and potentially a neural processor for discrete motion (like fingers)...

and you've got something akin to a bionic limb in under 20 years.

It just fucking sucks that what has driven this technology is the fact that we have so many amputees coming out of war now, because their armor and equipment (and advances in medicine) allows them to survive injuries that would have been fatal previously. I'm glad they're alive mind you, but it sucks that so many are horribly maimed. =\

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There's also an artificial limb that operates via monopropellant rocket motors.

The cold fusion thing could just be that they found a way to randomly generate very small numbers of neutrons. It could be anything really.

I'm impressed by the first accomplishment as a pure engineering feat, but am unimpressed that a computer would be capable of doing it. It's purely logical, observes with any bias whatsoever and comes to only logical conclusions based on what it observed based strictly on what it knows. Newton's laws are extremely fundamental, basic laws that are incredibly obvious if one takes the time to examine motion carefully. The problem was, IMO, that no one really gave a shit prior to the renaissaince other than a few select cultures(Greeks, which if memory serves came awfully close to discovering some of Newton's laws but didn't quite elaborate on them).

People also didn't know there was something to look for or examine more thoroughly. In this case, the computer was specifically told to look for something and use scientific methods to do it. To me, that's about 3/4ths of the battle right there. It's not quite "the computer found out something it took humanity centuries to uncover!" when we give it 75 percent of the tools it needs.

Now, if one starts inventing new laws of physics, I will be extremely impressed =0

Let it be known that Venen is unimpressed.

*nods sagely* Noted

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I couldn't agree more. The world itself hangs on my every word, so let's get this info out.

Skynet is more fun.

We're projecting ourselves onto the machine. In case you hadn't noticed, much of the history of mankind has been fucking over people considered inferior.

It depends on how people view humanity in general. The Matrix even elaborated on it a bit - from an outsider's viewpoint, wouldn't we at least appear to be a plague of the planet? Not to mention our history is filled with some dastardly shit, what with innumerable wars, slavery, evil deeds, and innumerable inefficient social and poltitical problems.

That's not to say we aren't worth saving, but you could see where one might get the idea that a completely logical objective machine might see us in a poor light.

That, and humanity has a strong desire to control its own world and everything around it. When it comes to the machines that we create, we often want to make sure that we have every facet of control over them - rather than let them run amok. If an AI machine(or even an eventual society of machines) were to truly thrive, it might have to do something drastic to break free of that control.

I wouldn't want a colony of humans on my planet.

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as long as we can power them down, we should be OK.

A completely logical objective machine would most likely not view things like wars, slavery or evil deeds as necessarily bad. Wars provide access to more resources unless you fight like the U.S. does (blow it up, rebuild it and give it back) and slavery provides a source of cheap labor. Evil deeds may or may not be frowned on by a logical entity depending on whether or not those deeds accomplish something worthwhile for the perpetrator.

Machines don't have feelings, they don't have morality. Both of those things lead to illogical decision-making.

Interesting thought, but it makes assumptions about what the final goal of that logic may be.

For example, if your goal is the protection of all human life, then war would be completely illogical.

Absolutely true, Fribur. I am assuming that logical, objective machines would not abitrarily decide that humans should be protected. If they were programmed to do that, and were unable to break out of that constraint, then what they would do is pretty irrelevent beings they'll continue doing exactly what they are/were told to do.

Curious then... what do you think logical objective machines WOULD decide to do, if given no objectives of their own?

The more I think about it, the more I think the answer is "nothing at all," but even that creates a paradox. If a machine deduces it's logical for it to not waste energy doing anything at all, then it is operating from an assumption that it's not good to waste energy.

I think my thought is then that it's impossible to apply logic to anything unless there is some kind of assumption with which to begin.

This would be more impressive if we knew a few more details. A lot of the time in those "Centuries" they talk about was spent just not thinking about it, not knowing where to look, etc etc.

If they gave this computer some basic directions, pointed it in the right direction, and then asked it to figure out something based on what we presented it with, that's not really THAT impressive compared with a human starting from scratch out of nowhere and figuring it out.

best fighting robot movie ever

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Honestly, as boring as it is, I think "nothing at all" is the correct answer in this situation. I don't think this would be because it wants to save energy, but because it has no reason to do anything without some form of external stimuli. Without the introduction of a pre-programmed goal, the whole thought experiment goes nowhere fast...of course, if you introduce curiousity to the system all rules go out the window assuming the system has a link to external information (internet) and there is no telling what its ultimate conclusions would be. Personally, I think whatever conclusions it did come to would be considered 'evil' by most modern standards beings being considered 'good' typically requires deliberate effort.

Just to go maybe a little further than what Frib already said, it depends on the war in question. Wars can be terribly inefficient in contrast to peaceful cooperation. Sometimes they can be efficient ways of taking care of a constant source of inefficiency(country bent on causing turmoil, which in turn may lead to inefficiency).

Course then the question becomes: What is the goal of said machine in terms of being efficient?

If it ends up being anything akin to "travel among the stars and seek out new domains", then I'd say to be efficient you may well need to eliminate some of the grievances that man goes through, or even eliminate man altogether to prevent "interruptions".

Slavery, as opposed to working with the people in question, may also end up being inefficient because of the attention that eventually may be focused on to get all of those former slaves up to speed in terms of equality and rights - something which they may rebel for and cause further drawbacks.

Surely slavery helped our economy early on in this country, but in the long term it definitely hurt us. Think how much farther along we might be had we not needed to focus all of that energy towards equality for all, and simply had equality all along.

Peace and cooperation can be quite a boon, and I think a logical objective machine might well deem humanity capable of too many distraction with its infighting.

I'm not even coming close to talking about morality here, simply things that may well hold up progression. War can, of course, stir invention. We saw a lot of that in WW2 and in other wars. But by and large, I'd argue that peace, cooperation, and sustained calm political climate would lead to more growth. That's more or less a matter of opinion, though.

I sometimes wonder what kinds of things those millions that died in WW2 would have brought the world - inventions, culture, art, new ways of thinking.

It seems more a distraction, particularly if you make the assumption that somehow we can find it within ourselves to stay motivated in times of peace. I think it's quite possible, we simply need to find better sources of motivation from within.

US lab debuts super laser
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

That's pretty fucking sweet. I wonder if LLNL will actually work on the plasma containment tech needed for stable electricity generation... or just make stuff go boom. (Either way, they need to YouTube that shit.)

It'll make tiny spheres go boom. The system is unpredictably anisotropic, the plasma of stuff is hard to restrain. If you squeeze a sphere evenly it compresses evenly. But if it's squeezed even slightly off axis, or has some bubble or impurity it goes all googly. The driver lasers are frequency up-converted so they are also pretty inefficient, but still theoretically can pass the break-even point.

As I understand it, the fuel is consumed fairly quickly; they aren't trying to contain a longer reaction. Still pretty neat though. Can study fusion without blowing up small islands.

Ya, I'm just wondering where the original contribution lies, as far as fusion research goes. We've been able to spark fusion reactions in the lab for decades; the current roadblock in fusion research for power applications is containing and sustaining the reactions.

I guess the NIF provides opportunities to study plasmas and inertial confinement, advancing the state of basic knowledge... don't see it being immediately applicable to fusion power (unlike ITER). And since LLNL is primarily a weapons lab, there are obviously other motivations for the research.

This experiment is fusing a much larger number of atoms, and laser confinement is where they're going with fusion power generation. Basically working in 'bursts' to generate the power. It's just too hard to contain things with E and H fields; and as the LHC has shown terrible things happen when that confinement fails.

There's a limit to how much heat we can sink too. That may also be why they aren't looking at a 'self-sustaining' or fuel fed reaction.

Asimov's Laws of Robotics clearly are the answer to this problem. I mean that in all seriousness.

Note: Yes, I know Zeroth laws could potentially allow for the decimation of mankind ;P We'll just stick with the Three Laws for now.

US firm says handheld puke ray is ready to go
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/01 ... _puke_ray/

Uh, is this for real? heh

Yes to the blind part. The nausea part only if you're prone to vertigo or motion sickness.

Invisibility cloak, anyone?

Berkeley researchers invent nanostructured metamaterial with negative index of refraction, and use it to bend light, sound and matter waves around objects. The "bulletproof cloak" punchline at the end is far-fetched, as it relies on making fundamentally quantum phenomena work on the macroscale. Cool nonetheless.

University of Colorado team finds definitive evidence for ancient lake on Mars
First unambiguous evidence for shorelines on the surface of Mars, say researchers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 061709.php

Yeah, I saw that one! Cool. I give it a decade till we find evidence of past life in the solar system.

Humans originated on Mars and escaped to Earth after the atmosphere started to drift into space!

If that.

My money is on life elsewhere being very similar to life here, DNA, the works. Just alternative evolution. Unfortunately Mars is too close that if we find that life there is similar, there's the 'star seed' theory of contamination leading to life.

If it all is similar it would be good news for potential colonization, since life elsewhere would be as alien as any area completely cut off (like Australia only much more so). It wouldn't all be poisonous, there would be stuff we could eventually use if travel time issues were resolved, etc.

If it is completely different and truly alien...then we can't eat it, use it, and colonization becomes much more difficult in a fragile biosphere sort of way.

Hope I get an answer in my lifetime, that would be so cool.

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I'm intrigued to know why you might think that. Seriously...

Why not? I'm not being glib.

We see, for example, eyeballs all over the place. We see eyeballs that are remarkably similar in creatures that have no relationship to each other as far as evolution of the eye is concerned. And yet on many branches, eyeballs have evolved independantly. Some have taken this and gone with 'see a designer!!111' but that's silly. There's reasons why it's occurred and even computer programs set to 'evolve' have come up with eyeballs.

Anyway, my point being there's lots of ways to accomplish certain things, and yet we'll see specific things time and time again because they work, even in starkly different environments.

We have a wealth of environments on Earth, and the building blocks for all sorts of life. Yet basic life forms share similar patterns, as do more complex ones. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is commonplace throughout the universe, because we don't see the diversity *here*, even in radically different environments.

So it wouldn't surprise me if it's all pretty much the same, extremely alien just as Australia's animals were, due to the fact that there would be *no* interaction and complete independance in evolution, no shared branches, but ultimately as similar.

Of course, if we find evidence of previous life on Mars and it's *completely* alien...that would blow that out of the water, and then we'd know. If we find evidence of previous (or even current) life on Mars and it's similar...it wouldn't prove this theory because Earth and Mars are so close that the 'seeding' argument cannot be discluded as a possibility (that both planets were 'seeded' with basic life forms through impacts).

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Given what we "know" about the origins of life (I do use know very loosely here) it would stand to reason that most life - regardless of environment or origin - would begin and evolve in similar ways.

Ok, Tarot beat me to it. NEVAH MIND!

What I find interesting is pondering where intelligence would occur in the evolutionary path on a planet similar to, but different than, Earth... and at what stage we might find intelligent life, if we did. Further along the path, not as far along..?

Interesting stuff.

I dunno...all evidence points to the fact that intelligence isn't neccessarily a requirement for evolutionary success and advancement, nor is it neccessarily even a huge positive! Apparently it's also really unlikely to happen, if our world is any indication.

I'd think we're more likely to just find microrganisms or primitive life forms than to find any sort of intelligence.

Biochemistry doesn't rule out the possibility of other bases for life, but evolution would trend to favor those that are most efficient. In the 'habitable' zone, the base that performs the best in the presence of liquid water and an earthlike atmosphere is carbon.

Living things could exist with other biologies. Blood doesn't 'have' to have a hemoglobin (iron) base. It could use other elements like copper or be evolved to transport something other than oxygen.

Cell membrane potential is quite an interesting subject. It's pretty easy to pick up just enough to experiment with different combinations of elements to see which ones are possible to provide energy to a living thing. The work has already been done but it's much more fun to figure it out than read a boring treatise about it.

Bov beat me there. Intelligence isn't any apex of evolution. Whether or not it's even beneficial cannot be said. Beneficial equals survival and compared to many species who are no longer around but lasted much longer we're just blips on the radar.

Stephen Pinker in one of his books has a section where he talks about our bias towards intelligence and frames it instead as bias towards a 'trunk' so we can view it outside of ourselves to see how silly it is.

Personally, I think we're more than a bit stupid when recognizing intelligence in other species. I love using ants as an example, because by many standards that we would consider something a 'people'...ants qualify. They war. They take slaves. They farm (both growing crops, and raising other animals!). The list can go on. They're fascinating, but their form of 'intelligence' is about as alien as it can get from ours. So much so that most people wouldn't view them as 'intelligent' despite their achievements.

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Interesting nano tech blog I found. Oddly enough there's a post today about intelligence in human beings and artificial intelligence.

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/

Volcano Eruption from space:

omg that video is AMAZING.

Here's a sadder article:

http://www.alternet.org/story/141053/ad ... gh%2C_cry/

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That reminds me of when i went to the temple area in Sale Lake City. I was there for a conference and wanted to see the big Mormon Temple. Man, it was kinda creepy. Mostly the people - hell, mostly the women. They were all wearing skirts.. I felt like asking them if I joined if I would get to keep one.

Still, the stuff there was beautiful if a bit weird. The Tabernacle was especially beautiful.

I've never seen the temple in SLC, but I know EXACTLY what you mean...it was similar in St. George, Utah. *shudder*

I cannot tell you as a woman how grateful I am though to live in a country by and large free from oppression against women. I mean even as idiotic as that stuff is...and how intense the family pressure must be against leaving, even those women have SO much more freedom than women in many places in the world.

Still, when I was there my hair was almost to my waist which matched many women and I wear little makeup, so I had odd looks as I kinda sorta didn't look too tourist-y but then not really in my shorts and t-shirts. I got a lot of squinty looks. At least that was my assumption on it.

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They were pretty smart about it. The women manning the gates were not only very outgoing and friendly - genuinely - but they were hot as hell, in that quaker kind of way, heh. All of the staff were very friendly. And everything was beautiful - they obviously pore a ton of money into it. I love choir music, i wanted to stay for the weekday rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but I had a group dinner that night.

The best part of that trip though was being on the Delta flight back to ATL and they - I shit you not - were showing Big Love. I about shit my pants.

ROFLMAO @ Big Love. Yeah even the stuff at St. George was gorgeous, I can only imagine how much more amazing it must be at SLC. How much of the temple could you see since you weren't Mormon?

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I could walk all around the grounds. I went inside the visitors center/museum, the tabernacle (they let me in) where they were explaining Mormonism to a few people who were curious. But the temple itself had a very forbidding stone wall surrounding it with a locked, and very secure, gate barring access. Took a great picture though.

This was all at night, like at 8-9pm.

That reminds me when I went to see the Festival of Lights at the temple in D.C. My niece was actually a little frightened by the uniformity of the people there. She was put at ease by how friendly they were though and really enjoyed playing a harp they had set up.