Stories tagged Scientific Inquiry
This is not BEAR: It's how I think of BEAR.
Courtesy JGordonHave we never talked about the uncanny valley on Science Buzz? I searched for the term, and got nothing. (Although… I’m beginning to suspect that my computer doesn’t accept voice commands. “Computer, display LOLcats,” gets me nothing, and I know that there are LOLcats out there.)
So… the uncanny valley. It has to do with robots, and human-simulation thingys. It’s like… like… well, here’s an example:
Think about factory assembly line robots—big arms, repetitive movements… it doesn’t do much for you, does it? They’re just boring ol’ machines.
Now think about R2D2, Star Wars’ trashcan robot. Beep beep, whistle! Cute, huh? He rolls around, and does sassy things we can’t understand, and we know he’s a robot, and he’s pretty likeable.
Now think about Johny 5 from Short Circuit. He can talk, he’s got a face, and expressive eye-flaps. And we still kind of like him, despite the attitude. (Great, you can read fast. Clean my kitchen before I have you recycled, robot.)
Now think abut C3PO, Star Wars’ deeply uncomfortable, shuffle-gaited robot. He’s pretty much human shaped, he speaks human (with an accent too…), and he’s clearly grappling with some of the same personal identity issues we real humans deal with. And… he’s just a little bit creepy, isn’t he? He’s like us, but not like us… How do we deal with this goldbot?*
And then there’s the “Simroid,” the Japanese robotic monstrosity used for dentist training. See the Simroid:
Clearly Lady Simroid has discovered what it means to be human, and she is, appropriately, horrified. And it doesn’t help that her existence is limited to sitting in a chair and having dental students see what hurts.
But, see, robots like the Simroid, in their appearance and limited behavior, are quite like humans. And it’s weird! They make us uncomfortable. So like us, but they’re absolutely missing the piece that makes a person a person. Brrrr
And then, moving on, we have healthy, living humans. Or maybe Blade Runner replicants. And they aren’t so weird any more. We’re back up to something we’re comfortable with.
It’s the Simroid point on this scale where the familiarity/comfort level takes a huge dive. That’s the uncanny valley.
(Another way to think about it might be cartoons. Stick figures. Disney’s Aladdin. Toy Story. The Polar Express movie adaptation. Pirates of the Caribbean. Which of these are you least likely to see on a poster in a kid’s bedroom? Well, maybe stick figures, but do you see what I’m getting at?)
See the dip in the graph?: That's the uncanny valley. It's full of zombies and simroids.
Courtesy Smurrayinchester
There are different theories as to why objects in the uncanny valley creep us out so much. The remind us of dead things. (Like zombies!) They are similar enough to us that, on a biological level, we perceive them as a threat (because a genetically similar creature is more likely to pass diseases to us, I guess), and so we feel revulsion towards them. Or they’re no longer like robots, but when we judge them on the human scale, they come up disturbingly lacking. Basically, they’re weird.
So, when you’re building your humanoid, you have to decide early on where you’re going to shoot for on the uncanny valley scale. If you aim too high, you may end up dooming your creation to the same hate we have for ventriloquists’ dummies. (In my opinion, you should probably set your expectations somewhere around R2D2, unless you’re making a baby. And even then…)
Enter the military-funded “Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot,” or BEAR. BEAR was designed to be able to rescue wounded people in combat areas, and to do heavy, potentially dangerous tasks. It’s basically some big treads and a torso with arms, and each new version is a little stronger, and more nimble and damage resistant. And the newest versions have bizarre teddy bear heads, apparently because that’s the sort of thing that’s reassuring to an injured soldier.
So where does this fall on the uncanny scale? We like teddy bears. But teddy bears are usually soft and fuzzy, not six-foot-tall human-torsoed robots, able to dead lift 500 pounds. Also, their dark lifeless eyes aren’t usually set in hard, urban camo faces. For me, at least, a face like that seems to promise physical dismemberment with utter, robotic detachment (pun intended, I guess?).
Am I alone? Am I relating too much (but not enough) to the BEAR? How do y’all feel? Anything else in the uncanny valley that you feel deserves a shout out for its creepiness? Let’s have it.
*I’m aware that R2D2 and C3PO are supposed to be spelled out phonetically. I won’t be doing that. Ever.
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This is all assuming the zombies don't have guns: But they rarely do. See Day of the Dead (original version) and Land of the Dead for exceptions.
Courtesy SuitovRemember in 8th grade, when you were taking geometry or pre-calc or whatever, and some cleverboots in the back row asked the teacher when anyone was every likely to use math in real life? Your teacher probably said something like, “Do I have to shake the answer into you, numbskull? You’ll use it every day! What if you want to figure out the rate of wear on your tires based on circumference? What about when you want to figure out the height of your favorite tree, using only the length of its shadow?” And because everyone involved could see the hollowness of this answer, you went home feeling a little darker.
But, see, what your lousy teacher should have said is that when the zombie apocalypse comes, math is what’s going to drag us out of that corpse-filled scenario and into a brighter, infection-free future. Because, when it comes to zombies, math is the real weapon.
JK, of course. Claw hammers and chainsaws will still be the real weapons. No getting past that—even the trickiest math problems will hardly destroy the brain, much less sever a spinal chord. But mathematical models will provide a strategy for survivors.
Mathematical models for vampire scenarios are old hat. They’re old, boring hat, in fact, on account of how people can’t agree about the methodology, and because vampires aren’t that great in the first place. But a practical zombie model is making the rounds in the popular press, because this is the sort of thing we need to know.
Taking into account infection rates, and the relative numbers of “suseptable,” “zombie,” and “removed” individuals, the model confirms what we have long suspected: that a zombie outbreak would suck. The model is, of course, much more complicated than this, and it has lots of fun little symbols and graphs, but that’s the long and short of it.
However, the model does leave room for hope. Putting victims into quarantine could eradicate the infection, but only under ideal circumstances (i.e., not in the real world), and a while a zombie cure could ensure the continuing existence of humanity, survivors would need to coexist with zombies. The remaining solution, and the only practical one, it turns out, is the old fashioned one: head smashing. As the paper puts it, “only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication.”
We’ve got to hit the zombies where they live. Or where they undead-live. Or whatever. The point is that when the time comes (any day now), we have to take the fight to the zombies, and we have to do it fast. So prepare your bite-guards and blunt instruments, and put them next to your fire extinguisher and emergency blanket. Be a survivor.
Here’s the original paper in pdf format.
A quick note: To all of you who are thinking, “Puh-leaze, JGordon. Zombies are played out like Super Bowl XLIII,” I respond with a puh-leaze of my own. I say y’all are the ones played out, played out like Mario 3, and I think y’all should check yourselves and just go watch Transformers 2, or whatever it is you people are into.
Zoom, zoom, zoom: Retro rocket style lives on today.
Courtesy xparxyDo you yearn to relive the glory days of space travel, back when the space industry was run by scientists and engineers rather than hindered by politicians and the Military-Industrial Complex? Do you drool at the prospect of riding in one of those oh-so-very-cool retro rococo-style rockets popularly portrayed in the media during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s?
Well, then you better get your Earth-bound behind out to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the Burning Man Festival starting at the end of this month. This year, the annual counter-culture festival will feature a full-sized cigar-shaped Raygun Gothic Rockethip being constructed right now in a warehouse in Oakland, California.
Three artists, Sean Orlando, David Shulman, and Nathaniel Taylor came up with the idea for the rocket and even got a Burning Man grant to fund the project. Orlando, whose father worked as a contractor at NASA, said he hopes the project will re-convey the wonderment space travel elicited in the industry’s early pre-NASA days.
The vehicle will be out-of-this-world (pun intended) and when completed will stand 40-feet tall with three levels of circular rooms setting upon the 17-foot steel legs. The entire massive steel frame will be covered in a skin of brushed aluminum (polished on site) and held in place by thousands of rivets. A team of more than 60 people is hard at work on the structure, and lest you think it’s just some frivolous art project, well you couldn’t be more… actually you’re probably absolutely right. But just recently Dr. Wade Enright, a leading high voltage researcher from New Zealand joined the team along with Dr. Alan Rorie, a high voltage artist to help develop the Uira Engine, a kinetic, high voltage sculpture serving as the rocket’s power source and engine. Uira means “lightning” in the language of New Zealand's indigenous Maori. This ought to add some excitement and sparks to the rocketship and to the festivities.
The plan is to unveil the spaceship during the festival with great ceremony on a launch pad in the desert. Festival participants will be permitted to climb aboard and make their way up through the three compartments where they’ll interact with all sorts of early-to-mid-twentieth century gadgetry, and navigational components complete with blinking lights. A telescope (for deep space scanning) will be included, and a pilot seat in the cockpit will allow neo-retro (?) astronauts to swivel around to check the instruments, most of which I suspect will have been built by the Acme Corporation. After exploring the vastness of space (both inner and maybe outer), visitors will exit across a bridge to a gantry and back down to terra firma.
If you think this would be something you’d like to see, but can’t make it to the Nevada desert, check out the Raygun Gothic Rocketship site where you can see plans, specs, sketches, photos and videos. There’s even a retro countdown clock so you can follow the spaceship’s progress to blast-off.
SOURCE
Story on cnet.com
University of Wyoming's S.H. Knight Geological Museum: Big Al, the Allosaurus, awaits the crowds.
Courtesy Mark RyanThe recent closing of the University of Wyoming’s S.H. Knight Geological Museum due to budget constraints resulted in an uproar of protest from paleontologists, geologists, others in the scientific community, and the public. On June 30, 2009, the museum closed its doors and the job of the museum’s director, paleontologist Brent Breithaupt, was terminated along with that of a part-time employee. Sure, times are tough all over. But we’re talking about a museum with an annual operating expense of only $80,000. In today’s world of massive bailout mania this amounts to less than nano-diddly-squat.
As the protests heated up, an online petition was created (garnering over 2600 signatures), bloggers gnashed their teeth, and the disgruntled public sent a barrage of emails to university higher-ups, and letters to the editors of local newspapers. A non-profit group known as Friends of the SH Knight Museum was also set up to gather donations to reopen the museum.
It appeared many people thought the university president, Tom Buchanan, and the UW board of trustees could have come up with a better solution than closing the museum doors.
Well, suddenly they did.
No doubt feeling the pressure from the public outcry, the mucky-mucks at UW have now reversed their decision and announced on July 18th that the museum would be reopened (but only part-time) starting August 24, 2009 with private funding from the UW Foundation.
BUT (and as you can see it’s a big but) - instead of reinstating Dr. Breithaupt or hiring another qualified director/curator to run the museum, the university plans instead to have a security guard oversee operations. Yes, you read it correctly - a security guard!! With all due respect to security guards (we have plenty of great ones here at SMM), this is a huge mistake on the university’s part. It makes no sense. What’s the point of having a scientific institution if there’s no qualified scientist running it?
This stunt will do nothing but diminish science everywhere. If an academic institution such as UW (the only 4-year public university in Wyoming by the way) considers a security guard qualified enough to explain the intricacies of evolution, plate tectonics, dinosaur cladistics, and the Permian Extinction to visiting youngsters, then what’s the point of attending such a university to become a degreed scientist? You might as well get a job at the local mall and save on the tuition.
This proposed move makes as much sense as replacing a university president with an unqualified janitor. No one would seriously consider doing that.
But in this case maybe that’s not such a bad idea.
LINKS
Previous Buzz story on closing
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology statement on closing
Take that Newton!
in Earth and Space Science, Scientific Inquiry, The Universe, and Forces of Nature
Super Solar Ring: ...but remember, don't look directly at it or you WILL GO BLIND!!!
Courtesy Incredible India
Get ready, because one of Newton’s laws is about to be tested. A little thing called gravity is going into question during the total solar eclipse on July 22nd.
I’m sure most of you have heard of or know what a solar eclipse is. If not, here’s a refresher: “A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon lies between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow on our planet. Depending on the location of the observer on the Earth’s surface, the observer may see a total solar eclipse, a partial solar eclipse or none at all. If the observer is lucky enough to be located in a position where the moon’s umbra contacts the Earth they will witness a total solar eclipse of the sun.”
Unfortunately for those of us in St. Paul, the only way for us to see the total solar eclipse would be to buy a one-way ticket to the eastern hemisphere. The path of the eclipse will start in eastern India and end about 2,000 miles south of Hawaii. During which it will be visible for nearly 6 minutes in China, and that’s where Newton steps in (not literally of course).
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences are about to test the controversial theory that gravity drops slightly during a total eclipse. Originally observed in 1954, the French physicist Maurice Allais noticed erratic behavior in a swinging pendulum when the eclipse passed over Paris. The shift in direction of the pendulum’s swing suggests a sudden change in gravitational pull. Though tests have occurred since, nothing has been conclusive.
The best chance to prove the gravity anomaly is this Wednesday during the longest eclipse duration of the 21st Century. This is why Chinese geophysicists are preparing six different sites with an array of highly sensitive instruments to take gravitational readings during the total eclipse. The head geophysicist Tang Keyun states, "If our equipment operates correctly, I believe we have a chance to say the anomaly is true beyond all doubt."
Apollo 14's remains: Even higher resolution images will be coming from the LRO, when it enters a lower orbit soon.
Courtesy NASAThe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is NASA's satellite orbiting the moon right now to give us all a much more detailed picture of our nearest space neighbor. Just in time for the 40 anniversary of the moon landing, the LRO has passed by several of the Apollo mission landing spots. In the best photograph you can actually still see the footsteps between the remains of the landing vehicle and the scientific instruments. It's so cool to see the path worn into the lunar landscape still there on this windless world.
Want to ask an expert a question? We'll have NOVA scienceNOW's experts answer selected submissions. This is a rare opportunity, so come up with questions, make a video, and send it in.
Video questions will be selected and posted on the Cosmic Perspective page on the NOVA scienceNOW website and then be answered by our experts throughout the season of NOVA scienceNOW, via text on our website, with the last question being answered the day after the final broadcast, September 2, 2009.
For more details please go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/cosmic/2009/06/ask-your-science-...
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Want to ask an expert a question? We'll have NOVA scienceNOW's experts answer selected submissions. This is a rare opportunity, so come up with questions, make a video, and send it in.
Video questions will be selected and posted on the Cosmic Perspective page on the NOVA scienceNOW website and then be answered by our experts throughout the season of NOVA scienceNOW, via text on our website, with the last question being answered the day after the final broadcast, September 2, 2009.
For more details please go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/cosmic/2009/06/ask-your-science-...
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Notice what they're all *not* looking at?
Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsIf you’re into biblical archaeology, you might be interested to know that the patriarch of the Orthodox church of Ethiopia is claiming that they have the original Ark of the Covenant, and will be revealing it today.
If the man with the whip taught me anything, it’s that watching the ghostly things that come out of the Ark of the Covenant makes your face melt and your head explode. In fact, he taught me lots of stuff, like not to trust Austrian women, and that it’s okay to destroy archaeological sites if you do it in an awesome way, and that shooting people is easy and fun. But he also taught me about the face-melting thing.
I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t feel like having my face melt and my head explode, so I’m treating the supposed unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant with skepticism and caution.
Apparently the Ethiopian Orthodox Church keeps an ark replica in each of its churches. But I guess they have the real one too? And they plan to open a museum to display it. So that’s sort of interesting.
I wonder how the Ark has held up over the last 3000 years? It’s supposed to be made of acacia wood and gold, although images of the Ark depict it being carried by just two or four people. Considering how it’s also supposed to be full of broken stone tablets, I’m guessing it’s mostly made of wood to cut down on its weight (it was carried around a lot), and I think wood can get a little crumbly after a few millennia.
It’d be interesting to do some archaeological analysis on the box. I have the feeling, though, that the church wouldn’t be very enthusiastic about lots of radiocarbon dating being done on the Ark, genuine or otherwise. I guess to true test of veracity will be whether or not it electrocutes and melts everyone coming to see it.
PS—The only story I could find for this was on WorldNetDaily, which I'm not convinced is all that great a source. So take it with a grain of salt. I just thought it was interesting. (Face-melting, you know?)
Inner ear provides secret to better radio reception
Cochlea model for radio reception
Courtesy WelleschikA group of MIT engineers is looking to the human body for solutions to some of our technological problems. Many of us are discovering that our HDTVs or cell phones won't work without a better antenna.
Rahul Sarpeshkar, and his graduate student, Soumyajit Mandal, realized that the cochlea in our inner ear is like an antenna. In a paper titled "A Bio-Inspired Active Radio-Frequency Silicon Cochlea" (15 pg PDF) they explain that
The biological inner ear or cochlea is an amazing custom analog computer capable of the equivalent of 1GFLOPS of spectral-analysis and gain-control computations with 14uW of power on a 150mV battery and a minimum detectable signal of 0.05 angstroms. It achieves such efficiency because of the clever use of an active nonlinear transmission line implemented with fluids, membranes, active piezoelectret cells, micromechanics, and electrochemistry.The cochlea has an amazingly large input dynamic range of 120dB, analyzes frequencies over a 100-fold range in carrier frequency (100Hz-10kHz), and amplifies signals at 100kHz even though its cells have time constants of 1ms.
Mining the intellectual resources of nature
By modeling the cochlea with analagous electronic components, they created what they call an RF silicon cochlea.
The RF cochlea, embedded on a silicon chip measuring 1.5 mm by 3 mm, works as an analog spectrum analyzer, detecting the composition of any electromagnetic waves within its perception range. Electromagnetic waves travel through electronic inductors and capacitors (analogous to the biological cochlea's fluid and membrane). Electronic transistors play the role of the cochlea's hair cells.
The chip is faster than any human-designed radio-frequency spectrum analyzer and also operates at much lower power.
Looking to nature for technological solutions
This is not the first time Sarpeshkar has drawn on biology for inspiration in designing electronic devices. Clicking this link will direct you to ten papers resulting from bio-inspired projects in sensing and computing.
Source MIT News
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