Transformers robots in disguise

Some very cool advances in technology I thought I'd post on today.

1. Origami Robots:
These crazy self-folding/self-constructing robots are inspired by Origami.

Check out the video.

Prof Wood, who is also part of Harvard's Wyss Institute for biologically inspired design said there were a huge number of applications for devices that self-fold.

"Imagine self-deploying structures - maybe shelters or structures for space exploration or for satellites," he told BBC News.

"Things where the logistics are difficult, like humanitarian aid in war zones."  "

2. Computer Chip full of artificial neurons.
Computer are fast when it comes to a lot of calculations, but there are some things the human brain can do better, but it maybe we are about to be outstripped.

I'm going to give a longer quote here: "Part of the reason is that both the architecture and behavior of neurons and transistors are radically different. It's possible to program software that incorporates neuron-like behavior, but the underlying mismatch makes the software relatively inefficient. 
   A team of scientists at Cornell University and IBM Research have gotten together to design a chip that's fundamentally different: an asynchronous collection of thousands of small processing cores, each capable of the erratic spikes of activity and complicated connections that are typical of neural behavior. When hosting a neural network, the chip is remarkably power efficient. And the researchers say their architecture can scale arbitrarily large, raising the prospect of a neural network supercomputer.


Conclusion: Together these things give the Transformers. Maybe one day we really will see Bumblebee and Optimus Prime - the thinking self-constructing robots of fiction could be made real.

Spider-man vs. the train, or fiction meets science

There's a fun article in Live Science: Spider-man's Silk Really Could Stop a Train.
That's right, some physics students have tried to find out if the scene from the 2004 Spider-man movie could really have taken place.  According to their calculations - it could.

They "calculated that the force needed to stop four New York City subway cars packed with nearly 1,000 people total would be 300,000 newtons, after taking into account the momentum of the train at full speed, the time it takes the train to come to rest after the webs are attached, and the driving force of the subway car."

They also estimated the strength & stiffness the silk required and compared that to existing spiders. "Having determined these parameters, it can be stated that Spider-Man's webbing is a proportional equivalent of that of a real spider, namely a weaker orb-weaver spider, but curiously, with a toughness more akin to some of the strongest spider silks," the students wrote in a paper in University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics.

So there you go, sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction - excepting of course that in this case Spider-man doesn't exist.
 

Rainbows

Some days the weather is just magical. I had to snap a photo of this rainbow disappearing into the ocean on a calm day. It was one of those awesome ones that makes a complete arc (my phone wasn't clever enough to capture more than a slice).
The biggest question I have about this sort of phenomenon is what about the pot of gold - does it get all wet?

On a related note, but something which didn't come from my camera - a rainbow from space.
The rainbow stretches diagonally across the image. The fun swirls are the von Karman vortex clouds.

 (Image: NASA image - from NewScientist.com)

The Science of Kissing

Hi All

Sorry no post last week, time escaped on me, and before I knew it I had lost a week.

So this week – kissing.

Who knew there was a whole field of scientific research devoted to this core enjoyable element of life - and core element of romance novels ;)

Well, the scientists who study it obviously knew, but for the rest of us it’s the study of philematology.

Want to know more – of course you do. Who doesn’t want more on kissing.

It turns out that kissing isn’t as simple as a fun way to show affection (or luurve), it’s all a bit more complex than that.

Many philemantologists – those who study kissing – agree that it developed as a way for mothers to pass pre-chewed food to their infants (think of birds who still do this, albeit without lips). However, that doesn’t explain a romantic meeting of lips between adults. As with so many things it turn out men & women may have different motivations. Snippets of an article below go some way to explaining.

“...According to Gordon Gallup Jr., a psychologist at the State University of New York at Albany, "females are much more prone to use kissing as a mate assessment device... and even within an ongoing relationship, they use kissing as a way to update and monitor its status”... Men, by contrast, use kissing as a means to an end—that is, sex. They were far more willing to have sex without kissing, his study found, and while a bad first kiss can be a deal-breaker for both genders, men are more willing to go ahead and have sex with someone whose kiss is unpleasant.

And how is all this assessment and evaluation being conducted? "At the moment of a kiss, there is a very complicated exchange of all kinds of different information," says Gallup. Some of it is in chemical form. Contained in male saliva, for example, are small amounts of testosterone, which is known to boost libido in both genders. It's possible, Gallup says, that repeated and prolonged exposure—that is, many make-out sessions over days and weeks and months—may increase the female's sex drive. (That might explain why men prefer sloppier kisses than women, too—they're trying to get her in the mood.)...”

Then of course there’s pheromones and all sorts of other chemical signals. Kissing means getting close enough to smell and taste, and smell also covers chemicals which may be present in saliva that are volatilized and sensed by the nasal cavity. All together this means is the building blocks for helping us determine whether someone is a good genetic match.

Finally the article added “...Kissing may also reinforce pair bonding, helping to maintain relationships. Research by Wendy Hill, a neuroscientist as well as provost and dean of the faculty at Lafayette College, has shown that kissing reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol...”

All that & fun too  :x

  

Full article here :x

 

Why read fiction?

Why read fiction? ... well, forget escapism or relaxation, clearly the best reason is the health benefits. Yes,  that's right the health benefits :) We all knew it was good for you, of course, but now science is joining the party. I'm to share some snippets from an article that I rather enjoyed...

"... new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience.

Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.

      Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. ... 

     The way the brain handles metaphors has also received extensive study; some scientists have contended that figures of speech like “a rough day” are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. ... however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not.

      Researchers have discovered that words describing motion also stimulate regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. In a study led by the cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger, of the Laboratory of Language Dynamics in France, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like “John grasped the object” and “Pablo kicked the ball.” The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body’s movements. ...

    ... The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.

The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. ...

   ... Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, performed an analysis of 86 fMRI studies, published last year in the Annual Review of Psychology, and concluded that there was substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate interactions with other individuals — in particular, interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people’s intentions “theory of mind.” Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as we identify with characters’ longings and frustrations, guess at their hidden motives and track their encounters with friends and enemies, neighbors and lovers. ...

   ... These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt illuminated and instructed by a novel, who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a tiresome pedant to Edward Casaubon. Reading great literature, it has long been averred, enlarges and improves us as human beings. Brain science shows this claim is truer than we imagined."

Read the whole article here.

Super Cats

Remember all those comic book characters, once totally normal then doused in chemical X, now they're superheroes? Sure you do. But what about cats? Or more specifically what about real live super-cats?
 
Scientists have created genetically modified cats. Their superpowers?  They glow in the dark & they're helping with AIDS research - and, oh my goodness, they're cute (creepy, but cute).

"The scientists inserted one gene into the cats that helps them resist the feline form of Aids. They also inserted a gene that produces a fluorescent protein called GFP. This protein - which is produced naturally in jellyfish - is commonly used in this area of research to monitor the activity of altered genes."

In other science news - jelly-based batteries.how did I get from cats to here you ask well...

Cats --> Jelly-meat --> jelly --> jelly batteries.

Simple :)


So Jelly batteries - safer, smaller, cheaper.

"A new polymer jelly could be the next big step forward for lithium batteries.

The jelly replaces the volatile and hazardous liquid electrolyte currently used in most lithium batteries.
Researchers from the University of Leeds hope their development leads to smaller, cheaper and safer gadgets.
Once on the market, the lithium jelly batteries could allow lighter laptop computers, and more efficient electric cars."

Ever think it sounds like we're living in a science fiction novel :)
In fact, it's often struck me that scientists don't need to write it, they live it :)