April 18, 2006
Bioprinting
Gabor Forgacs, a biophysicist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, described his "bioprinting" technique last week at the Experimental Biology 2006 meeting in San Francisco. It relies on droplets of "bioink", clumps of cells a few hundred micrometres in diameter, which Forgacs has found behave just like a liquid.
This means that droplets placed next to one another will flow together and fuse, forming layers, rings or other shapes, depending on how they were deposited. To print 3D structures, Forgacs and his colleagues alternate layers of supporting gel, dubbed "biopaper", with the bioink droplets. To build tubes that could serve as blood vessels, for instance, they lay down successive rings containing muscle and endothelial cells, which line our arteries and veins. "We can print any desired structure, in principle," Forgacs told the meeting.
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Home >> CyberneticsApril 06, 2006
mind-reading
Three researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed a device that "reads minds" and alerts wearers to the emotional state of the person they're conversing with.
The device, called the Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthetic, or ESP, was presented by Rana El Kaliouby on Tuesday at the 2006 Body Sensor Network Conference at the MIT Media Lab. The research team hopes the device will help people with autism learn to better read the social cues of others.
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Home >> CyberneticsMarch 18, 2006
Methanol-powered artificial muscles
Methanol-powered artificial muscles have been created by researchers aiming to create battery-free robotic limbs and prosthetics.
"One day you could find yourself sitting in a bar next to a humanoid robot, who is taking a shot of vodka to give himself the energy to go to work," jokes Ray Baughman, a nanotechnologist at the University of Texas at Dallas, US.
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Home >> CyberneticsMarch 16, 2006
Cyber-insect army
The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions.
The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later.
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Home >> CyberneticsFebruary 26, 2006
Multi-Touch Interaction Research
While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops.
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Home >> CyberneticsFebruary 08, 2006
Chips under your skin
KAIST has built a prototype chip it thinks solves some of the problems encountered in setting up personal-area networks that take advantage of the body's ability to conduct electricity. Computer scientists have long envisioned connecting the numerous personal electronic devices the average technology fan carries around each day, but wiring those devices together is impractical, and Bluetooth connections are prone to interference, said Seong-Jun Song, a professor at KAIST.
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Home >> CyberneticsJanuary 28, 2006
Eliza Redux
Wortzel, who teaches new media in City Tech’s Department of Advertising Design & Graphic Arts, has created a virtual robot psychoanalyst on her interactive website, “Eliza Redux.” If you log on at http://elizaredux.org and sign up for a session, you can visit with the robot shrink-in-residence, ask it questions and get oral responses, although some responses will make it clear that it is the robot that likely needs the counseling more than you do.
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Home >> CyberneticsJanuary 04, 2006
We Can Rebuild You
Shahinpoor, the genial assistant dean of the College of Engineering, is an unlikely successor to Dr. Frankenstein. Although he is not trying to create life in his laboratory, the inanimate materials he melds together squirm and writhe like living entities. His true objective is to develop a host of supple artificial muscles that may eventually run machines and robots, and perhaps replace worn-out or defective human parts.
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Home >> CyberneticsDecember 11, 2005
Neuroscientists break code on sight
n the sci-fi movie "The Matrix," a cable running from a computer into Neo's brain writes in visual perceptions, and Neo's brain can manipulate the computer-created world. In reality, scientists cannot interact directly with the brain because they do not understand enough about how it codes and decodes information.
Now, neuroscientists in the McGovern Institute at MIT have been able to decipher a part of the code involved in recognizing visual objects. Practically speaking, computer algorithms used in artificial vision systems might benefit from mimicking these newly uncovered codes.
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Home >> CyberneticsDecember 10, 2005
GlovoLogy
In Singapore, the project GlovoLogy is aimed at utilizing an electronic Data Glove and a Pocket PC (“PPC”) Phone to enhance a hearing- or speech-impaired person’s ability to communicate more freely with the world.
The hand signs of a hearing-impaired person will be captured and converted into voice and the speech of a hearing person will be converted into text. This revolutionary approach will enable a two-way communication via wireless transmission to take place, where both parties can be either communicating face to face or using a mobile phone.
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Home >> CyberneticsNovember 30, 2005
The Virtual Air Guitar Project
Aspiring rock gods can at last create their own guitar solos - without ever having to pick up a real instrument, thanks to a group of Finnish computer science students.
The Virtual Air Guitar project, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology, adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar.
Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a "player", the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 23, 2005
Robotic Jacket
A robotic jacket that helps stroke victims recover from partial paralysis could be ready to wear in the near future.
The device-essentially a mesh jacket in form-uses sensors to detect the muscle movements in the patient's healthy arm and wrist, then uses artificial muscles to stimulate that same movement on the damaged side of the body. Researchers hope repeated therapy will bring back the regular functioning of the damaged limb.
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Home >> CyberneticsAugust 02, 2005
The Bionic Man
Jesse Sullivan had been a power lineman for nearly 23 years in Dayton, Tennessee, a quiet town of 6,000 people. It's a much sleepier place now than it was 80 years ago, when a high school science teacher named John Scopes was tried for teaching the theory of evolution. On a May afternoon back in 2001, City of Dayton Electric assigned Sullivan to move an overhead wire. It was a routine task: Back-feed the power supply, clamp the line, install a switch. Sullivan had done it thousands of times. He glided up in an aerial bucket. At the top, for a reason that to this day he does not understand, Sullivan reached out and touched the power line.
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Home >> CyberneticsJuly 28, 2005
'Stealth' Crashes At Takeoff
Eager to cut down on war casualties, the US government (led by Sam Shepard) has invented "EDI," a computer-run fighter jet that represents the top tier in technology and design. Out to baby-sit EDI are three pilots, Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas, the poor man’s Don Swayze), Kara Wade (Jessica Biel), and Henry Purcell (Jamie Foxx). While initially skeptical about EDI’s abilities, once they are put to the test in the terrorist-minefield called Earth, the pilots are awed by his dynamic flying and growing artificial intelligence. However, during a routine mission, EDI is struck by lightening and goes haywire, leaving the three pilots the only ones around capable of taking him down before he starts World War III.
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Home >> CyberneticsJuly 14, 2005
Biomimetics, technology that mimics nature
Engineers, scientists, and business people are increasingly turning toward nature for design inspiration. The field of biomimetics, the application of methods and systems, found in nature, to engineering and technology, has spawned a number of innovations far superior to what the human mind alone could have devised. The reason is simple. Nature, through billions of years of trial and error, has produced effective solutions to innumerable complex real-world problems. The rigorous competition of natural selection means waste and efficiency are not tolerated in natural systems, unlike many of the technologies devised by humans. For example, gas-powered cars are only about 20 percent efficient, that is, only 20 percent of the thermal-energy content of the gasoline is converted into mechanical work.
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Home >> CyberneticsJune 29, 2005
Microbes that can Produce Miniature Electrical Wires
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a tiny biological structure that is highly electrically conductive. This breakthrough helps describe how microorganisms can clean up groundwater and produce electricity from renewable resources. It may also have applications in the emerging field of nanotechnology, which develops advanced materials and devices in extremely small dimensions.
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Home >> CyberneticsJune 16, 2005
'Curious' Aibos
Sony has succeeded in giving selected Aibo pet robots curiosity, researchers at Sony Computer Science Laboratory (SCSL) in Paris said last week. Their research won't lead to conscious robots soon, if ever, but it could help other fields such as child developmental psychology, they said during an open day in Tokyo.
More than 50 years ago Alan Turing, considered by many to be the father of computer science, speculated about the possibility of creating synthetic consciousness. Progress has been made with AI (artificial intelligence) systems, which have typically used task-defined learning algorithms that enable programs to define what is good or bad about particular sets of information in relation to achieving preset goals, according to SCSL researcher Frederic Kaplan.
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Home >> CyberneticsJune 13, 2005
BIONIC MAN
Researchers at Imperial College London are planning to implant tiny computer chips into patients to monitor their condition.
Trials on diabetics are expected to take place by as early as this Christmas.
The "999 chip" will keep an eye on blood sugar levels, transmitting a signal to doctors the instant there is any dangerous change in the patient's condition.
It is the latest development in the field of cyborg technology which began with the very first heart pacemakers in the 1950s.
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Home >> CyberneticsJune 05, 2005
Aging Universe May Still Be Spawning Massive Galaxies
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted what appear to be massive "baby" galaxies in our corner of the universe. Previously, astronomers thought the universe's birth rate had dramatically declined and only small galaxies were forming.
"We knew there were really massive young galaxies eons ago, but we thought they had all matured into older ones more like our Milky Way. If these galaxies are indeed newly formed, then this implies parts of the universe are still hotbeds of galaxy birth," said Dr. Chris Martin. He is principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., and co-author of the study.
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Home >> CyberneticsJune 04, 2005
Next-Generation Memory Chip
A team of international scientists has made a gigantic stride forward to develop next-generation memory chips, which are more progressed compared to the current best 60-nanometer products.
The team, participated by Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology professor Kim Sang-ouk, said yesterday that they established a pattern helpful in building the futuristic memory chips.
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Home >> CyberneticsMay 29, 2005
The future is a chip inside your head
Imagine a world where you can never lose your mobile phone because the technology has been implanted in your jawbone; a future where elite football teams play to neurally downloaded tactics and where everything you buy comes with GPS software to help you keep track of it. It may sound like science fiction but, according to a leading academic based in Scotland, it could soon be fact.
Andy Clark, a shock-haired professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, believes his finger is on tomorrow’s pulse. He burst into the academic stratosphere with the 2003 publication of Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. That book explored the way human minds might interact with emerging technology, instantly becoming both a key scientific text and a crossover hit in the United States, casting Clark in the role of scientific seer.
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Home >> CyberneticsMay 22, 2005
The biology of cyberspace
Beyond blogging, e-mailing, webcasting, browsing, and gaming, something wonderful and deep is happening in the cyberworld of PCs, users and the Internet. Outwardly, cyberspace appears as pixels and tones on PC desktops and cell phone displays. But these are merely windows into an amazing world that has organically grown up over the past 50 years into an evolving web of diverse and complex interactions of functions, information, and users.
The “Big Bang” of this world was the development of stored-programmed machines, a.k.a. computers, a categorically different type of machine that is unlike any other machine type. A computer is cybernetic, having the capability to acquire, store, generate and act on information. It does not just compute like an abacus, but rather it processes according to internal and external stimuli. It is programmable where its function can be changed radically by simply loading a new program. Even further, it has the capability of modifying its own program to evolve new capability. This universal computing capability seems to endow the machine with a mind and intelligence.
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Home >> CyberneticsMay 21, 2005
The fusion of man and machine
By 2020 exciting advances in bio-interfacing will make it possible for a wider range of diseases to be treated electronically.
Initially Parkinson's disease and epilepsy will be successfully dealt with. But the effects of multiple sclerosis, paralysis and motor neurone disease will also be much reduced as the individual is enabled to control their environment and even drive their car, by their thoughts alone, using implanted technology.
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Home >> CyberneticsMay 05, 2005
Penelope: The Robo-Nurse
Meet “Penelope”, the robo-nurse of the future. With nurse shortages becoming a problem nationwide, Penelope’s creators hope that their creation can help reduce the burden put on nurses.
The robot will not be involved with the actual care of the patients – the most important role of its human counterpart. Instead, its main job will be to help surgeons in the operating room with simple tasks.
Her developers, Michael Treat and his team at Robotic Surgical Tech, Inc., endowed her artificial intelligence specific to surgical situations. Penelope uses voice recognition technology to “listen” for the surgeon’s commands. When the surgeon asks for a scalpel, she repeats the word, and using a visual processing capability, reaches for the tool and hands it to the surgeon.
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Home >> CyberneticsApril 27, 2005
Building robots with people in mind
n the isolated, otherworldly landscape of Utah's painted desert, NASA scientist William J. Clancey made an important breakthrough about how to create robots to assist astronauts on a future mission to Mars.
As geologists on the team explored the depths of a ravine, Clancey realized one of the most important needs of space travelers is the ability to stay in touch with home base.
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Home >> CyberneticsApril 01, 2005
Tech brain implant reads man's mind
Cybernetics - the fusion of human beings and technology - is helping one paralysed man control his environment by connecting his brain to his PC.
Quadriplegic ex-American football player Matthew Nagle is using a system that converts his thoughts into actions on a computer. Nagle's brain is connected to his computer by the BrainGate system, which thought impulses using a sensor implanted in the motor cortex of his brain.
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Home >> CyberneticsMarch 12, 2005
Robot swarms invade Japan!
Ms. Saya, a perky receptionist in a smart canary-yellow suit, beamed a smile from behind the "May I Help You?" sign on her desk, offering greetings and answering questions posed by visitors at a local university. But when she failed to welcome a workman who had just walked by, a professor stormed up and dished out a harsh reprimand.
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Home >> CyberneticsMarch 02, 2005
A Brilliant Mind and an Anguished Life
It is hardly the greatest scientific mystery of the 20th century, but it is a riddle just the same: why did Norbert Wiener - gray eminence of gray matter, inventor of cybernetics, founding theorist of the information age - abandon his closest young colleagues just as they were about to embark on an exciting new collaboration on the workings of the brain?
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Home >> CyberneticsMarch 01, 2005
Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscles
Because of their ability to act in the manner of biological muscles, electroactive polymers (EAPs) have earned the nickname "artificial muscles." JPL, in collaboration with research institutions throughout the world, is working to improve the understanding of the mechanisms that are responsible for the electroactive effect. We are also searching for ways to improve the performance of EAPs and find applications where their unique capabilities can be used.
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Home >> CyberneticsFebruary 18, 2005
Not so special after all
Advances in science may reduce humans to the pets of machines in 100 years, write Ian Sample, David Adam, Alok Jha and Simon Rogers.
Humans have always thought of themselves as special, and with good reason. As far as we know, we are alone in the universe in churning out art and literature, in formulating the laws of physics and in creating the spectacle that is morris dancing.
But our view of ourselves as the pinnacle of life has suffered huge blows at the hands of science. Every now and again comes an idea so revolutionary that it rocks the foundations on which our hubris is built.
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Home >> CyberneticsJanuary 08, 2005
Robosapien Gets Major Makeover
Robosapien, the monkey-like "robot" that's been, well, wowing crowds since 2003's Comdex and last year's Consumer Electronics Show, is about to get a major update and some cool new friends. Wow Wee, a company launched by former JPL robotics physicist Mark Tilden (he also worked for NASA and DARPA), will introduce a radically redesigned and significantly more expensive Robosapien V2, as well as a brand new Roboraptor and Robopet at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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Home >> CyberneticsJanuary 01, 2005
Fly-eating robot powers itself
Scientists at the University of the West of England (UWE) have designed a robot that does not require batteries or electricity to power itself.
Instead, it generates energy by catching and eating houseflies.
Dr Chris Melhuish and his Bristol-based team hope the robot, called EcoBot II, will one day be sent into zones too dangerous for humans, potentially proving invaluable in military, security and industrial areas.
Melhuish, who is director of the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Lab at the UWE, told CNN that the EcoBot II was a result of a quest for an intelligent robot that could function without human supervision.
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Home >> CyberneticsDecember 29, 2004
GAIT
Recent research in orthotics has been based upon improving orthotic-joint biomechanics, using lightweight stiff materials and enhancing human-product interface. Little has been investigated on integrating intelligence into lower limb orthoses, which could be the basis for new generations of active orthoses. We propose to investigate the possibilities of integrating active systems and knee-ankle orthoses aiming at providing a means for gait monitoring during real-use situations; enhancing functional performance and improving comfort.
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Home >> CyberneticsDecember 15, 2004
Haptic Arm Wrestling hits the net
An internet facilitated "haptic" arm-wrestling machine devised to teach children "hands-on" applications of networking in the digital age is the hit of American museums and may spawn a new sports craze. The Haptic Arm Wrestling machine, currently on display at 6 science museums, including the New York Hall of Science in Queens, the Tech Museum in San Jose, and the Imaginarium in Alaska, allows contestants to arm wrestle remote human opponents over the internet while watching live video and audio feeds.
Haptics is the science of touch and "tele-haptics" is the new combination of virtual touch technology with networking that allows people to feel locally sensations applied at a distance. Haptics has been employed by NASA to work on the International Space Station, allowing astronauts to control robots outside the station to do repairs, and during the height of the dot com years tele-dildonics or "virtual sex' was touted as the next emergent haptic application. Haptic wrestling, however, has emerged as a favourite sport on the museum circuit for kids and adults alike. A Haptic "Hand" glove is also currently under construction by US based Cyberforce industries for widespread networking applications.
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Home >> CyberneticsNovember 16, 2004
Cyborg geologist explores Spain
European scientists have sent a 'cyborg' to roam the Spanish countryside as part of a mission to create robots that are good at exploring planets independently.
Researchers at the Centre for Astrobiology near Madrid kitted out a human with a camcorder linked to a computer system programmed to look for interesting features in the landscape. The human merely did the donkey-work of carrying the hardware while the computer did the 'thinking'. On a planetary mission, a robotic vehicle such as NASA's rovers Spirit and Opportunity, currently touring the surface of Mars, would carry the hardware.
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Home >> CyberneticsNovember 06, 2004
American Passports to Get Chipped
New U.S. passports will soon be read remotely at borders around the world, thanks to embedded chips that will broadcast on command an individual's name, address and digital photo to a computerized reader.
The State Department hopes the addition of the chips, which employ radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, will make passports more secure and harder to forge, according to spokeswoman Kelly Shannon.
For now RFID chips are used in mechanical things but in future people will be able to communicate using RFID chips implemented in them. The will be able to share information using even more advanced technology of communication chips implemented in their brains. And will be able to control the things using their thoughts only.
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Home >> CyberneticsNovember 05, 2004
The Claim: Identical Twins Have Identical Fingerprints
The facts: Identical twins often share personality traits, interests and habits. They come from the same fertilized egg and share the same genetic blueprint.
To a standard DNA test, they are indistinguishable. But any forensics expert will tell you that there is at least one surefire way to tell them apart: identical twins do not have matching fingerprints.
Like physical appearance and personality, fingerprints are largely shaped by a person's DNA and by a variety of environmental forces. Genetics helps determine the general patterns on a fingertip, which appear as arches, loops and whorls. An individual finger can have just one of these patterns or a mixture of them.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 28, 2004
Signals from monkey's brain move robot
The monkey sees a piece of zucchini and pops the morsel into its mouth. It's a routine act -- or would be, if the monkey had used its own arm.
But this monkey in Andrew Schwartz's laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh is snacking with the help of a robotic arm that the monkey controls simply by thinking
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 24, 2004
Chips Coming to a Brain Near You
In this era of high-tech memory management, next in line to get that memory upgrade isn't your computer, it's you.
Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the artificial brain prosthesis could replace its biological counterpart, enabling people who suffer from memory disorders to regain the ability to store new memories.
And it's no longer a question of "if" but "when." The six teams involved in the multi-laboratory effort, including USC, the University of Kentucky and Wake Forest University, have been working together on different components of the neural prosthetic for nearly a decade. They will present the results of their efforts at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego, which begins Saturday.
One more example of applications of cybernetics in medical. The future of artificial brain is not so far.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 23, 2004
Brain implant transmits thoughts to computer
A 25-year-old Massachusetts man who can't move his arms and legs has been checking his e-mail and changing television channels - just by thinking about it.
The man, Matthew Nagle, is the first person ever to receive a brain implant that transmits his thoughts to a computer cursor, using technology originally developed and tested in monkeys at Brown University.
Nagle received the implant at Rhode Island Hospital in late June and began using it about six weeks later. He is the first participant in a study of the device, known as BrainGate, developed by the Foxboro, Mass.-based Cybernetics Neurotechnology Systems. The research is financed by venture capital.
BrainGate is a silicon wafer about a sixth-inch square, with 100 hair-thin electrodes that extend a sixteenth of an inch into the brain.
When Nagle thinks about moving his arm, the electrodes pick up his brain signals and transmit them to a half-inch-high pedestal on the outside of his head. The signals then travel through a fiber-optic cable to a cart laden with computer equipment.
This is one more step towards the applications cybernetics in medical. Cybernetics is one of the advanced technologies that will change the life of common people in coming time. One of the great researchers in the area of Cybernetics, Prof Kevin Warwick of University of Reading has already performed few experiments on himself and his wife.All the sci-fi movies, which use to show the half man and half machines like Will Smith in I, Robot and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator will become normal people living around us. These are the future human machines that will take the shape of reality with the growing research in Cybernetics.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 19, 2004
Insects could hold the key to artificial intellegence
You have seen the movies in which robots are self-aware and joked about computer cockroaches, but scientists in their quest to understand intelligence and to develop artificial intelligence in robotics have actually turned to the study of insects and primitive vertebrates.
They are looking at how these react to stimuli and how they develop memory, striving to replicate it in robotics for use in applications as diverse as medicine and space exploration.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 11, 2004
A bionic leg to help the disabled
A Canadian scientist has developed what he claims is the world's first bionic leg that can help amputees walk and even climb stairs without difficulty.
"The artificial legs that are currently available are mostly passive and reactive. The one we have developed is a motorised prosthetic leg that can restore the mobility of above-knee amputees," said Stephane Bedard, founder and CEO of Victhom Human Bionics Inc.
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Home >> CyberneticsOctober 07, 2004
Satellite to seek nearest stars, brightest galaxies
A new NASA mission will scan the entire sky in infrared light in search of nearby cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies in the universe.
Called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission has been approved to proceed into the preliminary design phase as the next in NASA's Medium-class Explorer program of lower cost, highly focused, rapid-development scientific spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch in 2008.
Like a powerful set of night vision goggles, the new space-based telescope will survey the cosmos with infrared detectors up to 500,000 times more sensitive than previous survey missions. It will reveal hundreds of cool, or failed, stars, called brown dwarfs, some of which may lie closer to us than any known stars.
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Home >> CyberneticsSeptember 26, 2004
Rats' brain waves could find trapped people
Rats equipped with radios that transmit their brainwaves could soon be helping to locate earthquake survivors buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings.
Rats have an exquisitely sensitive sense of smell and can crawl just about anywhere. This combination makes them ideal candidates for sniffing out buried survivors. For that, the animals need to be taught to home in on people, and they must also signal their position to rescuers on the surface.
In a project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, Linda and Ray Hermer-Vazquez of the University of Florida in Gainesville have worked out a way to achieve this.
First the researchers identified the neural signals rats generate when they have found a scent that they are looking for. “When a dog is sniffing a bomb, he makes a unique movement that the handler recognises,” says John Chapin, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Brooklyn who is collaborating on the project. “Instead of the rat making a conditioned response, we pick up the response immediately from the brain."
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Home >> CyberneticsSeptember 12, 2004
Oak Ridge Observatory: An eye on the sky in our backyard
An innocuous sign, surrounded by trees, on Pinnacle Road is the only indication of Oak Ridge Observatory's presence in Harvard, yet the observatory has been the site of significant astronomical research for the past 70 years. Most Harvard residents are probably not aware that the hot topics of astronomy - the discovery of planets outside our solar system and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence SETI) - are lurking in the woods down the road.
This week, Oak Ridge Director Robert Stefanik spoke to the Post about the observatory's contributions to our understanding of the universe.
Oak Ridge was established in 1932 by the Harvard College Observatory. In 1982, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory took over operations, but the property still belongs to Harvard University. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, in turn, is part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, "the largest astronomical institute in the world," according to Stefanik.
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Home >> CyberneticsSeptember 11, 2004
He, robot
The images are by AARON. The signature on them reads Harold Cohen. That would be highly unusual in most circumstances, but these pictures are by a program rather than a person.
AARON is Cohen's creation, a project that has preoccupied him for 30-plus years. The program never tires. It is running continuously during an exhibition at the Earl & Birdie Taylor Library in Pacific Beach – 24 hours a day in fact – creating new works and erasing works as soon as AARON determines they are done. It's genuinely engrossing to watch it at work.
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Home >> CyberneticsSeptember 02, 2004
Are aliens trying to get in touch?
A mysterious radio signal could be a message from an alien civilisation, scientists said yesterday. It is believed to have originated 31million years ago and to have travelled 182.9trillion miles before reaching the giant Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
The signal has been spotted on three separate occasions but has been observed for only about a minute in total - not long enough to allow astronomers to analyse it in detail.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Home >> CyberneticsSeptember 01, 2004
Virtual Humans Proposed As Space Travelers
Roll out the welcome mat for the virtual astronaut and enter the 3D space of Peter Plantec, a consultant in virtual human design and animation, as well as a leading expert on visual entertainment. He also initiated the "Sylvie" project -- the first commercially available virtual human interface.
And if dispatching virtual humans from Earth doesn’t turn on your thrusters, think about this. It’s likely that extraterrestrial civilizations might send surrogate entities our way instead of propelling their delicate, soft-shell selves across interstellar mileage.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Home >> CyberneticsAugust 30, 2004
The brilliant minds at JPL
One of the most fascinating and successful research and engineering institutions in the United States is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It is managed by the California Institute of Technology for NASA. JPL grew from a nucleus of engineers at Caltech conducting research and development into rocket propulsion in the 1930s. JPL performed research for the U.S. Army during the 1940s and came under its jurisdiction at that time. In the wake of Sputnik, JPL was tasked with developing America’s first satellite. In only three months, JPL engineered, built and successfully launched Explorer I on January 31, 1958. When Congress created NASA to oversee America’s space efforts, JPL was one of NASA’s first acquisitions.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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