Science, Technology & Health: May 2006 Archives
I've always enjoyed tracking the movements of the Voyager spacecraft, largely because they were both launched only a short time before I was born. In a sense, we're triplets! I doubt I'll ever get in far in life as the Voyagers have though, seeing as how they're both many billions of miles away from the Sun by now and I'm no further from the Sun than the day I was born (minor orbital perturbations notwithstanding). If we ever have the technology, I'd love to go visit one of the Voyagers out in interstellar space, just to say hi.
What are your favorite spacecraft?
Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel and its sequels explored the possible effects on humanity of robots that were so lifelike they could not be easily distinguished from real people. Well, we don't have that kind of technology to worry about yet, but apparently robotics and artificial intelligence are sophisticated enough to build robots that can fool cockroaches and even take leadership roles in their "society".
A matchbox-sized robot that can infiltrate a pack of cockroaches and influence their collective behaviour has been developed by European scientists.The tiny robot smells and acts just like a roach, fooling the real insects into accepting it as one of their own. Through its behaviour, the robot can persuade a group of cockroaches to venture out into the light despite their normal preference for the dark, for example.
The researchers behind the robot believe it could be used to catch cockroaches and that bots designed to mimic other animals could one day work on farms controlling flocks of sheep and chickens by similar means.
I think it's interesting to consider interactions between creatures and robots, but it's also important to consider emergent relationships amongst artificial agents such as I did in my dissertation. As the number of computers/robots increases, the majority of interactions will turn out to be machine-machine rather than machine-man.
I for one welcome our imminent robot overlords, if they aren't already among us.
My wife pointed me to an article suggesting that the EU wants to give Iran a nuclear reactor to try to dissuade the mad mullahs from continuing their own nuclear program. This offer/payoff will be rejected because Iran clearly wants nuclear weapons, not just nuclear power. (As an aside, is it a good policy to bribe rogue nations to prevent them from building weapons? What message does that send to tyrants?)
Although I don't think this is a viable approach to the Iranian problem, it's a good opportunity to link to the US Department of Energy's SSTAR project: the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous (nuclear) reactor.
A nuclear reactor that can meet the energy needs of developing countries without the risk that they will use the by-products to make weapons is being developed by the US Department of Energy.The aim is to create a sealed reactor that can be delivered to a site, left to generate power for up to 30 years, and retrieved when its fuel is spent. The developers claim that no one would be able to remove the fissile material from the reactor because its core would be inside a tamper-proof cask protected by a thicket of alarms.
Known as the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor (SSTAR), the machine will generate power without needing refuelling or maintenance, says Craig Smith of the DoE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Cheap, reliable nuclear power would be a God-send for developing nations, and I hope the DOE is still pursuing this technology.
In an SSTAR the nuclear fuel, liquid lead coolant and a steam generator will be sealed inside the housing, along with steam pipes ready to be hooked up to an external generator turbine.A version producing 100 megawatts would be 15 metres tall, three metres in diameter and weigh 500 tonnes. A 10-megawatt version is likely to weigh less than 200 tonnes.
The US will deliver the sealed unit by ship and truck and install it. When the fuel runs out it will collect the old reactor for recycling or disposal. The DoE hopes to have a prototype by 2015.
There's no reason why American cities couldn't purchase similar reactors to supply their power, and a network of small power generators like these could really spur progress towards the idealistic "hydrogen economy".
Here's more, "Nuclear Energy To Go", and here's an article about how useful small nuclear reactor technology would be to our military.
Apparently kissing is good for your health, especially if you suffer from allergies.
A 30-minute kissing session may suppress the body's allergic reaction to pollen, providing welcome relief from hay fever, a new study suggests.Scientists based at the Satou hospital in Japan found that kissing worked by relaxing the body and reducing the production of histamine – a chemical that the body produces in response to pollen, causing the sneezing, runny noses and streaming eyes that characterise hay fever attacks.
Must be why I don't have allergies.
Here's a pithy quote from Sheikh Yamani, former head of OPEC for 25 years, about the the prospect of running out of oil.
The market, that awful, corrupting, discriminating, resource-misallocating instrument of economic injustice that rewards oil companies and punishes the helpless consumer, is steadily guiding us to where we need to be — producing step gains in energy efficiency, shifting more investment towards alternative energy sources, and reducing dependency on a commodity that skews foreign policy priorities.Foreseeing this epoch-making change that would be engineered by market forces, Sheikh Yamani, once the global icon of the energy business, is supposed to have said some years back: "The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. And the oil age won’t end because we run out of oil."
Americans need to quit whining about the price of oil and focus on developing alternative energy storage technologies.
