Right Truth

A new generation of animal-like robots is about to emerge from the laboratory - Zoobotics

UNTIL recently, most robots could be thought of as belonging to one of two phyla. The Widgetophora, equipped with claws, grabs and wheels, stuck to the essentials and did not try too hard to look like anything other than machines (think R2-D2). The Anthropoidea, by contrast, did their best to look like their creators—sporting arms with proper hands, legs with real feet, and faces (think C-3PO). The few animal-like robots that fell between these extremes were usually built to resemble pets (Sony’s robot dog, AIBO, for example) and were, in truth, not much more than just amusing toys. 

They are toys no longer, though, for it has belatedly dawned on robot engineers that they are missing a trick. The great natural designer, evolution, has come up with solutions to problems that neither the Widgetophora nor the Anthropoidea can manage. Why not copy these proven models, the engineers wondered, rather than trying to outguess 4 billion years of natural selection?

The result has been a flourishing of animal-like robots. It is not just dogs that engineers are copying now, but shrews complete with whiskers, swimming lampreys, grasping octopuses, climbing lizards and burrowing clams. They are even trying to mimic insects, by making robots that take off when they flap their wings. As a consequence, the Widgetophora and the Anthropoidea are being pushed aside. The phylum Zoomorpha is on the march.  (continue reading at The Economist, hat tip Marcus Wilder)

 

Could New Technology Reduce Airport Pat-Downs?

New Device That Can Detect Security Risks Without Invading Privacy

In the pre-9-11 world, getting on a plane was as easy as emptying your pockets and walking through a metal detector. In the post-9-11 world, airline passengers must take off their shoes, their belts, empty their pockets and be subjected to invasive body scans and pat-downs that add dignity and privacy to the price of an airline ticket.

But a new Star Trek-like handheld scanner may signal the end to some of those more invasive security checks.

“Benjamin Franklin once said that those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” said Mitchel Laskey, CEO of Brijot®, maker of the AllClear™, a handheld screening device that the company claims can scan for security risks without pat-downs or invasive imaging. “While I can’t disagree with the idea of using security screening to make our airways safer, I knew that there had to be a better way than taking naked pictures of people or patting them down like common criminals. That’s why we developed the AllClear.”

The AllClear is a handheld, battery-powered, passive millimeter wave people screening device that detects metallic and non-metallic objects and provides an alternative to the need for pat-downs, according to Laskey.

“The AllClear addresses the world’s need for concealed item detection while protecting the safety and privacy of people being screened,” Laskey said. “Instead of being a metal detector that only looks for metal objects, or an imaging device that takes a picture, it uses millimeter waves to detect concealed objects. Millimeter waves are naturally occurring forms of electromagnetic wave energy ranging from approximately 30 GHz to 300 GHz or 1 mm to 10 mm in wavelength. The AllClear is a passive millimeter wave system, so the AllClear measures the natural millimeter wave energy naturally generated by bodies and objects, enabling screeners to detect anomalies without the need for a pat-down or an imaging scanner.”

The new technology enables the device to detect without ever touching the person being screened:

• Metallic objects
• Liquids
• Solids
• Powders
• Explosives
• Currency (paper)
• Ceramics
• Drugs (various types)
• Contraband (including CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, cell phones, etc.)

 “The AllClear’s passive millimeter wave system is different from other scanners that use active millimeter waves, so there is no radiation involved with the screening,” Laskey added. “It poses no health risks, so it’s safe for everyone, including children, pregnant women, and people with pacemakers.”

 

According to the company’s website (www.brijot.com), the device does not need to be in contact with a person’s body. All surfaces of a person can be scanned without contact — including the hair, top of head, chest, arms, sides, groin area, legs, and ankles. Laskey added that the device could not only end the lion’s share of invasive security procedures, but also speed up the lines at airport security checkpoints.

“The AllClear only requires one operator, minimal training, and is easy to use,” he said. “The time it takes to screen a person using the AllClear is similar to using a handheld metal detector and takes less time than a pat-down. What’s more, it’s not just for airports. It can be used anywhere security measures are taken to keep the public safe – schools, public buildings, courthouses, concert venues, theme parks and more. We think that it’s time Americans feel safer again, without having to give up their privacy or dignity to do it.”

About Mitchel Laskey

Mitchel J. Laskey leads Brijot Imaging Systems as president and chief executive officer and also serves as a member of its Board of Directors. For more than 30 years, Laskey has held executive management and leadership positions for public and private companies, with extensive experience in developing entrepreneurial high-tech companies and working closely with their institutional private equity investors.

 

Largest true-color photograph of the night sky ever created

Calling it a photograph doesn't do it justice, it is more like a Google map where you move from one spot to another in the sky seamlessly.  Via Lawrence Auster:

John Dempsey writes:

See the largest true-color photograph of the night sky ever created, shot by 28-year-old amateur astrophotographer Nick Risinger using six astronomical cameras. It's a 360-panoramic view of the sky taken by trekking 60,000 miles across the western United States and South Africa starting in March 2010. The final image is composed of 37,000 separate photographs. It's interactive, and quite impressive.

Go check it out, pretty amazing.  Below is a screen shot of the homepage:

Cows Altered to Produce Human Breast Milk

How is this even possible, or ethical, or safe?  It's just creepy.  Do we really want to feed this to our babies?

Scientists have introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties  as human breast milk, The Telegraph reports.

The scientists behind the research have modified cow milk in an attempt to provide an alternative to human breast milk and baby formula, as human milk contains key nutrients that can reduce infections and strengthen the immune system.

While the dairy product is likely to receive backlash from opposers of genetically modified foods, scientists such as Prof. Ning Li,  who led the research and is director of the State Key Laboratories for AgroBiotechnology at the China Agricultural University, believes it will be safe to drink.

"The milk tastes stronger than normal milk," Li told The Telegraph."We aim to commercialize some research in this area in coming three years. For the 'human-like milk,' 10 years or maybe more time will be required to finally pour this enhanced milk into the consumer's cup." (continue at Fox, more at the Telegraph)

 

People with full bladders make wiser decisions according to scientists

Researchers discovered the brain’s self-control mechanism provides restraint in all areas at once.

They found people with a full bladder were able to better control and “hold off” making important, or expensive, decisions, leading to better judgement.

Psychologists from the University of Twente in the Netherlands linked bladder control to the same part of the brain that activates feelings of desire and reward.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, also concluded that just thinking about words related to urination triggered the same effect.

Their findings contradict previous research which found people who are forced to “restrain themselves” put more pressure on their brain and found it difficult exerting self-control.

Dr Mirjam Tuk, who led the study, said that the brain’s “control signals” were not task specific but result in an "unintentional increase" in control over other tasks.  (continue at The Telegraph UK, hat tip Marcus Wilder)

The number of jokes that could come from this 'study' are probably endless.  I'll leave that up to you.

Now check out the winners of the Watcher of Weasels Council this week, below the fold:

Dead Head

The book Dead Head by Allen Wyler is an absolute must read and I'm going to tell you why.  From the first words of the Prolog to the last words of the Post Script, this book is full of suspense, intrigue, mystery, life, death, terror, kidnapping, and so much more.   Dr. Russell Lawton, after giving a presentation at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, is approached by a beautiful young women,  Raveena Khan, who appears to be of Indian or Pakistani heritage and claims to be a free-lance journalist.  Everything goes downhill from there.  Not only is Raveena not a journalist, neither are her 'friends' Hussein, Ahmed, Yamal, and Yusef.

Dr. Russell Lawton is a neurosurgeon working in research for the NIH (National Institute of Health).  His only child, Angela, is kidnapped by the terrorists in order to force him to help them in their intended terror plot on the United States.  How could a neurosurgeon help terrorists?  I can't tell you that, you need to read the book.  I will ask you a question:  Can a head, a dead head, separated from the human body continue to survive on it's own long enough to relate information to others?  Hmmm?

The reader is confronted with the delema of what would we do to stop a terror attack from happening again here in the U.S?  Would we sacrifice our own life?  The life of our child or other family member?   Are the needs of the many really greater than the needs of the few, or the one?

Lawton tries to reason with the terrorists, but as we all know that is impossible:

Mohammed’s smirk vanished. “You see? We have nothing more to discuss because there will never be a meeting of our views. You dismiss our beloved Islamic religion as the ranting of fanatics. On the other hand, I despise your morally corrupt, sinful Western life style. That, by the way, is a good example of one of the reasons I rejected the United States and returned to my roots. So there you have it; stalemate. Besides, your fate is cast. Yes, having killed Hussein means you may very well survive this little misadventure, but in the final analysis you will lose. And you know why?

Dr. Lawton's research has 'shown the ability to use the activity of hundreds of individual neurons in a monkey’s brain to manipulate a robotic hand with the same precision as the monkey’s own arm'. What sounds like science fiction in this book, as the author points out in the Post Script, isn't really fiction at all

I truly enjoyed this book and hope you will also.  I can't wait to read Allen Wyler's next book. 

You can order the eBook for Kindle, Nook, iPad, or you can download a FREE app from Amazon and Barnes & Noble to read eBooks on your PC or Mac, which is what I do.  Enjoy:

Kindle:

Dead Head

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Head-ebook/dp/B004MDLN5W/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1296601572&sr=8-1

Nook:

Dead Head

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Dead-Head/Allen-Wyler/e/2940011162411/?itm=2&USRI=dead+head

 

What others have said:

"With its lightning-paced excitement and fascinating science, Dead Head has everything you could hope for in a medical thriller!"--Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Mephisto Club

 

"Once I started Dead Head, I couldn't put it down. It's a skillful merging of the medical thriller and political thriller...Tom Clancy meets Tess Gerritsen!  Dead Head is an expertly crafted thrill-ride. The suspense builds and builds in Allen Wyler's riveting page-turner. Bravo!"--Kevin O'Brien, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Victim and Killing Spree

 

Giant crayfish found in Tennessee is new species

Not to be confused with the giant Tennessee Democrat loon Steve Cohen:

The new crayfish should not have been easily overlooked, as it is huge -- twice the size of other species, the team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Eastern Kentucky University said. 

(Image: A new species of giant crayfish, named Barbicambarus simmonsi, found in Tennessee, is pictured here in this image released to Reuters Jan. 20. The new crayfish at about 5 inches long, is huge -- twice the size of other species, the team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Eastern Kentucky University said. --Carl Williams/Reuters)

You can read all about it at the Christian Science Monitor, but the take away is:

We spend millions of dollars every year on federal grants to send biologists to the Amazon, to Southeast Asia -- all over the world looking for and studying the biodiversity of those regions,'' Schuster said. ``But the irony is that there's very little money that is actually spent in our own country to do the same thing. And there are still lots of areas right here in the U.S. that need to be explored.''

Watcher of Weasels Council Winners

• *First place with 2 1/3 votes! – The Noisy Room --The Herding of America – Enlightened Despotism
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – VA Right-As Obama Reaches the Halfway Mark
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Bookworm Room-Selling atheism — and why it’s a fundamentally nonexistent product at the end of the day
• Third place with 1 vote – Joshuapundit – Palestinians Put The Squeeze On Obama
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Razor- The Final lesson of Tucson
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD- Tunisian Squeeze!
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Glittering Eye- What Is To Be Done? (Federal)
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Rhymes With Right- What A Stupid Poll Question!
• Fifth place with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – On two kinds of drones
• Fifth place with 1/3 vote – Right Truth – Dark Cloud Over Chris Christie?
• Fifth place with 1/3 vote – Colossus of Rhodey – Speaking of Garbage…

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 1/3 votes! – Sense of Events- Seahawks Fall To Climate Of Hate In Chicago submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place with 2 votes – New Zeal – Mark Rudd Repents Army Targeted Bombs – Now Supports Peaceful Destruction of the Military submitted by The Noisy Room
• Third Place *t* with 1 2/3 vote –Atlas Shrugs – Governor Christie’s Hamas Pick for Superior Judgeship submitted by Bookworm Room
• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 vote –Thought Catalog – 20 Ways To Be Popular At An Expensive Liberal Arts School s submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Yaacov Lozowick’s Ruminations -Guardian Regrets Killing of “Palestinian” Man submitted by Simply Jews
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Elder of Ziyon -Statistics fun: Freedom House vs. HRW submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Political Commentator – I went to a fight, and a State of the Union address broke out! submitted by Rhymes With Right
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 votes -Day By Day -The Shadow Knows submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Laigle’s Forum – We Are All Loonies Now submitted by VA Right

 

 

New Uranium Enrichment Plants for Iran

Today Iran announced that it plans to begin construction of 10 uranium enrichment centers across the country by next year, work on one of the centers will be started by March 2011, most likely assisted by Russia.  Nothing coming out of Iran is clear.  Note that Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said Iran plans to build a dozen more nuclear plants in the future, then went on to say "We in the parliament have tasked the government with producing 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity. That means setting up 20 power plants like Bushehr."  

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded:

Iran and Russia confirmed that Russians will start loading a nuclear reactor in the Islamic republic with fuel next week. [snip]

"Russia is providing the fuel, and taking the fuel back out," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday.

"It, quite clearly, I think, underscores that Iran does not need its own enrichment capability if its intentions, as it states, are for a peaceful nuclear program," he said.  (CNN)

Well, duh!  It is obvious that the time for negotiations, for diplomacy, for sanctions (which have not done the job to stop Iran) is over.

Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said " ... the period of testing is over and the stage of physical start-up has begun".

So what will be done by the U.S.?  Nothing.  What will be done by Israel?  Only time will tell, and they don't have much time to make a decision.

Related:

Switzerland and Iran: Deepen Ties Despite World Pullback, via Realite EU

While the world increases pressure on Iran by imposing sanctions, Switzerland remains one of Europe’s least compliant nations. As recently as last month, after the EU voted to strengthen the UN sanctions, the Swiss energy giant EGL was cited as a possible sanctions violator at a US congressional hearing. The hearing cited firms active in Iran’s gas and oil sectors despite sanctions. [1]. EGL is facing the imposition of a large fine similar to that paid by Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank in December 2009. [2]

As the United States has no diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Swiss embassy in Teheran represents American interests. Because of this representation, the Swiss government often acts as a diplomatic mediator between the US and Iran. [3]

Diplomatic Relations

• In January 2010, Livia Leu Agosti, the Swiss Ambassador (representing US interests in Teheran) was summoned by Iranian officials who expressed their unhappiness about what they called Washington’s support for a group they linked to the killing of an atomic scientist. [4] Massoud Ali Mohammad, a physics professor at Tehran University, was killed in a bombing in Tehran on January 12, 2010.[5] The following day, the Iranian Parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, accused Israeli and American intelligence agencies of plotting the bombing. [6]

Spacequakes Shaking Earth

Like an earthquake in space, so-called spacequakes are temblors in Earth's magnetic field caused by plasma flying off the sun that could help generate the colorful auroras that dance high in Earth's atmosphere, a new study suggest.

While felt most strongly in Earth orbit, these quakes can also reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.

"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," said Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA, principle investigator of NASA's THEMIS spacecraft.

 

A new study found that spacequakes can help generate colorful auroras in the sky.Newscom/File 

And these rumbles can pack a punch.

"The total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results of a study on spacequakes in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. [Illustration: Spacequake in action.]

Spacequakes aren't the only unearthly temblors around. Scientists have also discovered starquakes (violent trembling inside stars), moonquakes and asteroid quakes (seismic tremors on the surface of the moon and asteroids, respectively). In fact, Earth can actually stimulate asteroidquakes when wayward space rocks fly too close to our planet.    (continue reading at Christian Science Monitor)

The Aurora Australis and the Aurora Borealis 

(Photo Gallery)

Well Said Comment On Global Warming Science

Science Subpoenaed
Comment
May 13, 2010
S. Fred Singer
Nature.com

Your editorial (“Science subpoenaed," May 13, 2010) about Attorney-General Cuccinelli of Virginia (my home state) demanding documents and e-mails relating to Prof. Michael Mann from the University of Virginia (my university) has raised my interest. I note first of all your choice of words. You refer to Michael Mann as “internationally respected.” I would use more neutral language, like “prominently mentioned in the EAU (East Anglia Unit) e-mails, aka Climategate.”

You state, correctly, that “no evidence was given of wrongdoing [by Mann].” But isn’t that the purpose of the investigation? Certainly the references in the University of East Anglia’s e-mails to “Mike [Mann]’s Nature trick” in order to “hide the decline [of temperature]” might lead one to think that there has been some skullduggery. It even suggests that you might have a conflict of interest, which has produced a certain amount of bias. Of course, I would never accuse you of that, Heaven forefend.

You then identify Mann with the “famous” hockey stick graph [Nature 1998], which did away with the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and also the Little Ice Age (LIA), from which the global climate is just now recovering. It may have escaped your notice that Mann has now discovered the existence of the MWP and LIA [PNAS 2008], which has bent the shaft of the hockey stick all out of shape. Well, who says that the age of miracles has passed?

Fortunately, the blade of the hockey stick is still there, showing rapidly rising temperatures in the past 30 years, thanks to the valiant efforts of Prof. Phil Jones. We are breathlessly waiting for expert scrutiny of his methods of selecting data from thousands of weather stations to arrive at a single number for “global temperature.” Perhaps he will reveal the algorithms he devised to “adjust and correct” the raw data. But unfortunately, he did not save the original temperature records; as the saying goes: “The dog ate them.”

You then state that the UEA e-mails were “stolen.” Perhaps they were; but until you have evidence you may be accusing an unknown whistleblower who resented what was being done to the climate data and to science. I won’t even mention what the resulting climate scares are doing to the economies of nations and the living standards of their populations. We will soon become more aware of these consequences.

I was wondering just how long it would take the editorial to suggest a parallel between climate skepticism and the tobacco lobby. Well done! It’s too bad that global warming cannot be shown to cause lung cancer, not yet, at any rate. But more research money may yet uncover such a connection. There’s still hope.

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S. Fred Singer
Send email

S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former founding Director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. He is author of Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate (The Independent Institute, 1999).

Full Biography and Recent Publications

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From S. Fred Singer
Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate

S. Fred Singer is a distinguished astrophysicist who has taken a hard, scientific look at the evidence. In this book, Dr. Singer explores the inaccuracies in historical climate data, the limitations of attempting to model climate on computers, solar variability and its impact on climate, the effects of clouds, ocean currents, and sea levels on global climate, and factors that could mitigate any human impacts on world climate. Learn More »»