Yeah, technically not a net gain but still a step in the right direction.
Why would it have to be
"fusion power plants would have to produce more energy than they consume, which has proven elusive."
to be viable? We don't get the same output with coal or oil or gas... that stuff just burns away!
Self replicating swarm! (sorta)
A prototype of a new modular robot, with its innards exposed and its flywheel — which gives it the ability to move independently — pulled out.
PHOTO: M. SCOTT BRAUER
PHOTO: M. SCOTT BRAUER
October 4, 2013
Surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots
Small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes.
Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office
In 2011, when an MIT senior named John Romanishin proposed a new design for modular robots to his robotics professor, Daniela Rus, she said, “That can‘t be done.â€
Two years later, Rus showed her colleague Hod Lipson, a robotics researcher at Cornell University, a video of prototype robots, based on Romanishin‘s design, in action. “That can‘t be done,†Lipson said.
In November, Romanishin — now a research scientist in MIT‘s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) — Rus, and postdoc Kyle Gilpin will establish once and for all that it can be done, when they present a paper describing their new robots at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they‘re able to climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces.
Inside each M-Block is a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute; when the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. On each edge of an M-Block, and on every face, are cleverly arranged permanent magnets that allow any two cubes to attach to each other.
“It‘s one of these things that the [modular-robotics] community has been trying to do for a long time,†says Rus, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of CSAIL. “We just needed a creative insight and somebody who was passionate enough to keep coming at it — despite being discouraged.â€
Embodied abstraction
As Rus explains, researchers studying reconfigurable robots have long used an abstraction called the sliding-cube model. In this model, if two cubes are face to face, one of them can slide up the side of the other and, without changing orientation, slide across its top.
The sliding-cube model simplifies the development of self-assembly algorithms, but the robots that implement them tend to be much more complex devices. Rus‘ group, for instance, previously developed a modular robot called the Molecule, which consisted of two cubes connected by an angled bar and had 18 separate motors. “We were quite proud of it at the time,†Rus says.
According to Gilpin, existing modular-robot systems are also “statically stable,†meaning that “you can pause the motion at any point, and they‘ll stay where they are.†What enabled the MIT researchers to drastically simplify their robots‘ design was giving up on the principle of static stability.
“There‘s a point in time when the cube is essentially flying through the air,†Gilpin says. “And you are depending on the magnets to bring it into alignment when it lands. That‘s something that‘s totally unique to this system.â€
That‘s also what made Rus skeptical about Romanishin‘s initial proposal. “I asked him build a prototype,†Rus says. “Then I said, ‘OK, maybe I was wrong.‘â€
Sticking the landing
To compensate for its static instability, the researchers‘ robot relies on some ingenious engineering. On each edge of a cube are two cylindrical magnets, mounted like rolling pins. When two cubes approach each other, the magnets naturally rotate, so that north poles align with south, and vice versa. Any face of any cube can thus attach to any face of any other.
The cubes‘ edges are also beveled, so when two cubes are face to face, there‘s a slight gap between their magnets. When one cube begins to flip on top of another, the bevels, and thus the magnets, touch. The connection between the cubes becomes much stronger, anchoring the pivot. On each face of a cube are four more pairs of smaller magnets, arranged symmetrically, which help snap a moving cube into place when it lands on top of another.
As with any modular-robot system, the hope is that the modules can be miniaturized: the ultimate aim of most such research is hordes of swarming microbots that can self-assemble, like the “liquid steel†androids in the movie “Terminator II.†And the simplicity of the cubes‘ design makes miniaturization promising.
But the researchers believe that a more refined version of their system could prove useful even at something like its current scale. Armies of mobile cubes could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during emergencies, or raise and reconfigure scaffolding for building projects. They could assemble into different types of furniture or heavy equipment as needed. And they could swarm into environments hostile or inaccessible to humans, diagnose problems, and reorganize themselves to provide solutions.
Strength in diversity
The researchers also imagine that among the mobile cubes could be special-purpose cubes, containing cameras, or lights, or battery packs, or other equipment, which the mobile cubes could transport. “In the vast majority of other modular systems, an individual module cannot move on its own,†Gilpin says. “If you drop one of these along the way, or something goes wrong, it can rejoin the group, no problem.â€
“It‘s one of those things that you kick yourself for not thinking of,†Cornell‘s Lipson says. “It‘s a low-tech solution to a problem that people have been trying to solve with extraordinarily high-tech approaches.â€
“What they did that was very interesting is they showed several modes of locomotion,†Lipson adds. “Not just one cube flipping around, but multiple cubes working together, multiple cubes moving other cubes — a lot of other modes of motion that really open the door to many, many applications, much beyond what people usually consider when they talk about self-assembly. They rarely think about parts dragging other parts — this kind of cooperative group behavior.â€
In ongoing work, the MIT researchers are building an army of 100 cubes, each of which can move in any direction, and designing algorithms to guide them. “We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand,†Romanishin says.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/simple-scheme-for-self-assembling-robots-1004.html
For those with an interest in these things, the bright “star” almost due west and about 30 degrees above horizon at sunset is actually the planet Venus. It’s sulphuric cloud cover gives it a high amount of reflectance and resultant “evening star” status. Though it will become the “morning star” again once it “overtakes” the earths orbit.
It will theoretically be at its brightest next week, and can cast shadows in the right locations.
Further to Saladin's post, you may like to find out why Venus has such a poisonous atmosphere, and why Earth has avoided this fate..... At least so far.
Here's a hint: look up "runaway greenhouse effect".
Then think what we are doing to avoid a runaway greenhouse here.
This is not a theoretical exercise: there are billions of tons of methane in Russia that will be released in the next few decades due to global warming. This will fuel even more greenhouse and even more global warming which will ..
The future is assured because we will soon have delivery drones serving our every need.
http://www.amazon.com/b?ref_=tsm_1_tw_s_amzn_mx3eqp&node=8037720011
Until they go rogue because you've ordered some dinosaur erotica.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2013/11/30/tool-use-in-crocs-and-gators/
Tool use in crocodylians: crocodiles and alligators use sticks as lures to attract waterbirds
Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) at Madras Crocodile Bank, Tamil Nadu, India, with sticks on its head. What's going on here? Read on. Photo by Vladinir Dinets, from Dinets et al. (2013). Used with permission.
In recent years it has – I really, really hope – become better known that non-bird reptiles (turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, alligators and so on) are not boring dullards, but behaviourally complex creatures that get up to all sorts of interesting things. Play behaviour, complex social interactions, gaze recognition, pair-bonding and monogamy, social hunting, speedy learning abilities and good memories have all been demonstrated across these groups. And another interesting and unexpected bit of complex behaviour has just been published. It‘s so interesting that I feel compelled to write about it today. It concerns what seems to be tool use in crocodiles and alligators.
As described by Dinets et al. (2013), Mugger crocodiles Crocodylus palustris in India and American alligators Alligator mississippiensis in the USA have both been observed to lie, partially submerged, beneath egret and heron colonies with sticks balanced across their snouts. Birds approach to collect the sticks for use in nest building and… well, let‘s just say that it doesn‘t end well for the birds. If the crocodylians really are using the sticks as bait to attract their bird prey, this is tool use, since the sticks are objects that are being employed for a specific function.
American alligator successfully catches Snowy egret (Egretta thula) following stick-displaying behaviour. Photo by Don Specht, from Dinets et al. (2013). Used with permission.
The occurrence of sticks on the crocodylians is not random: stick-displaying behaviour was most frequently observed both in those crocodylians living at rookeries and was exclusively observed during the egret and heron nesting season, being most frequent in late March and April (when the egrets and herons are working hard to find sticks) (Dinets et al. 2013).
The possibility that stick-displaying behaviour results from a random association between rookery-frequenting crocodylians and floating sticks is unlikely since floating sticks are extremely rare in the pools concerned, especially at the time of year concerned (partly this is because the local trees – baldcypresses and water tupelos – don‘t shed twigs, but also because the nesting birds rapidly remove floating sticks for nest-building). Therefore, deliberate collection and employment of sticks by the crocodylians seems most likely (Dinets et al. 2013): it seems that they are practising baiting behaviour, whereby predators use objects in order to get potential prey to closely approach and hence become easier to catch. Even better, they are seemingly only practicing this baiting behaviour during a specific part of the year.
Green heron using bread as bait to attract fish. From Guido Trombetta's SeaWayBLOG.
Baiting behaviour is already well known for archosaurs. It‘s frequently practised by Green herons Butorides virescens: they use feathers, twigs and even berries and bits of bread to attract fish (Norris 1975, Boswall 1983, Walsh et al. 1985, Robinson 1994) [adjacent photo from this article at SeaWayBLOG]. Burrowing owls Athene cunicularia use mammal dung to attract dung beetles (Levey et al. 2004) and gulls of at least two species have been seen using bait to attract finches fish (Henry & Aznar 2006). And it should be noted that this is not the first mention of what seems to be baiting in crocodylians, since Shumaker et al. (2011) anecdotally reported cases in which Saltwater crocodiles C. porosus seemingly used fish fragments to attract birds.
Crocodiles sometimes do strange things. This Orinoco croc (C. intermedius) is eating leaves. Photo by John Brueggen, from Brueggen (2002), taken at St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.
As Dinets et al. (2013) note, the discovery of this behaviour in two extant crocodilian species raises the possibility that it‘s more widespread within the group, and even – given its presence in both crocodylians and birds – that tool use involving bait was practised by extinct archosaurs. A number of surprising and unusual bits of behaviour have been documented in extant crocodylians in recent years (several of which have been covered at Tet Zoo), including fruit eating, leaf eating, adoption of babies, the possible feeding of babies, climbing, co-operative hunting, pair-bonding and monogamy, plus it‘s long been known that they have a complex, sophisticated repertoire of vocal and postural communicative signals. These all show that crocodiles, alligators and gharials are complex, adaptable beasts that do many things that we might not consider likely had they not been documented. What‘s next? Stay tuned…
Social behaviour in lizards is a pretty big area of research at UTAS at the moment. It's amazing that the idea of complex behaviour in reptiles had been left alone for so long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE2v3sUzTH4
Butterfly wings under an electron microscope. The bit with the liquid on the wings and the timelapse is very cool.
ahhhhh science...tried my hand at that at uni...3 year course...6.5 years later, with a crap load of beer, vodka and weed...I have nothing to do with science. Some might call it a waste of time, but I found it rather educational...the uni life..taught me plenty
ahhhhh science...tried my hand at that at uni...3 year course...6.5 years later, with a crap load of beer, vodka and weed...I have nothing to do with science. Some might call it a waste of time, but I found it rather educational...the uni life..taught me plenty
I once had an elderly lady ask me what I'm studying. I told her (zoology), and her only response was to tell me that I should have become a lawyer. I couldn't think of anything worse.
I'm in business and wish I had studied science instead. The grass is always greener on the other side, I guess?
It's only been 70 years since he was convicted but Alan Turing has finally gotten his pardon...
Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/24/enigma-codebreaker-alan-turing-royal-pardon
It's only been 70 years since he was convicted but Alan Turing has finally gotten his pardon...
Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/24/enigma-codebreaker-alan-turing-royal-pardon
Wonder if they've pardoned Prince Edward yet? There would have been all sorts of royal hangers-on packing fudge over the years.
I suspect Tommy Flowers who built Colossus and Bill Tutt who solved much harder problems than Enigma had a big role too, but they built on Turing's work.
They don't call it the Turing Test for nothing.
They don't call it the Turing Test for nothing.
How much do you have to pay?
$69.
$69.
Sucks!
That's very nice of them.