An Android Called Aiko

Le Trung a 33 year old Canadian chemistry graduate has invented a working female android.     

Inspired as a child by ‘Robot Anime’, Trung developed Aiko version 1.0 in November 2007. Since then, further revisions have resulted in a the current version who’s talents include:

The ability to read and converse in English and Japanese, answer questions, access internet information, do math problems, recognize common objects and make upper body and hand gestures; she can feel the difference between gentle touching and sharp pressure on her body and even object to the latter. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHFZVwQ53bk
Aiko’s cognitive system consists of unique software featuring AI, speech, reading, math, color vision, hearing, temperature & pressure sensors, OCR, face and common object recognition. The android also asks for information when it doesn’t understand and stores that information for future use; i.e. it learns.Project Aiko web site.

Potential applications are as a home servant or company receptionist. The remarkable thing is that Trung has had no commercial backing; he has developed the concept in his spare time at home. He accepts donations at his

Next steps include developing facial expressions, capacity to taste and full mobility with the lower body.

Seeing Red

Red coloration is a known, testosterone-dependent signal of male quality in a variety of animals.  A statistical study of  ‘Association Football’ (Soccer) teams in England over a 55 year period showed that red teams had the best home record, with significant differences in percentage of maximum points achieved. The researchers, Russell Hill and Robert Barton, had  previously shown that in the 2004 summer Olympic games for four events (Boxing, Tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and Freestyle Wrestling) competitors randomly assigned a red uniform had a 55% win percentage.

Other studies found that referees scoring video bouts gave competitors higher scores when uniforms were digitally altered to be red.

Found at Der Spiegel.  Abstract of Soccer study.  Summary of Olympic study.

Secrets of the Stradivarius

No modern violin maker or ‘Luthier’ has been able to match the qualities of the classical Cremonese violin-making families of Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri who flourished from c. 1600 to 1750. Only about seven hundred Stradivarius violins still exist from these times and they are the most sought after musical instruments in the world.  

Enthusiasm for these instruments is not merely for the instrument’s antique or novelty value; the sound of these violins is universally accepted as far superior to modern violins, in terms of quality of expressiveness and projection.

A new study by Berend C. Stoel and Terry M. Borman of Leiden University Medical Center in the The Netherlands & Borman Violins, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has found that one of the key factors may be original raw material properties of the Maple and Spruce woods that were used.  In particular, the density, or more specifically the variability of wood density at the growth ring level throughout the violin.

The consistency of growth ring density is related to consistency of the tree growth rates from the Spring through Autumn and modern woods do not seem to match the evenness of growth found in the 17^th century wood.

If the density consistency is a major factor, then the reason for it, is as yet, not fully explained; variation in density may reflect differences in stiffness distributions, which could impact vibrational efficacy or may modify sound radiation via altered sound damping properties of the wood.

A part of the mystery of the Cremonese masterpieces may have revealed itself but don’t expect modern violin makers to be reproducing this effect any time soon.  The climatic reasons for subtle variations in growth ring density are not properly understood and would be practically impossible to replicate.

See Original Paper

Found at Yahoo News

FDA Issues Belated Health Warning on Mercury Fillings

After decades of insisting that mercury amalgam fillings are perfectly safe, the US FDA makes a U-turn and issues a health warning.

The FDA web site has dropped its reassuring language from its website, substituting: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.” It adds that when amalgam fillings are “placed in teeth or removed they release mercury vapor”, and that the same thing happens when chewing.

The new warning means that despite consumer suspicions, millions of people have previously been erroneously reassured  into accepting health risks from the amalgam.  These potentially include: heart conditions, Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, infertility, fatigue disorders and neurotoxic effects on developing children and fetuses.

Found at The Independent

Biologist Analyzes Whale Fin; redesigns foils to gain 20% increase in efficiency

Professor Frank Fish became intrigued with the curious bumps or tubercles on the pectoral flipper of the Humpback Whale, and decided to investigate .

Fish, of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, discovered through use of wind tunnels, that the irregular serrations were no anomaly.  The flipper exhibited a much steeper stall angle compared to a smooth shape.  Each tubercle apparently redirects and channels fluid over the flipper, creating vortexes that improve lift.

Fish has formed a company called WhalePower, which recently licensed the design for a new line of fans and wind turbines.  The blades realize 20 percent decreases in energy use and a significant drop in noise levels.

It just shows what 30 million years of evolutionary field testing can provide.

See Christian Science Monitor article.

Found at Sailing Anarchy

Link to abstract of paper  

Flaw Found in Smoothness of Universe

According to ‘the standard model’, the universe is isotropic or, allowing for random granularity, the same consistency in all directions. Three new separate studies are now indicating an uneven pattern.  If this is confirmed, it would need a major change to current theory of the Universe and its early formation.

Initially Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed an uneven pattern in the distribution of cosmic microwave background radiation, ( the cosmic hiss left over from, and providing evidence for, the big bang ).  Land & Magueijo have named this pattern, somewhat geekishly, ‘the evil axis’.

 Subsequently, Damien Hutsemékers of the University of Liège in Belgium analyzed 355 quasars and found that randomness of the polarization of their light becomes more ordered than expected near the proposed axis.

More recently, Michael Longo of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor analyzed 1660 spiral galaxies and found that the rotation of most galaxies near the proposed axis, is also extremely unlikely to be random.

Ideas for the cause of this phenomenon are already being mooted, including the possibility that the early period of ‘inflation‘ – a now widely accepted theory of super accelerated expansion soon after the big bang, may have involved an uneven bulge.

Article found at New Scientist

MicroBling & Quantum Computing

 Scientists have made the world’s smallest diamond ring (5 millionths of a meter across), which could play a key role in the future of computing.

The ring was laser carved from diamond crystal by Phyicists at the University of Melbourne, and will help researchers build quantum computers.  Apparently it also comes in a nice, circular presentation holder.

Quantum computing is an exciting new computing concept, still in its infancy that will e.g. theoretically be able to crack ciphers requiring astronomical numbers of guesses, in seconds rather than years.

Presented at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Found at Australian Broadcasting Co

Premium Gas is not ‘Best’

 I came across this answer in Slate.com to the question ” is high-octane gas bad for the environment?” I occasionally get into this argument and never fail to be amazed that most people refuse to believe that the three grades of gas and their octane ratings are entirely a technical requirement, mostly a function of  the compression ratio of your engine. There is absolutely no benefit to using a grade higher than specified in your car manual; it is simply throwing money away.  All that spiel about better detergents and additives in Premium is complete marketing baloney. So is the disproportionate price difference. Those additives are in all the grades and all the brands.

Slate.com and it’s archive no longer exist.

Sushi Tuna found to contain very high levels of Mercury

And why I order Eel (Unagi) or Mackerel (Saba).

Recent laboratory tests performed for The New York Times found so much Mercury in tuna sushi that a regular diet of even two or three pieces a week at some restaurants could be a health hazard for the average adult, based on guidelines set out by the Environmental Protection Agency.  Larger, predatory fish, including salmon, accumulate more Mercury than smaller fish such as sardines because they are at the top of the food chain.

In any case, according to the World Wildlife Fund:  Atlantic bluefin tuna, are massively overfished and the spawning stock of Southern bluefin in the Indian Ocean is down about 90%

Found at International Herald Tribune.

Black Holes – Coming to your neighborhood?

 Two recent stories emerged concerning these unimaginably exotic but apparently cosmologically common place objects.

The largest black hole so far detected has been demonstrated to be 18 billion times the mass of our sun, i.e. it weighs as much as a small galaxy. Its mass has been able to be estimated due to the fact that a second  black hole weighing 100 million suns, has been observed in orbit around it.

The mass of the Sun is 2 octillion metric tons. 1 octillion =  1 followed by 27 zeros. Amazing to try and think that that this mass (times 18 billion) is shrunk to the size of well, nothing since a black hole is a singularity and has collapsed so completely as to occupy no space.  Black holes possess a sphere of influence around them called an event horizon, beyond which nothing can escape, even nearby light is captured since the gravitational pull is so strong. The event horizon surrounding such a gargantuan black hole would be millions of miles across.

Super massive black holes tend to lurk at the center of galaxies and our own Milky Way galaxy is purported to be holding several. However research has now shown that some smaller, intermediate size black holes (a mere 100-1000 solar masses) are pinging around the galaxy like billiard balls. There are supposedly so few of them that the chances our solar system would encounter one, are infinitesimal, however we would be unlikely to see it coming and if we did, it would be rather an inconvenience. At the very least, disrupting planetary orbits and possibly devouring our whole system which is what black holes do and how they get bigger- Death Stars in reality.

See Biggest Black Hole in Cosmos Discovered

See Rogue Black Holes May Abound in Milky Way

Black Hole Wikipedia Reference