Sue Lange's Blog, page 16

Weird Science Day 17: Parasitic Mind Control

We all know that animals with rabies are nutty, aggressive, and prone to biting new victims. The rabies virus is transmitted to a new carrier whenever the mad sufferer attacks and bites somebody or thing. The new carrier then becomes nutty, aggressive, and prone to biting new victims. It's a great strategy. I'd say that rabies, having been around since 2300 B.C., has had a good run with it. Unfortunately it is not the only parasite  that changes its host's behavior to accommodate a personal agenda.

Oliver Sacks in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," describes a 90-year-old woman who lived for years quietly, modestly, contentedly. But then she started becoming excited, aroused by young men (70-year olds I'm guessing). She had an exuberance she hadn't felt in years. Her friends worried. She was happier than ever, but also concerned. "Do you suppose it's my old Cupid's Disease acting up?" she asked Dr. Sacks. Turns out that that was exactly the case. She'd contracted syphilis in her wild youth and now, 70 years later, it was showing up again, changing her back into a carousing trouser chaser. Treponema pallidum is the bacteria behind syphilis–an STD. This little bacteria gets inside you and increases your sex drive. The more sex you have, the more Treponema you'll spread around. Wicked smart strategy.

Beyond that the story is told of a fluke that lives in the liver of sheep. How the Lancet liver fluke winds up in the sheep is the fascinating part. It starts with snails crawling over the grass and consuming the feces of an infected sheep. Out of the feces hatch fluke larvae that turn into juvenile flukes which irritate the snails internals. The snails cough up the juveniles as if they were hair balls. When an ant slurps up the slime trail of an infected snail, it ingests the fluke balls as well. Once inside the ant, a liver fluke takes control of the ant's mind and mandibles. It makes the ant migrate out of the ant colony up to the tops of the grass where it clamps onto a blade. Eventually a sheep will come along and ingest the ant and its juvenile fluke, thereby serving to incubate another generation of Lancet liver flukes.

Katie Selby of Eastern Michigan University, notes a weird twist to this plot. She says, "If [the ant is] not eaten, the fluke lets the ant loosen its hold on the grass and return to its daily tasks.  This shows that the parasite has some sense of time because if it did not let the ant loosen its grip on the grass, the ant would sit all day in the sun, cooking … and killing itself in the process."

Back in 2006, Peggy Kolm, posted on the subject of parasites changing behavior of hosts. She tells us: "Plasmodium, the cause of malaria, affects both its mosquito and animal hosts. Mosquitoes that drink plasmodium-infected blood initially become more cautious about finding another victim, giving plasmodium time to replicate. Once the plasmodium is infective, mosquitoes become more likely to bite more than one person in a night, and spend more time drinking blood."

She also writes about Toxiplasma gondii. This is a protozoan that lives and reproduces in cats. Toxiplasma has a particularly nasty route to the cat's gut. Rodents eat cat feces, so chances are a mouse will eventually come upon a pile of droppings from a cat infected with Toxiplasma. Here's the mean part: Toxiplasma causes mice to lose their fear of cats. Once infected with a load of toxiplasma, a mouse will be easily caught and consumed by Kitty. Nice lifecycle.

Like the Lancet liver fluke, Toxiplasma has a weird twist in its plot: it can also wind up in humans and change their behavior. Let's assume the feces winds up in a human because he or she handled a cat and accidentally ingested the toxiplasma, not because of some freakish behavior that had them actually…never mind. Anyway, as far as human behavior goes, Kolm suggests that there may be a "correlation between countries with a high rate of toxiplasma infection and increased neuroticism, uncertainty avoidance, and "masculine" sex roles."

Yikes.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Weird Science Day 16: Invisible Battle Tanks

The video says it all. With a heavy bass sound track. Used the same way they use heavy bass in science fiction movies depicting futuristic high-tech. Because otherwise you might not figure out that this is really edgy and sexy and something our side MUST HAVE to solve that pesky infidel problem once and for all. You heard the hint of weird, non-western music. That's to let you know it is, in fact, the infidel we are dealing with.

Keep in mind the tank is only invisible if viewed through infra-red spyglasses. Still, pretty amazing. Here's the copy straight from the  BAE Systems website:

"Unlike traditional camouflage systems which rely on paint or nets to hide vehicles, ADAPTIV can instantly blend a vehicle into its background. The system can also be used on ships and fixed installations, allowing them to stay undetected by enemy surveillance units.

With the ADAPTIV system installed, a unit has:

The ability to blend into natural surroundings
The ability to mimic natural objects and other vehicles
A significantly reduced detection range
IFF capability"

IFF capability? Wikipedia says IFF stands for "Identification Friend or Foe." The Jersey Shore fans say it stands for "I'm F*cked Foundation." Take your pick.

What can I add to this story, this topic, this tech? It's frightening, certainly, but not so much in its present form. The naked eye can detect the tank. Take it to its logical conclusion, though, and things get hairy. How far behind can absolute invisibility be? I can imagine the hell the troops on the ground will one day suffer. And the civilians, of course, walking up on a wide open barrel, not even seeing it.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

No PR today as I observe a round of silence for those who have been caught in the crosshairs of war.

Weird Science Day 15: How to Predict Your Death

Gattaca is coming true. Remember Gattaca? Guy can't get a job because some personal genetic failure has him dying in his 30s. Okay, he can get a job, but not THE job, the job of astronaut. He won't take no for an answer so he borrows some DNA from his roommate, Mr. Perfect Genetic Profile. Ends up making it to the stars. Remember that? One of the better science fiction movies because not only does it make you think, but Jude Law is in it.

Maybe Gattaca's storyline is a little far-fetched (they find a single hair and it just happens to be our hero's? C'mon what are the odds?) but apparently our genes do hold the secret of how long we will live. And we have ways of making them talk. The secret's in the telomeres, the bits at the far ends of the chromosomes. Each strand of DNA in a cell is given just so much telomere length. Each time the cell divides, the telomere doesn't replicate and so is shortened. Once the length is too short, you die. Well, I suppose it's the cell that no longer replicates. Given enough senescent cells, you die. Or something.

Most importantly for the purposes of this blog post, telomeres.net says this: "Research has shown that people over 60 that have long telomeres experience greater heart and immune system health than 60 year olds with shorter telomeres. This shows that long telomeres support health."

So: long telomeres good, short telomeres baaaad juju.

Now that home genetics test kits are available and you can get your genome sequenced for a buck-three-eighty, companies are popping up to tell you your future by looking at your genes.  Some of them will even tell you when you're going to die.

Life Length is just such a company. They measure your telomeres and give you a best guess on longevity. They suggest you get your telomeres measured annually because their best guess can change depending on what all you're into.

Apparently short telomeres are not necessarily unfixable. They can be extended via an enzyme called "telomerase," which works to re-elongate telomeres and give an aging cell a new lease on life. Normal cells do not produce telomerase because the enzyme also promotes wild cancerous growth. You really don't want a lot of it hanging about. However, in cells that have been subjected to the effects of trauma, cigarette smoke, or other agents of change in a negative direction, a little telomerase can go a long way.

The point is, measuring your telomeres at a single point in time is not going to give you a full picture. When you're young and burning the candle at both ends, your telomeres are relatively long, but a wild life style: booze, women, no sleep, can somehow shorten them. But if you change your evil ways, you might be all right. Your telomeres may stay healthy or perhaps  elongate back to where they're supposed to be.

When you're older and already starting to feel the effects of your misspent youth, you might start a rigorous health program complete with tasteless vegetarian food, low-impact aerobics, and trips to the mountain to clear your head. Although your telomeres by now are, no doubt, in a sad state, you might just get a little telomerase action and things will look up.

So one test of telomerase length (at reportedly 500 euros a pop) is not enough. Got to do it annually or more often if you're experimenting with your lifestyle again (Twizzlers for dinner, anyone?)

Why on earth would anyone want this information you ask? Oh, you cynic. Always the bubble burster. Life Length has an answer for you.

"First, it is an excellent indicator of overall general health. Second, by knowing our biological age, it permits us to obtain a better understanding of the life-style habits that impact aging and affords us the opportunity to make appropriate changes. Third, as physicians and the medical community become more comfortable with Life Length's telomere measuring, it will allow for more personalized medicine as doctors treat patients increasingly taking into consideration their biological age."

So there you have it, predicting your death. Do you want to know, or do you prefer death to come to you like a thief in the night? I'm not fond thieves in the night, unless they've got a pack of Twizzlers to share, of course, but I think I might prefer a surprise on this one.

Hey, thanks for reading 31 Days of Weird Science.  If you've got any leads on weird science, let me know about it. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Day 14: The Cephalopods

Octopi, squids, nautiloids. The cephalopods are just about the weirdest group of animals you'll find. They have tentacles and beady eyes.  Their evolution rivals that of humans. Given time and the right conditions, they might even develop sapience – ability to "penetrate deeply into ideas." And they are armed.

The Glaucus site in the UK lists their characteristics thusly:

1)  They are the most advanced of all the invertebrates.

2)  They move by jet propulsion, squirting water from a funnel.

3)  They are the most intelligent of the invertebrates, with a capacity for learning

4)  Most of them are able to eject ink to confuse predators.

5)  Most of them have a remarkable ability to change colour.

6)  They have arms with suckers which they use to capture prey. (Octopuses have eight arms, squids have ten).

7)  They have a hard beak to tackle prey with hard shells like crabs.

8)  Their heyday was 100 million years ago in Cretaceous times when Ammonites were plentiful in the oceans of Earth.

9)  Although they are molluscs, most of them have evolved to have only a diminished internal shell (the cuttlebone of the cuttlefish), or have lost their shell completely (octopus).

10) The Giant Squid, Architeuthis, is the largest invertebrate known, and stretched out with its tentacles included, it has attained 18 metres in length. Even larger specimens may await to be discovered in the deepest oceans.

Did you notice #6 up there with the answer to the perennial question: what's the difference between a squid and an octopus?

The cephalopods are a strange group all around, but here are some of the weirdest species:

The Blanket Octopus

From Wikipedia: "These species exhibit an extreme degree of sexual dimorphism [difference between the male and female]. Females may grow to over 2 metres in length whereas the tiny males are at most a few centimeters long. The males have a specially modified third right arm which stores sperm, known as a hectocotylus. During mating, this arm detaches itself and crawls into the mantle of the female to fertilize her eggs. The male dies shortly after mating. The females carry over 100,000 tiny eggs that are attached to a sausage-shaped calcareous secretion held at the base of the dorsal arms and carried by the female until hatching."

Watch this amazing footage on YouTube from some unnamed documentary with a clip of the Blanket.

Vampire Squid

From Wikipedia: "Only the distal half (farthest from the body) of the arms have suckers. Its limpid, globular eyes, which appear red or blue, depending on lighting, are proportionately the largest in the animal kingdom at 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter.The animal's dark color, cloak-like webbing, and red eyes are what gave the Vampire Squid its name.

Unlike their relatives living in more hospitable climes, deep-sea cephalopods cannot afford to expend energy in protracted flight. Given their low metabolic rate and the low density of prey at such depths, Vampire Squid must use innovative predator avoidance tactics to conserve energy. Their … bioluminescent "fireworks" are combined with the writhing of glowing arms, erratic movements and escape trajectories, making it difficult for a predator to home in.

In a threat response called "pumpkin" or "pineapple posture", the Vampire Squid inverts its caped arms back over the body, presenting an ostensibly larger form covered in fearsome-looking though harmless spines (called cirri). The underside of the cape is heavily pigmented, masking most of the body's photophores. The glowing arm tips are clustered together far above the animal's head, diverting attack away from critical areas. If a predator were to bite off an arm tip, the Vampire Squid can regenerate it."

That's a picture of the vampire up there in today's image.

Watch a YouTube video of a vampire squid turning inside out.

Bigfin Squid

Not much info on this group. Their claim to fame is their really long tentacles. Watch a YouTube video.

Japetella heathi Octupus

This small octopus can go transparent instantly. Nice trick.

Extra Cephalopod fun

Here's a video of a cute baby octopus being annoyed by a human. Not sure who's playing the organ down there, but it really adds to the ambiance, doesn't it?

And finally we come to the Pacific Northwest tree octupus. It's a hoax.

Hey, thanks for reading 31 Days of Weird Science.  If you've got any leads on weird science, let me know about it. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Day 13: What's the Deal With the Higgs?

What's all the fuss about? I mean what is it, this thing they're calling the God particle, the Higgs Boson?

The short answer is it's the entity that gives mass to all the known particles in the Standard Model of particle physics. The Standard Model describes how particles work and interact. By "particles" we mean atomic particles: electrons, protons, neutrons and all the other trons that make up matter. The theory gives us the electromagnetic (interaction between charged particles), weak (responsible for radioactive decay), and strong (holds the nucleus together) forces. The only interactive force of particles not covered by the Standard Model is gravity.

The importance of the Standard Model is that it describes how the universe works. But keep in mind, it is still only a theory. There are bits of information missing, incongruencies in the numbers. The more evidence physicists come up with to sustain the Model, though, the more we understand the world. And if we can iron out the wrinkles, we'll know pretty much everything we need to know and then we can go home. Some people call the Standard Model the "theory of everything."

The Standard Model is not a foregone conclusion. It may be close to being perfect, but in the world of the Universe, being close could amount to being dead wrong.  The big thing standing in the way of Standard Model perfection, is that we don't know where particles get their mass. A field could do it. Yes! A field could endow particles with mass, with existence, if you will. Those in the know have theorized just such a field and they call it a Higgs Field. It has never been observed. It's only a theoretical entity, like the Standard Model. There is less evidence for a Higgs Field than for the Standard Model. To prove it exists, we need the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson gets produced the same time the Higgs Field is endowing other particles with mass. So to prove the Standard Model, we need to find some Higgs Bosons.

What's a boson? The quick answer from Wikipedia is that Bosons are subatomic particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics.

Nice. What's a subatomic particle? Elementary particles like Quarks, electrons and their like (for instance neutrinos), gluons, bosons; and composite particles like neutrons and protons that are made up of elementary particles.

Fantastic. What are Bose-Einstein statistics?  No idea, but they allow  several particles to occupy the same quantum state. That's what makes them Bosons. Sounds like a circular definition to me, but that's the best I can do without getting a headache.

Fine. What's a quantum state? It's a set of parameters called quantum numbers used to describe the state of a  particle. Examples include the energy of the particle, its spin, its angular momentum: Where it is in space, how much energy it has, which way it's spinning.

So. We've got a theory called the Standard Model. It's been in use for about 50 years, which is a long time in our modern, rapidly changing world of knowledge. If the Standard Model doesn't work, then much of what we think we know, isn't true. So we want it to work and to make it work, we've got to have a Higgs Field. To have a Higgs Field we have to have a Higgs Particle. Thus the attention being paid to CERN at this moment in time because they are the best, latest hope for finding the Higgs.

They have not found it yet, but today's announcement says they've found more evidence for it, there's a good chance it exists, but we can't say for sure…yet. Stay tuned, they say. I imagine there is still evidence to go through from recent atom smashings. And there's always next year for more experimentation.

Stay tuned for updates!

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Day 12: Brain-Machine Interface: Wearable Robots

From powered exoskeletons for the military to prosthetic devices for sufferers of locked-in syndrome, you just know this technology is coming. Fans of Ironman wait impatiently. According to a 2008 Wired article, though, it may be a while yet. James Kakalios, physics professor/comics fan back then said, "Sadly, nearly all of the features of the Iron Man suit, with one important exception, are not likely to be realized anytime soon."

A lot can happen in three years in the world of technology, though. In July of this year, E. Paul Zehr, professor of kinesiology (study of human movement) and neuroscience (study of the nervous system), spoke on the subject at this year's Comic-con. He believes we may be getting close to building Iron Man. We already have mind-prosthetic technology. He admits  the tech is limited by the time lag it takes to transfer the signal from brain to artificial limb. He also mentions the fact that the battery power required for a suit to work would be the size of a room. He considers the way computers have shrunk in size without losing computing power and predicts battery size will shrink in the same way.

I'm not sure why we need Iron Man suits. As per the rules for science fiction movies, no matter what powerful anti-dark side artillery you have, the bad guy will have something that is bigger and badder than you. In the end you win by outsmarting your enemy. But what do I know?

On the more practical side, brain-powered prosthetics and wearable robots may possibly help people with spinal injuries to achieve a relatively normal life. Day to day functioning can be restored by hooking an artificial limb directly to the brain. Whether or not it takes an Iron Man suit to do that, only time will tell. I imagine the full body prosthetic would be helpful as long as it didn't restrict movement. If it was skin tight, rather than football uniform bulky.

Full body armor would, of course, be an advantage for a soldier. Again, though, it seems so cumbersome, even with on-board hydraulics ensuring the human doesn't bear the weight. Range of motion seems impaired. Maybe remote control would be the way to go, using brain waves (see image above). By the time all this is worked out, the suit will amount to the same thing as a robot. And of course the other side will have its robots. So what we're talking about is robot warfare. How effective will that be in human affairs? So what if a few robots get blasted? To have an effect, you have to kill humans that are killable, i.e. without armor. Civilians.

Maybe that's what warfare is actually all about. Maybe it's not about guys with guns killing other guys with guns. Maybe it's just about genocide.

But what do I know?

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Day 11: The World of Apps

The world of apps is a strange and at times scary place. From facial recognition software to the Klout Tile that tells you how popular you are, there is an app for everything. Not all of them are as trivial as Angry Birds, though. There are plenty of useful ones. Here are some of my favorite unusual apps.

1) Oh Music, Where Art Thou? – Designed for cyclists, this smartphone app works like an aural GPS. It plays music directionally through the headphones of the cyclist. The sound comes from the direction the cyclist needs to go in and it gets louder as the destination is approached. I suppose it's stadium-loud when you get there.

2) Glasses Off (Ucansi) – This app trains trains older (as in 50 and up) people to see better. Actually to not see better, but to learn how to interpret what they see better. As people age, their eyes have a harder and harder time focusing. The images they see become blurry. Glasses Off trains the brain to interpret the blurriness. The app costs $90 and in three months of 3 times a week, fifteen minute training sessions, your sight will be that of someone ten years younger.

3) Instant Wild – This iphone app takes advantage of crowd sourcing to record animal sitings. It connects users to motion sensitive cameras in wild habitats of Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Mongolia. When the camera senses motion, it sends a signal to the app-bearer who can then identify the animal and add the siting to a database. With the vast amount of animals creating motion and getting their picture taken, the more people identifying these sitings, the less work there is for increasingly under-funded researchers.

4) mFarm – Speaking of Kenya, there's a group of farmers there that have gotten together to create their own app. They use it to check current market prices and send each other information using SMS (short message service) notifications. By the way, that's the mFarm team up in the image for today's post.

5) Crashing satellite tracking app – Both NASA's UARS satellite and DLR's ROSAT X-ray telescope fell from the sky recently. Both incidents had apps (UARS app and ROSAT Reentry) you could use to track the progress of the descent. That way you could determine if you needed to seek cover. I don't believe there's anything scheduled to fall to the earth any time soon, but do keep that little tidbit in the back of your mind for the next time.

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Weird Science Day 10: Virgin Birth

Less than 0.1% of vertebrate species can produce offspring asexually. Happens all the time among the lesser species–insects, amoeba, etc. But us backbone types? No.

It can happen, though, according to BBC's Earth News. A kimodo dragon here, a hammerhead shark there. Eggs can develop without having been fertilized by sperm. It can happen and its called parthenogenesis.  Parthenogenesis probably occurs when it's time for a baby, but there are no males handy.

Oddly, sometimes males are around, and a female still produces offspring parthenogenetically. Stranger still, sometimes parthenogenesis occurs, even after mating. They've discovered the phenomenon in certain boa constrictors. A male and female boa mate, but the sperm for some reason are not used. The babies carry only the mother's genes.

How about this weird story: A sexually immature female diamondback was captured and kept isolated from males for five years. She then gave birth to 19 healthy babies, created non-parthenogenetically. In other words the babies had genetic material from a father as well as the mother. How can that be? Apparently she'd mated before being captured and the sperm were stored for years until the cells were mature enough to produce healthy offspring.

Not quite virgin birth, but still  lovingly weird.

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Weird Science Day 9: Kepler and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

The search for extraterrestrial life is going on all over the place. First there's SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. As the name implies, SETI doesn't just want life, it wants intelligent life. SETI's pretty big. And formalized. There's an organization that acts as a hub for all things SETI called the SETI Institute. According to their website, "The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe." So maybe it's not necessarily just about intelligence after all.

SETI's been around since the 80s and "employs over 150 scientists, educators, and support staff." Two things come to mind when considering SETI: the Allen Telescope Array and the use of citizen scientists.

The Allen Telescope Array utilizes a number of small dish telescopes to collect radio waves from the far reaches. Apparently if there's intelligence out there, they've got talk radio just like we do. And we're going to be tuning in. I'm wondering the same thing you are: Do we really need to collect more Rush Limbaugh-like content?

Surely I jest.

Another important aspect of SETI is its use of citizen scientists. I remember reading a while ago about how thousands of amateur astronomers' computers have been connected up  in a grand search for the sign that we are not alone. I can't remember the details or when that was, but these days the Institute has an app to assist you, fellow astronomer, in joining the search for ET. Here's a quickie quote from the "Explore The Skies Yourself" page:

"Are you ready to join the search? We have collaborated with Adobe Systems and The Hathersage group to develop setiQuest Explorer, an app that runs in your browser and on Android devices.

The software was released in beta in Mid March. New users are being added to the beta program regularly. You can sign up here to be included in the beta.

setiQuest Explorer makes it incredibly easy for you to search for evidence of extra-terrestrial technology. Who knows, you might be the first to spot a signal."

Besides SETI, we have NASA's Mars probe program. According to the NASA website, the defining question for this program is: is there life on Mars? To find out, NASA plans to "follow the water." In other words, find ice, dry river beds, rocks that only form when water is present. The thinking is where there's water, there's life. To follow the water, NASA has proceeded in three stages. 1) Conduct flybys. 2) Orbit the Planet. 3) Land on the surface.

We've been in the third stage for quite some time. NASA has already landed two "laboratories" for collecting and analyzing samples. The third, Curiosity, just  launched on November 26th. It is now in its "cruise phase," which means it's on its way to the planet. It's scheduled to land in August of next year and will operate for one Martian year (almost two Earth years). What will it be doing there? Lots of stuff. But mostly it will follow the water for signs of life.

And finally we get to Kepler, another of NASA's projects. The Kepler project is not overtly searching for extraterrestrial life. According to one of NASA's Kepler sites, "The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems." But according to the Drake Equation (N = R * f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L B_s N), which is used to calculate the likelihood of non-Earth life existing in the Universe, one of the important factors for life to arise is suitability of environment. Environment being a habitable planet. The important variables in the equation are f_p and n_e. f_p is the fraction of stars that have planets, and n_e is the number of planets that are capable of supporting life.

Kepler ties into all that by its very mission: if we find and study exoplanets, planets not in our solar system, we may be able to get some numbers for f_p and n_e. That just leaves the other seven variables in the Drake. We'll save those for another time.

What is Kepler? It's a spacecraft whose purpose is to find "Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets." In general, it's out there taking pictures of stars, transmitting the photos back to us so we can determine if there are any planets around them. The process is not easily capsizable so just check wikipedia if you want the details.

Where is Kepler? It's somewhere in the Milky Way. Sorry I can't narrow it down further. There's no "Kepler is here" map at NASA. Pity. Somebody knows where it is at this moment, but not me.

What's it up to? All I can say is wow. According to Monday's Kepler press release from NASA, Kepler has discovered 2,396 planet candidates since it was launched in March of 2009. And now it has found its first planet that has been confirmed to orbit in a star's habitability zone, the area around a star that a planet might possibly support life based on life as we define it. (I'm a little confused by the fact that further on down the page it says: "There are 48 planet candidates in their star's habitable zone." Apparently those 48 have not been confirmed yet. Or something.)

This is not so much weird as it is exciting. What will be weird is if they do in fact discover life on a planet, be it bacterial, vegetal, or light-sabre wielding, force-using, galaxy-imperializing, full-blown intelligent, humanoid.

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.

Weird Science Day 8: Flesh-Eating Robots Revisited

Back in 2009, I reported on the flesh-eating robots. The headlines at the time were all a-buzz with something that seemed straight out of Hollywood. Something that could mindlessly process human beings and then serve us up as soylent green if it so desired. I reassured the quaking readers that Ecobot was designed for vegetal flesh. Or so said damage control after Fox spread the news about the latest flesh-eating robot project.

We all quickly returned to our normally complacent lives, secure in the knowledge that this new tech would never be used against us. But not so fast. What about this interesting gizmo developed back in 2008: http://www.sciencegallery.com/robotsSG? I wouldn't exactly call these things robots, though. They seem like regular ol' appliances.

The guy's absolutely right, the robot of our imagination is probably never going to exist. Oh there will be toys and sex dolls, surely. But we don't really need autonomous, thinking things walking around and mucking up the environment. We already have humans for that.

I think, though, a robot is more than what they've got there. Artificial intelligence alone doesn't make a robot. IMHO. Without motility, a robot is just a smart machine. In this case, a smart garbage disposal.

Don't you  just love the line about how these contraptions were designed for entertainment as well as utility? The mousetrap table. I really must get one of these before I throw my next cocktail party.

Back to Ecobot. They're up to Ecobot III (pictured above) now at Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. Check out their video of Eco in action.

Without the liner notes,  I can't tell what's happening. I see the lines filling with, or dispensing, liquid. And Eco moves along his track, but that's about it. I need the description below the video to know what's going on.

I'm not sure I'd call this a robot anymore than I'd call the coffee table mousetrap a robot. It has motility.  Sort of. It doesn't seem very autonomous. And scary it isn't. The important thing here is, that one day they will have a contraption that uses garbage to fuel itself in a self-sustaining way.

Back when they were still working on Ecobot II, they coined the term "artificial symbiosis" because they included an "onboard microbial" system that did the digesting, just like in real symbiosis between human guts and the e-coli living there. That's a pretty cool idea right there. Not sure we need motility to take advantage of that. That's the old compost pile model. Works pretty well. Been working pretty well since life was first invented. I guess the difference now is that we're going to have this little "symbot" in our closet, ready for the coffee grounds. And the Arm & Hammer of course, otherwise the processing will stink up the joint.

Even though it turns out Ecobot IS consuming animal remains, I'm still not worried. Until you have a quick-moving, quick-thinking robot able to cruise the landscape picking and choosing what it's going to consume, we have nothing to fear. But when the day comes when you've got walking, talking, and loafing flesh-eating robots, can the Terminator be far behind?

Thanks for reading. Hey, if you've got any leads on weird science, mention them below or contact me through the form. I'll check 'em out.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange's latest ebook, Tritcheon Hash, is full of lapses of logic and weird science. "It's a wild, good read." Get your copy from Amazon or read a couple of free chapters at the publisher's website.