It’s a well-established scientific fact : it’s my 39th birthday tomorrow! It will be the official start of the last year in which I vaguely deserve to be alive, so I better make the most of it.

And you know what that means, don’t you?

That’s right kids… MORE SCIENCE!

We have a butteload (much bigger that a buttload) of great science news to share with you today, so let’s do like the bunnies do and hop to it.

And as always, we start with the magic words that open the distinctly rational vaults of science to our eager, tingling minds : SCIENCE IS FUCKING AWESOME!

Ya gotta work blue just to get the kids’ attention these days, I tells ya.

We have a number of nifty user interface stories today, so let;s count them off.

First up, we have this way cool interface dreamed up by the dream masters at MIT, a 3D mouse that works by levitating a metal sphere.

It’s called the ZeroN, and you just have to see this.

That is so stylish it makes me wanna cry. And it works both ways, too. You can control a computer with it, or it can be controlled via the computer.

And admittedly, making a metal sphere move around like the Invisible Man is messing with you would be pretty damn cool, although I am not seeing any practical applications for that side of it.

But I am very impressed by its various uses as a 3D mouse, especially one where the pointing device stays where you put it in 3D space. I can see this becoming a very hot accessory for the 3D modeler who only thought he had everything. Imagine, working on 3D objects in 3D!

And that astronomy bit was pretty darn impressive too. Custom solar systems!

But we all know that the hottest user interfaces these days are the ones for the brain. Cybernetics is a real honest to goodness science these days, and we are increasingly using our brains as input devices.

Like this idea called Brainput which monitors your brain to see if you are becoming stressed out via overwork and if you are, it takes over some of the work for you.

I am intrigued by what the subjective experience of such an interface might be like. Ideally it could keep a worker in “the zone” where they are at maximum stress free output all the time, and that could be extremely rewarding, even euphoric.

But I have to address the obvious question : if the computer can do some of the work, why is a human being doing said work in the first place? Why not let the computer do all it can, all the time, and free up the human for higher level tasks?

More salient, I think, would be a system that learns what tasks stress the user out the most, and what aspects of said tasks, and readjusts workflow and interface approach accordingly in order to make the work as low stress for the worker as possible.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

But the real progress in cybernetics was made this week when several severely paralyzed people were able to control robotic arms purely with their thoughts.

So not only is it the dream of cybernetics made real, it is also a heartwarming tale of how some old people who had be crippled terribly by strokes were able, for a little while at least, to do something themselves for a change.

These are people who cannot even speak or move from the neck down, much like Stephen Hawking. Although we might want to think twice before giving him access to one of these robotic arms. With his genius, he could probably use it to take over the world.

Now these robot arms are not exactly portable unless you are Optimus Prime. (And in that case, all your arms are robot arms, so what do you need some clunky human device for?)

No, these are big robot arms like the ones used in car factories. So nobody will be taking one home to help with the washing up just yet.

But this is a very big step in that direction. With advances in brain imaging and lightweight, user-friendly sensing devices, we finally have the necessary hardware to make brain interfacing technology a reality.

And normally, that would be exciting enough for one week. But that would not be this week, because I have a story I am even more excited about this week.

Turns out that in the USA, their FDA has just approved an over the counter, 20 minute, no lab AIDS test.

Yes, in the future, finding out your HIV status could be almost as painless and simple as finding out whether or not you are pregnant.

This could have huge social implications. The article seems to assume that these tests will primarily be used by people who want to test their own HIV status alone at home, in private, discreetly, and that is probably mostly true.

But the future I see for a technology like this is one where it allows for greater sexual freedom, because instead of everyone having to strap latest armor over their genitals because they can’t afford to trust their bedmates, people could simply test themselves in front of their prospective partners and then have at it with a will and without a condom.

In fact, you could even have sex clubs where being tested is required before entry, thus ensuring that everyone inside the club is HIV free, and can do whatever they please.

And all it would require is a poke with a needle and a 20 minute wait. Sounds reasonable.

And I am sure that in the future, the technology will be refined to make it faster, and have it cover every STD in the book.

Of course, being STD free does not mean you do not have to worry about pregnancy. So I suppose this would be less of a big deal for straight people.

But for us fags, the Seventies are back again, baby!

Here we are on another Thursday night, browser heavy with share-worthy content for you lovely people to enjoy as we roll into the weekend.

Fun fact : this Saturday is my 39th birthday!

And now, for the goodies. First off, here is a fun themed clip compilation called Three Point Landing.

Yes, heroes always make three point landings like that. Why? Because it looks really fucking cool, that’s why. Especially the landing, tiny pause, then slowly get to your feet looking pissed.

That shit always looks kickass, cliche as it is. I am not entirely sure why. The Desmond Morris fan in me suspects it comes from our semi-arboreal past, when we were only partly ground dwellers and used our agility and dexterity to travel via tree to avoid predators.

Imagine how impressive the alpha primate would be if he swung into your midst, landed, and glared at everyone. You would immediately know the shit had hit the fan, would you not? You would stop what you were doing and be very still, hoping like hell it was not you that was in trouble.

And well, what are superheroes (and regular heroes) but alpha humans who show up to punish the misbehaving members of our human tribe, protect the weak and the innocent from them, and put everything right again with their awesome alpha power?

When you look at it that way, having a superhero team called Alpha Flight makes sense, doesn’t it?

We're dominant! But in a really good way.

Next up, while I am not normally a fan of putting clothes on animals (they don’t need them, they don’t like them, and don’t think they do not know how stupid they look) (especially cats), occasionally someone will come up with an animal costume that is just too brilliant or adorable for me to ignore.

And in that category, this one hits it clear out of the Astrodome.

That is seriously the most brilliant dog costume ever. One dog dressed as two doggy pirates carrying a treasure chest. Whoever even conceived of this costume was a genius, let alone whoever actually designed it and constructed it.

Probably the same person, but still.

And the dog even looks happy in it. I would not have posted the pic if the dog had looked miserable.

Granted, dogs look happy most of the time. That is one of their most winning attributes and one of the main reasons they appeal to us human beings so much : they are filled to the brim with unbridled enthusiasm and optimism. You hardly ever see a dog looking depressed or worried or bored. And when you do, it takes so little to make them all happy and waggy and smiling again that it gratifies us.

That is especially good for those of us who tend toward the negative and gloomy end of the scale. We need that kind of sunshine in our lives to remind us that it is not all that bad.

I am still a cat person, mind you. But dogs can be pretty great.

Speaking of things which are pretty great, those awesome comedy nerds over at Splitsider have done all of us who worship the Al a favour by putting together a comprehensive list of every single Weird Al music video ever made.

Sure, you could go and find each of these videos by yourself, without their help. But why bother when they have done it for you? As a huge Al fan, I am impressed with their ability to know exactly what sort of thing appeals to comedy nerds just like me.

I mean, what an awesome resource! They even showed their mad comedy nerd cred by putting the list in chronological order. That makes so much sense that I have to love it.

Looking over the list, I am reminded of how disappointed I am that all of Al’s videos from 2006 on are mostly animated. It should be a winning combo for yours truly, because I love both Al and animation.

But the animated videos are just not as good at Al’s live action videos from his heyday. Al made his videos with the same skill and precision that he used it making his songs. Compared to something like the genius shot-for-shot parodies like the video for Smells Like Nirvana, these animated videos, with their ugly art, shaky animation, and overall sloppy production values, just look like crap.

I mean, check this shit out! The aformentioned Smells Like Nirvana :

Pure genius. More comedy per second that the Simpsons.

And now, the incoherent and poorly laid out video for Virus Alert :

And that was by the guy who did Retarded Animal Babies, work I have enjoyed in the past. But like we learned from the Samurai Jack version of Clone Wars, good thing plus good thing does not always equal good thing. In fact, sometimes it leads to crap.

And speaking of crap (oy, what a segue), I dare you to check out the home page for Bathroom Sprayers.

And we ain’t talking something to make getting those stubborn stains off the mirror a breeze.

No, we are talking about the bidet kind of sprayer. The kind you use in lieu of toilet paper. The kind all those sophisticated types in Europe use.

The kind you use to squirt poop off your butthole.

Now I have a certain fascination, not entirely juvenile, with things regarding our deepest and most primal taboos, the ones concerning the proper handling of our eliminatory functions.

And I can totally see how the bidet might have a lot of advantages over toilet paper. It is certainly easier on the environment (save trees from a gruesome fate!), probably more sanitary, and it probably feels kind of nice too. Like a shower for your butt.

But taboo runs mighty deep, and I am pretty sure that even if I had the world’s most luxurious, temperature-controlled, ph-balanced, laser-guided bidet in the world, I would still feel absolutely compelled to wipe myself when it was done.

And that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Another day, another buckload of good stuff to share, so let’s get at it!

We will start with this little observational gem :

I will buy whatever it takes to prove capitalism doesn't work!

Possibly a little unfair, but still pretty funny. For me, it is the Starbucks that sells the joke. You can’t go to a protest without wearing or using some kind of product of capitalism unless you show up naked (and that would probably get you arrested) but you would definitely make your point better if you were not holding 25 cents worth of coffee and syrup that you paid five dollars to get.

Myself, while I am fairly left leaning, I am not against capitalism. I think capitalism is beautiful. Everyone doing their own thing, freely exchanging goods via money, each transaction making everyone involved a little bit happier. It works remarkably well for something with nobody in charge. No guiding will, no big long term plan. Just people exchanging their time for money, and money for goods.

My objection is to perversions of capitalism like the stock market and the financial services industries, to corporations able to pervert the rules and the rich able to simply bribe the people who are supposed to be keeping the system working into letting them loot and destroy it.

What I am against is the breakdown of law and order where it is needed most, in the arena of capitalism where all our destinies are always in play and where power and money make maintaining law and order extremely difficult and extremely necessary.

Plus, I hate Starbucks, and all my clothes come from Value Village. So there!

Speaking of regulating capitalism, there is a good article over at the New York Times called Why We Regulate which attacks the current mythology of financial anarchism that the right wing espouses.

I consider myself a financial (not fiscal) conservative. I think the big financial area should be soundly and solidly regulated. All this bullshit about how government intervention is always bad and how bad regulation is for the markets is just self-serving short-sighted hedonism. Of course the markets do not want to be regulated. Nobody likes to be told they cannot do what they want to do.

But you know who really really hates government intervention? Criminals, that’s who. What we have now is criminals advocating for less police and fewer laws. And somehow, the people doing the advocating can call themselves “conservatives” with a straight face.

Helps to have no conscience, I suppose.

In a sane world, it would be conservatives who were backing strong law and order in all venues.

You know what I think would have a huge psychological effect? If all cops that worked white collar crime and financial regulation wore cop’s uniforms at all time. No matter the agency, they should look like cops, the police, when they are out in public. Then it would be super clear to everyone that it is law and order that these anarchists are spitting on, and worse.

In other news, can you believe that George Lucas has actually done something cool?

Of course, he is doing it in the form of being a huge dick, but he is being a dick to other rich people, so it all works out.

Turns out, George has been trying for four decades to build a huge new state of the art $300 million movie studio right on property he owns in Marin County in California, and the other rich people in that area have been cockblocking him every single step of the way.

They don’t want some movie studio in their back yard increasing the traffic in the area and sullying their pristine neighborhood with something as lowly as people actually doing productive things.

Presumably, the thought of labour that is not directly in service to their own needs filled them with a deep and unendurable disgust.

So George has finally given up on his move studio, and has decided to build something else on the property instead : low income housing.

He is working with a local charity to plan housing for low income families and/or elderly people on fixed incomes, and he is even donating all the expensive land-use and environmental surveys to the project in order to smooth the way.

Now, instead of a movie studio in their back yard, the rich people of Lucas Valley (actual name!) will get to have poor people there instead.

Awesome move, Mister Lucas. Plus I love it when rich people fight amongst themselves.

Finally, over at Salon.com they have a rambling but highly informative article about the first gay President of the United States.

Turns out, it is quite clearly (and queerly) James Buchanan and furthermore, it was not even much of a secret why he had remained a “lifelong bachelor” (gee, me too!), the only unmarried President in the history of the U S of A.

I mean, check out this letter he wrote to a friend after the love of his life, William Rufus King, left him to be an ambassador in Paris :

I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.

I would say that is fairly unambiguous, n’est-ce pas?

I like the point the article makes about what the author calls “chronological ethnocentrism”, the belief that our current era is the most enlightened and all previous times must be less enlightened in direct proportion to how far in the past they lay.

But the truth is, our recent era is far more intolerant than Buchanan’s, and we have a lot to learn about how things change over time, and not always for the better.

Another Friday whizzes into view like a perky anime robot companion, and with it comes a great boatload of cool and freaky science stories. So let’s bust them out and let them loose on your brains and mine!

Blue Seed On The Ocean

Speaking of anime, that is the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about a floating city called Blueseed. But it turns out that it is even nerdier than that : it is a city on a boat designed to house technology startups in international waters twelve miles out from Silicon Valley.

Now my first thought was “Why does this have to be a floating city in international waters?” What advantage does the project get from this? And in practical terms, there is none. Unless your “technology startup” is making an app to sell kiddie porn via Android, you do not need to be in international waters, ergo you do not need to be on a boat, let alone a floating city.

So I figure the real advantage is sheer, raw, hot geek appeal.

I mean, look at the thing!

It even looks kinda like it's made of Lego!

That is why it already has 133 startups wanting to have offices there.

Because a floating city in international waters is just plain kewl!

To me, the obvious use for a city floating in international waters is as a sin city that would make Vegas look like Disneyland. But that is just me.

Driving Miss Nobody

Speaking of Vegas and by extension Nevada, the state of Nevada recently broke exciting new ground by granting a driver’s license to one of Google’s driverless cars.

Now, loyal readers will know that we love driverless cars here at FSW, so you just know we had to be all over this story the moment we first read it.

And yup, the car got a driver’s license. And this was no pro forma transaction. It had to pass the exact same practical exam as any human driver, with stern Nevada driving examiners judging its every move as it drove on the highway, through residential neighborhoods, and even down the famous Vegas Strip.

And it passed! So the driverless car future just got that much closer today. In a way, passing this hurdle is like passing a driving Turing Test. If the car can drive so well that you cannot tell the difference between it and a human driver (except it probably uses more turn signals and less profanity), then we can say it is truly artificial (driving) intelligence.

I am sure there are many more hurdles to clear before this intelligence shows up in consumer vehicles. In fact, it might show up in fixed route trucking first, or even buses. Something where all that is required is to follow the same route every time, thus minimizing the variables the AI has to deal with and allowing the software to rack up tons of miles of records to use in the consumer models to follow.

Virtual Ink For A Virtual World

Check this out : imagine having a tattoo that you could change as easily as you change the wallpaper on your computer desktop, or even make disappear? Sounds very cyberpunk, doesn’t it?

Well cyberpunk is now, because a company called MoodInq has invented a programmable “canvas” that you get implanted under your skin, and from that point on, with just a wave of their proprietary “wand” and the use of your computer (be it desktop, laptop, or mobile), you have a magic tattoo that can look however you want it to look.

Is that not outrageously cool? I mean, I am a little squeamish about body modification, so I am not reasl keen to have something implanted under my skin, but it is still mighty tempting. The company says they have a database of over 250K tattoo designs, and of course, you are free to make your own.

Because I have a deep desire to mess with people’s heads, I would love to have a tattoo that slowly changes over the time, so that people are scratching their heads and saying “Wait a minute, there wasn’t a tiger on that desert island before!” or something like that.

Or have an ever-shifting Rorschach pattern as a tattoo, and ask people what they see there.

Right now, it is greyscale only, which is fine for its aim of looking like a real tattoo. Plenty of tattoos are black and white.

Owe Em Gee Japan

Finally, we like to finish with a bang here at FSW, and usually that means that we finish off with what we consider to be the hottest or most exciting story of the week.

But occasionally, this final slot is instead filled by something so gobsmackingly bizarre and messed up that no other story could survive going on after it.

And usually, that thing comes from Japan. To wit : Nobohiru Takahashi’s amazingly realistic robot butt.

You read that correctly. It is a completely artificial but startlingly realistic robot rear end.

Brace yourself, because there’s a video.

Cronenberg meets William Gibson meets ass fetishes?

My favorite part of the video is how the text at the beginning tries to make it sound like a serious scientific project before degenerating later into obvious glee at the perverted perfect of their spankable assbot. Note how you cannot, at any time, see the demontrator’s face.

I think it is obvious that the true intention of this product is to make the next generation of sex dolls all that much more realistic. Sure, they have realistic silicon asses now, but they are lifeless and unresponsive. How much fun can it be to feel up then spank that?

Much better if it rubs up against your hand then quivers in fear, right?

I am sure the next innovation will be butt cheek that redden the more you slap them. Get that rosy glow that reminds our primitive brains of the swollen red vulva of a female going!

Japan, you do pervert right.

Seeya next week, folks!

Got five, count’em, five hot science stories for you this week, so I am gonna just jump right in.

Magic Door Unlock

Would it not be cool if all the important doors of your life seemed to just magically recognize you and open when you turn the knob or pull the handle, but not when anyone else does it?

Woudn’t that make you feel all powerful and cool, like some kind of minor god? Doors just unlocking automatically for you when you reach for them?

Well AT&T Labs is trying to make this dream come true. The idea is that your mobile device produces a very special kind of modulated vibration (one we can’t feel) that travels through your body via bone conduction to your fingertips, and the lock on your door would recognize that vibration and open for you.

Obviously, this is more than an app. The lock would have to be an electronic one, with enough electromechanical heft to open and close on its own, plus the receiver for the vibrations.

Skill, the folks at AT&T say it is quite secure because not every skeleton changes the signal the same way, so even if someone stole your phone, they would still need your skeleton to open the door.

And you have to admit, having a door just open at your touch would be pretty freaking cool.

Always Clear Glass

Not to be outdone, those marvelous mavens at MIT have comes up with a kind of glass that never fogs, gets dirty, or flares up with glare.

The secret is a very specific kind of nanoscale etching on the glass that creates billions of tiny sharply angled cones on the surface of the glass.

This has the effect of making the glass extremely hydrophobic, meaning it repels water perfectly. It also makes it so that dirt and grime simply cannot stick to the surface of the glass, and so it simply slides right off the glass, keeping the glass crystal clear.

And what truly impresses me is that this also makes the glass completely diffraction free, meaning light passes straight through without spreading at all, regardless of the angle.

And that means glare free glass. Glass that is perfectly clear, glass that reflects absolutely no light whatsoever and is hence invisible.

Glass that might actually be a little dangerous to have around, to be honest. Anyone who has ever hurt themselves whanging into a too-clear patio door knows what I mean.

But thing of the fun you could have sticking things onto a pane of invisible glass and moving it around making silly “oooOOOOooo!” noises.

Here Comes Super Cruise

No, that is not that thing that Tom Cruise is sure nobody knows but is obvious to everyone else.

You know… his superhero identity.

No, it is a new car feature called Super Cruise Mode, and it might just be the stepping stone between us and a self-driving car future.

If conditions are right (bright and visible lane markers and good GPS data available), Super Cruise would leverage lane detection technology along with auto-braking and traditional cruise control to create a system where the car pretty much drives itself when on the highway.

Imagine how much easier your morning commute would be with all the highway driving taken care of for you. I imagine people would not be willing to just take a nap or read a book while Super Cruise does the work (nor should they), but still, it would take a lot of the mindless, automatic portion of highway driving out of the equation, and isn’t that what technology is supposed to do?

Do the mindless labour for us?

The Almighty G

Moving from the highway to Lover’s Lane, there is a real possibility that one of the biggest shibboleths of modern sexology has finally been brought to light : a surgeon claims to have found the G spot.

To refresh your memories, the G spot, known formally as the Grafenberg spot, is purported to be either an organ or a place where nerve centers cluster inside the front wall of the vagina that when stimulated, causes women intense sexual pleasure, including the fabled vaginal orgasm and even female ejaculation.

Now Grafenberg discovered this spot in 1940, and you would think that in the ensuring 72 year, we could have figured out whether the darn thing really exists or not, and if so, what the heck it is.

But no. And this discovery, made by a gynecologist while dissecting the cadaver of an 81 year old woman, has done nothing to resolve the question. Instead, it just kicked up the dust about this whole surprisingly complicated issue all over again.

A lot of women have found their spots, and are deliriously happy about it. They are quite sure it exists and love theirs move than they love chocolate.

A lot of women have not found it, and not for lack of trying either, and are understandably pretty pissed off about it. They think it is a myth and that those other women are fooling themselves.

These factors alone are enough to ensure that this issue will never be entirely put to rest.

Could it truly be that some women have one, and some do not?

Doesn’t see fair, does it?

Of course, men have one. It’s called the prostate. But most straight guys do not want to go there.

How sad for them.

This Video Is Real

Finally, a video clip.

No remember, what you are about to see is a real object moving in real space. It is not a computer graphic superimposed on real video. It is an honest to goodness real thing that exists in the real world. You could reach out and touch it. It is a real thing.

It is made of plastic filled with helium, and topologically speaking, it moves forward by turning itself inside out and back again.

Oh, and in theory, if nothing interferes with it, it will keep going forever.

I want one. Wouldn’t it be freaky to see one of those just casually float by your window at work?

Once more, it is Friday. And exactly seven days after the last one, too.

That can’t be a coincidence. Something must be up.

It as been a pretty awesome week for science, judging by the sheer number of cool as ice stories sitting in my Firefox browser just begging to be blogged about, including the effects of eating buckyballs, paint that changes colors according to temperature, using magic to make water flow backwards, and some pretty impressive news from the year 1976.

So with exactly twelve more words of ado, let us get on with the science and the appreciation thereof.

This One Is For You, Buckey!

Thanks to the dawning of the age of nanotechnology, we now have the tools to realize Buckminster Fuller’s dream of manufacturing fullerenes, which are molecules made up of sixty carbon atoms arranged in Fuller’s classic geodesic shape. The spherical ones have been nicknamed “buckyballs” in tribute to their inventor.

And already, these fullerenes are exhibiting some very interesting properties. And perhaps none more interesting than in a recent study where it was found that feeding rats olive oil infused with buckyballs nearly doubled their lifespan. And nobody is entirely sure why.

The French researchers who discovered this were only looking to see if the buckyballs were toxic or not. There had been previous indications that buckeyballs were indeed toxic, but that, rather mysteriously, they appeared to be more toxic when you used fewer of them.

Homeopaths take note.

But of all the possible results, nearly doubling the lifespan of the rats was not one that was foreseen. My theory, for what it is worth. is that buckyballs are powerful antioxidants and were perhaps able to therefore keep the number one leading cause of death in tame rats, namely cancer, at bay.

Then again, olive oil itself is filled with antioxidants, and that alone might explain the result.

Color My World

meanwhile, Chinese researchers have developed house paint that changes color in reaction to the outdoor temperature, thus maximizing energy efficiency.

The paint would absorb sunlight when the temperature was below 20 degrees Celsius, and reflect sunlight when it was above it. This simple but impressive trick could, according to its inventors, raise your home’s temperature by 4 degrees Celsius in the winter, and lower it by 8 degrees Celsius in the summer.

Not to mention freaking out your neighbors who are affording a free show of your house changing colors right before their eyes on certain days of the year. Imagine the ooohs and aahs from outside your house on a day when the temperature kept dipping above and below 20!

I really want to know what that would look like.

Four degrees warmer in the winter is pretty good, but eight degrees cooler in the summer is especially awesome. That could go a long way towards turning a hot day outside into a merely warm one inside. And all accomplished without any energy input from us humans. The solar energy itself propels the change.

It is not a full solution, but it could be a major help to future energy efficient homes.

And think of the fun artists could have making public art installations with paint that changes according to the temperature!

Fun With Time And Space

And speaking of having way too much fun with science, some people used some simple camera and sound trickery to create this absolutely eye popping and gorgeous illusion.

Are you not entertained? I absolutely love stuff like this. In order to get the effect, they passed the stream of water past a speaker vibrating at 24 hz, then synced the camera to shoot 24 frames per second, thus creating the illusion that the stream of water was frozen in time.

Then, it is just a matter of advancing the camera to 25 frames per second to make it look like it is going forward in slow motion, or even better, taking it down to 23 frames per second and then voila, it looks like the water is flowing backwards, from bowl to tap.

The principles are simple but the effect is extradodinary. To me, this seems like the perfect thing for a science museum to set up as an exhibit. Young and old alike would love it.

Amazing News From 1976

As usual, I have saved the best science story for last, and it is, in a way, a blast from the past.

Scientists have recently applied modern computing horsepower to data collected by the Viking probe on Mars in 1975, and have concluded that the Viking probe actually discovered life on Mars after all!

Specifically, they re-analyzed the results of the original life-detection experiment, called the Labeled Release experiment, and discovered a higher level of order within the result than could be explained by merely physical process. The more likely result is that such order only comes from biological processes.

Not exactly a slam dunk result. Statistical analysis is notoriously unreliable, and when it is extremely high level analysis of data from decades ago centred around so philosophically ill defined concept as “levels of order”, it is wise not to get too excited about the results.

But still, this is a pretty interesting result, and a good reason to further interest in somehow getting a good solid microscope to the surface of Mars some day so we can scoop up a little soil and take a good look at just what is going on in there.

The evidence is piling up that, at the very least, there was life on Mars at one point, and the liquid water on the surface of the planet to support it, and that might very well be what this recent analysis is indicating.

And recent studies of extremophile organisms here on Earth suggest that it is just possible that life, albeit quite primitive life, could very well live in the harsh conditions of the surface of Mars.

It is certainly not the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Ray Bradbury, but it would be very nice to discover we are not the only life in the neighborhood.

And if life can happen twice in the same solar system, what does that do for Drake’s Equation?

Yes, here it is, yet another Friday the 13th ^[1], a date which has scientifically proven to be, by far, the unluckiest day of the year on which to juggle flaming chainsaws on a tightrope over the Grand Canyon while naked, drunk, and suffering from a severe inner ear infection.

We have plenty of hot, tender, plump when you cook them news stories for you today, including freaky creepy robot footage, tidal energy facts, and a frightening new frontier in reproductive science.

Wow, this must be your lucky day!

Uncanny Valley Days

There are a couple of creepy (but extremely function, I should add) robots hanging around the world these days, just waiting to give you nightmares.

Like take our old pal PETMAN.

As you can see, he does push ups as well as stairs now, all in that horrifying “Terminator in physical therapy” kind of way.

I mean seriously, couldn’t they pretty the thing up a little before taping? Or is that hardcore robot skeleton look part of what gets them the funding these days?

It sort of looks like it cheats on the stairs to me, too. Like it has not so much mastered stairs as learned to make evenly spaced hops. Not the same thing.

Or how about a creepy robot octopus?

Kind of looks like a smoke detector got raped by an order of steamed bean sprouts.

In reality, it is the product of the creatively named Project OCTOPUS, and it uses all kinds of high tech wonderful stuff like memory alloys in order to make those tentacles twitch.

Fascinating in theory, but I am having trouble imagining it working out in the long run. The goal is obviously to make a robot which can manipulate objects in its environment without having to deal with something as complicated as a hand or as limited as a claw. And octopi have proven extremely good at using their tentacles.

But the human hand is complicated for a reason. It is an extremely sophisticated manipulator, far beyond anything we can create artificially. I think getting the robot to be able to do anything useful will prove to be far more complex than people suspect.

But who knows? For simple but tedious jobs like underwater cable or pipeline construction and inspection and/or even simple repairs.

Power from the Ocean

Moving on to alternative energy (which is so much hipper and cooler and edgier than mainstream energy), Pop Sci has recently published this interesting article about how one form of ocean thermal energy might work in the future.

I am fairly interested in this alternate energy prospect. It is true that the initial costs are quite high, but that is true of nearly all forms of public energy. We easily forget this in modern times because we tend to be getting our energy from an infrastructure bought and paid for by both the vision and the funding of many generations ago.

But all those dirty coal fired power generators, as well as the incredible amount of wire and pole that it takes to get it from the power plant to your home, did not come cheap. We have to think in those terms when we think of the energy of the future, and be glad that past generations had the will and the foresight to invest in the future for us.

I particularly love this part of the article :

A 3,200-foot-long, 33-foot wide pipe is not something you could build in a factory, haul out to sea and drop into the water, Meyer explained.

Well DUH. Obviously it would be built slowly and methodically like an underwater pipeline or cable.

Hey, maybe the OCTOPUS could help!

I’ll Take a Dozen Large Caucasian Eggs, Please

Finally, we have our Frightening Science Story of the Week.

In this case, it is the scary truth that we can now manufacture human ova in a lab.

Unsurprisingly, this involves stem cells. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have managed to prod some ovarian stem cells into turning into immature human eggs, and the really freaky part is, later this year, they plan to fertilize them to see if they are viable.

Not exactly the science fiction horror scenario of human eggs being produced on an industrial scale and human reproduction eventually not requiring the involvement of any human beings at all (mass produced ova, sperm, artificial wombs, clone armies… ), but it is still a strange thing to contemplate.

Using stem cells to produce medically needed body tissues is one thing. Nobody seriously has a problem with a future in which we can use stem cells derived from shed skin cells in order to generate a genetically identical new heart or kidney or spine for somebody.

But when you begin to involve human reproduction, things get far less clear. Suppose a corporation legally buys some blastocysts and sperm, then uses them to generate a zygote, then hired a surrogate and implants it in her.

Does the corporation then own te resulting child? They owned all the ingredients that went into it and all the equipment and labour as well. Nobody doubts that if a bakery makes a cake, they own the cake.

Well what about whipping yourself up a whole new person? What kind of rights would said person have?

And what happens when you implant extra eggs in a woman approaching menopause? Women have a finite number of ova, and when the last one goes, that trigger menopause. Would an unlimited supply of implantable ova keep a woman from experiencing menopause, period^[2]?

And if so, what effect would that have on the woman’s health and aging in the long run? What happens if you put an important biological signal on hold like that?

The future is a strange and freaky place, to have such questions in it!

That is all for this week, folks!

[[2]] No pun intended, I swear.

I usually avoid talking about this topic altogether, because being an anti-abortion liberal is not exactly easy and I know the sorts of arguments I will get into if I air my views.

But a recent piece on the Daily Show angered me enough that I feel I have to put my views and the reasoning behind them into words in order to clear my mind and let my emotions settle down again.

The first thing you have to know is that my position is, unequivocally, not a religious one. I can say this with total conviction because I have no religion, and I have never had one. Both my parents are atheists and I was raised entirely without religion.

So no, I am not against abortion because my church, my holy book, my religious leadership, or my God or gods tell me so.

I am against it because my conscience tells me so. It tells me that abortion is murder, or at least, something very close to it.

Now in order to illustrate the reasoning that led me to this conclusion, I am going to paint a somewhat harsh picture, and I apologize for that, but it is the best way to get my point across.

I want you to imagine the waiting room of a busy obstetrician’s office. On every chair sits a pregnant mother. All stages of pregnancy are represented, from the ones for whom the news is quite recent to the ones for whom birth could happen any moment now.

The atmosphere is calm and tranquil. The women smile to one another in mutual understanding. Tips and stories are exchanged, giving the newer mothers valuable insight into what it is like further down the line. They all make frequent trips to the bathroom, and laugh about it with each other.

Into this happy scene comes a young, ambitious abortionist, who addresses the room :

“Hello ladies! Sorry for interrupting, but I just wanted you all to know that if any of you want me to jab a surgical instrument into that inhuman growth in your womb so I can chop up its little arms, legs, heart, and brain and then suck the pieces out with a vacuum, I am just next door. ”

The women, of course, are shocked, horrified, and enraged. How dare he offer to do such a horrible thing to the precious lives growing within them? What kind of a monster would do that to a baby?

But that is just the problem. The only difference between these ladies at the obstetrician’s office and the ones next door at the abortion clinic are that they want their babies, and the ones next door do not. To a happily pregnant woman, there is absolutely no doubt in their minds that what is growing inside them is their baby , even if they have only been pregnant for days. But for the women waiting for an abortion next door, it is a part of their body, a growth, to do with as they please.

So it is a precious baby when the mother wants it, and an inhuman growth when she does not.

And that is absolutely unacceptable.

We would not accept that a child is a human being only if its parents want it, even in the case of a newborn baby still covered in blood from the trip.

So how can we call it a baby when it is still inside its mother if she wants the child, and go along with her naming it, finding out its gender, buying presents for it, and in all senses thinking of it as a precious human being growing inside her, and then turn our backs and pretend it is not murder if another woman at the exact same stage of pregnancy has an abortion?

Either no fetus is a human being, or they are all human beings, whether the mother wants it or not.

And what about premature babies? Were a deranged lunatic to kill all the babies in the premature baby ward with a knife, thee would be no doubt said lunatic was a mass murderer and guilty of infanticide.

So how is it different if an abortionist does the same thing while the child is still inside its mother?

And medical science continues to push back the time when a premature baby can survive outside the womb. Eventually, we will be able to take a baby all the way from conception to “birth” entirely outside of a woman’s body. And what then?

Will we draw an arbitrary line saying “Unplugging before this date is not murder, but after, it is?”

Or will we simply err on the side of humanity and assume that which will become human is human?

Ask a woman who has suffered the profound tragedy of a miscarriage if she feels that she lost her baby.

Ask a woman who has only recently gotten pregnant after many years of trying with her husband whether or not she feels like there is a baby inside her now or not.

Ask all those ladies in the obstetrician’s office “Who here has a baby inside them right now?”

No matter how you examine it, there is simply no way to rationalize the idea that it is fine to think of it as a baby if the mother wants it, and something else if she does not.

Women bear a unique moral burden because they can have another human growing inside them. This burden can be a terrible one in the case of unwanted pregnancies, especially in the case of rape or incest.

But surely the solution is not the murder of the child, the genetically, medically, and scientifically unique human being with its own fate and destiny, within her?

Yes this places a burden on women that is not shared by men, and that is unfair. But surely we cannot slaughter innocents in the name of fairness. What is more important, fairness or human life?

It is not for the mothers to decide whether their children live or die, inside the womb or out.

And that is why I am against abortion.