Is That a Robot In Your Pocket? (Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?)

Robots are getting smaller--micro-robots, or microbots as they are called. Small and almost invisible, but with good optics. It is not impossible that you are being watched by a robot at this very moment. Especially if you are a terrorist.

Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists. And although the prototype will not fly for three years, killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, are much closer than that.

British Special Forces already use 6-inch MAV aircraft called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. The $3,000 WASP is operated with a Gameboy-style controller and is nearly silent, so it can get very close without being detected. A new development will reportedly see the WASP fitted with a C4 explosive warhead for kamikaze attacks on snipers. One newspaper dubbed it "The Talibanator."

Source.

Other engineers are developing microbots for exploring difficult to access caves and other planets.

In Phase I, we wanted to focus on robotic units that were small, very numerous (hence expendable), largely autonomous, and that had the mobility that was needed for getting into rugged terrains. Based on Dr. Dubowsky's ongoing work with artificial-muscle-activated robotic motion, we came up with the idea of many, many, tiny little spheres, about the size of tennis balls, that essentially hop, almost like Mexican jumping beans. They store up muscle energy, so to speak, and then they boink themselves off in various directions. That's how they move.

We've calculated that we could probably pack about a thousand of these guys into a payload mass the size of one of the current MERs (Mars Exploration Rovers). That would give us the flexibility to suffer the loss of a large percentage of the units and still have a network that could be doing recon and sensing, imaging, and perhaps even some other science functions.
AM: How do all these little spheres co-ordinate with each other?

PB: They behave as a swarm. They relate to each other using very simple rules, but that produces a great deal of flexibility in their collective behavior that enables them to meet the demands of unpredictable and hazardous terrain. The ultimate product that we're envisioning is a fleet of these little guys being sent to some promising landing site, exiting from the lander and then making their way over to some subsurface or other hazardous terrain, where they deploy themselves as a network. They create a cellular communication network, on a node-to-node basis.

More.

You can find movies of microbots and scholarly papers here.

Here is a report discussing Micro-Air Vehicle research for the US Air Force.

You can read about earlier flying robots, and view a movie of a micro robo-copter flying here. State of the art microbots now are much smaller and potentially more letal.

If you could teach a continuously deformable microbot to fly, there is no end to the amount of mischief such a sneaky little bugger could create.

On Electing a Robot President of the US

Although he seems reticent to discuss some of the more exotic implications of his research, Indiana University Professor Karl MacDorman is bringing a more Asian approach to humanoid robots to the US. After spending five years researching the Japanese approach to lifelike robots, MacDorman is prepared to make IU the Mecca of humanoid robotics in North America.

The team is now so advanced in the skill of developing humanistic androids that a nearly exact double of a person can be created. It was Ishiguro who was robotically cloned.

"Some say it's narcissistic," MacDorman said. "I think they're wrong. If you look at the great artists, all of them have a self portrait."

....MacDorman said the replication of a celebrity is a possibility, but he sees serious legal complications accompanying such an undertaking, not to mention challenges presented by cultural differences.

"Japan actually has a very extensive sex-doll industry," he said. "And sometimes the public does get confused with our androids and their purpose."

Source.

While Japan has embraced the sexuality of humanoid dolls and robots without embarrassment, the US is much more prudish about that type of alternative sexuality. Still, if it can be done it will be done.

Which brings up the idea of a robot president. Eventually, humanoid robots will appear identical to humans--even be able to walk, talk, and interact in ways indistinguishable from a human. When robots are able to possess the intelligence of a normal human--hold press conferences, give stump speeches etc.--it will be very tempting for powerful interests from all major parties to create a robot just for the purpose of being president. Some have even suggested that Al Gore is an early prototype of such a robot, gone tragically awry.

And who hasn't wanted to be able to clone himself so as to be able to be two or more places at one time? With a robot clone, you can do exactly that. MacDorman's research seems to suggest that such things will be possible, eventually.

Have you received two or more invitations for speaking engagements on the same night, in different cities? No problem. You can do both. Have you been dreading going on that book-signing tour? Send your robot instead. Do you have multiple families living in different parts of the country who don't know about the others? There's no need for awkward confrontations. Your clones can keep the other beds warm until you get a chance to be there yourself.

MacDorman, although quite coy, is a worldly fellow, and surely understands where his research is leading. The rest of us should stay tuned for further developments.

The Inner Life of the Cell--Longer Version with Narration

Here is the longer version of the Harvard movie on the inner workings of the cell accompanying leukocyte extravasation. It includes a useful narration, that describes what you are seeing. Not as mesmerizing as the video without narration, but perhaps more educational.

Thanks to Snowcrash at Biosingularity.

Mathematical Ability in Men and Women

La Griffe du Lion has a new essay on intelligence guaranteed to burn the thong off any self-respecting professor of Women's Studies. Liz Spelke and Nancy Hopkins may have trouble with occasional dizzy spells if they are unwise enough to read it. Donna Shalala should likewise maintain her distance.

The world of data can be cruel to one's ideological conceits.

Thanks to iSteve.

Update: This article in the Independent goes even further in claiming that there are twice as many men with IQ > 120 than women with IQ > 120.

Dr Paul Irwing is a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University. He claims that men are more intelligent than women.

All the research I've done points to a gender difference in general cognitive ability. There is a mean difference of about five IQ points. The further you go up the distribution the more and more skewed it becomes. There are twice as many men with an IQ of 120-plus as there are women, there are 30 times the number of men with an IQ of 170-plus as there are women.

I don't know why this is, all I can say is that we have a huge amount of data.

In my 2005 paper in the British Journal of Psychology we looked at 22 surveys sampling 20,000 university students. In 21 out of the 22 studies males always had an advantage.

Hat tip Fatknowledge Blog.

The above research appears to fit with work by J. Phillippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, and Helmuth Nyborg. In addition, such research should exonerate Larry Summers, if not for the perverse bias caused by radical political correctness in academic circles.

The Power of the Sun--Driving Climate Change

The science behind climate change is anything but settled. Just ask Cambridge astrophysicist Nigel Weiss, or astrophysicist and mathematician Habibullo Abdusamatov, head of the space research laboratory at the St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory.

Typically, sunspots flare up and settle down in cycles of about 11 years. In the last 50 years, we haven't been living in typical times: "If you look back into the sun's past, you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity," Dr. Weiss states.

These hyperactive periods do not last long, "perhaps 50 to 100 years, then you get a crash," says Dr. Weiss. 'It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon."

In addition to the 11-year cycle, sunspots almost entirely "crash," or die out, every 200 years or so as solar activity diminishes. When the crash occurs, the Earth can cool dramatically. Dr. Weiss knows because these phenomenon, known as "Grand minima," have recurred over the past 10,000 years, if not longer.

Source.

The upper layers of the world's oceans are - much to climatologists' surprise - becoming cooler, which is a clear indication that the Earth has hit its temperature ceiling already, and that solar radiation levels are falling and will eventually lead to a worldwide cold spell, Abdusamatov said.

"Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060," he said, adding that this period of global freeze will last some 50 years, after which the temperatures will go up again.

"There is no need for the Kyoto Protocol now, and it does not have to come into force until at least a hundred years from now - a global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions," Abdusamatov said.

Source.

The rush to reduce CO2 levels is not only massively expensive, but totally unnecessary, according to these learned solar experts. Certainly everyone with any knowledge should understand that global cooling is far more threatening to human life than the mild global warming currently being experienced.

Politicians such as Al Gore have vested monetary interests in exaggerating the climate effects of CO2. Likewise, climatologists such as Michael Mann have achieved fame, prestige, and easy grant money through the use of shoddy research methods. The route to grant money in climate science currently lies through the gate of CAGW--catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Those are the magic words.

Reality is much larger than that. It is foolish to fixate upon one seemingly obvious explanation for cyclic climate behaviour of epochal duration. Many junkies of "global warning" enjoy the thrill of the apocalypse. Others have more mundane motivations, such as going along with the perceived flow.

Regardless, it pays for people who actually want to know what is going on, to keep their eyes and minds open.

You Want a Catastrophe? Here's Your Goddam Catastrophe!

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Some people are just catastrophe junkies. It's one thing if they have an imagination, and can dream up their own vivid catastrophes. I can respect that. I'll still give them drugs, if they come to me, but I respect them.

It's the small-minded dweebs who hate a warm, sunny day that I despise. They want every warm pleasant day to be a massive portent of disaster. They thrive on epinephrine, but a peculiar type. They thrive on the epinephrine they get from reading mainstream journalist's portrayals of how other humans are destroying the earth. This makes them feel superior and totally innocent.

They are derivatives-of-derivatives junkies. Third-hand junkies with no crap detectors and no imaginations.

Yes, there are things that could destroy the world. But lame-minded conformists who only know what the propaganda machine tells them, will never know what they are.

Civilisation--How Long?

Demography argues for the decline of western culture, as the defenders of the west are replaced by the defenders of the true faith, Islamofascism. Look at what is happening to Russia:

There are ten million people in Moscow. Do you know how many of them are Muslim? Two and a half million. Or about a quarter of the population. The ethnic Russians are older; the Muslims are younger. The ethnic Russians are already in net population decline; the Muslim population in the country has increased by 40% in the last 15 years. Seven out of ten Russian pregnancies (according to some surveys) are aborted; in some Muslim communities, the fertility rate is ten babies per woman. Russian men have record rates of heart disease, liver disease, drug addiction and Aids; Muslims are the only guys in the country who aren’t face down in the vodka.

Faced with these trends, most experts extrapolate: thus, it’s generally accepted that by mid-century the Russian Federation will be majority Muslim.

Source.

As far as the rest of Europe, what to expect?

If Islam is incompatible with democracy, that's not a problem for Iraq, it's a problem for Belgium, you know, because Iraq until, you know, a few months back had no democracy to lose. They can easily adjust to the way it's always been.

For Belgium or for Denmark or for the Netherlands, they've got real democracies and they are likely to lose and as you see, I think that is really the issue here, that when these contradictions are pointed out, Europeans essentially refuse to acknowledge them. Yet at the same time they're making capitulations to the most naked form of political bullying --and that's when Islam is officially a minority of, you know, 10% or so. In those cities it's a lot higher already. What happens when it's 30%? I mean, this is a question they never, ever ask themselves and you're right, they do take a dim view. I think at some level there's something else going on there, too, that a lot of these countries, you know, -- we talk about the Middle East, democratize the Middle East - we forget Spain was a dictatorship 30 years ago, Portugal, a little over 30 years ago, Greece, same 30 years ago.

Italy and Germany and France, you've got to go back half a century, but in essence the idea of living under non-democratic regimes is not foreign to these people and I think they think of themselves, their identities less as Europeans are less bound up with ideas of liberty than it is for the U.S. You know, the U.S. is an ideological project in a way that Italy isn't and so I do think that also accounts for part of the way they look at it.

Source.

Science Fiction author Orson Scott Card looks at historical examples of falls of civilisation. He speculates about what will happen when the west falls to the barbarism that is always nipping at its heels:

Our global economic system is a brilliant creation, imperfect of course, but powerful and effective in creating more prosperity for more people than ever in the history of the world. It is a creation of America's military and America's benign government of the world -- so benign they pretend we don't govern it.

Our enemies and most of our "allies" and many of our own citizens are working as hard as possible to bring the whole thing crashing down, though that is not at all what they intend.

They just haven't learned the lessons -- the principles -- of how great economic empires are maintained. They only look at the political dogmas du jour and spout their platitudes. People like me are ridiculed for seeing the big picture and learning the lessons of history.

And if we're lucky, and get out of this intact -- i.e., if we go ahead and continue this war, break the power of Iran and Syria, and inflict crushing defeat on radical, expansionist Islamicists (which will require that Europe do the same with their own increasingly revolutionary Muslim populations, either expelling them or crushing their radical, Saudi-funded leadership) -- then I will still be ridiculed, because there will be no evidence that I would have been right.

Well, I'll be happy to be ridiculed for being such a doomsayer, if we are able to avoid collapse. I want to be wrong.

Source.

A global economic system is something of a house of cards. It wouldn't exist without the protecting power that guarantees global trade and shipping from piracy. Without the use of force to protect economic activity, the world descends into piracy, brigandry, and warlordism.

Doomsday's Dodge--Taking Out Insurance on the End of the World

Civilisation is a delicate thing. It could end in many ways. If we humans were prudent, we would take certain precautions.

The folks at the Lifeboat Foundation feel the same way. They are dedicated to the creation of Ark I, a self-sustaining space colony for the preservation of technological civilisation.

Ark I will be initially placed in orbit around the Earth at a height of 400 kilometers (248 miles) to make it easier to engage in trade and tourists from Earth. Both it and the other Arks will be moved further away from the Earth as the project progresses.

Why should we live in orbit rather than on a planet or moon? Because orbit is far superior to the Moon and Mars for colonization, and other planets and moons are too hot, too far away, and/or have no solid surface.

Source.

Another such group is ARC--Alliance to Rescue Civilization. Here is part of ARC's mission statement:

ARC Mission:

The mission of the Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) is to protect the human species and its civilization from destruction that could result from a global catastrophic event, including nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague and asteroid collisions. To fulfill its mission, ARC is dedicated to creating continuously staffed facilities on the Moon and other locations away from Earth. These facilities will preserve backups of scientific and cultural achievements, and of the species important to our civilization. In the event of a global catastrophe, the ARC facilities will be prepared to reintroduce lost technology, art, history, crops, livestock and, if necessary, even human beings to the Earth.

ARC Vision

The Alliance to Rescue Civilization is a very long-term international project. It seeks to copy and continuously update the essence of Earth in its many forms for safekeeping at a manned site off the planet (the Moon or a huge station are the leading candidates.) ARC would in effect comprehensively back up Earth's collective hard drive for use in rescuing and rebuilding the planet in the event of a catastrophic disaster, natural or man-made. It would in no sense be a time capsule, but would rather be an updated record of Earth's multiple life forms, flora and fauna, and its broad spectrum of arts and sciences, history, technology and all else that constitutes the planet's collective nature and culture.

In the event of a major catastrophe, for example worldwide plague, comet impact, nuclear war or social collapse, the staff of ARC will function in a rescue capacity rather than as librarians. They will be prepared to help the survivors reestablish a functioning technological society, or in the worst instance, to repopulate the Earth themselves, and re-introduce the additionally needed biological species here. The primary mission of ARC will be to secure our tenancy of this planet, although it is fully compatible with plans to extend human settlement beyond the Earth-Moon system. ARC will provide our manned space program with the central purpose which it has so sorely lacked, linking it firmly to human survival on our home planet and elsewhere. The ARC facility will stand as a visible and inspiring symbol of our aspirations, one which can overcome the negative connotations associated with disaster relief. With ARC in place, of course, other scientific and commercial uses of space will be facilitated. ARC can serve as an engine that pulls many freight cars.

Source.

In 1975, Oscar Falconi wrote an essay on the need for humans to colonize space. He discusses several ways in which humans might destroy themselves and their ability to survive on earth. Arthur C. Clarke reached the same conclusions as Falconi in his 1951 book, The Exploration of Space. More recently, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wrote: "I don't think the human race will survive . . unless we spread into space."

It is wise for humans to take precautions against likely disasters. Distributing human knowledge databases in different regions of space might be helpful one day.

Psychological Neoteny: Bruce Charlton's Take

The problems of the neotenous society, and psychological neoteny, have received extensive coverage on another Al Fin blog. But it seems that we are not the only ones to ride this particular hobbyhorse. Bruce Charlton is an Evolutionary Psychiatrist at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Charlton is the author of a fascinating online ebook--The Modernization Imperative--and was featured in a Discovery Channel news article earlier this year.

...it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.

As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.

...Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”

“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity,” he explained.

“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

Charlton pointed out that past cultures often marked the advent of adulthood with initiation ceremonies.

While the human mind responds to new information over the course of any individual’s lifetime, Charlton argues that past physical environments were more stable and allowed for a state of psychological maturity. In hunter-gatherer societies, that maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties, he said.

“By contrast, many modern adults fail to attain this maturity, and such failure is common and indeed characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people," he said.

"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.”

Source.

Isolating children and young adults inside classrooms, away from the productive world and meaningful responsibility, will probably result in large numbers of "failure-to-mature" adults, as we see in modern western societies. Immature adults are unprepared to face the momentous challenges that western civilisation faces today. There are many "micro-pockets" of maturity within these societies--small arenas where teens and young adults are faced with meaningful responsibility, and acquire useful competencies.

But those micro-pockets of reality exist outside of school curricula.

Stem Cells From the Umbilical Cord--More Than You Could Imagine!

I have cut dozens of umbilical cords, and drawn blood samples from many more. I never dreamed cord blood would eventually be recognized as a major new source for multipotent stem cells! Cord blood stem cells can be differentiated into all three germ layers now--ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. It was recently reported that scientists at the University of Minnesota differentiated respiratory epithelial cells from umbilical cord blood [UCB].

To obtain the MLPC [multi-lineage progenitor cell] from cord blood, we used a stem cell isolation technology — PrepaCyte-MLPC — from BioE. We successfully isolated the rare MLPC from four UCB units obtained from the American Red Cross.

...We then put the UCB stem cells into culture and allowed them to expand using mesenchymal stromal cell growth medium (MSCGM) prior to adding small airway growth medium (SAGM), both mediums from Cambrex BioScience (East Rutherford, N.J., USA). Following several days in culture, we demonstrated differentiation of MLPCs into type II alveolar cells, which was confirmed by the presence of a definitive type II alveolar cell marker — surfactant protein C (SPC).

Source.

The process of sequentially using growth factors and media to differentiate stem cells into mature cell types continues to fascinate me. No one truly understands the potential of stem cells from cord blood, menstrual blood, the testicle, the breast, the brain--or any of the growing number of stem cell sources. Although Australia has legalized the production of human embryos specifically for the purpose of producing stem cells, few other countries have followed the Aussie's lead. That means that other countries will either learn to work with what is legally available, or will fall badly behind the researchers in Oz.

There is growing expertise in producing increasing varieties of cell types from readily available sources of stem cells. Resourceful scientists with ingenuity can do amazing things with the materials on hand.

Global Intelligence--The Basis for the Human Future

Hong Kong (PRC)	107	Russia	96	Fiji	84
South Korea	106	Slovakia	96	Iran	84
Japan	105	Uruguay	96	Marshall Islands	84
Taiwan (ROC)	104	Portugal	95	Puerto Rico (US)	84
Singapore	103	Slovenia	95	Egypt	83
Austria	102	Israel	94	India	81
Germany	102	Romania	94	Ecuador	80
Italy	102	Bulgaria	93	Guatemala	79
Netherlands	102	Ireland	93	Barbados	78
Sweden	101	Greece	92	Nepal	78
Switzerland	101	Malaysia	92	Qatar	78
Belgium	100	Thailand	91	Zambia	77
China (PRC)	100	Croatia	90	Congo-Brazzaville	73
New Zealand	100	Peru	90	Uganda	73
United Kingdom	100	Turkey	90	Jamaica	72
Hungary	99	Indonesia	89	Kenya	72
Poland	99	Suriname	89	South Africa	72
Australia	98	Colombia	89	Sudan	72
Denmark	98	Brazil	87	Tanzania	72
France	98	Iraq	87	Ghana	71
Norway	98	Mexico	87	Nigeria	67
United States	98	Samoa	87	Guinea	66
Canada	97	Tonga	87	Zimbabwe	66
Czech Republic	97	Lebanon	86	Congo-Kinshasa	65
Finland	97	Philippines	86	Sierra Leone	64
Spain	97	Cuba	85	Ethiopia	63
Argentina	96	Morocco	85	Equatorial Guinea	59

Table courtesy of Wikipedia
Map courtesy of R. Pongett

The tabular data above comes from Lynn and Vanhanen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations. For a good review of Richard Lynn's more recent and comprehensive Race Differences in Intelligence, look here.
Here is another fine analysis of the concept of GDP vs. IQ--with the element of free market rules thrown in.

Of muslim nations, Malaysia has the highest average IQ, 92. Malaysia's population contains 30% ethnic Chinese. Turkey has the second highest average IQ of muslim nations at 90. All other muslim nations have average IQ's of less than 90--some of them much less.

It is possible that some individual nations are misplaced on the above table, with average IQs either a bit higher or a bit lower than stated. But it is possible to detect trends by looking at different groupings of nations and their average IQ.

Given that population average IQ needs to be at least 90 for a modern technology based nation to function, immigration policy should be oriented toward inviting high value immigrants.

Observing what happened to Zimbabwe's prosperity after Robert Mugabe drove the most prosperous (and presumably most intelligent) farmers from their land, provides a good example of what NOT to do. Idi Amin's actions in Uganda provide another example. Fidel Castro's actions in Cuba provide a third. You don't want to drive out your intelligent and resourceful groups.

Update (26Dec06): Visit this Fourmilab page for a graphic illustration of the change in average global IQ with projected population trends. Accompanying the animated graphic is a thoughtful discussion of some of the issues involved in projecting trends in global intelligence.

Thanks to an Audacious Epigone commenter.

US Education--What Will It Take To Make It Work?

The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workplace has released a new study on the state of education in the US. That would be allright except--they also released a big set of recommendations on how to solve the huge problems they identified in the US educational establishment. These recommendations are already starting to cause waves--tsunamis, in fact.

They declare that America's public education system, designed to meet the needs of 100 years ago when the workplace revolved around an assembly line, is unsuited to today's global marketplace. Already, they warn, many Americans are in danger of falling behind and seeing their standard of living plummet.

In its place, the group proposes a series of controversial reforms:

• Offer universal pre-kindergarten programs and opportunities for continuing education for adults without high school diplomas.

• Create state board exams that students could pass at age 16 to move either on to community college or to a university-level high school curriculum.

• Improve school salaries in exchange for reducing secure pension benefits, and pay teachers more to work with at-risk kids, for longer hours, or for high performance.

• Create curriculums that emphasize creativity and abstract concepts over rote learning or mastery of facts.

"We've squeezed everything we can out of a system that was designed a century ago," says Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, and vice chairman of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, which produced the report. "We've not only put in lots more money and not gotten significantly better results, we've also tried every program we can think of and not gotten significantly better results at scale. This is the sign of a system that has reached its limits."

The report is getting attention in part because of those involved - people like William Brock, the former senator and Reagan-era Labor secretary; John Engler, National Association of Manufacturers president and former Michigan governor; and Joel Klein, chancellor of New York's public schools.

It's also unusual in its scope and ambition, looking at public education in the context of changes in the global economy and workforce needs, and examining education for everyone from preschoolers to adults.

Source.

The esteemed contributors to the report understand that the US educational system is corrupt to the core, and must be reformed. Unfortunately, they appear oblivious to the rot at the very core of factory education--the separation of school from responsibility and the real world.

Until the public understands the dysfunctionality of the very idea of age-segregational schooling, and the psychologically neotenous methods of education being used, the destruction will go on.

Psychological neoteny is a sad legacy to leave the future, because the neotenous will be unable to stand up to the challenges of the future.