Greetings students,

There has been a development this week that trumps the post I had planned regarding secret societies: the discovery of a fascinating new life form. Here is the link for the story from the Guardian. It should be noted that the new life form is able to subsist on arsenic, which if you don’t know, is lethal to humans even in miniscule amounts. I will also include the video in which Carl Zimmer describes the finding here:

The issue at hand has to do with the way that we understand life to conform to certain rules. Here is an article that is written by PZ Myers; he doubts the assertion that these life-forms are arsenic-based. The divide between the believers and the skeptics has to do with where the arsenic is actually going in these life-forms. For Zimmer, the life forms are able to incorporate the arsenic into their own system and convert it into some kind of energy. This would mean that the new life form is able to cope with an arsenic environment in a sophisticated way that we have not been able to replicate or identify in other creatures. At the same time, the skeptics like Myers have pointed out that the life-form is terrestrial (the microbe was NOT found in space), and there is considerable debate about the way in which arsenic and phosphorus are related and in some chemical processes, even interchangeable. This means that the life form is not acting in any truly radical way, and it is (though still interesting and legitimate science) not totally surprising and ground-breaking as the media is making it sound. However, the decision is not quite yet out, and I have a few thoughts about why the findings are being reported as they are.

For those of you who are not academicians, publishing is really tough and competitive. This being said, there are certain political considerations that should be understood by the general populace. First, space is limited in any scholarly journal, so there is an incredible back-log of publication that is omnipresent in any journal. If there are lots of good papers and experiments going on, then the likelihood that a paper gets published quickly is not very good (if it even gets published at all). This being said, the next consideration is that journals WANT to be ground-breaking. They all want to have the cutting edge article, and they all want to be the exclusive publisher of the study. Scholarly Journals are also not very appealing to the general public. Their circulations are rather limited and stagnant. To increase possible target audiences, it is not unheard of for a journal to market a certain essay or study as totally revolutionary. This may be the case for this study; it is certainly possible that the buzz circulating about this story is nothing more than hype for the neglected journal that is publishing this study. Also, the sciences in general are not well understood by the American public; this has partly to do with the fact that people want a catchy tag-line that sums up a year of scientific research (and years of study before embarking on that research) in a couple of words. No matter how you slice it, there is going to be a broad generalization or a complete over-simplification of the work that has been done. But hey, that’s how the scientific community rolls. It isn’t just about doing the research, it is also about finding a way to get a public that has long been disconnected from technical sciences interested in that field again. The only way to do that is with pop-media references about new life on other planets etc. etc.

Well, that’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll look at some other life-forms that have been discovered over the past century to show how this kind of discovery is nothing new to us. As we grow in our understanding of life on our own planet, we have become conscious that we are not the only model for beings that possess life. Until next week,

Class dismissed!

Hey Students,

This week, I thought I’d focus in on an interesting story that developed regarding an unidentified missile launch off the coast of California. Here’s the link for the story. There are several competing thoughts on this story, and the most probable is that this missile launch was a show of strength for the Asian superpower communities. This is very likely, but it is interesting that this launch was unannounced and remains unconfirmed. Some of the competing theories are that this missile was launched by a third party operating off the coast of California. Another is that the missile test was unplanned and was the result of a mechanical malfunction. Though the latter two cases are unlikely, they cannot be ruled out. So what do we make of this? If they are a third party, then they are capable of deploying a missile launching device under-water. If the missile was launched by a malfunction, then the terminator Skynet plot might be frighteningly more accurate than we thought.

There is a video update by CBS news that is trying to state that this was not a missile. They are not sure what it was, but they seem surprisingly certain that this UFO (it really is an unidentified flying object…for real) is not a missile; they can’t tell you what this launch actually was, but they are sure that it wasn’t a missile apparently. Here’s the video that claims that.

Here’s another video that shows the footage of the missile launching as well as some discussion about the lack of knowledge and the possibility that the missile was an unplanned launch from the US government:

So what are we to think? Either way it seems you slice it, there is still an element of the unknown. What is worse, I believe that this story will quickly fall back into the darkness of obscurity without a whole lot of inquiry. The likelihood that someone is able to launch an unidentified jet object from the ground without any kind of tracking or radio is incredibly unlikely. Though the government analysts report that the plume of this object does not resemble any kind of missile, no one is offering any objective information about what this object actually is. There are many spoofs out there, my favorite so far being the racketeer photo-shopped into the plume. But the fact that these spoofs are out there indicates that there is some anxiety about what this could actually be. Another thought that was raised by the video claiming that this plume did not result for a missile is that it is someone utilizing a homemade rocket that could propel them into the atmosphere, but that scenario raises even more questions: why isn’t there some kind of record of the launch from some sort of airport? Why does the rocket seem to emanate from the ocean? If the US government did not launch the object, what leads them to believe that other nations did not launch them, either? Are there private parties that are developing the ability to break free from the Earth’s orbit? Are there private parties operating in space? These are just a few of the questions plaguing me about this issue, but I’m sure there are a few more out there, that I haven’t considered. The truth is that, at the moment, there is no concrete information about this obviously terrestrially launched object, and that is scary.

That’s all for this week, but next week, I’ll explore the possibility of an elite group of society that just might have the resources, intelligence, and impunity to circumvent dominant government powers in doing whatever the hell they want. Class dismissed.

Greetings, class! I have been on a bit of a hiatus, but there are several stories that I want to get caught up on. The first story that I want to address comes from the fine people at NASA. I can’t say enough about the contributions that our space program has made for advances in so many areas of our daily lives, but I will say that I am saddened by the lack of funding that has plagued them recently. At any rate, I am happy to discuss that they are still finding information that may prove useful in understanding our planet from a universal perspective. Another topic that I will address is a popular internet meme that revolves around a possible time-traveler in a Charlie Chaplin movie. This story has really hit the internet hard, and I feel it is worth a look. I don’t know how sold I am on the whole time-traveler stance, but I think it is definitely worth reviewing and considering. At the very least, I feel that it will provide a discussion about the practices that we may not be familiar with of people as little as eighty years ago. So let’s delve right in and look at another one of NASA’s great discoveries.

One of the Mars rovers, Spirit, was mired in the harsh sand of an area that NASA is referring to as Home Plate. The poor rover was unable to work itself out of the pit, and NASA officially gave up on the rover in January of this year. What is surprising is that the rover has provided information that suggests that their was water recently on the surface of Mars. Here are a few links for the story:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010–10/spirit-rover-finds-evidence-liquid-water-mars

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39898890

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/sleeping-rover-finds-water/

These links all show the information that I think is worth repeating. There is very good reason to believe that there is still a water situation (whether from below or above the surface of Mars) that displays properties very similar to life-producing conditions on the planet Earth. There may be life on Mars, but it is quite possibly beneath the surface. The issue for me becomes, how do we get past the surface? What do we have to do to start sending astronauts to comb not the planet’s surface, but the space that is below? Are there caves on the planet that lead to rich and beautiful spaces inhabited by Martian flora that is advanced and sentient in a way that we cannot comprehend? Of course, I’m romanticizing the issue, but I consider myself something of a poet, and I feel I should be allowed to daydream a bit.

There are two frustrations that wake me from my daydream. The first is that the probe is in a really tough position, and the Martian winter approaches. The rover was stuck in a place it was never meant to inhabit during the winter. This means that it will experience temperatures that are well below anything that it has experienced. In addition to this, the rover’s panels are pointed in a direction away from the sun. If the rover does not “wake up,” then the information will cease, and we will once again be left without any answers to the questions that this information conjures. The second frustration has to do with the fact that NASA is under fire for the spending that it has. I understand that the economy has been difficult for many people, but NASA is an entity that embodies the very ideology of human progress. I don’t mean to wax ecstatic, but I think that the very future of humanity hangs in the ability of humans to take to the stars. The more that we understand the greater, cosmic environment, the more we understand how our own planet works.

The next big meme to address is the time traveler in the Charlie Chaplain movie. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the video:

This video, and the comments that are attached to it (which I quite encourage you to dig through), is a great place to begin a discussion about the paranormal. It is quite possible that there were practices, as one of the comments suggests, in which people held music boxes up to their ears and sang along to the melodies, and it was considered normal. Some conjectures to the stance that this video shows a time traveler is that the person in question is holding a music box and singing. This is possible. Further, the shot that is being taken is clearly purposeful and carefully directed and produced. This means that the shot was discussed in capacity and the person doing the action was quite possibly rehearsed. This is not conclusive, but I encourage the train of thought that maybe people holding items up their ears and speaking along with some kind of discourse with the object was commonplace. I think that this video may be an example of the way in which we ascribe what we see in our present day reality onto the past. That is, we purposely construct our own reality. We build the past we want to be true. Since the action of a person talking on a cell phone is really commonplace, we project that onto the actions of others in the media. I’m not ruling out the possibility of a time-traveler, but I am troubling it a little. That’s all for this week, and I’ll see you all next week. Class dismissed.

This week, I will continue to look at some of the most popular myths about the moon. As I was going through the paces of research, I realized that many moon myths are based on solar myths as well, so I may look at those next week. The first issue that I wish to tackle (and I am surprised that I haven’t looked at this earlier) is the assumption that the full moon produces lunacy or odd behavior in people. In fact, the term “lunacy” has lunar roots; the OED states, “The condition of being a lunatic; intermittent insanity such as was formerly supposed to be brought about by the changes of the moon; now applied gen. to any form of insanity (idiocy usually excepted). In legal use, such mental unsoundness as interferes with civil rights or transactions. Also, a fit or attack of such insanity.” The earliest mention of lunacy being used in this manner dates from around the 1550s, so the idea is not necessarily ancient, but it is old, and I feel that it is ingrained in part of our American cultural history. After all, whenever there is a full moon and odd behavior occurs, it is almost necessary to mention the connection. Modern science has debunked many of these psychological impacts of the moon on the mind; the most popular example of this kind of pseudo-science is to be found in Arnold Lieber’s best-seller “Lunar Effects: Biological Tides and Human Emotions.” This book strove to form the connection between the moon and psychological effects. In 1998, Lieber did actually predict a situation in which, as he put it, “All hell broke loose” in Miami, but that was only after two failed predictions in 1990 and 1992 (check here for source and full article).

What are the facts? Here’s a pretty good site that is sponsored by the fine people at NASA and covers many of the facts that missions to the moon have revealed. Rather than try and pick and choose which facts I think are interesting, I highly encourage you to browse through the site (particularly the section with photos) to learn about what our space program has discovered about that celestial object. Also, I think that this site is useful in looking to debunk some popular myths that get bandied about regarding the moon, which leads me to the next moon myth (though I suppose that this is really a Mars myth).

One of the myths about the moon that circulated recently throughout the internet is that Mars was going to be the closest to Earth than it had been in 50,000 years (though how that number got created is beyond me) and that it would appear to be the size of the moon. If this was actually the case, it would mean that the solar system as we know it would be falling apart. Furthermore, though the effects of gravity from the moon are negligible on human beings, they are readily felt on the ocean and land masses. The moon has a pretty significant mass (.07349x10^24kgs), and Mars is no lightweight either (6.4185x10^23kgs), and though the moon is only about half of the diameter of the moon, the impact of that much mass circling around the earth with the combined gravitational force of the moon would reek utter havoc on the Earth from its rotation to its orbit around the sun to its weather in general. (NASA) In short, life as we know it would cease to exist. Yet, this email was widely circulated and bought by the majority of people. The truth is that this myth was widely popularized because of the lack of understanding regarding celestial objects and how they function. Perhaps this is the greatest sign that we have really let our national interest in the space above us dwindle to dark shadows of ignorance.

The final myth I want to tackle in this post (because there are a lot of people that still feel this way) is the infamous faked moon landing myth. Now, rather than try to outdo the infamous Mythbusters TM episode, I thought I’d just go ahead and upload a few videos that reference their work. I think that this is probably one of the most debated issues, and I have read that the Mythbusters’ findings are still being questioned by parts of the population. Here is a link to a New York Times article that represents a group of people who are still unconvinced that the moon landing occurred.

This week, with the occurrence of the harvest moon, I thought I’d take a look at that celestial object and the different interpretations, myths, and superstitions that accompany our sun’s nocturnal counterpart. If you’re wondering what a harvest moon is, then here is a definition: The moon which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox (22 or 23 Sept.), and which rises for several nights nearly at the same hour, at points successively further north on the eastern horizon. (OED) Before I get into some of the more bizarre myths that surround the moon, I thought it would be appropriate to tackle some of the imagery and symbolism surrounding representations of the moon. For instance, we’ve all heard of the man on the moon. Typically, Americans associate the man on the moon with the face on the moon, but the origins of the man on the moon are a little more complicated than that.

In older days (the time periods fluctuate and some people today still see the archaic representation of a person on the moon) the man on the moon was a full sized man that was complete with accessories. In the case of most of Eurpoe, the man on the moon was carrying a bundle of sticks on his back, carrying a lantern in front of him, and walking a dog. In this tradition, the man is usually being sent to the moon as a form of punishment. In some way, the man has committed a crime (sometimes legislative, but oftentimes ecclesiastical) and his punishment is to spend eternity in the moon. One version of this story (from Germany, I believe) has the man banished to the moon because he is working on the Sabbath day. Another rendition (popular among certain Protestant circles) is that the man in the moon is Cain who has been punished to forever circle the Earth. In many places throughout South America, there is no man in the moon; instead, there is a rabbit. The reason for the rabbit varies, but in Aztec legend, one of their creation stories for the moon revolves around people who had to sacrifice themselves in a pyre in order to become celestial bodies. One of the two to throw themselves into the fire had moments of doubt and fear. For this, he was punished to have his light reduced; to accomplish this, a rabbit was thrown at the face of the sacrifice who became the moon. So what are the myths that dominate our ideas of the moon today?

The greatest myth revolving around the moon is the advent of the werewolf. The werewolf is a tricky mythology that seems to have ambiguous origins. Some, like to place the origin of the werewolf to an ancient Greek king, Lycaon, who was rumored to be so cruel as to be compared to a wolf. The story in that case goes something along the line that Lycaon had tempted Zeus with an offering of an infant. Zeus, being outraged by this gift, condemned Lycaon to forever travel the world as a wolf. In Europe (speaking incredibly generally) during the middle ages, there was a great amount of superstition and wolf myths. People who were thought to be able to wield dark magic (bad juju, bad voodoo, whatever you want to call it) typically were associated with animal imagery that was associated with Satan. So, wolves, bears, tigers, lions, bats, and more are all possible for people to turn into if they have Satan in their heart. The interesting addition of the regulation of the moon is a rather modern addition to the story. During Medieval ages, the concept that the full moon sparked the transformation was but one part of the story. Modern storytellers have leaped upon the idea, and our modern culture has a clear connection between the full moon and the appearance of werewolves. Ultimately, I rather enjoy the original concept of the werewolf as someone who can turn into a wolf at will; not only does it seem more practical, it also establishes the connection of having an animal inside of a human at all times, a symbol that is particularly prevalent in Christian ideology. Clearly, the moon has captivated people for years. I’ll continue this thread next week, where I’ll look at some of the more exotic stories that feature the moon.

This week, I thought I would tackle an interesting event that occurred in our humbling universe. As most of you know, there has been a vested interest in the general population to explore the reaches of space. The common tool for doing deep space exploration has been the mighty probe. In particular, the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes caused massive excitement in the early ‘70s when they were planned. What makes the two probes special is that they were designed to be the first objects that had the potential to leave our own solar system. They were outfitted with all of the complicated sensors they would need to begin performing observations on solar radiation and the magnetosphere of planets. Among its numerous devices are: a Geiger tube telescope, an ultraviolet photometer, a helium vector magnetometer, a plasma analyzer, a trapped radiation detector, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, and a few other doohickeys that help in the analysis of our planets and the force of our star. Pioneer also had one feature that everyone remembers because of the controversy that it ignited during its planning: Pioneer 10 has an engraving that represents humankind. Here is a copy of the engraving that appears on the furthest object humans have built:

Many anthropologists and other scholars that deal in cultural representations have argued that this engraving is from a completely anthropocentric point of view, and that it would take the same civilization that produced it to fully understand the implications of the message that it is attempting to convey. If you have never seen this piece before, then I should tell you that this engraving was made in the case that alien lifeforms would make contact with the probe and could get an idea of not only where humans are from, but what they would look like (hence the two naked people up there). My favorite part of the drawing is that the man has his hand raised in a friendly gesture, but I’m not sure that an alien culture would recognize the symbol or whether they would have their own interpretation of the sign. But rather than having a discussion on the nature of the probe itself, I want to go the piece of exciting news that has been reported by several sources: the probe that has now reached the very edge of the solar system is finding itself pulled back toward the sun by a mysterious force. THat’s right, the scientific community has actually referred to a mysterious cosmic force.

So what is the force? How did the effect become noticeable? Are there any possible issues that could cause the same effect through a malfunctioning of the probe? If these are some of the questions that you may have had, so have lots of scientists. It turns out that the scientific community (upon first hearing about the reported force) began to study the possibility that the probe is leaking in some ways that could cause a push-back force. However, after checking several other probes, such as the Cassini and Galileo probes, the same general force (which is comparably minute but still should not exist there) was found to be effecting their progress as well. The force is slight, but it is a constant. What the issue is with our current understanding of gravity is that the force that gravity can pull on an object should diminish with distance. It is possible that our perception of the effects of gravity over a large area may be incorrect. In other words, there may be a relationship between an incredibly large distance and the ways that gravity could manifest. Another theory is that there are particles out past the solar system (these would be labeled dark matter until someone sheds some light on them) that react differently than anything we have encountered in our solar system. There are many questions and at the moment, there are no answers.

But there may be some answers that will be coming up shortly. A council is being convened to discuss the preparation and launching of another probe (armed with much better sensor equipment) that will follow the Pioneer 10 probe out into space to try and determine the origin of the force. What this affirms for us on Earth today is that we are far from comprehending even the most basic and fundamental mechanisms that control the motion of the universe. Most of the online sources for this event are either refer to the article that was published in the Telegraph or The Guardian. Here are the links to the original site:

Telegraph Article

The Guardian Article

These days, it is easy to admit that there is a change in the way we interact with the world around us. There are powerful developments that keep proliferating exponentially in our world, and they threaten to change the very foundation of our lives. But what is it exactly, that causes us to change so? Why is there a frightening speed up in our technology? What is changing in the way that we communicate? These are some of the questions that I certainly have, and I’m sure that these are some of the questions that you have often wondered yourself. Recently, I have been reading a man who foresaw a massive shift in the way in which humans communicate through the use of physical and cognitive technology; his name is Marshall McLuhan. He is gaining in popularity and is even referenced in this episode of “Mad Men:”

Marshall McLuhan is perhaps most famous for the phrase turned book-title “The medium is the message.” The most important factor in this quote falls on the verb “is.” He very purposely wanted to associate the medium AS the message. The message is completely immersed within the medium that it is delivered in. Medium, in this case, refers to any form of technology. Some examples of mediums are objects and concepts like: the alphabet, the wheel, the airplane, the photograph, the automobile, etc. The argument that he puts forth constantly stresses his idea that the message is limited and encapsulated in the medium that becomes the delivery system for other humans to ingest. This can mean that in order for humans to develop new messages, they must first develop new technologies. It is really not as simple as all that, and I am paraphrasing hugely, but I believe an example may prove useful in illuminating what McLuhan may be commenting upon.

“The media is the message.” This is the mantra we will hold to when looking to analyze a technology; in this case, we will dissect the cellular phone. When the cellular phone first came onto the scene, there was a general agreement from the population that this would be a beneficial extension of the telephone. Before, one would have to find a payphone or a landline in order to initiate a conversation. Therefore, the position of land-line telephones were typically in enclosed booths or quiet rooms where one could hold a conversation. Even early cordless phones had a severely limited range that would barely function more than a room away. Either way, phone calls were only answered when a person was home. If no one was home, then no one could even hear the call coming. A person would not know if they had missed a call unless the answering machine had picked up (providing they had one) or they would simply be permanently unaware of the call that had been placed to their number. Therefore, the kinds of messages that we provided on the phone were more intimate. Because of the reasons listed above (the privacy of the location, the fixed position of the phone within the home, and the possibility of missing a phone call forever) the conversations that we had were deeper in personal narrative and experience, but they closed us off from the rest of the population at the same time. In the days of the landline, there was a degree of confidence in one’s privacy. Even the phone-booth was a recognition of one’s need for privacy and intimacy whilst on the telephone. Contrast this kind of communication with those of the modern-day cell-phones. Today’s cell phones balk at privacy. We’ve all been standing in some sort of line and heard details of a person’s existence that we care nothing about. Gone is the partition that secures an intimate environment. Today’s cell-phones also have features that ensure that if anyone dials your number, you will know about it. Likewise, there is no part of the house that is kept quiet because the telephone is housed in there. The very design of a home changes based on an extension of a new device. Of course, this is only a brief example, but I believe that it illuminates the way in which we interact with technologies.

So why do I bring up McLuhan into a blog that is about paranormal experiences, events, and theories? In many ways, McLuhan realizes that humans are already cyborgs. That is, he sees human consciousness and culture in terms of the types of technologies that we utilize. What is fascinating is that this man wrote primarily in the sixties and seventies about the impact that technologies would have as they evolved and developed. Though there are ideas that he postulates that seem obsolete, there are many, many truths in his works that seem to be represented in our society today. Further, McLuhan also has unique insights into the way in which media can be used as a tool for statecraft. Certainly, the rapid release of technologies seems to be having a severe impact on the way in which we interact with other countries in our global village (another term that was coined by McLuhan). To give you a better idea of how this man reasoned in action, here he is in a part of the Today Show, discussing the amplifier blow-out during the Carter-Ford debate of 1976. In particular, pay attention to what he says about the amplifier and how it “revolted.”

For further reading and watching of Marshall McLuhan, check out these sites:

Understanding Media: The extensions of man.

Official Website of Marshall McLuhan

Here is a link to purchase the book, “The Medium is the Message.” The family owns the rights to all his work, so feel free to support them if you so see fit.

Over this week, I’ve been re-watching one of my favorite Sci-Fi channel (when it was still called that) shows: Farscape. Within the show, a group of misfits from the stars gallivant across the universe in a ship known as a “Leviathan.” This ship is special in that it not only has the capacity to hold a large crew and cargo, but the ship itself is alive. The concept of biologically active machines has its ground in human imagination, and today, I am going to delve a little into the kinds of biomechanical technologies that are being developed as we speak. Rodney Brooks has an abstract at the AI lab of MIT that highlights some of the specific problems as well as some of the angles from which scientists are beginning to work from in creating these new breeds of machines. In this prospectus, the author proposes three new directions from which fellow researchers can begin to look at the problem of biomechanical engineering. According to Rodney Brooks, this should be the guiding direction for those interested in the production of living machines:

1) The machines should have capabilities that robots currently do not possess but that living machines do possess. The first of these are self-regulating or homeostatic qualities such as “self-repair, self-reproduction, and energy self-sufficiency.” Obviously, machines do not possess these abilities (yet), but they would be greatly appreciated in almost any application.

2) Living machines need to learn how to self-organize and create physical attributes based on a complex environment. This means that the machines need to learn how to organize their neural and physical functions to match their purpose and environment rapidly.

3) Biomechanical researchers need to spend more time coming up with mathematical theorems and equations for the propagation of the above topics on living beings and systems in order to apply them to their robotic counterparts.

The concept of living machines would have far reaching implications on the general populace and on the way we think about technology generally. The machines would cease becoming objects and the relationship between man and machine would mutate to a symbiotic relationship between living organisms to accomplish the all-inclusive grand act of survival.

So what kind of work has been done so far on biomachinery? A lot, really, but the definition is still up for debate. There are plenty of machines that are shaped and designed after animals, but these are really more of biology-inspired machines: biomimetic engineering. To qualify as biomechanical, a living organism must be used in the manner that a machine is. Here is an example of a very simple machine that was developed for water purification by the name of Living Machines. Note that the microorganisms that are used for the purification of water were specially designed and created in a lab. A sustainable environment is created for the microorganisms and the system is essentially self-sustaining. This qualifies the same kind of drive as the definition that was offered earlier above. The machine must be capable of sustaining itself as well as completing the task for which it was designed. This is a link to the work of Eduardo Torres-Jara who is developing a protocol for a robot that “eats.” In this case, the act of eating is to find electrical current for which to power its batteries, but the act of self-regulation for the robot brings it one step closer to functioning in a homeostatic manner. Though the original design and implementation of robots that look for their own power-source has been shortcut into the aggregation of solar cells on many robots, there are a few that rely on actual chemical breakdown of food. This link shows the “Chew-Chew” train which is made up of many blocks of living fuel cells that are microbacteria. The bacteria is fed sugar-cubes and the sugar-cubes are broken down and used as energy just as a living organism uses them. Another piece to add to this developing technology is the work of Dr. Ben Whalley from the University of Reading. He has built the world’s first cyborg; the machine (if it can still so be called) is piloted by the brain of a rat that is kept in a bell jar and transmits data via bluetooth impulses to the robot. The robot can learn (since the primary interface is the brain of a living organism) but the entire design of the “body” is robotic. Here is a video of the object at work:

So what does the future hold for biomachines? Quite a bit, truthfully. The applications are beginning to trickle down, but scientists are theorizing that certain bacteria can aid in electrical conductivity and with the application of genetic replication and the ability to engineer organisms to do practically anything, the future of biomechanical engineering seems wide open. Next week, I’ll delve a little more into the science of genetic engineering to look at obscure topics such as cloning, genetic replication, genetic mutation, and their role in the development of human civilization.

This week, I was inspired by a popular internet meme about Ray Bradbury. You know the one I mean (if not, here’s the link). Aside from being an adorable, ancient, sci-fi writer, Ray Bradbury has been among the few people able to conceive of portable computing devices. This week’s thread will have to deal with the slew of wearable, portable computers that are promising to change the way that we interact with our environment.

But before I get to some of the products that contain portable computers that are actually among us, I want to discuss one of the trends of computing that many of you may be well acquainted with. That is, the portability and multi-functionality of technology. As technology has progressed (particularly in the past twenty years) there has been a continuing trend to make computers smaller, more powerful, and multi-functional. As this trend continues, humanity will continue to develop products that seem to be able to do what we could only call fiction before. So, without further ado, here’s some of the technology that promises to revolutionize the future.

A gizmo that I’d like to bring to your attention to add weight to my preceding statement comes from a company called Qualcomm. The device has the unfortunate acronym of WMD (Wearable Mobile Device), but the list of features and the amazing versatility that this chip offers greatly compensate for the lousy acronym. Here’s a link to their literature which outlines a basic chip that can control Bluetooth and GPS functions from a processor the size of a quarter.

The implications for this are pretty far reaching, but here’s some of the gadgets that are possible with systems like these:

1) Glasses that could stream information such as GPS locations or use a Bluetooth connection to display information on the screen; here’s a company that is developing just that. The implications for this particular project are far-reaching. Eventually, the possibility of having contacts or a pair of glasses or goggles that contain information about anything you could ever want. Imagine a pair of glasses that could contain street-level maps or camera views occurring real time to check traffic while preparing to drive a car. One of the images from above shows the blown-up schematic for an engine piece that a mechanic is about to work on; that is solid thinking that can really help a lot of people in different walks of life to be more efficient.

2) Another device that is not necessarily wearable but certainly maintains the portability concept of this post is micromedia paper. The company that is offering this product (by 2015ish) is Lunar Design. Here is a review of this nifty paper. The implications for this product are that you will be able to record and deliver information on an extremely portable surface that is also in many ways quite diverse. Imagine being able to display information and videos on a piece of paper thin computer that comes complete with speakers and a replaceable battery, and the concept also includes the capacity to connect to wifi connections. Also, the projected cost of these mini-screens is well within any technophile’s budget.

3) A very neat product that will undoubtedly blur the line between human and cyborg is the Eyetap product being developed in Toronto. Here is a link to their site with an outline of the capabilities that their product promises to deliver. The idea is that your own eye is the interface that operates the function of this computer which learns to work with your own eye to process functions such as picture taking and image display.

4) These Zypad interfaces from Eurotech bring computers as sophisticated as netbooks into a portable piece of clothing worn on the forearm. Here is the link to these promising personal processors. The applications for this are incredibly far reaching when one considers that these are the preliminary models that allow for complete modern computing housed entirely on the person that is operating the system.

5) The last product that I’m going to look at for this post is still completely in the prototype stage, and it is the invisibility cloak. Here’s an article that outlines how silk could be the key to providing affordable personal invisibility. I’m not quite sure how this will be used in a positive way, but the inevitability of this product reaching consumers seems pretty assured.

Are there any wearable computers that you know about that I should have covered in this page? If so, please feel free to leave a comment on the bottom. I’ll see you next week to talk about some other products that have the potential to change an individual’s everyday life.

With the movie Inception having come out, and the question of dreams and reality hot on the minds of the common populace, I figured I’d go ahead and write about lucid dreaming this week. As usual, my first move in looking at lucid dreaming is to look at the definition from the OED: “a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming and is sometimes able to control or influence the course of the dream.” The movie Inception plays off this idea of control in a dream. Typically, we associate dreams with the part of our subconscious that is trying to play out problems or scenarios in our mind. Dreams tend to be actions that are done to us, as opposed to our having direct control over the dreamscape. Questions about reality are bound to come up when you talk about being able to act freely and openly in the dreamscape; namely, how do you differentiate a dream from reality. The same question was asked in the film The Matrix; the scene in which Neo is being liberated by Morpheus begins with the question: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream?” The question is a good one when discussing lucid dreaming or the confusion that can occur for some people between their dreams and reality. The question that I like to ask is: which thread of reality are we holding on to tightly? Do we look for a representation of reality that is up to our par? Is reality as firm as we’d like to believe? Are we just the dreamscape of some powerful knowing God? Anyone who has had a philosophy class has heard these questions asked, and I love it. I’m reminded of a story about one of Alexander the Great’s advisors. He was a Yogi, and he was trying to convince some soldiers about the dreaminess of life; he believed something like, “As sure as I woke from my dream this morning, I will wake from this life as well.” The soldiers laughed at him, so he threw himself into the fire without a sound. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if he actually did wake up from our collective dream.

So how do you dream lucidly? There are several methods that are available from the traditional Tibetan techniques to the ultra modern technological solutions. That being said, there are also a lot of people out there that want to sell you books about lucid dreaming. I’m going to share links of sites that I’ve found that give you free tips on how to enter a lucid dreaming state. Conversely, I’m also going to show you sites that I feel are trying to make a buck on something that probably should be common knowledge. But before I go about teaching the world how to dream lucidly, what are the benefits of lucid dreaming? Essentially, the biggest benefit that people have reported when dreaming lucidly is the ability to experience and recall their dreams fairly accurately. This is different from dream control which is all about directing the mind toward a particular area. I feel that lucid dreaming is an attempt to understand why you are having a particular dream in the first place; in other words, I’m more prone to go along with lucid dreaming because it seems to be a meditative attempt to understand one’s own subconscious. Let us say that you are disturbed about the loss of a loved one that you may have had unresolved issues with; in a dream, you have a conversation with that person. With lucid dreaming techniques, you could remember fairly vividly what was said and probably even work out some of those unresolved issues instead of waking up terrified with some half-remembered dream memories (dreamories?) about being visited by dead people in your sleep. Dream control, on the other hand, seems to be more about satisfying one’s waking needs at the cost of one’s subconscious. One of the articles I came across (http://lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#harmful) argues that one of the primary reasons that people yearn to dream lucidly revolves around the ability to live out fantasies. The most common fantasy, according to the article, is that of flight. The second greatest fantasy that people report deals with sex (shocking to us all, I’m sure). The main benefit of lucid dreaming is that you are in a hypothetical arena that is filled and populated entirely by your consciousness. Or is it? As I’m writing this several questions keep going through my mind: Is lucid dreaming selfish and self-centered? Is it an escape from reality? Or is it quite the opposite? Is lucid dreaming getting closer to the stage we enter after death? Is lucid dreaming entering part way into the kingdom of heaven or hell or whatever? While you ponder those questions, I’ll move on to a list of sites about lucid dreaming on the internet.

Here are some of the sites that I think are pretty open and honest. They don’t really seem to want to sell you some swampland in the dream-world, they genuinely seem interested in sharing knowledge on this topic which so many people find interesting:

http://lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#harmful

http://www.consciousdreaming.com/lucid-dreaming/how-to-lucid-dream.htm

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1759

Here’s a list of sites that I would avoid. They are either heavy with trying to sell you books that are typically recycled information from someone else’s sites or books (on information that is readily available for free), or they seem to suggest that you will develop some kind of mutant powers with which to save or destroy the world. Most of these sites like to use the word, “Institute,” because I guess they feel that that word makes them sound professional. From what I’ve researched, lucid dreaming is more about getting in touch with yourself and your own subconscious than it is about getting information out of people’s heads or trying to control your subconscious.

http://lucidity.com/

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art10584.asp

http://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter237/index.htm

As I mentioned earlier, there are also devices that can give you a cue when it detects REM such as a sound or a flashing light which can help you to realize that you are dreaming and put you in a lucid state. Do they work? Some of the research seems to suggest that it can really help induce a lucid state of mind during dreaming, but it is not one hundred percent reliable. Here is an example of one of these devices:

http://lucidity.com/novadreamer.html

Finally, I will end with a video from a man who covers some of these “dream devices.” Enjoy, and I will see you in your dreams.