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Science Snippets 2

Entry 785, on 2008-06-03 at 20:40:57 (Rating 1, Science)

I saw several items in the news services I regularly peruse today which interested me, so I'll briefly describe and comment on them here.

The first was the discovery by a new planet orbiting another star by the Japan-New Zealand Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics project using the telescope at Mt John, Central Canterbury, which is actually the largest telescope in the world designed specifically for this work.

An unusual thing about the discovery is the incredibly small size of the star and the relatively small size of the planet. The star is only 6% of the mass of the Sun, so it can't produce energy in the same way as a "normal" star. The planet is just bigger than the Earth which is also unusual because most extra-solar planets discovered so far have been very large - often bigger than Jupiter.

Because the star is so cool the planet is probably also cool, despite being closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, but the location might still allow a massive atmosphere and a deep ocean. Internal heat might even heat the surface to a temperature where conditions might allow life to exist.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a system which allows a computer to perform simple "mind reading". Using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technology they scan the brain of subjects and a computer can use the information gathered to successfully guess a word the person is thinking about.

While this is a bit scary in some ways it does require the NMRI equipment so its not likely to be useful for interrogation and other purposes in the immediate future. Its interesting to speculate on how "mind reading" could be used to enhance future computer user interfaces though. Instead of typing my blog entry I could just think about it and it would appear! We just have to make it work with something less cumbersome than an MRI machine.

A truly scary technology I read about was a robotic flying sniper. This is a small flying robot armed with a sniper rifle of some sort. It seems to be controlled by a radio link with a human, so it doesn't choose its own targets - but how far away will that be? They predict a 50% chance of hitting a target at a range of 1500 meters and point out the advantage of precision fire which avoids accidentally hitting non-combatants.

There's no real reason why this technology should be considered any more dangerous than other high tech weapons such as guided missiles and bombs but it just seems more personal because its designed to target a single person rather than a building or vehicle. Maybe its the background image of the American flag which the "UAV Sniper" is shown against which worries me for some reason!

Did you know that the bananas we have available today are an inferior variety which was introduced about 50 years ago after a blight virtually wiped out the previous superior crop? Now it seems that the same disease is back and it now affects the new variety which was previously immune.

It now seems that the best answer to this problem which could almost destroy the world's most popular fruit might be to use genetic engineering. Will this be acceptable to people? Should we care? I think the research should proceed and, if no other option becomes viable, a genetically engineered variety (assuming one can be developed) should be used.

Most objections to GE seem to be driven by emotion and ignorance so maybe this is an occasion when public opinion should be overridden by common sense. If a non-GE solution can be found that is fine, let's use it, but a GE solution should be used if necessary because saving one of the most important food crops is more important than following the vagaries of public opinion.

Comment 1 (1474) by Anonymous on 2008-06-26 at 21:21:04:

What a weird collection of news. Where do you get this stuff?

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