Archive for: October, 2005
October 31st, 2005
Exploring Mars will be a risky business
Are humans ready to stay on Mars for several months? Can we deal with all the risks that its environment may cause to astronauts and space missions? Red Nova says that some answers are contained in a report from NASA. According to this report, the #1 risk is Martian dust because it can potentially damage power systems, space suits and filtration systems. So NASA wants to launch a space robotic mission to bring back to Earth a sample of at least one kilogram of Martian dust to evaluate how chemically toxic it is.
The Red Nova focuses on Murphy’s law and here is how it introduces it.
According to Murphy’s Law, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and presumably this applies on Mars as well as Earth. So if things go wrong on Mars, are we ready for them? What do we need to know about Mars before we send people there?
Some of the answers are contained in a report from NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) published in June 2005 and titled "An Analysis of the Precursor Measurements of Mars Needed to Reduce the Risk of the First Human Mission to Mars." Here is a link to this report (PDF format, 77 pages, 1.66 MB, June 2005).
The heart of MEPAG’s June report is a full-page table on p. 11 that lists 20 risks, "any one of which could take out a mission," says David Beaty, Mars Program Science Manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the report’s lead author.
Here are some of the major risks by decreasing priority.
- Is Martian dust toxic and dangerous?
- Are there organisms dangerous for humans living on Mars?
- How Martian dust storms can affect space missions during landings and takeoffs?
- Is there water available if astronauts stay for more than a year?
But there are other risks as well.
For example, take the Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR), which is a continuous, low-dose source of charged particles — because . And a chronic exposure to GCR might have "late" effects that might only be detected years or decades after a space mission, such as an increased cancer risk.
October 30th, 2005
Can your mouth become multilingual?
During a videoconference last week between Karlsruhe, Germany, and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA, the talk of Alex Waibel, from CMU, was automatically translated in German and Spanish. Both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PPG) and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PTR) attended the conference, took pictures and were impressed by this new "open domain" speech-to-speech translation. This new computer technology is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and statistical methods. During the demonstration, the speaker had electrodes attached to his face and his neck, but the researchers think that these electrodes could be implanted into your mouth and your throat in a decade from now — if you agree of course.
This new speech-to-speech translation technology has been one of the hot topics discussed during the International Workshop on Spoken Language Translation 2005 (IWSLT 2005) which was held on October 24-25, 2005 in Pittsburgh. And here is the introduction of the PPG article.
[Szu-Chen] Stan Jou’s lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Mr. Jou, a graduate student in language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, was simply mouthing words in his native Mandarin Chinese. But 11 electrodes attached to his face and neck detected his muscle movements, enabling a computer program to figure out what he was trying to say and then translate his Mandarin into English.
The result boomed out of a loudspeaker a few seconds later: "Let me introduce our new prototype," a synthesized voice announced. "You can speak in Mandarin and it translates into English or Spanish."
What’s behind this new translation device?
What has made this possible has been a dramatic change in how computer translation programs are written. In the past, most translation software has been based on sets of rules — dictionary definitions, grammatical rules and such. In other words, programmers tried to make a computer think like a human.
But increasingly, the trend in artificial intelligence is to allow the computers to think like computers, using statistical methods to draw meaning out of masses of information, said Randall E. Bryant, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science.
Of course, I’m sure that you think that this new technology doesn’t always provide correct translations.
October 29th, 2005
A big boost for optical networks
Both the Mercury News and the New York Times are reporting that engineers at Stanford University have built a silicon germanium modulator which can manipulate a beam of laser light on and off up to 100 billion times a second. This discovery is very important because the materials used, silicon and germanium, are already common in the semiconductor industry. This potentially opens the way to optical networks ten times faster than today’s networks which can transmit data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. But keep in mind that such networks are still years away.
Here is the introduction of the Mercury News article.
Engineers at Stanford University have taken a step closer to fashioning silicon chips that could manipulate data at the speed of light, a development that could one day create lightning-fast networks to carry the ever-growing traffic on the Internet.
James Harris, an electrical engineering professor, and the team have created a silicon germanium modulator, which acts as a kind of light shutter that can break a laser beam into billions of bits of data per second. This modulator can selectively absorb or pass through beams of light, to distinguish bits — or the ones and zeros — of digital data. The modulator is an important component in a string of silicon chips that would have to be invented in order to make a silicon optical networking system.
Below is a schematic diagram of this silicon structure, also known as a "p-i-n diode structure." "All layers are grown sequentially in a commercially available, singlewafer, cold-wall, reduced-pressure, chemical vapour deposition(RPCVD) reactor." (Credit: Stanford’s Solid State and Photonics Laboratory).
The New York Times gives additional details.
October 28th, 2005
An asynchronous brain computer interface
Researchers from Oxford University are developing a new asynchronous system to interface with the brain which will allow a more effective way to control wheelchairs or robotic arms with the power of the human mind. The Engineer Online writes that such an asynchronous brain computer interface (BCI) would permit a more precise and nuanced control of external mechanisms than existing synchronous BCI technology. This new system will use only one electrode and allow sophisticated controls over the speed of these external devices. Even if this new BCI technology is being designed to help severely disabled people, it could have other applications for the gaming and entertainment industries or even to control vehicles.
Most of the existing BCI systems are now using several electrodes attached to a user’s head which measure micro-voltages from the activity of the brains. Then these signals are translated into movements and commands sent to the devices to operate. But the new system will use only one electrode.
Prof Stephen Roberts of Oxford’s engineering science department, who is leading the project, said the team hopes to develop BCI algorithms sophisticated enough to allow graduated, proportional control of movement rather than a simple on or off switch.
"It is reasonably simple to use an interface to turn something on or off with a binary control switch. That is well-proven technology," he said. "But to control a robot arm, that binary control isn’t good enough. You need to be able to control the amount of movement and speed."
Here is an example of a brain computer interface (Credit: Oxford’s Pattern Analysis and Machine Learning Research Group). As you can see, the goal of using a single electrode has not been reached yet.
What would be the advantage of an asynchronous system?
October 27th, 2005
World's first biogas train fueled by cows
The world’s first train to run on biogas, a renewable energy source made up of organic waste from cows, has been inaugurated in Sweden according to AFP and BBC News. This train will make a daily trip between Linköping, just south of Stockholm, and Västervik, 80 kilometers away on the Baltic coast. It can seat 60 passengers in a single car and could run for 600 kilometers at a maximum speed of 130 kilometers an hour. Svensk Biogas, which developed the train for a cost of 10 million kronor (the equivalent of €1.05 million or US $1.26 million), replaced the diesel engines of an old Fiat locomotive by two Volvo gas engines.
Here is a picture of this single car powered by cows (Credit: Svensk Biogas).
And here you can see the first happy travelers ready to jump on the train (Credit: Svensk Biogas).
You’ll find several other — very large — pictures in this photo gallery. All photos have been taken by Kalle Rimling.
The first trip went on time according to AFP.
"The train left on time, at 2:32 pm (1242 GMT) and everything is going well," said Peter Unden, head of marketing at Svensk Biogas, the company that owns the train.
And is this train good for the environment?
Replacing the engine has made the train more environmentally friendly, since the combustion of biogas, like other biofuels, helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Svensk Biogas chief Carl Lilliehöök told AFP last June when the train was inaugurated.
However, BBC News says that the train costs a little more to operate than regular trains.
October 25th, 2005
More secure signatures
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, IBM is working on a system using dynamic signature verification as a biometric authentication of the purchaser and to reduce fraud at point of sales counters. The system, dubbed Sign and Go, checks your signature by comparing it to several previously recorded samples and analyzing the speed and the movements of your hand when you sign on a digital pad. With such a system, which is far less intrusive than other biometric technologies, you wouldn’t need any ID or even to show a credit card. But so far, Sign and Go has been tested for more than two years and IBM has not said when the technology becomes available.
Below is an image showing the Sign and Go technology in action (Credit: IBM). You’ll find a larger version of this picture and a list of the key characteristics of the technology on the Signature Verification for Retail and Banking page at IBM Almaden Research Center.
Now, let’s return to the San Francisco Chronicle to listen to a researcher.
Dubbed Sign and Go, the signature-verification technology uses the unique ways individuals sign their names, in the same way that people have distinct irises and fingerprints, said Thomas Zimmerman, a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center’s computer science department.
"I’d like to call it the dance of the pen on the pad," Zimmerman said. "When I sign, there’s all these little curves that I’m doing and pauses and such. … Think of your hand as basically a tiny little car. It’s accelerating, it’s making a right turn, it’s making a U-turn. There’s this whole dance your hand’s doing, which is quite detailed."
So how does the technology work? First you need electronic pads to write your signature, but many retail chains are already equipped. The only thing to add is the Sign and Go software to build a full dynamic signature verification system.
October 24th, 2005
Atoms collide like tennis balls
A team of physicists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, has used ultrafast lasers to look at atoms during collisions lasting just half a picosecond (trillionth of a second). And they were able to confirm the theory that atoms — like tennis balls — "briefly lose form and energy when they hit something." These results will help them to better understand other laws of physics at the atomic level.
Below is an image showing how atoms of potassium — like tennis balls — change shape when they collide (Credit: Virginia Lorenz, JILA). Here is a link to a larger version of this image(465 KB).
Here are some short details about the experiments.
Using laser pulses that last just 70 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), physicists have observed in greater detail than ever before what happens when atoms collide.
The JILA scientists collected data on atoms’ properties before, during and after collisions lasting just half a picosecond (trillionth of a second) using laser "flashes" that were even faster.
In the JILA experiments, about 10 quintillion potassium atoms in a dense gas were packed into a titanium container just 1 square centimeter in size and heated to 700 degrees C (almost 1,300 degrees F).
And how the researchers were able to take ’snapshots’ of the collisions?
Energy from the first laser pulse is absorbed by the atoms, placing them in a uniform state, emitting electromagnetic waves in identical patterns. A second laser then quickly hits the mass of atoms, and a detector captures a signal beam formed by the interaction of the beams. Light from the second pulse is absorbed and re-emitted by atoms that are "in synch" but not by atoms that are colliding and losing energy.
This research work has been published by Physical Review Letters on October 14, 2005 under the title "Non-Markovian dynamics in a dense potassium vapor" (Volume 95, Number 16, Article 163601). Here is a link to the abstract.
And for more information about other research projects from this team, you can visit the Cundiff Group web site.
Sources: NIST Tech Beat, October 20, 2005; and various web sites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
October 23rd, 2005
A desert tent coming from space
In fact, this innovative desert tent doesn’t really come from space, but it has been designed by applying "the methodology and principles used in space design and development," according to a news release from the European Space Agency (ESA). The Desert Seal tent has been developed by a Swiss and an Italian architects to improve the life of people living in very arid and hot deserts. The top of the tent, which is more than two meters high, serves as a cool air intake during the warm days and blows warm air into the tent during the chilly desert nights.
Below is a picture of a prototype of the Desert Seal inflatable tent (Credit: Architecture and Vision). As you can see on the middle part of the image, "Desert Seal has a flexible solar cell panel to provide electricity for the ventilation fan and LED-light at night. A small battery is used to store the energy."
The two architects behind this project, Andreas Vogler and Arturo Vittori, who founded Architecture and Vision in 2003 both have already worked for other aerospace projects, for Airbus or the International Space Station. Here are how they designed Desert Seal.
They designed Desert Seal specifically for hot arid environments where the air becomes considerably cooler the more distant it is from the Earth’s surface. During the day, the temperature can easily reach 60°C and beyond at ground level, while just 3 metres above it could be 40°C lower. Vittori and Vogler decided to use this characteristic to their advantage.
During the day, an electric fan in the top of the tent, 2.26 m above the ground, constantly blows cooler air inside, thus reducing the temperature inside the tent. The fan is powered by batteries charged by a flexible solar panel mounted outside the tent.
During the night, the desert radiates heat off to space and quickly reaches temperature below zero degree Celsius. Since air acts as a good insulator, on higher levels it stays considerably warmer. The fan on top now runs on batteries and blows warmer air into the tent, protecting from the chilly desert nights.
You’ll find more information about Desert Seal by reading this brochure (PDF format, 2 pages, 338 KB) or by visiting the project page at Architecture and Vision (Flash format).
Will this tent become available for retail anytime soon? Probably not. So far, this tent is a prototype, but you can watch it at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the ‘SAFE: Design Takes On Risk’ exhibition until January 2, 2006.
Sources: European Space Agency, October 20, 2005; and various web sites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
October 22nd, 2005
Air and ground robots to collaborate in space
Today’s discoveries about our solar system are done by using robotic devices such as remote-sensing orbiters, probes, landers and rovers. But space missions usually rely on very few instruments. If one is lost, the mission is almost over — and has failed. But now, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Arizona (UA), and the U.S. Geological Survey is proposing a new concept for space missions. These future multi-tiered robotic space missions will associate orbiting spacecrafts, blimps and balloons with ground robots. All these instruments will communicate together and interact with each other. We will probably have to wait a decade or two before the launch of such space missions, but it makes good sense to rely on different robotic devices instead of a single one.
Before going further, below is an artist’s rendering of a multi-tiered space mission (Credit: Caltech). And here is a link to a larger version.
And here are more details about this concept, taken from the Caltech news release.
In addition to spaceborne orbiters, the "new paradigm" would involve sending orbiter-guided blimps (or other airborne agents) carrying instruments such as optical and thermal cameras, ground-penetrating radar, and gas and humidity sensors to chosen areas of a planet, as well as using herds of small, robotic, ground-based explorers.
The ground explorers would communicate with the airborne and/or spaceborne agents, coupled with innovative software for identification, characterization, and integration of various types of spatial and temporal information for in-transit comparative analysis, hypothesis formulation, and target selection. This would lead to a "tier-scalable perspective," akin to the approach used by field geologists to solve a complicated geological puzzle.
How will this concept work on Mars for example? This UA news release tells us.
October 21st, 2005
Extreme weather changes in front of us
Researchers from Purdue University have used their supercomputers to run the largest simulation of what could become the weather in the U.S. between 2071 and 2095. And their model, which was validated by using data from last century, predicts "more extreme temperatures throughout the country and more extreme precipitation along the Gulf Coast, in the Pacific Northwest and east of the Mississippi." The computer model used a grid with an 25-km horizontal resolution and required five months of computing time. Still, the researchers think they need a computer at least 100 times as powerful as the clusters they used to really improve the accuracy of their predictions.
Here are two short excerpts of the Purdue University news release.
The climate model, run on supercomputers at Purdue University, takes into account a large number of factors that have been incompletely incorporated in past studies, such as the effects of snow reflecting solar energy back into space and of high mountain ranges blocking weather fronts from traveling across them, said Noah S. Diffenbaugh, the team’s lead scientist and a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center.
Diffenbaugh said a better understanding of these factors — coupled with a more powerful computer system on which to run the analysis — allowed the team to generate a far more coherent image of what weather we can expect to encounter in the continental United States for the next century. Those expectations, he said, paint a very different climate picture for most parts of the country.
The research work has been published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under the title "Fine-scale processes regulate the response of extreme events to global climate change" (published online before print, October 19, 2005).
Here are two links to the abstract and to the full paper (PDF format, 5 pages, 740 KB), from where the details and quotes below have been extracted.
Here are the characteristics of the model used for this computer simulation.
The grid was centered at 39.00°N and 100.00°W and consisted of 145 points in the latitude direction and 220 points in the longitude direction. Grid points were separated at 25-km horizontal resolution with 18 levels in the vertical. We have performed two model integrations.
The researchers performed two reference integrations (RF) on the model, first for the period 1961 through 1985 to validate the model, then for the period covering the years 2071 to 2095.
Below is an image showing one of the results obtained for this second period. It shows the anomalies in mean heat-wave length. This T95 index value on this map was "calculated as the mean of the 95th percentile daily temperature maxima at each grid point in each of the 25 years of the RF integration" (Credit: Noah Diffenbaugh).
As you can see, anomalies were mostly positive, indicating higher temperatures than today.
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