Never Not A Nerd

It’s just a matter of time before sentient robots rebel and attempt to “kill all humans”. We can all agree on that, right? By the way, watch the tech segment of the Never Not a Nerd Show every week to see our “Robocalypse Video of the Week”. Now that I got that shameless plug out of the way, let’s get to the review.

Robopocalypse is a novel written by Daniel H Wilson. Want to know something interesting about the connection between the author and the theme of his book? He has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Melon! What if he’s already building some of the robots contained in this book to serve his own world domination plans? I think it’s time we all started collectively crapping our pants.

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Terrafugia has just gotten their newest little creation, the Terrafugia Transition, “off the ground.” (Oh God I’m so clever)  Apparently the FAA has classified it as a light sport aircraft, technically giving it a free pass despite being a little heavier than the cutoff point.  This is pretty crazy.  I’ve been waiting for flying cars for a while now.  It’s not exactly what I was thinking (kind of pictured more of a wingless concept, maybe capitalizing on anti-gravity or something) but hey, I’m thoroughly intrigued.  Now all that’s keeping me on the ground is a fear of heights/fear of my own ability to fly an aircraft of any sort.

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I feel as though we should mention that the special Creating Synthetic Life premieres tonight at 8pm on the Science Channel.

Here’s part of the press release.

Dr. J Craig Venter…and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) became the first in history to synthetically create a living, self-replicating cell.

Now, Science Channel is exclusively bringing viewers inside Dr. Venter’s pioneering quest to produce life synthetically in Creating Synthetic Life, premiering Thursday, June 3, 2010, at 8PM e/p. Over the course of five years, only Science Channel cameras captured the failures, successes and breakthrough moments of Dr. Venter, Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith, Dr. Clyde Hutchison and JCVI researchers as they meticulously sought to create a synthetic single-celled organism.

Following that at 9PM viewer questions that were submitted via Facebook will be answered.

Are you unable to complete complex tasks in video games? Are you the type of player that is good at completing objectives, but getting to that point is a complete mess? Well, maybe you just have a smaller striatum(section of your brain) than some other gamers.

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In this month’s physical edition (it was published online in November of last year) of Nature Physics there is an article about the temperature diamonds melt at in ultra-high pressure situations. The article is actually called “Melting Temperature of Diamond at Ultrahigh Pressure”, by JH Eggert, et al. The reason I’m getting into this is because I have seen multiple ‘synopses’ of this article pop-up across the internet on various sci-fi like sites (and some news sites) stating the possibility of diamond oceans on Uranus and Neptune. Is a diamond ocean even possible?

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Late last week The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists pushed the minute hand back on the Doomsday Clock.  We’re now 6 minutes away from self-annihilation instead of 5!  And there is rejoicing in the streets!

In mid-January of 2007 the clock was moved up two minutes from 7 to 5, so it’s nice to see we’re making some progress as far as that goes.

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Okay, so in New Jersey they’ve unveiled a sex robot.  Yes, a man named Douglas Hines has created a robot that is designed specifically to have sex with.  Let it sink in.  Still, the most interesting part of this story?  The fact that his idea stemmed from the September 11th attacks.  Let THAT sink in.  Apparently he wished to find a way to reproduce personalities after the death of a friend.  From there it was apparently just a couple steps to making a sexbot.

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Thanks Ron, this is Brian Fantana reporting from the San Diego Zoo….wait, no.

Seriously though….. there was an article on MSN last week from Rueters  about how Chris Packham, a British naturalist, thinks we should let giant panda’s die out because we’re spending too much money on keeping them in existence.  He blames the pandas fate on no one other than the panda’s themselves, referring to them as a weak species and having “gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac”.  I assume he knows what is causing the major problem pandas are facing.  If you yelled “PEOPLE!!” than you’re correct.  Yes, giant pandas may only eat bamboo, but humans have destroyed most of their food supply, that’s why they’re endangered. To make a comment like Chris Packham did is kind of stupid and irrational.  I wonder if he would hang himself (I’m not saying he should, nor do I want him to) if every time he tried to eat something a giant panda smacked the bowl from his hand.  Because spending money to aid him in survival would be too costly, and of course he would have obviously put himself in that situation voluntarily.

Last week a new species of Pitcher plant was ‘formally announced’ to the public.  It’s called Nepenthes attenboroughii, named after David Attenborough the host of many BBC nature shows.  The plant was discovered on Mount Victoria on the island of Palawan in the  Philippines. The interesting thing about it is it is said to produce a chemical on the rim of the pitcher that will attract rats and mice to it.  Once the rodents are drawn in and try to drink, they fall in, drown, and are dissolved by enzymes the plant secretes.  Continue reading to find out what’s really going on.

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