Advanced Invention

Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team’s method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first.

The baobab tree represents one of the most ancient species of life on the planet. Scientists have investigated ancient and highly divergent proteins, called retroelements, whose evolutionary histories hold keys to uncovering the origins of life. (Credit: Randen Patterson and Damian van Rossum, Penn State)

"We have just begun to tap the potential power of this method," said Randen Patterson, a Penn State assistant professor of biology and one of the project’s leaders. "We believe, if it is possible at all, that it is within our grasp to determine whether viruses evolved from cells or vice-versa."

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers say they have developed a rubber that is able to conduct electricity well, paving the way for robots with stretchable “e-skin” that can feel heat and pressure like humans.

The material is the first in the world to solve the problems faced by metals — which are conductive but do not stretch — and rubber, which hardly transmits electricity, according to the team at the University of Tokyo.

The new technology is flexible like ordinary rubber but boasts conductivity some 570 times as high as commercially available rubbers filled with carbon particles, said the team led by Takao Someya at the university’s School of Engineering.

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In movies like Ridley Scott’s classic Bladerunner, robots are ultimately portrayed as having feelings and possessing a conscience. A slightly scary, but nonetheless intriguing thought comes to mind: they fight for survival; they appear more human than machine.

Predictably, this may soon no longer be confined to the realms of science fiction. Yep. Scientists say that in about 40 years, a robot could become the perfect lover and sex machine… literally.

David Levy, author of Love + Sex with Robots, said during an international conference at the University of Maastricht in southeastern Netherlands, that by 2050, robots would be able to serve as human-like lovers and not just mechanical sex slaves. Within the next four years, advanced robots will be sold as sex toys, he claims.

Giving emotions to a machine is not an easy task. In order for them to become good lovers, they need to be taught to have human characteristics and certain personality traits. They need consciousness of their own. For example, when they tell their human lovers ‘I love you’, they must really ‘mean’ it or at least be perceived to mean it. Perhaps they’ll also be ‘trained’ to be jealous! However, more important problems need to be resolved first…

According to Levy, one important ability which is particularly difficult to program is conversation, a sustaining pillar of all loving relationships. Additionally to be great in bed, the robots will need to possess sensors and electronic speech abilities to make them seem real, when a human touches their “sensitive zones.”

There are various scenarios as to how this could play out. In fact the possibilities are infinite. Will the robots be more attractive than the real opposite sex? Will that lead to self-imposed sterility for the geeks that fall in love with their super hot robot women? Will less people cheat on each other? Or will copulating with a robot be considered adultery?

All of these questions are yet to be resolved. What do you think?

Via environmentalgraffiti.com