Free Republic

· Law change could help cancer victims · embryo bill fuels impassioned debate Mps are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA. A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. The legislation currently allows ...#8239;so-called artificial gametes in research, but imposes a blanket ban on their use in creating a human pregnancy. The technique involves...

Everyone knows the score with black holes: even if light strays too close, the immense gravity will drag it inside, never to be seen again. They are thought to be created when large stars finally spend all their fuel and collapse. It might come as a surprise, therefore, to find that physicists in the UK have now managed to create an “artificial” black hole in the lab. Originally, theorists studying black holes focused almost exclusively on applying Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of massive objects arises from the curvature of space–time. Then, in 1974, the...

RICHARDSON, Texas - David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days. There's his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father's cramped office. Then there's the robotic Zeno. It can't speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions. At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there's an emerging business...

PARIS (AFP) - Experts in artificial intelligence have built a computer programme that can understand simple jokes, marking an important step in making robots seem friendlier to humans, the weekly New Scientist reports. Previous attempts at getting machines to understand humour have failed miserably, because what is funny to humans is subjective and complex -- and fiendishly difficult to programme. But, says New Scientist, Julia Taylor and Lawrence Mazlack of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio have devised a prototype joke-detection software. They began by loading a programme with a database of words, extracted from a children's dictionary to keep...

TOKYO - Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" — a new soda based on the crisp green gourd. The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn't actually have any cucumber in it — but has been artificially flavored to resemble "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber," said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan's Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd. "We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect." The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer...

NEW YORK - A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas and Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses. They claim the Park Avenue clinic used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs. Three DNA tests — a home kit and two professional laboratory tests — confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the...

December 20, 2006 4800-Year-Old Artificial Eyeball From the announcement by the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, an educational and research group out of UK: Archaeologists in Burnt City announced unprecedented discovery of an artificial eyeball, dated to 4800 years ago, in this historic site. Announcing this news, director of Burnt City archaeology excavation team, Mansur Sajadi, said that this eyeball belongs to a sturdy woman who was between 25 to 30 years of age at the time of death. Skeletal remains of the woman were found in grave number 6705 of Burnt City's cemetery. Regarding the material used to make...

Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, according to a study by the British government. If granted, countries would be obligated to provide social benefits including housing and even "robo-healthcare", the report says. The predictions are contained in nearly 250 papers that look ahead at developments over the next 50 years. Other papers, or "scans", examine the future of space flight and methods to dramatically lengthen life spans. "We're not in the business of predicting the future, but we do need to explore the broadest range of different possibilities to help ensure government is prepared in...

'Chatbot' king George looks for human friends on the internet Sep 15 6:00 AM US/Eastern George, who is 39, single and light-hearted, is looking for friends on the Internet. He has gifts -- the ability to speak in 40 languages and with 2,000 people at the same time. And one quirk: he doesn't really exist. George is a piece of software, arguably the best of the speaking "chatbots" or talking robots, and he's recently received the Loebner prize in Britain, a scientific award recognising the machines best capable of matching the most realistic human dialogues with their own. Seven years...

Zurich, Switzerland, (SPX) Aug 23, 2006 Scientists have unveiled a new technology that could lead to video displays that faithfully reproduce a fuller range of colors than current models, giving such a life-like viewing experience that it could be hard to go back to your old TV. The invention, based on fine-tuning light using microscopic artificial muscles, could turn into competitively priced consumer products in eight years, the scientists say. In ordinary displays such as TV tubes, flat-screen LCDs, or plasma screens, each pixel is composed of three light-emitting elements, one for each of the fundamental colors red, green, and...

Hatin’ on Hillary: N.H. Dems lambaste Clinton By Brett Arends Boston Herald Business Columnist Monday, August 7, 2006 - Updated: 02:56 AM EST MANCHESTER, N.H. - Dick Bennett has been polling New Hampshire voters for 30 years. And he’s never seen anything like it. “Lying b**** . . . shrew . . . Machiavellian . . . evil, power-mad witch . . . the ultimate self-serving politician.” No prizes for guessing which presidential front-runner drew these remarks in focus groups. But these weren’t Republicans talking about Hillary Clinton. They weren’t even independents. These were ordinary, grass-roots Democrats. People who identified...

THE LAW of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES You've probably heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It refers to the unanticipated later results of earlier decisions or actions. We saw a television report of an unintended consequence of "sperm banks"--organizations which sell male sperm to lesbians or other single women who want pregnancy "without a father," and couples who want to have children despite male infertility of the husband. You will be shocked, as we were, to discover an estimated 40,000 children are born each year using this repulsively modern means. Apparently, anonymous "profiles" of the sperm donor are used to market...

I ate a field roast for dinner last night, because I am a vegetarian and those are the types of things we eat (carnivores often wonder). A field roast sort of tastes like meat and sort of looks like meat--but it's made of three vegetables and a grain, so not really. Still, no bunnies died in its making, except maybe when the underpaid field worker harvested all the carrots to make my roast. I thought the field roast was the ultimate in meat technology (note: fakin' bacon? Not good technology), until I came across this Wired News story about a...

Mark Bedau ’76 and Norman Packard ’77 used to stay up late nights at Reed pondering the nature of life. What makes organisms alive? Is there a knowable organizing principle behind living cells? Can life be broken down into its constituent parts? Thirty years later, Bedau and Packard are on a quest for answers. Surrounded by powerful computers and sophisticated equipment in a high-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Venice, Italy—and bankrolled with millions of euros—they are trying to produce actual cells. The two Reedies are part of a long-shot entry in the race to create artificial life. Bedau,...

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

BEIJING - Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said If oil prices surge to record highs, what affect will this have on the US dollar? The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo. The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings. Hospitals reported a jump...

Presenting American Robot Servants By Roger F. Gay GeckoSystems, Inc., a leading developer of mobile service robots (MSRs), has announced completion of a revolutionary servant class personal robot designed for eldercare, childcare, and home security. This news isn’t coming from Japan or Korea. GeckoSystems is based in Conyers, Georgia in the good ole U.S. of A. Their robot is so new that even the name seems fresh from the engineers’ workbenches: the CareBot™ MSR 3.4. (CareBot) The CareBot stands approximately 4 feet tall (see picture) and rolls gracefully over shag and plush carpet as well as over any smooth...

Rockville, Md. -- A judge allowed corrections officials to forcibly feed convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad while he awaits trial in the county for six October 2002 killings. Muhammad had not eaten anything since being transferred to the Montgomery County, Md., jail on Monday, corrections officials said in court documents filed Thursday. He was apparently upset with the food he was being served and the handling of his legal material. Doctors had concluded that Muhammad, 44, was at risk of serious injury or death of he continued his hunger strike, corrections officials said. Judge James L. Ryan issued an order...

"How do you deal with society when its paradigm of what is right is so dominant?" Doug Engelbart, the 1960s computer visionary asked me the other evening. It's a question he has pondered many times over the past 20 years or so, ever since his research funding was taken away. Mr Engelbart and his teams of researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) shaped the look and feel of the PC, as John Markoff chronicles in his latest book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Mr Markoff's book raises the profile of Mr...

Korea's Oldest Artificial Pond Discovered By Kim Ki-tae Staff Reporter The nation¡¯s oldest artificial pond was found in Andong, North Kyongsang Province. The pond¡¯s construction dates back to the Bronze Age. Museum of Dongyang University yesterday announced that the artificial pond was created at least 2,600 years ago, after examining the site where the pond used to be, a swampy place in Chojon-ni, Sohu-myon in the region. It said the rectangular pond was formed in the valley area by digging paths from nearby streams. The artificial lake is estimated to be 50 meters long and 15 meters wide, with a...