Weird Science

[Cyclopea]

Post cool interesting science stuff here.
Share, discuss, reflect.
Biology, Astronomy, Tech, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Social, etc.
Whatevah you got....
Bring on the clones, nano, anthropology, particle acceleration, robotics, gen mod, space, theoretical and any other fun stuff!

[Cyclopea]

Japanese robo-suit promises superpowers for greying farmers
April 9, 2010 by Antoine Bouthier

A Tokyo Agriculture and Technology (TAT) University postgraduate student is seen demonstrating the new power-assist suit for elderly agriculture workers, developed by TAT professor Shigeki Toyama. The power assist suits are said to reduce the user's physical effort by about 62 percent.
While Robocop and Iron Man can dodge bullets and crush villains, a new powered suit from Japan promises its elderly users more modest powers, such as pulling up radishes without getting a backache.

Unlike its heavily-armed Hollywood counterparts, the Power Assist Suit aims to make life easier for Japan's army of greying farmers.
The metal-and-plastic exoskeleton boasts eight electric motors that amplify the strength of the wearer's arms and legs, as well as sensors that can detect movements and respond to commands through a voice-recognition system.

Professor Shigeki Toyama and his team developed the power-enhancing suit at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and Toyama plans to set up a company to start producing the futuristic outfit by the end of the year.

"If the farmer bends over to grasp a radish, his back will be firmly supported," said Gohei Yamamoto, one of the students working on the team, as he recently demonstrated the suit on his university campus.
"A brief vocal instruction will instantly straighten the rods along his legs, giving him the power he needs to pull the vegetable without effort."
Fifteen years in the making, the robosuit will soon hit the market in Japan to help ageing farmers harvest their fruit and vegetables while avoiding backaches and nasty cramps, its developers say.

Japan, with a low birthrate and a high life expectancy, is facing a demographic crisis as its population rapidly ages and shrinks.
Industrial robots have long been common in Japan, and robo-suits are making inroads in hospitals and retirement homes, where they can help carers lift patients or aid in physical rehabilitation exercises.
But with two thirds of the country's farm-workers already over 65 years old, the agriculture sector is a potentially lucrative untapped market.
The suit should hit the Japanese market in 2012, when it will initially retail for about one million yen (11,000 dollars), a price tag its makers hope to halve if the device is mass-produced, the team said.

There are however no plans so far to sell the suits overseas.
"I doubt that the suit would sell in Europe and in America, where foreign migrants workers often perform farm-related tasks," Toyama said.
The team has developed a heavy-duty 30 kilogram (66 pound) model, for lifting big loads and pulling vegetables out of the ground, and a 23 kilogram version designed for lighter tasks such as picking grapes.

The robo-suits can reduce the user's physical effort by 62 percent on average, the inventors say. When bending knees the muscular activity is reduced by half, and the suit can also take most of the strain out of crouching.

"We conducted a survey of 102 people for the latest model, asking what part of the body hurt when they picked grapes," Yamamoto said. "Most farmers complained about aches in their arms, necks and lower backs."

The suits are already tough, but soon they will also become smarter.
By the end of the year Toyama plans to start working on augmented reality goggles on which useful information could be displayed for the farmer, in much the same way as data is projected onto the inside of a fighter jet's cockpit.

Useful information might include how ripe the grapes are, or the user's heart rate and calorie consumption, said Toyama. "The goggles would tell you for instance how long you've been working and when you should rest."
(c) 2010 AFP

[Rockinonahigh]

I wonder if this robo suit could be modified for use by ppl with disablities or spinal injuries? It already has the ablity to hepl normal ppl so it should work if applied to the concept of the disabed or others who could benefit from it.it also ould be made smaller to be less bulky..food for thought.

[theoddz]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

I wonder if this robo suit could be modified for use by ppl with disablities or spinal injuries? It already has the ablity to hepl normal ppl so it should work if applied to the concept of the disabed or others who could benefit from it.it also ould be made smaller to be less bulky..food for thought.

Wow, that was my thought, too. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the technology that went into that suit didn't "evolve" into something to aid the physically challenged.

If I had one of those suits, I could work til I dropped.....dead.



Wait a sec........I WANT to retire.

~Theo~

[Medusa]

Mind-reading Software?!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_530009.html

[evolveme]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100410.html

Too big to post, so clickity click.

[Kimbo]

NASA Finds Shrimp-Like Creature, Jellyfish Beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet: 'We Were Just Gaga Over It'

Link

[violaine]

"The current results indicate that the looking response appears to be a function of at least three factors: the cost of looking inside the tube, the value of the reward and the state of the information. The combination of these three factors creates an information processing system that possesses complexity, flexibility and control, three of the features of metacognition*. These findings suggest that nonhuman animals may possess some metacognitive abilities, too."

*Metacognition: cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing.

http://www.physorg.com/news188645191.html

[Kimbo]

A friend posted this on Facebook..

The Pipa Pipa Toad.

Link

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Rockinonahigh

I wonder if this robo suit could be modified for use by ppl with disablities or spinal injuries? It already has the ablity to hepl normal ppl so it should work if applied to the concept of the disabed or others who could benefit from it.it also ould be made smaller to be less bulky..food for thought.

Yes it will be interesting to see how it develops- the bulkiness and also the weight- I think the lighter version is over 40 lbs which seems heavy...

Originally Posted by theoddz

Wow, that was my thought, too. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the technology that went into that suit didn't "evolve" into something to aid the physically challenged.

If I had one of those suits, I could work til I dropped.....dead.



Wait a sec........I WANT to retire.

~Theo~

Ha! That's a good point- we do want to retire some day, don't we? lol.
Here's a fascinating and moving vid of Dean Kamen's (he's the guy that invented the awesome Segway vehicle) robotic prosthesis project for DARPA. For those who don't have the time, watch at about the 8:00 mark for incredible footage of the device in use as it exists now-

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Mind-reading Software?!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_530009.html

Very interesting! Seems inevitable that our minds will eventually become literally super (supra?) human with integrated technology. I just hope we're not operating heavy machinery when we need to re-boot. lol.

Originally Posted by evolveme

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100410.html

Too big to post, so clickity click.

What an extraordinary sight! And site! *bookmarked*

Originally Posted by Kimbo

NASA Finds Shrimp-Like Creature, Jellyfish Beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet: 'We Were Just Gaga Over It'

Link

So cool. Amazing how much of our planet is still unexplored and full of surprises!

Originally Posted by violaine

"The current results indicate that the looking response appears to be a function of at least three factors: the cost of looking inside the tube, the value of the reward and the state of the information. The combination of these three factors creates an information processing system that possesses complexity, flexibility and control, three of the features of metacognition*. These findings suggest that nonhuman animals may possess some metacognitive abilities, too."

*Metacognition: cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing.

http://www.physorg.com/news188645191.html

Very interesting. I was a bit perplexed by that study because it seems so intuitive that other mammals would "know" that they were capable of error.
I laughed when you said "not weird, but..." because I had misgivings about the thread title- I agree, none of this is "weird". I considered "Science, Whoa" but that seemed gay even for me, and besides, who doesn't like Oingo Boingo?

ok lot's of people don't *cough* lol.

Originally Posted by Kimbo

A friend posted this on Facebook..

The Pipa Pipa Toad.

Link

Omg. I can truly say I have never seen such a thing before. Wow! Awesome...

[violaine]

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...r-flyballs.ars

http://weirdscience.ca/tag/birds/



extra -

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356850,00.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-tourists.html

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by violaine

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...r-flyballs.ars

http://weirdscience.ca/tag/birds/



extra -

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356850,00.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-tourists.html

I don't think I will ever look at a berry the same again!

[violaine]

http://brainmaps.org/index.php?p=spe...cies=tyto-alba


http://brainmaps.org/index.php?p=info-tyto-alba

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by violaine

http://brainmaps.org/index.php?p=spe...cies=tyto-alba


http://brainmaps.org/index.php?p=info-tyto-alba

[violaine]

i know why the crow is dropping stones into the pitcher.

love the images, and crows are the most intelligent birds around us.

thank you.

[Kimbo]

Why is the crow dropping stones into the pitcher?

There are many crows in the PNW. When I throw peanuts out to the squirrels the crows watch where they bury them and go dig them up. Poor squirrels, all that work....

[violaine]

to raise the water level in the pitcher so that a drink can be taken by the crow.

squirrels and crows are interesting to watch because they alert each other of a food source, but not exactly on purpose. squirrels unearth a cache belonging to a crow, and then eat or run off, with the peanut. same goes for the crow finding out [by watching from a tree, fence, roof, et c] where the squirrel stores food items.

it can go on for a long time, and cracks me up.

crows have remarkable memories when it comes to locating a cache, and sometimes they will fake out other birds [know they are being watched]. this happens also with night nests- crows may fly right past them in order to deter predators.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by violaine

to raise the water level in the pitcher so that a drink can be taken by the crow.

squirrels and crows are interesting to watch because they alert each other of a food source, but not exactly on purpose. squirrels unearth a cache belonging to a crow, and then eat or run off, with the peanut. same goes for the crow finding out [by watching from a tree, fence, roof, et c] where the squirrel stores food items.

it can go on for a long time, and cracks me up.

crows have remarkable memories when it comes to locating a cache, and sometimes they will fake out other birds [know they are being watched]. this happens also with night nests- crows may fly right past them in order to deter predators.

Very cool! Crows play elaborate team sports/games as well...

[Cyclopea]

Obama aims to send astronauts to Mars orbit in 2030s
April 15, 2010

President Barack Obama Thursday set a bold new course for the future of US space travel, planning to send American astronauts into Mars orbit within the next three decades.

And he sought to quell a storm of outrage which met earlier plans unveiled by his administration, vowing before NASA staff that he was "100 percent committed" to their mission and the US space agency's future.
"As president, I believe that space exploration is not a luxury, it's not an afterthought in America's quest for a brighter future. It is an essential part of that quest," he said at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The US president was making a whirlwind trip to the heart of the US space industry after stinging criticism of his decision to drop the costly Constellation project which had aimed to put Americans back on the moon.
Obama, who was accompanied by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said his administration would pump six billion more dollars into the NASA budget over the next five years.
But he had specific ideas how it should be spent.
"We should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say, pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. Buzz has been there," Obama said.

"There's a lot more of space to explore and a lot more to learn when we do," he said, to loud applause.
"By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the moon into deep space.
"So, we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow."

In a nod to critics who say the new approach will costs jobs and undermine American leadership in space exploration, Obama said he was retaining part of the Constellation project, the Orion capsule.
Obama said he had instructed NASA administrator Charles Bolden to immediately begin the design of a rescue vehicle using technology already developed for the Orion capsule.
And the United States would also invest some three billion dollars in research on a heavy-lift rocket to send crew capsules and supplies into deep space, with the design to be finalized by 2015.

His plan includes ramping up "robotic exploration of the solar system, including a probe of the sun's atmosphere, new scouting missions to Mars and other destinations, and an advanced telescope to follow Hubble," he said.

Obama also pledged the new plan would create some 2,500 jobs along the so-called space coast in the next two years -- aiming to bring new hope to a region blighted by high unemployment.
Critics, including the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, were angered by Obama's decision earlier this year to scrap the bloated and behind-schedule Constellation program.

The aging US space shuttle fleet, which carries astronauts to the International Space Station, is due to be grounded at the end of the year, leaving the United States to hitch rides on Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station until a replacement is developed.
"Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity," Armstrong wrote in a letter, co-signed by two other astronauts.
Another powerful critic was Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the subcommittee that has oversight of NASA spending.

"This new plan does not represent an advancement in policy or an improvement upon the Constellation program, but a continued abdication of America's leadership in space," Shelby said in a statement Wednesday.
But Obama hit back Thursday saying: "We will actually reach space faster and more often under this new plan in ways that will help us improve our technological capacity and lower our costs.

"The bottom line is, nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am. But we've got to do it in a smart way.

"And we can't just keep on doing the same old things we've been doing and thinking that somehow it's going to get us to where we want to go."
(c) 2010 AFP