Sci-Fi Tech That Will Kill Us All (11) : The BEAR

Meet Vecna Robotics' Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, or BEAR. I'm going to let the video speak for itself, but as an intro, here's what BEAR's severely misguided creators have to say about their flagship product:

Designed to locate, lift and rescue people in harm's way, the humanoid BEAR can do what humans can't: lift heavy loads and carry them long distances. Whether on a battlefield, in a mine shaft, near a toxic chemical spill, or inside a structurally-compromised building after an earthquake, the BEAR can rescue those in need without risking additional human life.

The BEAR combines the versatility of tank-like tracks, and powerful hydraulics to do all sorts of pretty terrifying things, as seen below:





Yeah, watching it smash through glass, lift barbells and drag clearly unconscious human bodies is creepy enough, but then, HOLY FUCK, DID IT JUST TRANSFORM? It clearly transformed and rolled out there at 0:33. I think we just found the leader of the robot army that society has foolishly been building.

Take Your Protein Pills and Put Your Helmet On

So, big news in the space exploration scene in the last week or so. The Ad Astra Rocket Company of Houston, Texas has announced that it has successfully tested VASIMR, a new engine that utilizes ion propulsion.

Why is that such a big deal? Well, here's a phrase for you: manned mission to Mars. Below you'll find a sciencey explanation of what ion propulsion is.

From a website that seems to be related to NASA in some way:

Ion propulsion is a technology that involves ionizing a gas to propel a craft. Instead of a spacecraft being propelled with standard chemicals, the gas xenon (which is like neon or helium, but heavier) is given an electrical charge, or ionized. It is then electrically accelerated to a speed of about 30 km/second. When xenon ions are emitted at such high speed as exhaust from a spacecraft, they push the spacecraft in the opposite direction.

See with our conventional rockets, the trip to Mars would take so long that we could only attempt it when Earth and Mars are closest together, which happens every two years. so, yeah, the astronauts would travel there (which would take about six months), get out and do their thing (which based on moon missions would involve driving a bitching set of wheels, stuffing rocks in their pockets, and playing golf), and then wait a year for the orbit to get close enough for them to attempt a return trip. One. Year.

But, with ion propulsion, the trip would get cut down to just 39 days, meaning that they could make the trip pretty much any time in Mars' orbit. So, yeah, it's a big deal for space-type people. Here's what Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield had to say to CTV:

If you can cut that voyage down to just a matter of seven or eight weeks then of course you can carry way less stuff. And if you don't have to carry so much fuel to slow down when you get there or to bring you back, it just scopes the whole thing down to where it becomes maybe a practical problem to solve rather than an almost an impossibility.

On the national pride side, a Halifax company makes the power generators for the engine, which is pretty cool. While the engine's been successfully ground tested, it hasn't been tested in space, so that's one hurdle. The other is that NASA has yet to come up with an effective suit for astronauts to wear on Mars that can handle its punishing conditions (a -60 degree average temperature, for instance).

Some might complain that we have more pressing problems here on Earth that take priority, such as homelessness and poverty and crime and education and health care. To which I respond, it's fucking Mars, lighten up. Seriously, humanity has always been on a timeline of exploration ever since a caveman left his cave, looked over the hill and thought, "I wonder if I go over there I'll find someone who'll bang me? Because I'm getting no love from these Cro-Magnon chicks."

My bet? They'll be setting off for Mars by 2019, just in time for the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing.

Beam Me Up, Scotty!........No, really!

Wow, this is kind of exciting. According to Fox News (not the best source, I know), scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland (how cool would it be to work there?) have successfully teleported information between two atoms over a distance of around a meter.

Click here to read the story, which contains an explanation on how they did it. I read it, and can honestly say there is no possible way I could ever summarize what is contained there. Seriously, when quantum physicists start talking mechanics, I basically just trust that what they're saying is the truth. They could be making it all up, as far as I know, and really, how would you prove them wrong?

So, basically, when am I going to be able to travel to Europe instantaneously? Get workin' on it, geeks, I got places to be.

LHC is out of action; Humanity spared Black Hole in Europe!

According to recent news reports, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has had to shut down in light of a major fault. If you'll recall, I first wrote about the LHC here, where, to my chagrin, I got the date of its activation wrong. However, I pointed out to people who corrected me that this only gave you an extra week to make peace with whatever deities you may worship.

According to a press statement issued by CERN, the problem stems from the following:

...the most likely cause of the incident was a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator’s magnets. Before a full understanding of the incident can be established, however, the sector has to be brought to room temperature and the magnets involved opened up for inspection. This will take three to four weeks. Full details of this investigation will be made available once it is complete.

So, it appears we're spared from the appearance of a black hole on Earth.....aside from this one:

From Deconstructing Harry:

Harry: Cookie, do you know what a black hole is?

Cookie, the Hooker: Sure, that's how I make my livin'!

Sci-Fi Tech That Will Kill Us All (4)

Okay, so, beginning tomorrow, the Large Hadron Collider will go online. Oh, yeah, and possibly the world will be destroyed. So, you know, keep your weekend open.

The LHC is the world's largest particle accelerator complex. If the phrase "particle accelerator" sounds familiar, it's because that's what the Ghostbusters used to catch ghosts, so right away I'm preparing for an attack by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the LHC is housed in a gigantic complex under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.

From an article at the NewScientist:

The collider will simulate conditions less than a billionth of a second after the big bang, by smashing protons together at enormous energies. Physicists hope to resolve long-standing questions, such as why particles have mass and whether space has hidden extra dimensions.

That's basically the simplest explanation I could find that doesn't involve complex physics like Higgs boson, TeV protons, or supersymmetric particles. That's what Wikipedia is for, kiddies. Look it up.

So why is it dangerous? Well, some people believe that slamming together high-energy particles in an attempt recreate conditions post-big bang might also create some pretty freaky effects.

Like what? Well how about a micro black hole? I think we can all agree that a micro black hole in Switzerland might work out bad for us. Not scary enough for you? How about a Strangelet? Put as simply as I know how, a Strangelet is a particle of strange matter. The danger is that, hypothetically, if a Strangelet were to come into contact with some ordinary matter, like, say, the Earth, it would convert the ordinary matter to strange matter. I know your next question and the answer is no, you cannot live on strange matter.

From the Wiki article:

Scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.

This is not a concern for strangelets in cosmic rays because they are produced far from Earth and have had time to decay to their ground state, which is predicted by most models to be positively charged, so they are electrostatically repelled by nuclei, and would rarely merge with them. But high-energy collisions could produce negatively charged strangelet states which live long enough to interact with the nuclei of ordinary matter.

Not to worry, though, because a group of scientists have filed and injunction to stop the activation of the LHC until all safety concerns are addressed and we have a plan to defeat any giant Marshmallow Men that may be created. Oh, wait, they lost that case, according to this article. The article goes on to show how anyone worried about the possible apocalyptic properties of the LHC is foolish. I can dig it, but these are the same guys who discovered Strangelets in the first place, so I'm not convinced.

Download the Doctor.....if you're American.

As reported on Wired.com, Doctor Who is now available through iTunes. The new series has been available for download for some time now, but BBC is now adding several classic serials from the 60s, 70s and 80s for fans to pay for (when previously, they stole them for free......as stealing implies).

Yes, the downloads cost $1.99 US, but the quality of these classic serials, some of which are not released on DVD, will undoubtedly be better than bootleg downloads out there on the interwebs.

The downside......Canadian iTunes apparently does NOT have them available. So, yeah, fuck you Apple. See, this irritates the piss out of me. I tried to watch some of the streaming episodes of the remastered Star Trek episodes on CBS.com, but it's not available in Canada. Hey, we're not Algiers here. We get the same fricking TV as you! Why are we excluded from your interwebs? This only reinforces the peoples' desire to remain pirates. That and the eyepatches.

It's either the fault of some dopey US legislation, or the fault of some retarded Candadian law. Either way. Boo, iTunes. Booo.

First pic of Gyllenhaal as Dude of Persia

Okay, the first pic of Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular Prince of Persia is out.....and.........let's just say it's neither princely nor Persian.





Okay, first off, when you've got an established property like Prince of Persia, you'd think you could cast a guy who's within hooting distance of being Persian? Jake somehow manages to combine the qualities of a Venice beach surfer...

...with Captain Caveman

Ironically, the surfer dude I posted looks more Persian than Jake will ever look.

Scientists Find Weird-Ass Chemical on Mars

According to this article, NASA has found evidence of a chemical substance in the Martian soil.

From the article:

NASA scientists said on Tuesday that the Phoenix Mars Lander has detected the apparent presence of a chemically reactive salt called perchlorate in the Martian soil. Perchlorate is a toxic material that's used in rocket fuel, but the scientists said its presence doesn't lessen the possibility that Mars has or once had some kind of life on it.

The article goes on to focus mainly on how the presence of perchlorate does not preclude the existence of life on Mars, which seems to skip right over the fact that Martian soil could possibly be used as rocket fuel. We should just rename that place "Chevron" and start trucking Martian rocket sand back here by the truckload.

DC Universe allows you to beat on the Riddler...

So, at the San Diego Comic Con, DC has debuted their new MMO game, known as DC Universe.

As far as I can make out, you will create your own character, and then you can interact with the famous characters in the DCU.

Many online gamers are about to lose all contact with the outside world, I think. I tried to play City of Heroes, which is similar, but found that I'm too unfamiliar with the lingo and qualities of online gaming to interact with other gamers to the level they're accustomed to.

So, maybe I'll give it a shot. Sounds cool, though. Here's a link to the site.