Einstein emobot raises eyebrows

The face of Einstein has been chosen for the world's first emotionally interactive robot.

The model, which recognises and responds to human emotions, incorporates a flesh-like material known as Frubber to create life-like facial expressions.

The Nobel prize-winning physicist was chosen as a well-known scientific figure whose face is familiar and likeable, with expressive features.

The animatronic empath, designed by Hanson Robotics, is engineered to interact with humans and could be used to teach autistic children how to perceive emotion.

Designer David Hanson told UC San Diego News: "Some scientists believe strongly that very human-like robots are so inherently creepy that people can never get over it and interact with them normally.

"These are some of the questions we're trying to address. We're trying to get past the novelty of the technology to a certain extent so that people can socially engage with the robots and get lost in that social engagement."

Any inappropriate social interaction could presumably be curtailed by rebooting the emobot.

(Original story from pa.press.net)

www.hansonrobotics.com

The International

The own your money. They run your life. They control everything... except one man...

Interpol agent Louis Salinger, battling against an evil bank, is played by Clive Owen, who says of the film:

"A huge part of the movie is saying look at banks and are they using people's money appropriately? Are they completely sound institutions? And the whole world's doing that now, so it's incredibly timely."

Happy birthday to Kew

Kew's Tropical Extravaganza is a luxuriant display featuring thousands of orchids and tropical plants.

The exhibition in the Princess of Wales conservatory is part of Kew's 250th anniversary celebrations.

Around the gardens, the first signs of spring are showing: snowdrops, crocuses and even a glimpse of those proverbial green shoots...

Tropical Extravaganza at Kew Gardens until 8 March.

www.kew.org

what on earth are we missing?

Rather than scanning the skies for planets with the potential to support life, we could have just as much chance of uncovering alien existence closer to home, according to cosmologist Paul Davies.

He believes that undiscovered life forms could exist in microcosm on the earth, in environments which have remained unexplored simply because they are not thought to have the right biochemical composition to harbour living organisms.

"It could be that weird life and real life are intermingled, " says Davies, a professor at Arizona State University.

"As more terrestrial environments are explored it seems likely that new and ever more exotic forms of life will be discovered.

"If someone discovers shadow life or weird life, it will be the biggest sensation in biology since Darwin."




Source: Daily Mail

Happy Valentine's Day

Looking for an unusual Valentine's gift - how about a heart-shaped potato?

Thanks to the lifting of the EU ban on strangely-shaped vegetables (a move no doubt welcomed by Esther Rantzen) this French variety called Franceline is now on sale in selected branches of Tesco's.

A blight of bankers

As bankers queue up to issue inadequate apologies, who could have foreseen the problems that now beset our financial institutions?

"Anyone not blinded by money, power and pride," says Paul Moore, a former risk manager at HBOS.

According to one psychiatrist who counsels city types, behind excessive greed there is often a deep-rooted fear of loss.

Imagine how many money-lenders must be losing it right now.

Happy Birthday Darwin

The bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth is being celebrated with a whole host of TV programmes, events and exibitions. (Including Big Idea, Big Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, and a new exhibition at his former home, Down House in Kent.)

The pioneer of the theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest was married to his first cousin Emma - so not averse to a bit of in-breeding.

His idea that man was descended from apes provoked huge controversy in Victorian times, and elicited this jokey couplet from Gilbert and Sullivan:

"Darwinian man, though well-behaved
At best is only a monkey shaved."

Fascinating Darwin fact: While travelling around the world on the HMS Beagle, Darwin tucked into his Christmas dinner, only to discover that he had inadvertently eaten a rare species of ostrich. Mortified, he sent the remains back to England, where museum officials subsequently named the bird "Rhea Darwinii" in his honour (oblivious to the fact that it had already been classified elsewhere under a different name.)


Birthday messages for Darwin can be posted at: www.darwin200.org

Snowed under? Try a Mapletini

A Mapletini is a cocktail made of maple syrup, vodka and a dollop of fresh snow.

(A twist on the New England tradition of pouring hot syrup on snow to make toffee).

As many people in the UK must be a bit sick of snow at the moment, maybe ingesting a small amount of it would serve as a homeopathic remedy. Cheers!