> october 2001
sampling new cultural context
tuesday :: october 30, 2001
> Crookes' tubes and Geissler tubes used to study the straight-line motion and momentum of cathode rays (c 1910)
new ultrafast X-ray pulses technology
Researchers from the University of Michigan Department of Physics and its new Center for Optical Coherent and Ultrafast Science (FOCUS) have demonstrated an ultrafast switch for X-rays. The switch will enable the researchers to follow the movement of constituent atoms, and actually obtain information about the dynamics of molecular motion. Authors of the paper include Matthew F. DeCamp, David A. Reis, Philip H. Bucksbaum, John M. Caraher, Roy Clarke, Eric M. Dufresne, Roberto Merlin, Vladimir A. Stoica, and Jared K. Wahlstrand, all of the U-M. Co-authors included Bernhard Adams, from Argonne National Laboratories, and Charles Conover of Colby College.
The U-M researchers used an ultrafast laser source, which acts as a hammer on the surface of a crystal, generating an acoustic pulse that is very short in both time and space. That pulse modifies the diffraction patterns through the crystal, and it can be used to switch energy from one diffracted beam to another, achieving speeds of picoseconds (one trillionth of a second).
The "X-ray switch is a versatile tool that could be added to nearly every beam line without having to touch the sourcesuch ultrafast switches could become a key component in the X-ray toolbox for probing the structural dynamics of matter," said Ferenc Krausz and Christian Spielmann of the Vienna University of Technology
The results of their research were published in the Oct. 25 issue of Nature. From *Ultrafast X-ray pulses could reveal atoms in motion*
discharge tube set (c 1910) <
monday :: october 29, 2001
the bridge between pentagon and hollywood
The 1997 National Research Councilšs Report "Modeling and Simulation Linking Entertainment and Defense" identified the technology potential, for leveraging Department of Defense and Entertainment research. On August 18, 1999, the U.S. Army awarded a five-year contract to the University of Southern California in order to create the Institute For Creative Technologies (ICT), with a $45 million grant.
The ICT's mandate is to enlist the resources and talents of the entertainment and game development industries and work collaboratively with computer scientists to advance the state of immersive training simulation. ICT will partnership with the entertainment industry to strategically advance the army's knowledge, expertise, and capabilities in modeling and simulation technologies to support military acquisition, analysis, and training in the 21st century.
ICT Research Vectors include: Immersion providing compelling realistic experiences; Networking/Databases efficient storing, organizing & distribution of content; Story interactive narratives that propel experience; Characters replacing human participants with automated ones; Setup- authoring and initializing environments; Direction monitoring & controlling experiences.
On october 25, ICT said it would develop two combat video games -- CS-12 allowing to take the role of a company commander and C-Force to take the role of squad leader --, with financial and tactical backing from the Army. The Army's Training & Doctrine Command bureau will be involved too in game development. Both video games will be available in a consumer version and in a U.S. Army version.
Late last month, in the wake of the Sept. 11 hijacked jetliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the institute meet Hollywood writers and directors for a brainstorming session to imagine possible ways in which its enemies might attack the United States.
From *Institute for Creative Technologies site*and mixed sources.
> related context
reel war
the army and hollywood join hands to wage virtual, bloodless battles
by robert wilonsky, fort worth weekly.
october 18, 2001
friday :: october 26, 2001
> remote lounge joystick
new concept in nightlife entertainment
Located in downtown Manhattan (East Village, 327 Bowery near 2nd St.), Remote Lounge is a technology-themed cocktail lounge and new media art space. The lounge is outfitted with over 60 video cameras - covering every square foot of the space from multiple angles - displaying live video on over 100 output devices, such as CRTs, LCDs, large format plasma screens and video projectors. Each camera can be maneuvered 360 degrees with a joystick mounted at one of the lounge's cocktail consoles; you can take over and control any camera. You can flip channels, swivel cameras and check out a prospective date from any angle in both crisp black and white and grainy color. You can also send flirty messages to other consoles, or snap a photo that will be posted on the baršs site. Into this mix of live feeds are an everchanging roster of digital and analog video artworks, animation, special effects, web-based art and interactive multimedia created by both emerging and established new media artists. Many nights feature special events targeting specific audiences (ie straight/gay/mixed or artists/ techies/club kids) or featuring specific artists, performers or promoters.
This adaptability has already proven that the design and technical infrastructure behind Remote is versatile and flexible enough to re-theme and re-invent itself nightly. The new-media bar, which the partners had been working on for about a year and half looking for a project to work on after coming out of the dot-com boom and bust, is a showcase for technology created by Controlled Entropy Ventures, a developer of entertainment applications for Web-based, multimedia and video conferencing technologies. Is introduced as an icebreaker for flirting in New York.
click the image to send it ! <
thursday :: october 25, 2001
new nanofabrication approach
"The molecular-scale transistors that we have developed may very well serve as the historical 'bookend' to the transistor legacy started by Bell Labs in 1947," said Federico Capasso, physical research vice president at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs. Scientists have been looking for alternatives to conventional silicon electronics because they anticipate that the continuing miniaturization of silicon-based integrated circuits will subside in approximately a decade because of fundamental physical limits. Bell Labs scientists Hendrik Schon, Zhenan Bao and Hong Meng have now fabricated molecular-scale organic transistors, made out of compounds of carbon, which can rival silicon transistors in performance.
Though still a prototype, the demonstration of a simple circuit indicates that molecular-scale transistors could one day be used in computer microprocessors and memory chips, which could squeeze thousands of times as many transistors as are found in today's circuits into the same amount of space. "This work shows the value of long-term research. Although there may be no practical applications for a decade, it could lead to a new paradigm in electronics," said Cherry Murray, Lucent's senior vice president of physical sciences research. The scientific breakthrough is being reported in the October 18th issue of the journal Nature.
From *Bell Labs scientists usher in new era of molecular-scale electronics. October 17, 2001*
carbon-nanotube transistor diagram <
wednesday :: october 24, 2001
> brain section
explanation of aggressive behavior
For centuries, philosophers have pondered this question. Some have suggested that aggressive behavior is part of the male make-up; others claim that fighting is a socially inspired behavior. Poets and writers of great literature may be disappointed to learn that the aggressive male passions that have caused duels, skirmishes, and wars are the result of reduced levels of serotonin in the brain.
The authors of the study, "Sex Differences in Brain Monamines and Aggression," are Jonathon Toot, Gail Dunphry, and Daniel Ely, from the Department of Biology, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio. In males, decreased serotonin in the amygdala was associated with increases in aggressive behavior. Whether this relates only to the presence of the Y chromosome or to a combination of the Y chromosome and male hormone testosterone, remains to be determined.
friday :: october 19, 2001
art as visual training to be a better observer
Four years after starting a tutorial designed to improve medical students' diagnostic and observational skills with artwork (called the Yale Center for British Art Project), Yale researchers have proven their theory.
First-year medical students could be visually trained to become better observers by looking at and discussing highly detailed works of art. The students who received visual training improved their detection of details by 10 percent, while there was no improvement in the control group. "The 10 percent improvement is statistically significant," said Irwin Braverman, M.D., professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, who developed the tutorial with Jacqueline Dolev, M.D., currently a resident at Stanford University Hospital, and Linda Friedlaender, curator of education at the Yale Center for British Art. "It makes the point that you can visually train someone to be a better observer, and it has added a dimension to the way medical students are taught at Yale. The use of representational paintings capitalizes on students' lack of familiarity with the artworks. The viewers search for and collect all of the details in the paintings because they do not have a bias as to which visual attribute is more important than another. This lowered threshold of observation has direct application to the examination of the patient."
From *Artwork can sharpen medical diagnostic skills, Yale researchers report. October 15, 2001*
thursday :: october 18, 2001
1981-2021
computer professionals for social responsibility annual conference
The steady march of information technology plays an ever-increasing role in shaping, preserving, enlarging, and uniting humanity's overall scientific and cultural heritage. With the growth of the Internet, an ever-increasing portion of all human art and learning is available at the speed of light, worldwide. The shared on-line environment, like our physical environment, constitutes a global commons, with similar imperatives for stewardship and preservation.
In 2001, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility celebrates its 20th anniversary by looking backwards and forwards two decades at the history and future of the global cybercommons. Panels and presentations will examine the key historical events that shaped today's Internet, and the prospects for its future evolution.
Cissoid curve <
wednesday :: october 17, 2001
digital cities feasible models? <
the second kyoto meeting
As a platform for community networks, information spaces using the city metaphor are being developed in worldwide: Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris, Shanghai, and Kyoto, to name only some well-known examples.
It is interesting to note that digital cities have different goals: to explore a vertical market, a public communication space, a next generation metropolitan network, and a social information infrastructure for the 21st century. Their different services, system architectures, and organizations result from these different goals, and from the different social contexts in which the digital cities emerged. It is expected that digital cities will change together with the advance of computer and network technologies, and also with changes in the market environment, in which the digital cities operate.
No digital city can remain at its current status, as already experienced by some of the earlier experiments. This second Kyoto meeting aims at improving our understanding of the current status and future of those classes of systems that are covered by the concept of digital city. What are feasible models? What do experiments teach us? What new technologies emerge?
From *The Second Kyoto Meeting on Digital Cities. October 19-20, 2001*
tuesday :: october 16, 2001
scientific and ethical implications
More non-human animals may be capable of abstract thought than previously known, with profound implications for the evolution of human intelligence and the stuff that separates homo sapiens from other animals. Now, two trained baboons successfully determined that two differently detailed displays were fundamentally the same in their overall design. Figuring this out required analogical (this is to this as that is to that) reasoning, which many theorists view as the foundation of human reasoning and intelligence.
From *Baboons can think abstractly, in the first study to show that a non-human, non-ape animal shares a central aspect of human intelligence. October 14, 2001*. The study is reported in *"Discriminating the Relation Between Relations: The Role of Entropy in Abstract Conceptualization by Baboons (Papio papio) and Humans (Homo sapiens)," by Joël Fagot, Edward A. Wasserman and Michael E. Young*
Before that, the evidence of both cognitive and genetic similarities fueled an international drive to win certain "human" rights for all great apes: the right to life, the right not to suffer cruel or degrading treatment, and the right not to take part in all but the most benign experiments. The idea is radical but simple: to include the nonhuman great apes within the community of equals by granting them the basic moral and legal protection that only human beings currently enjoy. *The Great Ape Project* is an international group founded to work for the removal of the nonhuman great apes from the category of property, and for their immediate inclusion within the category of persons.
> baboons
thursday :: october 11, 2001
> the MIT atom laser (experiment)
discovers of new state of matter nobel prize
A laser beam differs from the light from an ordinary light bulb in several ways. In the laser the light particles all have the same energy and oscillate together. To cause matter also to behave in this controlled way has long been a challenge for researchers.
This year's Nobel Laureates in physics -- Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl E. Wieman -- have succeeded they have caused atoms to "sing in unison" thus discovering a new state of matter, the Bose-Einstein condensate. It is interesting to speculate on areas for the application of BEC. The new "control" of matter which this technology involves is going to bring revolutionary applications in such fields as precision measurement and nanotechnology. From *The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics*, October 9, 2001
Traditional electronics, in which electricity flies around circuits, and even photonics, which uses bursts of light, may eventually be replaced by futuristic "atomtronics," using atom lasers to shunt individual atoms around computer circuits, Phil Schewe, chief science writer of the American Institute of Physics, told Reuters.
3 images showing formation
of Bose-Einstein condensate <
wednesday :: october 3, 2001
> V2 rocket launch
first man-made object out of the earth
On October 3, 1942, the first successful ballistic flight of a nazi reprisal weapon A4/V2 had lifted off into space from Peenemü nde (Germany), the first launch site in the world. As questioned by *Peenemü nde's Historic-Technical Information centre*, "Cradle of space exploration or breeding ground of terror weapons and mass murder? - Peenemü nde is both." Dirk Zache, director of this museum said "This place was heaven and hell. It shows the whole moral ambiguity of technology."
The two varieties of missile developed there killed nearly 9,000 people in Britain and nearly 6,500 in Belgium during the war. Around 25,000 slaves died in the construction process. Peenemü nde was used for development of A-12 intercontinental missile; objective= Manhattan.
After the war, British, French, Russian and US Armies used captured rocket scientists, engineers, and technicians from Peenemü nde to develop their own missile/space programs (*From Peenemuende to Moon by Konrad K. Dannenberg*). The German Peenemü nde rocket team, lead by Wernher von Braun, were, with the American Los Alamos atomic bomb team, lead by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Second World War greatest cientific and technological teams. The contributions of these teams created the post-war capability for intercontinental nuclear warfare.
A contribution to understand the forces that have increasingly put science and scientists in pursuit of destructive goals is *"Peenemü nde and Los Alamos: Two Studies" by Donald E. Tarter from Institute for Historical Review*. "The prevailing attitude of both was, insofar as possible, to ignore the political world and get on with their chosen professions." Recall von Braun's comment "I'm just responsible for getting the rockets up, where they come down, that's not my department."
Peenemü nde (Germany)<
monday :: october 1, 2001
> zero_gravity_facility
projects in zero gravity
The Arts Catalyst, the science-art agency, has selected a number of London and Russian artists and scientists to develop experimental projects in zero gravity on a parabolic flight (diving aircraft) with the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Star City, Russia, or ground-based projects in Star City. Electronic music group Flow Motion will give a performance of music for the long distance astronaut for the personnel and families of Star City.
The Star City expedition will be held from 1 to 4 october. This project launches a new initiative to develop opportunities for artists to make projects relating to the space programme, and to promote interdisciplinary exchange between artists and space scientists and engineers and intercultural exchange between nations. This is a pilot project for the MIR (Microgravity Interdisciplinary Research) network, a group of international arts organisations working to enable access to space facilities for artistic practice, to encourage interdisciplinary research among artists and scientists, and to promote arts and cultural activity as part of the international space programme.
From *orbital environments*.
