Geek (formerly Tech)

Speak No Evil

2009-07-09T16:20:32+00:00

Language is one of the most defining behaviors of our species. While some other animals may use basic audio signals, say birds that have different calls for different threats, the rich tapestry of human language is one-of-a-kind in the animal kingdom.

And language is something all humans do. A cultural universal, language is exhibited by every society on Earth. The question then arises: Are humans naturally inclined towards language, or is it merely an invention of mankind, like metallurgy or astronomy?

The power of language was first popularized in the mid-twentieth century by linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was a champion of the idea that language is a native part of all humans, that human beings are born with an innate ability to learn and use language. He considered the age that we first learn a language, and the difficulty of learning new languages later in life, as evidence that our brains were designed for language acquisition at a certain time.

He also believed there is a window for learning languages as studies of children who were not taught language before puberty tend to show that they never really pick up language at all. We seem to be designed to learn language during specific developmental events in the brain.

But these claims to an instinctual tendency for language have not gone unchallenged by those who discount the language instinct. Geoffrey Sampson of the University of Sussex argues that we cannot say children learn languages fast, since we have no basis of comparison for what slow would be (since older learners have already been trained in one language). Sampson also believes that a child who was not raised with language before puberty undoubtedly suffered from an exceptionally abnormal rearing, which probably affected their learning abilities in a variety of ways, and indeed such children are deficient in many social aspects.

But as language is a human behavior, there may be a genetic approach to teasing out our exact predisposition to doing it. Since the drosophila fly-labs of the 1950s, we’ve been manipulating animal behavior through genetic modifications. Armed now with complete genomes for humans, chimpanzees and mice, we can study genetic behavioral influences much more precisely. We’ve also graduated from drosophila for much genetic research and moved on to the mouse as mice share a surprisingly large part of our genome and make excellent test subjects.

Recent research from the mouse labs at Helmholtz Zentrum München in Germany may shed some light on the genetics of language through the study of a curious gene associated with speech and language disorders in humans. Though the gene, known as Foxp2, is believed to be strongly tied to language, only a few alterations have occurred in the gene since the human lineage branched off from that of the chimpanzee and even the mouse. Researchers believe that these alterations may have been positively selected during human evolution to facilitate speech and language.

To see what kind of effects the gene may have, a humanized version of the gene (one with the slight alteration found in humans) was inserted into otherwise normal mice. These genetically altered mice (and other groups altered by non-function Foxp2 genes) were then studied inside and out – from head to tail – as the expression of a gene is usually multifaceted.

Mice that had the humanized form of the gene, while generally otherwise healthy, displayed some interesting results. Firstly, the character of vocalizations in the mice was altered (although these ultrasonic squeaks were too high pitched for humans to hear). Also, the Foxp2 allele affected the production of dopamine in mice brains, which indicated some effect on the basal ganglia, which, in humans, is believed to be tied to speech and language skills. Indeed mice treated with non-functioning Foxp2 genes demonstrated less synaptic plasticity and shorter dendrite length in these areas associated with language and speech.

The Foxp2 gene appears to express itself in ways that would aid in the development of language. This was undoubtedly a huge asset to our early ancestors, who were learning to organize and transmit knowledge. But this is just one example of how our genetic makeup gives us a predisposition to behaviors, selected throughout our evolution as a species. The genetic influence of behavior most likely goes much deeper than language; it may even affect many of the choices we make.

Critics see this negatively as a deterministic outlook on human life, but I’d like to think of it as helpful inclinations, passed down to us from our ancestors.

Warring With the Web

2009-07-02T06:14:12+00:00

There’s no denying that the internet has successfully infiltrated most American’s lives. With Wi-Fi hotspots in almost every coffee shop — and even some Burger Kings — the internet has become a permanent fixture of life here in the States. The internet has crippled the newspaper industry and even changed the way we educate ourselves.

While commerce and information are plentiful on the internet, there is no shortage of mindless rubbish available to distract you from any productive work. Even television has found a home in the internet. But while the internet offers an easy way to shop or entertain oneself, for many around the world it has become a valuable tool for political resistance.

The ongoing upheaval in Iran underscores a current trend across the globe of political rebellion aided by the internet. The protests in Iran, disputing the legitimacy of their recent presidential election, have relied on popular social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to organize protests. And with the strict lock down on international journalism, these websites have created a back door for first person accounts, pictures and videos to make there way out of Iran.

But Iran is no stranger to stringent control over information. The Iranian government has earned the reputation of being one of the toughest censors in the world. Even long before the election, sites like Myspace and Facebook were blocked by government censors. This technological isolation was overcome by sharing software with users from perhaps the most notorious government censorship of all time — China.

China has maintained rigid control over information in their country partially from powerful internet firewalls known to opponents as the “Great Firewall of China.” Under the guise of controlling illicit web activity like pornography, China restricts much information regarding political dissent, historical events like the protest at Tiananmen Square (censorship is particularly strict this year for the 30th anniversary) and information about political enemies of the state, like the Falun Gong.

Keeping control over such a large body of internet savvy people is no easy task. China employs over 40,000 people as censors and even hires people to crowd out dissenters on public internet forums. Censoring technology also gets investments from the government to match anti-censor software.

But resistance to the censorship drives innovation and new ways around firewalls. Software designed to bypass censors began appearing from groups like the Global Internet Freedom Consortium and spread between restricted users worldwide. The software takes advantage of the fact that most censor technology identifies blocked websites by their IP (internet protocol) address, which is a series of numbers that act like a virtual address for the site. People can circumvent the censors by downloading software that send their request to see a webpage through a computer in a less restricted nation and then relay the site back to them through the proxy. Censors can hone in on routing IP addresses, so to keep their link to the free internet secure, the IP address must change frequently, sometimes several times a second.

But there are less passive ways to use technology to demonstrate political dissent. Some protesters in Iran have used a new British software called Page Reboot to overload government websites. The software was designed to constantly refresh an internet webpage, say for keeping track of an eBay auction or sports score. The Iranians used it to attack government websites by putting in large automated refresh requests on websites and overloading their servers.

The use of internet technologies in Iran is amazing, but they weren’t the first people to use the internet to organize protests. Back in April of this year, the Georgians protesting the election there relied on social networking websites to organize demonstrations.

Even here in America, a nation deeply ingrained with the internet, we’ve seen an increased use of the internet in campaigning and running the current administration. The acceleration of internet activity underscores its profound effect on society — maybe even defining a generation. But perhaps the most surprising thing about all this is that someone actually found a reasonable use for twitter.

Three Dimensional Topological Insulators

2009-06-25T18:30:23+00:00

The amount of electronic devices I rely on to make it through the day is astonishing. From my cell phone to mp3 player, I’m pretty much strapped with multiple gadgets at all times. I’m not entirely sure I could survive without my laptop and an internet connection for any extended period of time. And given the current growth of mobile internet technology all over the world, it would seem that we are all addicted to the microchip.

But the microchip as we know it might soon be changing. New research from the Department of Energy in cooperation with Stanford University has found a promising new material that may have profound effects on the geography of our circuit boards. The three dimensional topological insulator, only recently theorized to exist, has been experimentally observed in their recent publication. These materials may help reduce the amount of energy lost in electronic devices and may be another step towards quantum computing.

While not a superconductor, a topological insulator allows for electron transport with no loss of energy at room temperature. With no resistance in circuits, electronics would require less energy to operate and components comprised of topological insulators wouldn’t produce any heat, further reducing energy demands of an electronic system. The material would also increase computing speeds. Topological insulators only behave this elegantly under low current, so applications such as super-conducting power lines are not within their capabilities.

Because topological insulators rely on coupled spin states of electrons, the materials have natural implications for spintronics, a new computing field where data is stored in the spin states of electrons, allowing for vastly more storage than conventional media. Though still in its infancy, many see spintronics as the inevitable future for memory storage, as our data needs continue to grow.

The secret to the operation of these rare materials is a phenomenon known as the Quantum Spin Hall Effect, which dramatically changes the behavior of electrons in a material. In a topological insulator, the spins of the electrons are aligned with their direction of motion, causing a reduction of backscattering to essentially nothing. It is this inability of electrons to bounce back in the reverse direction of motion that leads to the resistanceless conduction.

The study, published in Science Express, also investigated the properties of Bismuth Telluride (Bi2Te3), theorized to be a topological insulator. The investigation showed not only the tell-tale signs of topological insulators, but that the compound actually performs even better than the theorists predicted. With performance capabilities at higher temperatures than expected, Bismuth Telluride is approaching viability for commercial uses. The compound is also easy to manufacture with current semiconductor technology and can be easily doped—a process that scatters atoms of different elements throughout the material to change its properties and an essential step to making many electronic components.

It seems that computer scientists are opening more and more doors to better computers these days. With innovations like optical microchips, spintronics and advances in material sciences, computers are likely to become exponentially more powerful in the near future. While this will undoubtedly have profound effects for science around the world, I’ll be happy to have more ways to procrastinate from any meaningful productivity.

An Evolving Theory

2009-06-12T21:00:19+00:00

Human evolution is one of the most hotly contested scientific arguments around. The blood line of man, known only through rare fossil evidence, has remained just out of reach of modern science and a point of contention among scholars, let alone the fierce debate with creationists. Darwin himself, the father of evolution, seemed to conspicuously omit human evolution from his primary work, “The Origin of Species,” most likely to avoid confrontation with the religious authorities (and his pious wife). Morphological evidence led him to conclude in his later work, “The Decent of Man,” that human’s closest living animal relatives were chimpanzees and other great apes, and that our earliest ancestors would be found in Africa—claims that have been supported with modern genetic and fossil evidence.

Current theories suggest that hominids, the taxonomic Family we humans belong to, branched off in Africa about 7 million years ago. Our earliest relative in the hominid family is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, however with only cranial remains, little is known about this ancestor. Clues found at the base of the skull hint that tchadensis walked upright (bipedal animals’ spines join the scull from underneath, as opposed to from behind like a cat), but we’re not entirely sure of his bipedalism. Several million years and several species of australopithecines later, and we have the first member of our own genus, Homo habilis. This handy man from about 2 million years ago was the first member of our pedigree to employ the use of tools.

There are many more members of our genus, but we’re not entirely sure how the line of decent is drawn. Scientists can’t agree on where exactly Homo sapiens, our own species, evolved. One argument maintains that early man evolved into the fine specimen we see today (well something close to it) in Africa, then spread out into other continents. In contrast, others believe that an earlier ancestor, perhaps Homo erectus, spread out to other continents two million years ago and H. Sapiens evolved independently in many regions at once. Humans as we know them today only appeared on the scene about 200,000 years ago (the late Stone Age), and both theories place our early ancestry in Africa.

But a new discovery has shed some doubt on Darwin’s claim that we evolved out of Africa and raised questions about the origins of hominids from the larger hominoid superfamily. The new fossil, found in Spain, seems to support a controversial new theory that early hominoid ancestors evolved in Europe and then migrated to Africa, where they continued the evolutionary chain as discussed above.

The new species of hominoid, known as Anoiapithecus brevirostri, dates from about 12 million years ago, during the middle Miocene epoch. The facial features of Anoiapithecus are very modern with jaw protrusion so subdued it’s more similar to the genus Homo than to any other hominoid. This doesn’t necessarily imply a relationship to Homo sapiens, however, as the traits could have evolved separately in a process called evolutionary convergence. Other morphological evidence indicates that Anoiapithecus is very similar to hominoids in Africa at the time, known as afropithecids.

While there is much uncertainty in the particulars of human evolution, the richness of fossil evidence seems to fit the theory of evolution too well to be ignored. The fact of the matter is, we’ll never find the missing link, because for every link in the chain we find, there will ultimately be two more necessary to connect it to the chain of evolution.

How Johnny Chung Lee Changed the Gaming World Forever

2009-06-11T21:00:54+00:00

Nerds and geeks delighted this past week at E3, the world’s premier showcase for consumer electronics. The industry’s “big three” were all there… to win. And they all came with a heavily loaded arsenal of new gear and game titles. Several major new surprise products were announced, but there was one unifying aspect to all of them. It seems that the industry has finally caved to the power of interaction.

Previously, Nintendo wowed everyone with its decision to employ motion-sensing technology in its then new console, the Nintendo Wii, rather then a powerful HD graphics processor like competitors Xbox and PS3. This proved to be the right decision for Nintendo, based on their record breaking sales and eventual domination of the video game market.

In the past, game consoles had become very formulaic in their evolution, opting to improve graphics in small measurable increments. This eventually led to a stagnant supply of predictable and boring content. Nintendo’s gamble has since single-handedly become the most ground-breaking move since the original 8-bit Nintendo; effectively changing the way we play video games forever.

Enter Johnny “the Dragon” Chung Lee

When Johnny Lee, a grad student from Carnegie Mellon University, posted his research video showing his experiments with the Wii remote, not even he could have foreseen its incredible success. 7 Million views and still going strong, Johnny’s video on “head tracking” went right to the top of Youtube’s top-rated videos (see http://tinyurl.com/hprgeek1).

Even folks that don’t “do” video games watch the video in amazement. It portrays Lee, first displaying the Wii remote and explaining that it has a small, relatively powerful, infrared camera in the tip. He then goes on to say that this technology, along with two accelerometers, are the secret to the Wii’s motion tracking. The small sensor bar that attaches above (or below) the television is simply a pair of constantly glowing infrared LEDs. The remote can “see” the LED and determines its position relative to the television.

Lee then explains that his idea is to use the infrared camera to track the user’s position rather than the television. The video shows a large LCD screen with a few scattered targets, in what appears to be a small 3D room, but when he moves the camera, the image looks flat and pretty boring. Now, Lee turns on head tracking using a PC and the software he and his team developed. The video shows the image again, but this time the image of the targets jumps right off the screen—almost as if you were looking into another room. The result is incredible realistic looking 3D, probably better then anything seen before, simply by changing the way you use already existing technology.

There are other 3D technologies out there. Take IMAX for example: because of the cost of the required equipment and space, it’s not practical for the home. More recently, Nvidia (graphics chip producer) introduced its new 3D system. It uses 120 Hz video displaying 2 different 2D video streams that produces a stunning HD, 3D video. Nvida’s new 3D technology, while it looks very impressive, costs $600 at the lowest level. Still there is a huge difference between seeing a 3D image, and seeing an interactive 3D image. And, more importantly, Lee’s system costs around a piddly $50.

Since then, Lee has became something of a cult nerd hero. He continued to come up with new ways of using the Wii remote to do some pretty amazing things. There are too many to list in this article, but let me give you an example. In one video, he uses the Wii remote, a standard bluetooth adapter and a pc projector (or any size LCD or plasma screen) to create a wall-size digital white board (see http://tinyurl.com/hprgeek2). The Wii remote would track a simple homemade infrared LED pen that allowed him to draw in Photoshop in real-time. Whiteboard systems cost thousands and thousands of dollars. With Johnny’s development, even poor classrooms in third world counties can harvest the benefits of this new technology. Some would say that Lee’s use of cheap, accessible technologies in his experiments are the most exciting aspect of his discoveries.

Lee on TED

In 2008 Lee presented his findings with the Wii remote to a room of astonished intellectuals at TED (Technology, Education, Design conference) whose speakers include some of the greatest minds of our time (see http://tinyurl.com/hprgeek3). You can almost hear the mood of the crowd move from skeptical to giddy excitement, and why wouldn’t they? Johnny’s video experiments look like something out of a SciFi movie.

Finally, Lee had the attention of the video game industry. What he could never have done through the standard channels, he managed to accomplish with Youtube and his blog. He then announced on the stage at TED that software giant EA was planning on releasing an easter egg in its upcoming game “Boom Blox” that would have a small Head Tracking Tech Demo. Unfortunately that never happened. Just weeks before “Boom Blox” was released, EA announced that the game would not include the previously promised Head Tracking sneak peak. Soon after, Lee’s blog went silent.
Pre-Natal

After a short hiatus, Johnny Lee’s blog announced that he had been hired by Microsoft. The blog’s content went very quiet and it appeared as if Lee’s tech blogging days were over. Had Microsoft clipped his wings? Would he continue to release his discoveries and video experiments?

Microsoft had one more surprise for everyone. They called it Project Natal (see http://tinyurl.com/hprgeek4). It was Microsoft’s response to the Wii, and turned out to be this year’s E3 show-stopper. Instead of a new motion-sensing controller to go head-to-head with the Wii, MS decieded to leapfrog everyone with its motion-sensing stereo video camera system, essentially removing the controller altogether. But Natal did not stop there. Unlike motion capture devices used in hollywood movies that require motion capture suits, Natal requires no special equipment. Natal can also interpret gestures like waves, kicks or just about any motion the human body is capable of. If that wasn’t enough, Nat can identify your voice and interpret motion for multiple users.

This is where Lee finally landed. He announced shortly after E3 that he had been working on Natal, but couldn’t talk about until now. It’s a very exciting time in the gaming world—a Renaissance of sorts. And who knows what will become of Mr. Lee, but if his previous work is any indication, he’ll probably continue to innovate and invent, with the new found support of one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Virus Detection Research is Spreading

2009-06-04T15:56:57+00:00

With the recent swine flu pandemic, it seems that we are facing a growing threat from highly volatile diseases. Apparently, the global village allows for more than a sharing of culture and ideas. Deciphering the nature of an infection can greatly aid to treatment, but these tiny invaders can be difficult to detect. Current methods require laboratories and trained technicians and may take hours or days to provide an analysis.

That is about to change. Researchers at the Ostendum Company have created a prototype for a portable device capable of detecting viral infections in minutes. About the size of a microwave, the device relies on state-of-the-art technology to make simple, fast, and sensitive measurements.

The principle mechanism of the system stems out of research from Aurel Ymeti, during his time at the University of Twente in the Netherlands in 2007. The concept behind the device is surprisingly simple. Viruses, bacteria or even proteins found in a biological sample from saliva or blood are fed to an optical chip via a micro-fluid system. The optical chip has a series of waveguides, materials that channel laser light (like fiber-optic cables), each lined with a specific receptor.

These receptors may be antibodies or other biological sensors. When a virus or bacterium binds to a particular antibody or receptor, it changes the shape of the molecule. This change is transmitted into the waveguide and the laser light passing through is disrupted. Specifically, the light in the waveguide undergoes a phase change, which reveals itself as an interference patter once the light exits the guide.

The mechanism, originally housed in a large laboratory setup, has been shown to work with antibodies. An antibody is a protein made in the body used to indentify foreign microbial agents, known as antigens. While the general structure of antibodies is similar, the active site that binds to an antigen is highly specific. This allows for the Ostendum system to correctly identify a large variety of infectious diseases.

Of course the system only works with diseases we have antibodies for, so in the rare case of a new disease, the device might give a false negative. The authors boast that if they had access to swine flu antibodies, they could have used their detection method to highlight the presence of the disease in victims in five minutes, a stark contrast to the long wait many endured for results.

The whole system is extremely sensitive, capable of detecting the presence of a single virus binding to a receptor. The information contained in the real-time changes in the interference pattern also gives researchers clues to the concentration of antigens present.

Ostendum has currently completed one prototype and has two more underway. Practical testing will allow the group feedback to modify their design and make adjustments as they work for the final model. The device is expected to be market ready in late 2010, and will no doubt make waves in the medical community. Let’s just hope the next flu pandemic holds off until then.

Magnets Making Refrigerators Cool Again

2009-05-28T21:09:20+00:00

Gloomy reassessments of the effects of global warming are applying huge pressures into research for sustainable energy and environmental technologies. These efforts have not gone unnoticed and are frequently featured in this column. With automobiles and energy production being two of the largest contributors of greenhouse gasses, they often receive the most media attention regarding green research. But energy sustainability can be met on many fronts, from changing lifestyles to incorporating new technologies in all aspects of our lives.

One of the largest energy guzzlers outside of automobiles lurks in everyone’s kitchen: the fridge. Refrigerators, freezers, and air-conditioners not only consume large amounts of energy, but also rely on nasty chemicals as refrigerants. During the summer months, refrigerators and air-conditioners account for about half of the United States’ energy consumption.

Most household refrigerators in the U.S. rely on vapor compression to produce cold air. These cooling systems utilize the ideal gas law, which relates a gas’s temperature to the pressure and volume of the gas (PV=nRT, it’s the Brad Pitt of gas laws). Refrigerators work by compressing gas (the noise they make is from their compressor), and then allowing that gas to expand quickly. During compression, the gas (usually a refrigerant) becomes very hot. The gas is allowed to cool to room temperature over time. The volume is then allowed to increase rapidly. As the volume increases, the temperature of the gas decreases dramatically. This cools the surrounding air, which is circulated throughout the fridge with a fan.

The refrigerant gasses used in this process are very environmentally unfriendly chemicals. These are sometimes the infamous CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) that eat up our precious ozone. Most modern appliances have graduated from the use of CFCs and now rely on HFCs (Hydrofluorocarbons) that are slightly less destructive to our atmosphere. Laws have also been passed forbidding the release of refrigerants into the atmosphere.

Materials scientists from Imperial College London have heard the call of green enthusiasts. They have recently published promising research into development of a magnetic refrigerator. Magnetic cooling devices rely on very special materials that heat or cool during a change in magnetic field. Typically, these materials can be heated by applying a magnetic field. The material is then cooled to room temperature using air or water. Once the magnetic field is removed, the material would cool even further, generating cold air that could cool food. The Imperial College team believes magnetic refrigerators could operate on 20%-30% less energy then the current best models and they would also reduce our use of refrigerants.

The secret to magnetic refrigeration is in the microstructure of the cooling material. Specifically, the team’s work led them to investigate how the orientation of tiny crystals affects the magnetic properties of various metal alloys. They showed that the structure of these crystals has drastic effects on the ability of the material to change temperature under various magnetic fields. The next step to magnetic cooling devices is to create a material from the microstructure up that has cooling capabilities and can be reused many times over.

For the immediate future, the closest a magnet will get to your fridge is holding that latest aced test, or those tiny real-estate agent calendars. But magnets have already begun to lay siege to our kitchen appliances as some people have switched to induction cooking surfaces, which use rapidly varying magnetic fields to heat cooking vessels. Magnets will no doubt play a larger role in appliances as we transition into a sustainable society.

The Ghost is Taking Your Machine

2009-05-22T06:06:36+00:00

The internet has slowly but surely become an integral part of most Americans’ lives. And like baseball or apple pie, the internet is sure to remain one of America’s pastimes for years to come. But the internet isn’t just an orgy of pure infotainment, many companies (and people far more productive than I) rely on the internet as a cheap and fast alternative to meet their business needs. But our dependence on the internet makes us vulnerable on a whole new playing field of attack.

Internet attacks threaten us on a variety of levels, from turning our very own computers against us to shutting down entire electricity grids. While a growing number of personal transactions online have increased our susceptibility to identity theft, there has also been an increase in malicious software secretly finding its way onto our computers. For example, a vast majority of e-mails sent are SPAM. Although filters have become much better by using keywords and identifying sources of SPAM, spammers can continue spreading their message through the use of botnets. Translated from techno-lingo, botnets are software robots that take control of a computer and turn it into a zombie, churning out e-mails for penis enlargement pills or counterfeit Rolex watches (who opens these e-mails, anyway?). Of course, in the grand scheme of internet software, these botnets aren’t as vicious as some other viruses, worms, and Trojan horses that have found proliferation via the internet (they’re even starting to affect Macs).

As annoying as these are, the internet poses a much more serious threat to our national security. Obviously losing sensitive information over the internet is a big problem facing our homeland protection efforts. Our armed forces have already fallen victim to cyber espionage as hackers have breached the Pentagon’s plans for a new fighter jet, the Joint Strike Fighter. Hackers gained detailed information about the electronic systems aboard the fighter, but the most sensitive details were secured – on a computer disconnected from the internet. This information could nevertheless aid potential enemies.

There have also been attacks on our infrastructure. Melissa Hathaway, the cyber-coordination executive in the office of National Intelligence during the Bush administration cited a November attack that completely drained 130 ATMs in almost fifty cities worldwide in less than a half hour during a press interview last month. The Wall Street Journal has also reported that the U.S. electrical grid has been compromised by cyber-espionage which may have left behind programs that could disrupt or disable service at a later date. Other concerns have arisen over the FAA’s susceptibility to hackers, as there system has been compromised several times over the last years. At least it seems our air traffic control network is somewhat safe, but mostly because the network is so out of date that it does not rely on the internet.

The people perpetrating these attacks come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Where early cyber attacks were mostly the work of lone computer nerds working from home, we now see huge nations, like Russia, China and even the U.S. developing cyber-warfare programs. China is seen by many to be a particularly viscous cyber intruder, and has been blamed by the U.S. for many cyber attacks in recent years. Even a warning was issued to people traveling to China during the 2008 Olympics that their personal electronics would be at high risk for bugging. Chinese officials deny both claims.

The internet is essentially the Wild West for ideas; an almost completely unregulated sea of information. This of course is the appeal and the danger of the beast. Security issues are gaining prominence in Washington, however. President Obama has allocated $355 million to the Department of Homeland Security in the 2010 budget to increase private and public online security. Nevertheless, creating a secure internet will not happen quickly, it will take years to accomplish. We can only hope for an adequate balance in internet policy that maintains security while continuing to provide an open, unregulated forum of information.

Hello, Trebek: IBM’s Computer Vs. Jeopardy

2009-05-07T12:28:37+00:00

Computers are getting smarter. Artificial intelligence is a prominent research field at major technological companies and universities across the globe. And yet, when it comes to communicating with actual people, computers still struggle to grasp meaning of even basic human language. IBM plans to change the way we interact with computers with a new project aimed at increasing computers’ ability to understand the English language.

To challenge the new system and demonstrate the capabilities of the new technology, IBM is going to put their new machine in competition in one of the toughest arenas of human speech: Jeopardy!, the worlds finest trivia quiz show. While at first glance Jeopardy! might seem an easy game for a computer, the intricate use of language on the show would baffle most artificial intelligence. Questions from the “Before and After” category, for example, require linking two trivia answers in a play on a common phrase. No easy task for something that has no understanding of the meaning behind words.

The computer system, named Watson after IBM’s founder Thomas Watson, will not be connected to the internet during the game. It will, however, have a database of knowledge it has “read” and stored before the show. Watson will receive text versions of quiz questions and reply in a synthesized voice. Human players can see text versions of questions that are read aloud by prominent Canadian-American and host Alex Trebek.

Development of the Watson system has been underway for two years. It is a highly refined version of a Question Answering (QA) computer system. In the English language, sentences can take on many different meanings based on stressing different words. QA computer systems are designed to tease out the information people want to know from the semantics of the question. This will require computers to learn to disregard unnecessary content to focus on important content, and understand expressive language. Question answering systems have many potential uses in the modern world. Obviously they could deeply enrich internet search engines by more precisely matching results with actual queries.

IBM is not new to competition. The Deep Blue project of the late 90s brought national attention to computer design. The Deep Blue chess computer competed with world chess champion Garry Kasparov in two matches. Deep blue lost the first meeting in 1996, but won a six game series in 1997 by a margin of one game (two games to one with three draws). Unfortunately, Kasparov cried foul play after the match, claiming that human players intervened and helped Deep Blue win. IBM denied those claims, but dismantled Deep Blue before a rematch could be held.

Computers competing with humans on a knowledge-based game show may not seem fair, but with pros like Ken Jennings, who’s accuracy rate exceed 85% and lightening fast reaction times, the competition should be stiff (Jennings won 74 episodes of Jeopardy!). Admittedly I might be a little over excited about this endeavor as I consider Jeopardy to be the greatest program on television. But while the competition will make good TV now, computers will eventually get smarter and will no doubt one day be able to defeat even Ken Jennings with ease. Perhaps this as the beginning of some terminator-esque machine revolt, but more likely it just means that maybe someday we can have an automated phone receptionist that actually works.

In the Dark on Dark Matter

2009-04-30T18:00:25+00:00

One of the advantages to living in Red River Valley is the great view of the night sky… that is when we’re not enduring winter weather. But when nature cooperates, the lack of light pollution allows for excellent star gazing. The fantastic part is that most points of light that decorate the heavens are not even stars. Many of them are binary star systems, two stars forever entwined in each other’s gravitation field. Others are nebulae, large gas clouds that serve as the breeding grounds for stars, and still others are galaxies. While these luminescent objects offer plenty to the eye, many astronomers are looking for more obscure phenomenon: dark matter.

Dark matter is exactly what it sounds like: matter that doesn’t emit radiation (rendering it invisible to us). Dark matter, mostly theoretical, is an explanation for strange gravitational phenomena observed throughout our universe. It is used, for example, to explain the discrepancy between expected (Keplerian) velocities of objects orbiting far from the center of galaxies and observed values (which are much faster). In this case, dark matter provides extra gravity to keep these speeding objects from flying out of the galaxy.

But understanding dark matter has severe implications for how we model our universe. While knowing the general makeup of the universe provides valuable insight to astronomers, the density of the universe affects the very curvature of space-time, and how we model it.

Dark matter is comprised of many things, from the ordinary to the exotic. Some—dead stars and brown dwarfs—would be considered dark matter since the fusion reaction that releases photons has died out. Black holes would be considered dark matter as would some bizarre elementary particles. In actuality, we’re just not sure exactly what comprises dark matter. There is strong evidence for its existence because its gravitational effects are huge. According to current theory, a majority of matter in the universe is dark matter, which contributes to the makeup of the universe to an extent only outdone by its weird cousin dark energy (but that’s a whole other article). Everything else (stars, planets, nebulae, etc.) only comprises a few percent of the “stuff” in our universe.

To make matters worse, dark matter is thought to be mostly made up of crazy elementary particles, not simple straightforward matter. Most things we interact with in our daily lives are baryonic matter. Baryons are elementary particles, such as the proton and the neutron, that are comprised of three smaller particles called quarks. Some combinations of quarks, and other particles not comprised of quarks, do not fall under the classification of baryonic matter and behave much differently. These particles don’t interact much with radiation, causing them to fall under the dark matter category. Neutrinos are an example of a known non-baryonic particle, but exactly what particles could constitute dark matter is still unknown.

This crazy dark matter stuff is actually useful for certain astronomical observing techniques. The gravitational effects of the material are so profound that we can sometimes use them as a giant lens in space. You may be asking yourself: How can gravity be used to lens light, when radiation has no mass? The answer was provided by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

The theory predicts that gravitational fields actually bend the path light takes, although we rarely observe this in everyday life since it takes very large gravitational fields to produce a noticeable effect. In fact, this effect allows us to observe some dark matter as well as distant objects. The light from a bright object directly behind a massive dark object is bent by gravity so that it actually travels around the dark obstruction. We observe these events as halos of light in the sky known as Einstein rings.

You wouldn’t be alone if you found this explanation of dark matter a little foggy. Understanding the universe in no easy feat; however, Einstein himself made a famous blunder when he couldn’t reconcile his theory of relativity with a static universe. Observations later demonstrated strong evidence for an expanding universe, vindicating his theory. Admittedly, this may not have immediate implications for normal life; perhaps it will provide food for thought next time you find yourself under North Dakota’s night sky.