Science – Page 3 – rgbFilter

Toxic microbe expands definition of life according to NASA

December 2, 2010December 8, 2010 Doug Groves announcement, arsenic, astrobiology, extraterrestrial life, GFAJ-1, microbe, Mono Lake, NASA1 Comment

A couple of days ago, NASA said that they would be holding a press conference that would “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” Any announcement from NASA regarding extraterrestrial life is going to be greeted with a lot of speculation, but the answer turns out to be a little closer to home. To the disappointment of some, NASA didn’t spill the beans on the alien captured at Roswell. Instead, the finding were a little closer to home, but not insignificant in their…

Other Ones and Zeros: quantum computing made probable

November 28, 2010December 3, 2010 Pete Chapman Caltech, Niels Bohr, Physical Review Letters, quantum computing, Sean D Barrett, Thomas M Stace1 Comment

It would appear that one and zero are not enough. At the very least, their usual arrangement inside our classically designed computers is in for some serious revision. This November, the number of releases from researchers working on quantum computing spiked sharply. In all probability, it has more to do with scheduling and funding than the actions of some invisible force or supposed “hundredth monkey” effect. The theoretical work stretches back through decades into the dark recesses of cryptography and the woolier constructs of particle physics. It appears that the …

Smelling Light and Hearing Shapes

October 25, 2010October 26, 2010 Pete Chapman McGill University, Science Daily, synesthesia1 Comment

Sense and Sensibility 2.0 Synesthesia: the translation of one sensory mode into another, is no longer the domain of New Age mystics and lightshow designers. A deeper understanding of the neural structures underlying perception is creating very literal crossovers in how we think about the senses. With this, the possibility of a radical rewiring of how we experience the world is visible (tasteable, audible, touchable…). Two recent items from Science Daily: At Harvard neurobiologists are using optogenetically engineered mice that respond to light through their olfactory system; the sense of…

Zombie Satellite Galaxy 15 -ALERT!!!!

October 19, 2010October 20, 2010 Pete Chapman rogue, satellite, sice, space.com3 Comments

Zombie Satellite Galaxy 15 is not: -an early Eighties Italian/German Alien knock-off starring Klaus Kinski and Udo Kier with a dubbing script written by John Shirley. -an Anime series based on a Manga series with a huge, rabid, cult fan base but you’ve never heard of it because the American translated version is called “Undead Space Cadet Zero“. -a Sigue Sigue Sputnik/ Powerman 5000 mash-up, tribute band that played at the Bovine Sex Club: once. The set lasted fifteen minutes but it was awesome. No, Zombie Satellite Galaxy 15 is…

Another Green World: a Lurker’s Guide to Gliese 581g

October 15, 2010October 20, 2010 Pete Chapman Annalee Newitz, astronomy, Gliese 581, io9, PhysOrg11 Comments

“The Gliese 581 system exerts an outsize fascination when compared to many of the other exoplanetary systems that have been discovered to date.” That quote comes from the paper that started it all, “ Planet in the Habitable Zone of the Nearby M3V Star Gliese 581”and that is probably its least controversial statement. Since late September, the news of a possible “second Earth” has spread and is now resting comfortably in that space where it is an item of casually conversation; a vague, “oh yeah that thing”, sort of thing….

Arts Computing Gaming Science video

Minecraft – A First Person Builder

October 2, 2010November 10, 2010 Pete Chapman 16-bit ALU, first person builder, FPB, FPS, Minecraft, open source, PC gaming, sheep, TNT, video, YouTube2 Comments

Two weeks ago my sixteen year old son, Reid, was playing with it. Earlier this week Cory Doctorow was writing about it at Boing Boing. What is this thing called “Minecraft”? If you know about it then you’re probably playing it. If not…then…so you don’t feel out of the loop tonight when the people who hang out in the kitchen talking at parties weigh in on this one: here’s a crash course. Minecraft is an online game which uses the visual conventions of a first person shooter for constructive purposes, literally….

Arts Computing Science

I Have Seen the Future and It is Shared.

September 30, 2010October 4, 2010 Pete Chapman A.I, artificial planet, Orion's Arm, science fiction, Singularity, Turing Test, worldbuilding0 comment

Does science fiction have a future? It’s past as a genre of pulp fiction that came up with the twentieth century leaves it in a precarious position at the beginning of the twenty-first. Once, like the buffalo, it roamed across the wide open spaces of the news stands and now only a handful of those magazines still exist and it’s been a long time since the days when a single short story sale could secure two month’s rent in Greenwich Village. There are novels, truck loads of novels as the…

Learning from Clippy: an interview with Clifford Nass

September 24, 2010September 27, 2010 Pete Chapman book, Clifford Nass, Clippy, Dawkins, Durkheim, interview, The Man Who Lied To His Laptop, transcript14 Comments

As a follow-up to our review of Clifford Nass’ book, The Man Who Lied to his Laptop, we were offered a chance last Friday (Sept. 17) to interview Professor Nass via telephone. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation. RGB Filter-I must confess that I’m daunted by this interview because your book has got me thinking… “Should I sequence my criticism following your suggestions in The Man Who Lied to His Laptop? Should I play the personality type “Critic” or “Side Kick” in my presentation? Should I alternate…

Monitor or Mirror? A review of “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop”

September 11, 2010September 11, 2010 Pete Chapman book review, Clifford Nass, Corina Yen, human machine interface, Penguin Books, review, The Man Who Lied To His Laptop11 Comments

Clifford Nass has been studying human relations by looking at how humans relate to machines. The answers coming from experiments documented in his book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop are an interesting mix of the unexpected and the familiar. You might think that it would take no time to read a 207 page book. Warning; this book makes one stop every so many pages to think about what it says. Not because it is difficult or obscure; the writing is clear and the presentation precise throughout but the…

Buzz Words Approaching: “Game Layer”

September 4, 2010September 4, 2010 Pete Chapman DICE 2010, facebook, Game Layer, Seth Priebatsch, TED, TEDxBoston1 Comment

By now, we’re used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web – building a “social layer” on top of the real world. At TEDxBoston, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the “game layer,” a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce. Ten thoughts, questions, comments and micro-rants about what Chief Ninja Priebatsch is presenting here…

Movies Coming To A Theatre Beside You

August 31, 2010 Pete Chapman alternative universe, humour, movie posters1 Comment

The folks at “io9”, a very hip geek-site, published some painfully funny and astute poster art by Sean Hartter. The premise is sci-fi movie posters from an alternate timeline. His graphic chops are top drawer and his concept is, like any good alternate reality story, better than merely plausable. My Philip K. Dick circuit got a workout on these but it was the my inner film geek that was most delighted…the man knows his history. What he’s proposing isn’t that far from the truth. Take the David Lynch version of…

Zombie Ants – Threat, Myth or Just Another Weird Thing?

August 27, 2010August 28, 2010 Pete Chapman humor, humour, nature.com, paleobotany, Science, zombie ants9 Comments

At rgbFilter there is standing policy on providing accurate and up-to-the-minute information on one of the major cultural memes of our times; Zombies. Yes, for other news outlets the Zombie thing is like so ’07 but here at rgbFilter we know that the undead never sleep and vigilance must never tire. Towards this end we present not just the cultural manifestations of the Zombie Menace but probable vectors of infestation from current research in various fields of science. It started innocently enough these things always do. This reporter was scanning…