Maschinenmensch - The hunt for Singularity

This fictional robot, known as the Maschinenmensch or "false Maria", featured in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis (Image: Everett Collection / Rex)

Vernor Vinge

Although Kurzweil is the public face of the singularity today, Vernor Vinge coined the term.

He was inspired by a monograph written in 1964 by the statistician and Bletchley Park code-breaker Irving John Good entitled "Speculations concerning the first ultra-intelligent machine". Good argued that for humanity to survive, we must create a machine more intelligent than ourselves. Such a machine would be able to continually improve itself, becoming more and more intelligent, essentially without limit.

The idea was developed by Vinge, a computer scientist and science fiction author, in an essay written in 1993 called "The coming technological singularity". He argued that the singularity would occur in the mid-21st century, and that barring civilisation-wide disasters it is inevitable.

Vinge has also explored the idea in a number of science fiction novels.

Statistician Irving John Good (1965) speculated on the consequences of machines smarter than humans:

"Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an ‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make."

Butterflies imprisoned by IntraTuin

Live butterfly in Mother’s Day gift box creates outrage in Netherlands and around the civilised World!

Intratuin Netherlands wants to pack live butterflies and sell them as Mother’s Day gifts. News that live butterflies will be packaged as Mother’s Day gifts and sold in garden centre Intratuin has been criticised by the Animal Rights Party (PvdD) and the Dutch Butterfly Conservation in the Netherlands.

The PvdD, which holds two seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, slams the sale of a live butterfly in a box as cruel and has asked the Nature Minister Gerda Verburg to ban the sale of the “fragile creatures”.PvdD leader Esther Ouwehand was quoted in the AD as saying: "This is bizarre; butterflies do not belong in boxes."The thistle butterflies, which will be sold in one of Intratuin branches in South Holland, will be priced at EUR 6.99 each.

The sales promotion is aimed at highlighting the plight of some butterfly species in the Netherlands, said a spokesperson for Intratuin. The company expects purchasers to release the insects within 24 hours, thus boosting the butterfly population.

The Dutch Butterfly Conservation condemns the plan and fears that many thistle butterflies are unlikely to survive their time spent in the box."It's a really bad idea. The chance that the butterfly will die is really, really high. If they get warm in the box, they start flapping their wings, get stressed and damage their wings," said Kars Veling of the Dutch Butterfly Conservation organisation.

However, Intratuin maintains there is nothing wrong with selling live butterflies."We are always very careful with the sale of live animals… It's also part of a campaign to make people aware of the fact that butterflies are facing serious problems in this country," said an Intratuin spokesperson.

The argument is invalid according to Veling who said butterfly numbers have fallen dramatically over the last 30 to 40 years due to the enormous changes in the Dutch landscape.“Releasing a few butterflies won't help at all," said Veling.

The Internet: How easily could it be shut down?

How easy is it to SHUTDOWN the Internet?

The experts and geeks alike will tell you that it is impossible! "Almost, certainly not." They would say in their clearly doubtful manner.

Why not?, you ask. Well, much of the infrastructure, the servers, cabling, satellites, and the internet service providers (ISPs) that run them, is in private hands. A single government might be able to command ISPs in their territory to shut down, but people could still receive data through satellite links controlled by other companies not answerable to that government. Hmm! OK so far.

To extend that shutdown across national borders is barely conceivable. "One very powerful government could have strong effects on their own country, but it would be very difficult to do this on a worldwide basis," says Milton Mueller, and he should know, he represents the international Internet Governance Project.

Who would 'want' to shut down the internet? Even the biggest cyber-attacks cause much less economic damage than closing the internet would. What's more, the experts say, malicious attempts to disable the internet are testimony to the difficulty of the task: the biggest attack in history came in February 2007, and you probably didn't even notice.

This attack attempted to overwhelm the 13 "root name servers" that carry the directory of all the internet addresses in use worldwide - data vital to the smooth running of the net. Two servers, both in the US, were affected, but with 11 others untouched, the attack failed.

ICANN has now begun to implement a further safeguard system, known as Anycast, by which each of the internet's 13 root name servers also acts as a duplicate, or mirror, for some of the others. "A root server in California can be mirrored in Taiwan or the Middle East," Mueller says. "By playing tricks with the addressing, we effectively have hundreds of these root servers."

If cyber-assaults get nowhere in shutting down the net, physical attacks on the infrastructure are unlikely to fare any better. You would have to physically plant bombs to destroy undersea cables, before launching missile attacks on the root name servers that are spread around the planet. "Then the internet will be the least of your worries," says Mueller. "We're talking about full-fledged international war."

There is another question that puzzles me. Why would the cyber-criminals and hackers want to shut down the web? It is the source of all their revenue, thrills and raison d'etre. I believe that the 'manipulation' and 'control' of the internet is a more probably target and that again is only partly possible with or without government funding, allegedly.

Could flowers bloom on icy moon Europa?

The Arctic Poppy and other high-latitude flowers have parabolic shapes to focus sunlight on the reproductive parts at their centres. Physicist Freeman Dyson says such plants might evolve on other worlds as well (Image: Ansgar Walk)

Physicist and futurist Freeman Dyson says we should search for extraterrestrial life where it is easiest to find, even if the conditions there are not ideal for life as we know it. Specifically, he says spacecraft should look for flowers – similar to those found in Earth's Arctic regions – on icy moons and comets in the outer solar system.

"I would say the strategy in looking for life in the universe should be to look for what's detectable, not what's probable," he said on Saturday at a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"We have a tendency among the theorists in this field to guess what's probable. In fact our guesses are likely to be wrong," Dyson said. "We never had as much imagination as nature."

He said spacecraft should hunt for signs of life on Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, since it would be detectable there.

It is eminently possible that flowers could bloom on the icy surface of Europa, given that they can be seen outdoors in chilly Scotland.

ISS Node 3 to be shipped to NASA for launch

The European-built Node 3 starts it's journey to the ISS via NASA in Florida

The European-built Node 3 module is an essential component for the much needed expansion of the International Space Station. It will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on 17 May. Media representatives are invited to attend a ceremony on 16 May at Thales Alenia Space, Turin, Italy, to mark the departure of Node 3.

Node 3 module was under construction at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. Once in space, Node 3 will connect to the port side of the Unity Node and will provide room for eight refrigerator-sized racks, two of the locations being used for the avionics racks controlling Node 3.

It will house many of the Station's Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS), including an air revitalisation system, an oxygen generator system, a water recycling facility, a waste and hygiene compartment and a treadmill for crew exercise, which are currently stored in various places around the Station.

The Node 3 connecting module is the last element of a barter agreement (no money changes hand) by which ESA supplied NASA with Space Station hardware including the Cupola and two Node modules (Node 2 and 3). In return, NASA ferried the European Columbus laboratory to the ISS in February 2008.

I have to admit that, whilst working at ESA I played a minor role in reviewing and advancing these barter agreements and take some pride in seeing them come to fruition. They are symbolic of the co-operation and mutual support that has been the backbone supporting space exploration and exploitation in Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada and the USA, to date. Let's hope it continues and can be extended to other emerging nations.

Herschel & Planck: High Risk and High Stakes

Herschel & Planck sits ready in the cargo bay of the Ariane 5 launcher.

Separately, each is a major mission. Together, they constitute a landmark in astrophysics. The probes could revolutionise our understanding of the cosmos. If everything goes to plan, Herschel and Plank will dominate space science for at least five years. But if the launch goes wrong...

With science budgets shrinking, launching two such important missions on the same rocket smacks of madness, especially given that the launcher, an Ariane 5 rocket, has suffered a couple of high-profile and expensive failures. In 1996, a computer bug caused the loss of ESA's Cluster mission, which was rebuilt at a cost of €315 million. In 2002, a commercial launch exploded, forcing ESA to delay its Rosetta mission and costing it a further €100 million.

With the combined bill for Herschel and Planck coming in at more than €2 billion, it is near-inconceivable that they will be rebuilt if something goes wrong. Their loss would leave ESA reeling. The agency has other missions in the pipeline, including a mission to Mercury and a star-mapping project called Gaia. These have excellent scientific potential but they somehow seem small in comparison.

In short, if we lose Herschel and Planck, the heart of ESA's - and arguably the world's - space science programme would be ripped out. Let us all wish ESA the very best of luck.

Herscel Planck: Ready for countdown

Herschel (left) and Planck (right) could revolutionise our understanding of the universe (Image: ESA)