Science and Technology Brief

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     The Science and Technology Brief is a biweekly glance at interesting science and technology news and profiles on science and technology that is or will affect us all. For Tuesday: ‘The Amazing Mars Rovers’, ‘The Future of Fusion’, and ‘Which Came First: Presumptive Science or Fanatical Devotion to an Idea’?

The Amazing Mars Rovers

BBC News

     Going on two-and-a-half years since they were launched, and well over their original 90-day mission, the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to astound with both their endurance and their capacity.

     The latest chapter in this saga is the planned upgrade of onboard software aboard both rovers to allow them to ‘intelligently’ sift through pictures that they take, beaming back only those pictures most likely to fit the profiles set out by mission controllers and mission scientists. This upgrade will allow for greater mission performance as more useful data will now be able to be beamed back from Mars.

     On a related note, how is it that the US can put two robotic rovers millions of miles away on another planet and give them the ability to sort their own data for transmission back to earth, yet we cannot stop foreign insurgents with sixth grade educations from planting IEDs in Iraq? Rhetorical though the question may be, this is technological know-how that needs to be rushed to the battlefield post haste.

The Future of Fusion

BBC News

     A consortium of several nations has agreed to a plan to build an experimental fusion reactor in France in the ongoing effort to make nuclear power a more efficient and useful alternative to the continued burning of fossil fuels for energy. The agreement represents the first serious attempt to build a reactor capable of being used for generating power.

Which Came First: Presumptive Science or Fanatical Devotion to an Idea?

CNN

     A team of researches believe they have answered the age old ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’ question by answering that it must have been the egg, because the evolved chicken would have been born from the egg of the progenitor species. Completely philosophically, the answer arrived at seems reasonable, so long as no one questions one basic tenant of their baseline assumptions, and that is that the chicken evolved from anything at all.

     Unfortunately, the researchers did not delve further into their question and ask whether the current model for transspeciation is in fact plausible in itself, let alone that the chicken could have arisen from such a process. Unfortunately, it does not seem that many modern researchers even care that there are flaws in their basic assumptions before they address concepts upon which those assumptions might be built.

     At any rate, the answer to the headline is Fanatical Devotion, by a long shot.

Will the Hordes Rise Again?

The Times Online via DamianPenny.com via Pajamas Media

     I have always wondered why the Mongolian hordes quit after Kublai Khan. The answer may be that they had too many kids to take care of back home. It turns out that as many as 8% of Asian men may, in fact, be descended from Genghis Khan himself. That’s a lot of little warlords. Perhaps, they might all have a reunion some day, and once again ride in vanquishing conquest against the powers of the civilized world…

DLH

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