In robotics: a new idea using old low technology (flywheels and magnets) has made a unit of a self-configuring self-moving structure into a simple complex of magnets and slides, powered by flywheels and capable of self-assembling into structural components with programming that is being developed as I write this. For example, self-assembling scaffolding that can support a sagging building while the residents are rescued.
I note one obvious flaw: the Curie point of the magnets. This would make the units unusable in a fire. But first things first: they work, and it appears to be a well-funded project.
Imagine, instead of the finger-joint-sized metal diamonds of the "replicators" from the Stargate TV series, something the size of your palm, a cube, assembling much the way the Stargate replicators are depicted as doing. Obviously their basic unit- the equivalent of the little crab-like things the replicators are depicted as using- would be larger than a person. The goal of course is something like the replicators; in the article they talk about the Terminators, from the Arnold movies of the last couple decades. These are said to be built up of self-replicating units, but microscopic ones; thus when they morph they appear to flow.
If the Curie point problem can be cured, wouldn't it be nice to be able to send a replicator-thing into the heart of the malfunctioning reactor, and no one has to die to fix it? Just a thought for an idle Saturday afternoon's contemplation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105235.htm
New Toy
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Schneibster
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New Toy
We need a directorate of science, and we need it to be voted on only by scientists. You don't get to vote on reality. Get over it. Elected officials that deny the findings of the Science Directorate are subject to immediate impeachment for incompetence.