The walking robot unveiled for the first time

Myon is an 1.25 meters humanoid robot, whose body parts can be removed and reattached without loosing full functionality. It was revealed to the public for the first time at the International Design Festival DMY and the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin) and it caused an extremely high interest.

The robot is the final product of a collaboration between Bayer MaterialScience AG and the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory (NRL) at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Cologne-based design studio Frackenpohl Poulheim. The outer shell that gives the human-like appearance to the robot is a polycarbonate called Makrolon® from Bayer MaterialScience, that also protects the electronics inside it.

The eight-year-old-sized robot is meant to interact with humans, “that’s why we wanted Myon to project a friendly, positive persona even though it’s obviously not actually a person,” said André Poulheim, one of Myon’s designers, to BayNews. “Otherwise robots can seem a bit threatening if, say, their shoulders are made too broad.”

The European research project ALEAR (Artificial Language Evolution on Autonomous Robots), carried out by Dr. Manfred Hild and his team at the NRL studies how autonomous robots move. Walking, for example, is a very complex process that depends on the body’s structure, and so the six autonomous body parts of the robot are a major advantage, as movements can be developed individually and lead to an overall behavior.

Dr. Lorenz Kramer, the project’s supervisor and responsible for the Robotics section at Bayer MaterialScience explained that “the robot’s esthetic design and degree of mobility presented particular challenges when it came to selecting materials. The material must not impede the overall functionality and it must be suitable for the creation of specific shapes.” After tests, the glass-fiber reinforced polycarbonate Makrolon® 9425 and the transparent Makrolon® ET3113 were the materials chosen for Myon.

This robot is just an example of the technological advancements nowadays. Scientists are working on several robots can could, in a near future, help the elders in care homes and hospital, as it is currently happening in Japan.

Myon will also be presented at K 2010 in Düsseldorf from October 27 to November 3, 2010.

via Myon the Friendly Humanoid Robot – The walking robot unveiled for the first time – Softpedia.

NEW YORK: The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 without fundamental restructuring of the fishing industry, UN experts said Monday.

“If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish,” Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Program's green economy initiative, told journalists in New York.

A Green Economy report due later this year by UNEP and outside experts argues this disaster can be avoided if subsidies to fishing fleets are slashed and fish are given protected zones, ultimately resulting in a thriving industry.

The report, which was opened to preview Monday, also assesses how surging global demand in other key areas including energy and fresh water can be met while preventing ecological destruction around the planet.

UNEP director Achim Steiner said the world was “drawing down to the very capital” on which it relies.

However, “our institutions, our governments are perfectly capable of changing course, as we have seen with the extraordinary uptake of interest.

Around, I think it is almost 30 countries now have engaged with us directly, and there are many others revising the policies on the green economy,” he said. Collapse of fish stocks is not only an environmental matter.

One billion people, mostly from poorer countries, rely on fish as their main animal protein source, according to the UN.

The Green Economy report estimates there are 35 million people fishing around the world on 20 million boats. About 170 million jobs depend directly or indirectly on the sector, bringing the total web of people financially linked to 520 million.

According to the UN, 30 percent of fish stocks have already collapsed, meaning they yield less than 10 per cent of their former potential, while virtually all fisheries risk running out of commercially viable catches by 2050.

The main scourge, the UNEP report says, are government subsidies encouraging ever bigger fishing fleets chasing ever fewer fish, with little attempt to allow the fish populations to recover.

Fishing fleet capacity is “50 to 60 per cent” higher than it should be, Sukhdev said.

“What is scare here is fish,” he said, calling for an increase in the stock of fish, not the stock of fishing capacity.”

Creating marine preservation areas to allow female fish to grow to full size, thereby hugely increasing their fertility, is one vital solution, the report says.

Another is restructuring the fishing fleets to favor smaller boats that, once fish stocks recover, would be able to land bigger catches.

“We believe solutions are on hand, but we believe political will and clear economics are required,”

via DAWN.COM | Sci-Tech | Oceans’ fish could disappear in 40 years: UN.

Contact lenses have traditionally been engineered to help the visually impaired see the world around them more clearly–to attain perfect, or close to perfect, vision.

But why not super vision? Why not a lens that could superimpose holographic driving control panels over a pilot’s otherwise normal view? Enable Web surfing on the go? Provide a virtual world for gamers that covers their entire field of vision instead of just a plasma screen?

Engineers at the University of Washington have been asking just that as they manufacture first-gen versions of the bionic eye in the form of contact lenses with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

(read more @ cnet News & IEEE Spectrum)

They Might Be Giants continues its cerebral dominance of the pop music world with Here Comes Science, a CD/DVD release created for kids but smart enough for the adults in the mosh pit.

Exclusively available digitally on iTunes and physically on Amazon.com starting Tuesday, the follow-up to John Flansburgh and John Linnell’s Grammy-winning 2008 effort Here Come the 123s builds on the brainy foundation laid down by the band more than 25 years ago. But since the subject this time around is science, They Might Be Giants‘ latest sonic workbook might not go over too well with the intelligent-design crowd.

(read more @ Underwire – Wired.com)

And here’s a great animation video from the album:

A staple of backyard barbecues and summer time snacks, watermelon is also a promising new source of renewable energy.

According to a new study, leftover watermelons from farms’ harvests could be converted into up to 9.4 million liters (2.5 million gallons) of clean, renewable ethanol fuel every year destined for your car, truck, or airplane’s gas tank.

(read more @ Discovery News – btw, the shoes in the picture are a special 2009 Spring edition by Vans and unfortunately they’re no longer available)

Big-picture thinking and inventiveness are going to be the key to professional success in a new “conceptual age.” In a series of posts over at WebWorkerDaily, Imran Ali has been musing on the type of work that we might be doing in the future, the skills that will be required, and the type of teams we might be working in. The skills we need could evolve, Imran pointed out, citing career analyst Daniel Pink’s assertion that “right-brainers will rule this century.” In his book, Pink states that we’ll need to augment our “left-brained” reasoning with six crucial “right-brained” skills: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning.

(read more @ gigaom & Web Worker Daily)

Director Ridley Scott has signed on to direct the latest big-screen adaptation of Aldus Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

Scott will serve as both director and producer on the project according to reports.   Leonardo DiCaprio will assist Scott in the producer duties and star in the film, the Hollywood Reporter reports.

“Brave New World” is set in the year 2540 (632 A.F. in the book) in London, an egalitarian dystopian society of strictly controlled reproduction, consumerism and sexual promiscuity, seen at the time as partly a critique of the emerging Americanization of world culture. The book has previously been adapted for television but never for the big screen.

Dystopian futures are nothing new for Scott, who directed “Blade Runner.”

(read more @ Slice of SciFi, Reuters, /Film or FirstShowing)

San Francisco is getting ready to break ground on the Federation Council UN Global Compact Center, which — besides looking like a concept sketch for some sci-fi movie — is made notable because of where it’s being built. It will take over the location of the Hunter’s Point Shipyard, which has been deemed one of the most polluted sites in the nation by the US Environmental Agency. Step one is clean all that gunk up. Step two? Build a structure that will serve as an example against that kind of pollution, as well as help stop it from ever happening.

The center itself will act as the site for a think tank that will mull over green technologies and policies to help combat detrimental climate change. The building will ultimately be an 80,000-square-foot center that’s LEED certified, cost $20,000 and is scheduled to begin construction in 2011.

(via DVICE; read more @ inhabitat)

There is mounting evidence that omega-3 fatty acids from fish or fish oil supplements not only help prevent cardiovascular diseases in healthy individuals, but also reduce the incidence of cardiac events and mortality in patients with existing heart disease. A new study, published in the August 11, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, extensively reviews data from a broad range of studies in tens of thousands of patients and sets forth suggested daily targets for omega-3 consumption.

(read more @ ScienceBlog)