Robotic Heart Worm

Here’s a creepy and oh-so-cool science-fiction-like thing: researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute have developed a little robot called “Heartlander” which can be inserted onto your heart and can perform medical procedures on it.

Their website, complete with videos: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~heartlander/index.html

Technically, it’s not a robot, per se, but a remote control tool, as it cannot “think” for itself, but still cool. The Heartlander is this device that’s just a few inches long that can be inserted into the chest cavity via a small incision. It is then attached to the heart via two suction cups attached to little vacuum hoses that run back out of the body. Using a joystick (oh, yes, my geek meter is going off the charts!), the surgeon controls the little beasty and makes it walk along the heart surface like a robotic inchworm. HERE is one of those incredibly cool yet creepy videos of the Heartlander inching along the surface of a beating pig heart (Go on and follow that link. It's worth it!).

The Heartlander can be used to insert localized medicine, electrodes, or dyes at specified locations in the heart, all without the need to crack open your frickin' sternum, rip apart your rib cage, cut open the pericardium, and expose your heart to the open air to do the standard procedures that this little robotic caterpillar can do with nothing more than a couple of incisions. The robot is cheap, effective, and sanitized, and recovery is far faster and easier.

Why is this important to me? Duh, it’s a cool robot! It’s my giddy childhood stay-up-late-to-watch-Star-Trek sci-fi fantasy come to life. But let us not forget that hearts and circulatory systems tend to fail at alarming rates in my family, with a plethora of bypasses, heart attacks, strokes, and fibrillation issues running rampant through our genes. Given that I have a great weakness for sitting on my ass and eating Ho-Ho’s in front of the TV, I’m happy to hear about any advancement that will allow me to live longer and eat more chocolate, or at least treat me in an easier fashion.

So would I let this little robotic heartworm creep along my “ticker” and administer medicine, leech-style? You betcha! And I’d want a video of it, too.

The Beer Launcher

Need experience catching metallic, flying projectiles? Afraid to miss even a minute of Desperate Housewives? Thirsty for a beer, but that long walk from the couch to the kitchen gets you down? Well fling those blues away! Now you, too, can enjoy the simple delight of the Beer Launcher:

Story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_fe_st/beer_tossing_fridge

Video:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/445498/robotic_beer_launching_refrigerator/

Official website:
http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html

Command your new robotic frig to toss a beer from up to 20 feet away. Your can of carbonated brew will be lifted from the cool insides of a mini-frig, rolled off of a loaded magazine into a throwing arm, and catapulted right to your waiting hands. Quench your thirst, wow your friends, and get stinking drunk, all while sitting on your ass in the comfort of your La-Z-Boy.

But wait, there's more! Order in the next 10 minutes and you'll also receive a remote-control keychain. With the click of a button, this modified car-fob commands your Beer Launcher to load a deliciously cold beverage, adjust the angle and direction of the launching arm, and lob a 12 oz elixir to you and your pals. Fire! Pop. Fizz. Glug glug. Ah!!! Airborne alcohol never tasted so good!

Order now!

Robo-Ethics

Isaac Asimov is one of my favorite authors. If you're not familiar with him, he's one of the "big three" science fiction writers (along with Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein). Asimov is the Jewish-Russian-American with the massive sideburns, who died back in the '90s. He's a fascinating guy, and one of my heroes. He wrote or edited over 500 books in every category of the Dewey Decimal System except for philosophy, was a vice president of the MENSA organization, and was an accomplished biochemistry professor.

One of the things he is best known for in the sci-fi community is his Robot series of stories, almost all of which seem to revolve around the same basic concept: his Three Laws of Robotics. Every robot in his fictional, futuristic universe was programmed with these laws, the purpose of which was to keep robots from running amok and harming humans. Here are his Three Laws:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Most of Asimov's Robot short stories seemed to revolve around the gray areas not quite clearly defined by these laws (such as, What if harming one human would save the rest of humanity?). For decades, as robots have become more advanced, I've heard again and again how roboticists have planned on implementing these laws.

In yet another example of fiction becoming reality, now some Roboticists in South Korea, and soon in Europe, will use Asimov's three laws as a basis for real-life "robot ethics":

http://www.physorg.com/news92459770.html

Asimov would be proud.

Last September, South Korea designed a gun-wielding robot to help guard the de-militarized zone. At the same time, that country's robot designers are preparing for a boom in senior citizens who need round-the-clock care – by robots. As these robots become "smarter" and able to blast you away in the tiny fraction of a second of computing time, or inadvertently squeeze the life out of your all-important feeding tube, it's time to think about robotic "morals."

Fine. Go ahead and ruin my hopes for a world as chaotic and interesting as in Robocop II or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Given the problems I've faced lately with my sh*tty work computers, I'm getting used to computers running amok. Simply freezing while I'm analyzing my data is too boring. I want it to threaten my frickin' life! Hey, you wanna piece of me, Mr. fussy Intel computer? Well bring it on! You haven't got the Three Laws! I've got a magnet with your name on it!

Now if only we could apply Asimov's Three Laws to humans….

Critical Thinking And LEGO Robots

It's amazing what can happen if people think.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching some local school kids demonstrate their LEGO robots. They were part of a team from an area middle school. These bright, culturally-diverse 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade boys (and a girl) competed on a state level and won awards for their ability to build a robot of their own design to perform specific tasks that the competition demanded (such as traveling a short distance to trigger devices or drop an object into a specific location), all out of parts from LEGO robotics kits. Though the obstacles the robot had to overcome were pre-defined, their robot design and programming was formulated on their own, with minimal assistance from the team coach and high-school kids who acted as mentors. Maybe they could have learned something by being told exactly how to build and program the robot from a specific blueprint, but I guarantee they learned more about robotics and, generally, critical thinking, by coming up with their own design and testing it.

Beats the hell out of the "spaceships" I built with LEGOs at their age!

Education is a marvelous thing, as it gives you a toolbox of knowledge from which consider the world (like a box of LEGO blocks), but that knowledge is useless if you can't learn to apply it creatively (like making a friggin' robot out of them). I think back to my organic chemistry classes as an undergrad, for instance, where I was forced to memorize very complex chemical reactions and structures, only to regurgitate them on the next test before cramming my brain with more information. Within a year or two of taking the class I doubt I could have remembered even 10% of what I learned. A decade later I might have recalled only a few bits and pieces. As a scientist, I have been taught to think critically, not just about science questions, but about all things. It's in my nature to question things (even if it makes me look cynical in the process), but as my Organic Chem class illustrates, even science has obstacles to overcome.

Recently, a professor at Ohio State University tested the role of critical thinking on his introductory-level biology students:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070221093213.htm

The 300 or so students were taking a lab class on the role of enzymes in biology, and fell into two groups. The first group of students was given prepared enzymes and step-by-step instructions on how to test them. The second group was given a raw turnip from which they had to extract the enzymes themselves and then come up with a plan of their own to test them, exercising their critical and creative thinking. In the end, they were asked a simple question, "Where do enzymes occur in nature?" The correct (and simplistic) answer: "In living tissue." Only 23% of the "step-by-step" group got it correct, compared to 83% of the "critical thinking" group.

Said the professor, "The students in the first group were just as intelligent as those in the second group. They just lacked confidence. No teacher had ever asked them something as simple as how do they want to display what they saw in the experiment. They had always been told how to do that. Educators thought they were doing students a wonderful favor by giving them step-by-step instructions."

And that was at the college level! How often do you think the average grade school student in America is asked to think critically about the information they are taught? How much is rote memorization? In this day of standardized testing, I'm doubtful critical thinking raises its shy head, even in science classes.

And we wonder why people adhere to horoscopes, latch onto the latest fad diets, or believe anything presented on the evening news as undeniable fact. Come on, folks! Critical thinking and creativity drive innovation and reveal the truth behind the veils of ignorance. Think back to your favorite class in school. I'd bet my left thumb that it was one where you got to be creative and didn't have to cram your brain with memorized details, yet learned a lot.

When I saw those kids and their robots, hope sprang eternal. Will they now apply the abstract lesson they learned and raise their hands more in class, questioning why the teacher said what she did?

The 8^th-grader in me is dying to get one of those LEGO robot kits.

Cocktails from Robots

Need a drink, but you're too tired at the end of a long day at the lab bench to make one for yourself? Yet you don't care to go to a bar? No problem! Now you can have your very own robot that makes cocktails for you:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/12/08/cocktail.robot.reut/index.html

Yes, in this wonderfully Jetsons-esque age of household robotic technology (thank you, Roomba!), you can drink away those blues without the bother of lifting your own bottles or that potentially messy step of shaking the drink. Instead, Chapok the robot can do it for you. But wait, there's more! He doesn't just make drinks, he also throws mild and hilarious insults and pick-up lines at his customer, such as "Hey you sweet thing, have you ever had a date with a robot?" and "You want what? Order yourself a drink for a man, you girl!"

Ah, life is good in the modern age! Hey, Chapok, make mine a Mai-Tai, and don't forget the little umbrella!