gleep, posts by tag: science - LiveJournal

Dr Cameron Jones of Swinburne University is working on an amazing new technology. A normal PC and CD-ROM drive can be turned into a laser spectrometer! It's goal at present is to provide a cheap, fast, easily available method of detecting Anthrax or other bio-terrorism substances.

From what I gather it works as follows: A CD-R is burnt with a specific pattern of information. A drop of water is placed on that part of the disc, the substance is placed on the water. The CDR is baked in an oven for 15 minutes at 75ºC. A protective plastic sleeve is placed on the CD-R then inserted in the CD-ROM drive. The software then analyses the way that the pattern of information is scattered, the scattering information is compared to how known substances scatter. A match is found, and there ya go, you know what the substance is! How awesome!

That means with a bit of software, we could all have laser spectrometers in our home!

• Press Release: CDs a new weapon against bioterrorism
  
• Details: Cryptographic Hash Functions and CD-Based Optical Biosensors(pdf)
  
• More Molecular Media Project's at Swinburne

-gleep

I just heard about a fascinating idea called the Technological Singularity. The following are excerpts from the Everything2 and Wikipedia article.

"In future studies, a technological singularity is a predicted future event when technological progress and societal change accelerate due to the advent of superhuman intelligence, changing our environment beyond the ability of pre-Singularity humans to comprehend or reliably predict."

"Let an ultraintelligent 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 ultraintelligent 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 ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make."

"It is conceivable, if not likely, that superintelligent AI will simply eliminate the intellectually inferior human race, and humans will be powerless to stop it."

WOAH! Fascinating!

With this concept in mind, consider that god created the universe and the human race... and the technological singularity. WOAH!

Discuss. :)

-gleep