SMAC Tech In The News

gwillybj · September 25, 2002, 17:32

Nothing earth-shattering, just interesting little tidbits in PC Magazine, October 15, 2002. Two items in Pipeline. In the print edition on pages 25 and 26. Online at PC Magazine Pipeline.

Neural Grafting and Mind-Machine Interface

Quote:

Bits & Bytes (v21n18).
Simon Says...
With a $26 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Duke University is researching neurorobots — computing interfaces driven by the human brain...

Nanometallurgy and Matter Editation

Quote:

Nanotech Hazards?
When it comes to technologies of the future, nanotechnology — the manipulation of matter at the atomic and subatomic levels — is widely hailed as the Holy Grail...

Blamer · September 26, 2002, 15:13

A story that popped out at me a while ago..I don't have a link and I don't remember the exact details, but some scientists managed to splice the spider genes responsible for silk production into goats. The article made predictions about how the goats' milk could be harvested and used to make materials with extremely high tensile strength...protection that was tougher yet lighter than kevlar, for example. "Silksteel Alloys" immediately jumped into my mind...even though this is probably nothing near what the developers had in mind when they made up the technology for the game.

Adalbertus · September 26, 2002, 15:43

Neural Grafting is a thing where I think first serious experiments just started - and mostly by those who know how to impress sponsors, not because there are brilliant ideas.
Manipulating matter at atomic level is possible (with severe limits) since about 10 years or so - scanning tunnelling microscope tips (and their relatives) can be used for that. But it's still slower than building something with Lego - so nothing for the mass market. And not every structure is really stable (single atoms on a surface are much more "liquid" than the bulk, and tend to rearrange often even at room temperature).
The name Silksteel Alloys suggests that these are still metals - and I doubt it will be possible to achieve similar strengths with metal bonding. The bindings with the highest strengths we know all involve carbon and possibly other light elements - as a rule of thumb, the binding strengths decrease when you go to higher element masses (and therefore to more metallic systems). With any sort of conventional chemical bindings, I don't expect any miracles over spider silk: Evolution had the best reasons to do a good job there, spiders multiply sufficiently quick and are around for some 10 millons of years. So I think their way of making silk is well optimized.

Cybergod · September 26, 2002, 17:09

I read an article in New Scientist or something long time ago about ESAs plans for a space elevator?

here's a link:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...space+elevator

The diplomat · September 26, 2002, 17:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Cybergod
I read an article in New Scientist or something long time ago about ESAs plans for a space elevator?

here's a link:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...space+elevator

Imagine if the US built it. It would then have the drop ability anywhere on the planet! We would be able to take the Iraq bases in the same turn

It's just too bad that the real world doesn't work like SMAC.

Cybergod · September 26, 2002, 17:32

That is preciselly why no one should have absolute power

BustaMike · September 26, 2002, 19:01

Future headline -

Responding to Iraqi threats that an attack on the US is forthcoming, President Bush responding by giving this ultimatum, "Do it and all your bases are belong to us!"

hehe, that sounds like something Dubya would say anyway

Mr. President · September 26, 2002, 23:26

Are quantum computers in the game somewhere? I know that quantum technology of other kinds is. Real-life scientists are looking at quantum computing for encryption and decryption.

fluffy · September 27, 2002, 05:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Blamer
A story that popped out at me a while ago..I don't have a link and I don't remember the exact details, but some scientists managed to splice the spider genes responsible for silk production into goats. ...

If you search back, there was at least one thread covering this...

fluffy · September 27, 2002, 06:00

Quote:

Originally posted by fluffy
If you search back, there was at least one thread covering this...

eg. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=40863

CEO Aaron · September 27, 2002, 15:00

Here's one for bio-engineering:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ealth_teeth_dc

gwillybj · September 27, 2002, 20:29

Another "thread"

to see:
SMAC tech becoming reality started with a reference to the goat milk + spider silk item. In that thread are references to Optical Computers at Johns Hopkins University, Super Tensile Solids resulting from discoveries at the California Institute of Technology, along with, among things like sheep cloning as unethical science, Nietzscheist philosophy and The Will to Power.

tonic · September 30, 2002, 05:55

It is apparent that the SMAC team had done some homework in setting the "hard" (as opposed to the "soft" psi) part of the tech tree. In addition to the examples cited above, many of the earlier techs have already been bandied before (eg Unified Field Theory, the elusive holy grail of Einstein). The "Theory of Everything" was discussed in a most interesting TV program on cosmology (I think it was a UK "Horizons" production) as was Superstring Theory.

Darius · October 5, 2002, 12:09

In the November Discover magazine thet came yesterday, there is an article titled "The Bionic Connection" which carries the tagline "Are we already a lot closer to a mind-machine interface than we ever guessed"?

It talks about a guy at Reading University in England who has surgically implanted electrodes into his arm and uses them to control a robotic arm or a wheelchair. He has also thoughtfully provided his wife with a similar set of electrodes. She can wiggle her fingers and the signal goes to a computer, then through the internet to another computer, which radios the signal to an antenna on her husband's gizmo, and he can feel it in his arm. He's working toward telepathic thought.

The new issue of the magazine is not online yet. I'll try to remember to post a link when it comes out.

Jmaster · October 8, 2002, 18:51

Quote:

Are quantum computers in the game somewhere? I know that quantum technology of other kinds is. Real-life scientists are looking at quantum computing for encryption and decryption.

I don't know about the game, but real life quantum computers are at the level of factoring 15. It's a start.

The problem is that to be in a state of ambiguity between to states, the qbit cannot be touched, and must be measured indirectly...or somthing like that.

It's complicated, but interesting.