Giant Freakin Robot

From today’s “this is a bad idea” file comes the news from China that a team of researchers have created a new hybrid flu virus. If that isn’t fun enough, the new bug can go airborne and spread from mammal to mammal. Did no one see Contagion or 12 Monkeys, or read any of the ever-increasing number of terrifying nonfiction books about the potential for worldwide pandemics? Hell, much of the recent zombie paranoia ties back into fear of disease.

The scientists mixed genes from the H5N1 virus with those from the strain H1N1, which was responsible for the 2009 swine flu epidemic. This new concoction has been shown capable of spreading between guinea pigs.

The whole purpose behind this move is to show that, despite the hype surrounding the current outbreak of H7N9 bird flu in China, other avian flus such as H5N1 still pose a substantial threat of global pandemic. It is also possible that two different types of viruses could combine naturally. While there is no evidence that H5N1 and H1N1 have come together, this experiment shows that hybrids like this are a viable risk. These two strains overlap geographically and in the type of animals they infect. While H5N1 tends only to associate with its own kind, “the pandemic H1N1 strain seems to be particularly prone to reassortment.”

As science fiction fans, most of us have been waiting a long damn time for numerous technological developments that the genre has promised, things like hoverboards, time travel, teleportation, and convenient commercial space travel.

Chief among these anticipated inventions is the flying car. Like most innovations, however, this one opens up a new world of potential hazards. Just imagine the scope of car crashes when flying cars are involved. Recently in British Columbia, Canada, an experimental prototype may have just won the dubious honor of being the first flying car to crash. Thankfully, however, no one was seriously injured, and the occupants, including pilot Ray Sebring, are expected to make a full recovery.

The vehicle is called a Maverick, and is manufactured by a Florida-based company called, shocker, Maverick LSA. It uses a parachute and propeller to fly.

According Canadian TV reporter Curtis Allen, the flight took off in Vernon, BC, near an elementary school. Sebring “crashed into the school’s fence, which may have saved his life, and came to rest a few feet away at the base of some trees.” He did, however, put his teeth through his lip.

This is the coolest, and most frightening, thing you’ll see all day. A group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have taught their robot, an adorable little guy named RHex, how to run, jump, and climb in quick succession.

Why is this a big deal? Because up to now we’ve seen robots that can do one of these things, but most are unable to perform these actions in a rapid sequence. Animals can do it. So can people. Up till now, this has been one of the things that set us apart from our inevitable mechanical oppressors. Well, now that gap is being bridged, and we’re one step closer to our doom as a species.

The Mars Curiosity Rover has already achieved the primary goals of its mission. Because of its exploration and analysis of soil samples, as well as those taken from deep beneath the surface of various locations, scientists have been able to determine that the Red Planet would indeed have been a suitable host for life. Granted that would have been billions of years ago, but still, that’s big news for science.

So now, having completed its job, this has become something of a working vacation for Curiosity. The adorable little guy has been travelling around, and, like any good tourist, has been taking copious amounts of photographs to show the folks back home. Only instead of scrapbook after scrapbook full of shots of the Grand Canyon, the view from the Empire State Building, or sunburned Midwesterners on a tropical beach, the photos just happen to be more stunning panoramas of the Martian landscape. That’s a vacation most of us probably won’t be able to afford anytime in the near future.