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Potential outcomes of pervasive surveillance

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CCTV camerasSometimes it really feels like science-fictional thinking is becoming a much more mainstream thing to do. Following on from yesterday’s mention of CCTV control software that can learn to recognise suspicious behaviour (as defined by operator feedback, natch), out-bound BoingBoing guest blogger Paul Spinrad decided to think out loud about what might happen in a society where you were always under surveillance in public. Granted, BoingBoing isn’t exactly aloof from the sf-nal mindset, but even so…

Teenage girls become statistically less fearful about body image, and anorexia rates drop. Rifts develop between groups with different attitudes towards concealment. A tipping point is reached, and in the Prisoner’s Dilemma of female modesty, power is taken back by the unionized-sisterhood strength of concealment over the winner-take-all competition of the freer playing field. Male attitudes toward women change as a result.

Meanwhile, law enforcement and the intelligence community don’t want faces covered, with all their face-recognition and tracking software. So anti-concealment laws are put in place. The cool rebel kids (along with true criminals) also push in the direction of concealment. A mini industry springs up of wearable concealing devices, analogous to radar jammers and license plate concealers, with a similar “arms race” between laws and the innovations designed to circumvent them. Welcome to the see-easy; check your headcover at the door.

The comment thread quickly knocks down the female modesty theory, but I think we can see the beginnings of that cold-war-ish escalation of technological advancement from the second paragraph happening right now… certainly in my RSS feeds, anyway.

I’m reminded again of David Brin’s Transparent Society, and remain convinced that sousveillance would be of great social benefit in the longer run. Private and gubernatorial surveillance, on the other hand, is terrifying me more and more as the months go by; the only upside I can see is that I’ll get my naive teenaged wish of living in a Gibsonian cyberpunk dystopia… [image by Caveman 92223]

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Mercurial cartography

With the cold weather really digging in for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, you may well be thinking of taking a holiday somewhere hot. Courtesy the US Geological Survey, you can now scout out the lay of the land on the hottest destination in the entire solar system, as their near-global maps of the planet Mercury are released to the public.

The map combines new observations from the Messenger spacecraft with earlier images captured by Mariner 10 in the 1970s.

Global Map of Mercury

Messenger completed the last of its three flybys of the planet on September 29th. The release of the map marks a new phase of the mission for the spacecraft, which will now orbit the sun’s innermost planet for a year.

The U.S. Geological Survey built the map from 917 images of variable resolution and lighting conditions, but sophisticated software was able to match up planetary features from different images to create the near seamless mosaic.

Click through on the image above (or here) to download various sized versions of the map – should make a nice wallpaper file, no?

If you don’t fancy Mercury (I’ve heard the food’s terrible, and the cost of bottled water is simply shocking), maybe a brief break in a space station as designed by Paolo Soleri might be more aesthetically appealing [via Tim Maly]? Granted, none of them have ever been built… but you’d have to admit they have a soupçon more je ne sais quoi than the utilitarian grace of the ISS, I’m sure. 😉

Today's Tomorrows

What Are The Animals Becoming?

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Since I went for things made of metal skins and electrical guts last month when I wrote about weird robots, I decided to opt for warm-blooded carbon-based life forms this time around – so welcome to the December column on smart animals!

Now, we’re a dog family, and we have a golden retriever and two border collies.  My partner just bought a puzzle for the dogs. It’s a wooden base with cups for treats, and sliding doors that move and hide the treats.  The object is for the dog to slide the doors out of the way and get the treats inside.  One of the stated purposes of the toy is to increase animal intelligence.  Mind you, if the border collies get much smarter we’re in trouble.  The golden?  Well, that’s another story. Continue reading What Are The Animals Becoming? →

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Fake blood

red blood cellsNo, not the Halloween dress-like-a-zombie fake blood – we’re talking entirely artificial polymer replacements for red blood cells, which could potentially be used for transfusions in the absence of donated blood [image by Andrew Mason]:

They start out as spherical cells which then collapse into mature red blood cells following exposure to various substances. Similarly, Mitragotri’s team found that if they added small balls made of a polymer called PLGA to a particular solvent, the spheres would collapse into a biconcave shape.

The researchers coated these 7-micrometre across, tyre-shaped particles, in a layer of protein. When they dissolved away the polymer core, a soft biodegradable protein shell was left behind with the same mechanical properties as red blood cells.

The fake cells also seem to share red blood cells’ ability to transport substances. One of the proteins Mitragotri added to the surface of the imitation blood cells was haemoglobin, the molecule that binds to oxygen in the lungs, later releasing it elsewhere in the body.

In test tube experiments, the researchers found that their haemoglobin-coated particles picked up oxygen when there was a lot around and released it later when the concentration was lower. If the squishy particles do the same thing when injected in animals, they could be given to people instead of a blood transfusion.

To see if the protein shells could also carry drugs, Mitrogotri’s team exposed them to the anti-clotting drug heparin. Sure enough, the particles soaked up the heparin and then released it later on when they were moved to an area of lower concentration.

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