Chalk up another one for the underdogs. A hobby robot-builder has beaten the mighty Sandia Labs at their own game by making the smallest autonomous robot ever created, using methods available to any workbench geek and quite without a huge corporate lab to support him. Add this level of inventiveness and determination to emerging technologies like affordable desktop fabbing, and the potential for strange times ahead is looking strong. [SlashDot]

Freeman Dyson is a contentious figure in the world of science. He rejects what he sees as stultified institutions and the restrictions of consensus culture, he isn’t shy of saying that he thinks the global warming threat is vastly overstated, and he believes that once we make it out of the gravity well and into space we have every chance of spreading out and colonising the entire universe. I wonder if he’s considered writing fiction at all?

Mapping is one of the skills that gives us an extraordinary power over our environment – if we have the ability to read them, of course. Technology is coming to the aid of the visually impaired by creating devices that can turn maps into tactile environments through haptic (touch-based) interfaces [via]. Now imagine mashing that technology up with 3D mapping a la the new Google Earth features, and we’ve come a long way in a short time. And talking of coming a long way, those Google boys have a sense of humour, whatever else you may think of them.

If you’ve not seen another website today, you might not yet know that legendary author and counter-culture icon Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday. The BBC announcement used a phrase all too familiar to genre fans when it described him as being initially “dismissed as a science fiction writer.” But then again, Vonnegut himself tried hard to shake off what he saw as the stigmatism of science fiction, which is a pretty common phenomenon amongst writers and film-makers alike. Why they gotta hate us so much, huh?

Behavioural studies can be fascinating to read about – like this one that suggests we instinctively cooperate to foster equality, even if it involves disadvantaging ourselves in the process. Though I’m often a bit cagey about the interpretations of the results; the psychologists suggest altruistic motives for a behaviour that could equally be ascribed to sheer bloody-mindedness.