Stuff I'm thinking about part 2

I made the decision to concentrate on completing my novel before finishing up or starting any new projects. It is so difficult for me not to work on anything else. The ideas keep coming and coming. I may give myself permission to work on a new short story or play, they keep on popping up in my head during the long dark ride home from Warrensburg in the evening, but first I'm going to have to by a new memory card for my PDA. The novel is coming along well. I'm very pleased with its progress. It will be finished soon. I attended a book sale on Saturday with my youngest daughter, she charmed the heck out of everybody while we poked around some book shelves. I found some interesting stuff and few items I've been searching for. I'll be sorting through those books later. Oh, also, after I buy an new memory card for my Pda I'm thinking that I'm gonna have to post some new photos up on the blog and facebook of my office. I received a new review book in the mail today, dealing with religious revisionism. For my own entertainment I'm reading three books of non-fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, including one of her journals, a book of essays about writing and writers and a book of literary reviews. The woman is amazing. I really dig her and Susan Sontag. Because of my wife's health and some other family concerns I became sidetracked and I am now behind on reviews I wanted to do for the Comicbook Bin. After reading the book of reviews by Joyce Carol Oates I'm recharged and no longer jaded about reviewing. So keep your eyes open and check out the Comicbook Bin.com for some of my work.
L

RESEARCH: Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

This article from New Scientist goes hand in hand with the research I have been checking out for my Stargate Stargate Atlantis cross over comic book script. Science Fiction is a hoot, but this real shit scares me more than anything that I can come up with out of my sick imagination.
L



Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

* 12:02 31 August 2005 by Shaoni Bhattacharya

"A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects' proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would - causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

Once in the water the mature hairworms - which are three to four times longer that their hosts when extended - emerge and swim away to find a mate, leaving their host dead or dying in the water. David Biron, one of the study team at IRD in Montpellier, France, notes that other parasites can also manipulate their hosts' behaviour: "'Enslaver' fungi make their insect hosts die perched in a position that favours the dispersal of spores by the wind, for example."

But the "mechanisms underlying this intriguing parasitic strategy remain poorly understood, generally", he says."

The article continues here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7927-parasites-brainwash-grasshoppers-into-death-dive.html


http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn7927/dn7927-1_439.jpg

Robotics research

The study of motion can be divided into kinematics and dynamics. Direct kinematics refers to the calculation of end effector position, orientation, velocity and acceleration when the corresponding joint values are known. Inverse kinematics refers to the opposite case in which required joint values are calculated for given end effector values, as done in path planning. Some special aspects of kinematics include handling of redundancy (different possibilities of performing the same movement), collision avoidance and singularity avoidance. Once all relevant positions, velocities and accelerations have been calculated using kinematics, methods from the field of dynamics are used to study the effect of forces upon these movements. Direct dynamics refers to the calculation of accelerations in the robot once the applied forces are known. Direct dynamics is used in computer simulations of the robot. Inverse dynamics refers to the calculation of the actuator forces necessary to create a prescribed end effector acceleration. This information can be used to improve the control algorithms of a robot.

In each area mentioned above, researchers strive to develop new concepts and strategies, improve existing ones and improve the interaction between these areas. To do this, criteria for "optimal" performance and ways to optimize design, structure and control of robots must be developed and implemented.