AAAS 2001 Annual Meeting & Science Innovation Exposition

February 15-20, 2001

San Francisco, California

 

This page is composed of distillations of notes I took during the meeting, and was written both to help me retain the experience and to share my learnings with the rest of iterations and the larger Value Web®. Much of the information here is fragmentary, simply thoughts, concepts and impressions based upon what I saw and heard. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

I've been adding links to the material below as I come across relevent articles. While its nothing particularly systematic at this point, it is interesting from the Weak Signal® research perspective.

Jeff

Nanotechnology	Genomics	Intellectual Property
Earth System Science	Staying Afloat in a Sea of Data	Miscellaneous

 

Nanotechnology - A New Frontier for Science and Engineering, Friday, February 16

General Session

Materials Science and Nanotechnology - Sam Stupp, Northwestern University

Doing some really interesting stuff, programing organic materials to form nanostructures. Examples: polar self-assembling mushrooms and twisted nanoribbons. Using strategies analogous to synthetic organic chemistry to discover how to program self-assembly of soft materials. Nanostructures can be useful as templates in materials such as polystyrene (allowing it to be drawn more readily) and CdS. Biological uses include a collagen analogue and a potential material for biomineralization. Discussed nano-implantation, implanting structures in cells.

For more info: S. I. Stupp and P. V. Braun, Science, Volume 277, Number 5330, Issue of 29 Aug 1997, pp. 1242-1248. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/277/5330/1242 (Science subscription required)

Biological Applications of Colloidal Quantum Dots - Paul Alivisatos, U.C. Berkeley

Controlling the shape of the growing materials by altering the mixture of solution/surfactants, the temperature and the growing time, tear drop, arrowhead and tetrapod shaped materials were formed. Many other shapes possible. Cadmium selenide and cobalt.

Nanotech contribution to photovoltaics - using the shaped designed CdSe in the matrix to lower the cost of making reasonably efficient photovoltaic materials.

Semiconductor Self Assembled Quantum Dots and Their Applications to Novel Devices - Pierre Petroff, U.C. Santa Barbara

Physics of self assembly, quantum dot memory devices, quantum dot single photon turnstile emitter (applications in quantum computing and quantum cryptography).

DNA-Fueled Molecular Machines - Bernard Yurke, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies

Using the molecular recognition properties of DNA to construct a nanoscale tool kit. The free energy of hybridization is responsible for the opening and closing of the tweezers. Tweezers have a pulling force of ~ 15 pN (pico newtons). This compares pretty favorably to two other molecular scale motors, myosin and kinesin which have strengths of ~ 2-5 pN. Working on construction of a nano-actuator which will display pushing forces as opposed the the pulling forces of the tweezers.

So far the creations have all been like little stepper motors. Currently working on constructing free running molecular motors.

For more info on the DNA tweezers: http://www.nature.com/nsu/000810/000810-10.html

 

Nanoelectronics Session

Overview of Nanoelectronics and Nanocomputing - James Ellenbogen (session moderator), The MITRE Corporation

Check out the MITRE Nanoelectronics and Nanocomputing Home Page for lots of background information on the field.

Three general challenges for the field:

1. Achieving power gain in molecular circuits

2. Arranging trillions of nanoscale components

3. Molecular-electronic interfaces

Advances in nanoelectronics and nanocomputing will help to make computing a property of matter, much as we currently think of color as a property of matter.

Solid-State Nanoelectronics and Limits to Electronics Miniaturization - James Meindl, Georgia Tech

Fundamental problem for silicon nanoelectronics is that of interconnects. Rapidly approaching the point where dealing with this design issue in the traditional ways will be impossible.

See Limits on Silicon Nanoelectronics for Terascale Integration by Meindl et al., part of a special Computers and Science section in the 14 September 2001 issue of Science.

Devices for Molecular Electronic Computers - Mark Reed, Yale University

 

Carbon Nanotube-Based Nanoelectronics - Phaedon Avouris, T. J. Watson Research Center, IBM

Carbon nanotubes (CN) get their interesting electronic properties from graphite, combined with the spatial constraints of their physical geometry. A CN made of a graphite sheet rolled at 90 degrees to lattice is metallic, while a CN rolled at another angle (45 degrees?) to the lattice is a semi-conductor.

Making field effect transistors with nanotubes. On a normalized basis, SWNTs (single walled nanotubes) compare favorably to Si MOSFIT devices. Constructing a logic gate with CN.

Multi-walled nanotubes can be manipulated ("blown-up"), removing outer layers in designated regions to produce desired electronic device properties.

How can large arrays be constructed?

See article in December 2000 Scientific American, "Nanotubes for Electronics" by Philip G. Collins and Phaedon Avouris

Architectures for Molecular Electronic Computers - Phil Kuekes and Stan Williams, Hewlett-Packard

The Age of Computing has not yet begun!

We should be thinking about how to reinvent the computer, not the transistor.

The Feynman Lectures on Computation was recommended as a great source of information on the field.

In building a successful research group in molecular computing, "cultural" diversity is a must. The group at HP includes people who are experts in computer architecture, solid state, physics, chemistry, information theory, electrical engineering, materials science, etc. Not only do you have to get all these people together, but they have to speak a common language.

After testing the switching characteristics of a good sampling of the Aldrich chemical catalog, Williams claims that "Molecules just want to switch."

ErSi2 wires have been grown by self assembly, same dimensions as carbon nanotubes. Problem is that during the self assembly process, mistakes are made. Task then becomes one of designing a mistake tolerant systems.

Enter the HPL Teramac - Tera as in 10E12, and Mac for Multi Architecture Computer. 220,000 (3%) of its components are defective. (See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5370/1716 and http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/news_archives/teramac.html for info on the Teramac)

Traditional computing paradigm: Design, Build, Compile, Run

New computing paradigm (i.e., Teramac) Build, Measure, Design, Compile, Run

Imperfect design doesn't make economic sense with silicon devices, but the economics become very favorable with molecular components.

For more information on "evolutionary electronics," see the web page of the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex.

Panel Discussion

Question as to what will we do with these great advances in computing power. Building a Turing machine is one possibility. Reed cautions that a Turing machine is not necessarily sentient.

A workable nanoscale wiring solution will address the most fundamental problem with today's architectures. Wiring architecture is essentially a bigger problem than device architecture.

Silicon won't go away any time soon because it remains the best way to get from people scale to molecular scale. Future devices will be hybrids.

Carbon nanotubes are difficult to synthesize in the desired form and then difficult to manipulate en mass. Hence HP's use of ErSi2.

An interesting comparison between steel as the material of the industrial age and silicon as the material of the information age. Large quantities of steel are still used today, and large quantities of silicon will be used tomorrow, even after we've entered the age of molecular computing.

Microelectronics is not a silicon technology it's a lithographic technology. We've got to find away out of Moore's 2nd Law.

All discussions at this session have dealt with electronic components, the question of optical computing was raised. Some intriguing possibilities, but a fundamental constraint is that of size. Photons are much bigger than electrons.

Extrapolating future technologies is always difficult (i.e., the promise of nuclear toasters 50 years ago). There will certainly be some exciting right angles in the future that are impossible to forecast ahead of time.

 

For more information on nanotubes and nanoelectronics, see a couple articles in the March 2001Technology Review:

Wires of Wonder Q&A with Richard E. Smalley and Wiring Up Nanoelectronics By Alan Leo

 

Genome Seminar - Beyond the Human Genome

See the February 16th issues of Science and Nature for publication of the human genome and a variety of great accompanying articles.

General Session - Saturday, 17 February

Whole Genome Sequencing and the Future of Biology - Mark Adams, Celera Genomics

Five people provided the genetic material that was sequenced by Celera.

Roughly 33% of genes cannot be tied to a known function, meaning that we don't know what close to 70% of our genes are doing.

Comparative Genomics: Beyond the Human Genome Sequence - Eric Green, National Human Genome Research Institute

All mammals have roughly the same sized genome.

Targeted sequencing versus global sequencing. Global sequencing is still expensive, thus decisions on what organisms to sequence are important.

Question about doing comparative genomics by sequencing extinct animals. Could be very interesting, but at this time sequencing still requires far more material than is typically available from extinct life.

Understanding Regulatory Regions - Barbara Wold, Caltech

Perhaps it's not so surprising that we (humans) only have 2-3x the number of genes of Drysophila (a fruit fly). More surprising is the small difference in gene numbers between Drysophila and bacteria.

Extending Microarray Technology to Study Protein Function - Gavin Macbeath, Harvard

DNA microarray technologies applied to protein function.

As genomics looks at gene function and gene activity, proteomics looks at protein function and protein activity.

What can we look at on a protein microarray?

1. protein - protein interactions

2. enzyme - substrate interactions

3. protein - small molecule interactions

Currently can place 30,000 - 40,000 protein spots on a single microscope slide.

 

Plenary Lecture, Saturday, 17 February

Consequences of the Human Genome Project for Medicine and Society - Francis Collins, National Center for Human Genome Research and NIH

http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/educationkit

Top 10 Big Surprises of the Human Genome:

10. The genome is lumpy, i.e., the genes are not evenly distributed.

9. The human gene count is much lower than expected.

8. Human genes can make more proteins than most non-human genes, our genes are clever.

7. Human proteins are more architecturally complex than non-human proteins.

6. More than 200 human genes are the result of horizontal transfer from bacteria.

5. Repetitive sequences in genome provides a "fossil record" that looks back 800 million years.

4. The major component of "junk" DNA appears to have an important function.

3. The male mutation rate is ~ 2x the female mutation rate.

2. We are 99.9% genetically identical as a species. There is no scientific basis for racial categories.

1. The genome is telling us more about ourselves than we imagined. Free and unfettered access to this data is important.

 

General Session - Sunday, 18 February

Legislation on Genetic Discrimination - Rep. Louise Slaughter, U.S. House of Representatives (D- N.Y.)

Currently there is no comprehensive protection from genetic discrimination in employment or insurance matters. Slaughter has just reintroduced (for the 5th time) HR 602, a bill which would provide the needed protections.

See an article in the January 2001 Scientific American for more info on genetic discrimination.

DNA Patenting - John Doll, US Patent and Trademark Office

Ground rules for genetic patenting.

Technology Development for Bringing the Genome to Life - Lee Makowski, Argonne National Lab

Genomes to Life Project (www.doegenomestolife.org)

Human Genome Diversity - Aravinda Chakravarti, John Hopkins University School of Medicine

The culture of science is changing and will continue to change.

Genetics is the study of variation. If rare variants are important, resequencing will be important.

Emergence of 6 billion people from ~10,000 people about 100,000 years ago. The SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) frequency spectrum suggests recent, rapid human population explosion, or strong purifying selection.

Studies of small insertions and deletions have been largely ignored in our rush to embrace SNPs. A considerable amount of work will go into attaching meaning to the already identified SNPs.

Other primates show much greater genetic variation than humans do.

Intellectual Property Issues

Defensive Disclosures to Protect and Enhance Your IP - John Thurber, IP.com, Saturday, February 17

IP.com is an aggregator of prior art, a "world publication office," rapidly moving material into the public domain.

What can a small inventor/company do to protect IP? Defensive technical disclosures (DTD) can be an important tool in a comprehensive IP strategy. In situations where a patent is not appropriate, a DTD can be used to establish your presence/position/prior art in the marketplace. Making it much more difficult for others to cut you off through later patent applications. Can prevent patents from issuing against your invention.

Disclosures certainly have an appeal in that they get innovations out into the open where others can use and build upon them, in the spirit of open source. Once you disclose, you have one year to decide whether or not to pursue a patent on material covered in the disclosure.

Technical disclosures and provisional patent applications can do similar things for an IP strategy, but a disclosure is public while a provisional application remains private (for a while).

Trade secrets are difficult to guarantee and difficult to enforce.

IP.com charges $109 per disclosure, irregardless of length. Entire process is electronic, so your documents essentially become public record instantaneously. Physical copies of your disclosure are entered into 2 libraries.

Does publication on the Web constitute public domain in the Court's eyes? Has this been tested?

 

Mathematical Aspects of Intellectual Property Management on the Internet, Saturday, February 17

Leakers Beware: Trace and Revoke Mechanisms for Protecting Information - Moni Naor, The Weizmann Institute of Science

Protecting Your IP: Theoretical Results, Practical Realities - Joe Kilian, Yianilos Labs

Cryptographic Tools and Realistic Models for Digital Rights Management, Tomas Sander, InterTrust STAR Laboratories

IP Protection: Some Primitives and Problems - Ramarantham Venkatesan, Microsoft Research

I went to this session out of a curiosity to find out where the science of IP protection is in relation to the claims that digital technologies, rather than the curse of copyright holders, is about become an all powerful weapon on their behalf. As stated by Lawrence Lessig in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace:

"We are not entering a time when copyright is more threatened than it is in real space. We are instead entering a time when copyright is more effectively protected than at any time since Gutenberg. The power to regulate access to and use of copyrighted material is about to be perfected. Whatever the mavens of the mid-1990s may have thought, cyberspace is about to give holders of copyrighted property the biggest gift of protection they have every known." Page 127.

The speakers in this symposium were talking more about erecting "speed bumps" to slow the pirates down than about building walls to keep them out, let alone the construction of a perfect IP protection strategy. This was reassuring. The speakers did not believe that "fair use" would be radically changed anytime soon.

Despite these assessments, however, as recent events in the Napster case, the emergence of tools such as the "Copyright Agent" from Copyright.com, and a variety of related efforts on the part of Big Media show, Lessig's vision remains a disturbing and not so distant possibility.

For related reading see:

To Protect and Self-Serve, Will we see hard disks with copy-preventing codes?, by Wendy Grossman, Scientific American, March 2001.

Hollywood putting the squeeze on consumers, by Dan Gillmor, San Jose Mercury News, March 4, 2001.

Breaking Microsoft's E-Book Code, by Wade Roush, Technology Reveiw, November 2001.

 

Patenting Genes and Business Methods - Is it Time for Congress to Cut Back Patent Protection?, Monday, February 19

On Business Process Patents and the Law - Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University

Patent law is grounded on the notion of fostering innovation. We should ask, are patents fostering innovation? In some areas patents can be shown to work, in others they can be shown not to work.

Patents are a second best solution, they are a regulation, they create monopolies. Monopolies should be avoided if possible.

Patent law has not asked itself enough hard questions. The notion of what's patentable has greatly expanded during the past 20 years (software and business method patents), yet there has been no systematic effort to examine the impact of these expansions on innovation. Lessig argues that there is no evidence that these expansions are actually fostering innovation, and there is some evidence that these expansions have had a detrimental effect.

Lessig suggests that before the system is allowed to expand into new territory, that there be some showing that the changes will actually have the desired effect. The bar doesn't have to be high, one could simply have to show that it is more likely than not that the changes would have the desired effect.

A View From the Legal Community - Kate H. Murashige, Morrison & Foster, LLP

Patent law was not designed for the current conditions. Patent system was not designed to promote research, so its no surprise that it doesn't.

The current IP mess (including the patenting of discovery tools) is preventing innovation and development of distributed, as well as individual scale work.

What can we do?

1. Clarify what can be patented and how to go about getting the patent.

2. After the patent is awarded, there could be some provisions exempting parties from liability/infringement claims (as was recently enacted in the case of medical devices) as well as compulsory licensing.

Idea of making "reach through" royalties illegal was also discussed.

The USPTO issued new genome patent guidelines earlier this year which set some new utility standards.

A View From the Scientific Community - Brian Wright, U.C. Berkeley

There is a big misconception that universities as a whole make money on patents. Out of hundreds of university patent offices, only a very select few actually come out ahead. Especially when all the hidden costs are included.

Wright presented a very interesting analysis of the effect of patents on the area of seeds and agriculture.

"Tragedy of the Anti-commons" - too many people privatizing, as opposed to everything being held in the commons.

Patent paradox: First generation patents are great, but with each succeeding generation of patents the return becomes less and less as more and more prior art is locked up in patents.

A variety of alternatives to patenting exist. Patents are not the only way to encourage innovation, public research, prizes, self motivation and employee compensation can all be useful in different situations.

What is special about patents? They can be an important incentive for startups, terms are standardized, no public valuation is needed, the innovation is made public, and they exploit private knowledge of value.

For more on patents and agriculture, see a recent article in Issues in Science and Technology by John Barton and Peter Berger.

Also see Copyright and Ownership Issues, from the Staying Afloat in a Sea of Data session.

 

For additional reading on the patenting of genes and business methods, see some recent articles in Technology Review:

Owning the Future: IP's Bleak House, By Seth Shulman, March 2001

The Great Gene Grab, By Antonio Regalado, September/October 2000

The Case for Gene Patents, By William A. Haseltine, September/October 2000

Toward Sharing the Genome, By Seth Shulman, September/October 2000

Also Patents in a genetic age, by Martin Bobrow and Sandy Thomas, Nature, February 15, 2001

 

Earth System Science: The Quiet Revolution, Sunday, February 18

Rhythms, Thresholds and Surprises: The Revolution in Earth System Science - Will Steffan, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Over the past 10 years we've learned that Earth is a single, interconnected system.

Three important points to Steffan's talk: 1. Earth is a single system, 2. biology is an active part of the system, 3. there are significant human impacts on the system. The Earth is a human dominated planet.

The challenge for the next 10 years is so what? We can respond from two different vantage points. 1. Earth is fundamentally robust, or 2. Earth is fundamentally fragile.

The IPCC "business as usual" scenario has CO2 concentrations at 1100 ppm in 2100 (compare to natural variability of 180-280 PPM). What will this mean for the Earth System?

We see over and over again that the Earth System is not linear!

Disappearing Glaciers: Evidence of a Rapidly Changing Earth - Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University

For a recent publication of Thompson and colleagues, see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5486/1916 (subscription to Science required).

Ice record from tropical glaciers in Tibet, Kenya and South America.

On Mt. Kilaminjaro, 33% of the snow has disappeared from the summit since 1989, 82% since 1912. At current rates of melting, by 2015 there will no more glaciers on the mountain.

One Andean glacier being studied by Thompson and his colleagues is currently retreating at an accelerating rate of 155 meters per year. Every single glacier being studied around the world is in retreat, except for a few in Scandanavia, which are believed to be expanding due to a diversion of moisture farther north than "usual," resulting in greater snowfall in these areas.

Glaciers are very important from a hydrological standpoint, so their disappearance will have profound impacts on the affected regions.

(Also see the March 2nd issue of Science for more on this story.)

What's Driving Land-Use Change? Myths and Realities - Emilio F. Moran, Indiana University

Human Landscape Changes - Their Role in Changing Climate - Roger A. Pielke, Sr., Colorado State University

Land use changes will be as important on climate system as greenhouse gases.

To date, we have not had a real Earth System climate model. Global atmospheric circulation is very sensitive to land use changes. The biogeochemical effects of CO2 could be as great as the radiative effects. CO2 can fertilize plant growth, which then has a local cooling impact due to the effect of evapotranspiration.

Climate Forcing, is the Forcing Predictable - Inez Fung, U.C. Berkeley

Marine and land CO2 sinks are very dynamic, they change from year to year. This makes the modeling and the predictions very uncertain.

Panel Discussion:

Dry ecosystems show a greater response to CO2 concentrations than wet ones.

Fung suggested that Biosphere II could be a very useful lab for environmental manipulation experiments.

Fung also makes the point that our current economic system doesn't account for value in an undisturbed rainforest. In fact, the land becomes valuable only after roads have been built and the land deforested.

Staying Afloat in a Sea of Data, Monday, February 19

Pharmaceutical Databases: From Functional Genomics to New Drugs - Roland Stoughton, Rosetta Inpharmatics, Inc.

Stroughton talked mostly about the work just published in Nature, "Experimental annotation of the human genome using microarray technology" (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v409/n6822/full/409922a0_fs.html), rather than the what the title of his talk implies.

Current and Future Plans for the Arabidopsis Information Resource - Seung Yon Rhee, Carnegie Institution of Washington

The full genome of Arabidopsis thaliana (a mustard weed) was published in Nature last December. The availability of this genome data has catalyzed and facilitated a wide variety of research into plant processes.

Rhee talked at length about the Carnegie Institute's efforts to create a useful web resource for this genomic sequence data.

Information management as the bridge between the data and the tools.

Three aspects of the data: 1. data collection method, 2. data association and integration, and 3. data visualization and access.

An important lesson: Keep the database flexible and scalable.

XML tags have been an important element in enabling sharing between databases.

See an article in the February 14th Wall Street Journal, "Software will play key role in future genome research," by Scott Hensley.

Ontology and Databases - William Anderson, Ontology Works

A very interesting talk about the use of ontologies in building scientific databases; turning data into information. Ontologies are a way to attach meaning to items in a database, a computable formalism for data representations. This is a critical concept as databases become more and more complex and important.

Ontologies are currently being used for applications in: e-commerce, information retrieval, enterprise information systems, semantic webs and bioinformatics.

Once you have ontologies you do a variety of useful things, including build sharable databases.

What are the alternatives to ontologies? The answer to this question hasn't been forthcoming.

Yours, Mind and Ours: Sharing Data in Geographically Distributed Collaborations - Stephanie Teasley, University of Michigan

Teasley discussed a variety of online collaboration efforts she has helped to facilitate, mostly involving a Virtual AIDS Research Center. The collaboratory concept involves a variety of interactions, people to people, access to information, and access to facilities.

One of the side benefits included getting the public/patients really interested and involved in research.

Two tools discussed include Microsoft's NetMeeting, and PlaceWare.

The essence of Teasley's presentation was published in Science on June 22, 2001.

Teasley's work was also discussed in a New York Times article on July 5, 2001.

Copyright and Ownership Issues - John Barton, Stanford University

A good general talk on a variety of issues surrounding databases, copyright, patents, and trade secrets.

Databases:

• Enjoy official protection in Europe
• Described by vague terminology, disputes will likely be decided in favor of the database owner.
• 15 years of protection, but this is reset whenever "significant" additions are made.
• American companies don't enjoy the European protections until the US implements Europe like database protections.

Copyright:

• Protects expressions, not facts. This is why databases are a separate category.
• Barton mentioned a very important recent (February) decision stating that building codes could be protected by copyright. (Need to get case reference.) As this decision shows, copyright is being pushed closer and closer to covering facts.

Patents:

• Patents are pending on genomes in machine readable form.
• Patents have been awarded on SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms)
• Patents have been awarded on how specific tools are used.

Trade Secret Protections: (the hard one)

A bit about UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act), and the shrink-wrap terms that accompany most commercial software. See an InfoWorld.com article for some background information on UCITA.

Also see Reforming the Patent System, by John Barton, Science, March 17, 2000. (Science subscription required)

For Barton's thoughts on patents and agriculture, see a recent article in Issues in Science and Technology.

(back to the IP session)

 

Miscellaneous - Science and Policy, Anthropology of Business, the Language Ready Brain, and Robotics

New Tests for Science - Donald Kennedy, Stanford University and Editor in Chief of Science, Saturday, February 17

"Science unread and unseen is nonscience."

Kennedy discussed the ever changing landscape of science, particularly the effect of more and more private dollars going in to fund basic research. Presented the Science perspective on their controversial decision to publish the Celera genome data without some of the usual guarantees of free access to the data for all users.

Also briefly touched on the relationship between earth system science and public policy.

Uncommon Knowledge to Common Ground: A New Frontier for Scientific and Technological Literacy - Rita Colwell, NSF, Sunday, February 18

Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel mentioned as an important book for demonstrating the connections between science and society.

US Commission on National Security in the 21st Century has recently released a report highlighting the fact that inadequacies in research and education pose a severe problem and a challenge to our national security.

Interface between science and society in areas of biotech, infotech and nanotech. (I was disappointed that Colwell equates MEMS with nanotech, not a good sign.)

Dialogue with the public is one of the responsibilities of a scientist.

 

Anthropology of Business - Karen Stephenson, NetForm and the Anderson School of Management, UCLA, Friday, February 16

Human capital, scalable scientific principles, organizational networks, restructuring, reorganizations, acquisitions, ... .

How does one become aware of buried capital? Better environments and intellectual capital metrics.

"Fraud is simply innovation gone too far."

Hierarchies are primal, derive from networks. Stephenson talked a lot about "healthy hierarchies."

Components of the Network Genome: Hubs, Gatekeepers and Pulsetakers.

A pretty unimpressive and uninspiring presentation ...

 

Language Emergence in a Language Ready Brain - Judy Kegl, University of Southern Main, Friday, February 16

A very interesting presentation on the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language. The socio -political situation in Nicaragua was such that the deaf population was extremely isolated prior to the early 1980s. During this time the first deaf schools were founded, bringing together deaf individuals who previously might not have known a single other deaf person. Kegl and colleagues were in the right place at the right time to witness and document the emergence of a true language from a non language (gestures). A distinction between language emergence and language acquisition. After one generation, Nicaraguan Sign Language is as linguistically complex as American Sign Language, which emerged over 120 years ago. These and other observations have led Kegl to conclude that language is hard wired in our brains.

See a recent article in Science about the creation of Nicaraguan Sign Language and the debate it has fueled within the linguistics community.

 

Rethinking Robotics: A Modular Reconfigurable Approach - Mark Yim, Xerox PARC

Yim described his modular, reconfigurable approach to robotics. The idea is that simple, self reconfigurable modules can be rearranged into many forms. Distributed intelligence.

The goal is to create robots with increased robustness, increased versatility, and increased value.

The concept of "Smart Matter," lying at the intersection of actuators, sensors and computation:

Currently working on a 200 module polybot.

Future work includes Proteo, Digital Clay, and Telecubes.