Ancient Technology

We like to think of technological innovation as a gradual, steady, and fairly linear process. However, this is not necessarily the case. Archaeological excavations throughout the world reveal that, once in a while, ancient civilizations developed inventions that were decades if not centuries ahead of their time.

It is sometimes said that these inventions rival or outmatch modern science. This, too, is a misconception. While many ancient super technologies — from Roman concrete to Damascus steel — were once lost, they have since been recreated by present-day researchers. Usually, any difficulty in recreating them stems from the lack of original instruction rather than an inability to comprehend the invention itself.

Equally erroneous is the notion that ancient civilizations stumbled upon these technologies by accident, or that they were designed by idiosyncratic geniuses who were not representative of their day and age. Although many inventors mentioned in this article were indeed considered geniuses, they cannot and should not be separated from their surroundings. Their work is not anachronistic, but a testament to the ingenuity and scientific potential of their respective civilizations.

Greek fire: flames that don’t go out
When the Muslim fleet of the Umayyad Caliphate attempted to lay siege to the Byzantine city of Constantinople in 674, their ships were doused in flames. At first, the Muslims were not alarmed; fire was often used in naval warfare and could be put out easily with cloth, dirt, or water. This, however, was no ordinary fire. Once ignited, it could not be extinguished, and after the entire fleet had burned down, even the sea itself was set ablaze.

The Umayyad Caliphate met its doom at the hands of a new military invention known as Greek fire, Roman fire, liquid fire, or sea fire, among many other names. No recipe survives, but historians speculate it might have involved petroleum, sulfur, or gunpowder. Of the three, petroleum seems the likeliest candidate, as gunpowder didn’t become readily available in Asia Minor until the 14th century, and sulfur lacked the destructive power described by Arab observers.   READ MORE...              

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Artist

 

Faster The Speed of Light

With a grant from Independent Research Fund Denmark, a team of researchers and experts from industry and Aarhus University will try to solve the fundamental problem that the speed of light simply is not fast enough for the Internet of Skills.

Human skills will be digitalized and democratized in the future through the Internet of Skills: a future internet that will allow you to utilize robot technology and haptic feedback to transmit expertise in real-time, regardless of where you are or where the problem to be solved is.

Consider a highly specialized surgeon performing a tele-surgery on a patient thousands of kilometers away in which, despite the fact that a robot is using the scalpel, the operation seems as real to the surgeon as if she were using the scalpel with her own hands.

Physically impossible
This vision, however, is not feasible today. This is due to the fact that reproducing the sensation of touch utilizing forces, vibrations, or movements on the user, and thus ‘fooling’ the skin and body into thinking that what we are feeling in the virtual world is genuine, demands a network with sub-millisecond latency. 

Networks with ultra-low latency and ultra-high bandwidth, in which operation command and haptic feedback occur end-to-end with a maximum delay of one-thousandth of a second.

Such extremely low latency limits the maximum communication distance to only 150 km, even under ideal conditions. Light cannot travel any further when information has to move backwards and forwards between the human operator and remote slave robot within the latency bound.

“Enabling real-time transmission of haptic sensation over the Internet will potentially allow diverse physical operations without humans being physically present. This will pave the way towards the envisioned Internet of Skills which will better disperse and democratize skills and expertise among people, regardless of gender, age, and other diversities. 

This can reduce the amount of travel and associated CO2 emission. However, the required level of immersion is unattainable over long distances at this stage. Hence, novel solutions are needed to address the challenges,” says Associate Professor Qi Zhang from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Aarhus University.  READ MORE...

Chair/Table

 

Going Downhill

MInd Altering Parasite

The brain-hijacking parasite Toxoplasma gondii seems to be almost everywhere. The microscopic invader is thought to infect up to 50 percent of people, and a range of studies suggests it may alter human behavior, in addition to that of many other animals.

The parasite has been linked with a large range of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia and psychotic episodes, and scientists keep uncovering more mysterious effects that may result from infection.

In one such new study, researchers found that men and women infected by the parasite ended up being rated as more attractive and healthier-looking than non-infected individuals.

On the face of it, that might sound strange and unlikely. But hypothetically speaking, the phenomenon could make sense from an evolutionary biology standpoint, scientists say.  READ MORE...