reach magazine issue #1

NEED A VACATION? Space could be your next destination.

BOOSTING THE BRAINHow prodigies and autism may hold the key to

increased cerebral power.

EXTINCT SPECIESREBIRTH OF

REACHVol I Issue I January 2013

Taking science further MAGAZINE

PG. 12

PG. 27PG. 18

Bringing back prehistoric creatures

Premiere EDITIONTELEPORTATIONHow long until we can beam ourselves to work?

PG. 8

RISE OF ROBOTSWhat’s next in artificial intelligence?

PG. 4

THE

EXTINCT

Hello and welcome to the brand new REACH Magazine!

We take you where science fiction stops and real science begins. Where real-world researchers are developing technologies not too different from what you have seen on the big screen. Hold on tight, you are about to embark on a ride to the cutting edge of the most intriguing research on the planet.

Our writers Akihiko Tse, Georgia Williams, Leigh Cavanaugh, Shantal Otchere and Nino Meese-Tamuri have spared no effort to track down some of the world’s leading scientists and tapped their minds to give you a front row seat to what our near future may hold in store. Feel free to bring your own popcorn.

EDITORIAL

Staff Members

NinoMeese-Tamuri

GeorgiaWilliams

AkihikoTse

LeighCavanaugh

ShantalOtchere

VOLUME 01 - ISSUE 01 - JANUARY 2013

Contact UsNINO: [email protected]

GEORGIA: [email protected]

AKIHIKO: [email protected]

LEIGH: [email protected]

SHANTAL: [email protected]

GENERAL: [email protected]

WEBSITE: http://www.thereachmag.com/

TWITTER: @TheREACHmag

FACEBOOK: TheREACHmag

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REACH January 2013

January 2013 REACH3

www.thereachmag.com TABLE OF CONTENTS

REACHSCIENCE FICTION TO REALITY

Setting up colonies in space pg. 6

UNDER THE RADAR

HOW FAR WE’VE COME

Beam me up, Scotty pg. 8

How close are we to living on other planets? Where could we go and how would we survive? REACH looks into the realities of humans inhabiting other planets, besides Earth.

Teleportation is no longer a concept reserved for Star Trek. Researchers at Canada’s Institute of Quantum Computing are hoping to be the first to beam a photon to space.

Leave a message after the honk pg. 22

In-car voice recognition technology aims to keep drivers’ eyes fixed on the road. But how effective is it in reducing distraction-related accidents?

Genes in prodigies linked to autism pg. 27

How much of our brain do we really use? Can discovering the secrets of prodigies and understandng the link to autism help researchers find the key to unlocking the brain’s true potential?

Photo highlights from national science and technology week. pg. 25

Georgia Williams // REACH

Q & AExclusive interview with Vint Cerf pg. 16

To infinity and beyond pg. 18Toursim is about to conquer the final frontier - space. With the construction of the world’s first spaceport nearly complete, tourists prepare to go where no tourist has gone before.

Is Jurassic Park becoming reality? New finds in Siberia raise hopes to bring back extinct species like the mammoth. Will other species get a second chance at life as well?

Back from the dead pg. 12

The future of robotics pg. 4 Blessing or curse? As machines become increasingly more intelligent, is our fear of a robot revolution justified?

Robots: we have a love-hate relationship with these complex feats of ingenuity and design. We love to imagine the leisure we will enjoy once robots take over our dreaded daily chores. At the same time, we do not hesitate to use these mysterious

creations as villains in literature and film. For example, in 1927, Fritz Lang used a female robot as an evil replica of the lead actress to create chaos in the dystopian society he depicted in his revolutionary motion picture “Metropolis”. And not much has changed since then.

The 1999 blockbuster movie franchise “The Matrix” further capitalized on society’s widespread fear of the unknown to create a world where humans were not only physically enslaved by machines and artificial intelligences, but mankind was also abused mentally through a virtual world that robots literally had us plugged into.

While these concepts may fill movie theatres, current robotics researchers are quick to point out the

flaws in these scenarios. “There is still a very big gap between what we read

in books and see in movies and what we have in the real world. People should not forget about this gap,” said Reza Emami, a senior lecturer at the University of Toronto and specialist in intelligent control and mechatronics robotics.

The evolution of robotics is still in its infancy, but it is already clear from ongoing research that robots are more likely to assist humans rather than take over the world.

“The community has adopted the modest goal of designing robots that can function in dangerous and dirty environments where it is not safe or desirable to operate for humans,” said Emami.

The robotics engineer has helped design robot controllers. These special controllers “can handle uncertainties and some of these controllers will make robots perform to a certain limited level like a human being” according to Emami.

A selection of robotics labs at the Univeristy of Toronto is currently working on pet robots. These creatures will have features similar to cats and dogs and

are designed to replicate animals in order to facilitate human attachment. They are ultimately intended to provide companionship for patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities where real animals are prohibited.

Hollywood and our society as a whole still havs reservations on what the future of robotics may hold.

“We are still at a very rudimentary stage and it will take years of development before robots are interacting with people in medical environments,” said Emami. “For the next 25 to 30 years we will still see robots as machines not beings, therefore any emotional expression would be only in science fiction and Hollywood movies.”

Current projects that are in the development stages at the University of Toronto and other robotics labs across the globe include robots that will provide entertainment for those in nursing homes and hospitals, as well as robots that can monitor a patient’s food intake, vital signs and encourage patients to finish meals and activities.

American novelist and theorist Ray Kurzweil predicted that 2045 will be the point when artificial

Robotics

Morio // COURTESY

Georgia WilliamsR

The fu ture of

REACH January 2013 4

SCIENCE FICTION TO REALITY www.thereachmag.com

Is a robot revolution imminent? Will we soon be overtaken by artificial intelligence?

intelligence will surpass our own. He dubbed this critical moment in human history the point of singularity after which nothing will be the same.

Emami on the other hand is not confident in the theory of singularity. He said that Kurzweil would rely on the technological capabilities of today and believed we will surpass those technologies very soon.

He also said that the term intelligence is subjective so whether a robot could ever attain human intelligence would vary greatly depending on the gauge being used to measure intelligence.

The knowledge that robots are becoming more advanced propels the average science fiction film or novel.

“The recurring correlation between robots and destruction of mankind is definitely linked to our survival instincts,” stated Emami. “We have a fear of being removed or destroyed from the universe so we are always looking to defend ourselves. It is a natural reaction to any thought or dream that something will eventually become like us.”

Andrew Goldenberg, University of Toronto professor for robotics and automation, is adamant that the focus of future robotic endeavours would need to have an economic viability that can surpass short-term projections and eventually become consumer driven.

“To date, robots have been used in the car industry for over 25 years and that is good economics. Robots perform welding, assembly, quality control and this is an industry that is profitable,” said Goldenberg.

Another growing industry using robotics is the security sector.

“Two companies in the US have made money by providing these robots to the military to detect and detonate bombs. These were good times economically for these robotics companies until the war ended. Now there is a bit of backlash in the sense that the military doesn’t plan to buy as many as it did before resulting in a downturn in that part of the industry,” noted Goldenberg .

Goldenberg said true profitability for robotics will not occur until robots are produced on a large scale for the general public.

“[It should be] something similar to the laptop and the cell phone. We are attempting to address that part, but it is a long road. Eventually, there will be domestic products for everyday use.”

Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner, was released in 2002. It is one example of the types of products that are being developed with profits in mind.

Goldenberg said that singularity is not only a theory, but a plausible scenario in the future of robotics.

“The issue to merge machines, the mechanical and electronical, with artificial intelligence, which is mostly

software, and create a new entity is definitely present. When will we see something that is autonomous and able to do things without being instructed? I would give that type of machinery until 2025 or even earlier,” said Goldenberg.

When speculating about robotics and artificial intelligence, the possibilities are virtually endless. However, like with any industry or service that relies heavily on public interaction, regulations will be a necessity to ensure safety and accountability.

“Owning an intelligent robot will be no less demanding than owning a dog.,” said Goldenberg. “Someone who owns a dog needs to make sure the dog does not bite anyone. There has to be some sort of regulation.”

He further speculated that in five to seven years we will go shopping with our robots which will carry and load our purchases for us.

The concept of creating robots that are not only functional, but ultimately profitable is a recurring theme among robotic engineers and enthusiasts. Innovation Nation is a yearly competition and conference held by the Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation in Hamiliton, Ontario. The two day conference features a robotics competition where high school and university robotic engineers create and submit a functional robot or robotic tool.

“The first year in the high school category, two students from Oakville created a wand that was able to help the blind navigate while providing feedback on obstacles in their path and whether or not they are facing a decline or incline in front of them,” said Debra Vivian, director of communications for the Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation. “It is inspiring to see young people working with such enthusiasm.”

Although the conference will only be celebrating its third anniversary in July 2013, it is already garnering critical acclaim from the industry. In its first year, students

from Laurentian University in north eastern Ontario took home the top university prize for their rover fit for space exploration. The team’s robot also won a NASA competition for robotics.

The conference’s founder and CEO Mehran Anvari is a robotics celebrity in his own right. Anvari is a pioneer of robotic surgery in Canada. In 2003, he performed the world’s first telerobotic surgery using robotic tools at one hospital while being physically located in another hospital over 600km away.

“One of the things that drives him is the desire to provide more access to the very latest techniques and technologies to people across Canada. That is why he is attempting to create these new tools that will help provide better access to healthcare and minimize trauma for patients,” said Vivian.

In 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson competed against two of Jeopardy’s all-time high scoring human participants and beat them. Watson was able to process questions and through probability computations was able to pick the most likely answer from its extensive virtual memory.

Whether in healthcare, security, or manufacturing, robotics is flourishing. In 2012, team from the Korean

Institute of Science and Technology unveiled a robot able to chop, mix and toss

a salad. While it looks more like Johnny Five from

Short Circuit than the cyborgs from

Terminator, the achievement is impressive. “There is still

a very big gap

between what we read in books and

see in movies and

what we have in the real world.

January 2013 REACH5

www.thereachmag.com SCIENCE FICTION TO REALITY

Cre

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// C

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- Reza Emami

Are scientists going to build coloniesin space?

>> ABOVE: A LIFE-SIZE MODEL OF THE LATEST MARS ROVER CURIOSITY. ITS MISSION ON THE RED PLANET IS TO FIND HABITABLE ENVIRONMENTS AND TO SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF LIFE.

>> LEFT: THIS MINIATURE MODEL SHOWS WHAT A FUTURE MOON BASE MIGHT LOOK LIKE. IT IS A PART OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY’S “BEYOND PLANET EARTH” EXHIBIT.

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger was ruling over California and creating scandals for his inability to enforce appropriate boundaries with the help, Schwarzenegger was moonlighting in 1990’s

Total Recall as a double agent to save the human settlers of Mars from certain death.

More recently, the movie Prometheus showed audiences a more horrifying tale of living life on another planet, with advanced visual effects and more timely visions of futuristic technology. Unlike the red-light-district-housing bio-dome of Total Recall, only highly trained researchers inhabited the

alien planet of Prometheus. Even in the year 2089, researchers in the movie are required to wear protective space gear, much like astronauts of today, in order to explore the planet outside of their spaceship.

But how close are we to needing a real Arnold-like figure to protect a real human colony on Mars?

In terms of colonizing another planet,

We have the ability to build permanent bases on Mars. So what’s keeping us from doing it?



Shantal OtchereR

SETTING UP COLONIES

SPACEin

Shantal Otchere// REACH

Shantal Otchere // REACH

researchers say: “so close, yet so far away”. NASA planetary scientist Dr. Chris McKay is currently working with a team of 400 researchers on the latest rover mission Curiosity. McKay said the prospect of space colonization has reached the point of achievability.

“I think the outlook is good. As the International Space Station matures, countries will look beyond towards the establishment of scientific research bases on other worlds,” said McKay. “The development of a strong commercial launch capability will support this effort by allowing NASA and other space agencies to focus on more distant goals.”

McKay has been outspoken in his support for establishing permanent research bases on the Moon or planets like Mars. In 2009, McKay made a detailed presentation at the Mars Society Conference about his plans for the future of space exploration and included options to support long-

term research on other planets.McKay said such facilities

would be necessary for three reasons: learning to live for

an extended period of time on another world, assessing the prospects for terraforming Mars, and supporting planetary science research and the search for life.

Before colonies in space can be established, more obstacles have to be overcome before they become a viable option. McKay said that even if money were no factor, a whole set of other difficulties to sustain life on alien worlds would need to be considered. “We face several challenges,”

said McKay. “These include long-term biological life support systems (biospheres),

maintenance of complex space equipment (space suits) without the support of Earth infrastructure, and self-sufficient energy systems for the base.”

Other experts agree that colonizing space can be done. As University of Toronto researcher Sabine Stanley said: “Anything is possible with enough money, research, and resources.”

But which planet would be the best choice?

According to Stanley, the Moon’s relatively close distance makes it the most logical option to establish humanity’s first extraterrestrial colony.

“You want to go somewhere nearby, like the Moon, where you can come back to Earth and pick up resources if you need them,” said Stanley.

Of course, even this option does not come without its own set of challenges. Stanley said that although the Moon is believed to have a supply of water, retaining it on the surface will be difficult. The Moon’s lack of atmospheric insulation as on Earth means that the Sun can easily vaporize the planet’s water supply and the low gravity will not be able to prevent this water vapour from being lost into space.

Ultimately, it appears as if we can live in space and that we have viable options. However,

do not grab for your space suits just yet. As long as money will be a finite resource, those plans of building a house in E.T’s backyard may have to wait.

>> A MODEL OF TWIN ROVERS “SPIRIT” AND “OPPORTUNITY” (2004) WHOSE TASK IT WAS TO LOOK FOR TRACES OF WATER ON MARS

>> A MAJOR CHALLENGE TO ASUSTAINABLE LIFE ON MARS OR THE MOON WILL BE THEIR LACK OF RESOURCES. TERRAFORMING WOULD BE REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN A PERMANENT RESEARCH BASE ON AN ALIEN PLANET.

January 2013 REACH7


The Ontario Science Centre’s exhibit “Beyond Planet Earth” offered Canadians a first-hand look at the possible future of space exploration.



R

You probably know the feeling of early morning adrenaline flooding your system as you realize that that last snooze-button press was definitely a bad idea: as you groggily squint at the alarm clock, you slowly make sense of

the combination of numbers telling you it’s 8:55 a.m. Instantly, terror rushes through your body turning you into a frenzied headless chicken with an acute form of Tourettes as you remind yourself that you should be at work across town in less than five minutes! Well, what if even in such a dire situation you could calmly get dressed and have a quick bite to eat before going to work? What if you would not have to worry about traffic jams and parking spaces? What if you would only had to walk into a special room in your house, press a big red button and voilà...you are at work a few dozen miles away?

Ever since good old Scotty from Star Trek conveniently beamed crew members down to the surface of planets or onto other spaceships, teleportation has been the holy grail of transportation technologies. But it is all just a bunch of science fiction nonsense, right?

As it turns out, that kind of ‘get out of here’ disbelief was precisely the overwhelming sentiment across the scientific community during the majority of the 20th century. However, in 1993, physicist Charles Bennett and his team (including Gilles Brassard from the University of Montreal and two other Canadian researchers) proved that teleportation is - at least in principle - scientifically sound. Since then, many experiments were able to teleport particles of light called photons across an increasingly large distance. The current speed of progress in teleportation technology has picked up so much in fact that the year 2012 saw the teleportation distance record smashed twice. In

the late summer of 2012, the champagne from the celebrations of a distance record of 97 kilometres across a lake in China had not yet dried when an international team from Vienna stunned the scientific community by topping it with their own 143 kilometre teleportation through free space between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife.

“I remember it was quite exciting when my colleagues told me it finally worked out,” said theoretical analyst Johannes Kofler from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany. “They tried the experiment already a year earlier, but the weather conditions were just too bad. Even the second time, it took many days until the conditions were good enough. It still took over six hours to get the necessary 605 events to show that quantum teleportation really was achieved.”

Space nations of the world, start your engines!

Motivated by these successes, researchers are now aiming for the stars...

“The goal is now to reach a satellite,” said professor Thomas Jennewein from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) in Waterloo,



About two decades ago, teleportation only existed in the minds of

science fiction authors and their loyal followers. Today, teleportation is reality. So much so in fact, that

teleportation is at the root of a new space race. Who will be the first to beam up their photon into orbit?

Nino Meese-TamuriR

BeamME UP,

SCOTTY>> PREPARING FOR TELEPORTATION: THE GREEN TRACKING LASER ON LA PALMA KEEPS CONTACT WITH THE RECEIVER STATION ON TENERIFE. IN 2012, PHYSICISTS BEAMED PHOTONS BETWEEN THE TWO ISLANDS.

IQC // COURTESY

Ontario. Jennewein leads the Canadian effort to be the first nation to achieve a teleportation link beaming a photon to a satellite in Earth’s orbit.

The pace of development, deployment speed and flexibility have been key parts of the Canadian team’s philosophy.

“The main goal of the mission was always low cost and fast speed,” said Jennewein. “Space experiments are generally complicated and require a lot of lead time. Our goal was to find a satellite for quantum communication that was as simple as possible.”

This emphasis on simplicity also committed the team to teleport from the ground to the satellite rather than the other way around. The satellite will be equipped with the much simpler photon detector and receiver while the more complicated and expensive photon sources and emitters will stay on the ground. However, this configuration is far from a painful compromise.

“As it turns out, the quantum sources are also the more interesting part since they still undergo a lot of technical evolution at the moment. Almost every week, there is a new type of photon source discovered,” said Jennewein.

This means the system remains easily upgradeable on the sender side making it more future-proof.

The satellite, which will be entirely Canadian built, is currently waiting for the final approval by the Canadian Space Agency, but could launch into orbit in as early as three to five years according to Jennewein.

The Canadians are not alone, though. Every major nation on Earth with even the most remote interest in space has - in one way or another - joined a real space race. The ranks of Canada’s rivals swell quickly as teams from Europe, China, and even Singapore join the start line - all with their own satellite projects. With the exception of Canada, every other nation chose to put the quantum sources into space and teleport down to a ground station.

China appears particularly invested in a teleportation link to space.

“They are apparently putting a lot of emphasis in these kind of missions. I have heard that they are considering several generations of increasingly complex satellites,” said Jennewein.

One notable absence from the starting grid so far, though, is the United States. However,

the mere fact that the U.S. keeps a tight lid on its teleportation aspirations does not mean the “Stars and Stripes” nation is going to remain on the sidelines.

“The U.S. has been looking into a satellite for a long time. They have been talking about it for at

least 15 years,” said Jennewein. “They apparently have designed a system for quantum key distribution and have also done experiments outside in free space, but it is not clear when such a mission will go up or if it even will go up at all.”

Other nations like Australia and Japan have also expressed great interest in the technology. While Japan may end up launching its own mission, Australia has been in talks with Canada to become a partner in its project.

“We see the satellite as a shared resource for the science community so that participating partners could use the satellite while it passes over their location,” said

Jennewein. “We have had a first informal round of discussion with Australia. This would be very interesting for us, because doing a quantum transmission from North America to Australia would be a truly global distance. It doesn’t get much farther than that.”

Beam my photon up, Scotty

So, why is reaching space so attractive for the wannabe Scottys out there?

To say it in the words of Martin Laforest, Scientific Outreach Manager at IQC:

“If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

It is the emptiness of space that makes it a teleporter’s dream.

At first glance, this seems ironic since the technology’s biggest advantage is precisely that it really does not matter what lies in between point A and B. It could be a kilometre-thick wall of “

January 2013 REACH9


IQC // COURTESY

>> MODEL OF THE CANADIAN TELEPORTATION SATELLLITE

If you can make it

there, you can make it anywhere.

- Martin Laforest

solid steel or astronomical distances of millions of kilometers separating the two. A teleported object is not really travelling in the sense that it crosses a given distance at a given speed. To an outside observer, it just disappears on one end and instantaneously reappears on the other with no apparent connection in between.

It is important to note, though, that teleportation does not transport masses such as people or objects themselves. Instead, it transfers information about these bodies. In that regard, teleportation is like a next generation version of a fax machine. In the case of a fax machine, a document is first scanned and transformed into pure data. The data is then sent through the phone line to another fax machine which, based on the data, prints out a copy of the original document. The paper itself never travelled, but its content did.

Teleportation follows a similar approach. The entire process of scanning, transmitting and printing is taken care of through the exploitation of a weird, but very real quantum phenomenon: quantum entanglement. Einstein famously described this effect as a “spooky action at a distance”. An entangled pair of particles will share a “magic connection” so that each twin will always know what state the other one is in. If one changes, the other will instantly do the same. This bond stays intact even as the two twins are separated over an arbitrary distance. Distance has no effect on the strength of this connection.

If we wanted to teleport a photon Carl from a lab on La Palma to a lab on Tenerife, we would need to introduce him to Alice, a photon which shares a “magic connection” with its entangled twin Barbara on Tenerife. This introduction, known as a Bell state measurement, transfers all of Carl’s quantum information onto Alice. Since Barbara is entangled with Alice, she will instantly “feel” the change in Alice’s state and will match the change herself. Barbara now contains all of Carl’s initial quantum information and in quantum physics an object that has Carl’s quantum information is the same as being Carl himself. To be sure we get Carl out on the other end rather than some rearranged version of him, it is also critical that La Palma gives Tenerife a call and tells the researchers the result of the original Bell state measurement. Using that additional information, the researchers can perform minor adjustments to the new Carl and complete the process. Carl has been successfully teleported to Tenerife.

So with Carl being on Tenerife who is left on La Palma? The short answer is: nobody. Quantum physics does not allow a copy of Carl to be left on La Palma. The so called “no cloning

principle” demands that both Carl and Alice be destroyed in the process. Each teleportation run therefore uses up entanglement so that it has to be continuously replenished.

It is this set up process of sharing the entanglement that is vulnerable to interference from our atmosphere. If the lab on La Palma generates an entangled photon pair, it will need to keep one and shoot the other over to the lab on Tenerife where it is caught and prepped for teleportation. Storage of entangled photons is hard and the photons have to be used straight away before the entanglement becomes unstable. Researchers across the world are feverishly working to develop better quantum memory to stabilize the entanglement for longer periods of time. At the moment, though, these quantum memories barely last a second and entanglement has to be shared immediately before the experiment. Since particles of light are used to share the entanglement, they can be shot over at the speed of light using a weak laser. However, the photons will have to successfully avoid the swarm of particles in between which make up our atmosphere. The longer the distance, the more of the atmospheric soup will have to be avoided.

“We lose many photons in the atmosphere,” said IQC assistant professor Vadim Makarov. “In the Canary Islands, only about one in a thousand photons made it to Tenerife.”

It is a relief to the physicists then that after

the Canary Islands experiment, the worst seems behind them.

“In terms of loss, it will be easier than what we have done [in the Canary Islands] because the atmospheric layer is much thinner from the satellite to the ground station than from ground station to ground station,” said quantum researcher Xiaosong Ma from Yale University.

However, switching the target from a stationary island to a fast moving satellite makes it much harder to accurately aim the laser over such large distances.

“The sender will have to be tracked by the receiver all the time. Otherwise, you will end up sending the beam to the wrong location and the loss will be infinite,” said Ma. “For satellites, this will be much more difficult than for what we have done [at ground level].”

However, Ma is confident that existing tracking technology should be able to ensure that we don’t just aimlessly spray the sky with salvos of entangled photons.

“This is a mature technology and will only have to be integrated into the quantum teleportation experiments,” said Ma.

The different satellite projects differ in their approach, but all have the same goal: worldwide quantum key distribution via teleportation to enable global, perfectly secure communication.

Traditional encryption relies on keys that are essentially very difficult mathematical problems that take even the fastest computers a long time to crack. But the point is that they can still be cracked allowing unauthorized third parties to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Encryption through quantum keys on the other hand is fundamentally uncrackable. Rather than just breaking a very difficult math problem, a spy trying to listen in to a quantum encrypted conversation would have to find a way to break the laws of physics instead.

Any attempt to spy on a conversation secured through entanglement would destroy the “magic connection” and expose the intrusion. Unless a way can be found to measure entanglement without “looking”, quantum cryptography will be a nightmare for spy agencies worldwide.

Adding some meat to the equation

Now we have proven that we can teleport our photon Carl from one island to another and are working to teleport it to a satellite in Earth’s orbit. But what about teleporting a real Carl made out of flesh and bones? Can teleportation be the solution to frustrating rush hour traffic jams?



Encryption through quantum keys on

the other hand is fundamentally

uncrackable. Rather than just breaking a very

difficult math problem, a spy trying to listen in

to a quantum encrypted conversation would have

to find a way to break the laws of physics

instead.

Moving from relatively simple particles of light to much more complex objects or even living humans is a huge leap and bears some major technical difficulties – but surprisingly it is not impossible.

“Quantum mechanics as we know it today does not put any fundamental restrictions on this kind of technology,” said Kofler. “But it is quite clear that teleporting such a complex thing as a human is still very far in the future.”

This complexity is proving to be difficult to deal with at every step of the process. Just like a traditional fax machine, teleportation requires a compatible template to be already present at the start and finish line.

“We would have to create blobs of entangled matter at both locations and they would have to be made up of the same molecules or atoms that a person is made up of,” said Jennewein. “In fact, the entangled blob would essentially be all possible persons at the same time.”

Similarly to the photon teleportation, the real

Carl would be absorbed in this blob of matter, transfer all his information onto it and die in the process. The result of the Bell state measurement, a huge amount of data, would then have to be sent via internet to the receiver where researchers can use that information to pick out the right person from the blob and let a new Carl pop out.

“This could work in principal, but we do not yet know how to create these entangled blobs of matter which could be used for teleportation,” said Jennewein. “On the other hand, I must say that it is coming along. People have already teleported states of atoms and molecules from one place to another.”

Kofler imagines that we may already have a good candidate for such a macroscopic template: a small diamond.

“A diamond has a perfect structure. If you put another diamond of same size and shape in the other lab, the template would be simple,” said Kofler. “Then you only have to transmit the quantum information in the individual electrons and nuclei.”

A possible next step could be that of a bacterium. “A bacterium is already very complex. It has

many molecules, a DNA ring, and should have at least 1010 atoms,” said Kofler. “That’s a huge jump.”

Strangely, the fact that it is a living organism might not be a big problem.

“I don’t think it will be an issue because it is living,” said Kofler. “Living just means that the information is distributed in a special way with large complexity and dynamics, but there is no fundamental difference.”

Since its first experimental success in 1997, teleportation research has focused on improving reliability, speed and distance for communication, but Kofler believes that “it is only a matter of time before people will attempt teleportation of more and more macroscopic objects.”

While we wait for the technology to match our Star Trek spoiled expectations, there may only be one solution to a stressful morning: setting the alarm earlier.

>> SUPERVISOR DR. THOMAS JENNEWEIN POSES NEXT TO A MODEL OF THE CANADIAN TELEPORTATION SATELLITE.

IQC // COURTESY

January 2013 REACH11


R



Nino Meese-Tamuri // REACH

Back FROM THE

DEADAre we headed towards a

real Jurassic Park?



Nino Meese-TamuriR

The thawing glaciers of the world are laying their treasures bare. In 2012 alone, two well preserved mammoths were found in Siberia. The quality of the most recent find is so high that geneticists are cautiously optimistic of briniging them back to life using cloning.

Imagine the following scenario: Covered in a cozy blanket, you are comfortably huddled up in your armchair on a stormy evening. Outside, the cold rain whips furiously against the windows. Lightning and thunder provide for dramatic emphasis. In the comfort of your home, you enjoy a captivating new book with a cup of hot tea to keep you warm. As you reach out for another sip, you notice that ripples started forming in your cup. Curiously, you notice that the ripples appear to be forming with a strikingly distinct and quickening rhythm. As the shaking gets more and more violent, you turn back to face your window. A giant shadow seems to have just passed your house heading down the street. You immediately remember the famous scene from the blockbuster hit Jurassic Park, but you try to convince yourself that the lightning, thunder and your imagination must have conspired together to play tricks on you.

After all, dinosaurs are extinct and extinct animals don’t roam your quiet suburb neighbourhood at night like in a bad zombie T-Rex movie. You turn back to your book, but you can’t shake off the desire to know what produced that

enormous shape you just saw. You decide to turn on the TV. Something this huge walking around in the neighbourhood must have been noticed by the main stream media. They are probably all over this. You switch to your favourite news channel and find shaky helicopter footage and searchlights scanning the streets. The headline reads “World’s only mammoth escapes from captivity into neighbourhood streets”. Is this really happening? An extinct species like the mammoth is back from the grave and taking a stroll on your street? Well, for now your street is safe from prehistoric mammals, but Korean and Japanese scientists are hard at work to make a real-life Jurassic Park a possibility.

A very special findIn September 2012, an international group of

archeologists stumbled upon something very special about 6 metres deep in the permafrost of Russia’s Yakutia region on the arctic coast: a well preserved specimen of a woolly mammoth complete with fur, bones and bone marrow. Thanks to the permanent deep freeze conditions in Siberia, scientists are cautiously

optimistic that living cells could have survived the hundreds of thousands of

years since the animal’s death.“All we need for cloning is one living cell so that it can

reproduce autonomously,” said expedition leader Semyon Grigoryev from Russia’s North-East Federal University. “Then it will be no problem for us to multiply them to tens of thousands of

cells.”The expedition was

able to confirm the find of intact mammoth cells, but

researchers will require more detailed analysis to determine if

they are alive as well. Even though permafrost is able to preserve living cells

for a very long time, it is critical that the freezing temperatures were maintained throughout - with no periods of thawing.

“Often, these are not found in complete ice, but when the ice breaks. Mostly, specimens are discovered in riverbeds and one was even once chewed on by dogs. Not an ideal situation,” said Professor Kerry Bowman, cloning ethicist at the University of Toronto.

In early November, the mammoth was moved to the laboratories at Sooam Biotech in Seoul, South Korea. The company of famous cloning expert Hwang Woo Suk signed a contract with Siberia’s North-East Federal University in March 2012 with the goal of trying to clone a living mammoth within six years. Suk has a sketchy reputation in science circles. He was found guilty of fabricating experimental results when he claimed to have successfully cloned a human embryo in 2004. Only a year later, his team was credited with the first commercial cloning of a dog.

Irregularities were not found in the case of the cloned dog Snuppy.

In Canada, Professor Vilceu Bordignon from McGill University in Montreal successfully created the country’s first cloned pigs in 2007. He has also been involved in cloning sheep, goats and horses. Even though today’s cloning technology is not that different from what the creators of Dolly used in 1996 and as such is tried and tested, bringing back an extinct species is a much more complicated affair.

“It would be big scientific feat. It is a very difficult project, not impossible, but very difficult,” said Bordignon. “The efficiency with cloning of common live animals is still quite low at a success rate of about one to five per cent. If you want to clone an animal that has disappeared thousands of years ago and without having a close relative, it’s going to be much more difficult.”

Difficulties aboundIn principle, the mere fact that the mammoth has

been frozen in ice for thousands of years should not negatively impact its chances to see the light of day again.

“A few years ago, Japanese researchers cloned animals from cells obtained from frozen mice that they kept in the lab for 16 years,” said Bordignon.

Even though a find of live cells would significantly simplify the Korean researcher’s task, they are not necessary.

“Live cells are not really required if you can find intact DNA in the nucleus of the cell,” said Bordignon. “When we clone, we only use the nucleus of the cell anyway. The problem is that we don’t know if the cell is compatible with the living cell from the host elephant.”

In order to avoid that the elephant womb simply

“It’s definitely

possible to clone a

woolly mammoth.



“A few years ago, Japanese researchers cloned animals from cells obtained from frozen mice that they kept in the lab for 16 years... Live cells are not really required if you can find intact DNA in the nucleus of the cell. When we clone, we only use the nucleus of the cell anyway. The problem is that we don’t know if the cell is compatible with the live cell from the host elephant.”

>> GRAPEFRUIT-SIZED DINOSAUR FETUS MODEL

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- Dr. Bowman

- Dr. Bordignon

rejects the mammoth foetus, the right choice of surrogate mother is critical.

“I think it should be an Asian Elephant because of the genetic compatibility,” said Bowman. “But I heard they are planning to use an African Elephant because they are much closer in size to the mammoth”

Size is another major concern. Since nobody knows if the normal

gestation period for a mammoth is

a n y w h e r e close to the normal 22 months in an elephant or even how big the foetus will get while in the host’s womb, a birth by caesarian section may be necessary.

“There has been no recorded successful caesarian birth of an elephant which means the elephant itself may not be able to physically give birth to a woolly mammoth,” said Bowman.

Even after birth, it would remain to be seen if the mammoth baby would

be able to survive or if post-natal complications would quickly draw it back into the grave. A previous attempt in Spain to resurrect an extinct ibex - a mountain goat species whose last member died in 2000 - died just minutes after birth due to a lung defect.

Even if we manage to successfully bring back a healthy mammoth baby, important ethical issues remain.

“It’s definitely possible to clone a woolly mammoth. It sounds wonderful and everybody would be fascinated to see a woolly mammoth,” said Bowman.

“But should we do it?”

B o w m a n points out that mammoths are highly adapted to a much colder climate - the ice age. Besides the mammoth having trouble coping with our present-day global warming, he also suggests that it will have

trouble dealing with its solitude. Like elephants, mammoths are thought to be very intelligent and highly social animals. One solution could be to let it live with elephants and hope that there will be some kind of bonding, but even that option would most likely be short-lived.

“A lot of money could be made if somebody would create a woolly

mammoth tomorrow. Can you imagine the profit you could make? People would come from all over the world,” said Bowman. “It would likely end up in some kind of a zoo – a real-life version of Jurassic Park if you will - charging a huge amount of money for people to come and see it.”

Of course, bringing back a species is a much more complex task than merely cloning one specimen.

“Cloning is a long way from genetic viability,” said Bowman. “You need a viable and diverse gene pool for any species to be sustainable and that is going to be pretty tough. Probably the best option is to clone animals from multiple finds.”

The recent finds definitely suggest that enough mammoths may be waiting deep down in the glaciers of the world.

However, Bowman estimates it would easily take thousands to tens of thousands of successful non-sterile clones to create a viable gene pool. But it may be a way for humanity to right its wrongs and retroactively re-establish biodiversity. Several projects around the world such as the Frozen Ark project by the Zoological Society of London and the Natural History Museum in the U.K. have already begun to collect DNA samples from endangered species.

“The extinction of the woolly mammoth in the first place appears to have been a combination of climate change and human hunting,”

said Bowman. “Since the human hand is involved in its extinction, could there be some form of obligation to bring it back? It’s a fair question.”



>> FANCY A MEETING WITH A LIVE PREHISTORIC PREDATOR SUCH AS THIS?

>> MAMMOTHS PRESERVED DEEP IN PERMAFROST ARE PRIME TARGETS FOR CLONING.

R



A: Pride is a funny thing. It means you have to take credit for it and the evolution of the network is not something I think I can take total credit for. I certainly did the initial design work in 1973 and I devoted a good portion of my career to helping it grow,

but literally millions of other people have contributed a lot to making the net what it is now. I am pleased is the more accurate response and of course I am also alarmed, because there are a lot of bad things happening in this environment. It’s the consequence of having the general public on the system. So, we have to cope with that.

A: I always thought I was going to be a scientist. By age ten, I was determined to be a nuclear physicist and was an avid reader of Scientific American, especially articles about Quantum Physics or basic particle theory. By the time I got to Stanford University,

I discovered that Physics and me didn’t mix very well. I couldn’t tell an Angstrom from a Watt from a Henry. All these things had people’s names and they didn’t have any meaning to me. Since there was no natural explanation what all those various physical measurements were, I never found Physics to be very friendly and so I ran off and did computing instead. But I knew I wanted to be some kind of a scientist. There was never a question about that.

A: I think the answer is yes. These tend to be disruptive technologies and upset somebody else’s business model. Most businessmen hate that. So yes, it is often an uphill battle to explain to them: “I am sorry, the world is changing. You have to get with it,

because if you don’t, you’ll soon be irrelevant.”

A: In fact, I went out of my way to help create a commercial environment for it. In 1988, I reached the conclusion that the net would not be available to everyone unless it had an economic engine under it. So, I was strongly in favour of finding a network opportunity

for the commercial sector. I think we succeeded very well in that. I am very happy that it turned out that way and I pushed very hard to try to make it happen.

As one of the “Fathers of the Internet”, are you proud of what the web has become?

What did you want to become when you were a young child?

Are you happy that the web is open to the public or would you have preferred it to stay in a more controlled environment?

Is it a characteristic of big inventions such as the internet to face a rocky start with a lot of resistance?

Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-inventor of the architecture and basic protocols of the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his col-league, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Among other accomplishments, he founded the Internet Society in 1992 and was chairman of the board of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000 to 2007. Since 2005, Cerf has served as Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.


Q AND A www.thereachmag.com

Q A with VINT

CERFNino Meese-TamuriR

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2

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4

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Does the internet still have a lot more to give in terms of functionality?

What surprised you most about the internet, both in a positive and a negative way?

A: Yes. Part of that is the “internet of things”, the idea that many devices that before have been offline suddenly become online and controllable remotely and capable of responding. These are devices that you would normally think of as

appliances like washing machines, refrigerators, stoves and automobiles which will all be internet capable. Of course, that raises all kinds of questions of access control so you don’t have the 15-year old next door reprogramming your house. But the fact is that we have long ways to go in terms of exploring new ideas for these kinds of intelligent devices.

A: The biggest surprise for me has been the willingness, desire and determination of literally hundreds of millions of people to put information up on the internet to share with others without any thought of compensation, but only the desire to

share information with others that they thought would be useful. I was quite taken by that phenomenon and still am. That’s the good side.

The bad side is that there is a lot of junk on the internet and I wish it would all just go away. There are harms that occurred to people using the network. Those harms are inflicted by people that may be in other jurisdictions across national boundaries and we don’t have any kind of legal regime right now that could cope with international attacks. We’ll have to do something about that both technically and legally. I think there is a lot of work to be done to make for a much safer internet environment while at the same time not infringing on people’s rights.

January 2013 REACH 17

www.thereachmag.com Q AND A

Google // COURTESY

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To infinity andBEYOND

We’ve all dreamed of visiting tropical locales or just taking a relaxing vacation away from it all. But have you ever thought of leaving Earth? Space tourism is no longer a futuristic concept reserved for science fiction novels and movies. Construction of the world’s first space port is underway in the desert of New Mexico and Sir Richard

Branson has signed up to use the spaceport as the home base for his Virgin

Galactic fleet.Luxury travel advisor Stephanie Anevich from Toronto is one of a few

certified space travel agents in Canada who offers her clients the brand new experience of becoming a space tourist. Anevich has spent her working career in the travel industry, but has never experienced anything as exciting as space tourism so she jumped at the opportunity to get involved.

“It’s really been a fun addition to what we do. It just adds a whole other dimension to selling travel,” said the luxury travel advisor.

Once only associated with government supported and highly trained astronauts, space travel is rapidly becoming a viable tourism option,


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Georgia WilliamsR

The future of luxury travel. How far would you go to experience the final frontier?

NASA // COURTESY

especially for experienced travelers who have seen it all. Virgin Galactic’s suborbital trips take tourists to the edge of space approximately 100 kilometres above Earth, which is far enough to encounter the vast blackness of space as well as see the curvature of the Earth. Besides the views, travelers also get the added benefit of experiencing weightlessness for a few minutes.

Anevich and her colleague have already booked 16 space tourists with Virgin Galactic, gaining them the status of Canada’s most successful travel agency selling space trips.

Anevich got the opportunity through Virtuoso, a travel company which only hires its agents through an exclusive invitation.

“I’m on their advisory board now. He (Michael Upchurch, founder of Virtuoso) had made the arrangement with Sir Richard Branson to get his team of luxury travel advisors across North America, Australia, New Zealand, and South America to be the exclusive travel advisors or accredited space agents for Virgin. That’s because we have expertise in luxury travel and experiential travel. All those components fit right into the plan with Virgin Galactic. So I had to send in a letter and tell them I wanted to do it. And for me it was easy. It was cutting edge travel, it was something new, it was exciting, it was for all sorts of different people, not just the uber rich,” explained the vivacious travel agent.

She comforts hesitant clients with stories of her recent trips to Las Vegas where she experienced zero gravity, and preparation at the centrifuge at Philadelphia’s National Aerospace Training and Research facility (NASTAR).

“After I did the zero G flight and the centrifuge I thought: ‘I can do this.

I can go to space. I can be on the cutting edge of space tourism!’, so I

decided to fly up,” she said.Anevich, who lives in Toronto, but jet sets

across the country frequently, was one of six Virgin accredited space agents to take a walk through the Virgin Galactic space tourist program in late October at the partially completed spaceport in New Mexico.

“You’ll get yourself down to the spaceport in New Mexico. They’ll walk you through and

explain the training. They’re planning on doing some training with the gravity and the zero G simulator at the same

time, then you’ll take your turn with the other five people who

are in the spaceship with yourself and go for the preparation and just do the adventure,” said

Anevich excitedly. However, tickets are far from cheap.

The Virgin Galactic experience will cost travellers US$200,000 dollars and will encompass three days of simulation training and bonding at the spaceport facilities in addition to the trip to suborbital space. Medical testing is required for all prospective astronauts.

On flight day, tourists will board the White Knight Two which is the mother ship for Spaceship

Two, the actual craft on which space tourists will complete their mission. White Knight Two ascends to 5,000 feet, then Spaceship Two is launched with rocket propulsion reaching speeds of more than 400,000 km/h, close to four times the speed of sound. Travellers then experience the electrifying sensation of weightlessness.

The experience, although quick, is a once in a lifetime event. The craft starts its Earth bound descent after a mere seven to eight minutes in suborbit. The whole experience is described vividly on the Virgin Galactic website and subsequent space travel brochures Anevich supplies.

The space travel agent admits the price is hefty for the short experience.

“Some people think it’s frivolous, some people think it’s exciting to be cutting edge early adopters. People do different things with their money and their life. Maybe this is on their bucket list.”


www.thereachmag.com HOW FAR WE’VE COME

>> THE RISE OF PRIVATE SPACE TRAVEL OPENS THE DOORS TO COCKPITS SUCH AS IN THIS LIFE SIZE SPACE-SHIP HALLWAY MODEL AT THE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM IN OTTAWA.



However, not everybody thinks that it is

worth the money.Brendan Quine, a space engineer and

professor at York University, believes the price needs to come down substantially before recreational space travel is widely accessible to the public.

“If you calculate the cost per hour for your seven minutes, than it’s very, very expensive indeed,” he said. “You will have spent $200,000 dollars and you might be left wondering, what are you going to do in the afternoon if your flight was in the morning. My feeling is that the price has to come down dramatically before it will have major penetration.”

Still, he does appreciate the interest in suborbital flight as a true adventure.

“Those adventure holidays are getting harder and harder to find. I think that people lust for that kind of adventure experience and I think that space is going to be one of the last places that we have to offer,” said Quine. “As long as some of us have that thirst for adventure, then space is going to offer literally the final frontier for these activities.”

He has a warning for the space travel voyagers: There are big risks associated with sending humans to the edge of space, especially acute space sickness which has plagued even seasoned astronauts.

“Basically as you go up into space, when you experience zero G, all of the organs in your body free float and apparently this sensation makes almost everybody feel sick to start with. Some people never recover, that is, they’re not able to function properly until they return to gravity,” he warned. “It’s impossible to say in advance how likely it is that somebody will suffer from acute space sickness,” said Quine.

Quine recounts John Glenn’s space mission in 1998 at the age of 77 as an example. The retired American senator, veteran astronaut and first human to ever orbit Earth in 1962 did not respond well to the zero gravity conditions during his second trip to space aboard the Discovery, and was returned to Earth.

“He was the oldest astronaut ever to be put up into space. It was largely speculated that the reason they terminated the mission early was that John Glenn was so sick during the flight that they really had to bring him home,” said Quine.

Besides these short term effects, there are also long term health risks associated with missions into deep orbit. These include loss of bone density and muscle atrophy. Exposure to ionizing radiation also becomes a factor as soon as you leave the atmosphere. Although Virgin Galactic is currently only planning suborbital trips, there is widespread speculation in the space community that we will eventually venture farther and farther into space. As the technology becomes more readily available and competition among service providers increases, costs will tumble.

Space Adventures, another space tourism company based in Virginia, offers both suborbital and orbital space flights. They are

also the company that sent the first space tourist into orbit in 2001

- at a cost of US$20 million. Space Adventures is currently looking for the first lunar tourist. It’s website hails the vacation trip as “the most significant private expedition of our time.”

Dr. Patrick Collins, a space conomy expert from Japan, has been advocating for space tourism since the late 1990s. On his popular website spacefuture.com, he views space tourism as an untapped source of revenue that would contribute jobs and innovation to what many call a stagnant global economy. In fact, he considers it the only logical step to utilize the technological advancements we have garnered from the huge investments governments have made in various space programs.

The spaceport in New Mexico was built on the premise that it would not only offer state-of-the-art travel, but that it would also stimulate the local economy. However, the feelings of local residents are mixed.

“The local populace that originally supported the project is still strongly in favour

of it, especially now that it’s getting closer to the first launches. But there remain people who don’t like the spaceport,” said Diana Alba Soular, news reporter with the Las Cruces Sun, New Mexico. “They tend to think it’s a sort of rich man’s playground that will have little or no benefit on residents’ lives. They’re skeptical it will improve the economy as much as spaceport proponents claim.”

Although space tourism is very exciting and appealing, the cost and quickness of suborbital trips may be a deterrent to the average person. Virgin Galactic may be pleased with their role as one of the few commercial space tourism operators, but there is little doubt that competition in the business would be beneficial for the consumer.

“In general, even spaceport supporters believe that the project will require more clients than only from Virgin Galactic to truly become the economic engine that many people have envisioned. There are a couple of other clients, but they’re smaller-scale than Virgin Galactic,” said Alba Soular.

Quine believes that choice is crucial for the future of space voyage.

“For tourism to take off in space, we



Spaceport America facts

In 2007, residents in Doña Ana County voted on whether to ap-

prove a 0.25 per cent sales tax to help fund spaceport construction.

Doña Ana County residents narrowly approved it.

The less-populous Sierra County approved a similar tax a year later,

with a stronger percentage of support. The three main sources

of funding for Spaceport America’s construction are: Doña Ana

County, Sierra County and the State of New Mexico.


need destinations. To go to the Moon, I think that might be very, very attractive for people,” said Quine.

Like Space Adventures, Quine believes the next great bastion of private space exploration will be the Moon.

“We’re going to undergo a revolution here, because essentially governments are pulling out of space activity and the private sector is taking over. That means that costs are going to be reduced and access for people is going to be increased,” he said.

In the meantime, Quine is getting into the space tourism business himself. He recently patented a suborbital space tether designed to be used on the construction of a space tower. The tower will stretch 20 kilometres into near space. Visitors would travel up the tower by elevator, which he says is safer than the rocket propelled travel associated with spacecrafts. There would still be gravity at the top of the tower. However, it would be slightly decreased due to the great altitude. And the view would be incredible.

“You would see 500 kilometres in any direction to the horizon,” he said. “You’re not going to get sick, [and] another plus point is that you could have luxury hotels at the top of the structure to accommodate your needs.”

Tickets for the space tower would be in the $1,000 range, a great difference than the $200,000 Virgin Galactic charges.

The travel agent is amused by the reaction she gets telling people she is a space agent. “Some people love it, some people are horrified by it, but everyone is interested,” she laughed.

Suborbital and orbital flight, and lunar tourism used to seem like the stuff of a Le Guin novels, but now it is on its way to become wide spread reality. Virgin Galactic has already booked 500 hopeful astronauts and, like Professor Quine pointed out, planning and construction of other space tourism projects is well underway.

“At the moment we’re at the very early stages. To make it attractive for people, it’s got to be a rounded experience,” said Quine. “We’ll see very shortly how popular it actually is, but I believe the ticket price has to drop before seven minutes of zero G are worth it.”

We are standing on the forefront of history. Not long ago the greatest adventure one could go on was limited to the surface of the Earth, now the possibilities seem endless.




>> VISITORS AT THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM IN OTTAWA FAMILIARIZE THEMSELVES WITH WHAT COULD BE THEIR NEXT HOLIDAY CARRIER. R



Voice recognition technology still as distracting to the mind as cell phones and not a “panacea” to reducing driving accidents

Leave a message after the

HONKREACH January 2013

22

www.thereachmag.com

Leave a message after the

HONKAkihiko TseR

Exactly 30 years ago, when the “lone crusader in a dangerous world” Michael Knight a.k.a. American actor David Hasselhoff first instructed his mobile crime-fighting, artificially intelligent super-car KITT to “keep your scanners

peeled,” hapless criminals knew they were in for trouble. The midnight black coloured car was Knight’s co-star on the 1980’s television series “Knight Rider”, and came equipped with turbo boosters, tear gas launchers and a voice synthesizer that converted its logic module into spoken words, among other weaponry gadgets.

Today, the reality of talking to your car with the help of sophisticated technology recognizing a driver’s command is expected to make its mass market breakthrough in the years ahead. Drivers will be able to make calls, respond to email or text messages, and receive multi-staged route directions all without having to take their eyes off the road or diverting their attention elsewhere.

One such company at the forefront of this technology is U.S. company Nuance Communications, an industry leader in embedded speech recognition, transcription software and automated directory services.

Edward Chrumka, senior product manager for Connected Car at Nuance, said the increasing amount of time spent in cars is indicative of a shifting perception of our cars as more than just modes of transportation.

“You see things like personal assistants and certain features and functionalities on smart phones that people want in their vehicles at all times, because people want to maintain their connected lifestyles,” he said.

In July 2012, Nuance announced that the new BMW 7 Series, BMW 3 Series Touring and BMW 3 Series ActiveHybrid will be installed with Nuance’s “Dragon Drive!” service allowing drivers to dictate emails and text messages.

But while the ability to communicate with a car, without having to push buttons or adjust any dials, appeals to both drivers and manufacturers, some observers warn that voice-recognition technology could still spell trouble in distracting drivers in much the same way holding a cell phone currently does.

“One of the critical things to keep in mind

is that voice interactions with your car are not without consequences,” said Dr. John D. Lee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in driver distraction and human error in automation.

“[Voice interaction technology] is distracting and induces a certain degree of cognitive distraction. So even though your eyes are on the road, your mind might not be if you’re going to be

processing emails and text messages.” According to Lee, in-car technology faces

a constant and delicate balancing act between safety and functionality. In one study documenting driver behaviour, cited in his 2009 article “Can Technology Get Your Eyes Back on the Road?”, researchers filmed 109 volunteers over 13 months using inconspicuously installed cameras in their cars, monitoring any attention loss, such as fatigue and drowsiness, or distractions through cell phone use or adjusting the radio. It found that 78 per cent of the 69 crashes and 65 per cent of the 761 near-crashes recorded were caused by lapses in attention due to drowsiness, while distracted driving was responsible for 22 per cent of all crashes and near-crashes.

The study concluded that more difficult and complex distractions increased the likelihood of a crash or near-crash. For example, making a call on a cell phone was found to increase the risk of a crash by as much as three times.

Highly distracting activities constantly force the driver’s attention to switch between “competing demands” including unexpected events on the road. Researchers found that even if a driver’s eyes are fixated on the road, the brain may be processing large amounts of competing information that can interfere with a driver’s ability to properly observe their environment and notice hazards.

A 2006 study conducted by the University of Utah agreed that people using phones while driving were considered more impaired than drivers who had consumed alcohol over the legal limit.

The presumption that using either voice interactivity or a cell phone to place a call will have separate effects on driving behavior is simply incorrect according to Lee.

Because of the way talking with someone can still cause the brain to register and act on social cues and imperatives, Lee said talking to an inanimate voice can still be as distracting as conversing with a live person.

“I think to the extent that voice interaction allows you to do more and more complex things, it could be as demanding as any conversation you’d have with a person and potentially just as infuriating when the computer misunderstands you and you have to correct this,” he said.

In the most recent annual poll conducted in September 2011 by the the Canadian road safety research instiute Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), results showed that 36.3 per cent of the 1,208 people interviewed admitted to using their cell phones while driving in the last seven days, an increase from 20.5 per cent in 2001.

TIRF said one explanation for this could be the “accessibility and affordability of cell phones and the popularization of hands-free devices and accessories.”

Despite this trend, 65.2 per cent of those in the latest poll reported using it for 10 minutes or less. In 2001, only 57.5 per cent of the 20.5 per cent reported to using their cell phones at the wheel for 10 minutes or less.

In the latest annual traffic fatality statistics “January 2013 REACH9


“Communication in

vehicles of all sorts is exploding, and it’s driven

by need


www.thereachmag.com

With drivers engaging in increasingly distracting activities, which force their attention to constantly register and process competing information from the car and from the road, manufacturers must find a balance between the needs of consumers while ensuring technologies don’t overstep regulatory frameworks.

- DesRosiers


HOW FAR WE`VE COME www.thereachmag.com

released in April 2102, Ontario Provincial Police said fatalities involving inattentive driving, which includes any secondary activity that diverts attention away from the road, decreased from 75 in 2011 to 71 this year, a 5.8 per cent drop. However, under new distraction legislation that took effect in January 2010, police charged 8,088 people in 2011 with breaking a section of the Highway Traffic Act, which prohibits driving while using a hand-held phone. In 2012, that number doubled to 16,821, a 108 per cent increase.

Chrumka said Nuance tries to mitigate any potential for accidents by gauging distraction through measurable features such as eye-glance frequency and durations, and lane deviations, which are all “very measurable features.”

Many automobile manufacturers now install embedded lockout mechanisms that, Chrumka noted, prevent drivers from accessing their navigation systems while the vehicle is in motion, having to put the car in park first before it can be used.

With the increasing prevalence of technology in people’s lives, combined with sprawling

suburbanization, the need for efficiency while at the wheel is increasing.

“Communication in vehicles of all sorts is exploding, and it’s driven by need,” said Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, a leading Canadian automotive market research group based in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

DesRosiers said he is “not a bit” surprised at the speed at which demand for voice recognition technology has progressed into the mass market.

“I think the power of the consumer overwhelms the regulatory framework that consumers operate in. Obviously, the attention the government gives to driver distraction has to be countered with technologies that lessen driver distraction,” he said.

While noting that “significant technological advancements” have been made in passive and active vehicle systems that offer drivers more safety, navigation and infotainment, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation reiterates its warning that it is still illegal for drivers to talk, text, dial or email using a hand-held cell phone and other hand-held communications and entertainment

devices. In an email response, Ministry spokesperson

Ajay Woozageer further said the United States Department of Transportation stated that connected vehicle safety applications could address up to 82 per cent of crash scenarios involving non-impaired drivers.

“Given this position, [the Ministry] expects the Connected Vehicle to have a significant impact on road safety in Ontario in the future,” he said.

However, Lee says that drivers may be faced with a “usability paradox.” While under the impression that sending emails and text messages is safer through voice recognition, drivers may begin to use it more often and adapt to them. As such, the net effect could be even more distraction.

“Speech interaction provides a compelling and, on the surface, a distraction-free path to getting information,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure for consumers to get access to information, for manufacturers and companies to provide that information, and I think the danger is that people will look towards voice interaction as a panacea for the problem of distraction.”

>> UNDER NEW LEGISLATION IN ONTARIO THAT PROHIBITS DRIVERS FROM USING A CELL PHONE WHILE AT THE WHEEL, THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CHARGED DOUBLED FROM 8,088 IN 2011 TO 16,821 IN 2012

Akihiko Tse // REACH

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&SCIENCE TECHNOLOGYIn October 2012, museums and science centres across Canada celebrated the National Science and Technology week. REACH visited events at the Ontario Science Centre and The National Science and Technology Museum.


www.thereachmag.com PICTURE THIS...

Canada celebrates

>> A SCIENTIST AT THE ONTARIO SCIENCE CENTRE GIVES HANDS ON DEMONSTRATIONS TO AN ENTHUSIASTIC CROWD.

>> NOT LONG AGO, THESE PHONES WERE CONSIDERED CUTTING EDGE. THE HISTORY OF COMMUNICATION IS IS CHRONICLED AT THE MUSEUM IN OTTAWA.

>> THIS BRIGHTLY COLOURED LIGHT HOUSE STANDS AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE SCI-ENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM, ILLUMINATING THE WAY FOR VISITORS.

>> CANADIAN INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY IS PROUDLY DISPLAYED INSIDE THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSUEUM. CANADIAN INVENTIONS HAVE BEEN USED AROUND THE WORLD, AND EVEN IN SPACE.

>> THE NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM IN OTTAWA OFFERS A LIFE SIZE CIRCUIT MAZE FOR VISITORS TO EXPLORE, WHILE LEARNING THE WAY ELECTRICAL CURRENTS TRAVEL.

All photos: Georgia Williams // REACH

Georgia WilliamsR

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What is THIS?

Believe it or not, this intimidating giant is a sloth. This so-called giant ground sloth is comparable both in size and weight to an elephant. Even though this particular specimen featured at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is about 100,000 years old, our early cavemen ancestors did have a chance to wit-ness it in flesh and blood as this species survived until 10,000 years ago. Thankfully for our ancestors, it was a herbivore.

Nino Meese-TamuriR

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Genes in PRODIGIES

linked to

AUTISM


www.thereachmag.com UNDER THE RADAR

Pills that modify genes should only be aimed at “relieving dysfunction and distress” and not at eugenics, researchers say.

Akihiko TseR

Creative Commons // COURTESY

It can only be described as procrastination disguised by desperation. Time is against you and quickly running out. The agitation abounds and the pressure is suffocating, but putting pen to paper has never been easier said than done.

You’ve hit an enormous mental block and, to-gether with a halt to the flow of creative juices to the brain, the hope of a miraculous remedy only intensifies.

In such times, it is an enduring notion that the brain, the most complex biological structure in the known universe, holds an untapped storage capac-ity beyond what we can voluntarily access.

But while some continue to maintain that the brain only uses approximately 20 per cent of its total functioning capacity, research suggests the brain, in fact, uses close to its entire amount when its working.

The myth, though, remains prevalent in pop culture, with the 2011 film “Limitless” depicting a disordered, unmotivated and disheveled writer, Eddie Morra, played by Bradley Cooper, suc-cumbing to a prolonged case of severe writer’s block. One day, however, he runs into his former brother-in-law, Vernon, who offers Morra a trans-parent pill only known as “N.Z.T forty-eight.” Ac-cording to Vernon, “They’ve identified these re-ceptors in the brain that activate specific circuits. And you know how they say that we can only ac-cess twenty percent of our brain? Well, what this does, it lets you access all of it.”

The vast majority of energy our head uses in-volves millions of neurons being fired across the brain communicating with each other. The rest is expended on unconscious activities like regulating the heart beat, and conscious ones such as riding a bicycle.

Nonetheless, not all of the brain’s regions are active at any given moment. Researchers using fMRI scans on the brain have shown that regions that become illuminated are areas where there are higher levels of oxygen and glucose consumption than baseline levels. By performing background subtractions to separate intended signals from noise, regions that appear dark are not inactive,

but aren’t as highly active as areas of the brain that are engaged. Even in states of rest or sleep, areas of the brain that control self-awareness (frontal cortex), or areas that assist people in sensing their surroundings (somatosensory areas), remain ac-tive.

The exact amount that is used by certain re-gions at any one given time, though, still re-mains unclear.

“I actually don’t think we know that,” said Dr. Margot Taylor, director of functional neuroimaging at the Hospital for Sick Chil-dren, who studies fron-tal lobe development in pre-term children and children with autism. “Recent studies that are looking at resting state networks show that the brain is chugging away doing things almost all the time.”

The protagonist in “Limitless” displays a glimpse of what could potentially be achieved if areas of the brain could hypothetically be un-locked to enhance certain cognitive functions.

In one scene, moments after taking “N.Z.T forty-eight,” Morra is able to recall an event ex-perienced many years ago that was seemingly for-gotten or lost, only for it to resurface and arrange itself as needed, with words hailing down from his mind onto paper. As he puts it: “Information from the odd museum show, a half read article, some PBS documentary was all bubbling in my frontal lobes mixing itself together into a sparkling cock-tail of useful information.”

Intriguingly, the protagonist’s intense work-ing memory to recall past experiences resembles characteristics more commonly found in real-life prodigies.

In a tecent study titled “Child Prodigy: A novel cognitive profile places elevated intelligence, ex-ceptional working memory and attention to detail at root of prodigiousness” published in the aca-demic journal Intelligence, Dr. Joanne Ruthsatz of Ohio State University and Dr. Jourdan D. Urbach of Yale Univeristy found that child prodigies all

scored in the 99th percen-tile in a test measuring working memory. This is the system responsible for holding and processing information active in the mind, and keeping it avail-able for further processing.

The findings showed that the eight child prodi-gies presented only a moderately higher level of general intelligence than average with IQ scores ranging from 108 to 147. The prodigies were be-tween the ages of seven and 32 at the time of test-ing.

However, all child prodigies in the study dem-onstrated a higher level of attention to detail com-

pared to a control group. Their attention to detail exceeded even those with Asperger’s syndrome, a type of autism that is typically characterized by an obsession with detail.

According to Ruthsatz, an average person’s short-term memory can hold about seven digits in mind.

“But prodigies can go well beyond that,” she said.

One 13-year old prodigy with a full scale IQ score of 147 had attended university at the age of nine and tested out of college calculus, astronomy and U.S. history. He had a paper in mathematics accepted for publication in an academic journal at the age of 13. In one video aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the prodigy recited 28 U.S. states read “We’re hoping to

identify a marker on these child prodigies

that is different from their family members with

autism.


UNDER THE RADAR www.thereachmag.com

One 13-year old prodigy with a full scale IQ score of 147 had attended university at the age of nine and tested out of college calculus, astronomy and U.S. history. He had a paper in mathematics accepted for publication in an academic journal at the age of 13.

- Dr. Ruthsatz


www.thereachmag.com UNDER THE RADAR

out and shown to him in random order and, after revisiting the same list three months later, was still able to repeat the order forwards and backwards. He was diagnosed with autism at three.

Another prodigy, who was 15 at the time of testing, began programming computers by the age of three and replicated complicated musical pieces after only one or two hear-ings, reaching a prodigious level by his fifth birthday. He began to take interest in the culinary arts at the age of 10 and has since won numerous cooking awards for original dishes that were invented through molecular gastronomy, a rule-based application that predicts creative and un-usual dishes. He scored in the 99.9 percentile in the working memory test.

While autism affects an average of one in 110 children according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ruthsatz estimates that the number of prodigies cur-rently hovers at a level of one in 10 million.

The most surprising finding though according to Ruthsatz was the prevalence of autism in first- and second-degree family relatives of the prodi-gies. Of the eight prodigies profiled, four of the families either have been diagnosed with autism themselves or have a relative with autism. Among those tested on the autism-spectrum quotient, first-degree family members and relatives displayed a broader set of observable characteristics in the subcategories of social skills, attention to detail and attention switching. The two other subcatego-ries are communication and imagination.

“These child prodigies have an attention to de-tail that is significantly higher than even in chil-

dren with autism,” said Ruthsatz adding that many of the commonly associated deficits found in au-tism were lacking in their profiles.

While the prodigies can communicate “like ex-perts,” they are also awware and adept in social sit-uations – a trait, or lack thereof, that is usually evi-dent in autism – with one child documenting that

he intentionally pretends not to remember things around people in order to avoid making them feel “uncomfortable” by his clarity of memory.

Ruthsatz said one possible explanation for this could be a biological modifier or genetic muta-tion that suppresses many of the typical signs of au-tism, but leaves the atten-tion to detail “undimin-ished or even enhanced.”

“We’re hoping to identify a marker on these child prodigies that is different from their family members with au-tism. If we find a genetic modifier, that could lead us closer to finding out how to help children with autism,” said Ruthsatz.

Dr. Evdokia Anagnos-tou, lead investigator of the Autism Research Centre at Bloorview Research Institute in Toronto, said some theories suggest that excessive connectivity in some parts of the brain could lead to functions of “hyper efficiency”. This includes traits such as extreme at-tention to detail or perception, which could produce the common deficits found in autism or the profound intellectual abilities found in child prodigies.

“What happens at the end of the day is that as you try to balance those systems, you end up not do-ing things as efficiently as people who are develop-ing normally. This concerns types of tasks that we think are relevant,” said Anagnostou. Such hyper

connectivity in the brain may induce the quick re-sponsiveness to input information but may hamper or even overwhelm their sensory experiences, re-sulting in deficits such as a lack of emotional rec-ognition, repetitive behavior and social avoidance.

In the case of child prodigies, Anagnostou said children often face higher incidences of men-tal health issues such as anxiety and depression throughout their lives, which are often associated with the psychodynamics of how they perceive the world, how they don’t fit in and may face rejection by certain groups of society resulting from many of their functional outputs not being adaptive for everyday life.

However, Anagnostou said that autistic traits can be found everywhere in the general popula-tion. These can include being particularly detail-oriented, brave, or conservative, to list just a few.

“Traits exist everywhere and there’s nothing wrong with traits,” she says. “In fact, it’s why some people argue autism is not going away be-cause evolution preserves it... [It] makes us people who can focus and ignore the rest of the world and do what we need to do.”

Certain genetic traits that exist, therefore, have a threshold in order to be classified a dysfunction, she said.

Taylor and Anagnostou both agree that dys-function varies depending on the culture and soci-ety that it is found in. For example, if select people in Africa can hear voices in their head, they may be considered a “holy man” despite how their quality of life may be perceived elsewhere.

But Anagnostou said that there will always be the possibility that some people may look to capitalize on certain genes and traits that are par-ticularly well suited to a given culture, should such biological markers be found. But she warned that where those lines are drawn would need to be a matter of intense scrutiny and controversy.

“We are not doing eugenics. So long that our therapeutics are aimed at relieving dysfunction, and distress, we are in a good place,” she said. “If we start manipulating human traits with medica-tion to create a better race, that’s a whole different story.” “These child

prodigies have an

attention to detail that is

significantly higher than

even in children with

autism

“We are not doing eugenics. So long that our therapeutics are aimed at reliev-ing dysfunction, and distress, we are in a good place...If we start manipulating human traits with medication to create a better race, that’s a whole different story.”

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- Dr. Anagnostou

- Dr. Ruthsatz

“It’s something uniquely Canadian. And you know that because whenever you see a picture, or video of a shuttle operation with the Canadarm deployed, there is the Canada watermark or Canada logo on the side of the arm.”Pierre Jean, Director of Space Exploration Operations and Infrastructure for the CSA


TOP FIVE www.thereachmag.com

CanadarmOn Nov. 13, 1981 Canada’s

possibly most famous contribution to space exploration, the Canadarm, reached into space from the Shuttle Columbia.

“At a certain point in the overall planning of the vehicle, it was decided that a robotic arm located on the space shuttle would give the vehicle a lot more capability,” said Pierre Jean, director of space exploration operations and infrastructure from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Canadarm has since been utilized to deploy satellites and assisting with “repair operations” for the Hubble Space Telescope.

The end of the space shuttle program brought about the retirement of the Canadarm.

Still, it did its part in helping us better grasp on some of the mysteries of space.

Tele-robotic surgeryIn February 2003, Dr. Mehran

Anvari, founder of the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery, performed the first collaborative tele-robotic surgery with Dr. Craig McKinley, a surgeon 400 km away at the North Bay General Hospital.

With a surgical team, Dr. Anvari was able to assist his colleague with an anti-reflux surgical procedure from the St. Joseph’s Healthcare facility in Hamilton.

Much has changed since then. Most importantly, the procedure has become a lot more efficient and less expensive.

“Costs are minimal nowadays, because almost every hospital in this country has connectivity established through the various provincial health care facilities,” said Anvari.

Using fiber optics, various screens, and remote robotic technology, this procedure allows specialists to assist other surgeons remotely. This innovation extends access to emergency care to rural patients who might otherwise had to travel far to see a specialist.

NeuroarmCould robots soon replace surgeons

in the operating room? Researchers behind the NeuroArm certainly think so.

NeuroArm is operated by a surgeon through a computer while also working with an enhanced intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system.

Developed by Canadian physician Dr. Garnette Sutherland and IMRIS, NeuroArm can perform the work of a seasoned surgeon while delivering the best possible care virtually every time.

BlackBerry MobileFounded in 1984, BlackBerry mobile

was once a force to be reckoned with in the smartphone market.

The BlackBerry is still considered one of the most groundbreaking innovations to come out of Canada. The first BlackBerry smartphone made its debut in 1999 and experienced a surge in worldwide consumers soon after that.

Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry, has since expanded to include offices outside of Canada. The company now has offices in the U.S, Asia, and Europe.

Teleportation“Quantum teleportation is a half

Canadian invention and it’s okay to be proud of this,” said Vadim Makarov, research assistant professor leading the Quantum hacking lab in Waterloo, Ontario. Charles Bennett led the group of researchers responsible for discovering that teleportation was theoretically possible in 1993. Three Canadians were part of this group. Most notably, Gilles Brassard a quantum physicist at the University of Montreal.

Shantal OtchereR

Top innovations to come

CANADAout OF5

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NASA // COURTESYD

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Creative Commons // COURTESY

Debra Vivian // COURTESY

Nino-Meese Tamuri // REACH


www.thereachmag.com DID YOU EVER WONDER?

JPL Caltech // NASA

The analysis of rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts showed that

something terrible happened to the growing Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Another similar sized body came rushing in at cosmic speed and collided with the proto-Earth.

As a result of the massive energy release, both planetary embryos were thorougly melted and merged, while parts of their mantles were ejected into space as liquid and/or evaporated rocks. Most of the ejected material did not escape. It cooled and formed stones, which gradually, over several years time, reassembled in near-Earth orbit into the Moon. But water, a volatile component, did not recondense as fast and was lost. That’s why the Moon is dry - it has no oceans and no moisture-capturing clay minerals.

Where did the

MOON come from?

Astrophysicist and University of Toronto professor Pawel Artymowicz explains the origin of Earth’s Moon. R

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reach magazine issue #1

Documents

national science

real science

autism help researchers

secrets of prodigies

brainhow prodigies

realworld researchers

final frontier space

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