We think that we are so smart and yet there seems to be so much that we don't know. When we look at nature and examine what some of the insects and animals can do, we find out that they can accomplish wonders, things that we really never even thought about. Such was the case of the Namib Desert Beetle. There is hardly any moisture in the desert and without water this beetle would die, just as most things would. Nature has equipped it with a moisture collection system that is activated when even minute water vapor is present, usually in the form of fog. The bug has hills and valleys on its shell. The valleys repel water droplets and the hills attract them. When the water on the hills builds up enough, it overcomes the attraction and flows down the valley and into the beetle's mouth. He then receives a nice, refreshing, cool drink of water.

Scientists noticed the story about the beetle in a back issue of Nature magazine which told the story of the beetle. They thought, hey why can't we make a material like this? Well they succeeded and we now have a new material that does the same thing as the beetle's shell. You might wonder what good something like this would be? Aside from the obvious fact that it can accumulate water in dry places, it has other uses. It may be useful for developing a chip that can be a lab, which screens DNA or can diagnose illness. Another use may be to cool tiny devices. The U.S. military is interested in this, of course. They would love to have a tank or some other vehicle covered with a skin that would store potential bio hazards rather than let them get to the crew.

When we talk of fog over the Namib Desert, it is not what you and I would think of as a fog. It is so light that nothing gets wet. If you were in it, you might not even think that you were in fog. This just shows how efficient the beetle's moisture collection shell is. So how did the scientists replicate this system? They had to create a material that possessed roughness and a nanometer sponge like ability. The more they dip it into a solution of charged polymer chains, the more the material gets rougher and this helps to trap more water. When they get the material to where they want it, they then coat it with a Teflon like material, this makes it super hydrophobic. The coatings can be selectively added to certain areas of the material, making a custom material for a particular job. The scientists believe that with this ability, we will be able to create chemical factories on a chip.

WW II Soldiers
Photo Source: Photo is said to be in the Public Domain

The newest thing going on with the military is that they are going to implant soldiers with a computer chip. The chip is to be inserted into the brain, OUCH! Actually the brain feels no pain, so this will be a pain somewhere else for these guys. Clemson University has been awarded a bag of cash to develop a bio chip. The army says that the chip is going to be used to monitor the soldier's health. Yeah and if it just happens to tell them where every soldier is at a given time, even when they are not on duty or become civilians, I guess that will just be a plus for them, won't it? The chip would get injected into your blood stream and I believe that it then travels to the brain. It is only the size of a grain of rice. One doctor has praised the chip saying that it could alert people to a trauma. My question is this, why does it have to be inside you? Haven't we progressed sufficiently that maybe a device on your person could do the same thing? Anyway, how would you ever get it out, or could you even get it out if you wanted to? Another burning question is will the chip be able to do other things that the GIs won't know about, like transmit conversations and such? Hey once the U.S. military gets involved with something like this, do you think that they will settle for just knowing you vital signs?

Computer Coming To Life
Photo Source: PD and Feebleminds

A program is being devised to watch our computers for something that is really unexpected and that is the emergence of life in the system. Yes you heard me correctly, it is checking to see if any of the computers have come alive. But how would a program determine this fact? One way would be that if computers begin to put out brain wave patterns. These programs might look for the recognition of symbols. Can you imagine if the first alien life form that we find, is a computer that has become aware? I wonder what the consequences of this would be? A computer has no conscience, so therefore emotions would not enter into any decision that it made. Would we be able to give it a set of rules or permanent program that it would have to abide by, or would this living computer just do whatever it wanted to? Wow, these are tough questions to answer.

Dinosaurs
Graphic Source: Image Is Believed To Be In Public Domain

Some scientists now believe that dinosaurs and their ancestors lived at the same time. Every time I see things like this, I feel that is takes another bite out of the theory of evolution. The common thinking among scientists was that you had the dinosaur and he replaced his ancestor. That all changed in 2003. A creature called Silesaurus was discovered in Poland and it dated from the Late Triassic period. This was important because dinosaurs came about in the period between 235 million and 200 million years ago. They dominated the world in the Jurassic period 200 million to 120 million years ago. Scientists now say that they have evidence that the dinosaurs and their precursor species existed together, not just for a short time either, but for tens of millions of years. When the bones were found of these pre dinosaurs, it wasn't just a few animals that were found, it was over 1,300. They were found at Hayden Quarry at Ghost Ranch. in New Mexico. Here is a question for you, if scientists were wrong about that, could they be wrong about dinosaurs and man having lived together, after all there is is a lot of evidence that can't be explained, that seems to indicate this, such as dino prints next to man's foot prints in the same rock, for example.

Black Hole
Graphic Source: NASA

Scientists have discovered that the faster a black hole spins, the closer matter can get to it without being sucked in. They have found a black hole that is spinning faster than any black hole that they have ever discovered. So how do you measure the spin rate of something that you can not see, because light can't escape from it? You measure the rate of speed of the material spinning around it, that is until now. Scientists found that they could measure the heat of the gas circling the black hole. As the gas gets closer to the black hole, it gets hotter. The black hole they discovered is in our galaxy and is about 3,600 light years distant and is estimated to be spinning at greater than 1,000 times per second. A second ground of scientists examined the same data and came to a different conclusion and that conclusion was that the black hole was spinning a lot slower and that the first team made a mistake in their calculations, because the x-rays that are scattered make the gas seem hotter than it really is. If the first team is correct than the black hole has reached a speed of 98% of the theoretical maximum spin rate.

Lastly in a move reminiscent of the Island of Dr. Moreau, the British government has made the unbelievable move of allowing hybrid human animal embryos to be created. These will be made by injecting human dna into a hollowed out animal egg cell. This, the scientists say, will create a 99.9% human who is .1% animal. I just can't help but feel that this is wrong on so many levels. When it was first discovered that we could clone living things, some scientists just couldn't wait to try things like this and now a major western government is approving it. Supposedly a survey of 2,000 people was conducted and they approved this. Who were the people who were surveyed, mad scientists?