Download or listen to the program.

By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the U.S. food supply, the U.S. government said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products [according to the FDA].

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as products from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium on the sale of clones and their offspring.

While the FDA evaluated the safety of food from clones and their offspring, the U.S. Agriculture Department was in charge of managing the transition of these animals into the food supply.

"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.

Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother. There are an estimated 600 cloned animals in the United States.

Proponents, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, say cloning is a way to create more disease-resistant animals that produce more milk and better meat. The cloning industry and the FDA say cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as their traditional counterparts.

Critics contend not enough is known about the technology to ensure it is safe, and they also say the FDA needs to address concerns over animal cruelty and ethical issues.

"It worries me that this technology is out of control in so many ways," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman with the Center for Environmental Health. The possibility of offspring being in the food supply "is just another element of that," he said.

Continued...

• Telomerase levels, and telomere length, are very strongly correlated with a gamut of human health outcomes, from stress to heart rate to longevity to abstract psychometrics like 'rumination'.
• Telomerase resembles a kind of reverse transcriptase with a built in fragment of RNA that acts both as a kind of primer for the target telomere and as a functional moiety.
• Longevity has a far greater inherited component that I knew, but this only seems to kick in over the age of 75. Past that age, higher telomerase levels and longer telomeres have a strong negative correlation with geriatric diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
• Telomerase isn't just good for extending telomeres. Even if RNA interference is used to disrupt the RNA portion of the enzyme, making it impossible for it to bind to DNA, telomerase levels have strong phenotypic correlates. In one experiment, induced higher telomerase levels lead to stem cell proliferation - the mouse model became a ball of fur because it had such a high density of new follicular cells.

Overall the talk was a perfect balance of hard science and human interest. Dr Blackmore is an excellent speaker and I strongly recommend seeing one of her presentations if you have the chance.

Organic fruits and vegetables have become the designer food for the second half of this decade. Much the same way as bottled water captured the pocketbooks of people during the first half.

What did we learn about bottled water? It's pretty much the same as what comes out of our taps - sometimes it IS the same.

Ok, so the same is true with Organic produce.

Although many of the marketers at Whole Foods and other purveyors of this nonesense wouldn't want to admit it, Organic foods have the same (or sometimes worse) health benefits as non-organic.

The only thing we really get for paying three times as much is the self-satisfaction that we're buying snob food that poor people can't afford.

For backup, take a look at this video by the International Food Information Council (IFIC): http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/guests.asp?id=WhatsForLunch

It is a funny look at the way most people really have no idea what they are buying when they buy Organic

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Biotech versus Organic"][/caption]

 

If you ask most people what's so great about organic fruits and vegetables, they'll tell you that they are healthier, more nutritious, and better for the environment.

Next, ask them how they know that.

The producers of this video did just that, and the results are very comical - almost like asking the average High School Senior to list off her State and National Representatives.

You can watch the video here: http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/guests.asp?id=WhatsForLunch

Also, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) has even more information on this topic on their website at http://www.ific.org

This funny video might change your mind about buying Organic. Turns out some of our assumptions about how organic foods are healthier may not be totally true.

Check out the video here: http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/guests.asp?id=WhatsForLunch

Also, the organization that made the video, the International Food Information Council (IFIC)'s website at http://www.ific.org/food/biotechnology/index.cfm

The most important thing for anyone to do is eat their veggies. Unfortunately the health food craze has brought in savvy marketers who have convinced a large portion of our population that the only way to get healthy foods is to buy "organic".

The truth is that there is no evidence that Organic is actually healthier, or more nutritious.

So say the good folks at the International Food Information Council in their funny video, "What's For Lunch?"

Check out the video it's definitely worth it. Also go to the postee's website at http://www.ific.org/food/biotechnology/index.cfm

Or, GMOs. Haha. Sounds pretty scary, doesn't it.

Turns out, much of the food we buy is modified in some way. And that's not a bad thing. Biotechnology helps to make farmland more productive and the food we eat healthier, bigger, and better tasting.

I know, you heard about all the good things "Organic" foods bring to the table.

Turns out, the only good Organic food does is put money in a Marketer's pocket. In fact, if you watch this video called, "What's For Lunch?", you'll see that because of the price differences, traditional "non-organic" produce is probably better because it makes fruits and vegetables more affordable.

Watch the video then let me know what you think: http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/guests.asp?id=WhatsForLunch

"Telomerase is an ideal target for chemotherapy because it is active in almost all human tumors, but inactive in most normal cells," Skordalakes says. "That means a drug that deactivates telomerase would likely work against all cancers, with few side effects."

Not to mention the potential for longevity treatment, and of course the inevitable skin lotions. I don't know much about human (or eukaryotic for that matter) cell biology so I'll leave any more commentary to the experts. The Royal Society of NSW is hosting a public lecture in Sydney tomorrow night on "Roles of Telomeres and Telomerase in Human Health and Disease". The speaker is none other than Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, co-discoverer of telomerase. Glancing at her wiki entry, I found that she was also kicked off the President's Council on Bioethics for trying to inject some actual science into their recommendations.  Win.

http://www.follicabio.com/

http://www.androscience.com/

according to Stephen Spruiell the GOP platform now calls for a complete ban on all embryonic stem cell research. Publicly funded, privately funded, new lines, pre-existing lines, whatever. If it's an embryo, you can't use it for research.

This is the kind of thing that, over and over, seems like it ought to be a big deal to me. And yet, at the federal level, it never really seems to generate more than yawns. I guess everyone is used to conservative hardliners insisting on ideological purity, being humored in one way or another, and then, in the end, ignored. So no one takes it seriously.

Which, in a sense, is almost fair. Still, just for the record: the Republican Party now officially opposes all embryonic stem cell research no matter what. In case anyone ever asks you.

This new position is logically consistent. If stem cell research is the slaughtering of embryos, and if that's bad, then no one ought to be engaging in it. Of course, sacrificing medical research because of a highly contestable, abstract and unpopular definition of when "life" begins is unspeakably extreme. Democrats should be point this out.

Did your company produce one of the year’s best innovations in life science? Do you know of an innovation that you think qualifies? If so, let us know!

The Scientist -- the magazine that produces the annual Life Science Industry Awards, Best Places to Work surveys, and the Salary Survey for the life sciences -- is pleased to present, for the first time, the top 10 life science innovations of the year.

At the end of the year, we will count down the top 10 innovations of 2008, as determined by a panel of expert judges.  But in order to be included on the list, we must receive information from you about the innovative product – this includes tools, cell lines, etc.  A product that was released prior to 2008 could be considered one of this year’s innovations if a version released during 2008 is a significant improvement over previous versions.

Entries are due by Monday, September 8, 2008 – with the possibility of an extension, if necessary. To be considered, entries must be no longer than 500 words, and include when the product was released and why it is an “innovation” to the life sciences. We accept multiple entries from one company. Send entries to: innovate2008@the-scientist.com.

Some of my colleagues from BIO are in Denver this week, checking out the convention. Josh Boger, Chairman of BIO and President & CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals was even interviewed by BlogHer. Watch the interview.

Why is BIO at the Democratic National Convention you may ask? To sum it up in one word -- education. BIO goes to educate public officials at all levels, as well as candidates about the importance of creating policies that promote biotechnology innovation so that we can address the challenges facing our nation in health care, energy security and fuel prices, global food supply, and global warming & environmental sustainability.

BIO will not endorse either candidate and we will go to BOTH conventions, so look for us at the Republican National Convention next week.

For more info on biotechnology, be sure to check out our YouTube channel.

BIOtech Now interviews Claus Stig Pedersen, head of sustainability development for Novozymes. He discusses the important role of sustainability and how enzyme technology such as that developed by Novozymes can improve industrial performance and reduce resource consumption.

Download or listen to the program.

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC) argues that the Pentagon should harvest the fruits of neuroscientific research in order to enhance the "warfighting" capabilities of U.S. soldiers while diminishing those of enemy personnel.

The 151-page report issued by a 16-member blue ribbon commission, "Cognitive Neuroscience Research and National Security," was quietly announced in an August 13 National Academy of Sciences Press Release.

Commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon spy shop, the study asserts that the U.S. intelligence "community" must do a better job following cutting-edge research in neuroscience or as is more likely, steering it along paths useful to the Defense Department. According to the NRC,

A 2005 National Research Council report described a methodology for gauging the implications of new technologies and assessing whether they pose a threat to national security. In this new report, the committee applied the methodology to the neuroscience field and identified several research areas that could be of interest to the intelligence community: neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological states and intentions of individuals, the development of drugs or technologies that can alter human physical or cognitive abilities, advances in real-time brain imaging, and breakthroughs in high-performance computing and neuronal modeling that could allow researchers to develop systems which mimic functions of the human brain, particularly the ability to organize disparate forms of data. ("National Security Intelligence Organizations should Monitor Advances in Cognitive Neuroscience Research," National Academy of Sciences, Press Release, August 13, 2008)

Unlocking the secrets of the brain is projected as the next growth industry for the military, academia and corporate grifters hoping to land huge Pentagon contracts. As defense analyst Noah Shachtman reported in Wired, the "Army has given a team of University of California researchers a $4 million grant to study the foundations of "synthetic telepathy." Unlike "remote viewing" research funded by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency between 1972 and 1996, variously known as "Grill Flame," "Sun Streak" and finally, "Star Gate" before the plug was pulled, the Army-U.C. Irvine joint venture are exploring thought transmission via a brain-computer mediated interface.

Recently New Scientist reported on a series of bizarre experiments at the University of Reading in the UK. Researchers there have connected 300,000 disembodied rat neurons suspended in "a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics" to 80 electrodes at the base of the growth medium. As journalist Paul Marks informs us, the "rat neurons have made--and continue to make--connections with each other." The voltages sparked by the firing cells are displayed on a computer screen.

Welcome to the "brave new world" of neural prosthetics and the militarists who are exploiting science and technology for new weapons applications.

Declaring that emerging technologies such as brain imaging and cognitive and physical enhancers are "desired by the public," NRC avers "such forces act as strong market incentives for development." But as Rick Weiss cautions on the Science Progress blog,

But even more interesting to me is the report's discussion of the emerging market in brain-targeted, performance-degrading techniques. Some experiments, it turns out, suggest that magnetic beams can be used to induce seizures in people, a tempting addition to the military's armamentarium. More conventionally, as scientists discover new chemicals that can blur thinking or undermine an enemy's willpower, and as engineers design aerosolized delivery systems that can deliver these chemicals directly to the lungs (and from there, the brains) of large groups of people, the prospect of influencing the behavior of entire enemy regiments becomes real. ("Minding Mental Minefields," Science Progress, August 15, 2008)

The use of so-called calmative agents as non-lethal weapons are already under development. As Antifascist Calling reported last month in "The Calmative Before the Storm," the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) are carrying out experiments into what it euphemistically calls "Human Effects Research" and developing an "Advanced Total Body Model for predicting the effects of non-lethal impacts."

Apparently the DIA has taken this a step further and will now explore the possibility of creating aerosolized pharmacological agents that can disrupt and perhaps influence, the mental functioning of targeted populations abroad, enemy soldiers or dissenting citizens here in the United States.

Neil Davison, a researcher with the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre (BDRC) at Bradford University in the UK, wrote an important 2007 study, "'Off the Rocker' and 'On the Floor': The Continued Development of Biochemical Incapacitating Weapons." Davison examined the historical differentiation made by weaponeers between "off the rocker" agents such as LSD, PCP and psilocybin in their allegedly weaponized forms versus "on the floor" agents such as sedatives, opiate analgesics and anesthetic chemicals.

During the "golden age" of the CIA and U.S. Army's quixotic search for "mind control" agents during the 1950s and 1960s, researchers were seeking a reliable mechanism that would unlock the secrets of the mind--and gain control over witting or unwitting subjects--for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. Hundreds, if not thousands, of unethical experiments were carried out on psychiatric patients, civilians and soldiers. The results were subsequently suppressed on grounds on "national security."

While the majority of CIA MKULTRA files were ordered destroyed by former Agency Director Richard Helms in 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held landmark 1977 hearings and issued a report, "Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification." As Senator Ted Kennedy discussed in his opening remarks,

Some 2 years ago, the Senate Health Subcommittee heard chilling testimony about the human experimentation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over 30 universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." ...

We believed that the record, incomplete as it was, was as complete as it was going to be. Then one individual, through a Freedom of Information request, accomplished what two U.S. Senate committees could not. He spurred the agency into finding additional records pertaining to the CIA's program of experimentation with human subjects. ... The records reveal a far more extensive series of experiments than had previously been thought. Eighty-six universities or institutions were involved. New instances of unethical behavior were revealed.

The Central Intelligence Agency drugged American citizens without their knowledge or consent. It used university facilities and personnel without their knowledge. It funded leading researchers, often without their knowledge. (emphasis added)

While the CIA's MKULTRA project and related Army ventures carried out at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, may have failed to develop specific agents that could be wielded as a "mind control" weapon, the research did result in the development of abusive interrogation techniques that can only be characterized as torture.

As Antifascist Calling queried in "Neuroscience, National Security & the 'War on Terror'," "If behavioral psychology was handmaid to the horrors perpetrated at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA transnational 'black sites,' what new nightmares are in store for humanity when advances in neuroscience, complex computer algorithms and a secretive national security state enter stage (far) right?"

Apparently horrors of the "mind control" variety, particularly when it comes to applications for ever-newer and more insidious interrogation/control techniques to be used on "enemy combatants" or dissenting malefactors in the heimat.

According to the NRC and the corporate-academic grifters involved in the research, cognitive warfare should be sold as a "more humane" method of advancing imperialist objectives. As the report baldly states, the equation "pills instead of bullets" will be the preferred marketing technique employed for "selling" the program to the American people. As anthropologist Hugh Gusterson wrote,

The military and scientific leaders chartering neuroweapons research will argue that the United States is a uniquely noble country that can be trusted with such technologies, while other countries (except for a few allies) cannot. They will also argue that these technologies will save lives and that U.S. ingenuity will enable the United States to dominate other countries in a neuroweapons race. When it is too late to turn back the clock, they will profess amazement that other countries caught up so quickly and that an initiative intended to ensure American dominance instead led to a world where everyone is threatened by chemicalized soldiers and roboterrorists straight out of Blade Runner. (The militarization of neuroscience," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 April 2007)

But as the world looked on in horror at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, this "uniquely noble country" guided by "ethical principles," resorted to repugnant methods such as sensory deprivation, near drowning and "self-inflicted pain" techniques (short-shackling and the like) to achieve control over defenseless prisoners.

As the NRC would have it, academics in thrall to corporate funding and state agencies staffed by war criminals now expect us to believe that "ethics" will guide those exploring pharmacological methods to obtain more insidious means to subjugate humanity.

Weiss reports that the NRC notes in its report, the motivation, or lack thereof, to fight, is of great concern to Pentagon bureaucrats and policy makers. "So one question," for military-corporate-academic funded research "would be, 'How can we disrupt the enemy's motivation to fight?' Other questions raised by controlling the mind: 'How can we make people trust us more?' 'What if we could help the brain to remove fear or pain?' 'Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?'...As cognitive neuroscience and related technologies become more pervasive, using technology for nefarious purposes becomes easier."

But as is usual with all such screeds, the psychoanalytic theory of projection comes in handy when deciphering the monstrous intent of Pentagon weaponeers. It is all-too-clear whether we are discussing nuclear, biological, chemical or contemporaneously, cognitive weapons that Western proponents of preemptive war, always couch their acts of violent imperialist aggression in purely defensive terms.

In this light, Freud and his followers have defined projection as a form of defense in which unwanted feelings are displaced onto another person, and where aggressive impulses then appear as a threat from the external world. In the case of corporate defense and security grifters, their militarist pit bulls and the academic sycophants who fuel their deranged "cognitive warfare" fantasies, the other--a nation, a dispossessed class or a bogeyman such as "international terrorism"--are always the external harbingers of apocalyptic death and destruction, when in reality such fantasies are wholly reflective of their own desire to aggressively dominate and plunder other nations.

Therefore, the NRC maintains, and note the ideologically-skewed reference to the eternal verities of "the market," the Holy Grail of capitalism in its hyperimperialist phase:

The fear that this approach to fighting war might be developed will be justification for developing countermeasures to possible cognitive weapons. This escalation might lead to innovations that could cause this market area to expand rapidly. Tests would need to be developed to determine if a soldier had been harmed by a cognitive weapon. And there would be a need for a prophylactic of some sort. (NRC, op. cit.)

Who, pray tell, is driving this "escalation" and counting on academia to produce "innovations" in "this market area"? One might also quite reasonably inquire: Who profits?

As Christopher Green, the chairman of the NRC investigative panel championing neuroweapons research avers in a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Big Pharma is global. Drug discovery research is both ponderous (not as much as arms control, however) and increasingly beyond the control of governments and the public. The development of cognitive enhancers and anti-aging aides during the next two decades (the time needed for drug discovery to become successful) will be...ethically worrisome. But it will be beyond opprobrium. Drugs will be developed and marketed, and not necessarily under the auspices of traditional Western controls and good laboratory practices. ("The potential impact of neuroscience research is greater than previously thought," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 July 2008) [emphasis added]

While Green claims he is opposed to developing drugs "with safe and efficacious properties for military use," the NRC study, after all, was funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency, hardly a "neutral party" when it comes to "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other horrors of this horrible system!

One must also dissect the linguistic formulations and assumptions deployed by those advocating this line of research. By referring to neuroweapons production as a "market area," those contemplating unleashing devilish pharmacological forms of warfare on unsuspecting populations behave, in you'll pardon the pun, as if they were brainstorming the release of a new video game or suite of luxury condominiums in an American city "ethnically cleansed" of its urban poor!

Green and his acolytes claim that "battlefield commanders of all nations hold sacrosanct the right to determine the applications" of weapon deployments that may cause "collateral damage" to civilian noncombatants. Therefore, Green argues that "if governments or scientists were to try to develop a system to pre-screen neuroscientific cognitive manipulators, which would be HIPAA approved and tested, and robust in its core science, success would be as likely as it was with mines and cluster-bombs--meaning not likely." Translation: full-speed ahead!

While the NRC allege that their approach to monitoring neuroweapons research is "ethical," the committee ponders whether "the concept of torture could also be altered by products in this market. It is possible that someday there could be a technique developed to extract information from a prisoner that does not have any lasting side effects."

Other than the hollowing-out of one's personality and the unique traits that make us human, that is. "Paging Winston Smith, white courtesy telephone!"

While Nazi theories of Aryan superiority may have been displaced by a uniquely American ultranationalist, though no less predatory utilitarian praxis, behind the glittering technological promises trumpeted by today's biotech weaponeers lurk the same murderous mental constructs that guided Indian hunters and slave traders of yore.

Only this time, we're all Manchurian candidates.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.

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The engineering professional association IEEE reports that engineers are fairing well.

Good for them.

But to say they are "doing well by doing good" is laughable, generally speaking.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers cites technologists working on "solar energy and search engines, cellphones and fuel cells, DNA sequencing and Hollywood blockbusters," as fairly pathetic examples of do-gooding.

The IEEE goes on in this bit (below) to admit that aerospace and defense, and consumer electronics, are actually the industries keeping engineers in good stead.

IEEE Spectrum: Engineers Are Doing Well by Doing Good
This rise in starting salaries would be even higher were companies not able to get young talent from such places as India, China, and Romania. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that over the next decade, EE ­employment will grow much more slowly than other ­engineering areas, because of the job outflux to other ­countries.

- Emperor Palpatine during the Declaration of a New Order

"A weapon they are. Obey orders without question for good or ill. For now they fight for us. Who is to say what the future holds?"

- Yoda

In the animated film Clone Wars, the Republic's heros Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi utilize faceless genetically modified human clone troopers (background) manufactured for the sole purpose of warfare, to help fight their battles with the “Separatists”.

How close has science brought us to clone armies squaring off against blaster-wielding droids?

Scientific American | Aug 11, 2008

The Science of Star Wars: The Clone Wars--Q&A with Author Jeanne Cavelos

By Adam Hadhazy

The new animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars features an army of cloned soldiers doing battle with droids on far-flung planets. For those of us who grew up watching the Star Wars movies, droids and laser blasters are almost as real as cell phones and Wi-Fi. But what in Star Wars qualifies as remotely plausible, according to our understanding of science, and what is pure fantasy? To help answer this question, ScientificAmerican.com spoke with Jeanne Cavelos, a science fiction writer and author of The Science of Star Wars [read excerpts from the book here]. When her book came out, researchers had spotted less than two dozen planets around other stars—that figure is now over 300—and South Korean researcher Woo Suk Hwang was five years from rocking the world with his fraudulent claims of cloning the first human cells. We asked Cavelos to update us on how George Lucas's vision has fared.

How far have would you say researchers have come with cloning in the last few years, and will we ever have clone armies like in Star Wars?

We have cloned many different animals at this point—cats, dogs, sheep—and there is very little holding us back from cloning humans except ethics and law. It's entirely conceivable that we will see humans cloned for medical or reproductive purposes in the coming decades. The link between genes and behavior has also become much better understood in recent years, and like the Imperial armies in Star Wars, human clones could probably be genetically altered to be obedient and programmable. One area of Star Wars cloning technology that is not very realistic according to today's science is the limited amount of time the clones have to grow and learn. Nevertheless, cloning technology is something in Star Wars that we will be seeing more of soon.

What do you think about all of the exoplanets that have turned up since you first wrote your book?

It's amazing that George Lucas predicted this universe full of planets and aliens. When Star Wars came out in 1977, scientists thought that planet formation was a fluke. Now they are saying that half of the stars out there may have planets.

So do you think we are getting closer to finding alien life forms?

Absolutely. It's amazing to think about all the potential life out there. And it's looking more and more likely that we might find life right here in the solar system. George Lucas came up with Star Wars before we knew about extremophiles, which are life-forms that can live in bizarre, extreme situations. We had thought that life was this fragile flower that could only develop if conditions were just right—it's the "Goldilocks" principle. But instead, we have found life-forms that can survive boiling and subzero temperatures or live deep underground with no sunlight whatsoever. These sorts of conditions probably aren't conducive to the rise of complex, intelligent life, so a lot of life out there in the universe will probably be rather primitive.

What's a possible reason for why the Star Wars universe could have so many humanoids?

It seems that the human species, or whatever its equivalent is in that faraway galaxy, either colonized all these worlds or was genetically "seeded" on many planets. This species became dominant somehow. It's unlikely though that one species could live on so many planets without some kind of respiratory assistance. Each atmosphere is a quirky mixture of ingredients found only on that planet; you wouldn't have the same mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide as we do. It's nice to see people in Star Wars just land on any old planet and get out of their spaceships without a problem, but it's not realistic.

But one thing Lucas does do well is show a huge variety of life on these various planets. It helps you get an idea of the crazy abundance of different species, and this will probably be closer to the truth than we once imagined it would be.

Robots, or droids, as they are called in Star Wars, seem to be getting a lot more common than they were years ago. Was George Lucas right about them, too?

Well, nowadays we have the Roomba, that's the little robotic vacuum cleaner some people seem to like. Then there's the Honda Asimo robot that looks like an astronaut, which is pretty much as good as C-3PO at getting around. One of the major areas where people have brought robots into the home is with toys. There were those Furby robots from a while back that would talk to you and pick up what you say, and were banned from the Pentagon. You also see a lot of robots designed and built recently to mimic animals, like geckos and dragonflies.

NASA is now developing these softball-size robots—if you recall Luke's lightsaber training with the floating ball that shoots him in Episode IV—that float in zero gravity and maneuver with six fans. They can record temperature and pressure, can go into areas that are too dangerous for astronauts to go into, and be like a canary in a coal mine.

You also see robots fighting wars in Star Wars. We have devices like that deployed in Iraq called SWORDS that can detect roadside bombs, and now they are putting weapons on these. Then there are predator drones, too. There’s also the "Big Dog" army robot in development by DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]; it looks like an Imperial walker but with dog legs. This two-and-half-foot-tall machine keeps its balance even on ice, and it could serve as an equipment-carrying pack robot for soldiers.

What about robotic intelligence and emotions? What are some insights since you published your book?

Science has made huge strides in robot technology since the first Star Wars movie came out, and even just since Episode I was released in 1999. But the main thing robots still lack is intelligence and emotion—we don't have heroic robots like R2-D2 that take on risks, or skittish robots like C-3PO, either. Researchers who are developing artificial intelligence are realizing that emotions are needed to make robots rational; we usually think of these as being opposed to one another, but we need emotions to operate in a useful way. For example, people with frontal lobe disorders have trouble making decisions because, like computers, they go through every possible action before making a move. People with normal brains, though, have a feeling about a situation and that helps them to make a quick decision.

There are ideas to introduce a chemical reward system in robots similar to what humans have, or to program emotional states. If we are in a tough situation, say, stranded on the Star Wars desert planet Tatooine, we focus on survival by pushing ourselves to the limit and being more watchful of our environment. Likewise, robots could quickly "decide" to access their emergency power and shut down nonessential functions. Overall, emotions could make a robot more efficient in achieving its goal.

How practical is the transgalactic travel in the Star Wars universe?

The characters talk about moving in spaceships at "light-speed" or "making the jump into hyperspace" interchangeably, and there are some problems with that nomenclature. After all, light-speed is not very fast! If you were traveling at light-speed, it would take you over four years to reach the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, because it is over four light-years [24 trillion miles] away.

What seems to be going on in Star Wars is that they travel through so-called wormholes. Einstein's theory of relativity tells us that we might be able to make wormholes to fold space in on itself in order to make the shortest distance between two points. All of space is warped by gravity. Think of it this way: Say space is a sheet hanging over a clothesline. If you want to get around to the other side of the sheet, you could go up to the clothesline and then down the other side, but it would be much faster just to tunnel directly between the two sides of the sheet.

Wormholes, if they exist, are probably smaller than atoms and survive for only fractions of a second. The way to make use of one theoretically is to "open" one up with a huge amount of energy and then keep it open and expand it with an exotic kind of matter. This matter would need to have negative mass or energy to exert an antigravitational force to hold the wormhole open long enough to let a spaceship pass through. This seems to be what Han Solo is doing with the Millennium Falcon when he makes [a] jump to hyperspace. You can sort of think of "light-speed" as slang in the Star Wars universe.

Obviously, we're very far away from any kind of technology that would take us rapidly to another star. NASA's new Orion spaceship, which will be out in 2014, is designed just to get us back to [the] moon and [to] Mars. But someday we could have interstellar travel like they use so frequently in Star Wars.

What about laser weapons? Are we any closer to having those, and are they realistic?

Who wouldn't want to have a blaster? They are so cool. Right now we have low-powered lasers than can blind people, or higher power ones that burn skin or clothing—kind of like a long-distance flamethrower. The most powerful lasers we have that I know of have about 2.2 megawatts of power, which can destroy enemy missiles from thousands of miles away. These are rather similar to what we see in Star Wars.

But for these lasers we need enough equipment to fill up a truck or even a building. We can't exactly fit this laser technology into a holster just yet. The best lasers are still only 30 percent efficient and the rest of their energy is lost as heat. You also have to cool the laser down to keep it working properly, plus you need to put a lot of power in to get a lot of power out.

There are wireless TASERs now about the size of a flashlight. They send out an ultraviolet laser beam that breaks up air molecules between them and the target. This releases ions, and then electricity can be sent through the air to knock someone out, or even give them a heart attack if you're not careful. It's kind of similar to when Princess Leia was stunned by the storm troopers near the beginning of the first movie [Episode IV: A New Hope]. There are also prototypes of stun grenades that superheat moisture in the air, which makes an explosive flash and bang that can stun people.

Let's talk lightsabers.

Ah, lightsabers. When I first saw Star Wars, I was 17 years old, and I thought they were laser beams. But that doesn't make any sense because a laser beam wouldn't come to a point after a few feet. Also, the laser wouldn't be visible unless there was a lot of dust in the air to scatter light and illuminate the beam. Plus, laser lightsabers would pass through each other like flashlight beams, which wouldn’t make for a very fun fight.

So I think plasma is a better candidate. This ionized gas is made by lightning, is what the sun's made out of, and is even used in plasma TVs. You can contain plasma using electric and magnetic fields, which exert inward pressure to match the plasma's outward pressure. This means you could make different shapes, like a lightsaber–esque cylinder. But there are some problems: You couldn't create a tip, and plasma would leak and vaporize the skin off Luke Skywalker's hands. And as with a laser, you couldn't fit all the necessary machinery to generate the plasma into a sword handle. Plus, the beam would need to be millions of degrees and far denser, in terms of energy, than anything we have now. But if somehow you could do all that, sure enough, the lightsaber would cut through metal and bone. The fields containing plasma would repel other lightsabers, so they would work like what you see, except it would radiate a great deal of heat, about as much of the sun. Jedi would have really bad sunburns.

How do you think "The Force" works in the Star Wars universe, and could it exist in ours?

The most difficult thing about trying to explain The Force is that it does so many different things: It can levitate objects, read others' thoughts, influence the weak-minded, reveal visions of the past and the future, detect disturbances or presences, and even allow for life after death.

The best chance we have of explaining The Force is through the midi-chlorians, which were introduced in the new trilogy. Lucas explains these midi-chlorians as organisms that live within our cells and allow us to feel The Force. The element that seems scientifically based here is the sensing of someone strong in The Force. You can compare this to creatures living in water that generate small electrical fields. Some fish generate these fields, and these can sense when other fish come into these fields as well as the strength of the field put out by the approaching fish.

Or maybe The Force is similar to magnetism. Birds sense magnetic fields with cells in their beaks and eyes, called cryptochromes. Birds may actually "see" the magnetic field, so you can imagine a similar kind of thing happening in Star Wars. If Darth Vader is standing in the next room, maybe you can see the emissions of The Force like a magnetic aura around him.

Related

By 22 BBY, genetic alterations were complete, and 200,000 units had been produced through Kaminoan gestation pods.

Clone troopers were identical, genetically-modified soldiers bred and trained to serve in the Republic's army during the conflict that came to be known as the Clone Wars

The most infamous work of the Kaminoans was their design and development of the Galactic Republic's clone army. Using the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett as the template, the Kaminoans produced and trained a massive army of clone soldiers for the Republic at the behest of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas. Their work eventually brought them to the brink of destruction again, as their world was targeted by the Separatists to end the supply of clone soldiers. The Kamino Defense Force, manned by specially trained clone troopers (including the ARC troopers) defeated the Separatist forces.

The journey back was pretty uneventful. On the last day, we basically packed up (only the Biotech stayed behind, all the rest went to town!) and some of us helped Ms Teo pluck rose petals. (Long story.) At 1pm, the guys lugged their stuff downstairs and then helped the girls with their suitcases. It was quite funny to see the whole load of us tumbling down the staircase with the heavy suitcases. :D

Whilst the teachers, most of the guys and a few girls checked the weights of the luggages, the rest of us went to play soccer outside! It was great to enjoy the Girton grass one last time.. The grass that's so soft and comfortable that you won't mind lying out in the cold, at night, dressed in only shorts and a tee shirt, to watch shooting stars.  

The bus ride to Heathrow seemed like an eternally long one. When we finally arrived at the airport, most of us had to rush to the toilet :P We checked in and then split up to do our own DFS and have dinner. The Bio-techies and Jun Xian went to Garfunkel's to have dinner.. Yummy fish and chips! We also had macaroni and cheese, mushroom omelette, pizza and a dish which had a mixture of bacon and chicken. Yummy yummy yummy. DFS was pretty fruitful, Changyuan bought Liverpool merchandise and Ivy and Jonathan managed to finish buying gifts for their friends. :)

Flight back - pretty uneventful. The in-flight entertainment was not working properly but we still had movies to watch, so it wasn't too bad. Most of us knocked out - I, for one, saw Francis sleeping everytime I turned around! Others had fun watching shows like Little Britain - their laughter could be heard through my earphones. XD

Well, some more pictures which hopefully speak volumes about the great fun we had in Cambridge.

Formal night :)

The marketplace! I love!

Strawberry DNA

IMAX movie.

The Lit students going for Othello.

Chilling in the JCR

Renuka during a tutorial

Deborah in the train!