c-3po

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.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

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.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

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.

State

Recently excavated remains of half-size human ancestors on the Indonesian island of Flores indicate that these ancient individuals belonged to a distinctive species that survived until about 12,000 years ago, which is longer than researchers initially estimated.

The growing cache of fossils of this species, Homo floresiensis, represents at least nine individuals, say archaeologist Michael J. Morwood of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his colleagues. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US The same scientists announced their discovery of H. floresiensis last year (SN: 10/30/04, p. 275: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041030/fob1.asp), including a partial skeleton estimated to be around 18,000 years old and other fossils dating from up to 95,000 years ago. All the individuals represented by the fossils were no taller than about 1 meter.

Some scientists argue that the island population might not constitute a new branch of the human tree, but rather represent a population in which everyone had genetic defects that produced abnormally small brains and bodies. In the Oct. 13 Nature, Morwood and his colleagues hold their ground.

"It seems reasonable for [them] to stick to their original hypothesis that H. floresiensis is a new species," remarks anthropologist Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University in an editorial published with the new report.

P. Brown

In their latest excavations, Morwood's group recovered all three right-arm bones of the previously reported partial skeleton, the lower jaw of another individual, and leg, arm, shoulder, spinal, toe, and finger bones of yet other individuals. Radiocarbon dating places an arm bone, the radius, at about 12,000 years old and the jaw at around 15,000 years old.

H. floresiensis' diminutive stature, long arms, and nearly chimp-size brain resemble body proportions of australopithecines, Morwood says. That group of human ancestors lived more than 2 million years ago. The Flores population may have directly evolved into a Homo species from an unknown Asian australopithecine, Morwood speculates.

In Lieberman's view, however, the size and shape of the Indonesian creature's teeth and bones signify a closer link to other Homo species than to australopithecines. Some other researchers agree and now suspect that Morwood's team has mistakenly classified H. sapiens fossils as a new species.

Such a small-brained creature could not have made the sophisticated stone tools that have been found among its remains, contends anthropologist Robert D. Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago. Until now, such implements have appeared only at Stone Age H. sapiens sites, Martin says.

Martin proposes that the Flores skull comes from a H. sapiens individual who had microcephaly, a genetic condition that drastically reduces brain size and causes other developmental abnormalities.http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

Anthropologist Robert B. Eckhardt of Penn State University in State College, who examined the Flores partial skeleton and associated remains last February, agrees. Estimates of H. floresiensis' brain and body size by Morwood's team are too low, he says. Among the Flores fossils, the partial skeleton represents a short person who suffered from developmental problems that included microcephaly, Eckhardt argues.

"I'm absolutely, totally confident that H. floresiensis will not last," Eckhardt says.