Peter Stenning (Edward Judd) in the newsroom of the Daily Express in Val Guest’s 1961 film, “The Day the Earth Caught Fire”. Stenning and Bill McGuire (Leo McKern), the science editor of the Express, investigate the disastrous consequences of US and USSR strategic experiments. The images of London straining under severe weather disruption are stunning.

The Independent’s Cahal Milmo wrote today that Prof Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at UEA is predicting that 2007 will be the warmest year on record. The combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system are poised to combine their effects this year. Prof Jones said,

El Niño makes the world warmer and we already have a warming trend that is increasing global temperatures by one to two tenths of a degrees celsius per decade. Together, they should make 2007 warmer than last year and it may even make the next 12 months the warmest year on record.

“The Day the Earth Caught Fire” was picked out as a neglected classic in one of the Independent’s holiday supplements.

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An italian research programme is aiming to use androids as therapeutic interlocutors for autistic children:

The FACE (Facial Automaton for Conveying Emotions) … is a life-like artifact intended as a believable human-machine interface that is able to engage in non-verbal communication by imitating and learning the emotional behaviour of an interlocutor. … [FACE] will enable us to verify if the system can help children with autism to learn, identify, interpret, and use emotional information and to extend these skills in a socially appropriate, flexible, and adaptive context. [Pioggia et al (2006:1)]

The FACE system takes stereoscopic samples of faces (one per second), pattern-matching facial expressions using a hierarchical neural network based on Kohonen self-organising maps and a multi-layer Perceptron. The skin of the android is equipped with piezo-electric sensor arrays, and its clothes also send interation data to the control and analysis systems.

Preliminary results indicate that the android is successfully participating in rudimentary social interactions with a small sample group of autistic children.

Pioggia, C., Ferro, M., Sica, M.L. Dalle Mura, Casalini, S., Ahluwalia, A., De Rossi, D. Igliozzi, R., Muratori, F. (2006) Imitation and Learning of the Emotional Behaviour: Towards an android-based treatment for people with autism (Conference Paper)

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The international space station caught up with operations that had been delayed since the 2003 Columbia accident. Despite the questionable scientific value, the ISS is still a staggering engineering accomplishment.

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The Artifort F978, designed by Geoffrey Harcourt in 1968, has been re-released. Artifort attempted to make well-designed furniture cheap and accessible. One of their manufacturing strategies involved using an old cider press to manufacture some of their pressed-plywood furniture.

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I know nothing about cars - but I do remember from my 1970’s Top Trumps: Prototypes that this is the Ferrari Modulo designed by Pininfarina. I also remember that it was a V12, 5 litre thing and could, apparently, travel at 360 kph. If we had seen Dr. Frank Poole going about his business on earth - it would have been in one of these.

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In a development reminiscent of Dr Strangelove, attempts are underway to develop weapons capable of destroying underground facilities up to 300 feet beneath rock.

As we watch the slow-motion failure of attempts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons strategic planning is increasingly dredging its archives for ideas belonging to the Cold War. Defense Tech describe the new generation of ‘bunker busting’ weapons, ending their article:

“I’ve been advised that the Deep Digger program is undergoing a ‘security review’. If past experience is anything to go by, this means you won’t be hearing any more news updates on the program.” [Source: Defense Tech]

The article describes a several of technologies designed to either hammer or drill their way closer to their targets. Once underground shockwaves are their modus operandi. Using this technique greater damage can be done than by nuclear weapons:

For a penetration depth of three meters and a yield of 0.3 kilotons, the B61-11 could destroy a target buried under roughly 15 meters [= 50 feet] of hard rock or concrete. For the same penetration depth and the maximum yield of 340 kilotons, the destruction depth would be roughly 70 meters [ =210 feet ] for a hardened target. [Original Source:Union of Concerned Scientists]

The strategic logic embedded in these developments is the clearest possibile indicator of what is at stake in the attempts to revive nuclear non-proliferation.

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