The Sky Really is Falling

We all know that the dinosaurs probably met their end when a giant asteroid came hurtling down from outer space and smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula. When the dust cleared, the dinosaurs were gone. Of course, this isn't the first time a mass extinction occurred, but no one ever expects something to fall from the sky. Well, expect the unexpected, because it's about to happen, and America is in its path.

The Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) has been monitored by NASA since it began to slow down a few days ago, but the government agency still doesn't have an idea of where or when the satellite will come back into the atmosphere. This is not because the scientists are not paying attention; this satellite is unstable about its axis of rotation as it comes back to Earth, and when it's traveling at speeds ranging from 10 to hundreds of miles per hour, there's a lot of room for error.

In addition to the high speeds and unstable axis, the satellite is literally breaking up in front of NASA's eyes. NASA believes it will break up into a maximum of 26 pieces made of titanium and beryllium, metals that will heat up but not burn up in the atmosphere. Despite all these risks, NASA is fairly unconcerned.

This is not the first time that a satellite has come crashing down ahead of schedule. In 1979, a 70-ton space station called Skylab fell out of orbit, and pieces of it landed in Australia.  A woman in Oklahoma was walking with some friends at 3:30 in the morning in 1997 and got hit by space junk and sustained no injuries. While being hit by hot, heavy metal with high velocities is not a laughing matter, the chances of it hitting anyone are slim to none.

Since 70% of the Earth's surface is water, the chances of it crashing into land are diminished. Plus, since there is a chance the satellite or one of its pieces could hit a man-made structure, a lot of people are paying attention to where it's going. The Federal Aviation Administration released a notice on Thursday calling the satellite a "potential hazard," and asking all pilots and other aircraft operators to keep a sharp eye out for any falling debris. They are to report anything to the nearest traffic control center.

Once these pieces of metal enter the atmosphere, it will only be a few minutes before they hit the ground. So if you're looking up at the sky on Friday or Saturday (9/23 or 24) and you see something coming at you, run. It's not just a story anymore.

Robots Save The World

Welcome back to the Johns Hopkins STS Tech Blog! After a long summer hiatus we are back in the production room on campus, and ready for some exciting new projects to come our way. First off, in our own tribute to 9/11, the STS Tech Blog is going to analyze the good that technology did on and has done since that day.

There is no doubt that robots are some of the most efficient and beneficial tools we have to monitor and save our lives. They run heart monitors, control vehicles, deliver oxygen to firefighters, and help police communicate in times of danger and confusion. So why can't they also retrieve information from disaster sites that humans are unable to go to?

This is exactly what Robin Murphy of Texas A&M University thought on September 11, 2001. She and her team of computer scientists used their compact robots, called PackBots, to explore areas of Ground Zero that were still on fire, full of debris, or too small for humans to enter. The robots didn't have to worry about the heat or lack of oxygen, but their tank-like treads made it hard for them to move everywhere, and even quickly. This only made the A&M team more determined to make better robots to aid in human efforts to respond to disasters.

As the robots' technological sophistication increased, so did the Government's funding and media attention. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in late August 2005, flying robots were deployed to aerially search for people stranded on roofs or in boats, and because it was faster than people going out to look for victims, responders were able to save many more lives. After the BP Oil Spill in 2010, a robot called the Seaglider was able to dive to previously unattainable depths to monitor the spread of damage. It measured vital ecological data that will help marine biologists and petrologists get the Gulf back to equilibrium. Last March after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (and earthquake and tsunami that accompanied it), robots were used to closely monitor the radiation levels and air temperature around the reactor sites.

Clearly, robots have an advantage over humans because they are unaffected by most physical extremes; however, there is still no substitute for human maneuverability and compassion. Again, this is just a promise of things to come in the near future. Some researchers are planning to build robots with more autonomy, but the trade-off is that the robots would look like worms or giant snakes, which may end up scaring victims more than helping them. It sounds a bit silly, but a disaster leaves people in very unstable emotional and physical states. Nothing is impossible if you've just lost your home.

We all remember the horrors of September 11. Now we have the chance to nurture the little good that came out of that rubble and allow it to help us all. Robots are already a huge part of our lives, and this is just the beginning of a new era of American history. 

VNCB is Launched

On April 28 members of STS and the Johns Hopkins Medical Administrative Board celebrated the official public launch of the Virtual New Clinical Building (VNCB) and began the official countdown to the opening of the physical NCB. There's no turning back now!

The VNCB is the result of an 18-month joint project between STS and Hopkins Medicine, made to make the transition between the physical building and the NCB easier for staff. In the Fall 2010 semester alone, about 4,000 student hours were worked on this project, doing the work of 10 full-time staff members at Johns Hopkins.In total, 23 students worked on this project in varying degrees of intensity with respect to the project, and they were all honored last week at the Medical Campus for their work on the VNCB.

Members of the STS Team and the JHMedicine Administrative Board

The Finished Product

For security reasons, no one outside of the Hopkins servers can view the finished product, but rest assured that it is a beautiful piece of technological art. If you're familiar with Virtual JHU, this is bigger and more detailed than that. It's no wonder it took so long to complete!

The head of the STS Team, Justin Tibbels

Two of our most enthusiastic teammates

This is more of a celebratory update than a blog post on recent research or new technological developments, but since this is such a big event, it's definitely worth congratulating the entire team on a job well done! Just in time for finals, we've finished the largest project ever undertaken by STS. Great job everyone!

Google Voice

Google is on fire.

The giant search engine is no longer just a fountain of quick, easily-accessed information; it has transformed itself into an email hot spot, an internet document storage bin, health and diet tracker, location tool, and now it is a phone. The product Google has been pushing recently is a feature that anyone with a gmail account can use: Google Voice.

Google Voice was initially started 2 years ago to centralize and organize the sometimes confusing world of cellphone data and calling. It's only just hit mainstream because, up until a few months ago, you needed a special invitation to be able to access the site. Google has expanded their program so now everyone can have a Voice account

While it is inherently cool to have people call your computer and speak to you as they would on a phone, if you are one of the many people today who has an operational cellphone, why would you bother with Google Voice? That's the beauty of Google Voice: it's not a phone service, it just uses your computer as an interface for your phone, allowing you to screen calls, "listen in" on voice-mail as it's being made, and view your voice-mail box as you would your email. And the number is tied to your account, so my understanding is that you can log in to any computer and still have access to your phone account. If you ever lose your phone, you could use your Google Voice account to call it, or to monitor calls made by a minor (or the person who might have taken your phone).

Google Voice is able to recognize that you may have multiple phones at your disposal, and it will sync the voice-mailboxes into one spot, transcribed in an email or a text message, should you so choose. Based on the identity of the caller, or the time of day that a call is made, Google Voice also acts as a call blocker, preventing telemarketers from calling at 3 in the morning (it's happened to me, and it wasn't pleasant). Google Voice will also ring all of those phones at the same time, so if you're really waiting for that call, it's the best way to ensure you don't miss it.

There are other cool features that Google Voice has, such as conference calling and the ability to record a call. Google Voice warns that there are Federal and state laws that may prevent you from legally recording a call without consent from both parties, but the fact that you can is extraordinarily empowering. As I mentioned before, the voice-mails will also be transcribed into your Google account, and if you ever need to search for a small piece of information, it's never more than a search bar away.You'll also be able to send those transcribed messages to any other email account you want.

Although Google Voice is only available at this time in the United States, it doesn't prevent international calls from being made. Google Voice works with any mobile carrier, and for the year of 2011 the service will be free, including texts. If you ever switch your phone, carrier, or location, the Google number you chose will remain the same because "it's tied to you."

The Smart Security Grid

One of the biggest issues of the modern day is, without a doubt, energy. We are obsessed with how to use less and generate more of it, or at least take what we have and use it more efficiently. The Obama Administration has noticed this (of course), and expanded the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide for the development of new electric grid technology, which holds the key to advanced energy management and pecuniary savings. Because it is such a large undertaking, the project also promises job creation and energy independence. But this sounds too good to be true, so what's the catch?

The downside to a giant grid is lack of security. The grid is obviously an interconnected web of networks that would be extremely vulnerable to attack from hackers and worms in the system, and because it would be such a central part of how the country runs itself, any attack could result in a massive loss of electrical services. Attack isn't the only downside to a large grid; this kind of project has never been done on such a large scale, and there are definitely unforeseen problems in putting so much energy into one place.

Even if all these disadvantages are disregarded for a moment, there is still the problem of how to run the grid itself. With so many different utilities, providers, and consumers scattered across it, the need for a consistent operating system is imperative. Which system should be used? Experts are still working on that one, and it's not as easy as it sounds. Even if a framework was agreed upon, it would almost immediately have to be updated because of the rapid pace at which technology in general changes. The grid would need to evolve itself constantly to keep pace with demand.

In order for this project to be worked out, the general public of consumers must be educated about what this change could mean for themselves. Many times we will just see the good of a situation and blind ourselves to the bad. "Oh, better energy management? Sign us up!" we might be tempted to say, but the truth is that this issue is about more than reducing our carbon footprint. We might end up paying more (in dollars) for the giant energy grid, but because no one wants to pay more for something they already have, the majority of people might not even bother to switch. And that's not even considering the omnipresent issue of a lack of a generalized framework and cybersecurity network in place yet.

Do you know how much information your energy provider has about you? The answer is a lot. Any hacker or worm good enough to crack into the (currently) weak security system in an energy grid could access your information easily and quickly, and because energy companies are extremely wary of sending out any information about security attacks, you might not even know until it's too late.

This is a rather serious post this week about the dangers of technology, but it's here to highlight the need to understand all sides of an issue before we commit to something on a grand scale. Lesson of the day: do your research.

A New Force To Be Reckoned

Last week physicists working at the Tevatron Accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois, may have encountered the greatest discovery in modern physics since the Manhattan Project during WWII. That new discovery could create quite a stir for particle physicists everywhere, mostly because this "new" particle was wholly unexpected. No one even knows what it is, and because of the sheer surprise of the data, some question its legitimacy. The scientists who ran the experiment estimate its potential error at less than .25% probability, but it's still not enough to publish a hard-core report. Assuming the data are real, this discovery introduces more problems than it solves: Why didn't anyone predict its arrival? How does it fit in with our idea of the atomic model? What is it?

Current speculation of this particle's identity is a variant form of the infamous Higgs Boson, which scientists have been hoping to view in a collision since its proposed existence in the 1990s. The Higgs Boson is theorized to be responsible for the mass found in other particles, and since any freshman physics student knows that energy can never be created or destroyed, the discovery of the Higgs Boson will elucidate the beginning of the universe and show scientists how mass came to exist.

Cool, right?

Of course, with so many different physicists from all over the world working on this project, there are many alternate theories as to what this could be, one of which is that this is a new physical force which works only a very small distances, such as the strong nuclear forces that holds atoms together. Yet another theory is that we have constantly missed something in our hazy understanding of physics, and this is the first clue as to what that "something" is. If this is true, it could have major implications in a major issue in today's physics: how to unify the theory of quantum gravity.

Because the data are so small and, as of now, unsupported, more tests are absolutely essential in the study of this new particle (or force, or representation of a model heretofore unknown). Unfortunately for every particle physicist on earth, the Tevatron is going to be shut down sometime this year, as late as September and as early as when FermiLab runs out of funding money. If allowed to run this same test again, the FermiLab group would have about four times as much data to analyze, enough for either a refutation or a proposal.

So maybe with all the new cloud computing software going into effect, the Government will be able to spare that money and give it to the scientists at Tevatron. Who knows? This could be the dawn of a new age in particle physics.

Adobe Design Achievement Awards

Like any company who produces excellent work, we too like to receive credit and admiration for our work. This is especially the case for the project we have been working on until very recently. Because it is a system bought by Johns Hopkins Medicine, and therefore its property, the actual project cannot be described here; however, we are still able to get credit through the Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA).

ADAA is a competition sponsored by Adobe (the guys who wrote Flash and make PDFs for you) that will award a grand prize of $3000 to the winning individual or team, along with thousands of dollars worth of Adobe products and the recognition of having won. The finalists are flown to Taipei to present at the International Design Alliance, and it is in Taipei that the winner will be chosen. Congratulations Hopkins, your STS team has entered into this contest!

The best part is that anyone who has an idea and executes it has the ability to enter this contest. The rules are that you be a registered student at an accredited institution, the work is your own (and only your own, unless you include all the members of a team), and that out of all the tools you used to create it, half of them are Adobe systems.

There are 15 categories to choose from, although only 12 are feasible (unless you are a teacher, then you have all 15). These categories range from photography and video to browser-based design and new game ideas. The point is that anybody, given a specific amount of free time and access to Adobe products, can enter this competition.

There are three waves of entry submission dates, the first of which has already passed. The next deadline is on April 29, and the final wave starts on April 30 and ends on June 24. If you'd like to be creative and possibly win a trip to Taipei, work on a project in the month after school ends and try your luck!

We are very happy with the end result of our project and hope for the best. Good luck to all!