Korean Students Learning English by Robot

Learning English by robot? It's happening, in Daegu.

The South Korean city boasts a full 21 elementary schools now featuring egg-shaped robots that teach by reading and dancing to music. (The machines can wheel themselves around the room, after all.)

The meter-high robots, numbering 29 in all, have an avatar for a face, which reflects the facial expressions of the people giving the instructions — teachers in the Philippines! It is indeed a few degrees of separation from one teacher, one classroom.

It's all part of a pilot program, infused by $1.37 million from the national government, to address a shortage of teachers in rural areas. Proponents say that if the trial is successful, then the robots will be rolled out (literally) to classrooms across the country.

Oddly enough, reports are that students too shy to interact with human teachers are responding to the voice and activity of the robots.

The robots also play alphabet games and sing songs. It's all part of the learn-English program.

The teachers, operating remotely, can see what's going on in the classroom, so it's not like they're totally removed from the action. Still, they really are removed from the classroom. If a student misbehaves, will that student mind a robot-teacher? If the student gets physical and tips the robot over, what happens to the rest of the class? Presumably, the remote-teachers would be able to alert the other teachers in the Korean school and/or the principal, who would sort things out. Still, one can't help thinking that this will work only as long as students are not unruly.

Then there's the cost issue. each of these robots costs 10 million won (nearly $9,000). That's a lot less than the cost of maintaining a teacher, even if you factor only salary, sick leave, insurance, and severance into only a one-year calculation. But does it create the same sort of encouraging learning environment that students having human teachers would get? Depends on what you're used to or what you'll tolerate. If learning is the main goal, then maybe these robots are just the ticket, especially since they're a sort of hybrid in that they feature remote interaction with human teachers. Still, it might take more than a bit of getting used to for the students to truly appreciate "I, Robot, am your teacher." Maybe it's a generational thing.

Abbey Road Crossing a Historic Site

It's not just any pedestrian crossing. It is the pedestrian crossing. You know the one. You've seen it so often you can describe in your sleep in what order they're walking, who's wearing what, and who's out of step.

Yes, we're talking about the cover of Abbey Road. That particular pedestrian crossing is now under national protection, thanks to action by the U.K. government. It's a Grade II listed site, to be precise; and that means that anybody wanting to do anything to it needs to make a proposal that gets over the considerably high bar set by the local government's measures of the site's historic significance. Obviously, that bar will be particularly high.

Probably no one would argue if a proposal to upgrade the pavement were approved, since that meets another of the local government's measures (condition of the area), as well as the test of common sense.

And, if a developer wanted to come in and eradicate the white stripes in favor of a stop-free road, that would not pass the third of the local government's measures, that of function.

Suffice it to say that you'd have to work incredibly hard to convince the local government to change anything about that pedestrian crossing.

This is a good thing, right? I mean, we want to preserve in reality as well as in our minds (and repeated glimpses of the album cover) exactly what that street looked like. We want to remember the 28IF license plate. We want to see just how sunny it was that day, when the Beatles went out for just a 10-minute photo shoot but produced an iconic image that has burned itself into the common psyche of millions of fans.

The pedestrian crossing joins the Abbey Road Studios on the Grade 11 listing.

BTW, here's that info from the first paragraph:

• order of walking: John, Ringo, Paul, George
• who's wearing what: John, white suit; Ringo, black suit; Paul, blue suit; George, jeans and jean jacket
• who's out of step: Paul

Reflections on the Eclipse

The celestial trifecta was certainly something to behold, if you could see it. The long white clouds of my nation of residence did not allow me to catch a glimpse of the red moon created by the lunar eclipse on the winter solstice, but I have enjoyed reading about other people's experiences and certainly seeing other people's photos.

The result was quite dramatic and, in certain circles of geographic perfection, lasted long enough for whole families or star parties to remark on the astronomical fascination provided by such a mundane thing as one celestial body moving past another.

Some random thoughts on some of (IMHO) the best photos on the night:

Is that the Moon or Mars? It certainly looks like the latter, even if it is definitely the former. Staring at such a vision would possibly have moved a modern-day H.G. Wells to take pen to paper (or perhaps stylus to Blackberry or fingers to iPhone or iPad) and write about invaders from another world. The more I stare at this one, the more I hear the first movement from Holst's The Planets — "Mars, the Bringer of War." The Moon does look angry, possessed, perhaps demonic. The one thing it isn't is bulging — take away the red tint, massive though it is, and you get our friendly satellite, the one that gives us the tides and keeps us alive in other ways as well.

Dan Brown probably wants this for the cover of the illustrated edition of The Lost Symbol. That is one very powerful image — a reminder that the tallest of buildings, if kept in astrophysical perspective, is but a fraction of the height of the universe. The other element that is striking is that those two little red lights, paired with the two slightly larger lights just below, make the building look like it's possessed, as in the house from The Amityville Horror. In that instance, the mouth would be just out of the bottom of the photo. Not that the Washington Monument is going to take one look at the Moon and then utter a howl that would scare an army of werewolves; but if a building that big has a giant pig running round it, I don't want to know about it.

This one shows the progression of the eclipse and is a wonderful way to teach students, adults, and even professors just how an eclipse works. These obviously didn't happen in the space of a few hundred rapid-fire clicks of a digital camera, but they did follow on one after another relatively quickly in celestial terms. The addition, of course, of the red Moon was icing on the cake, really. These shots are so well framed as well as to look like the Moon was stopping long enough for a statuesque pose.

Speaking of statues, here's our last photo, the Moon shining (or being unshined) next to the Savior of the World Monument in San Salvador, El Salvador. This monument looks like that all the time, as if the guy is about to launch into a lecture or a sermon or a parable or something; but with the Moon right there, it looks like he's saying, "I give you this as an example of the greatness of God" or something like that. And even thought the Moon is red, it doesn't make me feel as bad as I was feeling while contemplating the Amityville Washington Monument.

At any rate, I'd love to hear from you if you did see the eclipse live. If you have posted photos, please send me the links.

She's Afraid of Nothing, This Woman

Got fear? You're not SM, the focus of a decades-long study of a woman who is otherwise normal but has a specific psychological impairment that makes her impervious to fear. She doesn't feel it. She doesn't recognize the need for it. It's just not on her brain's radar.

We know all this because of the recent publication of a study in the medical journal Current Biology. The study lists several instances of tests done on the woman to detect any sort of fear awareness. All were negative.

The woman's amygdala is damaged, and researchers say that the case proves the importance of that part of the brain in telling us to run and hide when confronted with something frightening.

Among the tests done on this woman:

• exposure to snakes and spiders — she loved it
• bombardment with a deafening horn whenever a blue square appeared on a screen — she never learned
• a tour through a haunted house — so not interested in running screaming from the house.

Scientists are a bit divided as to the benefits and/or detriments of such a condition. Obviously, the lack of fear can help in certain situations, where one needs to be especially brave. However, not feeling fear when confronted with a gang of heavily armed thugs intent on doing you bodily harm could be counterproductive. Sometimes, embracing fear can lead to sensible actions.

The woman scores well on other tests, including intelligence, language, and memory. She feels things other than fear. It's just that one part of her DNA that doesn't work in the same way as yours and mine.

Will this discovery lead to legions of amygdala-altering surgeries? 'Fraid not, researchers say.

Cuddle Up with a Stuffed ... E. Coli?

OK, I understand the mother's argument that having her child see some big stuffed heartworm might make the little guy less likely to freak out at every bit of dust found on the kitchen floor, but come on …

The woman in question was mentioned in a story about one of the latest cuddly-toy crazes making the rounds these days — Giant Microbes. Yep, you, too, can have a cuddly E. coli for your home, office, car, or church. Somehow I think they'll make their way into bars as well (but probably not for very long).

Why in the world would you want to have a stuffed germ hanging around the house? Don't we suffer from enough of the real ones? And wouldn't they attract as much dust as every other stuffed animal stuffed into random corners or drawers? If I get the chicken pox, the last thing I'm going to want to do is to cuddle up with a stuffed chicken (right) that represents the very thing that's making me want to scratch until my skin falls away.

I mean really. Can you just imagine the little girl making her bed really nicely and piling all the stuffed toys on the bed so they're all facing the door so you see their smiling faces when you walk in the room — and there, slightly to the left, of the favorite bunny rabbit with the floppy ears or the Mickey Mouse with the frayed arms is … Kevin the Common Cold (left).

Who wants this? Who needs this? It's one thing to remind parents that they house shouldn't be entirely possible because then their children will be even more susceptible to every virus and bacterial infection their classmates bring to school with them. It's quite another thing to climb into bed at night and cuddle up with an E. coli. I just don't even want to go there.

And yet, someone has, to tune of an entirely detailed list of toys (Watch them do tricks here). representing viruses (including HIV and certain others transmitted by more-than-hugging activity), diarrhea, and food poisoning. Surely there's a line that someone has crossed — big time.

An extra $30 million? No thanks, pitcher says

Enough is enough, Cliff Lee has said.

The baseball pitcher known for his pinpoint control was in perfect command of the situation, as he proved by walking away from $30 million. That was an extra $30 million, actually. Lee chose to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies for $120 million rather than sign with the New York Yankees for $150 million.

Why? It wasn't the money. It was much more than that (even if it was, in the end, less).

Lee simply liked Philadelphia better. He liked the city better. He liked the team better. His wife was in agreement on both counts, which probably tells us the rest of what we need to know. Kristen Lee was appalled at Yankees fans' behavior during this year's playoffs. (She probably wasn't the only one so appalled, but that's another story entirely.)

Cliff Lee wasn't at all happy with the Phillies when they dealt him to Seattle after he helped lead them to the World Series in 2009. (He won two games in the World Series, which the Phillies lost to the Yankees in six.) Lee was back in the World Series this year, with Texas, helping lead the Rangers to their first-ever Series appearance. (He didn't have the stellar results that his fans were used to, but that could have been because he ran into the Team of Torturous Destiny that was this year's San Francisco Giants.)

At any rate, Lee has proved that it isn't all about the money — the most money, anyway. Yes, he could have earned more money playing for the Yankees, but that would have meant playing 81 games in Yankee Stadium and living somewhere near New York and all the other things that go with donning the pinstripes — not to mention that Lee and his wife liked the city of Philadelphia more for its opportunities for their two young children.

Instead, he'll be in a rotation that also features Roy Halladay, Cliff Hamels, and Roy Oswalt and he'll be backed up by one of the fiercest-hitting teams in all of baseball.

Maybe Cliff Lee did the right thing after all by making the bucks stop in Philly.

Chernobyl Tour: Not Your Average Reality TV Show

Quick, do you know how to counteract radiation poisoning? No? Well, you'd better not go on a tour of the suddenly open-to-the-public Chernobyl nuclear power plant, then, because that's what you're guaranteed to get.

OK, so guaranteed is rather a strong word. The amount of radiation seeping out of the still-contaminated plant is minimal, which is why the 2,500 employees still working there take it in shifts. Get through your tour in about half an hour and you shouldn't register more than a slightly unhealthy dose on the radiation detector in the doctor's office that's sure to have been set up a few miles away from the plant.

Seriously, why would people take a tour of this place? The 25th anniversary (if we can use such a word for such a travesty-tragedy) is in 2011, so interest in Chernobyl will be high. But do you really need to go in there and have a look round to be able to say something akin to, "Yep, it's still a place to be avoided"?

To this day, people for dozens of miles around are reporting health problems. And that's today. That's nothing compared to what happened shortly April 26, 1986, when the exclusion stretched more than 30 miles in all directions.

Oh, sure, the Emergency Situations Ministry says that plans for building an impressive new shell over the reactor are progressing along nicely. That's one big shell, as well, weighing in at 20,000 tons and measuring 345 feet tall, 853 feet wide, and 490 feet long. (In case you carry such measurements around in your head or you have a guidebook handy, that's big enough to get over the top and all the sides of Notre Dame.

Did we mention the pricetag? It's up to $1.15 billion now, up just a bit from the original estimate of $505 million. Cost overruns are surely nothing new to government and/or construction projects.

The timeline for completion of this fancy new shell, by the way, is 2015. So the budget could blow out again. (Let's hope that's the only thing that blows out.) But if the shell won't be finished until 2015, then I don't like our chances of getting a radiation-free tour before then — in which case I say, "Why bother?" Yes, we are naturally curious. No, we don't want to see Chernobyl that badly.

Tim Burton Scares Up Performance Art via Tweets

Performance art online? Why not, said famed film director Tim Burton.

The result certainly isn't the first collaborative fiction to appear anywhere, but the tools used might be the most in-the-now. Such things might become more of the norm, which would certainly be a good thing.

Burton asked for Tweets — any Tweets — from followers brave enough to submit their short-but-tweet prose to help tell the story of Stainboy. The result is Cadavre Exquis, or "Exquisite Corpse," part of an exhibit organized by the Toronto International Film Festival and New York's Museum of Modern Art. The title and subject matter are perhaps not all surprising, coming as they do from the mind behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

The online window was open from November 22 to December 6. Users could tweet as often as they liked. One tweet was selected each day to continue the story. Some tweets were sweet; others were odd; still others were unprintable. In the end, 88 tweets made up the story.

Burton started it off thus:

"Stainboy, using his obvious expertise, was called in to investigate mysterious glowing goo on the gallery floor."

The fans took it from there, collaborating on a tale of a robot, the mysterious goo, rusty corpses, and other familiar Burtonesque elements. The fans certainly got into the spirit of things (as it were.) Each day brought a new tweet, contributed usually by a new tweeter (although some writers had more than one tweet chosen for the final story).

How did it end? Click here to find out.

Twitterati Going Strong at 8 Percent

Tweet, do you? You're among the 8% of Americans online who do, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. The center emphasizes the word online there, to differentiate from the mobile Twitter crowd. That's probably a good thing, since the number of Twitter users by mobile phone is probably much larger, although, as with yours truly, that number could include people who do both.

Seems that more women tweet than men and more people under 30 and Latino than other ages and races. The survey also found more Tweets coming from urban areas than from rural or suburban areas. (That's probably to be expected given that the survey asked online users.)

The survey sample was a respectable 2,257 Internet users, whose main vocation in the Twitterverse was posting personal updates. An overwhelming percentage (72, to be precise) of users reported using their Twitter feeds to issue updates on their personal situations. Work status updates weren't far behind. The bar graph starts to level off, however, with categories of activity like sharing links to news stories, retweeting other people's updates, and sharing photos and videos. (Presumably, Stephen Fry would have answered in the affirmative for all categories.)

Nearly a quarter of Twitter users surveyed check for other people's posts more than once a day. That's the fun of it really, isn't it, to see what other people are saying? Otherwise, it's just a dump of information into the world of digital recording.

Still, the overwhelming conclusion from this figure of 8% is that it isn't a huge number. Twitter gets a lot of publicity because a lot of quite public are tweeting quite publicly and often (such as the aforementioned Mr. Fry), but the numbers overall compared to the rest of the American online public are quite small, despite every tweet being archived in the Library of Congress. Perhaps the other 92% haven't figured out yet that they can distill the various bits of their daily lives into 140-character sound bytes.

In the meantime, you can follow this author's tweets here.

After the Flood, There's the Tourist Attraction

Some day soon, we will all be able to see the Ark of Noah on display on Kentucky.

No, this isn't some miracle that has renamed Mount Ararat (or wherever Noah's famed rescue boat ended up). It's actually a theme park, tourist attraction, boondoggle — pick your term being sponsored by none other than Governor of Kentucky. Yes, Steven L. Beshear himself has gotten onboard with this one, talking about how the construction of this whatever-it-is will create jobs and funnel tourist money into the state economy and other such funds-based initiatives. But, apparently, it really is going to happen. They're really going to build a theme park with a mockup of the famed Noah's Ark as the centerpiece. Giraffes will be kept in pens onboard, and presumably visitors can walk around on the ark and get up close and personal with the giraffes. (No word yet on whether they're going to let a dove go periodically from the bow of the boat.)

Also planned are a 100-foot-tall Tower of Babel, a recreation of a Middle Eastern village from the 1st Century CE, and a series of special programs depicting Moses, the plagues that bedeviled Egypt's pharaoh, and the parting of the Red Sea. (No word, either, on whether Yul Brynner's voice will be heard at any point.)

I can see the Tower of Babel being a hot-ticket item, actually, for people wanting to learn several foreign languages at once (although they will have to listen very closely). Then again, it might be just another day in Brussels.

The whole thing is called the Ark Encounter. The governor claims that up to 900 people will employed in the end to build the thing, which is supposed to cost in the neighborhood of $150 million. A site hasn't been picked yet, but the website says that organizers are considering somewhere in some county near Ohio. That narrows it down.

And in the first year alone, organizers say, more than one-and-one-half million visitors will cross the threshold. That's certainly enough to make back the money spent to build all of this wonderfulness.

And just to show that it's not all their-way-or-the-highway, the organizers have enlisted Amish builders to supply the wooden pegs and frames for building the showcase Ark. So that surely puts to rest any ideas of any sort of radical agenda being pushed by these folks, who have also given us the Creation Museum in Petersburg.

Last thing: Don't hold your breath waiting to see all this stuff. The park isn't due to open until 2014. Some things are worth waiting for.

New Life Found Right Here on Earth

Found: something that can absorb arsenic and survive. Where found: here on Earth.

NASA has announced the discovery of strange life right here on the homeward, in the form of a bacterium that can not only swallow one of the world's most deadly poisons — arsenic — but thrive on it to the extent that it absorbs the deadly liquid into its DNA.

The bacterium in question has been termed GFAJ-1, and it was found thriving quite well, thank you very much, in Mono Lake, in California.

Here's the significance: This bacterium has been able to substitute arsenic for phosphorus in its building blocks. Remember that phosphorus is one of the six major elements that scientists consider essential for life — the others being carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. But GFAJ-1 has proven the ability to jettison phosphorus for the quite-similar-in-structure arsenic and run with arsenic instead.

Not coincidentally, Mono Lake has high levels of arsenic. Scientists probably knew what they were looking for, but they still seemed surprised when they found it.

So what does all this mean? Is E.T. made of arsenic? Possibly. But that's probably not the correct question to ask.

The better question would be this one: How do we need to change the way we are looking for extraterrestrial life? Efforts in this area have long been preoccupied in finding life that closely resembles the familiar — humans or animals or microbes that we can readily identify and understand. But the more exotic lifeforms like GFAJ-1 we find, the more we will be forced to re-examine our prejudices and assumptions in determining the parameters of the search.

Will we recognize life when we bump up against it? Will it recognize us? We should be prepared for outlandish answers to these questions.