Legacy of Messenger, Computer Touch, AI and Traumatic Forgetting, Stained Glass Restoration

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2015

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This month sees the end of NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury. It's been the first mission to the sun's closest planet since Mariner 10 flew by in the mid-1970s. Lucie Green speaks to geologist Professor Pete Schultz of Brown University about the orbiter's 4 year surveillance and how new observations of this under explored world are shedding light on the planet's mysterious dark cratered surface.

Virtual experiences are coming closer and closer to reality as both sound and vision, and even smell, become convincing. But without the sense of touch you'll never have the full experience. A team at Bristol University has now managed to generate the feeling of pressure projected directly onto your bare, empty hands. Its system enables you to feel invisible interfaces, textures and virtual objects through the use of ultrasound. Roland Pease gets a hands on experience.

One of the biggest challenges in artificial intelligence is conquering a computer's so-called "catastrophic forgetting": as soon as a new skill is learned others get crowded out, which makes artificial computer brains one trick ponies. Jeff Clune of Wyoming University directs the Evolving Artificial Intelligence Lab and has tested the idea that computer brains could evolve to work in the same way as human brains - in a modular fashion. He shows how by doing so, it's possible to learn more and forget less.

And there's a visit to the Ion Beam Centre at University of Surrey where, in conjunction with a project to restore the Rosslyn chapel near Edinburgh, scientists have provided a new development in stained glass conservation - scrutinising the glass contents at the subatomic level using a narrow beam of accelerated charged particles, to literally decode the exquisite features lost to the naked eye. Lucie Green caught up with the Centre's director, Roger Webb.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Hello, I'm Lucy Green and this is the BBC Inside Science Podcast for the programme first broadcast on the 9th of April 2015.
0:45.0	Terms and Conditions at BBC.co. UK slash Radio 4.
0:50.0	Whilst the Large Hadron Collider restarts its quest this week to shape the future of particle physics,
0:55.2	we're traveling into the past using a more intimate particle accelerator that's capturing lost images
1:00.6	in stained glass windows. We'll be finding out how to create the sensation
1:05.3	that you're touching something out of thin air using nothing but sound. Imagine
1:10.2	being able to step into Google Street View and feel the wind rushing past you.
1:14.8	A truly immersive experience is within our reach.
1:18.2	And how to overcome one of the biggest problems in AI, getting computer brains to keep learning new skills without ever
1:25.2	forgetting the old ones. But first, a new look at a rather underappreciated planet,
1:31.1	Mercury. This month sees the end of NASA's messenger mission to study
1:36.0	our sun's closest planet, the first since Marilla Ten flew by in the mid 1970s. But back then, images of only around 60% of the surface were taken,
1:46.7	and this airless world will seem to be inhospitable with a heavily crated surface.
1:52.1	But with other planets to explore and a fascination with
1:54.9	looking for where life might exist, it's taken over three decades to go back to
1:59.1	Mercury. Messenger began orbiting in March 2011 on a year-long mission and it survived long beyond its intended duration.
	...

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