Cool or Creepy? Self-Assembling Robot

The next installment of "Cool or Creepy" comes from NewScientist via MAKE Magazine .

To get the full effect, think back to Arnold Schwartzenegger in The Terminator, then play the video clip below. 

I guarantee a shiver going up your spine either from the coolness or creepiness of it all.

Be sure to vote below.

Image Credit: Gizmodo

Creepy or Creepy? BioSteel

I'm not even putting a poll widget on this one.  It's as creepy* as it is true: BioSteel  

They milk goats who have been genetically combined with spiders to form a super strong, super light weight spider silk material within the milk which is then used for a variety of applications. The goats also have been altered to lactate at an earlier age to speed production.  Because, darn it, who wants to wait that long for the spidergoats to lactate?

Here's a quote from the Nexia Biotechnologies homepage.  Read it word by word, slowly, and chew on each morsel.  Now spit it out... quickly! Rinse.  Repeat.

BioSteel^® is Nexia's recombinant dragline spider silk program and is based on using Nexia's transgenic goat technology.

I'm fine through the first three words, except for "BioSteel" and "Nexia".  Now I'm going to translate** the rest of the words in order as it dives deeper into the creepiness:

Recombinant:   Moving and rearranging genes from one place to another.  Not creepy by itself, except that they are talking about rearranging genes, not from one animal to another, but from one major taxonomic classification to another.  This is not species level stuff.  It is kingdom level fiddling. Never a good idea if you ask me.

Dragline:  The larger and stronger of the spider web components.  Used to anchor the rest of the web.  And speaking of anchoring something that shouldn't go adrift, did you just see that whispy thread of common sense float by?

Spider:  Large insect*** with horrible fangs and claws.   That's right, they're combining Shelob (an "evil thing in spider form") with Pan.  That's going to be one messed up flute player.  Tolkien would not be happy.  Nor Hariprasad Chaurasia.

Silk: Technical, jargony mad-scientist term for spider webs. And soy milk.

Program: Plot to destroy the planet by combining wildly divergent life forms such as Spiders & Goats to make BioSteel.  In a few years the "program" will roll out these combos: Slug/Lobster, Porcupine/Bat, and Tick/Whale, and Teletubby/MyLittlePony. 

And: In addition to.  Also.  See what I mean? There's way more ahead, the hits keep coming.

Is:  Current fact. Inevitable, unchangeable, inalterable.

Based:  Grounded.  Founded upon.  C'mon, it's not founded on anything but a rip off of every Marvel Comic plot.  This is a shoe-in for the presitigious "Scientific Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong Award".

On:  Atop of. Over.  Or, if you will, over the top. 

Using: Ingesting large amounts of phychotropic drugs, causing one to: A) Think of the idea in the first place; and B) Think the idea was good.

Nexia:  Acronym for "Never Ending Xperiment In Absudity"

Transgenic:  Creepy craziness crossdressing in the garments of the rational.

Goat: Large hairy insect*** that eats tin cans.  "Goat" is a word, that according to all laws of nature, was never meant to be followed by the next word below:

Technology:  Random and dangerous throw-it-up-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks experimentation.  Of the type performed by kids who survived the "Hey-Jimmy-let's-mix-all-these-random-household-cleaners-from-under-the-sink-then-light-it-on-fire" episodes of childhood.

Nuff said.  Poll closed.

The Fine Print

*Unless Nexia makes really cool, super-strong, super-light backpacking gadgets that lighten my load.  In that case.  I'm all for it!

**Bear in mind that the only translating experience I have is a few years of high school Spanish and a few months of Patagonian charades with my field assistant, Igor, from Santiago.  So if I were a Babel Fish, you should definitely not cram me into your ear canal.  Gregarious mistakes should be expected in any translational work from me.  I'm sure that a genetic engineer is going to correct me on my "recombinant" definition, an arachnologist will "tsk" me for the dragline flub.

***I know they're not insects.  I'm just raising the cackles of the arachnological community.   Nice cackles ya'll!

Cool or Creepy? Stemcell Computing

I'm not opposed to organic computers, per se, but Zii Stemcell Computing crosses the creepy line in my book (mostly because of the magic pixie dust that poofs up from time to time).  Go ahead, "register" for the "updates".  But don't "complain" to me when your "fingers" start "twitching" and you can't get the "high-pitched" "ringing" out of your "ears".

And speaking of lines being crossed, isn't organic computing operating under the same Zeno paradox as Crayon Physics, but approaching the station from the other side of the train tracks?  With the Crayon Physics Paradox, things get very strange the closer "virtual" reality approaches "real" reality.  But organic computing is the mirror image where "real reality"gets stranger as it approaches the virtual, computerized world.  In fact, I'm coining a new paradox that identifies this phenomenon.  Since I can.  And since I wasn't immediately slapped down after my first phrase coinage by the VR community, or the blogging community, or the Crayon Physics community*, or the Big Time International Phrase Coining Commission.  So the approach of the the biological toward the virtual by means of  computer technology integrating into organic life is now officially the SCISYHP NOYARC Paradox.    Those pansies at the BTIPCC are just a bunch of empty-suited bureaucrats anyway.  The last person they went after was Knute Bleegler in 1979 who tried to coin the phrase "More huggy than a hamster".  And even he got off with just a wrist slap and some community service.  So I'm not afraid of them. Bring it on BTIPCC!!!

And without further ado, becuase there's way too much ado in this post, the Cool or Creepy poll:

Update 1/18/09:   Poll closed.  Readers voted this to be "cool".

Fine Print

*Though I did get a teeensy rebuke for what someone interpreted to be spam at the CP Forum. You tell me.  Honestly, I'm not a spammer.  Am I?  Well...am I?  No!  I'm not.  And don't tell me that spamming is like alcoholism where the denial is proof of the disease.  Because, dagnabbit, I'm not a spammer!  I can quit posting to the Crayon Physics forum whenever I want.  It's just that I don't want to stop posting there.  And so what if I happened to mention my blog address in the post?  I hope this label isn't something that forever blots your escutcheon even if you're innocent. Like being labelled a "nose picker"   when all you do is occaissionally scratch the nostril event horizon**.  Or like being called a "dried glue collector" when all you did  in the second grade was scrape the glue off the school desk and put it in a little box in your bottom drawer at home and sometimes admire the really long pieces of dried glue.  Sheesh!  

**I'm also officially coining the phrase "Nostril Event Horizon". Like a black hole, the rim of the nose outside which finger fiddling can be called a scratch, but inside which the finger action cannot escape being drawn in and rightly called a pick. Just be sure to tell people you heard it first on The Secret of Newton... And here's the Google Search screen shot to prove it's original with me.

On second thought, scratch that. Don't credit The Secret of Newton.

Introducing a New Feature: Cool or Creepy?

The Secret of Newton is adding a new item called "Cool or Creepy?". Regular updates will pose the question about technology that pushes the limit, gadgets that raise the hair on your head, pictures that might have a high pucker factor. Your participation in the polls is most welcome. Also, please forward ideas to me that you think would make good candidates for a Cool or Creepy posting.

And the First Inaugural "Cool or Creepy" candidate is the Boston Dynamics Battlefield Quadruped.



Update 1/8/08: Poll closed with creepy winning by a nose.