Journey: From and Back to Home

I was completely absorbed by the following video... Journey from Home to eternity and back to home.
After you go out of the solar system, you are in void. tranquility prevails and you are alone in there... navigating away from your home. The journey is not so easy as it was fantasized.



http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/index.php

Adaptive Evolution and Darwinian Selection in Robots

Natural selection: is it the law or consequence due to the constraints provided in the situation?
It is "the law" if you think nature as an agent at work and that requires some law to work on. On the other hand it is the consequence if  you view it with the concept of "natural process". The difference is subtle: do you conceive it as a work done by an agent or a continuous process?
Whatever it is, one thing is sure that Darwinian theory of natural selection is true for agents in the play ground. Be it living beings, or robots.
The understanding of nature and appreciation to it becomes rather huge once you have the capacity to build and mimic "natural behavior".
Scientists have been working on adaptive and evolutionary robots with capabilities to learn and hence are able to realize the Darwinian selection rule in such robotic agents as the consequence of such learning and adaptive behavior.
See some video...





Evolution of Adaptive Behaviour in Robots by Means of Darwinian Selection

• http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000292
• http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/evolution-of-adaptive-behaviour-in-robots-by-means-of-darwinian-selection

Read more interesting stuffs...

• http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/robots-display-predator-prey-co-evolution-evolve-better-homing-techniques
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/02/evolving_robots.html
• http://www.botjunkie.com/2010/02/02/robots-evolve-cooperative-behaviors-learn-to-hunt-and-be-hunted
• http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10432608-1.html
• http://www.physorg.com/news184228204.html

Saturn's Ring through Mobile camera @ Observatory

Braving the Cold of First of February is not an easy thing to do. But if students make their mind, they will do it.
:)
Despite scattered snow in the beginning and in the end, we were lucky to see Mars and Saturn (and Moon of course!) Mars was visible for only few minutes after we started. Mars was playing hide and seek with us. We gave up on it as it was setting and clouds would never be clear on that side. 
Stunningly my mobile could take the picture of Saturn with its ring distinctly visible. My bigger camera could not get anything better because of auto focus feature...

Here are some pictures of the Events...

 

Phil Erner, adjusting the telescope... Flash photography was prohibited... I took few anyway!

It started snowing again, after we were done.

Old post on the same line...
http://www.nabinkm.com/2009/10/moon-pictures-from-observatory-earth.html