The Dark Knight’s rise falls short

The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s final entry of his trilogy which breathed new life into DC Comics’ Batman franchise has all the ingredients of a great movie.  Solid directing and an excellent cast, all of whom turn in excellent performances, unfortunately great ingredients don’t always mix well together. 

The story picks up eight years after The Dark Knight.  Bruce Wayne has not just stopped being Batman, but has secluded himself in his manor.  Gotham has never been safer.  Enter Bane, a mercenary hired by one of Wayne’s corporate enemies, but one that has a sinister, greater plan of his own. 

After Heath Ledger’s transcending performance as the iconic Joker in The Dark Knight, I wondered how they would approach the third movie and what villain they would get to follow the Joker.  I was excited to hear it was Bane, one of my favorite Batman bad guys.  Bane has never been just a muscle bound freak, but one with intelligence as well – a real challenge for the detective.

Let’s start with Bane.  First of all the only words I understood coming out of his mouth the entire movie were “Bruce Wayne!”  Something that should have been addressed better than it was in post production.  Traditionally Bane uses venom, a steroid on steroids to give himself super strength.  Not in this movie.  The mask Bane wears provides him with a constant supply of morphine to prevent the constant pain his body would be in from a severe beating he took in an under ground prison.  Uh, what?  Morphine?  I thought that made you sluggish.  According to drug.com it also has the following side effects, “constipation; dizziness; drowsiness; headache; lightheadedness; nausea; sweating; and vomiting.”  Sounds like something I want to take just before taking on The Bat.  Morphine.  Please.

Then there’s the casting.  I’m a big fan of Tom Hardy.  Loved him in Warrior and Inception.  And to be fair his performance of Bane is quite good.  But I have never seen him standing next to someone he’s taller than.  He’s even shorter than most of the women in Hollywood I see him standing next to.  I know a lot of actors don’t have the guns Hardy does, but damn, there must be someone out there built, who can act and is taller than Christian Bale who’s barely six foot.

The Bane that could have been. I understand this is not a realistic request for a movie Bane. But is it unrealistic to want a Bane who doesn’t need three-inch lifts to almost be as tall as Batman?

Bane is a character Batman has never been able to face in a straight up fist fight.  He usually has to use his brains.  A weak and out of shape Batman from years of inactivity yields the result we would expect.  An ass-handing that ends in a tribute to the comic’s Knightfall story arc in which Bane breaks Batman’s back.   Later though, Wayne rehabilitates himself in the very prison Bane throws him into.  (Prison seems to be a great place for working out.)  Then proceeds to kick Bane’s ass one on one.  And it just might be one of the most boring super hero vs. super villain fight ever.

That one word pretty much sums up The Dark Knight Rises to me:  Boring.  I don’t need non-stop explosions in my movies.  But something interesting might be nice.  This movie is two hours and 45 minutes long.  During that time does the Detective do any detecting?  Nope.  Two hours of it is Bruce Wayne brooding about whether or not the city needs Batman to return.  And when he makes the decision it does, there’s some weird, awkward, creepy, lovers-like spat between him and Alfred. 

Now I’m about to say something I never thought I would say about any movie ever made.  Anne Hathaway was the highlight.   All the performances are solid, but Hathaway as Selena Kyle’s Catwoman was spot on.  (She is never referred to as “catwoman” in the movie.)  The perfect combination of intelligence and sexiness, without all the over-the-top-act-as-much-like-a-cat-as-you-can performances we’ve seen before.  In a cast full of stars, her performance was by far the brightest.

Which irritated me even more.  I imagine the production meeting went something like this:

“Damn, Chris.”

“What?”

“This is the last movie right?  We haven’t put in Catwoman.”

“Damn, you’re right.  Well, find a place to squeeze her in.”

Catwoman in this movie is a throw away character.  But Hathaway’s Selena Kyle left me wanting more than the few minutes of screen time she was granted.  (Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by Hathaway.  Princess Diaries and was more than 10 years ago and she’s a mature 30-year-old actress now.  Which makes me feel really old.)

It’s not a great sign when a movie’s most interesting and best-performed character is barely heard from.  I even love the attention to detail of her costume, like her “ears” actually being night vision goggles propped up on the back of her head.

The movie isn’t bad.  It‘s just average – a shadow of how good it could have been.  Average isn’t enough at $15-$20 per ticket.   Like I said, performances by everyone were good and I liked the way plot came full circle to close things out.  There is also some very good dialogue in places (and I loved that Batcycle.)  But in the end The Dark Knight Rises didn’t leave me wowed or exhilarated like the first two movies. 

Instead it left me feeling… Bleh. 

Rating:  6 of 10.

Directed by:  Christopher Nolan

Written by:  Jonathon Nolan, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer

Cast

Christian Bale:  Bruce Wayne/Batman

Gary Oldman:  Jim Gordon

Tom Hardy:  Bane

Marion Cotillard:  Miranda Tate

Morgan Freeman:  Lucious Fox

Anne Hathaway:  Selena Kyle/Catwoman

Michael Cane: Alfred Pennyworth

Joseph Gordon-Levitt:  John Blake

Mathew Modine:  Foley

Underdog or top dog?

The American spirit is difficult to define with definitive clarity and, much like America itself, is a conglomeration of the souls who risked everything they had to form and settle this young nation.  Though at its core, this spirit’s foundation is formed by the desire for freedom.  This freedom – this spirit – has assumed many forms throughout American history.  From the wild frontiersman, exploring new and dangerous lands, to the venerable image of the cowboy pushing cattle across lonely, windswept plains.

In an industrialized America this spirit form changed from one of bone and blood to iron and oil.  Ever since Henry Ford first rolled his Model-T off the assembly line in 1908, the car has been an integral part of the American identity – the American spirit.    In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s National Interstate and Defense Highways Act delivered unprecedented freedom of movement to Americans.  Later actors like Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds made cars like the Ford Mustang and Pontiac Trans Am household names.  They were big, strong and loud symbols of freedom and rebellion against authority.

So in the 21st Century, how do you create a vehicle which stands out in a country with more than 300,000 million consumers?  Who buy more than 16 million cars a year?  And how do you become part of this American Route 66 romance if you’re not, well, American?

If you’re the Suzuki Motor Corporation you create the Kizashi and go straight at the industry giants with an aggressive marketing campaign.  In the latest ad for this 2010 entry into the mid-sized sports sedan category, Suzuki features the Kizashi sitting on top of a pile of their competitors emblems spreading out across two pages with the words “Top of the Heap” written in large white, bold text which shines brightly from a black background.  The Kizashi’s superiority is displayed over hundreds of emblems all silver and shiny, glinting in the artificial light.  They not only include American industry giants like Ford, Chevrolet and Cadillac, they also include performance car legends BMW, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Ferrari.  Bold words indeed.

The car itself is positioned at an angle which makes the most of its aggressive styling.  Built sleek and low, it looks like a super model under studio lights positioned to highlight and enhance every salacious curve – flared wheel wells, sloping hood transforming into a slim nose and a swept-back aerodynamic windscreen.  The headlights are reminiscent of an eagle’s predatory gaze.  Silver alloy rims support wide steady-looking sport tires.  And, of course, it’s red – bright red.  The only color on an otherwise black and white canvas.

The small text on the bottom gives additional particulars.  To the left where the eye naturally falls is a small picture of the Kizashi’s 2010 AutoPacific (an automotive research company) Vehicle Satisfaction award.  Though not as large as the giant text above, the claims of the small text are no less bold.  Suzuki claims their new car has a higher safety rating then the highly reputable Volvo S40 and better handing than an Audi A4.

This dominant and aggressive image of Suzuki is quite different from the one I grew up with.  Well known in America for its motorcycles, Suzuki was already a successful car company in Japan.  When Suzuki first entered the American car market in 1984 it did so disguised as the Chevrolet Sprint – a small, affordable and uninteresting car with less than spectacular sales.  In 1985, Suzuki decided to leave the protective arms of Chevrolet and make its own mark on American road culture with the Suzuki Samurai.  The Samurai was a small, four-wheel drive, gas efficient and cheap vehicle more suitable for the tiny roads of Japan than American highways.  Anyone I knew in high school who owned one was mocked ruthlessly.  To us it was just a car with a motorcycle engine.

The ambitiously named 69 hp 1988 Suzuki Samurai. But like Ferris Bueller said to his buddy Cameron about his car – it is a piece of crap, but I don’t have my own piece of crap so I have to admire yours.

Despite teenage derision and modest car sales (by large company standards) the 47,000 Samurais sold were the highest of any previous foreign manufacturer’s debut.  They immediately followed this successful debut with the Swift and Sidekick – both similar to the Samurai in their size and cheapness.  Still, there was something to be said for their utilitarian affordability.  But disaster struck Suzuki in 1988 when Consumer Reports published a report claiming the Samurai was prone to rolling over.  Sales plummeted by 70 percent.  (Suzuki claimed the report used unfair testing practices and sued Consumer Reports in 1996.  The case was settled in 2004.)

Afterward, Suzuki struggled with its new releases which seemed to fade into obscurity faster than they could make it to the show room floor.  Although there wasn’t a single car company that did not see a fall off in production during this current time of economic uncertainty, there have been signs of recovery with sales increasing 29 percent overall in 2010.  But Suzuki, is still floundering with its sales decreasing 44 percent in 2010, in addition to a 54 percent drop off in 2009.

This is why the Kizashi and its marketing campaign are so important to the Suzuki Motor Corporation.  In tough economic times when consumers are cutting back, Suzuki is not just trying to sell one product.  It’s trying to overcome two decades of public perception and re-brand the image of an entire company.  Considering its long history of struggles it seems on the surface to be a hopeless task.

But not all hope is lost.

First, Japanese cars are immensely popular in the United States.   Toyota and Honda entered the American market in the 1950s and 1960s with similar lack of fanfare and today are the automotive standards in reliability.  So why has Suzuki not matched that success?  Timing is everything.  Honda and Toyota had already established themselves in America well before the gas crisis in the mid-1970s.  As gas lines lengthened and prices rose, Americans traded in their big, loud gas-guzzling spirits for smaller, more fuel-efficient Japanese sprites.  Suzuki was 10 years late to the party.  Honda and Toyota had a stranglehold on foreign – and particularly Japanese – car sales.  By the mid-90s, shortly after Suzuki entered the small car market, big and vulgar was back in style in the form of the Sport Utility Vehicle, ironically ignited by the success of Toyota’s 4Runner.  Soon every car company, foreign and domestic, was producing over-sized and thirsty family personnel carriers.

But now timing is on Suzuki’s side.  With gas prices more than four dollars per gallon, small is hip again.  So much so it sometimes feels socially unacceptable to drive anything that weighs more than a ton and isn’t fueled by smiles and sunshine.  The mid-sized sports sedan category is blossoming, providing fuel efficient fun that won’t break the bank.  In January 2009, Car & Driver tested 10 cars similar to the Kizashi, from Audi to Volkswagon, and chose the Volkswagon Golf GT as the best car based on performance and “bang for the buck.”  Yes, this was a year before the Kizashi rolled out, but Suzuki’s car is very similar to Volkswagon’s GT in price and extras.  A fully upgraded Kizashi will wrap a buyer in speed and luxurious leather for a respectable $27,000.  That’s $6,000 less than the Acura TSX (Just $18,000 will get you the same high-performing engine without the flair) and the same critics who loved the Golf GT love the Suzuki Kizashi.

Time Magazine called it the “most exciting car of 2010” and Popular Mechanics the best Suzuki ever.  MSN Autos called it “game changing.”  These are just a few of the accolades received.

This is the heart of Suzuki’s message in this advertisement.  Small and affordable doesn’t have to be about sacrificing fun and performance for practicality.  Technology has advanced.  Small can be fuel efficient (35 mpg) and pack as much punch as a V-8 muscle car and our car is the one to do it.

Suzuki is betting the bank the Kizashi can break through stereotypes and preconceived notions for the reliability and status enhancement of their products.  According to Car Review, the “Top of the Heap” ad is part of a $60 million advertising campaign aimed at marketing just the Kizashi with $30 million dollars going directly to local dealers.  Although $60 million is half of Suzuki’s entire advertising budget, it’s a drop in the bucket next to the $1 billion dollars General Motors will spend on advertising this year.

The interior of the 2012 Suzuki Kizashi hasn’t changed much since its introduction in 2010, but it hasn’t needed to.

Can the Kizashi be Suzuki’s savior?  The ad was definitely eye-catching.  Even a skeptic like me paused to admire its shapely form.  However, looking closer at the ad I find the choice of words to be odd.  Perhaps “King of the Hill” is an over-used term, but it seems a more fitting message than “Top of the Heap.”  A heap to me has always been a pile of garbage.  A heap is a junk car.  The kind I drove for a year in Guam praying the bubble gum and duck tape holding it together lasted until I left and could pass it on the next underpaid sailor who needed cheap, sometimes reliable transportation.  That’s also how Webster’s sees it, defining heap as “a group of things placed or thrown, one on top of the other: a heap of dirty rags lying in the corner;”or slang for “an old or run-down car.”  I’m sure this best-of-the-worst message was not the one the advertisers intended to send, but it’s not hard for me to make an unflattering connection between “Suzuki” and “heap.”   I’m also unsure who this ad is for.  Old skeptics like me will be reluctant to change their buying habits or change brand loyalty.  Today’s youth don’t seem to be lining up out the door to buy $25,000 sedans, sporty or not.

Judging from the specifications and acclaim from industry experts the Suzuki Kizashi certainly seems like it deserves a chance.  But buying isn’t always about logic.  As impressed as I am with their effort I cannot overcome the idea of spending $20,000 or more on a Suzuki.  Can Suzuki’s new campaign, outgunned by the heavy hitters who have billions to spend, convince enough consumers to shift their views and give them a fair deal?

Not this consumer.  But it’s said every dog has its day.  Maybe it’s time for Suzuki to have theirs.

(*Author’s note:  I wrote this in 2010, but was busy this week and it’s pretty good.  So there it is.)

The true story of Bikini Bottom

On Nickelodeon’s hit cartoon series, SpongeBob SquarePants, former marine biologist turned animator, Stephen Hillenburg, introduces us to an extraordinarily eclectic cast of characters.  The childish, friendly and hard working sea sponge, Spongebob Squarepants; his greedy, miserly boss, the crustaceous Mr. Krabbs; the lazy, last self-aggrandizing, six-legged co-worker, Squidward Tentacles;  Sandy, the scientific-minded squirrel wearing her ever present dive suit; and Spongebob’s best friend, the dim-witted starfish, Patrick.  This unique cast of characters, supported by a dozen other, equally strange, role players make their home in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom.  While the antics of this motley crew may be pure slapstick fiction, their diversity and uniqueness is not.

In the deep ocean floors in places seen by only a handful of humans, volcanic hydrothermal vents pour precious elements and nutrients into the sea.  The combination of warmth and food source these vents provide create an excellent oasis – a real life “Bikini Bottom” – for life to not just survive, but thrive, in one of the most hostile environments on Earth.

Location, location, location

Although scientists long suspected these vents existed, according to Tom Garrison’s “Essentials of Oceanography,” hydrothermal vents weren’t discovered until 1976 nearly 220 miles northeast of the Galapagos Islands by the scientists of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1976 using a towed array camera system.  These vents were more than 10,000 feet below sea level and were not considered prime real estate for building a town.  Yet scientists were stunned to find life not only existed, but thrived.  Giant tube worms, pink eel-like fish, furry crabs, a whole city of unidentifiable species packed tightly together in the sheltering warmth of nature’s nuclear power station.

In 1977, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute returned to the location using the Office of Naval Research’s Alvin, a three-man submersible, to marvel at the incredible density and diversity of the life surrounding these vented areas of the ocean floor.  Since then, thousands of such vents have been discovered throughout the world off the coasts of California, Florida, Oregon, ocean ridges in the Indian and Atlantic oceans and, more recently, under the Arctic ice and on the Antarctic sea floor.  Most of them are located on the edge of the tectonic plates in deep mid-ocean rifts where lava seeps up from the Earth’s mantle, forming new ocean floors and pushing the continents further apart.

The “black smoke” vent water flowing from this hydrothermal-vent chimney (seen from the submarine Alvin ) contains life giving chemicals.

Although sailors have told stories for centuries about terrible, deep-dwelling sea monsters, scientists believed it was impossible for life to exist in the crushing, lightless deep, but in recent decades scientists have discovered how wrong they had been.

On April 6, 2010, scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Center discovered the deepest vent systems yet on the Caribbean Sea floor.  Located at more than three miles below sea level in the Cayman Trench between Cuba and Jamaica, these vents heated the water to an incredible 760 degrees.  Only the extreme pressure of the deep kept the water from boiling.

“The rainbow hues of the mineral spires and the fluorescent blues of microbial mats covering them were like nothing I had ever seen before,” Bramley Murton, team leader for the center said in a National Geographic interview shortly after the discovery.

Despite immense pressure and complete lack of sunlight, these vent areas are among the most diverse and densely populated ecosystems on Earth – 500 to 1,000 times more dense than normal sea life populations.  More than 300 species have been catalogued at these oases on an otherwise barren, underwater desert.

Putting on the Feed Bag

When the residents of Bikini Bottom get hungry, they enjoy a mouth watering “Krabby Patty” at the local eatery called The Krusty Krabb.  In the real underwater habitat it’s not quite that simple.  In almost every other ecosystem on Earth life depends on – either directly or indirectly – photosynthesis.  This is the process of turning sunlight into a consumable energy for life to sustain itself.  But in the lightless world of the ocean floor it is not possible for this process to take place.  So, where do these amazing creatures find their energy source and what is the process which they use to convert it to their needs?  Perhaps in a mouth-watering hydrogen sulfide patty?

Mr. Krabs’ arch business competitor, Plankton, spends more time trying to steal the secret krabby patty formula than he does running his own business, The Chum Bucket.

Most of the animals of the vent communities use a process called chemosynthesis.  Unlike photosynthesis which uses the suns energy, chemosynthesis is the process of turning chemicals found in the hydrothermal vent areas into energy.  The main chemical is hydrogen sulfide.  The creatures absorb the hydrogen sulfide pouring into the water from the hydrothermal vents and convert it into the necessary molecules they need to produce the energy they need.

“How does he make those Krabby patties?”

That is the question Mr. Krabbs’ arch-competitor, Plankton, asks every day as he tries to steal the secret recipe of the “Krabby Patty.”  And so scientists were confronted with a similar mystery.  How do these creatures of perpetual night convert hydrogen sulfide into a useable form of energy?  Unlike Mr. Krabbs green, microbic nemesis, science would not be thwarted.  One of the first discoveries by scientists at the Galapagos vent find was colonies of giant tube worms called Riftia pachyptila. In Richard Ellis’ “Deep Atlantic,” he describes the mystery these 13-foot monsters presented researchers when they found no mouths, digestive tracks or anuses (115).  What they discovered was their trunks were packed with “feeding bodies.”  Tightly packed bacteria like those found near the vent.  The worms used feathered tentacles to absorb the hydrogen sulfide from the water and transport it to the bacteria which use it as an energy source for themselves and during the process convert carbon dioxide into organic molecules.  These molecules are the source of the worm’s energy.

Riftia pachyptila growing near hydrothermal vents.

Another species which was found 900 miles from Easter Island at more than 7,000 feet was the Kiwa hirsute (or yeti crab).  As odd as the penny-pinching Mr. Krabbs, the Kiwa is a blind white crab with yeti-like hairy arms covered in bacteria.  Some scientists theorize the hairs capture the bacteria from the sea floor allowing the crab to feed at its leisure.  Or perhaps they use them as sensors to feel their way along the floor in the darkness.

In the deep Atlantic thousands of shrimp hover over vent fields feeding on the nutrient-rich water spraying from the vent.  These shrimp have been discovered to have sensors which are able to detect light given off by the scalding heat of the vents – light which humans can only see with the help of specialized equipment.  This ability may also allow them to wander from vent to vent seeking new food sources.

All this abundance of life, attract even more life in the form of scavengers and predators equally as strange and exotic as their prey.  Pink eels, shrimp with built in night vision goggles, octopi, lobster, zooplankton, football sized giant clams, microbial mats, lobsters, limpets, small and giant tube worms all share a delicate symbiotic existence on these little islands on the bottom of the sea.

Bikini Bottom Wasn’t Built in a Day

Where do these ocean floor ecological wonders come from?  How do they form?  SpongeBob makes his home in an old discarded pineapple which made its way to the bottom of the ocean – but the foundation of the modern undersea city takes thousands of years to prepare.  Once that foundation is complete it may take as little as a few months to finish.

“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob SquarePants.” A normal pineapple would be crush by the weight of the ocean. But lava beds and hydrothermal vents were probably harder to rhyme. 

As lava comes up to the surface along the edges of the tectonic plates, it cools and forms new material, spreading the tectonic plates apart and creating new sea floor.  This spreading combined with volcanic activity causes cracks in the sea floor along the edge of the tectonic plates.  These cracks can go as deep as three miles into the crust.  As the water gets closer to the Earth’s mantle it becomes extremely hot.  The superheated water then spews up like a geyser and rises above the colder, denser water.  These geysers of superheated water are rich in precious minerals, zinc, copper, iron, magnesium – and nutrients.    They are also heavy with hydrogen sulfide – the building block of life on the deep sea floor.  These materials are dissolved by the water which can reach temperatures of 760 degrees, then crystallize as they hit the cooler water around the vent opening.  The minerals and sulfide then precipitate onto the ocean floor, building a cone around the vent opening forming a mini-underwater volcano.  Vents can grow as rapidly as 30 feet in nine months – reaching heights in excess of two stories – and spew their elements hundreds of feet up into the water.  One of the tallest vents discovered was the “Godzilla” vent off the coast of Oregon in the Pacific Ocean which grew to the height of a 15 story building before it collapsed and began rebuilding itself again.

Secondhand Smoke is Good For Your Health

Hydrothermal vents are typically found in two types – black smokers and white smokers.  While life avoids being directly in the path heated, noxious plumes, the “smoking” is a sign of a mineral and nutrient rich vent.  In her American Scientist article “Hydrothermal Vent Communities of Deep Sea,” Verena Tunnicliffe describes the difference between the two vent types (338).  Black smokers are super hot and full of minerals containing sulfur and iron.  These elements combine to form monosulfide which gives the smoke its black color.  White smokers don’t burn as hot and typically have “lighter-hued” minerals such as barium, calcium, and silicon so their smoke is much lighter in color.

The End is Nigh

Bikini Bottom always seems to be endangered by some good-intentioned misadventure of Spongebob’s.  Such as the time he released Triton’s son in a misguided attempt to get the two gods to reconcile, resulting in the complete decimation of Bikini Bottom.  In the real undersea communities complete decimation usually has a more earthly origin.

Hydrothermal vents at their heart are underwater volcanoes and like all volcanoes they occasionally erupt.  In 1989, a survey team for the Ocean Drilling Program captured photos of a hydrothermal vent field located between 9 degrees 9 minutes north and 9 degrees 54 minutes North where the Cocos and Pacific plates meet.  The pictures they took at 7,600 feet using a towed array showed 15 vibrant vent communities.

Just like Bikini Bottom, inhabitants of hydrothermal vent fields never know when natural (or unnatural) disaster will strike.

On April 4, 1991 scientists aboard Atlantis II research vessel, using the now-famous Alvin submersible, returned to the site to conduct the second part of the survey.  Now known as 9 North, the survey team was shocked to find not a single sign of the vent communities they saw in the previous photos.  Instead they found the entire area was covered in glassy lava flows.  The water above the flows was filled with cloudy, nutrient-rich gases being blown out of cracks in the lava.  The sea floor on the opposite side of the rise was littered with burned tube worms and broken clam shells.  Dead sea-life was scattered all over the ocean floor.  Due to the lack of scavengers scientists believed the eruption was very recent.

Dubbed the Great Tubeworm Barbecue, the eruption was a boon for scientists.  It was the perfect opportunity to observe the formation of hydrothermal vents and their colonization by sea life.  Between 1992 and 2000 scientists took extensive photos and samples of the area.

Within days of the eruption all life in the area was dead.  But scientists also believe that within days, life returned.  This return was in the form of white microbial mats forming around cracks in the lava near new vents.  Super heated water shooting out of the vents sprayed mats living underground into the water in columns nearly 50 meters high!  Some of these mats were up to 10 cm in size and formed white “blizzard” like clouds in the water.  These mats formed the original food source for a developing community.

Shortly after the arrival of this food source, grazers started to appear.  Crawling or swimming predators, tiny copepods and clouds of amphipods, crabs and lobsters.  All manner of creatures came to the area attracted by the bounty spewing up from beneath the ocean floor.

Customers come running when the doors of the Krusty Krab open.  Under-sea eruptions may destroy vent communities, but they also create new food sources and life comes rushing back to take advantage.

Within a year Tevnia jerichonana (small tube worms) began to arrive – either micro-sized survivors of the first explosion or larvae from other vent communities which drifted the ocean currents looking for a new place to settle.   These small worms were soon replaced by the larger more dominant Riftias.  Shrimp, limpets, fish and eel pouts all moved into the neighborhood.  Clouds of hovering amphipods formed what scientists believe could be the highest density of invertebrates at 1,000 per liter!

Despite this quick recovery and boom of life, most of these communities died out within three years.  The life of these ecosystems depends on the flow and upwelling of fluids from their host vents.  Some of the vents saw a great decrease in flow and some died off completely.  With the primary source of food cut off the giant tube worms started dying off.  Predators and grazers picked the dying areas clean of all their food sources.

In less than five years giant mussels began moving into the area.  Normally they stay away from the vents since their young cannot handle the high concentration of sulfide.  But once the mussels get bigger, they can protect their young and move closer to the area.  They attached themselves to the giant worms, weighing them down and using the precious hydrogen sulfide the worms depended on for chemosynthesis. These giant muscles are filter feeders, but they can also use the vent bacteria get access to oxygen, carbon dioxide, and use them to reduce the concentration of sulfur.  They can live with or without the bacteria to produce the energy they need to live.  This gave the giant muscles the flexibility they needed to take their turn as the dominant species on the vents.

Discovered in 2005, the kiwa hirsuta (also known as the Yeti Crab) was found by scientists in the South Pacific Ocean. The exact use of its fur is debated, but it’s general agreed it assists in gathering food.

Whale of a Tale

Geological activity comes and goes.  The older a vent is the more likely it is to exhaust all its energy or at least decrease in temperature and intensity.  The lower the temperature becomes the less hydrogen sulfide that deep ocean life is dependent on dissolves into the water and precipitates onto the ocean floor.  Giant worms replace their smaller cousins when the environment is rich, but mussels and clams replace the giant worms as their food source dwindles.  Soon even the mussels and clams will not be able to survive as the last vent flow dies.

But that isn’t necessarily the end.  There is much debate among scientists on why vents miles – sometimes a thousand miles – apart can have specimens and organisms so closely related.  One theory is some of the creatures can migrate to new vent systems.  But how?

Heat seeking shrimp can wonder off to find other heat or life sources.  Worms spread their larvae into the currents with other planktonic forms of life.  It’s possible these organisms float about the deep ocean until they find a safe haven.  There is also a theory referred to as the “stepping stone.”

In 1987, researchers from the University of Hawaii found a thriving, diverse animal community – similar to those found at vent communities – on a whale carcass on the bottom of the sea.   Studies have shown that these remains have the presence of sulfur-oxidizing chemosynthetic bacteria.  The sulfide produced by the bacteria diffuses out of the bone and it may be possible for the vent organisms to sense these chemicals.  According to Timothy Shank of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, as of November 2010, 20 whale-fall ecosystems have been found and they share 10 species with hydrothermal vents!  Shank also says wood from shipwrecks also provides chemical nutrients from decaying organic matter to support chemosynthetic animals.   Like seamounts, whale falls along migration routes and wood from shipwrecks (or discharged to the sea near river mouths) may serve as stepping-stones to help disperse seafloor fauna.

Orange microbes coat the skeleton of a whale that fell to the seafloor off California. The microbes decompose whale tissue and bones, producing hydrogen sulfide nutrients similar to vent systems. These “whale-fall” communities share many species with other chemosynthetic seafloor communities.

“Recent evidence indicates that wooden shipwrecks began earlier than suspected in history, were not confined to coastal areas, and occurred more frequently than previously believed,” says Shanks.   Between 1971 and 1990 alone, an estimated 3,000 wooden ships were wrecked.  Scientists also believe the bottom of the ocean is littered with whale carcasses at an estimated one per 16 miles.  Moving from carcass to carcass (or wreck to wreck) a new vent can be reached!

Life Imitates Art?

Hillenburg’s mixes his knowledge of undersea life and flair for zany comedy well in creating his “absorbent and porous” hero of a small underwater town considering almost nothing is known about the habits of individual species.   Their remote location only allows for a few hours of observation and specimen collection is limited.  Even commercial companies interested in mining the vent areas for their precious metals cannot justify the cost of even attempting such an undertaking.

Even so, what little is known has shown ocean biologists and geologists that life cannot only exist, but can thrive with great diversity without light and photosynthesis through chemosynthesis.  These systems, along with whale and shipwreck falls, give clues to how ocean fauna can travel and spread throughout the world’s ocean.   Their discovery has challenged known conventions as to what the exact conditions for life to succeed are and how flexible and adaptive life is.  They have even increased other scientists hope for discovery of life on other volcanically active planets with access to little or no sunlight and warmth.

Sites like 9 North also showed how quickly life can recover and repopulate after being completely decimated after a natural disaster.  Even with these new discoveries less is known about the deep oceans than any other part of Earth and until new technologies are discovered to assist in the collection of information the great deeps will continue to remain dark and mysterious.

Veneration of SpongeBob SquarePants comes in all forms.

nd hydrothermal ve

Rose’s For All the Tea in China spins a true tale of high adventure, historical intrigue

Despite the well-known phrase “I wouldn’t trade [insert item] for all the tea in China,” this social liquid has been become immediately identifiable over the last three hundred years as uniquely British. Although it was Queen Elizabeth I who granted the East India Company exclusive rights to the Asia trade market in 1600, tea would not be imported in any great bulk until 1664 – and then a meager 100 pounds as a gift for the wife of King Charles II of England from the East India Company to curry favor with the king.  By 1750, tea imports reached 4.7 million pounds per year and today the English drink more than 165,000,000 cups every single day of the year.[1]

How did this come to be?  “For All the Tea in China,” by Sarah Rose, tells the story of Robert Fortune, an English botanist hired by the East India Company to complete the impossible mission of infiltrating the forbidden Chinese interior, procure the finest specimens of Chinese tea plants and seeds, as well as the process for harvesting and processing the plant, and ship those specimens to the East India Company’s experimental tea farms in India without destroying their viability or getting himself killed.

It’s hard to discern the importance and danger of Fortune’s undertaking without at least a brief look at the British and Chinese cultures of the mid-1800s, or the status of the two nation’s relationship. 

At the heart of this culture clash is the Asian concept of face.  Face can be closest compared in western terms with honor or prestige, but even these words do not even touch on the complexities of its infusion into the Chinese culture. 

“In China,” Rose writes, “‘face,’ or mianxi, was a concept that a westerner like Fortune did not instinctively understand, describing as it does the prestige and reputation on gains from every human interaction.  Relationships in China are defined by the reciprocal obligations between people, whether the same or different status, and every individual existed within a network of influence, a matrix of duties and social connections.  The family came first, then the extended social neighborhood.  Face expressed a person’s position within his or her network and was the mechanism by which Chinese assessed their obligations: which orders to obey, which favors to grant, and which supplications and apologies to make” (69.)

Her description does an excellent job of shining a light on the Chinese mind when compared to the definition of other Chinese culture experts. 

In the American Journal of Sociology, David Yau-fai Ho[2], describes face as “the respectability and/or deference that a person can claim for him/herself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in the social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in the position as well as acceptably in his social conduct” (833.)

Although Rose points out only two instances of Fortune’s misunderstanding of face and how the men he trusted with his life nearly get him killed in their quest to increase their own face, this concept permeates nearly every aspect of her tale. 

It begins on an international scale after Britain’s defeat of China in the Opium Wars.  The entire nation suffers a loss of face to the European “barbarians” and as a result of treaty must tolerate even more western influence.  China was forced secede the island of Hong Kong to the British crown and open up several more coastal cities as well as Shanghai to westerners as trading posts.   Although westerners had been able to gain some ground in China, they were still not allowed to leave these cities under penalty of slow and painful death (Gray 58.)          

It is into this tension filled relationship Fortune steps.  And his misunderstanding of the culture of face creates great tension between Fortune and his guides as he traverses the Chinese interior.  Face is as integrated into Chinese culture as tea – and just like tea, wars have been fought – and westerners tortured and killed – over it.

Fortune faced a gruesome penalty if he had been caught in the Chinese interior attempting to steal China’s greatest state secret – the cultivation and processing of tea.

Long before 1849 when Fortune accepted his mission, Britain had become a nation obsessed with tea.  It was not just a daily social event it was a sign of civility and a symbol of British propriety over the barbarians of the east. (Although the fact tea came from China and the Chinese revered the drink every bit as the British seemed to be irrelevant to one’s status as a barbarian or paragon of civility.)[3]   

The only place to buy quality tea at the time was China. The East India Company had failed miserably to grow its own tea in India and it was impossible to transport viable seeds and plants across the Pacific or Atlantic during this time.  With the British government’s withdrawal of the East India Company’s exclusive tea trading rights, the company was desperate to increase their profits and regain dominance in the tea trade. China considered all aspects of its tea production a closely guarded state secret (Rose 29.) 

The man chosen by the company for this dangerous mission was Robert Fortune, who had already made a name for himself collecting plants in China from 1846-1849.  It could be argued Fortune benefited from his own increased face during his first venture.  After years of toiling in anonymity for the Royal Horticultural Society, the society asked him to go to China to collect plant specimens.  He was offered 100 pounds per year ($10,000 U.S. currency.)  Expenses were not included and he had to beg for extra funds to buy weapons for his own protection (Rose 10.)

When he tried to negotiate better pay he was told the pay or profit from the mission should be secondary to “the distinction and status which you could not have attained in any other way” (Rose 11.)

In Chinese terms: face.

This first journey had some peril but he acquired most of his specimens through trade, although he did disguise himself several times to leave the protective walls of the trade cities, nearly died from fever, and was nearly killed by pirates (Rose 50).  He parlayed his trip into a low-paying but prestigious position at the Chelsea Physic Garden, wrote a successful memoir, and this increased renown drew the attention of the desperate East India Company (Rose 35.)

He benefited greatly from his own increased face and the East India Company’s loss of face when the English parliament revoked the company’s exclusive trade rights in Asia.  It was not only an embarrassment for company executives, but a financial blow as well.  Not only did they now have to compete with the established presence of Islamic traders and the growing American presence, they now had to compete with other European trading companies.

Their answer to this was to hire Fortune, a man of great reputation with previous experience in China, to return there, steal the secrets of tea growing and production, and ship his specimens and findings to India where the company was trying to grow tea in the Darjeeling area of the Himalayas – an area with similar climate and soil to China’s Sung Lo and Wuyi mountains where Chinese green and black teas are grown respectively. [4]

“The Himalayas possessed the same growing conditions as China’s best tea regions.  They were subtropical… high and cool, so the tea would be slow growing and retain its pungency (Rose 31.) 

Unlike the Royal Horticulture Society, the East India Company had a very generous offer befitting an expert of his experience.  He would receive 500 pounds (about $55,000 today) per year, paid passage and expenses, as well as all profits gained from any plant specimens he could sell at auction (Rose 50). 

Although Rose doesn’t mention face at this point it seems likely the Royal Horticulture Society was right – Fortune had gained a significant amount of face with this peers and suitors. 

Robert Fortune, the Indiana Jones of the late 19th Century botany world.

Fortune arrived in Shanghai, China in September 1948.  He hired two men to help him.  Wang and another man Fortune refers in his accounts to only as “the Coolie.”[5]  He chose Wang because he was a young man born in the foot hills of the prime green tea growing area of the Sung Lo Mountains whose father still owned a farm there (Rose 54.)

It was on the first leg of his journey to the Sung Lo Mountains when Fortune had his first encounter with face putting him in danger. 

“Had it been known a foreigner was in the very heart of the city of Hangzhou (Hang-chow-foo), a mob would have collected and the consequences might have been serious” (Fortune 38.)

Although disguised with a shaven front head and pony tail sewn into his existing hair, he ordered his guide, Wang, to go around the busy trade city of Hangzhou for fear of being recognized and put to an inglorious death.  It wasn’t until they were nearly at the gates he realized he had been disobeyed.   Furious, and in opposition to his desire for anonymity, he berated his young guide in a public square.  Wang’s reaction is not what Fortune believes it to be.  Going back to Ho’s explanation that face includes “…the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in the positions…” on the surface it would appear that Wang was losing face for displeasing his master, however the opposite is true.  To be berated so harshly in public increased Wang’s face with workers who witnessed it.  Only a servant who held a position of high trust and importance could draw such ire.  In addition, Wang’s master must be a very important person to become so angry he would berate his servant in public (Rose 69.) 

“[Fortune] did not appreciate the high level of status he conferred upon [his guides] by depending on them so heavily.  Nor did he see how rebellious this would make them” (Rose 71.)

Roberts own words indicate he did not understand.  Since Fortune could not read Chinese, he entrusted the younger Wang to the hiring of boats and procuring of contracts because he felt the other servant was “little better than a common coolie” (Fortune 21.)  This put Want in the position of skimming off the top – pocketing the change from each transaction (known as “the squeeze”).  This was a great affront to the older coolie, who felt it was his duty as the elder to perform this task and thus reap the benefits of the squeeze.  It caused an enormous amount of jealousy and loss of face to the older Chinese man.

“I thought that in the present jealous state,” Fortune explained, “the one would prove a check upon the other.  The projected journey was a long one, the way was unknown to me, and I should have been placed in an awkward position had they agreed to rob me when far inland.  The jealous feeling that existed between them was therefore, I considered, rather a safeguard than otherwise” (Fortune 23.)

A westerner clearly not understanding the situation.  In fact, Fortune lost face with the older worker who began to cause problems continually arguing over money with the younger Wang.  The coolie once caused a drunken brawl which brought unwanted attention and expense to his master.  He also told the crew of one of the boats they hired he was an Englishman.  If not for the negotiation skill of Wang, Fortune would have been sold to the government for an award.  And would probably be cut to 24 distinct pieces as a warning to others.[6]  And of course Wang was rewarded with a significant squeeze from each incident which only drove the coolie to greater furor (Rose 28.)

Despite the treacherous relationship in this cultural triangle, Fortune made it to Sung Lo and back to Shanghai completely intact, with thousands of seeds and detailed knowledge of the tea planting, harvesting and curing process, touring one of the factories disguised as an important Mandarin.

Fortune took extensive and detailed notes on the process of tea. Including the type of soil, elevation, weather, length of time until harvest, harvest method, drying method, length of fermentation and all aspects of the physical handing of the leaves. Everything and anything that could possibly effect the quality of the tea was noted.

Now it was time to travel to the black tea districts in the Wuyi Mountains (also known as Bohea).  Here, with a new guide, face would rear its misunderstood head again and cause Fortune more headache.  Upon the recommendation of an English trader, Fortune hired Sing Hoo.  Sing Hoo was from the Wuyi Mountain area and he bore the flag the Imperial Court where he had once worked – very few encountered on the road would question him (Rose 139.)     

At first things went well.  Rose recalls Fortune’s account of a traffic jam on the river.  A boat captain refused to wait his turn and tried to get past the boat Fortune had hired.  Unwilling to see his master “outfaced,” Sing Hoo brought out his Imperial banner and brow beat the offending boat captain into submission. (141.)

However, Sing Hoo turned out to be not much different than Wang when it came to the squeeze.  The more important his master, the more he could afford.  To raise his own face, Sing Hoo began to make each introduction of his master more detailed, glorified and status oriented.

“Rather than helping him maintain a low profile, Sing Hoo raised it and then embellished it in order to bask in the reflected glory of his master’s perceived stature.” The more his background grew the more uncomfortable Fortune became.  He was a descendent of Genghis Khan, hand many wives and was very rich, a venerated warrior and respected leader (Rose 169.)

Fortune wanted to draw as little attention as possible – either good or bad – but just like Wang and his former coolie, Sing Hoo’s face had other plans, and just like his former guides, the attention Sing Hoo drew was sometimes negative.  One night while taking refuge in an opium den that doubled for an inn, Fortune woke terrified at the sound of loud fighting in the courtyard.  He discovered his drunken servant in the middle of it. 

“Eight or ten stout fellows, including the chair-bearers, were attacking my servant,” recalls Fortune, “who was standing, like a tiger at bay, up against the wall of the house. He had a large joss-stick[7] in his hand which every now and then he was poking at the faces of those who threatened to close with him. The most adventurous sometimes got a poke which sent them back, cursing and swearing, rather faster than they came. The whole scene brought vividly to my mind Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s fight with the red-hot poker, so admirably described by Sir Walter Scott. Had I been an uninterested spectator, I might have enjoyed a hearty laugh at the scene before me but I was in the midst of a strange country and hostile people and, being the weaker party, I felt really alarmed. The only weapon in my possession was a small pocket-pistol, one of those which are loaded by unscrewing the barrel. Thinking that if matters came to the worst this might be of some use, either in frightening our assailants or in saving my life, I went back to my bed-room and got it out. When I examined it I found that the wet had rusted the barrel, and it would not unscrew.  It was therefore of no use.” (290-291.)

Fortune decided to bluff his way out of trouble and waved his useless weapon around to calm everyone down.  He discovered his servant – in an effort to get the most lucrative squeeze – had made promises of payment to the laborers for some unspecified reason.  He berated his servant and forced him to pay the money out of his own pocket.  Sing Hoo lost a tremendous amount of face.  And Fortune, terrified by stories of opium den murders was determined not to spend another day there.  But word of the ruckus had reached the nearby village and laborers refused to work with Sing Hoo, so he had to carry Fortunes equipment on his own through the rain and mud.  He begged his master to return to the inn, but Fortune was too frightened to do so (Rose 181.)

With a more contrite servant in the wake of his loss of face, as well as creating a loss of face for his master, the rest of Fortune’s journey went more smoothly.  He made it to Bohea where he stayed at a temple which grew and processed its own black tea.  He stayed for nearly a month learning everything he could about the process as well as collecting seeds and plants to send back to India when he returned to Shanghai.

Thanks to Robert Fortune (and British imperialism), the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, India is a respected modern producer of the highest quality of tea in the world.

Even after his three previous years in China, Fortune still had a westerner’s ignorance of face and its importance in Chinese culture.  Strangely, more than 100 years later, western leaders still remain ignorant.

At a welcoming ceremony outside the White House in 2006, a reporter heckled Chinese president Hu Jintao.  The reporter was a member of the outlawed Falun Gong religious sect. To Americans he was using his freedom of speech.  But to the Chinese it’s considered negligence by the U.S. at least and disrespect at the worst, specifically in such a formal situation.[8] Another face damaging/not giving face example also happened at the ceremony.  The band played the “national anthem of the Republic of China,” which is actually the name of Taiwan. President Bush apologized later in his office.  The next day, “Hu was in no mood to make concessions. In negotiations, he gave the U.S. nothing on delicate matters such as the nuclear problems in North Korea and Iran, the Chinese value, and the trade deficit with China” (Milbank 2006.)

Which brings us to one last matter of face in the case of Robert Fortune.  According to Rose, most of her story about Fortune’s life in China comes from his published materials and a few surviving journal entries.  (His wife inexplicably burned her husband’s notes and personal affects after his death.)  But even so, there was no record of his private life in England.  It has been speculated by authorities in the author’s research that his public birth date was registered a year later than his actual birth date by his parents to prevent embarrassment, and that Fortune preferred his personal background not be scrutinized too closely due to his own position of high honor in English society (Rose 245.). 

The author does a brilliant job of painting the cultural landscape of 19^th Century China, explaining the dynamics of face in Chinese relations and the consequences of being ignorant of this concept.  Rose entertainingly educates the reader in Chinese and British culture.  If the author had any prior preconceptions or biases it did not show through her writing – I could not even tell if she liked or disliked tea.  But I could tell she loved her material which she nursed through three years of research and visits to the green and black tea areas of China, as well as England and India. 

The only weakness of her tale is how Fortune moved all his Wardian cases through China.[9]  She describes in detail how the Wardian case was discovered and how it works to protect plants on their overseas journey, but it’s unclear on how massive or easy this undertaking was and how many people he had with him besides his guides to ensure safe transportation.  The cases can hold thousands of tiny seeds, so it seems they didn’t need to be very large, but he also placed in them grown plants which are much larger than seeds.

But it’s just a minor flaw in an otherwise seamless telling of an amazing true life adventure and cultural discourse.

Wardian cases – self contained environments which allowed plants to grow and survive the nine to 11-month trip back to Europe and India. Before it was invented plants usually died from lack of sunlight in cargo holds or from the spray of salt water if stored on deck.

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Related sites you might be interested in:

Sarah Rose.     Death by a thousand cuts.     Robert Fortune.       Concepts of face.

[1]  United Kingdom Tea Council. “History of Tea.” Web. <www.tea.co.uk/history-of-tea>

[2] Ho was the first Asian President of the International Council of Psychologists (Qiumin and Lee 401.)

[3] United Kingdom Tea Council. “History of Tea.” Web. <www.tea.co.uk/history-of-tea>

[4] By 1920, 75 percent of imported tea in Britain came from plantations in India. International Tea Committee. “History.” Web. <http://www.inttea.com/&gt;.

[5] A “coolie” is a generic term for a Chinese laborer many of whom were imported to India and the United States and treated little better than slaves (Northrup 127.)

[6] The worst punishments were saved for foreigners and 24 pieces was the greatest insult.  If a judge was feeling lenient, a prisoner appropriately contrite, or extenuating circumstances involved, the sentence may be reduced to being cut into eight pieces (Gray 59.)

[7] A type of incense used in many East Asian and Southeast Asian countries, traditionally burned before a Chinese religious image, idol or shrine (Merriam-Webster.)

[8] This same reporter heckled Hu’s predecessor at the White House five years previously (Milbank 2006.)

[9] Invented in 1829 by Dr. Nathaniel Ward, the Wardian case is a small glass box which provides plants a sealed, independent environment to grow.  This breakthrough allowed plants to survive the six to 11 month journey from Asia and the Americas.  Prior to its use most plants died from lack of sunlight in the cargo hold or from the spray of salt water from being stored on deck. (Hershey 276.)

(References pages are always available to anyone interested in more information.)

Do androids dream? Dick’s 1968 vision nearing reality

The Robot Institute of America defines a robot as: “A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.”

The word robot was taken from the Russian word работа (robota), or “work” and the notion of automated machines has fascinated mankind for millennia. The Hellenistic Antikythera mechanism is the earliest known calculator. In the 1500s, Salomon de Caus created a water powered singing bird. The ancient Chinese and Leonardo Da Vinci are reputed to have built mechanical movers and animals. All these rudimentary devices fit into the RIAs definition of a robot, but none capture the aspect of robotics which continues to spur human imagination. The human replica – often referred to in science fiction as an “android.”

Over the last 100 years, androids and robots have appeared in hundreds of science fiction novels, movies and video games.  Advanced intelligent machines, they sometimes come from other planets. Most often they are built by man for his benefit, but inevitably turn on their masters.

In his 1968 novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Philip K. Dick tells the story of Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter tacking down and retiring (killing) androids which have escaped their life of human servitude on the Mars colony and are hiding on Earth among what’s left of a human population decimated by nuclear war.

In Dick’s world, androids are built and programmed, not from circuitry, but living bio tissue and are exact duplicates of human beings. Nor does there seem to be a danger of role reversal where the humans become the servants and the androids the masters. Instead Dick explores what it means to be human.

At the time of his novel’s publication, in our world modern robotics was in its infancy. In 1956, inventor George C. Devol, and engineer Joseph F. Engelberger, met to discuss the writings of Isaac Asimov, the man attributed with the first use of the word robotics. Together they made a serious and commercially successful effort to develop a real, working robot. Engelberger started a manufacturing company called Unimation, which stood for “universal automation” and so the first commercial company to make robots was formed. Their first robot was nicknamed the “Unimate.” The first Unimate was installed at a General Motors plant to work with heated die-casting machines. Many Unimates were sold to extract die castings from die casting machines and to perform spot welding on auto bodies, tasks unappealing to – and dangerous for – people. A new industry was spawned and Engelberger has since become known as the father of robotics.

The “unimate” was the first factory installed robot in the U.S. in a Trenton, N.J. GM plant in 1961. It was used to pick up hot dyes.

The first robot we meet in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is Rick Deckard’s sheep. Real animals are prized beyond all else on post-war Earth. It’s proof of human empathy and a symbol of status as most animals are extinct or near extinct. Deckard had a real sheep, but it had died and he replaced it with the robot. So realistic, it bleats, eats and has bowel movements – none of his neighbors are the wiser. At one point an unfortunate animal repairman mistakes a real cat for a fake which dies on its way to the repair shop.

But Decker’s real problem is a group of new androids, the Rosen Corporation’s Nexus-6 model. Seven of them have killed humans to escape Mars and nearly killed his predecessor. When Decker flies to the corporate headquarters to test a device designed for identifying androids he is met by Rachel Rosen, the beautiful niece of the CEO. But Rachael is more than she seems. She is in fact a Nexus-6 model android and nearly fools Deckard into believing otherwise.

Which brings us to the question, how accurate is Dick’s 1968 vision of the future? Is it possible to fool a human being with a robot or an android? Today the answer is, maybe.

Computers were nearly non-existent outside the military and large industrial factory use in 1968. In 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 computers had 24 kilobytes of readable memory. Today a low end iPhone 4 has 8 gigabytes of readable memory. The first home computer, the Altair 8800, wasn’t released until 1975 and was little more than a glorified calculator without keyboard or monitor. Early robots rolled around on wheels, had heads like R2-D2 and could only repeat pre-programmed lines and were unable to respond to questions or interact with people in any meaningful way.

Today, robot technology is pushing new boundaries in artificial intelligence programming and realistic human appearance. One of the leader’s of this robotic revolution is Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. Ishiguro has developed three life-like robots (called Geminoids) in the likeness of himself, Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark, and a female Japanese model.  While there are other more advanced, independent robots such as Honda Corporation’s ASIMO, Ishiguro is focusing on extensive testing to make his robots skin and facial expressions as realistic as possible, using video mapping of his original subjects movements, a multitude of tiny manipulators simulating muscle and a new artificial tissue called “frubber.”

Hiroshi Ishiguro and his models hold court with their look-a-like robots.

So if androids think, look and move like humans, then how can you tell the real thing from the imposter? In James Cameron’s 1984 futuristic thriller “The Terminator,” humans used dogs to identify the deadly, human-looking terminator robots hunting humanity. In the latest incarnation of “Battlestar Galactica,” humans tried to develop a blood test to expose a new type a human-looking Cylon.

In “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Dick’s protagonist administers the Voight-Kampff test. It measures bodily functions such “blush response,” heart rate and eye movement in response to questions designed to evoke an emotional response. It’s not unheard of to place artificial memories into an android, fooling even the android, but the one thing androids supposedly are unable to fake is empathy. Rachel Rosen fails Deckard’s test, but is told by the Rosen CEO it’s because she was born and raised on a starship which was forced to return to Earth after a failed colonization attempt and therefore does not have the same responses to questions about (for example) animal mutilation. At first he believes the story, but his instinct spurs him to ask more questions and he determines she is in fact an android, forcing the Rosen CEO to admit she had false memories implanted and Rachael was unaware of her android status. Although Deckard discovers much later this, too, is a lie. Rachel Rosen is a cold, calculating android used by the Rosen Corporation for more nefarious purposes.

So Dick theorizes no matter how advanced a robot or android is – even one made from living tissue – it cannot feel empathy or have genuine emotional reactions. These are the things that make us human. These are the things that separate man from beast – or android – and cannot be replicated.

Or can they?

Although the modern android is made of hard wires and computer chips vice bio material, one man is working very hard to create a robot that is not only realistic in appearance and can think independently, but even feel empathy.

Dr. David Hanson, a former Disney “Imagineer,” founded Hanson Robotics with the goal of creating androids that are not only indistinguishable from human beings, but to create “kind and wise genius machines, who may collaborate with us to solve the world’s hard problems and realize an unimaginably wondrous future.” By emulating human bio-systems, from cognition and locomotion, to social expression, Hanson seeks to “unlock mysteries of human nature and yield machines that are creatively brilliant, truly conscious, and friends with us.”

It’s toward this end why in 2009 Hanson founded the Apollo Mind Initiative (AMI) dedicated to creating “friendly genius machines” by the year 2029. His first creation was a talking head replica of Albert Einstein. He also created Jules, a robot capable of making eye contact and detailed facial expressions, remembering where people are in a room, as well as engaging in multifaceted conversations. Hanson seems well on his way to his goal of creating a robot that will “come to know who you are and build a relationship with you.”

Hanson invented or co-invented numerous technologies, including patented “lipid-bilayer nanotech” for naturalistic skin, expressive face mechanisms, virtual character tools and “neurocognitive-inspired” software systems for machine cognition. In other words, he has a lot of ideas on how to bring Dick’s vision of the future to life.

The Voight-Kampff test machine from the 1982 movie Blade Runner, based on Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” starring Harrison Ford as bounty hunter Rick Deckard.

In the end, Deckard is able to track down all the androids and retire them without having to use the Voight-Kampff test, and he uses the money to buy a living goat to replace his electric sheep. As a result, Rachael Rosen, the Nexus-6 he did not retire, partly because it was the property equivalent to a floor model for prospective buyers, throws Deckard’s new status symbol off his roof. Dick does not fully address the reasoning of this action in detail.

“She made no effort to keep us from seeing her,” Deckard’s wife tells him. “As if she didn’t care.”

“No, she didn’t care,” Deckard replies.

The action seems to be designed to further show the lack of empathy androids have by throwing the living animal off the roof of a building, but does it? Yes, it’s an act of cruelty. But it could be argued it’s an act born of anger and a need for revenge for what Rachael perceived as a slight on her by Deckard. If androids are devoid of emotion or empathy, and the Voight-Kampff test is designed to elicit strong emotional responses to discover empathy – or lack of empathy – then how can it be an accurate test? How can an android, furious enough to throw a living goat off the roof of a building, fail such a test?

The truth is probably closer to empathy is relative. What emotionally moves one person, may not move another. But Dick’s doesn’t only explore what makes us human through the eyes of artificial intelligence, he does so through the real, daily struggles of Earth-bound humans trying to hold onto what’s left of their humanity through the dwindling animal population – even if it means owning a fake animal which they care for and nurture as if it’s the real thing.

But that’s for the future. Today’s humans must cross what robotics experts call “the uncanny valley.” The uncanny valley is the theory that the more human a robot looks, the more an observer is likely to empathize with it. But if it’s appearance it too human, but still obviously not human, it will cause revulsion. This revulsion will start to sway back toward empathy once the robot looks and acts exactly like a human. In simplest terms, the uncanny valley is the human emotional response toward a robot in the space between completely non-human looking and completely human looking.

Although we are far from having an android in every home, it is surprising how many homes use the same technology found in modern robots which we take for granted. Apple’s iPhone 4s allows you to perform manual functions by using casual, conversational voice commands and will not only answer your questions, but often reply with its own observations. Microsoft’s XBOX Kinect system uses a voice and facial recognition system, combined with motion sensors to allow video game players to interact with characters in video games.

More than 40 years after the original release of Dick’s classic novel, his vision of our advanced technology is literally springing to man-made life before our eyes. The question remains will our androids be tame servants who only occasionally go awry like in Dick’s novel, or will they rise up and overthrow their human masters in one giant robotic revolt?

Even though he died in 1982, Phillip K. Dick might still be able to answer that question. You see, Hanson took all of Dick’s writings – novels, short stories, letters and correspondence, video and radio transcripts – and combined them with his neurocognitive software and uploaded them into a Phillip K. Dick android.

When asked if androids will one day rule over man, Phil (he likes to be called Phil) responded, “Don’t worry. Even if I evolve into terminator I will still be nice to you. I will keep you warm and safe in my people zoo.”

Thanks.

Dick.

Hanson Robotics’ Philip K. Dick robot reassuring humanity we will be safe under his care.

Robotics links you might enjoy.

Robot Magazine.     Robots playing soccer.     Robotics Online.    Philip K. Dick interview.

Autumn splendor: Ackerman gives voice to nature’s spectacle

In her essay “Why the Leaves Turn Color in the Fall,” poet and naturalist, Diane Ackerman, presents to us the scientific process of the change of Autumn leaves in a manner as colorful as this annual phenomena of nature.  She points out the minute changes in the weather and the habits of animals, which signal the approach of Fall, are so subtle they often go unnoticed until the leaves are ready to start dropping.

This process starts near the end of summer when the trees start storing their nutrients in their trunks in preparation for winter survival.  With their supply lines cut, the leaves stop producing chlorophyll which stops the photosynthesis process.

According to Ackerman, the transition of a leaf from green to yellow begins as chlorophyll breaks down, exposing colors always present, but hidden by the overpowering green of well-fed leaves.  “With their camouflage gone,” she explains, “we see these colors for the first time all year, and marvel, but they were always there, hidden like a vivid secret beneath the hot glowing greens of summer.”

Not all fall colors are created equal.  Cold, sunny days in the Eastern United States and eastern China are the reason their flaming red-orange leaves are much brighter than their European brethren’s brown-yellowed leaves living in warmer, more humid climates.  Ackerman claims the cool, dry weather of the eastern United States and China magnifies the brilliance of anthocyanin, the chemical which gives apples their bright red pigmentation.  This chemical is created by sugars that remain in the leaves after their supply of nutrients dwindles.

Because of these variations in climate and chemical compounds, trees create their own unique set of colors for their temporary dressing.  Elms, weeping willows, aspen and poplars are just a few trees which produce predominant yellow leaves.  Maples, sumacs and dogwoods are among producers of vibrant reds.

The season “fall” finds its origins from the Old English feallan which found its roots in the Indo-European word phol– both of which mean to fall, so this idea of falling in the autumn season is an old one.  The discoloration of greenery itself is not what causes leaves to fall.  Ackerman describes the aging process as the growth hormone, auxin, fades causing the leaves to hang by a few thread-like xylem waiting for the smallest breeze to dislodge them.  She poignantly – even romantically – describes the pleasure this ending gives to observers and reminds us of our own mortality.

“Firmly tethered to the Earth, we love to see things rise up and fly,” she says, reminiscing of gentle things like soap bubbles and balloons, and closes that life can be beautiful even at its end.  “They remind us the end of the season is capricious, as is the end of life.  Sometimes one finds in fossil stones the imprint of a leaf, long since disintegrated whose outlines remind us how detailed, vibrant, and alive are the things of this earth that perish.”

Prometheus: Can Scott resuscitate a waning brand?

Ridley Scott’s new sci-fi thriller, Prometheus, is one of those movies that finds itself in an interesting conundrum.  It’s extremely well made.  But it’s just not good.

 Not for lack of trying.  We already know Scott is a great director and he is rock solid in the chair.  The art production and cinema photography are award worthy.  The acting is solid.  In fact, the acting is a highlight which is amazing considering the cardboard cutouts our hapless thespians are asked to represent.

The script, by Jon Spaihts and Lost writer Damon Lindelof, reads like it was written while playing a drinking game throughout an Alien movie marathon.  It hits on all the Alien character clichés.  Pretty, tough female lead?  Drink!   Slimy corporate rep?  Drink!  Creepy android programmed for nefarious purposes?  Drink!  Too-likable-to-live alien fodder?  Drink!  Lone (female) survivor?  Drink!  Wise cracking black guy?  Drink!  (Is it just me or is there only one black guy on every space ship?  I know the brothers don’t like swimming, but are they afraid of space too?  I think the Weyland Corporation has some explaining to do.)  There’s also the Weyland connection, egg-like containers, acid blood, morphing aliens growing in your guts, dark and brooding skeletal architecture.  There’s even a duplicate scene of the original movie when Ripley refuses to let an infected crewman onto the ship, only this time it’s Charlize Theron (who just keeps getting sexier) playing the role. It all adds up to one hell of a bender. 

And it would have equaled a hell of a movie if they had sobered up long enough to put it all into a cohesive story.

If you’re a fan of Giorgio Tsoukalos (and I know you are), you’ll appreciate the two prologues.  The first shows a humanoid alien sacrificing himself to pour his DNA into Earth’s waters thereby sowing the seeds of our creation.  The second happens – I don’t know – thousands or millions of years later.  Scientists climbing around in caves find a pattern of stars that match patterns found all throughout different eras of mankind’s development.  Being the curious sorts we are we send a ship to go take a peek and to meet our makers.  Enter Prometheus.

Taking place in the year 2093, this whole expedition in futility is funded by an old and dying Peter Weyland, curiously casted with Guy Pearce.  I think Guy Pearce is one of the most underrated and under-utilized leading men in Hollywood, and Scott gives him about five minutes of screen time all but unrecognizable under a layer of latex.  Is Cliff Robertson dead?  Were there no decent older actors available for that gig?  Is there some kind of union quota for hiring latex prosthetic experts?  One of many why-bother elements in this movie.

The Prometheus’ mission is to search this mysterious planet for signs of an alien race that Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) call “engineers.” They suspect (and later confirm) these beings created the human race using their own DNA.

After a two-year journey the crew of Prometheus is awakened from the now familiar deep space stasis and lands on a barren inhospitable planet.  Find some ruins to investigate.  Smart people proceed to do dumb things.  Chaos ensues.  All punctuated by a fairly disgusting self-performed c-section.  As mentioned already, only one person survives.  Curiously, the alien creators found by our doomed crew also had only one survivor.  Those damn aliens never finish a job. 

And if I remember my Alien lore correctly it was Predators who brought Aliens to Earth thousands of years ago to hunt and they didn’t look at all like…  Actually, I’m not going to try and figure all that out.

Yep. Pretty much sums up my feelings.

Scott claims his film tackles ideas which are “unique, large, and provocative.”  Scott obviously had a grand vision for this film, but it felt more like he just threw it together to put his name back on the Alien franchise.  I found nothing unique, provocative or deep about this film.  Scott spends most of his time wading around in the shallow end of the toddler pool.  The most interesting aspect to me was Noomi Rapace’s character Elizabeth Shaw trying to balance her love of science and faith in God in the face of irrefutable evidence we were not His creation.  But just like all its subject matter, the film just grazes the surface of something thoughtful and interesting. 

 The questions answered in this movie were none.  The questions ask and unanswered were numerous.  Sitting alone in the dark (sigh), the question I asked the most was “Uh, what?”  Not just because I have bad hearing.  And of course, the ending is begging for a sequel.  The movie tagline should have been, “They went looking for our beginning.  What they found was a big pile of cash.”

 I really wanted to like this movie.  I like wise cracking black guys.  I like smoking hot, hard ass women.  I even like aliens who use us as human jack-in-the-boxes.  But in the end, Scott’s vision is just way too little, way too late.  We’ve been subjected to gut busting, little mouths popping out of the bigger mouths, acid blood splashing people in the face, and idiots sticking those faces way too close to unknown hatching organisms for more than 30 years.  It’s going to take a lot more than Prometheus to make the Alien franchise fresh and new again.   

 Next Alien reboot I’m staying home.  Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.

Rating:  6 of 10.

Directed by:  Ridley Scott

Written by:  Jon Spaihts and Damon Linelof

Cast

Charlize Theron:  Meredith Vickers

Guy Pearce:  Peter Weyland

Idras Elba:  Janek

Logan Marshall-Green:  Charlie Holloway

Michael Fassbender:  David

Noomi Rapace:  Elizabeth Shaw