【154-155】地球上最早的移动生物生活在21亿年前&Meet Ai-Da, the Robot Artist
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Meet Ai-Da, the Robot Artist
February 17, 2019
Can robots be creative?
British art gallery owner Aidan Meller thinks so. He hopes to begin answering that question with a robot called Ai-Da.
Meller is overseeing the building of all her parts by engineers at Engineered Arts, a company based in Cornwall, England. The engineers believe the robot will be able to make pictures of people from sight with a writing instrument in her hand.
Ai-Da is named after the British mathematician Ada Lovelace, who is known for her work on a proposed general-purpose computer in the mid-1800s. The first part of the robot’s name, the letters AI, are short for artificial intelligence.
Meller calls Ai-Da the world’s first “AI ultra-realistic robot artist.” He wants the robot to perform like a human artist.
He spoke to the Reuters news agency after seeing Ai-Da’s head being carefully brought to life by specialists who were connecting individual hairs to form eyebrows.
“She’s going to actually be drawing and we’re hoping to then build technology for her to paint,” Meller said.
But also as a performing artist, "she’ll be able to engage with audiences and actually get messages across; asking those questions about technology today,” he added.
Ai-Da’s skeletal robotic head may still be separate from her body, but her movements are very much alive.
Cameras in each of her eyeballs recognize human body parts. Ai-Da will make eye contact and follow you around the room, opening and closing her mouth as you do.
Get too close and the robot will back away, closing and then opening her eyes as if in shock.
Ai-Da’s makers say she will have a “RoboThespian” body with expressive movements. She will talk and answer questions.
The specialists are using the company’s “Mesmer” life-like robot technology to create her head. Once finished, Ai-Da will have a mixed- race appearance, with long dark hair and rubber-like skin made from silicone. The teeth and skin inside her mouth will come from a three-dimensional printer.
Marcus Hold works at Engineered Arts. He said Mesmer “brings together the development of software mechanics and electronics to produce a lifelike face with lifelike gestures in a small human sized package.”
Ai-Da will make her first public appearance in May at an exhibit called “Unsecured Futures” at the University of Oxford. Some of her pictures are expected to appear at another show in London later this year.
I’m George Grow.
Matthew Stock reported this story for the Reuters news agency. George Grow adapted his report for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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Words in This Story
gallery – n. a room for the showing and sale of artwork
artificial intelligence – n. the ability of a machine to use and study information in an attempt to reproduce human behavior
audience – n. crowd
thespian – n. an actor
dimensional – adj. appearing to have length, width and depth
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Earth’s Earliest Mobile Organism Lived 2.1 Billion Years Ago
February 17, 2019
Scientists have discovered the oldest fossil evidence of organism motility, or the ability of an organism to move independently. The discovery shows that development of motility began more than two billion years ago.
The fossils were found in Gabon, in rock called shale. Researchers described them as tube-like structures up to 170 millimeters long. They say the structures may have been created when the organisms moved through soft, wet dirt in search of food or a better environment.
The researchers also said the organisms might have been moving together as a group. The organisms remains a mystery as the fossils are a record only of their movement.
The researchers said the fossils dated back to a time when Earth was rich with oxygen. These conditions permitted simple life forms to develop more complexity.
Life on Earth started with single-celled bacteria about 4 billion years ago. The earliest life forms could not move under their own power. The Gabon fossils dated to the Paleoproterozoic Era are about 1.5 billion years older than the previous earliest evidence of organism motility.
Abderrazak El Albani, a scientist with the University of Poitiers in France, led the team in Gabon. The shale deposit there has proven to be a treasure for the study of ancient life. Several years ago, Albani and his team discovered it held the oldest fossils know of multicellular animals.
“What matters here is their astonishing complexity and diversity in shape and size, and likely in terms of metabolic, developmental and behavioral patterns, including the just-discovered earliest evidence of motility, at least for certain among them,” Albani said.
The first vertebrates, or animals with backbones, appeared about 525 million years ago. Dinosaurs came about 230 million years ago and human-like species developed about 300,000 years ago.
Scientists believe this early time in motility may have faced a setback soon after the Paleoproterozoic Era, about the time of the Gabon fossils. The Earth saw a considerable loss of atmospheric oxygen at that time.
The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I'm Pete Musto.
Reuters News Agency reported this story. Hai Do adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.
________________________________________________ Words in This Story
fossil – n. something, such as a leaf, skeleton, or footprint, that is from a plant or animal which lived in ancient times and that you can see in some rocks
deposit – n. an amount of a substance, such as oil or coal, that exists naturally in the ground
astonishing – adj. causing a feeling of great surprise or wonder
diversity – n. the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.
metabolic – adj. of or relating to the chemical processes by which a plant or an animal uses food, water, etc., to grow and heal and to make energy