SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, PUNEDECEMBER 13, 201516 TIMES TRENDS

Avian evolution linked to climate change

New research by the American Museum of Natural History says that the evolution of modern birds was shaped by the history of our planet’s

geography and climate. The study found that birds arose in South America and survived the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs. They started moving to other parts of the world during periods of global cooling.

We do have ‘grammar’ in our heads

Ever wondered how we could comprehend even nonsensical phrases? According to linguist Noam Chomsky’s theory, that’s because of an

“internal grammar” in our head. Now, a new study further supports this idea. “We make sense of strings of words because our brains combine words into constituents in a hierarchical manner — a process that reflects an ‘internal grammar’ mechanism,” said lead researcher David Poeppel from the New York University.

SHORT CUTS

X’MAS CHEER: Decked out in santa hat and tinsel, this dog was among the 18 canines that strutted their stuff at the Festive Best Dressed Dog competition at QV Melbourne

Scientists from the US, Japan, and China are racing to per-fect satellite technology that could one day measure green-house gas emissions from

space, potentially transforming the winner into the world’s first climate cop. Monitoring a single country’s net emissions from above could not only become an important tool to establish whether it had met its promises to slow global warming, a point of con-tention at climate talks in Paris, but also help emitters to pinpoint the sources of greenhouse gases more quickly and cheaply.

“The real success of a deal here fundamentally revolves around wheth-er we can see emissions and their re-movals,” said John-O Niles, director of the US-based Carbon Institute, which studies methods of carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement. While space-based measurement is unlikely to be mentioned in any deal agreed by the

nearly 200 countries negotiating in Paris, the EU is leading a push for a system of measuring, reporting and verifying emissions data.

European and Japanese satellites have been monitoring overall carbon concentrations in the atmosphere since 2002, but calculating emissions at a national or local level is far hard-er. For example, the margin of error for China, presumed to be the world’s top carbon polluter, is greater than the entire carbon footprint of Europe, ac-cording to experts.

China announced plans ahead of the Paris talks to launch its first emis-sions-monitoring satellites next year. But it says trade restrictions are ham-pering cooperation. “NASA and Japan

are sharing the best sensors, but not China,” said Yi Liu, a lead scientist in China’s effort. “This is a problem. We need to work to make this work.”

NASA launched its first satellite to measure atmospheric CO2 in July last year. The challenge now is to convert the images — which pick up carbon concentrations in the form of yellow, orange, and red blobs — into emissions data, said Steven Pawson, chief of the Global Modelling and Assimilation Of-fice at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA scientist Lesley Ott said that the satellite, named OCO-2, also showed there was potential to zoom into urban areas to record carbon pollution.

Scientists are also struggling to measure changes in forests that absorb

CO2, a key part of the calculation for net emissions, from space. Trees bind carbon while they are growing, but stop once they mature.

Masanobu Shimada of at the Japa-nese Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA, is working on distinguishing between the two on a global scale. “We can get an idea about biomass from the shading of its images,” he said.

Back on earth, climate activists hope a Paris deal will include helping poor countries measure their own net carbon emissions on the ground, a process that can be difficult and costly. Michael Gillenwater, of the not-for-profit Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, said that kind of monitoring was better suited than satellites to pin-pointing the source of emissions. “We need to know where emissions are com-ing from,” he said.

But calculating net emissions at a single poultry farm in China, for example, requires a 54-page UN-certified rulebook that factors in everything from the amount of methane removed from the chicken manure to local temperatures and animal weight to come up with a fig-ure. At some point, that kind of de-tailed analysis may also be possible from space. A Canadian satellite company called GHGSat has launched a small-scale effort to do exactly that. Its nanosatellite, nick-named CLAIRE, will launch in April aiming to provide a way for energy producers to measure their carbon footprint. REUTERS

Sunder at SRCC

The fate of the Sahitya Akademi awards returned by over 35 protesting authors will be decided on Thursday. The Akademi panel will decide on whether to strip the writers of the award or to take a middle path to convince them to rethink returning the honour

Star Indian boxer Vijender Singh will face his most experienced opponent so far — Bulgarian Samet Hyuseinov — in his third professional bout at the Manchester Arena on Saturday. The 30-year-old middleweight boxer hopes to become India’s first ever professional world champion and end the year undefeated

Skygazers will be able to see a meteor shower, called Geminid, that will light up the sky around 11.30pm on Monday. The spectacle that began last week will hit its peak on Monday with a frequency of over 75 meteors/hour and decline over the next three days

On his first visit to India after taking over as CEO of the restructured Google in August, Sunder Pichai is expected to outline his vision for India and will be joined by senior global

executives from the company. On Thursday, he will visit Shri Ram College of Commerce

to interact with the students

Meteor shower

Satellite launchIndia will be launching six Singaporean satellites weighing a total of around 625 kg on

Wednesday through its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket. The blast off from the Sriharikota rocket port is scheduled for 6 pm

Vijender’s bout

Authors’ awards

Jamie Nimmo

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of watching the blockbuster film I, Robot

starring Will Smith could be for-given for not taking the “robots could take over the-world” argu-ment too seriously.

Everyone in the movie loves robots — except Will Smith, who doesn’t trust them. The robots turn against humans, everyone wishes they’d listened to Will, and then our hero saves the day.

The plot seems far-fetched. But this week came the launch of the Foundation for Responsi-ble Robotics (FRR), an organisa-tion formed by leading robotics academics whose job will be to address the “urgent societal issues” highlighted by the rise of the machines.

The foundation is chaired by Noel Sharkey, a renowned expert in the field and professor of ar-tificial intelligence (AI) and ro-botics at the University of Shef-field. Sharkey wants the founda-tion to help to shape public pol-icy on robots. The purpose is to avoid the kind of nasty wake-up call seen in I, Robot. “We are rushing headlong into the robot-ics revolution without consid-eration for the many unforeseen problems lying around the cor-ner,” Sharkey said.

According to the Internation-al Federation of Robotics, there will be 31 million so-called “serv-ice robots” helping out in house-holds by 2018, aiding in anything from cooking to caring for chil-dren and the elderly. While the market for industrial robots, such as those used to make cars, is expected to rise modestly, there could be a huge surge in demand for robots used in households.

But some fear the technology could be vulnerable to cyber-at-tacks, especially in the early stages. Could hackers break in and gain control of a domestic robot, driverless car or drone?

Then there is the issue of mass job culls. However, Jonath-an Crane, chief commercial officer of IPsoft, the American AI company behind Amelia, the world’s most advanced virtual assistant, believes the robot revolution is a good thing. “There are a lot of things in work that are repetitious, tacti-cal, boring and mundane,” he said. “If you could automate some of those functions, you would always do that, just like hiring an assistant.”

Sharkey and his team insist that they do not want to stifle this development — rather to make sure responsibility is at the forefront of decision-mak-ing. THE INDEPENDENT

Should we fear the rise of the robots?

Alyson Krueger

Middle schoolers are not generally known for their good man-

ners. But Cord Ivanyi, a teach-er in Arizona, said that he was fed up after seeing “the sheer rudeness and carelessness the boys showed”, especially dur-ing parties when they would shove their way to the front of food lines. And so a few years ago, Ivanyi began teaching etiquette to seventh, eighth and ninth graders, giving a 15-minute lecture on “lessons from the past”, he said, from holding doors open to offering to seat to people, carrying books when others are over-loaded or injured, waiting while being spoken to and us-ing phrases such as “in my opinion.” The students soon started championing the rules themselves, he said.

At a turbulent time in America, with guns invading workplaces and gender poli-tics dividing college campus-es, some adults are trying to impart lessons on old-fash-ioned civility, even chivalry, to children. The Etiquette School of Manhattan trains nannies and caretakers on how to teach kids about proper be-havior. It has lessons on how to help kids build listening skills, overcome shyness and calm themselves when angry and to express themselves with kind-ness and consideration.

Heather Haupt, a mother in Dallas, created what she calls a “knights in training” program for her boys (ages 7, 9 and 11), when they were toddlers. She armed them with fake shields and foam swords and gave them rewards for showing bravery, honesty or gallantry toward women.

Swords are optional, of course. Debbie Hays enrolled her two young sons in a six-week session at Polite Is Right, a school for “life-skills classes for kids and teens”.

There, the boys learned to greet a new acquaintance by

making eye contact and offer-ing a firm handshake. They were instructed to debate re-spectfully, listen to others with-out interrupting and make ar-guments in a kind tone. They learned to set a table with mul-tiple plates and utensils and to

take care of their looks and hygiene by wearing clean clothes and combing their hair every day. Years before their first crushes, they learned to give up their seats for women on the bus and to open the doors for them.

“Being the mother of two boys, I was determined that this tradition would live on,” Hays said. Her older son, Grant, 16, said: “I talk to adults in a more grown-up way I guess than most kids my age and I shake hands with them. I don’t give them a one-hand shake. I hate when people do that.”

Some parents have been motivated to turn to chivalry as a small measure of taking control after seeing violence and aggression on the news. “With our culture, where it is going, we don’t honour and respect one another,” Haupt said. NYT NEWS SERVICE

In session: Classes on etiquette, chivalry

STARTING YOUNG: Classes for middle-schoolers and kids include learning to hold utensils and shaking hands the right way

COP IN THE SKY: The challenge for NASA is to convert images that pick up carbon concentrations in the form of yellow, orange and red blobs into emissions data

Satellites to check climate vowsA space race has

kicked off to make the first climate

monitor which can keep an eye on

countries’ adherence to emission promises

© Corbis

Times of India , Pune December 13 , 2015 Pp. 17