Artificial rain using bacteria

Scientists now claim they have worked out how the single-celled microbes can be used to make artificial rain. This discovery could be a huge lifeline for places that suffer droughts and is currently being considered as part of a project in the UAE.

Professor Tobias Weidner, a bioengineer at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany with his team of researchers studied the structure of the ‘rain-making’ bacteria called pseudomonas syringae.

He said: “Bacteria can induce ice nucleation in high altitude clouds. The ice nuclei then cause rainfall within low altitude clouds below. So it seems ice bacteria such as P. syringae can induce rainfall.”

The announcement follows plans to build a 1.2-mile-high mountain in the UAE as part of efforts to collect much-needed water in the scorching country. The areas on the slopes would receive more rainfall than flow-lying and flat areas, because the temperature at higher altitudes is much cooler than at sea level. As air rises towards the mountains it cools, forming water droplets which, as they become heavy enough, fall to Earth as rain.

The man-made mountain would cause this natural effect to occur, while clouds could also be seeded, to generate more rainfall and decided when it rains.

A ‘kill switch’ to prevent Terminator-style robot apocalypse

Google is working on a ‘kill switch’ to stop intelligent robots turning on their human masters.

Fears about the power of maniacal machines have been growing in recent years, with both tech pioneer Elon Musk and Professor Stephen Hawking warning of the dreadful possibility of a Terminator-style war between humanity and our super-smart silicon creations.

Now the search engine giant has published a paper outlining the work its British artificial intelligence (AI), Deep Mind team, is doing to ensure humanity is not swept away by a metallic fist.

The team is now developing a way to stop AI from learning how to prevent humans from stopping an activity — for example, firing a nuke — a process called ‘safe interruptibility’.

“Safe interruptibility can be useful to take control of a robot that is misbehaving and may lead to irreversible consequences, or to take it out of a delicate situation, or even to temporarily use it to achieve a task it did not learn to perform or would not necessarily receive rewards for this,” the researchers write.

Living with toes that look like fingers

A ‘four-handed’ student who has feet that look just like hands has shared how she uses them to help her around the house.

The girl became famous on internet after she shared a photo of her legs on social media and people started to say her 5cm long toes looked just like fingers.

It isn’t the first time the anonymous Chinese university student has been told her toes are different, as her friends have also said her feet look like an extra pair of hands.

She said people have even surrounded her when she has worn sandals or flip-flops, treating her like a rare species of animal and wondering whether she had simply ‘yet to evolve’.

The girl said she used to think her toes were of a normal length until she saw other people’s and wondered why they were so short. The student said her whole family has long toes, and they can even hold pens and write with them.

But having long toes is not all that bad, the girl admitted, saying: “When I’m lazy to reach for the remote on the table I can just change the channel with my feet - that way I don’t have to get up.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 25th, 2016