Robots Taking Over the Future?

In this fast-paced society we live in, technology seems to be the number one fastest progression. Innovators are now working on robots that can almost exactly mimic the human body. This simply scares me. What does it mean? Do they plan on having these robots take over the labor field? Who will control these robots, a master robot? These questions I cannot answer, but if the answer to any of them is "yes", I fear humanity is in danger. If they have robots working on experiments about yeast metabolism (like Adam in the article "Robot Scientists 'can think for themselves'"), and he can finish the experiment, think about it and begin a new experiment then what is stopping them from making an entire lab full of "robo-scientists"? Thats just scary. I do not want our future to turn into a dismal, robot-infested world. The human race will be inferior to the robots, and robots with empathy will figure out ways to destroy us, because we may be seen as a threat. This is all pretty far fetched, but where else can our future lead to with robots that are exactly like humans, except smarter? I know something of this sort will occur, and let me tell you....I hope its not in my lifetime.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/robot-scientists-can-think-for-themselves-1661572.html

Science and the Future

The future of science is certainly bright, but with more pessimism. Science gives to humanity a wonderful opportunity to evolve from doubt to hope, from uncertainty to assurance, but humans’ interpretation go beyond limit and recreate another world with new rules and principles.

Natural selection by Darwin was a tipping point to science, and brought salvation to the field of biology and medicine. The wonders of science, the attempt of an innovation have protected more lives and prolonged life expectancy on earth population. The cure for HIV and AIDS is imminent with the progress of science. There has been some progress made on cancer research treatment as well. The irony is that when science tends to solve one problem, there is another one that appears. The world is safer in various fields because of scientific breakthrough.

However, people rely much on science without a second alternative. With scientific progression comes a loss of our natural environment, species are losing their habitat, and the exploitation of oil has destroyed our landscape. The big question is if humans are able to rebuild the ecosystem destroyed for number of years? It is in our duty to recover what has been lost by scientific innovation. There is a need to reclaim our landscape and biodiversity for our future generation.

Science provides answers to human questions but scientists shape it in a human mind. When we let man’s selection lead the way instead of natural selection, then science will be more of the problem than a solution. The art of the earth was designed by life, water, grass, wetland, and anything that bears life. We are the custodians of our own lives, and we are responsible to live in a better planet, a green future.

The future of science

¨ I wonder how this man standing beside me will appreciate the wonders of science, if he is still excluded in the process. Social Darwinism still has a role in science. Nevertheless, Science is neutral, but scientists are biased The world is one entity, however findings from other parts of the world should be also considered, that will narrow the gap between Africa and the West including American continents.

¨ Scientific innovations will solve all the world myths in various domains, however “natural selection” shouldn’t be replaced by “man’s selection.” I fear that we will have two sciences in the world, one from developed nations, and the other one from poor nations.

¨

Why scientific studies are so often wrong: The street light effect.

In Renaissance period, religion threatened science evolution, this is a reverse era which we are currently living in, where science threatens religion. Science is in a high speed, innovations and breaks through are happening in various domains making news papers headlines.
When science makes a break through, the entire humanity feels kind of relief, but we are not told about their down sides.
people are excited every time when science takes us to the next level. When scientists make these breaks through, don't they know what will happen in few years or they just chose to hide the other side of the story? In the academy of science, the code of ethic states that scientists should tell the truth, but we are all surprise with what science can do at the end of the day. They rely on present results, and assuring patients that every thing is OK, but this is not what happened in the in the field of medicine, in cardiology department.
Scientists came up with an anti-attack drugs in early 1980. There is nothing which could prove that the drugs could turn killing people. Scientists later realize after one year alone 56,000 were killed. We can learn much through this.

http://discovermagazine.com
Freedman, David H. " Why scientists studies are so often wrong: the streetlight effect" discovermagazine.July-august 2010.

Search For The Begining

After 16 years of preparation, NASA is ready to launch the 8 ton bundle of electronics which make up their Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. There are high hopes that this device will be able to gain valuable information on the origin of our universe. The $1.5 billion project has been the center of attention for many scientists as they prepare it for a February launch.
There have been mixed opinions from the very beginning of this project. Some believe it is a catastrophic waste of money while others see it as a key to the future. The proof will be seen in the pudding, luckily for us only a few months away. The primary objective of building this Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is to detect dark matter which is believed to exist through out space. If the device dose its job correctly, we will prove the existence of dark matter in some sort of measurable form. Others hope that it will turn up something entirely new. In the words o Samuel Chao Chung Ting, "Real discovery is outside the ring o existing knowledge."
The laws of physics stipulate that following the Big Bang, an equal amount of dark matter and common matter were released. Further more, these two types of matter, on contact will explode releasing a tremendous amount of energy. This is one of science's great mysteries

"The discovery of a single atomic nucleus heavier than anti-helium could mean there was an anti-star or maybe a whole anti-galaxy somewhere."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/science/space/17dark.html?_r=1&ref=science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJN2X3NrQAE

Facebook: Updates and Upgrades

The world wide web. A blessing and a curse. Youtube, Twitter, Search engines, Dating sites, E-mail services, a list that has been expanding since 1982. One of most prominent social networking sites has over 500 million users and is growing by the second.
Facebook gives us a place and sense of belonging online, while keeping us socially informed. One can create multiple accounts on Facebook and be a completely different individual on each account. Users can meet all different kinds of people, keep in touch with friends and family, upload pictures, share links, and much more.
This site has progressed from strictly college students to children, the elderly, and every age in between. It is simple to find out what’s new and happening not only with our friends, but with complete strangers. We can say whatever we want whenever we want and be whoever we want, and only crave more of it.
People addicted to Facebook tend to check their page two to three times per hour, or anytime they have access to a computer, to get the new “update.” This is a waste valuable minutes that quickly turn several hours throughout the day. According to A Vision of Students Today, “Students spend roughly three and a half hours online everyday. A student who only writes forty pages in a semester may be writing about five hundred pages in e-mail.” Sometimes we don’t realize how much time is passing while chatting online until it is too late.
Just when we think our problem can’t get any worse, it does. This week Facebook is expected to release a upgraded set of communications services that will include a type of “E-mail messaging system.” It took about fifteen engineers and fifteen months, making it the biggest engineering project Facebook as ever taken on. Their goal is to go from a social network to one of the greatest communication systems ever created.
Mark Zuckerburg, chief executive of Facebook, states “This new messaging system allows people communicate with one another on the Web and on mobile phones regardless of whether they are using e-mail, text messages, or online chat services. These facebook messages will now have something that can be thought of as “social in a box” which means that it will narrow people down from friends to acquaintances in hopes of saving the user search time.” Right now it will not require getting a facebook.com address, but if you don’t you will not be able to receive outside messages. The service is only available by invitation, however soon it will open up for all users to try out.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, on Monday in San Francisco. He announced details of a new messaging service.

There is no doubt the new addition will be popular. Right now 350 million users use the messaging services and exchange an unbelievable four billion messages each day. The concerns other webpages have is that once people try it, they will delete their e-mails and never turn back.

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, says “All of the e-mail vendors should be worried – Google, Yahoo, MSN. The new communications services are an opportunity for Facebook to spend more time with consumers. The more they own of our digital day, the more money they will make.”
I think all of us can agree that Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other website, and this new system will take even more time from their days. Has Facebook taken it too far by stomping on other sites for their own egotistical reasons? I can only imagine what the powerhouse will come up with next.

A VISION OF STUDENTS TODAY




New York Times Article on the topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/technology/16facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Farther into Space; Farther into Debt

Over the past several decades we have come a long way in the study of outer space. Since the time of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo we have discovered not only things in our galaxy, but we can begin to study others as well. On Wednesday November 10^th NASA announced that in 2014 they plan to launch their new telescope; The James Webb Space Telescope. This new telescope will use infrared light to find ancient galaxies that formed in the wake of the big bang.

“Webb will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once Webb is in outer space. Webb will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth” (NASA).

Critics at CNET news propose that this new space telescope will cost upwards of about $6.5 billion and does not fit into NASA’s budget. CNET speculates that the close launch date of 2014 is too early, and would require NASA to come up with an additional $250 million in both 2011 and 2012.

On April 24^th 1990 NASA launched a space telescope into outer space called Hubble. In the past twenty years since then, it has led astronomers to estimate, with high certainty, the age of the universe at about 13.7 billion years old. It has also given photographic evidence that what Ptolemy thought was a star called Omega Centauri, is actually a cluster of about 10 million stars. Click here to watch what Hubble has recorded of the Omega Centauri.

Though one might argue that the US doesn’t exactly have enough pocket change to cover this hefty $6.5 billion bill, I would argue that it is something worth exploring. If Hubble, costing only about 4 million dollars, is any indication of what the James Webb Space Telescope can do, I would say it is worth the expense! During the Renaissance our ancestors spent a lot of their time and money into studying unknowns of nature on earth, and began to skim the surface of outerspace. Now with the technology we have access to, we are able to do what they never could. Looking deeper into space, to find something that can answer our questions about how we got here, why, and if there is life sustained somewhere else in the universe.

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” -Copernicus

for more information go to NASA's website.

Harwood, William. "Management Blamed for Space Telescope Cost Overrun | The Space Shot - CNET News." Technology News - CNET News. 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

NASA - Hubble Data Used to Look 10,000 Years into the Future." NASA. 26 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

New and Scary Ways to Get Your Buzz On

I think it is very pertinent to discuss this new Four Loko fad and other new dangerous means of intoxication due to this college atmosphere. Naturally, many of you have probably heard of Four Loko and maybe even had a taste! Of course, the dangers of this drink are not surprising in the slightest. The drink is 12 percent alcohol, which means that one can is the equivalent to 5 or 6 drinks. It also contains the amount of caffeine in two Redbulls. The mixture of heavy alcoholic content and heavy caffeine results in blackouts and brain damage. Since the drinks come in a variety of delicious flavors and cost less than 3 dollars, the target audience that Four Loko seems to be marketing to teenagers and college students. And now, because of science there are even more ways for underage drinkers to pregame with ease.

Yes, what you are looking at is alcoholic whipped cream, or whipahol. As fascinating as the invention of Whipped Lightning is, I am nervous for the abuse, that I must say is inevitable. We see the same things over and over again from 30 racks of Natural Ice, to cotton candy flavored shots. The majority of college students are looking for a cheap, fast, easy way to get drunk, and science is making it more then possible. This final example is perhaps the scariest and makes me even more scared for the future of all this.

If you have ever heard of an alcohol vaporizer, I pray to the lord you haven't used it. It is a way to intake alcohol without actually drinking it. Instead, this machine uses an oxygen generator to vaporize the alcohol which when inhaled enters into your bloodstream through your lungs. The effect of the alcoholic vapor is extremely potent. One will feel the effects with only half a shot inhaled over a period of 20 minutes. Gotvape.com explains that inhaling more than two shots can be termed incredibly dangerous.

Now that you know all about science's advances on the way we drink, you should all stay safe, do your research, and have fun!

http://www.gotvape.com/vaporizer/alcohol-vaporizer.php

http://www.whippedlightning.com/

The Burlington Free Press

Robots that "eat"

We've all seen the movies, A.I., Terminator, I-Robot, where robots or cyborgs blend into society and wreak havoc. As we build smarter and smarter computers, this fantasy scenario becomes more realistic by the day. However, there has always been a limiting factor: energy source. In "The Matrix" humans blot out the sun by "burning the sky", therefore the robots can't use solar power to keep themselves running. Some robots just run on battery that end up running out after a while. In reality, our computer and robot of today are either tethered to a wall with an electrical cord, or run on a battery that runs out faster a laptop.

Recently some UK researchers have been working on developing a new sort of power source, one that we are all familiar with. They have developed a robot dubbed the Ecobot III that actually "eats" food and digests it and uses that energy converted from that to power itself. The way it works is by putting partially processed sewage into the robots digester. Bacteria within the digester breaks down the food and produces hydrogen electrons that are used in a fuel cells to create an electrical current that is then used to power the robot. Another interesting thing is that the robot can do is autonomously navigate to a nutrient rich feeding tube. Then once its done with the food, it excretes it in a similar way to how we do it (when were sick).

Currently there is a major downside to this technology. While it is working and an amazing technology with incredible potential, it is incredibly inefficient at the time. At the moment it is only able to produce 1% of usable energy for the robot. Eventually they will be able make the machine a bit more efficient and maybe allow for a robot to run exclusively on food that the robot ingests.

There is incredible potential behind this technology. This could be the new alternative energy source that houses run off of, or the new Mr. Fusion that allows us to power our time traveling De-Lorean when we don't have any lighting strikes to provide the 1.21 jigawatts to get it back to 1988. On a more sinister note, this could also allow for hyper intelligent autonomous robots to become more mobile. We have managed to create robots that learn and we have robots with incredibly realistic expressions. At this point we don't have to worry, but if all these technologies are perfected and combined, we may have a problem on our hands.

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/uk-researchers-develop-autonomous-robot-that-eats-sewage/

http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/autonomous-robot-that-eats-sewage-00002529.asp?sessionid=1

NASA Probe Approaches Comet Spewing Deadly Gas

The probe Deep Impact is currently approaching the comet Hartley 2. Hartley 2 was discovered in 1986. It is a periodic young comet that passes by earth every 6.3 years. It is considered a dwarf comet at only 0.93 (1.5 km) miles across. It is a part of the Jupiter family of comets (comets with periods less than 20 years). The most interesting thing about this comet is that there is poisonous cyanide gas spewing from the comets core of ice and rock.

On Thursday November 4th 2010 at roughly 10:00 a.m. ET the deep impact prove will come within 435 (700km) miles from the comet making it the fifth time that a comet has ever been observed from a close distance. The deep impact spacecraft has been chasing Hartley 2 for months and has been taking pictures along the way.





Roughly 18 hours before coming into closest proximity with the comet the probe will begin the “encounter phase” of the mission. The probe will position itself so that its three imagers (two imagers that can see in infrared wavelengths, and one that can see in visible light as a back up) can lock onto the comet for 24 hours plus. However in doing this it will point the probes high-gain antenna away from earth resulting in a delay before the pictures can be delivered back to earth, instead they will be stored in two on board computers. As soon as the comet has passed, which will not take long because the probe will be moving at 27,000 mph, scientists will reposition the probe so that it can send the pictures back to earth. While doing this the probe will continue to take pictures of the tail end of the comet.

However there are some risks to this mission. Scientists have chosen to stay 435 miles away from the comet for numerous reasons. The gassy pores of the comet could harm the probe if it comes too close, the brightness of the comet could harm the imagers and there is also a slight chance that the comets luminous jets may fool its navigation system.

Astronomers hope to gain a lot of information from this mission. They have struggled to understand comets for years due to their highly unpredictable icy bodies. This mission will help scientists understand what these comets are made of and where they come from. Due to its unusually high activity a close study of its spewing jets and gas clouds could also give us clues about the behavior and build of comets. Overall studying this comet could give scientists a better idea about how the universe came to be.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39989774/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Sticks and Stones

As the great Albert Einstein said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." I completely agree with this statement because as technology improves, as humans become better equipped and able to kill one another more efficiently and easily, eventually, with all the wars and fighting going on within this world, a nuke could wipe out an entire populous. It might not even be a nuke, it might be some new technology that could get out of hand during wartime and take the lives of many.

I just recently watched a film entitled "Waking Life" which supports Einstein's Quote and sums up my thinking quite concisely.

"But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle... because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until you reach a crescendo in a way... could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different." (Like World War IV)

Basically, this quote is saying, we evolve. We get more intelligent. The more intelligent we become, the faster we evolve and eventually we will reach some sort of peak or 'crescendo.' And, I believe that this 'crescendo' will be some sort of new technology that will backfire or in the case or war technology, do exactly what it was designed to do: kill a lot of people, quickly, and efficiently.

In the article I read from Popular Science, the Air Force is working toward an advanced type of weaponry that targets the human brain. Not only will this technology allow for the Air Force "to modulate an airman’s emotional state but it strives to use mind-altering drugs or biochemical pathway techniques" to essentially create super soldiers.

On the flip side, this new 'bioweapon' technology could "include methods to degrade enemy performance and artificially overwhelm enemy cognitive capabilities.”

All of these new bio-weapon technologies, weapon improvements, and advanced wartime strategies, make wars easier to win, faster to fight, and make killing more efficient. And as the 'Waking Life' quote states, a crescendo is bound to happen and in my mind it WILL be a World War IV as this wartime technology drastically and exponentially improves.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/air-force-seeks-neuroweapons-enhance-us-airmens-minds-and-confuse-our-foes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/

Robot Suit

From Japanese cartoons to summer blockbusters robot suits have been the stuff of dreams for years yet now these dreams are coming to life. Suit’s are currently being developed to accomplish two things strengthen the elderly and strengthen soldiers. Although, the idea of having the elderly running around stronger than Stonecold Steve Austin but the goal is to have those weakened by age to rejoin the workforce with the augmented strength provided by a robotic suit. The suit halves all the work done by a farmer in half. The other robotic suit being worked on is the Raytheon Exo2 which is lovingly compared to the Ironman suit. This suit at this point is meant for loading and unloading supplies from vehicles. The other application for the suit is to be used to support soldier’s legs as the fight on the field. This will allow them to carry more and be able to move things faster.

Human’s wont change in our life time or even or children’s children’s lifetime. Yet our technology changes greatly generation-to-generation and even during a generation. My own great-grandfather someone I knew went across the planes in a covered wagon. Think about the vast changes that can happen and now that we can actually augment our abilities brings great hope for mankind.

" 'Iron Man' Actor Clark Gregg Spends a Day With the Raytheon Sarcos XOS 2 Exoskeleton ." Youtube. Web. 4 Nov 2010. .

Ridder, Knight. "Robot Suits to Aid Elderly Japanese Farmers with Toiling in the Fields." AARP International 21 Aug 2010: n. pag. Web. 4 Nov 2010. .

If you can't beat them, copy them

It is no secret that plants are very good at converting sunlight into energy. Ever since solar cells were invented, scientists have been struggling to achieve just a fraction of the efficiency of photosynthesis. One of the major problems has been that direct sunlight is inherently destructive. Solar panels have to be sturdy enough to last for long periods of time, which comes at the cost of efficiency in converting sunlight into electricity. One of the reasons that plants are so efficient is that they simply let their cells burn out and recycle them, sometimes as often as every 45 minutes. Scientists at MIT believe that they have managed to recreate this process with synthetic materials.

These synthetic chloroplasts are able to form themselves into crude solar cells under certain conditions. When they inevitably become damaged from exposure to the sun, they can be broken back down into their components by having a surfactant or solvent sprayed on them. Once the solvent is removed the components will once again assemble into functioning solar cells. Researchers say they they can currently get the cells to work at 40% efficiency, and they do not degrade over time as they can be automatically repaired.

These cells are still very far away from any practical use, but they show that the concept is feasible and has the potential to be much more efficient than current solar panels. Should we ever get something like this into production, it may actually be able to make fully-renewable energy production a reality. Current solar panels are great for powering a single structure, but are too bulky and inefficient for the large-scale power production that we require. These highly-efficient, regenerating cells could allow solar energy to become practical and competitive with other types of power, particularly fossil fuels.

Sources:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/mits-self-assembling-pv-cells-recycle-themselves-repeatedly-just-plant-cells

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/miot-mrc090110.php

Wireless Energy Transfer

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our rechargeable electronics could simply recharge themselves when their battery(s) began to get low on power all on their own? This is the question that Marin Soljacic, an assistant professor at MIT's Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, asked himself that inspired him to develop the theory of wireless energy transfer with the help of his colleagues.

Soljacic's theory stands upon the fundamental knowledge that electricity does not necessarily need to be physically connected between two points for an energy exchange to occur (i.e: the coils in electronic transformers that rely on electromagnetic induction to transfer the electricity without actually touching one another). Thus, he believes that with the right technology, this ability to transfer energy "wirelessly" across very short distances can be greatly enhanced to extend that distance potentially indefinitely.

If Soljacic were able to make this become a reality, it could enable us to inhabit harsher regions of the earth, provide electricity to third world countries (via satellite), and even extend our reach into space. In 2007, in fact, Soljacic successfully lit a 60 watt light bulb wirelessly from 7 feet away using magnetic coils. The phenomena has been coined with the term "WiTricity", and is now being extensively researched by companies such as WiTricity Corp. and PowerBeam. In my personal opinion, we may just have a slight revolution on our hands.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/wireless.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wireless-energy-lights-bulb-from-seven-feet-away

Alchemy: A Journey through Time

Colin Goodenow, Mike Tobin, Brendan Tanner, Roy Baron

10/21/10

Scientific Revolutions

Professor Brandenburg

Alchemy: A Journey through Time

For a long time, alchemy has been considered merely the illusory precursor to chemistry. While it is true that alchemy did play a direct and substantial role in the development of chemistry, it is significant for reasons far beyond just that.

Beginning from its roots, alchemy has played an important role in many societies. The city of Alexandria in Hellenistic Egypt is considered to be the craft’s birthplace. The Egyptian god Thoth, ruler of magic, written word, and medicine is considered to be the ancient figurehead of alchemy. Only the priests who worshipped under him were permitted to take part in the sacred rites of alchemy, as they were viewed as his sons.

Once the Greeks realized how closely Thoth resembled their own god of medicine, Hermes, a sort of synthesis occurred. Thoth and Hermes were essentially combined to form one cross-cultural god, Hermes Trismegistus, thrice-great Hermes. This new god would go on to become the classical world’s representation of the ideals of alchemy. This combining of gods was actually a fairly commonplace occurrence between the Egyptians and the Greeks, as Alexandria was under heavy Greek influence after Ptolemy was made its ruler.

Aristotle too was fascinated by the field of alchemy and made several contributions to it. Amongst the most important was his proposal of a fifth element, aether. At the time, it was widely accepted that all things were comprised of primal forms of four different elements: water, fire, earth, and air. Aristotle’s views were revolutionary because he proposed that aether comprises the heavens, that which we cannot see. This idea moved on even into the medieval ages.

The medieval ages were a strange time for the field of science. The Christian church tried to suppress teachings and ideas that conflicted with their scripture and as a result the advancement in science slowed. If a scholar was to educate his apprentice in any of those sacrilegious teachings they would have to do so in a clandestine manner, out of fear that they would get killed or imprisoned. Luckily the spread of Christianity was not able to reach what is now the Middle East. With this freedom, the controversial and heretical ideas were able to flourish in this area, one of these ideas being alchemy.

The world alchemy shows its Arabic roots in its etymology. Though there are different theories on how the world came to be, it is commonly agreed that the “al” in alchemy was an Arabic article that became the prefix in the word when it was brought to Europe. The part that is disputed is where the chemy came from. The first theory is that it came from the Greek word chumeia, a word meaning pouring or infusion. The other theory is based on the word Khem, a word that derives from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Either way, the word shows how the teaching of alchemy traveled from Rome to Arabia and then finally back to Europe.

Over time the view of Arabic scholars in Europe changed and instead of fearing the alchemist, saying they were witches, the Europeans opened up to their teachings. They justified this change in thinking by saying that what alchemist were doing was good magic, a magic that only used powers that occurred in natural things. The changed view on alchemy allowed it to spread quicker and gain power. By the time of Tudor England it became normal for alchemists to reside in the royal courts. Queen Elizabeth even commissioned a project to create the philosophers stone.

With this new acceptance, scholars were able to work more freely, allowing them to test new theories and create new methods. One scholar that was able to take advantage of this was Henning Brand. Brand was able to try different experiments in an attempt to turn his urine into gold; they were both yellow in color after all. He never quite succeeded in this, but he was able to discover phosphorus because of it.

Through it’s “journey” through time and across continents alchemy influenced many great minds. Instead of being a distant and occult art totally unrelated to anything we might know today, like many think, it is very possible to look into other fields and see links to alchemy and the philosophy behind the study. Paracelsus, one of the most influential thinkers in the field of medicine, had a very deep background in alchemy. Like medicine, fields like chemistry, astronomy, psychology and botany have been directed by alchemists in one way or another.

Modern medicine may seem light years ahead of what existed in the Renaissance, but if it were not for the contributions Paracelsus and others like him had made it is very possible we would some very different ideas about how to treat illnesses. He pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in healing as well as the technique of weighing urine; which is still used today. He was also the first to speak specifically about the human subconscious and how it can affect over-all health: “It is not the curse or the blessing that works, but the idea. The imagination produces the effect.” More important than that was the new idea of symptom vs. disease. Before Paracelsus, it was thought health was balanced between the four humors of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, as taught by the Greeks. But when Paracelsus dared to branch away from the ancient texts and take the time to study the body he found diseases were localized to certain organs and could be caused by external forces. This new understanding of “germs” and contagiousness helped greatly during the time of the Bubonic Plague and outbreaks of venereal diseases throughout Europe.

Chemistry is one of the fields we can most directly associate with alchemy if we can forgive the latter for its occult roots. Many of the different pieces of equipment still used in laboratories today were invented by Muslim alchemists hundreds of years ago. Things like beakers, flasks and different kinds of distillation equipment were first used long ago for experiments in the occult. In fact, one could almost argue that chemistry is the same thing as alchemy, only with the theology removed. It was a very gradual shift as ideas and beliefs changed throughout time. Alchemists like Boyle developed rules and laws like the Scientific Method and Boyle’s Law that are the basis for many studies now.

Because the idea of macrocosm and microcosm was so important to alchemists, they spent many hours studying the stars in hopes to better understand what was happening inside of the human body. They believed each of the seven planets (known at the time) corresponded to one of seven different organs. The sun to the heart, the moon to the brain, tin to liver, copper to kidneys, lead to spleen, iron to the gallbladder and mercury to the lungs. While that may not have been the most effective strategy, this interest did lead to great new discoveries and understanding of the planets.

With these examples and many more we can start to see how alchemy may have had a more significant role in our understanding of the world than it appears. The ideas may have had some basis in occult philosophies that do not agree with our ideas, but that does not make the intricate research these great thinkers did any less significant to the fields they impacted.

Today’s media industry is thriving with themes, characters and applications of Alchemy. The related ideas to what went on during Greece and the Egyptians all the way to present day. Alchemy is full of some very rich history and content that makes for amazing work in media. Some examples that have used this information to the fullest would be the movie industry as well as television shows. Recent movie plots include, Perfume-a murderer has mastered the art of distillation and extracts the essence’s of woman and turns their oil into world renown perfumes. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a second example. The first of a series based around the use of magic and alchemy alike. The first movie specifically being about the legendary philosopher’s stone, a long sought after substance in the history of alchemy.

Alternative to movies, cartoons like Avatar the air bender, an American telling the story of ancient race of simple people. They are able to live their lives just by tapping into internal Chi energy manipulating fire, water, earth and wind. As the story unfolds there is a great struggle finding a balance between each other. Captain planet a 90’s cartoon based around a group of kids each endowed with a ring controlling one of various earth elements. Combining the energy of the rings summons a deity of earth who is able to shape shift and manipulate all elements. But the media is not limited to just America. One of most intricate of shows surrounding Alchemy get its origins from Japanese based Animation. The show is purely based around a society that has a major conflict around the use of alchemy. In addition to the conflict the whole society is able to sustain itself on the use of alchemy. Today alchemy’s popularity has grown even larger then before being fueled by the entertainment industry.

http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/9-2/obrist.htm

http://www.travelportal.info/general-travel-info/maps-route-planners/maps/black-and-white-maps-of-the-world

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Hennig_Brand