berten15-blog

[berten15-blog]

It’s an interesting topic you chose to discuss. I would like to add that using laboratory animals as a whole is quite the controversial topic. There have been numerous incidents of animal neglect and cruelty in official university laboratories. But even when everything happens with as much respect for the animals as possible, many people and animal protection organizations argue that this practise is unethical. For example the U.S. law allows animals to be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, drowned, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. This might be shocking if you didn’t know this, but it gets even worse, painkillers are never required. However if this research is required to discover a medicine that could save hundreds of human lives, isn’t it for the greater good?

Another point I’d like to make is that U.S. law states that all animals may be used in experiments, including dogs, cats, fish and rabbits. The use of these animals in laboratories is not rare, but indeed much less common than rats and mice. This is perhaps because dogs are seen as man’s best and they thus are valued more. But an important factor that shouldn’t be forgotten is that mice are just better suited for a lot of experiments. They are small, easily maintained and they genetically resemble humans quite well. On top of that they reproduce fast and have a relatively short life span, which makes observing transgenerational effects possible.

Lastly I agree that it’s interesting that we see eating certain animals as more natural than others. But in this specific example of the horse meat I’d say the biggest problem causing the controversy was that they lied. The people believed that they were eating beef, but they weren’t. Even if it was another kind of meat, I believe that it still would’ve been a big scandal. Quite a lot of western people eat horse meat, it isn’t as exotic as eating dog meat. But it is an interesting topic nonetheless.

Is a dog’s life worth more than a mouse’s?

Is the value of a mouse less than a dog? Who decides the value of another species? And what are the criteria?

In 2017, mice were used approximately 62 % in Belgian animal experiments. Dogs, on the other hand, only represented 0.34 %. But what if it was the other way around? How would the general public react to this scenario? We would probably be strongly opposed towards this proposition. Dogs are in principal seen as a man’s best friend which strengthens the value of the species. Mice, on the contrary, are often considered as vermin. Hence, we don’t think as highly of mice compared to dogs, therefore they are more easily disposable.

However, it is important to bear in mind that this evaluation of species is relative to our perception and standpoint. But in reality, who are we to judge to what extent a species is valuable or not? One might even describe it as speciesism - much like racism and sexism but with regards to species.

Speciesism can also be detected in what meat we choose to consume. In 2013, it was revealed that the Swedish food company Findus had used horse meat in their ready-made beef lasagnes. This discovery caused a great deal of controversy leaving people appalled by the news. But it makes you wonder, what is the difference between eating a horse and eating a cow? What makes it more morally right to eat a cow compared to a horse? Maybe the ethical dilemma stems back to the example with the dog and the mouse. We consider horses as pets and cows as livestock.

Whether we like it or not, speciesism is occurring worldwide. And it seems like the criteria differ from culture to culture. What is right and what is wrong? It all depends on your ethical compass. In parts of Asia, for example, eating dogs is no stranger than eating a pig in Europe. Let’s face it, we have to understand that all animals are individuals, regardless of their size or intelligence. They are not mere objects for us to exploit. Because even though some animals are closer to our hearts than others, we still have to show every species respect.

[berten15-blog]

Can robots run and jump like you?

The year is 2025, your apartment building is on fire. The fire has spread so much even the fire brigade can’t enter. All hope seems lost. But luckily for you there are still fireproof rescue-robots, who can easily walk through the smoke, break a locked door and push aside heavy obstacles. There are countless situations like these, inaccessible to human responders, where robots could save lives.

Engineers have already made huge progress on the development of 4-legged robots, recently MIT researchers even made a mini cheetah that can do a backflip. However, designing a 2-legged, more humanoid robot has proved difficult. Because a lot of balancing problems turn up when the robot has to exert a force on something. Still, engineers at MIT were able to develop a method to control balance in a 2-legged robot.

The robot looks like a machined torso and 2 legs. It is controlled by a human operator who wears a vest that sends signals about his motions to the robot. If the robot is about to tip over, the operator feels a corresponding pull. By which he has to rebalance himself and at the same time the robot. “It’s like wearing a heavy backpack,” says Joao Ramos, co-inventor of the approach.

Previously, Ramos built the 2-legged robot HERMES ( Highly Efficient Robotic Mechanisms and Electromechanical System) who could pour coffee in a cup, use an axe to chop wood, handle a fire extinguisher to put out a fire. This model only mimicked the movement of the upper body. Which made balance much easier to maintain - but at the cost of not being able to move.

Designing a walking robot brings a lot of balancing issues. So they created little HERMES, a miniature HERMES. The team came up with a model to represent balance. They found that the balance of a person at any time depends on the location of their center of mass in relation to their center of pressure, which is a point on the ground where an equivalent force to all supporting forces is exerted. They also found that this relation could be represented as an inversed pendulum. Think of a person swinging from side to side, with his feet rooted in place.

The researchers then did several experiments with this model and then applied it to little HERMES. They also developed an algorithm that translates the simple model of balance to the corresponding forces each of its feet would have to exert. As a result the little robot is able to jump, sprint and even walk on uneven ground while maintaining its balance without any support.

With this new and dynamic model of balancing, doors are opened for more advanced motions like lifting or throwing heavy objects. So robots assisting humans in rescue missions will most likely be a reality in the future.

Sources:

[1] Joao Ramos, Sangbae Kim. Dynamic locomotion synchronization of bipedal robot and human operator via bilateral feedback teleoperation. Science Robotics, 2019; 4 (35): eaav4282 DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aav4282

 [2] Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2019, October 30). Two-legged robot mimics human balance while running and jumping: New control system may enable humanoid robots to do heavy lifting and other physically demanding tasks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 2, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191030151155.htm