June 2000: Vol. 79, No. 3June 2000: Vol. 79, No. 3Is Internet isolation real human concern?
Are human beings headed for a "Jetsons" kind of existence, unable or unwilling to do anything without the help of computers? More specifically, are e-mail and the Internet taking the place of real human interaction, turning people into disembodied screen voices?
 McKeown says Web junkies may not be the social butterfly type, with or without the Web. |
A study conducted by Stanford professor Norman Nie suggests we are headed in that direction. In an interview with the Washington Post, Nie said that we're "moving from a world in which you know all your neighbors, see all your friends, interact with lots of different people every day, to a functional world where interaction takes place at a distance."
Twenty-five percent of Nie's respondents said they use the Internet more than five hours a week. As a result, they say they spend less time with friends and family, either on the phone or in person—and 10 percent say that Web usage has reduced their social activities.
Nie's data suggests that the world will increasingly be populated by isolated Internet users. But UGA business professor Patrick McKeown, author of Information Technology and the Networked Economy, is among those who disagree.
"While it can be true that some users are more interested in Internet relationships than real ones," says McKeown, "these people are often those who might not have had any relationships without the Internet. I think e-mail is just as much a form of communication as the telephone and can often encourage relationships that were not possible through physical or telephone contact."
McKeown sees information technology as the next logical step after the industrial revolution.
"The infrastructure of this new economy is information technology," he says, "just like roads, railroads, and power plants were the infrastructure of the industrial economy we are leaving.
'Talking' chickens will say when to change thermostat
Improved cooling methods have already helped make Georgia farmers the nation's No. 1 poultry producers, but heat stress still takes a heavy toll every summer. Climate control systems are the key to a cool poultry house, and UGA researchers are in the process of developing one that operates via "talking" chickens.
"The chickens are the most important things in the house," says Takoi Hamrita, a professor of biological/agricultural engineering. "We're using the approach of letting the birds tell us whether they're comfortable."
To get her chickens to "talk," Hamrita uses an ingenious combination of sensors and artificial intelligence. She starts with quarter-inch-thick sensors the diameter of a nickel. Painlessly implanted (with an anesthetic) under the breast bone of three-week-old chickens, the sensors transmit data to a central computer.
"At the moment, these sensors tell us only the birds' deep-body temperature," says Hamrita. "Eventually, though, they will also tell us their respiration and heart rate."
With the physiological feedback, the computer takes over the controls in a way the farmer never could. "It determines, using artificial intelligence, how the bird is feeling," says Hamrita, "and what the computer's next move should be."
The system is complex. It has to be. "The bird is dynamic. It's growing every day, so its response to its environment changes every day," says Hamrita. "The environment is constantly changing, too. We can no longer rely on standard mathematic models to handle all these variables."
The computer's neural networks, though, can handle them. With digital simulations of human neurons, the computer is trained to "think." It can recognize changes and patterns and adjust to ever-changing feedback.
"The neural networks are capable of learning," says Hamrita. "They can juggle the different variables in the bird—weather, economic factors—that go into making the best climate-control decisions."
Hamrita's studies have involved only about 30 chickens and a dozen sensor-implanted chickens. The system is about five years from commercial use. A full house of around 65,000 chickens would need about 100 sensors. "The sensors would be the biggest investment—$5,000 to $10,000 for 100," she says. "The system itself would be about $2,000."
Deadly E.coli strain tests food industry
With a recent wave of deaths in Toronto and reports that a deadly strain of E.coli bacteria is far more common in U.S. cattle than previously thought, Mike Doyle says the food industry is facing some hard choices.
"Several companies are looking very hard at irradiation," says Doyle of UGA's Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement and a national expert on E.coli poisoning. "Economics is an important factor. How much are we willing to pay for ground beef, and how much are we willing to throw out as adulterated?"
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 As Daszak pointed out in Science, bird feeders can be a source of E.coli and Salmonella because they bring togther species that wouldn't normally associate. |
It's almost impossible to turn on the television or open the newspaper without being confronted with some new and frightening development in human disease.
What you seldom find—but should more often, says UGA researcher Peter Daszak—are stories about diseases in animals that may ultimately affect both human health and the biodiversity of the planet.
The problem, says Daszak, lies in globalization, which forces animals to either exist in crowded conditions or move to new locations.
"This is pathogen pollution," says Daszak, who has a joint appointment at UGA in botany and ecology. "It's important that people realize this is a form of human pollution and not something that happens naturally."
Take the problem of bird feeders, which sounds inconsequential—but isn't.
"In the United Kingdom," says Daszak, "scientists have noticed increased outbreaks of E.coli and Salmonella in birds because feeders bring together species that wouldn't ordinarily associate in the wild."
Zoos are another problem.
"A zoo is a crossover between an international airport and a small city," says Daszak. "You can watch diseases cross over from one species to another. If you introduce them back into the wild, you get massive die-off."
Besides the threat to bio-diversity, animals can also serve as a reservoir for human diseases. Avian influenza can be transmitted directly from birds to humans. In his study, which was published last winter in Science, Daszak urges increased research on these wild animal diseases and greater efforts to prevent their spread.
"We should care because it's our fault," says Daszak. "What we've done over the past few decades has caused disease to emerge and spread to wildlife. What causes wild animal disease is human environmental change."