Students in a new computer science class at the University of Southern California will write programming code for the Borg, and will study the emergence of emotions in the android character Data.

The class, called "Intelligent Agents and Science Fiction," will use Star Trek and classic stories by Isaac Asimov as problem sets for instruction in artificial intelligence (AI). It will be offered in the fall semester to undergraduates at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

"Computer science is catching up with the ideas in these stories," says Milind Tambe, the associate professor who designed the class and will teach it. Science fiction, he continues, "is a great motivator and it provides context, generating excitement about artificial intelligence topics in general, and agents and multi-agent systems in particular."

"Agents," in AI lingo, are essentially the "minds" of artificial beings which can create strategies to achieve ends and even negotiate with each other to cooperate while doing so. Part of the study will involve Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics." (Asimov was an inspiration to Dr. Noonien Soong, as mentioned in "Datalore.") The Borg will be used as an example of "distributed intelligence" (one mind in many bodies). You can see the full press release at this link. No word yet on how the Borg code will be used once it's created ... maybe you should prepare to be assimilated, just in case.

Self-Healing Spacecraft

Speaking of Borg, there's another recent science story that reminds us of them. Remember in "Q Who?" when the Borg Cube was seen fixing itself? Well, that scenario is not so far-fetched. The technology of "self-healing spacecraft" is being developed by the European Space Agency.

The idea is that when a satellite suffers a minor crack or micrometeorite puncture, a viscous resin would flow out of extremely small hollow fibers embedded in the hull, along with a hardening agent, to seal the breach.

"The analogy is the human body," said Ian Bond of England's University of Bristol. "Think about cutting yourself. There, capillary action will draw blood out to block the cut."

The technique currently being studied would only heal small nicks, but that could stave off more serious structural problems in the satellite. In the future, a more evolved self-healing system in manned spacecraft could mitigate the need for extra spacewalks. The full story is available at this Space.com link.

"E-Weapons"

As much as we'd like to envision a utopian future of permanent peace, even Star Trek constantly reminds us that threats are ever-present, and we need to be armed and ready. A new breed of weaponry is fast approaching that promises to make warfare look more and more like Star Trek, for better or worse. They are called "directed-energy weapons," and they take the form of lasers, high-powered microwaves, and particle beams.

According to J. Douglas Beason, author of "The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Wars Will Be Fought in the Future," the United States is on the verge deploying "e-weapons" after 20 years of research.

An example is the Airborne Laser program, which deploys a high-energy chemical laser on a modified Boeing aircraft to enable the detection, tracking and destruction of ballistic missiles in flight. Similarly, the Tactical High Energy Laser would blast high-flying warheads with enough energy to cause them to self-detonate.

For human adversaries, there is the more phaser-like but presumably non-lethal "Active Denial Technology," which uses electromagnetic waves to heat a foe's skin, causing severe pain without damage, thus compelling the enemy to flee the scene.

More about this topic can be found in this Space.com article.

Evidence Mounts for Populated Universe

The underlying premise of Star Trek is basically stated by Dr. McCoy in "Balance of Terror" when he says, "In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets..." In "Terra Prime," Captain Archer tells John Paxton that "the galaxy's a lot more crowded than we thought."

Almost every day, there's a new story from the field of astronomy that adds to the mounting evidence that we are far from alone in the universe. Among the recent findings are the discoveries of planets around a much wider variety of stars than previously thought possible.

Just yesterday it was announced that two "hypergiant" stars, 30 to 70 times the size of our own Sun, have been discovered harboring disks of material that could be forming planets (story). Other similar disks have recently been found around red dwarfs and brown dwarfs, which are much smaller and dimmer than our Sun, and even dying neutron stars. Plus, new studies in the last month have concluded that planet formation in multiple-star systems may be more common than previously thought.

Of course, "planets" are one thing; "Earth-like planets" are another. Most extrasolar planets detected so far are gas giants similar to Jupiter. But last month astronomers announced the discovery of a small rocky planet orbiting a red dwarf (like the M-Class world found in "Time and Again"). It's possibly the smallest planet known outside our solar system, and the finding suggests that Earth-like rocky worlds may be common (story).

Of course, "Earth-like planets" are one thing, and those that may actually harbor life are another thing entirely. But a variety of findings not only in astronomy but in biology suggest that the "habitable zone" in which life can exist may be broader than previously imagined. In some of the unlikeliest places on Earth, scientists have discovered hundreds of "extremophile" species, mostly bacteria, which can survive scalding waters, subzero temperatures, bone-crushing pressures and other conditions intolerable to most creatures. This tells us that life is much hardier and more versatile than we've assumed. Plus, planetary scientists are considering the possibility that dim stars such as red dwarfs may have a habitable zone, albeit comparatively narrow. But since red dwarfs are believed to make up about 85 percent of the stars in the universe, that greatly increases the potential landscape for extraterrestrial life. For more on this topic, read this Space.com article.