Categories
Science

Mega City Line Divides Arab World

Futuristic project has courted controversy from the beginning

By Heather Allen

Drokk that: An artist’s impression of The Line, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic mega city project. Picture: NEOM

How would you like to live in this stunning new residence, which when it’s completed will be over 170 kilometres long, 200 metres wide, and taller than the Empire State Building?

Boasting extensive views of the Red Sea, this sci-fi utopia is The Line, currently being built in the Tabuk province of north-western Saudi Arabia, and it’s apparently going to be a ‘model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability’. Don’t fancy it? But it’s going to be carbon neutral! There will be no cars to pollute and endanger, and everything you could ever need will be within a five-minute walk. You can even look forward to robot maids and flying taxis, if the rumours are true. You sure you wouldn’t fancy it? No?

That’s a shame, because The Line is Saudi Arabia’s ‘linear city of the future’ and is expected to accommodate nine million people when it’s finished. That would not include anyone from my household, however. A quick straw poll of my nearest and dearest led to mutters of ‘eyesore’ and wrinkled noses. But British families used to British architecture are not the targets for this planned development, which is just as well. No, it’s aimed at the ‘cosmopolitan elite’, if the blurb is to be believed. 

The designs were launched last week by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto ruler, Mohammad bin Salman, a year and a half after the initial plans for the development were announced, live on Saudi TV, in January 2021. The megacity will consist of two parallel structures stretching over 170km (105 miles) running partly along the coastline of the Red Sea. These skyscrapers will be 500m (1,640ft) tall, and the complex will be a mere 200m (656ft) wide by comparison. Sitting on the edge of one of the world’s most prominent shipping lanes, the entire city will cover an area of just 13 square miles – roughly equivalent to the area covered by the combined districts of Westminster, Chelsea and Kensington in London.

According to a hi-tech promotional video that would rival the best efforts of George Lucas and Industrial Light & Magic, The Line will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy and feature ‘a year-round temperate micro-climate with natural ventilation’. Its residents will not be able to have cars, as there will be no roads to drive them on, or indeed, car parks to park them in. This won’t matter though, according to the architects, because all supermarkets and essential services will be ‘a five-minute walk’ away, either up, down or across the city. Multiple communities will be housed within the glass façade, and residents will be able to ‘organically’ bump into each other as they go about their lives. The Line will also have an underground high-speed train that will allow citizens to go from one end of the city to the other in under 20 minutes, and will maintain an ‘ideal’ climate all year round because of its mix of shade, sunlight and ventilation. Underground tunnels will also be used for deliveries and utilities, so there won’t be pesky, smelly lorries messing things up. It is also rumoured that The Line will have an artificial moon, robot maids and flying taxis – presumably solar powered.

In case your sci-fi senses are tingling at the word ‘megacity’ commonly used in reference to this project, then like me you are probably thinking of Mega-City One, a fictional city which features in the 2000AD and Judge Dredd franchises. Mega-City One is a fictional post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of the Eastern United States and some of Canada. It is formed of colossal city blocks, each one of which is a town in itself. Each block possesses a hospital, gymnasium, school, and shopping district. A citizen can live their whole lives without leaving their block. The parallels are obviously unintentional, and will doubtless end there and not progress to the fate of the fictional Mega-City One, which, as fans will know, was not a happy one.  

Saudi projections state that 1.5 million people will live in The Line by 2030 – in just eight years’ time. The Line will cost approximately £262bn to build, a chunk of which will be funded by the Crown Prince himself, as well as the Saudi government, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and local and international investors. The project is expected to create 380,000 jobs.

The Line is part of the NEOM city project, an £830bn initiative owned by Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. The project is headed by the Crown Prince and launched by HRH in October 2017, just four months after his tenure began. NEOM is expected to harness solar and wind energy, and sources say that it will also house the world’s largest green hydrogen plant. Among other initiatives, the project will include a manufacturing and innovation city, called Oxagon, and, incredibly, an outdoor skiing destination in the Arabian Gulf. NEOM is part of Saudi Vision 2030, the stated aims of which are to diversify the country’s economy (not least by attracting more visitors) and to reduce its dependence on oil. The entire NEOM project area extends to the Aqaba Gulf, and includes 468km of coastline with beaches and coral reefs, as well as mountains up to 2,500 metres high. Analysts at The Washington Post have stated that the entire project will be built in phases, and will be completed around 2050: another 28 years.

No firm details have yet been released concerning the environmental impact of the construction. However, the project’s leaders have said that they plan to use digital designs and industrial-scale construction to speed up the building of The Line, and are keen to flag up how they are offsetting the environmental impact. One such initiative is NEOM’s project to plant 100 million native trees, shrubs and grasses by 2030, which they say will aid the restoration of degraded land and the repair of wildlife habitats, and will form part of NEOM’s program to rehabilitate 1.5 million hectares of land. The outer mirror façade of The Line is meant to allow the construction to blend into its environment – because a pair of parallel 170km long, 500-metre-tall mirrors are exactly what you expect to find in the desert, are they not? Concept designs include integrated vertical farming, a yacht marina (of course), and a sports stadium built 305m (1000ft) above ground.

Announcing the designs for The Line, the Crown Prince said: “The designs revealed today for the city’s vertically layered communities will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability. The Line will tackle the challenges facing humanity in urban life today and will shine a light on alternative ways to live.” According to the Crown Prince, the project is, “a civilisational revolution that puts humans first, providing an unprecedented urban living experience while preserving the surrounding nature.”

Before you start to wonder why the British Royal Family aren’t putting their hands in their pockets to build such a fantastic project for the good of the people, remember, this is Saudi Arabia we’re talking about. As you would expect, it’s not so simple as all that, nor as benign.  

To start with, some experts are sceptical about whether The Line can or should be built at all. Torbjorn Soltvedt, Principal Analyst, Middle East and North Africa, at global risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said: “The feasibility of Neom as a whole is still unclear given the unprecedented scale and cost of the project.” This scepticism was echoed by Carlosfelipe Pardo, Senior Adviser to the New Urban Mobility Alliance, who voiced his concerns to news outlet NPR about the idea of building new cities from scratch, rather than aiming to solve the problems in existing developments. Pardo points out that the idea of solving urban problems by creating a city from scratch isn’t new, as it has been tried before, from Brasília and India’s Chandigarh to Malaysia’s Putrajaya. “This solution is a little bit like wanting to live on Mars because things on Earth are very messy,” he said. Despite starting with a clean slate, such elaborate urban plans have usually “created new urban settings where problems have also arisen,” Pardo points out. While he grants that the approach can tackle typical city challenges head-on, Pardo says that it will not help people already living with problems elsewhere, and is concerned that The Line’s high-tech approach ignores people’s desire to simply go outside, to experience something in a city that isn’t man-made. “This seems impossible, greatly limited or just plain artificial,” he said – a sentiment which partly explains the negative gut reaction to developments such as this among nature-loving people. He does, however, ring a note of hope, albeit a faint one: “I’m sure several characteristics of this design could be integrated into existing cities, and it would be great to have a way of doing so.” Benefits? Maybe. But the story doesn’t end there.

More concerning than the merely practical is how the rhetoric of ‘enhanced human livability’ clashes with the hard truths of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. From the beginning, the project was beset by controversy, because 20,000 people will be forced to relocate as a result of its construction. These residents are members of the Huwaiti tribe, who have lived in the Tabuk province for centuries and who can trace their lineage to before the founding of Saudi Arabia itself. However, none of the official statements regarding the project have even acknowledged the existence of the tribespeople. Certainly, there is no evidence of any attempt to rehouse or compensate them.

More alarming still is the news that tribal activist and Tabuk province resident Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, who made several videos protesting against these evictions, was shot dead in October 2020 by Saudi security forces after refusing to leave his home. Alya Alhwaiti, a human rights activist from the same tribe but based in London, circulated the videos, in which al-Huwaiti said he would defy the eviction orders, though he expected Saudi authorities would plant weapons in his house to incriminate him. He was later killed by Saudi security forces, who claimed he had opened fire on them. This version of events was disputed by Alya Alhwaiti, who stated that al-Huwaiti did not own firearms. Eight cousins of al-Huwaiti were later arrested for protesting against the eviction order. However, the tribe assert that they are not opposed to the development of NEOM, but simply do not want to be evicted from their traditional homeland. Alya Alhwaiti also claims to have received death threats in relation to her role as spokesperson, which have been reported to British police. Interestingly, prior to the evictions, in June 2020, the Crown Prince signed a contract worth $1.7 million with a US public relations and lobbying firm to counter the criticism and controversies around the NEOM city project. Following on, in November 2020, British lawyers representing the displaced tribe urged the then British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to boycott the G20 Summit in Saudi Arabia, arguing that Britain has a moral imperative to take a stand in defence of the tribe and to confront Saudi Arabia over its human rights issues. Indeed, pressing questions persist about how tightly Western countries should embrace Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince, whom the US claims approved the 2018 operation in Istanbul, Turkey, which ended with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

This all makes for uncomfortable reading. But, you may ask, at least the management of NEOM will treat their employees fairly, if they want a job well done? Right? You would think so, but sadly,his does not seem to be the case either. The CEO of the NEOM project, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, was reported by former employees for promoting a management culture that ‘belittled’ expatriates, made unrealistic demands, and neglected discrimination in the workplace, according to reports in Bloomberg Businessweek and The Wall Street Journal.  The resignation letter of a former chief executive, Andrew Wirth, accused Nasr’s leadership of being “consistently inclusive of disparagement and inappropriately dismissive and demeaning outbursts”. Nasr, still CEO at the time of writing, was appointed by the Crown Prince and given the responsibility to lead NEOM, and has been accused during his tenure of berating and scaring his employees, as confirmed by present and former staff members. Anthony Harris, a former director of innovation at NEOM’s education team, accused the Crown Prince of a faulty workplace culture since, he says: “Nadhmi takes his cue from his boss and everyone else at NEOM takes their cue from Nadhmi.” In a recording heard by The Wall Street Journal, Nasr once said at a meeting: “I drive everybody like a slave, when they drop down dead, I celebrate. That’s how I do my projects.”  

It’s looking less and less attractive, isn’t it? But at least it’s good for the environment. Isn’t it? Well, funny you should say that. While the project’s supporters tout The Line’s zero emissions and a smaller footprint than conventional cities, critics note that those utopian ideals will come at an environmental price, as would be expected due to an entirely new city being created in the desert. Conservationists have also pointed out that a 170km long, 500-metre-high skyscraper straddling migration paths will potentially devastate bird populations, while the impact of the construction itself, plus the placing of two gigantic mirrors under intense sunlight in the desert, are also likely to cause environmental damage.

But surely it will be good for residents, if nothing else? After all, some sources say that it will be run according to ‘progressive laws that are compatible with international norms and conducive to economic growth’ Also, in an apparent effort to ease potential residents’ concerns about living under the kingdom’s restrictive laws, a NEOM tourism official recently told the Saudi Gazette that residents would be called ‘Neomians’ and would be subject to different rules than the rest of the country. After the predictable interest in this comment, NEOM then strenuously backpedalled by denying the idea, saying that while the area would be a special economic zone, it would still be part of the kingdom and “subject to all rules … related to security, defence and border protection”.

So, there we have it. A technological marvel, certainly, if it ever gets built, and with some possible benefits to residents – but given the cost to humanity and the environment, is it really worth it? The world will decide. Meanwhile, my family and I, un-elite, non-cosmopolitan as we apparently are, will be sticking to our British brick-built home, in Britain. You know where you are with bricks.

Categories
Short Fiction

Meltdown

Don’t we just love the school holidays?

Short fiction by Heather Allen

Listen out for the wasps, they’re on their way. Picture: Adobe Stock

Hooray, they squeal, hooray! It’s the summer holiday!

Hooray, I growl. Hooray. Now make it go away.

Six summer weeks feel like forever. One hot, horrible day after another, another, another. Hot outside, hot inside, hot inside me. Hot flushes, hot washes, washed all over with sweat dripping, red-faced skin burning, mind melting, blood boiling torture!

Summer! Oh, how we British love it, don’t we just love it? Squeezed into clothing to burn ourselves in, showing way too much skin, slathered in slime to stop that melanoma – mela no, ma’am! This hat is meant to keep my brain from liquefying, perched on my sweating head like a slab of fruit on a knickerbocker glory. Nobody ever looks good in the sun. Nobody with my DNA.

Candles in a jar on her windowsill, melted to a twisted mass. That’s my bones, I think. It’s funny, daughter says, but I’m not laughing, nothing is funny (it is, but) nothing will ever be funny again. Or so it feels to me. At least, not until the beautiful, cool schooldays of September. Summer will roll on, like a mass of molten wax. Thick, slow, hot.

Here we go, then. First day trip. The conservation park. Oh to be a meerkat, they’re made for this weather. They stare as we go past, up on their hind legs, their beady black eyes seeming to judge us. Yes, I think, we may well be idiots, but we are out here and you are locked in there.

Around us, black and yellow warriors circle like fighter pilots, buzzing the bins and the sticky puddles, buzzing our heads. Children run from stinging peril, screaming and flapping. I hold my head. Too much noise.

I stop the rampage with a damp hand, and hunker down, all adult-like. ‘Do you want to get stung? Those wasps, they’ve spent their lives feeding and guarding their young, so now they just want to find some sugar and eat it before they die.’ (Which, sotto voce, is just how I feel). ‘Don’t hurt them and they won’t hurt you. But if you flap your hands at me again, Heaven help me, I will sting you and then we’ll all be bloody sorry.’

In the wire enclosure, the lynx paces, back and forth, up and down. Shouty kids point grimy fingers and squeal. I watch the beast for a while, pacing, pacing, trapped, bored, hot. For a brief second, I catch the creature’s eye. I know you, I think. I am you. Blink, turn, pace.

Pace, pace.

Another bright idea, another bright and burning day. Hey, Mum, let’s go to the farm. Fabulous, I say, I cannot think of anything I’d rather do on a day hot enough to melt your eyebrows off than catch a bus to that grimy West Midlands town, then stroll through its picturesque delights to the urban farm. More miserable animals. Great idea. I’ll make the sandwiches. No, we’re not going to Greggs.

Baggy old town brings me down, whatever the weather guaranteed, holding the heat like a firebowl, the pavements and buildings covered in brown dust, radiating back the furnace heat. I want to tear off my skin. Been here too often but I always get lost. This way, that way, don’t know, it’s over there, keep going, stop arguing, leave your sister alone. I know you’re hot, we’re all flaming HOT. 

Finally, out to the green space, and the farm. In the shop, the lady takes the money and her weary eyes meet mine. ‘Three weeks,’ she says. I nod. ‘Yes.’ Solidarity.

In the farmyard, the usual collection of local families, cheap-tats dads and legging-trousered mums yawping at their spawn to ‘Get here!’ Cute kids, not yet fully conditioned, giggle and gawp at the listless beasts. We three trudge around the yard, peer over the wooden gates into the darkened stalls. I marvel at the unique, separate stinks of alpaca, goat, horse, pig, duck, chicken, rabbit and sheep. Parfum de Farmyard, with mid-notes of armpit and vape smoke, and a redolence of nappy and sick. My two stand and coo over disconsolate sheep, while I sway in a six-inch strip of shade, praying, please God, just a little breeze? A drop of cool rain? Is this my penalty for not going to church, this putrid personalised hell?

And so it drags on. A barbecue – what, now? What fresh hell is this? Kill me, so I may be spared this torture. I said that last time, he reminds me. I promised I’d go this time. You like these people! Yes, I argue, but I hate the heat. But…sigh.

Lo, just like yesterday, it’s going to be the hottest day of the year. A short walk, but a long way with the sun burning. No shade, no cover en route. Yes, this is an umbrella, but today it is a parasol. Thank you for noticing that it is yellow, like a banana. Do not judge me. I must not melt.

Arrive, exhausted already. Take stock, assess survival strategy: I grab a large glass of iced water, place my seat in the shadiest corner of the garden and stay there, listening to other people’s conversations, until I can reasonably sneak away. Only then am I forced to speak, my price for leaving early: ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ (pause for exaggerated yawn), ‘I’m a bit tired, the kids will come home with their dad.’ It’s lovely walking alone in the post-sunset cool. I have half a bottle of wine in the fridge at home, a book to finish, and zero guilt. I’m too old for guilt.

Another day, a home day, even bloody hotter. I am hiding in my office, the coolest room in the house. My brain is cheese. I have done, am doing and intend to do NOTHING which involves me moving from this seat. But hark, here are my darlings! They barge in. This is my sanctuary, my sanctum sanctorum, my sanitarium – yet they are definitely very much in here, and I can’t pretend they are not. Loud voices, eager faces, sweaty bodies standing far too close to me. Right in my face. I can smell them. I feel sick.

‘WHAT?’ Hoping my voice is carrying an adequate measure of menace.

‘We’re hungry! What are we having for dinner?’

I spin round in my chair – it squeaks – and give them the death glare. 

‘I’M BUSY.’

They look at the screen. I’m Googling ‘murder in a heatwave’. They glance at each other.

I turn back to the screen and adopt a sing-song, mistress-of-the-orphanage voice. 

‘Did you know, children, that more murders are committed at 92 degrees Fahrenheit, than at any other temperature?’ 

‘N…no…’ says daughter, her eyes sliding across to the thermometer on the wall.

I snap my head round, look her in the eye, and smile with my teeth only. My throat burns with bile.

‘Do not expect me to cook. I am already cooking. There is ample food in the fridge, the freezer, the cupboards, the fruit bowl, and the breadbin. There is a microwave, which I know you can operate.’

I turn my empty eyes to the boy child, who squirms under my gaze.

‘You are intelligent and resourceful children. You know where the crisps are, and you know where your father is. Now go.’

The door bangs as they leave, and I pick up my pen.

Bank holiday Monday. They said it would be cooler today, but they are idiots. It is 7am and my brain is melting. What to do today? Not another day out. Think. Think. Idea.

I should have bought it in July, when I first thought of it, but he said, don’t get one, we’ve got nowhere to put it when we’re not using it, it’s a waste of money, blah blah and what do I get for listening to him? What?

HOT.

Decision. Click, in the basket, reserve, thanks very much, sweaty trudge down to Argos, sweaty trudge back up the hill, lay out the tarp and open the box.

Bigger than I thought. Oo-er missus. Too hot even for mental innuendo.

Pump it up, pouring with sweat – blimey I’m hot! – never mind, it will be worth it. Wow, it is big. Nearly takes up the whole patio. Not bad for thirty quid. Splendid. Get the hose, turn on the water. 

Tell the kids. Screams of delight.

Cold drink, sit in the shade and watch it fill up. Out they come, cossies on, clutching pool noodles and plastic toys. Climbing in. Squeals. Fun. Job done.

Set the hose to dribble, grab a gin and ice, sit in the pool with the nozzle balanced on my head, water dripping down my face. Coolest I’ve been in weeks.

Lie back and think of Svalbard. And breathe.

Categories
Science

‘Strange’ deep space radio signal detected

Cosmic heartbeat offers clues to expansion of universe

By Heather Allen

Cosmos calling: The CHIME radio telescope (source: CHIME/MIT)

Life on Earth is beginning to look like the opening pages of a science fiction novel, and a dystopian one at that. We’ve had an unprecedented heatwave in the UK, with parliament fiddling while London burns. The ice caps are melting as the poles heat up, we’ve had a devastating pandemic with rumblings of more to come, plus a smorgasbord of anomalous floods, earthquakes, wars, political unrest and other unsettling shenanigans across the globe. Business as usual in the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, in chapter two of 2022: The Novel, a whole host of fascinating and occasionally alarming scientific discoveries and innovations are emerging. Google’s AI chatbot has been accused of gaining sentience, quantum computers are in production (although as yet prohibitively expensive for the likes of us), and nanobots are being developed which are capable of crawling around inside the cells of your body. Asimov would be rubbing his hands together with glee (while no doubt nervously reminding us about his Three Laws of Robotics).

On the astronomical level, it seems only a matter of time before life is discovered on other planets – or it discovers us. We all gasp at the shiny images from the James Webb Space Telescope, obviously superior to the Hubble, in a world where anyone who lives in a city can barely see any stars in the night sky. It seems pure arrogance to assume that there’s no other sentient life out there.

Into this landscape comes the latest discovery by astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the same educational institution which in 1972 predicted that society would collapse in the mid 21st century (we’re ahead of schedule on that, but that’s another story). Astronomers at MIT, along with colleagues in Canada and across the USA, have detected a fast radio burst (FSB) coming from a distant galaxy which appears to be flashing with surprising regularity. The signal persists for up to three seconds, which is around 1,000 times longer than the average FRB. Within this three-second window, MIT astronomers have detected bursts of radio waves that repeat every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic pattern, like a cosmic heartbeat. Researchers have given the signal the snappy label FRB 20191221A, and it is the longest-lasting FRB, with the clearest periodic pattern, detected to date.

This unusual, persistent radio signal originates from a distant galaxy several billion light years from Earth. What that source might be is uncertain, but astronomers believe that the signal emanates from either a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both types of neutron stars – extremely dense, rapidly spinning collapsed cores of giant stars. Whatever it is, it’s certainly got the attention of Earthlings.

“There are not many things in the universe that emit strictly periodic signals,” Dr Daniele Michilli, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said. “Examples that we know of in our own galaxy are radio pulsars and magnetars, which rotate and produce a beamed emission similar to a lighthouse. And we think this new signal could be a magnetar or pulsar on steroids.”

The team hopes to detect more periodic signals from this source, which they say could be used in future as an astrophysical clock. The frequency of the bursts, and how they change as the source moves away from Earth, could be used to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding.

Since the first FRB was discovered in 2007, hundreds of similar radio flashes have been detected across the universe, most recently by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, (CHIME), an interferometric radio telescope consisting of four large parabolic reflectors.

CHIME is designed to pick up radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the very earliest stages of the universe. The telescope is sensitive to fast radio bursts and has identified hundreds of new FRBs. The vast majority of these FRBs are one-offs. However, FRB 20191221A, first picked up on December 21 2019, was not. This signal consisted of a four-day window of random bursts that were then repeated every 16 days. 

After analysing FRB 20191221A’s radio bursts, Dr Michilli and his colleagues found similarities with emissions from radio pulsars and magnetars in our own galaxy – except that FRB 20191221A was more than a million times brighter.

“It was unusual,” Dr Michilli said in a classic astrophysicist understatement. “Not only was it very long, lasting about three seconds, but there were periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second – boom, boom, boom – like a heartbeat. This is the first time the signal itself is periodic.

“CHIME has now detected many FRBs with different properties. We’ve seen some that live inside clouds that are very turbulent, while others look like they’re in clean environments. From the properties of this new signal, we can say that around this source, there’s a cloud of plasma that must be extremely turbulent.”

The astronomers hope to catch additional bursts from the periodic FRB 20191221A, which they say will help to refine their understanding of its source and of neutron stars in general. The James Webb Space Telescope will be a big help in this enterprise, just as the Hubble space telescope has been in the past, and reveal new clues about the origins of the universe.

It’s only a matter of time before we discover that something in the universe is looking right back at us. Hopefully they will send a message if they’re popping over for a visit, and a fast radio burst seems the ideal way for a space consciousness to get in touch. True, FRB 20191221A is unlikely to be an alien ‘Hello’, but it’s proof enough that the technology exists to pick up communications from deep space. Let’s just hope that, when it happens, we recognise it for what it is and are able to act appropriately.

Categories
Short Fiction Uncategorized

Snow and Ice

A short story for lovers of winter

By Heather Allen

She wore a long white coat, with a white woollen hat pulled down over her ears. Her long straight hair flowed out from under it, which was the palest blonde, almost, yes, white. Translucent skin the colour of spilt milk, eyes the clean blue of the sky on a clear January morning, pale as chips of glacial ice. Tall and thin, like Jack Frost’s younger sister.

Her name was Erica, but her friends called her Snow, although it was nothing to do with her colouring. People still talked about the day when, back in infants school, at home-time on a day when it had snowed steadily since lunchtime, she had run out onto the snow-covered lawn, stripped off all her clothes and rolled around in it, giggling. Her mum had swept her up into her arms and taken her inside to the school nurse, who pronounced her unscathed by her adventure. All she really remembered from that day was how delicious the snow felt on her skin; how much herself she had felt, how liberated and free, during those precious few moments. 

She walked, now, or to be more accurate, stomped, through the six-inch-thick white carpet that spread in all directions from her parent’s house and across most of the British mainland. Her Samoyed dog, Ice, hauled on his lead, his fluffy white fur almost invisible against the snow. This was his weather, and his wide smile showed it. Hers, too. So rare it happened here. Why had she ended up in the home of a family in the English Midlands, she often asked herself, where it snowed but rarely? There was sometimes a short spell of snowy weather in January, and maybe the odd flurry through winter, if they were very lucky. Some years, nothing at all.

Erica knew she didn’t belong here. She looked Scandinavian, everyone said, and she felt it, too. When she was a little girl, people would often ask where she got her colouring from, looking doubtfully at her dark haired parents and narrowing their eyes critically at her mum in particular. That stalwart matriarch would fold her arms and stare defiantly back. “From the angels who brought her to us,” she would reply, daring them to say more. When Erica was a little older, her parents took her aside for a talk. Told her that, yes, it was true, Mum hadn’t actually birthed her. Erica had been (and this was where it grew vague) a gift. What kind of person gives a baby as a gift, she had wondered? Who or whatever it was, they had blundered, they had brought her to the wrong country, even though she loved her parents dearly and wouldn’t wish for any others. She would dream of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, even Svalbard in the High Arctic, with its reindeer and polar bears. That was paradise as far as Erica was concerned.

It could be worse, she told herself often. At least they had some snow, sometimes. But Svalbard’s two-and-a half-month-long darkness would be preferable to this tepid, damp place, which, for the months between May and September, became a living hell for her. In those long, painful summer months, when not enduring the purgatory of school, she would hide indoors, the electric fan blowing over her damp skin, reading about cooler climes. On the hottest days she would lie in a bath of cold water, sucking ice cubes and longing with all her heart for the winter, picturing frosty days and bitter nights, the moon surrounded by a huge ice-crystal halo. She could only ever be truly herself when the snow came. She thrived in the cold, she loved the feeling of it; ice did not hurt her skin but cooled it so she felt comfortable. Most of the time she was burning. She only wore clothes at all because it was what society demanded, and she only wore outdoor clothes in winter to keep her parents happy. Her instincts screamed against it, but she had learned the hard way that some things had to be borne.

Erica never smiled in the summer, or even spring or autumn. In fact, she would only break into a smile when snowflakes started to spiral down from the white winter sky. Then, her face would light up, and she would run out, laughing, to welcome their cold beauty, arms stretched wide, head flung back, staring up into the heavens where they seemed to come from impossibly far away, going on forever, cascading down on her, masses and masses of them! Resisting the urge to strip off, she would stay outside until her parents called her in. Only then, reluctantly, would she come indoors. 

This afternoon, after months of waiting and hoping, it had finally happened. It was mid January and the snow had finally arrived, silent and pure. She had stood resolutely in the back garden this time, letting the snow cover her hair and clothes, and come in only when it suited her. It had been a few years since they had had a decent snowfall, and she had yearned for it all that time. Now she was sixteen years old, although she looked a lot younger. Although she was still under her parents’ jurisdiction, she was allowed a little more freedom, and she took it.

This was why she and Ice were out now, walking in the snow-bright, moonlit evening, to the park where the beautiful snow would be covering everything, and where she could (hopefully) be alone. Through the park gates, and it was as she had hoped and imagined; what she had dreamed about through the long, slow, torturous summer months. There was no-one else in the park; she and Ice were utterly, wonderfully alone. In front of her and all around lay a wide expanse of moonlit whiteness, pristine and glorious. Ready for her.

Ice strained at his lead, his breath coming in excited snorts, so she released him and he took off, bounding through the snow like a puppy, frolicking, barking with sheer happiness, rolling in the snow with an expression of pure doggy joy. She watched him for a few minutes, then checked in all directions. No-one else about. So, she took off her coat, laid it carefully on the snow, then began to take off her other clothes and place them on top of it. Her heart pounding, she peeled off her gloves hat, scarf, then her jumper and blouse, her boots, jeans and socks. She laughed, a childlike sound, as the cold air hit her, and Ice bounded up to her, thrusting his snowy nose against her shin. She lunged for him, but he was off again, a fluffy white snowball of a dog. 

Her pale skin was almost as white as the snow itself. She ran after her delighted dog, bare footprints following his paw-prints across the pristine whiteness. She chased him for a long while, her skinny legs lifting high, kicking up the snow in great plumes, then stopping to throw snowballs which he jumped and caught, barking happily. Eventually, when she grew tired, she threw herself to the ground and rolled around, rolled and rolled until the delicious snow covered every inch of her, then lay, Ice sprawled next to her, panting steam into the night air. She gazed up into the night sky as the cold burrowed into her bones, the beautiful cleansing cold, into her very soul, taking away the despicable, painful heat. She lay, absorbing the cold until the horrors of the hot days had been purged, then lay some more. Only when Ice grew restless, jumping up and running round in circles, nudging her with his nose and whining, did she stand up, shake the snow off herself, and slowly put her clothes back on. 

Maybe, she reflected, as she and Ice set off once more in the direction of home, maybe she could persuade her parents to get a chest freezer, so she could cram it full of this marvellous snow and lie in it when the agonising heat of June, July and August became too much. Now she must fix this night in her mind, so that she could return in her memory to the snow falling, snow blanketing, the wide white expanse in the moonlit night, and the marvellous feeling of the cold snow on her skin as she rolled in the night in its pure white delight.

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Go softly into the future of robotics

What do you think about when you picture a robot? A shining metal man? A factory production line machine? Maybe you picture a remote-controlled cleaning device, a self-driving car, or even a security bot?

These are all traditional, hard robots – inflexible constructions which are limited in their application, partly due to the safety problems they pose to human beings.  However, a new field of robotics is emerging which takes these issues into account, offering countless potential applications from medicine and surgery to machine repair. This is soft robotics.

The field of soft robotics concerns the creation of robots constructed of compliant materials and flexible links rather than the familiar rigid-bodied robots made of metals, ceramics and hard plastics. Now, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) are exploring the multiple potentialities of soft robotics, including artificial hearts and micro-bots to perform surgery and dispense medicines. The team of researchers is led by Bas Overvelde, associate professor within the Soft Robotics Group (part of the Mechanical Engineering faculty) and scientific group leader of the Soft Robotic Matter Group at AMOLF.  In 2020, Overvelde received a five-year ERC start-up grant of more than €1.5 million to increase the application perspective of soft robots. The project brings together researchers from different disciplines and faculties at TU/e, such as Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering.

“Scientifically, it’s an incubator for new directions and research,” Overvelde said. “It’s a great topic that brings researchers together, which continually generates new ideas. Such an interdisciplinary approach is characteristic of a new science with which we are pioneering in all kinds of areas: materials, mechanical intelligence, interaction with humans, design. Precisely because it requires a very different way of thinking that goes more towards the intelligence of nature. It’s a form of artificial intelligence.”

A key feature of soft robotics compared to hard robotics is its autonomous adaptability. The complex shapes and deformable bodies made possible with soft robots bring their own challenges, as they are less predictable and require new design methods to get them to perform desired functions. Traditional robots have hinge points, hard moving parts and interfaces, which makes them suitable for repetitive actions and programmable sequences.

Jaap Den Toonder, leader of research section Microsystems, explains: “Soft robots respond to stimuli such as air pressure or light. Their movements result from the reaction and deformation of the material, which is where the intelligence lies. That leaves a lot of room for complex possibilities. That’s why a whole chain of research disciplines is needed: to devise and develop the right materials (chemistry), to make the mechanical design and to direct and control the systems (mechanical engineering).”

The softness and flexibility of soft robots makes them ideal for human interaction, as Overvelde points out: “A soft robot will never squeeze your hand. The power of hard robotics makes collaboration between humans and robots more difficult, so soft robotics is a way to make that interaction safer. In the slipstream, that also helps social acceptance, because soft robots are closer to us. What is more likely to be accepted in our bodies; a hard pump or a beating object that resembles a natural heart? Such questions must ultimately be tested.”

Miguel Burns of the Faculty of Industrial Design agrees. He says: “Soft materials fit humans better than hard, mechanical ones. But what makes it especially innovative are the dynamic properties that the use of new materials entails. This makes it possible to manipulate physical properties in a controlled way and adapt them to the needs of the user, such as humans. Although animals, plants or buildings can also be users for that matter. That adaptive nature is the interesting thing about soft robotics.”

Another useful application for soft robotics is in the field of haptics, which concerns perception through the hands. This is the field of researcher Irene Kuling of research section Dynamics and Control. She says: “We are currently using soft robotics in two ways: the development of a hand that imitates human movements as lifelike as possible, and the development of objects with which we can provide haptic feedback to people from a distance. In other words: feeling without being present. Think, for example, of maintenance in a nuclear power plant, giving a hand via video calling, or digitally touching curtains before ordering them online.

“A lot has already happened in that area, such as 3D images, sharper pixels or surround sound, but in terms of sensing, very little exists. Soft robotics is changing that and we are just at the beginning. With traditional robotics we think very much in performance terms, whereas with soft robotics we can be much more creative. Who knows, it might lead to a real life Barbapapa, something that can turn into both light and heavy objects.”

The possible applications of soft robotics are wide-ranging, but naturally limited. However, as researcher Danqing Liu from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry points out, the limitations themselves present even further opportunities: “Since soft robotics lacks the power of hard robotics, we need to turn the differences into an advantage. Such as the combination of moving surfaces with dynamic coatings, which allows us to use vibration to clean hard-to-reach objects without water. For example, solar panels, or think of the Mars Rover, which has to deal with sandstorms. NASA has already encouraged us several times to work out this principle further to meet the extreme conditions in space.

“Also in the field of haptics, with coatings on screens that allow you to feel what is happening in another place. That’s valuable for blind people, or for surgeons to experience what’s happening in the body. Another application is a control panel in cars that allows you to regulate functions without looking, so that you continue to pay attention on the road. Soon we’ll actually be able to do two things at once. If we apply this form of touch sensation feedback on a large scale, it will have a huge impact on the human machine interface. We’re going to change the world.”

One of the questions addressed by researchers is how to bring intelligence to the point where soft robots react autonomously, for example to their environment or to chemical substances. Among other applications, this would enable soft robots to perform surgery and repairs, Den Toonder points out: “Ultimately, we want to make robots on a microscopic scale, smaller than a hair’s breadth, that walk through the body and deliver drugs locally or do surgery. Or that perform repairs in complex machines with very small parts.”

The possible applications don’t stop there. Edible robots could be created which are capable of changing shape to deliver drugs or nutrients at a specific location. Plant-based foods could simulate meat, such as 3D printed algae-based hydrogel ‘bacon’ which reacts like the real thing when cooked.

So what, then, is a robot? Will we one day get to the stage where, as Isaac Asimov says in I, Robot, ‘You just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans’, or will there always be a clear and discernible difference between robot and human; between the organic and inorganic? One thing is certain: our concept of what a robot is will need to be as flexible as the new generation of robots themselves.

 

Source: https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/01-06-2022-collaborating-on-a-real-life-barbapapa/