Steve Irwin's Biocorder
Summary
Irwin has a biocorder in his scientific kit. Its primary function is to detect and potentially identify biological material by comparing it against its (limited) database of known materials. It also has some capacity to extrapolate probable information about unknown materials based on known materials.
General Info
- There are a variety of makes and models of biocorders, but scans of a given sample will be identical regardless of make or model used (same data, obviously different metadata like timestamp, scientist name)
- Where biocorders differ is in their capacity for analysis: a given biocorder has its own database of scans, its own machine models for analysis, and limited horsepower
- In general, biologists share scans by contributing to a standard
shared database, and there are shared standard models that
scientists collaborate on
- There is some professional motivation for field biologists to find new types of samples and being the first to scan and share them
- But technically you don't have to share (i.e. often large corporations may have their own special/secret databases and/or models)
- In general, a field biologist might do some rough preliminary analysis on their personal biocorder, but would be expected to take the scan to (personal) lab(s) for better analysis (bigger database, more horsepower)
- Theoretical biologists just work on the models and often downplay how much their work relies on the input datasets of scans created by the field biologists
Capabilities
- It scans physical samples
- It can store its scans for later use / analysis / sharing
- At its most basic, it is an accurate spectroscope
- It scans samples looking for known biological materials (such as the various alien equivalents to DNA, amino acids, etc.) in a sample
- It has some capacity to identify unknown biological materials in a sample
- Its accuracy in identifying a sample and/or its properties is (from
highest to lowest):
- Sample is from a known (previously documented) species
- Sample is from an unknown species, but is from a known system (with other known species)
- Sample is from an unknown species, but is from a known lifeform base (carbon-based DNA life, etc.)
- Sample is from an unknown species with an unknown lifeform base
- Given a DNA-equivalent, it can try to predict what the species looks like and basic physical attributes by attempting to simulate the process of "building the DNA"
Limitations
- It can only scan physical samples, not energy waves, etc.
- It only works very close range (less than 3 inches)
- It is a biologists tool - it's not meant to do what other
specialist "corders" might
- Ex: It's not a medical device, it can't detect injuries or conditions (though it could detect "foreign" biological material in a host)
- It can't detect whether something is dead or not
- Most of its "advanced" functionality is powered by the probability predictions of theoretical biology models - even if the device had the horsepower (it doesn't) the models themselves loose accuracy the deeper you push them (like weather forecasts)
- It cannot determine behavior, social hierarchies, ecological niche, etc.
- Even the predictions on what the species looks like can suffer greatly from "dinosaur artist drawing a hippo based on its skeleton"
Relevance to Irwin
- Irwin makes and shares his scans as a matter of due course
- Technically, Irwin's career and reputation is solidified by the sheer quantity of scans he's made both in this cluster and others, and contributed to the standard database
- Philosophically, Irwin puts more stock into the information he gathers first-hand and eventually shares in his books - the models are (admittedly often good) educated guesses, but his notes are real gathered facts
- Irwin's experience means he has a very keen understanding for just how far to trust analysis results