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New Disease Link A new killer disease on par with HIV-Aids or ebola is likely to emerge in the next few years and threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today. Potentially deadly new diseases are being identified at an "unprecedented rate", with global epidemics spreading more rapidly than ever, the United Nations agency warned in its annual world health report. At least one new disease has been identified every year since the 1970s. Today, there are 39 that were unknown just over a generation ago.... [ permanent link to this entry ]
Unintended Consequences of Biofuels Link While market forces may eventually correct agflation-driven price increases, the time is now to understand that energy solutions such as biofuel are not "magic bullets" without impact in other areas, and to mitigate those impacts. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Nanotechnology and visions of the future (part 1) Link Introduction Few new technologies have been accompanied by such expansive promises of their potential to change the world as nanotechnology. For some, it will lead to a utopia, in which material want has been abolished and disease is a thing of the past, while others see apocalypse and even the extinction of the human race. Governments and multinationals round the world see nanotechnology as an engine of economic growth, while campaigning groups foresee environmental degradation and a widening of the gap between the rich and poor. But at the heart of these arguments lies a striking lack of consensus about what the technology is or will be, what it will make possible and what its dangers might be. Technologies don’t exist or develop in a vacuum, and nanotechnology is no exception; arguments about the likely, or indeed desirable, trajectory of the technology are as much about their protagonists’ broader aspirations for society as about nanotechnology itself. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Building the Bionic Man Link Bionic Eye: The Argus II bionic eye is currently undergoing trials in 50-75 patients in the US. The system uses a spectacle mounted camera that feeds visual information to 60 electrodes implanted in the retina. Bionic Ear: Cochlear Implant Cochlear implants are one of the oldest pieces of the bionic man, first developed in 1969 by William House and Jack Urban. Although traditionally the devices have been implanted in just one ear, bilateral cochlear implants are currently being trialled as two implants help in localizing sounds. Bionic Brain An artificial hippocampus (part of the brain responsible for storing new memories) is being developed by scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Arrays of electrodes record electrical activity coming from the brain and further arrays send appropriate electical instruction back out. The idea is that the implant will be able to bypass damaged areas of brain tissue by replicating it’s function electronically. Bionic Tongue Scientists at the Luebeck Medical University in Germany have conducted successful tests on pigs of the first bionic tongue. The tongue is constructed from throat muscles linked to a device that transmits nerve signals in a similar way to a heart pacemaker. Bionic Nose We are still waiting for a bionic nose but in the meantime development continues on artifical electronic noses. Uses for such technology include laboratory noses for measuring aromas used in R&D for food, beverage, medical and enviromental applications. They are also being used in hospitals for smelling for ’superbugs’. Bionic Heart In July 2001, Robert Tools received the first completely self-contained artifical heart transplant. The Abiocor replacement heart is designed for patients with end-stage heart failure when all other treatment options have been exhausted. Bionic Lung Surgeon Robert Bartlett successfully replaced 100% of the lung function of sheep with an implantable artificial lung. The design used tiny hollow fibers and the hearts own pumping power. Other designs for artificial lungs have used external mechanical pumps to push the blood through the oxygenating device. Bionic Arm Bionic arms work by detecting movements of chest muscle that have been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to the lost limb. The impulses emitted from the transplanted nerves into the chest muscle are picked up by the harness and processed by a computer which then directs very precise movements of the artificial limb. Bionic Kidney Currently, patients with renal failure rely on external dialysis to replace the functions carried out by the human kidney. Work is ongoing on dialysis technology to decrease the size and complexity which will result in implantable bionic kidneys according to Dr. William Fissell, an internist at the University of Michigan School of Medicine: The first step toward that goal, Fissell said, is improving the effectiveness of external artificial kidneys, or hemodialysis devices. Next would be to make an external device small enough for a patient to wear continuously. The final step would be a device that could be implanted, not unlike a pacemaker for the heart. Bionic Liver Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach from the University of Pittsburgh invented a bionic liver that consisted of a tiny pump, a chamber containing human liver cells, and a catheter connecting it all to the patient. This, and other similar projects such as ELAD (extracorporeal liver assist device), produced by Vitagen Incorporated of La Jolla, California, are intended to be a temporary solutions in the event of liver failure rather than a permanent, internal replacement to the human liver. While work continues on integrating mechanical solutions to liver failure, scientists from Newcastle University in the UK have successfully grown a replacement mini-liver from umbilical cord stem cells. The cells were then placed in a “bioreactor” developed by NASA that mimics the effects of weightlessness and allows them to multiply rapidly. Using hormones and chemicals, the stem cells are then coaxed into turning into liver tissue. Bionic Stomach Martin Wickham from the Institute of Food Research has developed an artificial stomach to help decipher how the human gut reacts to various foods and conditions. This device is not intended to be a bionic stomach replacement though as the artificial stomach is not connected to humans and is not designed to replace stomach activitiy. Bionic Legs There are two interesting developments in bionic legs: 1. Replacement bionic legs for amputees. These bionic legs are attached following an amputation to help the patient regain lost limb function. An example of this type of bionic leg is the Victhom Power Knee 2. Augmented bionic legs for soldiers and other heavy lifting applications. Pictured above is the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, or Bleex, is part of a US defence project designed to be used mainly by infantry soldiers. Bionic Anus Aimed at combating severe feacal incontinence, the Acticon Neosphincter simulates normal sphincter function to give the patient control over defecation through a pressurized system. [ permanent link to this entry ]
SPACE SIMULATIONS GALORE Link In the wake of last week's story about NASA's involvement in virtual worlds, I received several messages offering a second opinion about Second Life, and a sampling is provided below. Some correspondents rightly pointed out that online space simulations go back to an era when games were played with stolen mainframe moments. Virtual space adventures have come a long way since Lunar Lander. You can't go wrong with Orbiter, a free sim program that's based on the real physics of spaceflight. Among the more recent entrants in the field is Space Station Sim, which helps you build and populate a virtual space station. One reviewer called it "a rocket-boosted title that won't break the exploration budget," while another said that trying to build an orbital outpost that passed muster resulted in "more frustration than fun." I have the program at home but haven't yet tried it out myself - so I guess it's time to start launching and find out if I have the Right Stuff. Another recently released program, Lunar Explorer, uses actual NASA data to create a virtual moon. And if it's interplanetary travel you're interested in, the NASA World Wind project virtually offers you the solar system (as well as Earth). For an encyclopedic rundown of space simulators, check out the compendium at Clark Lindsey's HobbySpace Log. Here's a sampling of the messages I've received about Second Life: Don Mitchell: "Virtual reality is a success today, but I don't think Second Life has been an especially dramatic or innovative step. Articles in The Register suggest that Second Life is greatly exaggerated (see: 'The phony economics of Second Life'). Personally I found it to be unattractive, and like most subscribers, I left after a couple hours and never returned. "There have been many high-profile but unsuccessful approaches to Virtual Reality: the VRML standard, head mounted displays, SIMNET, and a variety of failed 3-D social worlds before Second Life. The true pioneers of Virtual Reality have been the inventors of computer games. "Text-based multiplayer games (MUDs) showed that large communities could be built online, and that immersion in virtual reality is mostly a function of the user's mind. Brilliant software developers like John Carmack ('Quake') and Tim Sweeney ('Unreal') developed efficient techniques for displaying complex 3-D worlds on the PC. And products like Everquest and World of Warcraft were among the first really successful and compelling examples of multiuser 3-D virtual reality. "Computer games have driven the high-speed computing and graphics technology of the PC and game consoles. Along with motion-picture special effects, games are the most economically important application of 3D graphics thus far." One correspondent dwelled on Second Life's dark side, which I admit I steered clear of during my SL sojourn as Boole Allen: Tyrel (referring to Second Life and NASA): "Seeing those two phrases together bring tears to my eyes. Second Life is an abomination, explicitly showing all that is wrong with the Internet bundled into a package of pornography and sick fetishes. How the multitudes of reporters somehow don't see the sick sides of Second Life and see it worthy of any sort of reporting is beyond me. (If you want to be 'enlightened' to the true sickness of Second Life, visit somethingawful.com's Second Life Safari). "What also makes me furious is that programs professionally written in lieu of space simulations barely get the gratification they deserve (such as this masterpiece of space flight simulation) ... while these poorly written, memory leak-ridden, crap programs with hardly enough physics actually programmed into the engine to make a ball bounce partially realistically get front-page articles on major Web sites. This shows that true journalistic research seems to be a thing of the past, or the highest bidder gets the front-page advertisement." Another correspondent, however, saw a lot of things to praise in Second Life, and his reference to human modification reminded me of our series on the future of evolution: Maelstrom Baphomet: "...You are so fascinated with what we do with our environments in the virtual world that you haven't seen the most significant frontier; what we do with our bodies. If the avatars on this game are any hint at what is coming when men master genetics, I don't think the world will belong to what we constitute as humanity in about 1000 years. Instead, you will have a highly modified and modular intelligent life form. ... "I'll show you places (PG) where dragons roam free and life cycles of their generations are determined by the sun. And we're not talking about human sized dragons.. we're talking about avatars 2-5 times the size of the default avatar in SL. They're built around primative objects that would normally be clothing for the body. Example, a hat is a head. "Daryth Kennedy is the most dominant artist on the sims in question. She's a longtime friend. I came to her the first night I joined SL in 2005 and I wanted to bring one of my characters to life. I provided her a picture, she provided me a dragon. I gave her the rights to reproduce and sell the default dragon we created which became the Storm Dragon as long as she provided me free copies of any future iterations of it. The dragon in question is the storm dragon. It now exists in three formats. Hatchling, Wyrmling, and Adult officially. Players, such as myself, have modified them to humanoid variants. I actually find it quite relieving to be something other than human when the opportunity presents itself - as that's what I do every day, be human. There's also a lot of gizmos and trinkets that can be collected and assembled through out SL that can lend an air of magic to the dragons, making them all the more fantasy come to life. "What people fail to understand is that SL is not virtual reality. It is reality existing in a different state. It's still there, it's just comprised of electrons on a spinning disk, versus atoms on a spinning globe such as humanity is. The characters have souls, it's the souls of the players, giving the creatures on that world life and taking upon themselves a form reflective of their creativity. I am a Christian, and interestingly enough I find this a demonstration of a verse from Genesis where God creates man in his own image. But what is the image of God? God is all powerful, he can make himself whatever he pleases to be ... and true to the script, in this Second Life ... man makes himself in his own image, the manipulable one given by God." For more about Second Life's religious angle, you'll want to check out today's story in USA Today about the virtual holy season. And if you want to weigh in with your own comments - about space simulations, or about good and evil in virtual worlds - feel free. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Superconductors inspire quantum test for dark energy Link Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. Zeeya Merali, London Dark energy is so befuddling that it's causing some physicists to do their science backwards. "Usually you propose your theory and then work out an experiment to test it," says Christian Beck of Queen Mary, University of London. A few years ago, however, he and his colleague Michael Mackey of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, proposed a table-top experiment to detect the elusive form of energy, without quite knowing why it might work. Now the pair have come up with the theory behind the experiment. "It is certainly an upside-down way of doing things," Beck admits. Dark energy is the mysterious force that many physicists think is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. In 2004, Beck and Mackey claimed that the quantum fluctuations of empty space could be the source of dark energy and suggested a test for this idea. This involved measuring the varying current induced by quantum fluctuations in a device called a Josephson junction – a very thin insulator sandwiched between two superconducting layers. Beck reasoned that if quantum fluctuations and dark energy are related, the current in the Josephson junction would die off beyond a certain frequency (see A table-top test for dark energy?). But they hadn't worked out what exactly caused the cut-off. Now the duo say they know, and last week Beck presented the theory at a conference on unsolved problems for the standard model of cosmology held at Imperial College London. Frequency cut-off Quantum mechanics says that the vacuum of space is seething with virtual photons that are popping in and out of existence. Beck and Mackey suggest that when these virtual photons have a frequency below a certain threshold, they are able to interact gravitationally, contributing to dark energy. Their theory is inspired by superconducting materials. "Below a critical temperature, electrons in the material act in a fundamentally different way, and it starts superconducting," says Beck. "So why shouldn't virtual photons also change character below a certain frequency?" If so, virtual photons should behave differently below a frequency of around 2 terahertz, causing any currents in the Josephson junction to taper off above this frequency. Physicist Paul Warburton at University College London is building such a dark energy detector and could have results next year. Some evidence that dark energy works like this may already have been found. In 2006, Martin Tajmar at the Austrian Research Centers facility in Seibersdorf and his colleagues noticed bizarre behaviour in a spinning niobium ring. At room temperature, niobium does not superconduct, and accelerometers around the ring measured that it was spinning at a constant rate. But once the temperature fell, the niobium started to superconduct, and the accelerometers suddenly picked up a signal (Gravity's secret). Odd acceleration "We measured an acceleration even though the ring's motion hadn't changed at all," says Clovis de Matos, who works at the European Space Agency in Paris and established the theory behind the experiment. He thinks the results could be explained if gravity got a boost inside the superconductor. "Beck and Mackey's gravitationally activated photon would have that effect," he says. The controversial experiment seemed to fall foul of Einstein's equivalence principle, which states that all objects should accelerate under gravity at the same rate. It implied that "if you have two elevators, one made of normal matter and one made of superconducting matter, and accelerate them by the same amount, objects inside will feel different accelerations", de Matos says. Astronomers may have seen a similar violation of the principle (see "Two-speed gravity", below). The odd acceleration detected in the niobium ring also suggests that energy isn't conserved in the superconductor – another major violation of known physics. Dark energy could solve that problem, however. "We did the sums and found out that energy wasn't conserved, but perhaps that was just because we were missing dark energy," de Matos says. Paul Frampton, a cosmologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, thinks Beck and Mackey's reasoning is flawed. "I don't think for a second they'll measure dark energy, but they should certainly try." [ permanent link to this entry ]
Self-Assembling Batteries Link Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT, and his colleagues selected electrode and electrolyte materials that, when combined, organize themselves into the structure of a working battery. The researchers had been looking for ways to exploit short-range forces between micro- and nanoscale particles. After measuring such forces between materials using ultraprecise atomic-force microscope probes, they were able to select materials with just the right combination of attractive and repulsive forces. As a result, similar materials clustered together to form opposite electrodes, while a gap necessary for the battery to function was maintained between the electrodes. The work is the cover story in the current issue of Advanced Functional Materials. Self-assembly is attractive because it could potentially reduce manufacturing costs and allow molecular-level control of the structure of the batteries, leading to materials and devices not easy to make using conventional manufacturing methods. Self-assembly has already been used to create a number of materials and a handful of simple devices, including half a battery. (See "Powerful Batteries That Assemble Themselves.") "Ultimately, the goal is just to chuck a bunch of stuff into a bucket and have it self-assemble into a battery," says Jeff Dahn, professor of chemistry and physics at Dalhousie University, in Canada. Chiang's work creating a prototype self-assembling battery is "really nice science," Dahn says. "Just the fact that you can do it is pretty cool." The researchers faced a number of challenges in designing the self-assembling batteries. They are limited to materials with the electrochemical properties necessary for battery electrodes. And within each electrode, the particles need to pack together tightly, which can be accomplished if they are attracted to each other. The particles must also be attracted to materials that conduct electrons to and from the electrodes. Most important, the battery's two electrodes need to be kept separate--a challenge because they are oppositely charged and therefore tend to attract each other. By relying on their new understanding of short-range forces, Chiang and his colleagues were able to select two electrode materials that, at very short distances on the order of a couple dozen nanometers, had surface repulsive forces greater than their attractive forces. As a result, there is always a space left between the electrodes. The researchers used lithium cobalt oxide and microbeads of graphite for the electrodes--materials commonly used in lithium-ion batteries--pairing them with a carefully selected liquid electrolyte. The electrolyte serves as an insulator, allowing ions to shuttle between the electrodes but forcing electrons to move through an external circuit, where they can be used to power a device. In the researchers' prototype battery, the graphite microbeads pack together to form one electrode and connect to a platinum current collector, all the while staying clear of the lithium cobalt oxide that forms the other electrode. The researchers tested the battery and showed that it could be both discharged and recharged multiple times. The extent to which such batteries will find commercial applications is unclear. Dahn points out that in manufacturing today's batteries, the electrode materials are compressed under enormous pressures to ensure as great as possible energy storage. Such forces could not be applied to a self-assembled battery, so Dahn says it will be "very tough" to compete with conventional batteries in terms of energy capacity and maybe even in terms of cost. Dahn also notes that challenges still remain before such batteries can be commercialized. For example, it is still necessary to find a way to package the self-assembled materials to protect them once they have formed a battery. One potential application is in very small devices. "It should be relatively easy to make a very small footprint device, rice-grain-size and smaller--the size of the head of a pin," Chiang says. He adds that self-assembly could allow more-efficient use of space than conventional batteries can. That's in part because it's possible for the electrode particles to pack into irregular shapes within a device or follow its outside contours. As the researchers move toward such applications, which could include use in distributed sensors for the military, their next step is to replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid polymer to make the battery more rugged. The better understanding of the relevant short-range forces could also be used to select different materials for applications in transistors or certain types of solar cells. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Making the right robot for the right job Link [Podcast: Web site for creating, sharing digital photo slide.] Thrun, who led the winning team in a robotic car race sponsored by the Pentagon in 2005, was one of four experts who spoke about the current and future state of robotics at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The association today wraps up a five-day event that attracted researchers from 60 countries to explore many fields including robotics. The term "robot" was coined in the 1920s when Czech playwright Karel Capek used the word "robota" -- relentless work or drudgery in his own tongue -- to describe a factory of mechanical creatures that eventually revolt. Deceased science fiction author Isaac Asimov popularized robots in the 1950s. The 1977 "Star Wars" movie made heroes of C-3PO and R2-D2. As Saturday's talks revealed, the convergence of key technologies hint that, within decades, robots may be able to perform tasks that were hitherto only fiction. These advances include: -- cheap, effective sensors that substitute for biological senses; -- sophisticated software and computers that approximate nerves and brains; and -- the ability to manufacture tiny mechanisms to mimic muscles. Thrun's robotic car is a prime example of the first two trends. His vehicle is a Volkswagen that is essentially the same as any driver-operated car. His task is to marry sensing systems placed atop the vehicle -- they resemble the lights on a police car -- with software being written by his Stanford collaborator Mike Montemerlo. The sensors include a bug-eyed camera that offers a 360-degree field of view and a novel device that uses light, instead of sound, to paint radar-like three-dimensional pictures of the roadway. The input from these and other sensors must be assembled and comprehended by software before the robo-car can act. Here, Thrun said in a briefing before Saturday's talk, human parents have a huge advantage when teaching teens to drive: Kids can discern the difference between a garbage pail and a pedestrian, whereas artificial intelligence systems must be trained to recognize and understand the object before they react by stopping or swerving. Thrun is currently working on a second-generation robo-car that will participate in another Pentagon-sponsored race in November -- this time trying to navigate city streets, possibly on a military base. At least Thrun didn't have to re-invent the wheel. But panelist Robert Full, a UC Berkeley biology professor, showed conferees Saturday how his lab is re-engineering the leg to design robots that can walk over rubble or climb walls. Full, who studies insects and animals as models for multi-legged machines, showed video of a vertical treadmill used to study how gecko lizards climb. Such studies have revealed that they use millions of microscopic hairs that grow on the surfaces of their toes to grasp the molecules of the wall. "They look like the worst case of split ends you could imagine,'' Full quipped. San Francisco State University professor David Calkins, looked the furthest ahead suggesting that robots would eventually become personal companions, answering questions, serving as butlers, even reading children bedtime stories. Calkins said life-like robots could be used in elder care, performing routine medical functions like dispensing pills in hospitals, and serving as home care providers. He hinted that robot companionship could one day go, as teens once said, all the way, for "geek bachelors who can't get a girlfriend." UC Berkeley engineering professor Ken Goldberg talked about using "smart" video cameras to search for proof that the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird once thought extinct, may still exist in pockets of wooded swamplands in Arkansas. Using cameras to scan the skies, and software to sift through endless hours of video for flying birds that might be this sought-after creature, Goldberg said robotic vision systems might settle a debate that has divided birdwatchers. But Goldberg said the same automated technologies could be used to scan crowds on city streets. "There are big privacy implications in this," he said. In many ways today's robots remain as laughable as computers were 20 years ago. Full showed off a wall-crawling device called the StickyBot that had some trouble climbing the windows at the back of the meeting room. Full made a reference to a future in which mechanical arms and legs give people the sort of powers envisioned in the 1970s television series, "The Six Million Dollar Man." "People who were once thought to be disabled could have the possibility of being super beings," said Full, adding that while he isn't sure how society will deal with it, this issue is coming. [ permanent link to this entry ]
The Future of Sustainability Link [ permanent link to this entry ]
Driving a Wheelchair with Your Shirt Link Adaptive, sensor-laden garments could provide a new way for quadriplegics to control their wheelchairs. The system, which is still in an early stage of development, identifies the ideal set of movements that can be employed as control commands for each individual user. The garment is printed with 52 flexible, piezoresistive sensors developed at the University of Pisa. These sensors are made of electroactive polymers that change voltage depending on the angle at which they are stretched. The sensors can detect fine scale movements of the upper body and arms. [ permanent link to this entry ]
More Small Comfort: Bacteria Powered Motor Link In a very interesting example "Small Comfort" as well as the fusion of the non-living with the living, scientists in Japan have invented the first motor to be powered by bacteria.  The micro-motor relies on bacteria gliding along a silicon track to spin a silicon dioxide rotor. Moving at speeds of up to 5 micrometers per second, the bacteria can power the 20 micrometer diameter rotors at rates of up to 2.6 rpm. The work, led by Yuichi Hiratsuka, used bacteria of the species Mycoplasma mobile. However, they point out that many species of bacteria are mobile, moving towards light or to certain chemical attractants, creating a wide range of potential power sources for micro-pumps or micro-robots, or might be used in the construction of electrical generating systems which could convert abundant energy sources like glucose into electrical energy. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Small Comfort on Fringehog Link In case you haven't already had the pleasure, FringeHog is a media project exploring how ideas about the future emerge, migrate and interact in society and business to catalyze change. They've got some cool things going on and it's well worth a look and a listen. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Of Rice and Hen: Fashions from the Farm Link In the future, it might be perfectly normal to wear suits and dresses made of chicken feathers or rice straw. But don’t worry: These clothes won’t resemble fluffy plumage or hairy door mats. Scientists at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln plan to develop these agricultural waste products into conventional-looking fabrics as a way to reduce the use of petroleum-based synthetic fabrics. With millions of tons of chicken feathers and rice straw available worldwide each year, these agricultural wastes represent an abundant, cheap and renewable alternative to petroleum-based synthetic fibers, Yang says. And unlike petroleum-based fibers, these agro-fibers are biodegradable. Chicken feathers and rice straw also could become “green” fabrics used in carpets, automobiles, building materials and a host of other everyday applications — all at potentially less cost and with novel and sometimes superior properties than their synthetic counterparts. [ permanent link to this entry ]
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