ABOUT

I will use this thread as an information hub which aims to inform as many people as possible about the current advancements and capabilities of science and technology. Technology is rapidly developing -- faster than many of us realize -- and with this thread I aim to provide a clear picture of just how quickly this is happening through daily reporting of developments and breakthroughs around the world.

I hope to actively engage as many people as possible in recognizing that our current technological development is far more advanced than the majority of humans currently realize. By raising awareness of emerging technologies that can free humans from unnecessary work, while practically and efficiently providing for all with minimal, if any, human effort, we hope to build a global understanding of how this technology can improve everyday life for human beings -- making the human species much more likely to achieve its productive and innovative potential.

The news will fall under different categories as below:
ENERGY
TRANSPORTATION
BIOTECHNOLOGY
ROBOTICS
APPLIED SCIENCES
NANOTECHNOLOGY
SPACE SCIENCE
RESEARCH

UPDATE: Some of you might have found the news here interesting, I'm glad you did. However, often people look at new technology in a perspective that is quite passive, which means that they are amazed by the new technology, then stop there. I hope people can look at technology from a different perspective, it is that all these technology, do not require money. I repeat, they do not require money (it's just printed papers with no function purpose other than a value people give it). What is required is the people who are interested in the research, the tools and resources for their research, and finally, production / application. Unfortunately, money often comes in the way of stopping technology from progressing as fast as possible. In some of these news, you can see that some nations are adopting new technology, but mainly for military/political/business purposes, when all these wonderful technology can be used to improve the lives of billions of people altogether, ridding unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings all around the world. This, is the perspective I hope you can stand in.

Please view these videos on what science & technology can do for us:
Awakening


Automation is Here video series (Directed and produced by Alfred Henry III):









Logistics



Restaurants




TED: 7 Species of Robots


I.T.
ISP-Free Internet
Computing a theory of everything
Wolfram Alpha

A.I.
Artificial Human Brain 10 Years Away
Supercomputer Beats Human Champs in 'Jeopardy!' Game


For the sake of integrity, I never alter the content of the articles although they portray money and politics. They are very true and people need to see it.

Note: Kindly refrain from posting in order to keep the thread clean. You may discuss it in your own thread. If there are no sources provided, just copy the news title and search it.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 27 2010, 03:19 PM

ENERGY



World's most efficient solar cell 'more reliable than a Swiss clock'

Manufacturers of the world's most efficient solar cell claim the device is more reliable than that benchmark of dependency - the Swiss clock.

The latest in the HIT series of solar cells, the HIT-N240SE10 manufactured by SANYO Component Europe GmbH has the world's highest cell conversion efficiency rating of 21.6 percent. Essentially this means that fewer units are needed to generate larger amounts of energy.

Based on the percentage of warranty cases against solar units supplied, SANYO claim that the cell has a reliability rating of 99.9962 percent, meaning than the new cells are more reliable than Swiss clocks, which SANYO claim have a reliability rating of 99.9930 percent.

Due to its high efficiency rating and reliability, the product is targeted towards home owners hoping to benefit from alternative energy but constrained by limited installation space and concerns over reliability.

Other alternative energy solutions for home owners with limited installation space may come in the form of ground breaking technology being developed by Cambridge University. In September 2010 Cambridge University in partnership with the Carbon Trust announced the development of organic solar cells attached to transparent, flexible sheeting which could simply be "rolled out" and attached to surfaces such as windows, therefore reducing the need for a traditional installation space such as a roof.

The HIT-N240SE10 is expected to be released on a commercial basis across Europe in early 2011.

Prior to the release of this new photovoltaic module the highest efficiency rating of a commercial solar cell was 21.1 percent, which was also achieved by a SANYO HIT cell.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 14 2010, 10:19 AM

ENERGY



Engineers Mimic Photosynthesis to Harvest Light Energy

Plants take advantage of quantum mechanics to harvest sunlight with near-perfect efficiency—though only roughly 2 percent of that capture sunlight ultimately gets stored as chemical energy. Now scientists are studying how this light-harvesting step of photosynthesis is optimized by nature to learn how to mimic it in engineered systems for use in solar cells or artificial leaves that produce fuels directly from the sun.

Plants rely on chromophores—molecules that absorb certain wavelengths of visible light while reflecting others—to harvest energy from the sun. When sunlight hits a plant, electrons in the topmost chromophores absorb energy from incoming photons and then transfer it from the newly energized molecule to another molecule at a lower energy state. That transfer repeats itself via a chain of molecules, a cascade of rapid energy pass-offs that ultimately separates an electron from the last chromophore in the chain, which provides energy that is stored by the plant as a carbohydrate.

In this way chromophores perform three functions: they absorb energy from sunlight (acting as "acceptors"); they donate the energy they absorbed (as "donors"); and they transfer energy to another molecule (as "bridges"). Using measurements from other researchers of the intensity of photons absorbed and emitted by chromophores, chemist Jianshu Cao and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a computer model to arrive at the ratio of acceptors, donors and bridges that optimizes the efficiency of the light-harvesting step of photosynthesis.

The findings: there is an optimal ratio of 10 donors for each acceptor in order to efficiently transfer energy in a natural photosynthetic system with just those two chromophore functions. Adding bridges to an arrangement of donors and acceptors then further increases the efficiency of energy transfer, Cao says.

Chromophores are arranged in bundles in plant cells, and these structures and configurations influence light-harvesting efficiency as well. University of California, Berkeley, chemist Matt Francis created artificial light-harvesting systems by attaching chromophores to tobacco mosaic virus molecules. Modeling these genetically engineered systems, Cao found that one structure—stacks of chromophore disks—could be tuned to improve the overall efficiency by combining multiple disks of similar size but different combinations of bridges, acceptors and donors. One particular configuration of two disks comprising bridges and acceptors stacked between disks made entirely of donors is a good candidate for designing artificial light-harvesting devices, according to the study published October 21 in The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Earlier research found that photosynthesis takes advantage of an effect known as quantum coherence. In one study researchers found that the energy absorbed by a chromophore travels through multiple networks at the same time in order to take the quickest path. Other research observed that "noise," or random fluctuations, at the quantum level helps move energy from chromophores to the reaction centers of photosynthesis. Building on this work, Cao and M.I.T. chemist Robert Silbey modeled a light-harvesting system in green sulfur bacteria and found that photosynthesis is most efficient when there is an intermediate amount of noise in the system. "In experimental conditions one always tries to reduce noise," Cao says, "but in a quantum mechanical system, it's actually useful to have some noise."

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 14 2010, 10:19 AM

APPLIED SCIENCES



Wireless at the speed of plasma

BEFORE you leave for work in the morning, your smartphone downloads the latest episode of a television series. Your drive to work is easy in spite of fog, thanks to in-car radar and the intelligent transport software that automatically guides you around traffic jams, allowing you to arrive in time for a presentation in which high-definition video is streamed flawlessly to your tablet computer in real time.

This vision of the future may not be far off, thanks to a new type of antenna that makes use of plasma consisting of only electrons. It could revolutionise high-speed wireless communications, miniature radar and even energy weapons.

Existing directional antennas that transmit high-frequency radio waves require expensive materials or precise manufacturing. But the new antenna, called Plasma Silicon Antenna, or PSiAN, relies on existing low-cost manufacturing techniques developed for silicon chips. It has been developed by Plasma Antennas of Winchester, UK.

PSiAN consists of thousands of diodes on a silicon chip. When activated, each diode generates a cloud of electrons - the plasma - about 0.1 millimetres across. At a high enough electron density, each cloud reflects high-frequency radio waves like a mirror. By selectively activating diodes, the shape of the reflecting area can be changed to focus and steer a beam of radio waves. This "beam-forming" capability makes the antennas crucial to ultrafast wireless applications, because they can focus a stream of high-frequency radio waves that would quickly dissipate using normal antennas.

"Beam-forming antennas are the key for enabling next-generation, high-data-rate indoor wireless applications," says Anmol Sheth, at Intel Labs in Seattle. "Without beam-forming antennas it would be difficult to scale to the levels of density of wireless devices we expect to have in future homes."

There are two types of plasma antenna: semiconductor or solid-state antennas, such as PSiAN, and gas antennas. Both could fit the bill, but solid-state antennas are favoured as they are more compact and have no moving parts.

That makes them attractive for use in a new generation of ultrafast Wi-Fi, known as Wi-Gig. Existing Wi-Fi tops out at 54 megabits of data per second, whereas the Wi-Gig standard is expected to go up to between 1 and 7 gigabits per second - fast enough to download a television programme in seconds. Wi-Gig requires higher radio wave frequencies, though: 60 gigahertz rather than the 2.4 GHz used by Wi-Fi. Signals at these frequencies disperse rapidly unless they are tightly focused, which is where PSiAN comes in.

Ian Russell, business development director at Plasma Antennas, says that PSiAN is small enough to fit inside a cellphone. "Higher frequencies mean shorter wavelengths and hence smaller antennas," he says. "The antenna actually becomes cheaper at the smaller scales because you need less silicon."

The antennas shouldn't raise any health issues, as they are covered by existing safety standards. The narrow beam means there is less "overspill" of radiation than with existing omnidirectional antennas.

As well as speeding up Wi-Fi, plasma antennas could also allow cars to come with low-cost miniature radar systems to help drivers avoid collisions. Their millimetre wavelengths could be used to "see" through fog or rain, and another set of antennas could listen for real-time updates on traffic and road conditions.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 14 2010, 10:20 AM

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Injecting New Bone

An artificial bone-like material could speed up recovery from injury.

Today, a broken hip usually means surgery and extensive rehab. But what if all you needed was an injection and a shorter recovery period? That's the vision that inspires Thomas Webster, an associate professor of engineering at Brown University.

Webster has developed a nanomaterial that quickly solidifies at body temperature into a bone-like substance. This week, Brown announced a deal with medical device maker Audax Medical of Littleton, Massachusetts, to further develop the material and launch trials in animals.

The material contains the same nucleic acids as DNA, Webster says. Each molecule has two covalent bonds and links with other molecules to form a tube. Hence it's called a "twin-base linker." (Audax will develop it under the name Arxis.)

"It self-assembles into a nano structure, emulates natural tissue, solidifies quickly at body temperature, and can be made to match the mechanical properties of the tissue you inject it into," Webster says.

That sounds great, says tissue engineer Kevin Shakesheff, of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, but it will also need to sustain weight like bone can.

He and his colleagues have developed a different material for the same purpose. "If you press down on our material, it's as strong as bone, but if you try and snap it, it's nowhere near as strong," he says.

Webster says he's confident that his material, which has so far only been tested in a laboratory, will be able to bear weight like bone.

"It will have that strength after solidifying in the body—after a couple of minutes," he says.

Ali Khademhosseini, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston says Webster's material sounds interesting, and there's plenty of room for innovation in the area of bone-like materials.

Today, metal plates are often inserted to provide strength and support while bones, such as the hip joint, slowly heal. But the metal degrades over time, and particularly in younger patients, it may eventually have to be replaced. Khademhosseini says tissue engineers are looking for materials that will better integrate with the body and last longer. If Webster succeeds in developing such a material to replace metal entirely, that would transform the field, he says.

Audax will begin testing Arxis in the hip and knee, according to company president and CEO Mark Johanson. Johanson hopes to have the first product ready for market in 2013. The company recently raised $1 million and plans to raise more capital soon, Johanson says. If Arxis is injectable on an outpatient basis, the sales volume will be high and the price relatively low, Johanson predicts. An injection is likely to run $1,000 to $1,500.

"The material can be processed and manufactured relatively inexpensively, which positions it well for the higher-volume-procedural market," Johanson says.

SPACE SCIENCE



Curving Mirrors in Space

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is a wonder of modern engineering. As the planned successor to the Hubble Space telescope, even the smallest of parts on this giant observatory will play a critical role in its performance. A new video takes viewers behind the Webb's mirrors to investigate "actuators," one component that will help Webb focus on some of the earliest objects in the universe.

The video called "Got Your Back" is part of an on-going video series about the Webb telescope called "Behind the Webb." It was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md. and takes viewers behind the scenes with scientists and engineers who are creating the Webb telescope's components. During the 3 minute and 12 second video, STScI host Mary Estacion interviewed people involved in the project at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo. and showed the actuators in action.

The Webb telescope will study every phase in the history of our universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the big bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own solar system. Measuring the light this distant light requires a primary mirror 6.5 meters (21 feet 4 inches) across -- six times larger than the Hubble Space telescope's mirror! Launching a mirror this large into space isn't feasible. Instead, Webb engineers and scientists innovated a unique solution -- building 18 mirrors that will act in unison as one large mirror. These mirrors are packaged together into three sections that fold up -- much easier to fit inside a rocket. Each mirror is made from beryllium and weighs approximately 20 kilograms (46 pounds). Once in space, getting these mirrors to focus correctly on faraway galaxies is another challenge entirely. Actuators, or tiny mechanical motors, provide the answer to achieving a single perfect focus.

The primary and secondary mirror segments are both moved by six actuators that are attached to the back of the mirrors. The primary segment has an additional actuator at the center of the mirror that adjusts its curvature. The third mirror segment remains stationary. Lee Feinberg, Webb Optical Telescope Element Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. explained "Aligning the primary mirror segments as though they are a single large mirror means each mirror is aligned to 1/10,000th the thickness of a human hair. This alignment has to be done at 50 degrees above absolute zero! What's even more amazing is that the engineers and scientists working on the Webb telescope literally had to invent how to do this."

With the actuators in place, Brad Shogrin, Webb Telescope Manager at Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo, details the next step: attaching the hexapod (meaning six-footed) assembly and radius of curvature subsystem (ROC). "Radius of curvature" refers to the distance to the center point of the curvature of the mirror. Feinberg added "To understand the concept in a more basic sense, if you change that radius of curvature, you change the mirror's focus."



This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 15 2010, 10:45 AM

APPLIED SCIENCES



BendDesk introduced: the desk that is a touch screen

A research project from the RWTH Aachen University Media Computing Group and Department of Work and Cognitive Psychology in Germany is developing a desk in which the entire curved surface is a multi-touch touch screen and display, removing the need for keyboard, mouse and separate display.

Most desks these days include a vertical display for digital information, such as a PC or laptop screen, and user interfaces and input devices on the horizontal surface, such as a keyboard and mouse. The desk surface would also often be covered with papers, and objects such as pens and coffee mugs.

The designers of BendDesk say the vertical and horizontal areas of the desk are separated and this makes it difficult to move documents from one surface to the other. They also point out that the user interacts differently with the vertical and horizontal areas of the desk, for example, interacting with objects on the vertical area with a mouse, and the horizontal with a pen. They say the project is their “vision of a future workspace that allows continuous interaction between both areas.”
The result of their vision is BendDesk, which has horizontal and vertical surfaces made of a single 104 cm x 104 cm piece of bendable acrylic. The entire area serves as both display and multi-touch screen, which enables the user to interact with virtual objects anywhere on the surface. The system uses two projectors, three cameras for touch input, and strips of infrared light emitting diodes (IR-LEDs) set into the sides of the desk surface.



The developers, Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, and Professor Jan Borchers, head of the Media Computing Group, and Christine Sutter from the Department of Work and Cognitive Psychology at RWTH Aachen University, say they took special care over the ergonomics and users can sit comfortably at the desk and can still place physical objects on it. However, they note in their paper that some of the test volunteers became fatigued after only a few minutes, and the volunteers were almost all males between the ages of 24 and 32, and more work would need to be done on exploring the ergonomic aspects.

Possible applications for the BendDesk include manipulation via multi-touch gestures of objects such as photographs, documents, or videos, and video games.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 15 2010, 10:45 AM

APPLIED SCIENCES



Chip provides its own power

Microchips that 'harvest' the energy they need from their own surroundings, without depending on batteries or mains electricity. That will be possible now that Dutch researchers from the University of Twente's MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, together with colleagues from the universities of Nankai (China) and Utrecht, have for the first time succeeded in manufacturing a microchip with an efficient solar cell placed on top of the microelectronics.

The researchers presented their findings at the International Electron Device Meeting that was held from 5 to 8 December in San Francisco.
The placement of a solar cell directly on top of the electronics means the autonomous chip does not need batteries. In this way, for example, a sensor chip can be produced, complete with the necessary intelligence and even an antenna for wireless communication. However, the chip's energy use must be well below 1 milliwatt, say the researchers. The chip can then even collect enough energy to operate indoors.
The simplest solution would seem to be to manufacture the solar cell separately and then fit it on top of the electronics, but this is not the most efficient production process, so instead the researchers use the chip as a base and apply the solar cell to it layer by layer. This uses fewer materials, and also ultimately performs better. But the combination is not trouble-free: there is a risk that the steps in the production of the solar cell will damage the electronics so that they function less efficiently.

For this reason the researchers decided to use solar cells made of amorphous silicon or CIGS (copper - indium - gallium - selenide). The manufacturing procedure for these cells does not influence the electronics, and these types of solar cells also produce sufficient power, even in low light. Tests have shown that the electronics and the solar cells function properly, and the manufacturing process is also highly suitable for industrial serial production with the use of standard processes.

ENERGY



Salty solar plant stores sun's heat

DRIVING through the baking landscape of Almería, it is no mystery why this Spanish province is home to a novel type of power station that generates electricity by harnessing the heat of the sun.

For over 20 years, the Plataforma Solar de Almería, sited on an almost rainless plain in the south of the province, has been at the forefront of research into solar thermal power generation. Helped by Spain's sunny climate and generous government subsidies, this has led to the construction of 10 solar thermal plants across the country in the last three years alone. Some 50 more are planned.

Within the centre, parabolic dishes lie strewn about like huge discarded toys, but the site is dominated by a giant white tower. Thousands of mirrors, known as heliostats, surround it, catching sunlight and focusing it onto a receiver on top of the tower. This concentrated sunlight produces superheated steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.

Till now, the mainstay of solar thermal power has been the parabolic trough system, in which carefully shaped parabolic mirrors direct solar energy onto glass tubes containing a heat-absorbing fluid. One of the drawbacks of such installations is that to keep costs down they need large areas of flat ground.

With solar towers this is unnecessary. The heliostats can hug the land at different levels and be individually calibrated to beam their rays to the receiver atop the tower.

Another advantage of towers is that they can operate at high temperatures. The heat-absorbing liquid used in the trough system is an oil that can only cope with temperatures up to 400 °C. With the tower there is no need for an intermediate fluid, and steam passing though the receiver is heated directly to around 550 °C. The higher temperature means the heat energy can be converted to electricity more efficiently.

However, because the towers produce steam directly, they cannot store the heat they collect and so stop generating electricity once the sun sets. A new Spanish project, the Gemasolar tower near Seville, may have solved this problem. The 19-megawatt tower will be the first in the world to use a mixture of molten salts to transfer heat from the receiver on top of the tower to a heat exchanger where steam to drive the turbines is generated.

The salt mixture, made up of sodium and potassium nitrates, can operate at the high temperatures generated in a solar tower's receiver. Because the hot molten salt can be stored until the heat it contains is needed, the Gemasolar plant is expected to be able to run for 15 hours without sunlight. The best parabolic trough plants can only manage about half that time.

If all goes well when Gemasolar launches next year, Spain should be able to profit from its scorching climate for some time to come.

APPLIED SCIENCES



Researchers open the door to biological computers

Genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits. Using yeast cells, a group of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has taken a groundbreaking step towards being able to build complex systems in the future where the body’s own cells help to keep us healthy. The study was presented recently in an article in the scientific journal Nature.

“Even though engineered cells can’t do the same job as a real computer, our study paves the way for building complex constructions from these cells,” says Kentaro Furukawa at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Cell- and Molecular Biology, one of the researchers behind the study. “In the future we expect that it will be possible to use similar cell-to-cell communication systems in the human body to detect changes in the state of health, to help fight illness at an early stage, or to act as biosensors to detect pollutants in connection with our ability to break down toxic substances in the environment.”

Combining biology and technology

Synthetic biology is a relatively new area of research. One application is the design of biological systems that are not found in nature. For example, researchers have successfully constructed a number of different artificial connections within genetically modified cells, such as circuit breakers, oscillators and sensors.

Some of these artificial networks could be used for industrial or medical applications. Despite the huge potential for these artificial connections, there have been many technical limitations to date, mainly because the artificial systems in individual cells rarely work as expected, which has a major impact on the results.

Biotechnology challenges the world of computers

Using yeast cells, the research team at the University of Gothenburg has now produced synthetic circuits based on gene-regulated communication between cells. The yeast cells have been modified genetically so that they sense their surroundings on the basis of set criteria and then send signals to other yeast cells by secreting molecules. The various cells can thus be combined like bricks of Lego to produce more complicated circuits. Using a construction of yeast cells with different genetic modifications, it is possible to carry out more complicated “electronic” functions than would be the case with just one type of cells.

The University of Gothenburg research team is headed by professor Stefan Hohmann, and also comprises Kentaro Furukawa and Jimmy Kjellén.

The article Distributed biological computation with multicellular engineered networks, published in the scientific journal Nature on 8 December, was the result of a partnership with two Spanish research teams at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. The work forms part of the EU CELLCOMPUT project.

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Sugar and Cornstarch Make Environmentally Safer Plastics

Environmentalists around the world agree -- plastic bags are choking our landfills and polluting our seas. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is developing new laboratory methods using corn starch and sugar to help sustainable plastics -- those that biodegrade and are even tougher than those made from petrochemicals -- compete in the industry.

The answer to the problem, Prof. Moshe Kol of Tel Aviv University's School of Chemistry says, is a new variety of catalysts -- substances that initiate or sustain chemical reactions in other substances. His team has already developed several of these new catalysts, and it's currently expanding its activities in partnership with the University of Aachen in Germany and the University of Bath in England.
Prof. Kol is improving the process of making these "green" plastics stronger and more heat-resistant, allowing them to be used in a variety of ways, from the automotive industry to Starbucks coffee cups. The type of plastic the partners are working on, polylactic acid or PLA, is a kind of biodegradable plastic made from renewable plant sources such as corn, wheat or sugarcane. It's already used in bottles, bags, and film, and like polyester can even be woven into clothes.
Making stronger and biodegradable "Lego blocks"

The new catalysts enable the polymerization of lactide, which is the building block of a corn-based plastic. Conventional catalysts have limited control of the way in which these building blocks -- the corn-based molecules -- are assembled -- and they may be toxic. But Prof. Kol's catalysts can be used more safely and efficiently, making "green" plastics more commercially feasible.
"The structure of these corn-based plastics depends on several parameters. The most important is the character of the building blocks, like Lego blocks, that hold the material together," says Prof. Kol. He aims to make sustainable corn-based plastics complement or replace the petroleum-based plastics which can take a millenium to degrade, leaving harmful pollutants in the soil and in water. Corn-based plastic wouldn't cause any adverse health effects and would be expected to biodegrade in a compost bin in a matter of months.

Lord of the plastic ring

Plastics won't be going away any time soon, Prof. Kol suggests, pointing to the movement from concrete or stainless steel to plastic in a variety of industries. Replacing the steel manifold of a car with a plastic substitute would cut down on fuel consumption, and replacing a water pipe made of concrete or metal with one made of corrosion- and crack-resistant plastic may improve the quality of our drinking water.

For disposable items, a perfect plastic material would be a polymer made from renewable resources, that degrades to its original non-toxic form. Plastics made from corn sugar are the most desirable in the industry at the moment.
The preliminary results of Prof. Kol's efforts are in, and the plastics that he and his team produce in the lab look and feel like polystyrene, which could be used for making drinking cups, for example. Rigid and transparent, the drinking cups currently only work for liquids under 122 degrees Fahrenheit, but they represent a first big step into greening plastics and the chemical industry.

ROBOTICS



Robot Arm Improves Performance of Brain-Controlled Device

During the experiment, monkeys used their brain signals to move a computer cursor (red circle) to randomly placed targets (squares). When visual and proprioceptive feedback were included, the monkey's hand was moved by a robotic exoskeleton. The additional sensory information resulted in the cursor hitting the target faster and more directly. (Credit: Courtesy, with permission: Hatsopoulos, et al. The Journal of Neuroscience 2010.)

Devices that translate brain activity into the movement of a computer cursor or an external robotic arm have already proven successful in humans. But in these early systems, vision was the only tool a subject could use to help control the motion.
Adding a robot arm that provided kinesthetic information about movement and position in space improved the performance of monkeys using a brain-machine interface in a study published December 14 in The Journal of Neuroscience. Incorporating this sense may improve the design of "wearable robots" to help patients with spinal cord injuries, researchers said.

"A lot of patients that are motor-disabled might have partial sensory feedback," said Nicholas Hatsopoulos, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair of Computational Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. "That got us thinking that maybe we could use this natural form of feedback with wearable robots to provide that kind of feedback."

In the experiments, monkeys controlled a cursor without actively moving their arm via a device that translated activity in the primary motor cortex of their brain into cursor motion. While wearing a sleeve-like robotic exoskeleton that moved their arm in tandem with the cursor, the monkey's control of the cursor improved, hitting targets faster and via straighter paths than without the exoskeleton.



"We saw a 40 percent improvement in cursor control when the robotic exoskeleton passively moved the monkeys' arm," Hatsopoulos said. "This could be quite significant for daily activities being performed by a paralyzed patient that was equipped with such a system."
When a person moves their arm or hand, they use sensory feedback called proprioception to control that motion. For example, if one reaches out to grab a coffee mug, sensory neurons in the arm and hand send information back to the brain about where one's limbs are positioned and moving. Proprioception tells a person where their arm is positioned, even if their eyes are closed.
But in patients with conditions where sensory neurons die out, executing basic motor tasks such as buttoning a shirt or even walking becomes exceptionally difficult. Paraplegic subjects in the early clinical trials of brain-machine interfaces faced similar difficulty in attempting to move a computer cursor or robot arm using only visual cues. Those troubles helped researchers realize the importance of proprioception feedback, Hatsopoulos said.

"In the early days when we were doing this, we didn't even consider sensory feedback as an important component of the system," Hatsopoulos said. "We really thought it was just one-way: signals were coming from the brain, and then out to control the limb. It's only more recently that the community has really realized that there is this loop with feedback coming back."

Reflecting this loop, the researchers on the new study also observed changes in the brain activity recorded from the monkeys when sensory feedback was added to the set-up. With proprioception feedback, the information in the cell firing patterns of the primary motor cortex contained more information than in trials with only visual feedback, Hatsopoulos said, reflecting an improved signal-to-noise ratio.
The improvement seen from adding proprioception feedback may inform the next generation of brain-machine interface devices, Hatsopoulos said. Already, scientists are developing different types of "wearable robots" to augment a person's natural abilities. Combining a decoder of cortical activity with a robotic exoskeleton for the arm or hand can serve a dual purpose: allowing a paralyzed subject to move the limb, while also providing sensory feedback.

To benefit from this solution, a paralyzed patient must have retained some residual sensory information from the limbs despite the loss of motor function -- a common occurrence, Hatsopoulos said, particularly in patients with ALS, locked-in syndrome, or incomplete spinal cord injury. For patients without both motor and sensory function, direct stimulation of sensory cortex may be able to simulate the sensation of limb movement. Further research in that direction is currently underway, Hatsopoulos said.
"I think all the components are there; there's nothing here that's holding us back conceptually," Hatsopoulos said. "I think using these wearable robots and controlling them with the brain is, in my opinion, probably the most promising approach to take in helping paralyzed individuals regain the ability to move."

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Plasma therapy: An alternative to antibiotics?

Cold plasma jets could be a safe, effective alternative to antibiotics to treat multi-drug resistant infections, says a study published this week in the January issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

The team of Russian and German researchers showed that a ten-minute treatment with low-temperature plasma was not only able to kill drug-resistant bacteria causing wound infections in rats but also increased the rate of wound healing. The findings suggest that cold plasmas might be a promising method to treat chronic wound infections where other approaches fail.

The team from the Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow tested a low-temperature plasma torch against bacterial species including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. These species are common culprits of chronic wound infections and are able to resist the action of antibiotics because they can grow together in protective layers called biofilms. The scientists showed not only that plasma was lethal to up to 99% of bacteria in laboratory-grown biofilms after five minutes, but also that plasma killed about 90 % of the bacteria (on average) infecting skin wounds in rats after ten minutes.

Plasmas are known as the fourth state of matter after solids, liquids and gases and are formed when high-energy processes strip atoms of their electrons to produce ionized gas flows at high temperature. They have an increasing number of technical and medical applications and hot plasmas are already used to disinfect surgical instruments.

Dr Svetlana Ermolaeva who conducted the research explained that the recent development of cold plasmas with temperatures of 35-40°C makes the technology an attractive option for treating infections. "Cold plasmas are able to kill bacteria by damaging microbial DNA and surface structures without being harmful to human tissues. Importantly we have shown that plasma is able to kill bacteria growing in biofilms in wounds, although thicker biofilms show some resistance to treatment."

Plasma technology could eventually represent a better alternative to antibiotics, according to Dr Ermolaeva. "Our work demonstrates that plasma is effective against pathogenic bacteria with multiple-antibiotic resistance - not just in Petri dishes but in actual infected wounds," she said. "Another huge advantage to plasma therapy is that it is non-specific, meaning it is much harder for bacteria to develop resistance. It's a method that is contact free, painless and does not contribute to chemical contamination of the environment."

ROBOTICS



PR2 Robot Community Continues Expansion in Asia, Europe and North America

Willow Garage announced today that the PR2 community has expanded to 16 leading research labs worldwide. Scientists and engineers at four leading research institutions will now be able to explore the innovative capabilities for personal robots at a much faster pace because of the PR2 robot platform they have purchased from Willow Garage. In the past, researchers had to spend a substantial amount of their time building a robot and its operating system before they could start designing and deploying applications for personal robotics use in homes and offices. The four institutions are:

CNRS Laboratory of Analysis and Architecture of Systems (LAAS-CNRS) in Toulouse, France
George Washington University in Washington, DC;
Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics in Suwon, Korea; and
University of Washington in Seattle, WA.

The goal at Willow Garage is to lay the groundwork for a revolution in personal robotics by providing the hardware and software platforms upon which robot scientists can develop applications. The combination of PR2 and the open source Robot Operating System (ROS) means that researchers benefit from immediate time to innovation. Right out of the box, the PR2 and ROS provide a complete platform for research and development in the personal robotics field.
PR2 was first delivered to eleven leading robotics research institutions at no cost in May 2010. In September, Willow Garage announced that the PR2 was available for purchase.

"The PR2 has only been commercially available a short time, but we are proud to say that there are already PR2 robots on three continents," according to Steve Cousins, President and CEO of Willow Garage. "It's inspiring to see the PR2 community grow so quickly. All of us at Willow Garage are looking forward to hearing about the research conducted at Samsung Electronics, UW, LAAS-CNRS and GWU."

One PR2 has already arrived at Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in Suwon, Korea. Samsung Electronics, the world's largest electronics company, is using the PR2 to enhance their existing robotics research. South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and one that has enthusiastically embraced personal robotics. The country is hoping to put a robot in every home by the year 2020.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 16 2010, 07:05 AM

APPLIED SCIENCES



Take rambling to the next level with holographic digital maps


It wasn't so long ago when those wanting to visualize the landscape around them would have to use a topographic map and a fair bit of imagination. Nowadays we are spoilt by the immersive opportunities offered by the likes of Google Earth, or even GPS technology, but there's nothing quite like a holographic image for recreating a 3D representation of the surrounding terrain on a 2D surface. While the digital holographic prints produced by Zebra Imaging are not exactly as pocket-friendly as maps, they are quite simply stunning.

With the speed at which technology is moving, it won't be too long before those of us who like to wander through the streets and ramble through the countryside will be able to reach into our pockets for a lifelike three-dimensional representation of the terrain in front of us. The cutting edge combination of laser, optics and image processing technology used by Zebra Imaging already allows for the creation of lifelike 3D holographic visualizations in a format that can be rolled up and transported around.

The company takes three-dimensional digital data from sources like CAD models, laser scans and satellite imagery and produces a single portable, film-based hologram that can be made to jump out from the surface with the aid of a halogen or LED light source. Zebra explains that "the light is reflected and controlled by hogels and combines and emerges from the hologram surface in the same way it would if a solid physical model were actually there."

The end product can bring a landscape to life or allow engineers to view component designs from a number of different perspectives... or just wow an audience. The technology offers a three-dimensional viewing experience of static objects or scenes without the need for special glasses, and is said to allow onlookers to enjoy 360 degrees of image continuity.

Zebra Imaging's full-color or monochrome solutions benefit from protective coatings for durability and can also be annotated. Up to four images can be combined in one holographic print and, being actual physical products, there's no need to worry about keeping up to date with firmware updates on computerized equipment.

The company says that thousands of prints have been used for visualization and defense planning by the U.S. military. Mapping and surveying, engineering and construction, and architecture and design are amongst Zebra's main production markets.

ENERGY



Seaweed as Biofuel? Metabolic Engineering Makes It a Viable Option

Is red seaweed a viable future biofuel? Now that a University of Illinois metabolic engineer has developed a strain of yeast that can make short work of fermenting galactose, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

"When Americans think about biofuel crops, they think of corn, miscanthus, and switchgrass. ln small island or peninsular nations, though, the natural, obvious choice is marine biomass," said Yong-Su Jin, a U of I assistant professor of microbial genomics and a faculty member in its Institute for Genomic Biology.
Producers of biofuels made from terrestrial biomass crops have had difficulty breaking down recalcitrant fibers and extracting fermentable sugars. The harsh pretreatment processes used to release the sugars also resulted in toxic byproducts, inhibiting subsequent microbial fermentation, he said.
But marine biomass can be easily degraded to fermentable sugars, and production rates and range of distribution are higher than terrestrial biomass, he said.
"However, making biofuels from red seaweed has been problematic because the process yields both glucose and galactose, and until now galactose fermentation has been very inefficient," he said.

But Jin and his colleagues have recently identified three genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the microbe most often used to ferment the sugars, whose overexpression increased galactose fermentation by 250 percent when compared to a control strain.

"This discovery greatly improves the economic viability of marine biofuels," he said. Overexpression of one gene in particular, a truncated form of the TUP1 gene, sent galactose fermentation numbers soaring. The new strain consumed both sugars (glucose and galactose) almost three times faster than the control strain -- 8 versus 24 hours, he said. "When we targeted this protein, the metabolic enzymes in galactose became very active. We can see that this gene is part of a regulating or controlling system," he said. According to Jin, galactose is one of the most abundant sugars in marine biomass so its enhanced fermentation will be industrially useful for seaweed biofuel producers.

Marine biomass is an attractive renewable source for the production of biofuels for three reasons:

- production yields of marine plant biomass per unit area are much higher than those of terrestrial biomass

- marine biomass can be depolymerized relatively easily compared to other biomass crops because it does not contain recalcitrant lignin and cellulose crystalline structures

- the rate of carbon dioxide fixation by marine biomass is much higher than by terrestrial biomass, making it an appealing option for sequestration and recycling of carbon dioxide, he said.
ScienceDaily

APPLIED SCIENCES



A Cheaper Way to Clean Water

Oasys Water, a company that has been developing a novel, inexpensive desalination technology, showed off a new development facility in Boston this week. The company, which has been demonstrating commercial-scale components of its system in recent months, plans to begin testing a complete system early next year and to start selling the systems by the end of 2011.

Currently, desalination is done mainly in one of two ways: water is either heated until it evaporates (called a thermal process) or forced through a membrane that allows water molecules but not salt ions to pass (known as reverse osmosis). Oasys's method uses a combination of ordinary (or forward) osmosis and heat to turn sea water into drinking water.

On one side of a membrane is sea water; on the other is a solution containing high concentrations of carbon dioxide and ammonia. Water naturally moves toward this more concentrated "draw" solution, and the membrane blocks salt and other impurities as it does so. The resulting mixture is then heated, causing the carbon dioxide and ammonia to evaporate. Fresh water is left behind, and the ammonia and carbon dioxide are captured and reused.

Oasys says the technology could make desalination economically attractive not only in arid regions where there are no alternatives to desalination, but also in places where fresh water must be transported long distances. In California, for example, a massive aqueduct system now transports water from north to south.

"The cost will be low enough to make aqueduct and dam projects look expensive in comparison," says Oasys cofounder and chief technology officer Robert McGinnis, who invented the company's core technology. The process could also require substantially less power than other desalination options. "The fuel consumption and carbon emissions will be lower than those of almost any other water source besides a local lake or aquifer," he says.

The key to making the process work was developing a draw solution with easy-to-remove solutes, something that was done at a lab at Yale University. "Others have tried to develop other solutes for desalination," McGinnis says, "but they haven't been successful so far."

The next-biggest technical challenge has been developing the membrane. The membranes used in reverse osmosis are unsuitable for this process because they work best at high pressures. Forward osmosis doesn't use high pressures, so water moves through these membranes too slowly for the system to be practical. McGinnis and colleagues reëngineered the membranes, reducing the thickness of the supporting material and increasing its porosity without changing a very thin layer that blocks salts. These changes enabled water to pass through 25 times faster, McGinnis says.

The system uses far less energy than thermal desalination because the draw solution has to be heated only to 40 to 50 °C, McGinnis says, whereas thermal systems heat water to 70 to 100 °C. These low temperatures can be achieved using waste heat from power plants. Thermal-desalination plants are often located at power plants now, but it takes extra fuel to generate enough heat for them. The new system, on the other hand, could run on heat that otherwise would have been released into the atmosphere.

The Oasys system requires just one-tenth as much electricity as a reverse-osmosis system, McGinnis says, because water doesn't have to be forced through a membrane at high pressure. That's a crucial source of savings, since electricity can account for nearly half the cost of reverse-osmosis technology. Not working with pressurized water also decreases the cost of building the plant—there is no need for expensive pipes that can withstand high pressures. The combination of lower power consumption and cheaper equipment results in lower overall costs.

The Oasys system will not help everyone. For example, it is unlikely to do much for farmers; although they account for about 80 percent of fresh-water consumption, it wouldn't be cost-effective for them, in part because farms are often located closer to aquifers and other water supplies than are large coastal cities such as L.A. In addition, "there's a minimum amount of energy needed to strip salt ions out of water," says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California. "I don't think it will ever be cheap enough for irrigation." In agricultural areas where water is scarce, he says, it's cheaper to switch to better irrigation practices.

As coastal cities grow, however, so will their need for desalination services, says Kenneth Herd, director of the water supply program at the Southwest Florida Water Management District. "It's not a matter of if," he says, "but a matter of when."

MIT Tech Review

APPLIED SCIENCES



New Recycling Process Could Recycle 100% of Plastic Packaging

One of the most disappointing aspects of Christmas (besides the crazed consumerism) is the piles of plastic packaging left over after the morning commotion. In fact, Science Daily reports that each American consumes an average of 120 grams of plastic wrapping on Christmas gifts, most of which is not recyclable. But that might just change (the recycling part, not the wasteful plastic packaging) thanks to a new technique for processing practically any type of plastic. Now that is some Christmas wish come true...

According to Science Daily, researchers at the University of Warwick have figured out a way to deal with the plastic packaging that so far can't go in the recycling bin. Where normally only about 12% of plastic waste is really recycled (though that number might actually be higher, at least in the US; for example, plastic bottle recycling hovers at around 25%, and recycling businesses have tripled in the US in recent years), the new process could deal with 100% of plastics.

University of Warwick reports, "The Warwick researchers have devised a unit which uses pyrolysis (using heat in the absence of oxygen to decompose of materials) in a "fluidised bed" reactor. Tests completed in the last week have shown that the researchers have been able to literally shovel in to such a reactor a wide range of mixed plastics which can then be reduced down to useful products many of which can then be retrieved by simple distillation."

So far, the process can reclaim wax, original monomers, terephthalic acid used to make PET plastic products, methylmetacrylate for making acrylic sheets, carbon for making paint pigments and tires, and even char.

If the simple process proves to be this useful, it could mean far more effective, cheaper and profitable recycling in cities. Right now the researchers are working on scaling up the process for large-scale reactor units that can be used by cities. Lead researcher Jan Baeyens says that the team envisions a large-scale plant capable of dealing with 10,000 tons of plastic a year being able to generate £5 million ($7.8 million) worth of recycled chemicals.

Dealing with a variety of plastics types all in one recycling plant seems too good to be true. If the technology does pan out, however, it could be more like a miracle for recyclers, landfills, the environment, and everyone having to put plastic in their trash bin rather than their recycling bin.

Treehugger

ROBOTICS



Medical robotics to improve heart surgery

In a truly interdisciplinary effort, a team of biomedical scientists and engineers from the University of Houston (UH) and physicians from The Methodist Hospital Research Institute (TMHRI) are collaborating to develop a platform for image-guided and robot-assisted surgeries on beating hearts that is minimally invasive.

Supported by a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers in UH's Medical Robotics Laboratory (MRL) are creating a robotic system to one day be used in cardiothoracic surgeries that would not only automate, but also increase the precision of surgeries. This surgical system, guided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), incorporates a highly flexible robotic device to maneuver within the beating heart and past organs through the body, resulting in minimal trauma to patients.

Funded through NSF's cyber-physical system (CPS) program, the project is led by Nikolaos V. Tsekos, the director of the MRL, associate professor of computer science at UH and principal investigator on this grant. The award is funding the development of methodology for performing surgical procedures using robotic devices with real-time MRI image guidance. In particular, Tsekos and his team are pursuing the development of something called MIROS – Multimodal Image-guided RObot-assisted Surgeries – that is a novel CPS for performing heart surgeries.

"MIROS is an integrated system composed of multiple cyber and physical elements, ranging from computer algorithms to biomedical sensors to robotic manipulators, that coordinate their operation to achieve a task," Tsekos said. "It is the final system that integrates the robot, the MRI scanner, computers and software, and the tactile and visualization interfaces with the patient and the operator. MIROS is modular and upgradeable, so we can add new pieces of software, reprogram the existing ones, change parts of the robot or even change out the entire layout of the robot, according to the needs of the specific surgery."

Three critical features of MIROS are that it can combine, merge and use multimodality imaging techniques that carry complementary types of information; enable the performance of surgeries on a beating heart without having to stop its natural motion; and immerse the operator into the procedure through a visual-tactile interface. With multimodality imaging, such as MRI, the team aims to provide surgeons with real-time information to enhance diagnosis and in-situ assessment before, during and after the surgery.

"For performing the procedures on a beating heart, a special robotic device is under construction," Tsekos said. "Imagine that instead of using a straight surgical tool you use one that looks like a snake, needing to maneuver it through a maze of moving walls that you must avoid. With robots we can address the issues of limited access to the patient in the MRI machine, as well as increase maneuverability."

The first version of MIROS is specially designed for procedures that involve entering the heart through the myocardium, which is the muscular tissue of the heart. Without limiting the versatility and generality of the system, the MIROS team has selected the challenging clinical paradigm of an alternate aortic valve replacement, with hopes it will result in a quicker procedure, less trauma and faster recovery.

While robots are not new in being used to perform laparoscopic procedures, manual or robot-assisted laparoscopy offers visualization inside the patient by means of cameras and video. Tsekos' plan is to incorporate real-time image guidance to continuously collect images from the targeted area and guide the robot. This takes these surgeries from keyhole-type viewing with cameras to a larger, 3-D field of view with imaging.

"The system we are developing is comprised of many dedicated, specially designed components, incorporating not only the robot, but also tools to collect and process the MRI data from patients during surgery. This ranges from real-time tissue tracking to augmented reality and tactile interfacing for surgeons," Tsekos said. "These are enabling technologies and methodologies that then can be adopted and used for other types of surgeries or with other existing or developing robotic systems."

To reduce the number of animals used in this research, the team will perform all of the work on this particular NSF grant without animal subjects. To do this, the MRL group is creating what Tsekos called an "actuated heart phantom," a computer-controlled machine that has 27 motors that move different structures to mimic the anatomy and motion of the beating heart.

"We will use our actuated phantom inside an MRI scanner, as well as in the lab, to replicate any desired type of cardiac motion, such as simulating the conditions of arrhythmias and breathing patterns," Tsekos said. "We will test and investigate the operation of each component and the MIROS system as a whole by simulating surgeries on this phantom instead of animals for the first phase of this project. Additionally, our team will work with Methodist on another version of this heart phantom onto which we will ultimately attach a heart from a porcine cadaver acquired from a slaughterhouse. Once attached, the simple push of a button will replicate the heart's real motion in the lab and inside an MRI scanner."

In addition to Tsekos' MRL group, the research team includes a number of other professors from UH. From the computer science department, Zhigang Deng leads the effort for the novel visual-tactile interface, while Ioannis Kakadiaris and Shishir Shah work on new image-processing concepts. Mechanical engineers Karolos Grigoriadis and Javad Mohammadpour are focused on the control and construction of the tactile device. The TMHRI surgeons, Mark Davies, M.D., Barbara L. Bass, M.D., and Dipan Shah, M.D., also play a critical role in this project. Davies' focus is on the design of particular cardiac robotic applications, Bass' focus is on the overall design of the system in view of its potential use for surgeries in other organs and Shah's contribution is in the area of cardiac MRI.

EurekAlert

APPLIED SCIENCES



New Building Material Offers New Design Options

Films instead of walls. This is an idea that fascinates architects all over the world. The Eden Project in Southern England, the National Aquatics Center built for swimming events at the Olympics in Beijing and the Allianz Arena in Munich are only three examples of what you can make from plastic sheets. Ethylene tetraflourethylene (ETFE), a transparent membrane, is especially popular because it enables buildings that shine in all colors as in Munich and Peking. But, we are not just talking about colors. You can use this new foil for an intelligent improvement of existing buildings -- by regulating heat, coolness and light precisely according to needs. Experts see film construction as a market poised for the future.
Whether this market develops and if so how quickly is not a question of taste but of the technical possibilities -- the financial options. Films will have to be low-cost, easy to process and free of health hazards for them to have a chance in the international construction business. This is the target that six Fraunhofer institutes are working jointly toward in the Multifunctional Membrane Cushion Construction project.

Engineers have been able to use coatings to change the properties of ETFE foils specifically. For example, membrane cushions with an inner coating of tungsten trioxide turn blue when they come into contact with hydrogen and lose their color if the cushions are filled with oxygen. Thus the passage of light can easily be regulated. Project coordinator Andreas Kaufmann of the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) states "you could use a foil such as this to cover the entire façade of a house and have light pass depending upon sunlight conditions." The researchers were also able to solve another problem. To date, ETFE membranes have hardly been able to create a heat barrier, but a coat of paper-thin (and therefore transparent) layers of aluminum and paint make sure that heat radiation is effectively reflected. Kaufmann explains that "the challenge was overcoming the anti-adhesive properties of the membrane. ETFE is related to the anti-stick substance Teflon and hardly reacts with other substances chemically. This is why the surface of the foil first has to be pretreated chemically before coating." In the meantime, the researchers have not only come up with heat-insulating, but also antibacterial layers that inhibit the growth of mold and yeasts that form ugly black coverings.

As Robert Hodann, the CEO at film manufacturer Nowofol and industrial partner of the research project, puts it, "we believe that ETFE will emerge as a strong market of its own. The captivating thing about ETFE foil is its transparency combined with its great strength -- no other plastic membrane can compete." For instance, it will be possible to make LED façades with ETFE foil behind which thousands of light-emitting diodes can be installed. This would be an easy way to transform facades into gigantic illuminated screens.

ScienceDaily

ENERGY



Waste-to-Energy: a mountain of trash, or a pile of energy?

Collect trash, burn it, and then generate electricity. The technology is called Waste-to-Energy, and it uses our waste streams to produce electricity that can be cleaner than the average kilowatt-hour (kWh) generated in the United States today. A mountain of trash becomes a pile of energy. But, will this domestic renewable resource be able to move beyond its “dirty” reputation to become a larger portion of the U.S. electricity supply?

European countries have embraced Waste-to-Energy (WTE) as a way to reduce landfill growth as well as dependence on imported fuels. Today, about 400 WTE facilities are operating in Europe, using municipal solid waste as their primary fuel source. In Denmark alone, 29 WTE plants are currently in operation with 10 more on the way. In Sweden, the city of Kristianstad has essentially weaned itself off of fossil fuels in just ten years by replacing these energy sources with the city’s own waste.

In the United States, only 86 (PDF) plants use municipal solid waste as fuel. The amount of trash that these facilities process is dropping – by more than 7% (PDF) from 2006 to 2008. And very few new facilities are being discussed.

Why is the United States so far behind?

On the surface, WTE looks like a feasible option in the United States’ search for renewable and domestic energy resources. Today’s WTE technology is safe – assuming you can separate out hazardous materials (like batteries) in the incoming fuel (trash). In areas where tipping fees are high – primarily major metropolitan areas – these facilities can be economically viable without government subsidies.

If deployed nationwide, WTE facilities could reduce the volume of the more than 250 million tons (PDF) of material being thrown away each year by up to 90%. If burned properly, the remaining 10% would be mostly inert ash. With proper filtering systems in place, WTE facilities can meet and even exceed federal air emissions standards. But, despite these positive environmental attributes, the concept of burning trash does not appear able to shake its “dirty” image in America.

In Austin, Texas, Waste-to-Energy has been a “dirty” word for more than 30 years. In 1984, voters authorized bond money for the construction of a WTE plant on the edge of the city. But, vocal opposition from environmental activists and resulting runaway project costs led to a showdown that would scuttle the project 8 years later. The bad-blood resulting from this ordeal still runs thick today. Even when faced with a 30% renewable energy requirement (WTE qualifies), Austin’s city government and local utility (Austin Energy) did not seriously consider any WTE proposals. Instead, city residents receive renewable power primarily from wind farms in West Texas. They will soon buy power from a 100 MW biomass facility that will burn wood chips (not trash), located hundreds of miles to the east of Austin.

A different story has played out on the East Coast – home to high tipping fees and limited land availability for new landfills. In 1984, while Austinites were arguing over the environmental benefits (and costs) of a WTE facility, Baltimore residents were celebrating the opening of the city’s own Waste-to-Energy plant. Still in operation today – and profitable without government subsidies – the Refuse and Energy Systems Company (RESCO) facility processes about 2,250 tons of trash per day. The facility produces enough electricity to power 40,000 homes, as well as steam for the heating and cooling of local commercial buildings. According to RESCO employees, this no-sort facility has also improved local water quality, because of strict discharge requirements for power generation facilities.

So, why were these experiences so different?

Economics and land availability played significant roles in the decisions in Austin and Baltimore. But, these experiences also showed how WTE’s image problem can be a significant roadblock. Its “dirty” stigma has and could continue to prevent the expanded use of this technology in the United States even under favorable economic conditions. Until Americans become tired of dedicating space for new landfills, the country’s mountain of trash is unlikely to become a pile of energy. And waste will remain an untapped domestic renewable energy resource.

Scientific American

APPLIED SCIENCES



Science's breakthrough of the year: The first quantum machine

A mechanical device that operates in the quantum realm tops the journal's list of advances in 2010.

Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. Back in March, however, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics—the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. In recognition of the conceptual ground their experiment breaks, the ingenuity behind it and its many potential applications, Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.

Physicists Andrew Cleland and John Martinis from the University of California at Santa Barbara and their colleagues designed the machine—a tiny metal paddle of semiconductor, visible to the naked eye—and coaxed it into dancing with a quantum groove. First, they cooled the paddle until it reached its "ground state," or the lowest energy state permitted by the laws of quantum mechanics (a goal long-sought by physicists). Then they raised the widget's energy by a single quantum to produce a purely quantum-mechanical state of motion. They even managed to put the gadget in both states at once, so that it literally vibrated a little and a lot at the same time—a bizarre phenomenon allowed by the weird rules of quantum mechanics.

Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, have recognized this first quantum machine as the 2010 Breakthrough of the Year. They have also compiled nine other important scientific accomplishments from this past year into a top ten list, appearing in a special news feature in the journal's 17 December 2010 issue. Additionally, Science news writers and editors have chosen to spotlight 10 "Insights of the Decade" that have transformed the landscape of science in the 21st Century.

"This year's Breakthrough of the Year represents the first time that scientists have demonstrated quantum effects in the motion of a human-made object," said Adrian Cho, a news writer for Science. "On a conceptual level that's cool because it extends quantum mechanics into a whole new realm. On a practical level, it opens up a variety of possibilities ranging from new experiments that meld quantum control over light, electrical currents and motion to, perhaps someday, tests of the bounds of quantum mechanics and our sense of reality."

The quantum machine proves that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to the motion of macroscopic objects, as well as atomic and subatomic particles. It provides the key first step toward gaining complete control over an object's vibrations at the quantum level. Such control over the motion of an engineered device should allow scientists to manipulate those minuscule movements, much as they now control electrical currents and particles of light. In turn, that capability may lead to new devices to control the quantum states of light, ultra-sensitive force detectors and, ultimately, investigations into the bounds of quantum mechanics and our sense of reality. (This last grand goal might be achieved by trying to put a macroscopic object in a state in which it's literally in two slightly different places at the same time—an experiment that might reveal precisely why something as big as a human can't be in two places at the same time.)

"Mind you, physicists still haven't achieved a two-places-at-once state with a tiny object like this one," said Cho. "But now that they have reached the simplest state of quantum motion, it seems a whole lot more obtainable—more like a matter of 'when' than 'if.'"

EurekAlert

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Eco Skyscrapers

Connotations with the word skyscraper couldn’t be further from the idyllic gardens used to produce a plethora of different crops. Most people when they think of skyscrapers see tall rectangular buildings, behemoths devoted to man’s commercial achievements.

Despite this general thought however, there are some out there that see a different future for skyscrapers, one that incorporates hydroponics but can also function as a city in its own right, functioning independent of its surroundings.

Nowhere has this vision been more prevalent than in Josephine Turner’s design of the Bangaroo Sky Village, imagined within the hustle and bustle of Sydney, Australia. The design hopes to put the preconceived notions of skyscrapers on their head, instead using stacked triangular shapes and also incorporating hydroponic gardens, shops, commercial areas and also plazas, interconnected with “sky-bridges”.

Because of the strength of triangles architecturally the design allows for buildings of different heights to be stacked together, interconnected using the sky-bridges to encourage a pedestrian community that can live, work, shop and eat within the system of plazas.
The buildings themselves are set out in levels, with agricultural levels growing produce for the inhabitants, interspersed with commercial levels, residential areas and also communal quarters. A hydroponic system is fitted throughout the buildings to ensure that all of the agricultural areas receive sufficient amounts of water.

The environmentally friendly design also incorporates wind power to provide lighting and electricity within the building and uses the sunlight cleverly due to the triangular faces. Ultimately Turner’s design gives us a hint of where our cities could be headed, and also a clear idea of how important hydroponics will be in the future.

Hydroponics Guide

APPLIED SCIENCES



Word Lens app turns your phone into a real-time translator

Word Lens translates printed words in real time on your iPhone. Can our jet packs be far behind? Developed by Quest Visual, Word Lens is an augmented-reality translation app that uses your phone's camera to view printed words and translate them into another language as you watch. If you’re traveling for business or on vacation and need to read a street sign or a menu, point your phone and Word Lens instantly translates it, maintaining the color and font as it goes.

Word Lens is currently available for the iPhone via iTunes. The app is free, with languages available for in-app purchase at US$5 each. So far, only Spanish-to-English and English-to-Spanish are available, but Quest Visual has plans to offer additional languages soon. After you purchase the languages, they are downloaded to your phone so you do not need a network connection to use Word Lens.

Quest Visual says the app is as easy to use as taking a picture with your phone. The app offers a zoom feature so you can crop out extraneous details, and a flashlight feature to light up the text if necessary. In addition, you can translate words by typing them in. Word Lens works best on clearly printed text, and does not work with decorative fonts or handwriting.

The app uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to analyze the image and translate the words it finds. You can test out the Word Lens OCR capability in the free app using two cute features that will spell all words in the image backwards, or digitally erase all the words in the image. Like most translators and translation software, Word Lens is not perfect, but Visual Quest promises that you can at least get the general meaning of the text.

Word Lens works with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch with camera, and requires iOS 4.0 or later (The iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch do not support the zoom and flashlight features). There is no official word on an Android version yet.

Quest Visual seems to have a hit on its hands. In its first day of release on iTunes, Word Lens quickly climbed into the top 40 app chart. Hopefully we can look forward to its continued development, with more languages and improved translations. Details are available on iTunes.



Gizmag


This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 18 2010, 08:10 PM

APPLIED SCIENCES



Biodegradable Styrofoam Alternative Earns Cradle to Cradle Certification

An alternative to foam packaging that is biodegradable and based on sugar cane has earned Cradle to Cradle certification.

Synbra Technology's BioFoam product is a packaging material like expanded polystyrene foam (the type of packaging filler commonly referred to as sytrofoam), but it is made out of polylactic acid, a material derived from sugar cane processing.

BioFoam will initially be used by companies within the Synbra Group that provide packaging products, but the company says that it's possible that BioFoam could be used to replace expanded polystyrene within building materials.

Since BioFoam is made from polylactic acid, it can biodegrade under certain condition when it's no longer needed. The material can also be reformed to fit around different products.

Synbra is building its first plant for commercializing the material in the Netherlands, with plans to be up and running this year. The company says the plant will be able to produce 5,000 tons a year.

Cradle to Cradle certification was given by the Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency (EPEA), which was founded by Michael Braungart, one of the co-founders of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC). The EPEA is able to grant Cradle to Cradle certification based on criteria set forth by MBDC, which includes materials, material reuse, energy use, water use and social responsibility.

GreenBiz

SPACE SCIENCE



NASA Engineers Propose Combining a Rail Gun and a Scramjet to Fire Spacecraft Into Orbit

NASA has been working on creating a new, cheaper method to launch spacecrafts. Their latest proposal involves train tracks, a rail gun and a scramjet. Here's what they're trying to do:

In April, President Obama urged NASA to come up with, among other things, a less expensive method than conventional rocketry for launching spacecraft. By September, the agency's engineers floated a plan that would save millions of dollars in propellant, improve astronaut safety, and allow for more frequent flights. All it will take is two miles of train track, an airplane that can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, and a jolt of electricity big enough to light a small town.

The system calls for a two-mile- long rail gun that will launch a scramjet, which will then fly to 200,000 feet. The scramjet will then fire a payload into orbit and return to Earth. The process is more complex than a rocket launch, but engineers say it's also more flexible. With it, NASA could orbit a 10,000-pound satellite one day and send a manned ship toward the moon the next, on a fraction of the propellant used by today's rockets.

It may sound too awesome to ever be a reality. But unlike other rocket-less plans for space entry, each relevant technology is advanced enough that tests could take place in 10 years, says Stan Starr, a physicist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. NASA's scramjets have hit Mach 10 for 12 seconds; last spring, Boeing's X-51 scramjet did Mach 5 for a record 200 seconds. Rail guns are coming along too. The Navy is testing an electromagnetic launch system to replace the hydraulics that catapult fighter jets from aircraft carriers. "We have all the ingredients," says Paul Bartolotta, a NASA aerospace engineer working on the project. "Now we just have to figure out how to bake the cake."

How To Fly Into Orbit:

Rev Up The Rail Gun
A 240,000-horsepower linear motor converts 180 megawatts into an electromagnetic force that propels a scramjet carrying a spacecraft down a two-mile-long track. The craft accelerates from 0 to 1,100 mph (Mach 1.5) in under 60 seconds- fast, but at less than 3 Gs, safe for manned flight.

Fire The Scramjet

The pilot fires a high-speed turbojet and launches from the track. Once the craft hits Mach 4, the air flowing through the jet intake is fast enough that it compresses, heats to 3,000ºF, and ignites hydrogen in the combustion chamber, producing tens of thousands of pounds of thrust.

Get Into Orbit

At an altitude of 200,000 feet, there isn't enough air for the scramjet, now traveling at Mach 10, to generate thrust. Here spaceflight begins. The two craft separate, and the scramjet pitches downward to get out of the way as the upper spacecraft fires tail rockets that shoot it into orbit.

Stick The Landing

The scramjet slows and uses its turbojets to fly back to Earth for a runway landing. Once the spacecraft delivers its payload into orbit, it reenters the atmosphere and glides back to the launch site. The two craft can be ready for another mission within 24 hours of landing.

Gizmodo

ENERGY



Is night falling on classic solar panels?

Solar cells that work at night. It sounds like an oxymoron, but a new breed of nanoscale light-sensitive antennas could soon make this possible, heralding a novel form of renewable energy that avoids many of the problems that beset solar cells.

The key to these new devices is their ability to harvest infrared (IR) radiation, says Steven Novack, one of the pioneers of the technology at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls. Nearly half of the available energy in the solar spectrum resides in the infrared band, and IR is re-emitted by the Earth's surface after the sun has gone down, meaning that the antennas can even capture some energy during the night.

Lab tests have already shown that, under ideal conditions, the antennas can collect 84 per cent of incoming photons. Novack's team calculates that a complete system would have an overall efficiency of 46 per cent; the most efficient silicon solar cells are stalled at about 25 per cent. What's more, while those ideal conditions are relatively narrowly constrained for silicon solar cells - if the sun is in the wrong position, light reflects off a silicon solar cell instead of being absorbed - the antennas absorb radiation at a variety of angles. If the antennas can be produced cheaply, the technology could prove to be truly disruptive, says Novack.

Unlike photovoltaic cells, which use photons to liberate electrons, the new antennas resonate when hit by light waves, and that generates an alternating current that can be harnessed.

To build an array that could capture both visible and infrared radiation, researchers envision multiple layers of antennas, with each layer tuned to a different optical frequency.

So far, two main challenges have stood in the way of fomenting a revolution in solar power. First, the length of the antennas must be close to the size of the wavelength being captured, which in the case of the solar spectrum can be very small - from millimetres down to a few hundred nanometres.

Second, the currents produced will be alternating at frequencies too high to be of use unless they are first converted into a steady direct current. The problem here is that silicon diodes, which are crucial to the conversion, typically don't operate at the high frequencies required, says Aimin Song, a nanoelectronic engineer at the University of Manchester, UK.

Both of these barriers are now being broken down. Earlier this year, Novack and colleagues perfected a technique for creating arrays of billions of antennas. Although these antennas were only just small enough to harvest energy at the far end of the infrared spectrum, Novack says it should be possible to modify the process and build smaller antennas to work with mid and near-infrared.

Meanwhile Song, and Garret Moddel's team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, have independently taken a significant step in tackling the current-conversion problem by creating novel diodes capable of handling high optical frequencies (see "The devil's in the diodes"). Both groups expect to combine the diodes and antennas into working prototypes within months. "There's a potential for this to be a real game-changer," says Moddel.

NewScientist

NANOTECHNOLOGY



New nanotechnology could slash sequencing time

Scientists from Imperial College London are developing technology that could ultimately sequence a person's genome in mere minutes, at a fraction of the cost of current commercial techniques.

he researchers have patented an early prototype technology that they believe could lead to an ultrafast commercial DNA sequencing tool within ten years. Their work is described in a study published this month in the journal Nano Letters and it is supported by the Wellcome Trust Translational Award and the Corrigan Foundation.

The research suggests that scientists could eventually sequence an entire genome in a single lab procedure, whereas at present it can only be sequenced after being broken into pieces in a highly complex and time-consuming process. Fast and inexpensive genome sequencing could allow ordinary people to unlock the secrets of their own DNA, revealing their personal susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer. Medical professionals are already using genome sequencing to understand population-wide health issues and research ways to tailor individualised treatments or preventions.

Dr Joshua Edel, one of the authors on the study from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, said: "Compared with current technology, this device could lead to much cheaper sequencing: just a few dollars, compared with $1m to sequence an entire genome in 2007. We haven't tried it on a whole genome yet but our initial experiments suggest that you could theoretically do a complete scan of the 3,165 million bases in the human genome within minutes, providing huge benefits for medical tests, or DNA profiles for police and security work. It should be significantly faster and more reliable, and would be easy to scale up to create a device with the capacity to read up to 10 million bases per second, versus the typical 10 bases per second you get with the present day single molecule real-time techniques."

In the new study, the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to propel a DNA strand at high speed through a tiny 50 nanometer (nm) hole - or nanopore - cut in a silicon chip, using an electrical charge. As the strand emerges from the back of the chip, its coding sequence (bases A, C, T or G) is read by a 'tunnelling electrode junction'. This 2 nm gap between two wires supports an electrical current that interacts with the distinct electrical signal from each base code. A powerful computer can then interpret the base code’s signal to construct the genome sequence, making it possible to combine all these well-documented techniques for the first time.

Sequencing using nanopores has long been considered the next big development for DNA technology, thanks to its potential for high speed and high-capacity sequencing. However, designs for an accurate and fast reader have not been demonstrated until now.

Co-author Dr Emanuele Instuli, from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, explained the challenges they faced in this research: "Getting the DNA strand through the nanopore is a bit like sucking up spaghetti. Until now it has been difficult to precisely align the junction and the nanopore. Furthermore, engineering the electrode wires with such dimensions approaches the atomic scale and is effectively at the limit of existing instrumentation.

However in this experiment we were able to make two tiny platinum wires into an electrode junction with a gap sufficiently small to allow the electron current to flow between them."
This technology would have several distinct advantages over current techniques, according to co-author, Aleksandar Ivanov from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London: "Nanopore sequencing would be a fast, simple procedure, unlike available commercial methods, which require time-consuming and destructive chemical processes to break down and replicate small sections of the DNA molecules to determine their sequence. Additionally, these silicon chips are incredibly durable compared with some of the more delicate materials currently used. They can be handled, washed and reused many times over without degrading their performance."

Dr Tim Albrecht, another author on the study, from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, says: "The next step will be to differentiate between different DNA samples and, ultimately, between individual bases within the DNA strand (ie true sequencing). I think we know the way forward, but it is a challenging project and we have to make many more incremental steps before our vision can be realised."

PhysOrg

ROBOTICS



Join Singularity!

Are you worried about the coming robot apocalypse? Does research into artificial general intelligence freak you out? Do you look at computers and start dreading for the safety of your children? If so, world renowned physicist and science champion Michio Kaku has a message for you: instead of fearing technology, humanity should learn how to become part of it. Kaku hosts a great TV show called Sci Fi Science wherein he explores some of the amazing technologies being developed today, and the out-of-this-world consequences they could bring tomorrow.

Recently, he took a look at the Technological Singularity, which as he puts it will be “a time when computer power grows without limit, surpassing human intelligence, sweeping aside everything in its path.” Sounds scary, huh? Well, after talking to experts around the world, Kaku decides there’s only one reasonable way to deal with the Singularity: join it. By merging with computers, humanity will not only preserve itself, it will expand into realms it cannot comprehend in the present. Watch clips from Kaku’s Singularity episode in the video below. By the end Kaku is openly recruiting us to join him in embracing the machine.

Michio Kaku is one of the most famous modern day presenters in science. He’s authored several best sellers, hosts two radio programs, has the Sci Fi Science TV show (now in its second season), and writes a blog on BigThink. As we’ve shown in the past, he seems to delight in answering questions from average readers and viewers, and no subject seems too far-fetched for him to consider and explain. It’s only fitting then that Kaku take a long look at the Singularity and consider the implications of exponential growth in artificial intelligence. While Kaku doesn’t espouse as optimistic approach to the subject as many others, he does end up with a very positive outlook on what the growth of AI could mean for humanity. I tend to share his view. Accelerating technology is only scary when you view it as separate from ourselves. Once you realize that we are already increasing the ways we incorporate it into our everyday lives (how long do you go between using your phone, the internet, or computer?) continuing along that path starts to make sense. Don’t fear the machine conquering humanity. The machine will become one with humanity.



Singularity Hub


This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 21 2010, 09:51 AM

TRANSPORTATION



All-Electric Sonex Aircraft Completes Maiden Flight

We’ve seen electric aircraft advance the horizons of carbon-free aviation by leaps and bounds lately, and this month a brand new electric plane successfully conducted its maiden flight. The all-electric Sonex aircraft completed its first flight on December 3, 2010 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, WI.

The airplane was piloted by Sonex Founder and E-Flight team leader John Monnett, who took the plane on a short jaunt in order to break ground-effect and analyze in-flight system performance. This short test run represented four years of development by the E-Flight design team in engineering, building and testing what has been dubbed “one of the most advanced electric flight packages ever conceived.”

“We are very proud of this achievement,” said Jeremy Monnett, CEO and General Manager of Sonex Aircraft. “We have a flight envelope expansion plan and will be working on this in the coming weeks and months. We have also already started our motor v4.0 design and motor controller v12.0 to be integrated on N270DC. Many more great things to come on this project!”

The Sonex Aircraft is a standard Waiex kit aircraft that has been modified with the installation of proprietary E-Flight electric power components. These include an E-Flight 54kw brushless DC electric motor, E-Flight electronic motor controller, a 14.5kw-hr lithium polymer battery system, the E-Flight battery management system, and E-Flight cockpit instrumentation and controls.

The E-Flight Initiative electric flight project was first announced in 2007, but has seen many challenges since then, including designing and testing electric components that use cutting-edge technology. With innovation such as this, electric aircraft could rapidly become more and more common.

Inhabitat

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Doctors use sick boy's DNA in diagnosis, treatment

Doctors and scientists in Wisconsin have published the first detailed account of a groundbreaking medical case in which they sequenced all the genes of a very sick young boy from Monona, Wis., and used the information to treat the child.
Genetic experts said the Wisconsin case signals a new era in medicine in which doctors will be able to read our genetic script to diagnose and sometimes treat maladies, especially cancers and rare hereditary diseases.

The boy, whose story is the subject of a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series starting Sunday, suffered from a disease and mutation never before seen in medicine. When he ate, painful holes called fistulas would open, leading from his intestine to his skin. The child, now 6, became so sick that doctors had to remove his colon in the spring of 2009.

In a paper published online Friday in the journal Genetics in Medicine, doctors and scientists at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the Medical College of Wisconsin described how they were able to read the boy's genetic script in the summer of 2009 and pinpoint the mutation responsible for his disease.

"For the patient and his family, it's a benefit and something we all feel really good about," said Howard Jacob, one of the paper's authors and director of the Medical College's Human and Molecular Genetics Center. "It demonstrates that this technology can start being used in the clinic today."

The case is believed to be one of the first in the world in which the sequencing of a patient's DNA has led to a diagnosis and treatment.

"Everyone's talking the talk about personalized medicine, and this is a real example. We don't have too many of those," said Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine.

A team at Yale University accomplished the feat earlier, using a similar technique to diagnose a baby in Turkey born with congenital chloride diarrhea.

The Wisconsin case shows how, with a patient's life at stake, doctors, geneticists and computer experts can work together to make sense out of the vast ocean of information in our 21,000 genes.

"It's a wonderful paper," said Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. "It seems like every month now there's a publication like this that demonstrates the power of this technology.
"The novelty of this story is that it was done in real time to help make a decision about clinical management."

As a result of sequencing, the Wisconsin scientists learned that the boy had a defect in his immune system caused by a single mutation in a gene called XIAP. The mutation also caused a second extremely rare disease called XLP, which affects just 400 boys worldwide, rendering them unable to survive Epstein-Barr virus.

Doctors had not previously known that the child had XLP, which can be treated with a bone marrow transplant. In mid-July the boy received an umbilical cord blood transplant, which is similar to a bone marrow transplant. He was discharged from the hospital in October.

As the doctors point out in their commentary, the new case underscores how the fast-moving revolution in technology is driving breakthroughs in genomics.

"The tools available to make this diagnosis," they write, "were not available when the child first (was hospitalized) four years ago."

Before deciding to sequence his DNA, doctors conducted dozens of tests on individual genes and on his immune system. Yet they were unable to reach a diagnosis.

In Wisconsin, as in the Yale case, scientists decided against sequencing the patient's entire genome, all 3.2 billion chemical base pairs. Instead, they read a little more than 1 percent of the genome, the exons. Exons, part of every gene, carry the instructions for making proteins. The failure to make proteins correctly causes many diseases. The sequencing and analysis of the Wisconsin child's exons cost roughly $75,000 in 2009, though the cost in a couple of years should be $1,000, Jacob said.

Even when doctors decided to sequence all of the boy's genes using this more efficient technique, the task was not simply a matter of waiting for a machine to spit out an answer. Initially, they got a list of 16,124 potential answers - differences between his genetic script and the reference genome that is used as a yardstick of what is "normal."

The Wisconsin researchers developed a software program to help them weed out harmless variations. The child's DNA was run through the sequencing machine five times to reduce the chances of missing a mutation.

Researchers also consulted the medical literature on many genes and the latest database of genetic variations. They were able to drop their list of potential suspects to 32, then to eight and finally to one, XIAP, a gene involved in regulating the immune system. Scientists then ran two tests of the boy's cells in order to confirm that the XIAP mutation caused his illness.

Eric J. Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif., called the Wisconsin case "impressive" and said he believes more institutions will use sequencing in the practice of medicine.

"You can just see it taking off," Topol said. "There will be hundreds of these in the next few years, if not much more."

PhysOrg

interesting posts thx.

yea i agree ^^ very very interesting

APPLIED SCIENCES



Desalination Plants To Hit $87.8 Billion in Investments

Desalination technology -- turning brackish or salt water into fresh water -- has been a hotly debated issue for years. The main problem is that the technology is incredibly energy intensive, and there for financially and environmentally expensive. However, as water supplies run short, desalination is looking more attractive. So, innovators are coming up with ways to make the process more energy efficient and reduce the environmental impact of plants. As desalination nears a boom phase, investments in plants are set to jump over just the next five years, according to new data from Pike Research.

Pike Research has found that the cost of running a desalination plant is falling as technologies improve, and the lower costs are making plants look more attractive to investors. The research firm states that new construction for plants will create a cumulative global investment of $87.8 billion between 2010 and 2016.

From improved membranes filtering salts out of water to energy recovery units to improve the energy bill for a plant, new technology is making desalination look like an ideal option for coastal areas experiencing water shortages, such as California. Reuters reports that the state is likely to lead the country in implementing desalination plants to meet the states water needs.

While it may be the next big thing for the water industry, it might not be best environmental move. Smart water technologies such as improved metering, water conservation technologies for everything from data centers to irrigation systems, and improved policies from agriculture to manufacturing are the first place to start for crafting a future complete with sustainable water supplies. In some cases, desalination is the only solution for certain communities. But not in all cases...or even in most. Desalination has a long way to go before it can be considered a sustainable, environmentally friendly source of water. However, in true band-aid fashion, it seems rather than fix our poor water use practices, money will simply poured into desalination plants to provide more water now.

Treehugger

Currently doing research on aerogel.. I love science n technology make life easier..

TRANSPORTATION



All-Electric Trash Truck Cleans Up a Dirty Job

The makers of a new all-electric trash truck soon to be plying the streets of a Paris suburb promise that the only fumes coming from the truck will involve rotten fruit and expired cheese, not clouds of diesel exhaust.


Despite what gets loaded into the hopper, the 26-ton truck’s emissions are clean, with each truck saving an estimated 130 tons of CO2 emissions each year over a diesel-powered model. The trash truck, built by PVI Electric Powertrain, features liquid cooled lithium-ion battery packs from Dow Kokam that tout a 10-year usable life and stability in extreme climates. Each truck will have five strings of seven battery packs, which provide the equivalent of 250 kilowatt hours of energy.

“This achievement demonstrates that real advanced battery solutions exist for the commercial and fleet industry today,” said Dow Kokam Vice President Jean-Francois Herchin. The company claims that it’s the first fully-electric trash truck with the performance of a diesel-powered truck, and perhaps one of the largest electric utility trucks on the road.

Utility vehicles like trash trucks — and the hybrid street sweeper we told you about last week — are ideal for electrification, as they travel fixed routes at predetermined times and often replace noisy, smelly vehicles in dense urban cores. The PVI electric trash truck is no exception. Drivers can pick up 16 tons of trash in two rounds of service with a recharge or battery swap during the driver’s lunch break or a shift change.

Anyone who has ever been stuck behind a slowly accelerating trash truck will be glad to hear that PVI designed a gearbox that allows the truck to climb hills without impeding traffic, and the electric drivetrain means that 100 percent of torque is available at acceleration.

The first truck will debut in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie as part of the fleet of SITA Ile de France, a division of Suez. By the end of 2011, another eleven electric trash trucks will hit the road.

Wired

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Implantable Smart Chip Fights Chronic Pain

Sydney researchers are getting ready to conduct human trials next year of a smart chip, which, when implanted in the spinal cord, can measure and stop pain signals from traveling to the brain.

The technology, targeting chronic pain, was developed in Sydney by National ICT Australia (NICTA) over the last two years by experts in biomedical, electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as textile technology and software applications.

The smart chip is put into a biocompatible device, which is a little smaller than the head of a match. A couple of the devices are sewn into a 1.22mm wide micro-lead made from polymer yarn and electronic wires. The wires are then inserted into the spine (or elsewhere) and connected to a device containing a battery and a computer processor. The battery can be charged wirelessly.

This set-up, according to NICTA, can then measure the properties of nerves carrying pain signals to the brain and can send a 10V electric pulse to block the signals, which tricks the brain into thinking there's no pain.

According to NICTA CTO implant technologies Dr John Parker, current devices used to block pain signals to the brain are larger, around the size of a matchbox.

The smaller size of the NICTA device improves its reliability as it can be implanted closer to the spine and needs shorter connection leads.

The device could be used to treat chronic back pain, leg pain and pain from nerve damage, but could also help those suffering from migraines, Parkinson's disease tremors or epileptic seizures.

ZDNet

ROBOTICS



Gostai Jazz Robot at Your Service

Gostai, a company specialized in Artificial Intelligence solutions, is launching Jazz, its telepresence robot that can be remotely operated via a web-based user interface. The robot can be used for video conferencing, visiting a place or telesurveillance. Jazz can effectively patrol at night, thanks to its infrared camera, laser system and a map of its surroundings.

In case of a security alert, the remote operator can take control of the robot in real time using a regular web browser and check on the situation. Check the complete feature list in the full post.

Jazz Security features:


Jazz Security is equipped with a camera that detects motion and can be controlled by a person via a web-based interface
Jazz Security record video while patrolling a place and send alerts via SMS or email in case of suspicious activities
A Laser Range Finder will soon be proposed with Jazz Security. This powerful device allows the robot to build a map of the area where it stands, and then use this map to localize itself.
Using this map displayed on the user’s screen, it is possible to setup waypoints that the Jazz robot will follow
Random patrolling can be used as well, to avoid regular patterns that can be monitored by potential thieves
Jazz Connect features:


Jazz Connect robot stands in a remote location and will serve as your personal avatar. It can move and perceive its surrounding with its embedded camera, speaker and microphone, and the user remotely controls Jazz Connect via a web browser from a computer, or a smartphone.
Easy to use: the robot can connect itself to the Internet via a WiFi connection and it will be operated using a 3D pointer on the real-time image displayed on the web interface to indicate the direction to follow.
An optional LCD screen (not in the product picture here) can display the user’s face during a video conference meeting, so that people know who is controlling Jazz Connect.
The rotating head enables the robot to better (video-)capture the surroundings

ubergizmo

ROBOTICS



Nao robot receives a much sexier body

Aldebaran Robotics’ latest version of their Nao robot made an impact at the Humanoids 2010 conference in Atlanta, where Nao’s body has been re-engineered to look a whole lot more attractive and robust. It features longer curved arms that just give the bot more space for it to pick stuff up and throw, preferably not at you for forgetting to oil its joints.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that a new motion engine has been installed into the Nao, making it move a whole lot more fluidly, making it move more like a human than ever before. Nao’s also been given a new head that holds an upgraded brain, where it is capable of recognizing speech and images, performing a certain degree of facial recognition as well as reading text.



ubergizmo


This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 24 2010, 10:11 AM

ROBOTICS



Robot Hand Copies Your Movements, Mimics Your Gestures

2010 may go down in history as the year of gesture recognition. We’ve seen it in TVs, we have it in our video games (thanks, Kinect!), and now we have it in our robots. The Biological Cybernetics Lab at Tsukuba University, headed by Kiyoshi Hoshino, recently demonstrated a robotic arm that can mimic the position and movements of your own.

Using two cameras, the system tracks your hand and arm more than 100 times per second and relays the information to the robot so that it can repeat what you do. The system is fast enough that there is relatively little lag time between your gesture and the robot’s copied motion.

Hoshino and his students have pushed the system even further and taught it how to recognize 100 distinct hand shapes. This allows the robot arm to not only track the location and movement of your arm, but to reliably perform the same actions like picking up an object or waving hello. The robot arm was demonstrated at the recent 3DExpo in Yokohama, and you can see it in action in the video below. This sort of intuitive interface could let almost anyone control and program a robot. Hooray for the democratization of technology!



SingularityHub

APPLIED SCIENCES



Solar Powered Rain Catchment Offers Shelter and a Fresh Drink

Here is an interesting concept for rainwater catchment. Created by Mostafa Bonakdar, a design student from Tehran, Iran, the structure is both a shelter during rain as well as a drinking fountain. It features both solar power and rainwater collection, with the solar power running a purification system inside.

The structure can act as a bus shelter, a cover for benches in the park, or a number of other locations where both an awning and a bit of fresh water are welcome.

Perhaps the shelters could be temporary, installed during springtime when the weather varies enough to offer rain one day, and a warm day the next. Or it could be set up to release extra water into the ground after a certain duration in the tank -- after all, it'd take quite a bit of energy to constantly filter and sterilize the water held in the tank, which means the solar panel would have to be incredibly efficient or quite a bit larger than pictured here.

Sure it's not exactly practical nor realistic, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless for providing several services at once with renewable energy and resources.

TreeHugger

ROBOTICS



Robots learn to walk like a senior citizen


Today's humanoid robots are able to run, somersault and even dance – now comes a robot that walks like a senior citizen. It leans on objects in its environment for support to help it move around and complete tasks.

Robots, and more importantly roboticists, are looking at objects in the wrong way, thinks Sébastien Lengagne of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba. "Roboticists usually just see objects as obstacles to be avoided," he says "But they can help us."

Lengagne and his colleagues are developing a system to allow humanoid robots to use their entire bodies, and any surrounding objects, to help them move around cluttered environments and complete complex balancing tasks without getting stuck or falling over.

"If I ask you to look below your desktop, you will put your hand on the desktop for support," he says. "But most methods will try to get the robot to do the task without touching the desktop."

The team's robot, HRP-2, acts more like a human. It will place both arms on a table to maintain its balance when trying to sit down in a chair, or use one arm for support when taking a big swinging kick at a ball.

Video

The system breaks down tasks into two stages. In the first stage, software developed by Lengagne's colleague Karim Bouyarmane identifies objects in the robot's surroundings that it can use to help complete a task – for instance, leaning on a table with its forearms to sidle past it and into a nearby chair. The software then calculates a number of poses that the robot could strike to make best use of the table for stability while it shuffles towards the chair and sits on it. Lengagne's software then converts these static poses into one smooth motion, taking into account the forces operating on the robot in each position to ensure it does not lose balance.

At present, the system has to run these calculations on an external computer, but the team hope that ultimately a robot's onboard computer will be able to carry out the process in one step.

New Scientist

ROBOTICS



Robot waiters in China

Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.

The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China's first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want.

The service industry in China has not always kept up with the country's rapid economic growth, and can be quite basic in some restaurants, leading customers in the Dalu restaurant to praise the robots.

"They have a better service attitude than humans," said Li Xiaomei, 35, who was visiting the restaurant for the first time.

"Humans can be temperamental or impatient, but they don't feel tired, they just keep working and moving round and round the restaurant all night," Li said.

Inspired by space exploration, robot technology and global innovation, the restaurant's owner, Zhang Yongpei, said he hopes his restaurant will show the world China is a serious competitor in developing technology.

"I hope this new concept shows that China is forward-thinking and innovative," Zhang said.

As customers enter the dimly lit restaurant lined with blinking neon lights to simulate a futuristic environment, a female robot decorated with batting eyelashes greets people with an electronic "welcome."

During the meal, crowds of up to 100 customers, are entertained by a dancing and talking robot that looks more like a mannequin with a dress, flapping its arms around in a stiff motion.

Zhang said he hopes to roll out 30 robots — which cost $6,000 each — in the coming months and eventually develop robots with human-like qualities that serve customers at their table and can walk up and down the stairs.

YahooNews

dont forget Vanadium Redox Battery, potential energy storage is the most important aspect before all those advanced, science & technology able to operate.

This post has been edited by zeitgeist: Dec 24 2010, 12:06 PM

ENERGY

The Vanadium Battery: The Ultimate Energy Storage Solution

Many of us are feeling that this generation has passed on a heavy burden to our kids especially regarding the ever increasing energy needs of society. It's not all doom and gloom however, the Vanadium Battery might just return a little spring to your step and a bigger smile on your face when you next see your grand kids.



A new mass energy storage technology is on the cusp of entering mainstream society. The Japanese are currently using it on a grand scale, the Canadians have comprehensively evaluated it and soon Australians will have the opportunity to replace their old lead-acid batteries with a Vanadium Redox Battery alternative. There are no emissions, no disposal issues, no loss of charge, the construction materials are 'green' and the battery can be charged and discharged simultaneously. So, is the Vanadium Battery as good as it sounds and more importantly, is it the solution to our energy storage problems?

Quite simply...Yes.

The potential of this system can be easily summed up in one word: 100% recharge/discharge. Well that's slightly more than one word, but still it is an impressive group of words. I'm a little excited here, so let me back track a little and explain the importance of Vanadium Batteries to our very existence.

It has been possible for quite some time to successfully gather energy through a variety of renewable energy sources, in particular solar and wind. The main problem however, which is also true for fossil fuel energy generation, is the storage of the energy. There is no point in generating surplus uber-watts on one sunny and windy day to find the next day is still and raining and worst of all there is no power to play the new DVD of Stainless Steel Rat on your suped-up 80 inch LCD screen (sorry...just wishful thinking). If the energy cannot be stored on the day of bountiful bliss than a renewable energy system is useless.

In small scale alternative energy systems usually found in off-grid houses, lead-acid batteries are commonly used to store energy. The main problem with this storage system is that lead-acid batteries aren't too efficient. In order to obtain the most cycles possible (300-1500), the batteries are designed to only use 10% of their storage capacity - that's like only being able to use your iPod for one hour instead of the battery's 10 hour capacity. If more energy is sucked out of them, the amount of times they can be recharged and discharged is drastically shortened. Large scale power companies also have a little problem with storage.

Basically, they can't be bothered. It's cheaper for them to estimate the daily power needs of a city and make sure that they produce enough electricity to satisfy all vested interests - that usually takes the form of direct support for industry not individual consumers as many North Americans are finding out on an all too regular basis.

Because a powerhouse can't instantaneously lower or raise output, at night there is usually surplus electricity and the crazy situation occurs where it is pumped into the ground. For all the skeptics out there mumbling conspiracy theory, treehugging pinky, just look it up in any dictionary under 'colossal waste'. Which brings me back to the amazing invention of the Vanadium Battery.

This battery, as the name so intelligently suggests, uses a metal called Vanadium. The soon-to-be Nobel Prize recipients (if there is any justice in this world) from Australia and Europe, have found a substance that can store energy indefinitely. On top of all that, it is possible to use 100% of the stored energy without any side effects. The number of times the Vanadium Battery can be recharged/discharged is also a tad worrying for other battery makers (over 10,000 plus cycles), who must be searching desperately for new employment opportunities - possibly in the oil industry .



In all honesty the word 'battery' falls a little shy of an accurate description of this epoch-creating invention. In very basic terms (which is all I can manage after trying to read the manual) the Vanadium is stored in two separate containers in liquid form - one is charged with energy and one has a depleted energy charge. When new energy is gathered, non-charged Vanadium gets spinached-up and popeye's your uncle, you have lots of energy to expend on a 30 inch Cinema Display connected to 17 inch Powerbook playing Doom until your fingers hurt...um and ah all those other things that use power in a normal household, like lights, fridges, blah, blah, blah.

If you decide one day that you need a little more storage capacity, perhaps for that air-conditioner or hairdryer (for the uninitiated, the banes of lead-acid batteries), no worries, just get bigger storage tanks to hold more Vanadium and all of a sudden you have storage to spare. Try that with a lead-acid battery system.

On a final and semi-serious note (which is the best I can do after thinking about my dream Mac setup), Vanadium Batteries have profound implications for normal households that don't have an alternative energy system supplying power to their house. As Japan is demonstrating, the amount of energy that their power stations produce can be cut by 1/3 simply by storing their previously dumped excess nightly energy into huge Vanadium Batteries. This form of load-levelling can be utilised by every power station throughout the world.



So the next time your power has been cut on your desktop while you are smack in the middle of a frag-fest...or should I say, thesis...or perhaps while buying Vanadium stock on-line, remember that your saviour Vanadium is just around the corner and who knows, if all goes well, perhaps your next car might be using charged Vanadium as fuel, which has been the case for a few University of New South Wales professors on their local golf course.

TreeHugger

Didn't know that. Thanks for telling!

ROBOTICS



Robot Uses Air Powered Muscles To Run Like A Human

When you go for a jog do you precisely measure the angle of each of your joints to keep you from falling over? No, of course not, only robots do that …and if Ryuma Niiyama has his way, they won’t be doing it for much longer either. The former University of Tokyo post-doctoral student created “Athlete” a bipedal robot that runs on legs powered by pneumatic “muscles”. Instead of rotating its joints electrically like most robots, Athlete contracts its muscles in the same pattern and with the same timing as you do. To simplify the task, the lower legs were replaced by the sort of prosthetic running blades used in the Para-Olympics. Niiyama presented Athletes’ progress at the recent IEEE Humanoids 2010 conference in Tennessee. You can watch its attempts at running in the video below. Athlete only makes it about five or six steps before falling over, but it looks amazingly life-like while doing so.

Like the human body, Athlete’s mechanical frame is a complex work of art. In each leg of the robot there are seven sets of artificial muscles. Each set contains one to six pneumatic actuators that actually look like a sort of over-sized muscle fiber. The location and power of these actuators correspond, roughly, to the muscles in the human body including the gluteus, quadriceps, etc. There are pressure sensors in each bladed foot and an inertial sensor system in the torso. The goal of Athlete is to have it learn how to flex these artificial pneumatic muscles in order to run like a human and stay balanced while doing so. As you can see below, Athlete is still in the very early stages of that education. The actual running test isn’t until the end (1:25), but check out the rest for some neat background information about the robot.



While at the University of Tokyo, Niiyama was advised by Professor Kuniyoshi and worked with Satoshi Nishikawa to get Athlete running. According to their presentation at the IEEE Humanoid 2010 conference, they were inspired by Oscar Pistorious – the world renowned athlete who runs on bladed prosthetics. Pistorious shows that bipedal running on blades is not only possible, but also highly efficient. With repeated trials, it’s possible that Athlete will be able to manage the muscle coordination needed to keep itself upright while running. Niiyama’s previous work, a robot named Mowgli, was able to learn to jump in just 150 trials. You can see it leap more than 50% of its body height in the video below. While Athlete is prone to falling now, it could prove as quick a learner as Mowgli.



I’m sure some of you are curious as to why I’m spending time discussing a robot that can’t get more than 15 feet without falling on its ass. Well, Athlete may not be up to performance standards yet, but it does represent an important concept in robotics. Many of the top bipedal walkers out there (like Asimo, or HRP-4) monitor their joint positions very carefully to keep from toppling over. They know exactly how much each leg should be bent at each portion in their gait. Even small errors in positioning can lead to catastrophic failure. Now, a lot can be done with this technique, including modifying it slightly to allow the foot to fall during portions of the stride, but it’s not how humans control their walking. Similarly, we’ve seen robots that can move pretty fast on two legs and have some great dynamic power and control. We say that these robots are ‘running’ but they don’t quite get both of their feet completely off the ground the way most humans do when sprinting. Athlete actually runs, and it runs like a human – with little regard for exact positioning of its joints. If Athlete can manage to learn how to react quickly and balance itself dynamically, it has the potential to run as smoothly as any human. In the long run it’s not clear how much we’ll want that kind of movement from a robot. Stiff-jointed walking, if performed fast enough, may be better for many applications. Yet the development of robots like Athlete provide an important alternative that I’m glad is available.

SingularityHub

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Added on December 27, 2010, 3:20 pmOpening post updated with more contents.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 27 2010, 03:20 PM

ROBOTICS



Robotic Surgery for Head and Neck Cancer Shows Promise

Less-invasive robotic surgery for upper airway and digestive track malignant tumors is as effective as other minimally invasive surgical techniques based on patient function and survival, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas account for about 4 percent of malignant tumors diagnosed in the United States each year. Currently the standard minimally invasive surgery for these tumors is transoral laser microsurgery.

Previous studies have shown that the robotic surgery was better for patients to regain the ability to swallow, a common and serious side effect, but never looked at cure rate. Manguson wanted to know if you could achieve function and get rid of the cancer at the same time. This study, published Dec. 20, 2010, in the Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery, showed you could.

UAB otolaryngologist and the study's senior author J. Scott Magnuson, M.D., and colleagues from UAB and the Mayo Clinic looked at 89 patients with various stages of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas whose primary tumor was resected using the da Vinci Robot. All of the patients were monitored during their hospital stay and up to 33 months after surgery.

"The overall two-year survival rate for these patients was 86.3 percent, which is comparable to the standard treatment," Magnuson, also a scientist in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, said. "Those with earlier-stage tumors appeared to have slightly better recurrence-free survival than those with later stages, but it was not statistically significant."

Magnuson said patient swallowing varied depending on the location of the tumor, preoperative swallowing ability, cancer stage and patient age, and their findings on function were consistent with previous research. Some patients, he said, tolerated an oral diet one to two days after surgery while some were discharged with a short-term nasal feeding tube or long-term gastric feeding tube, including some who were feeding tube-dependent prior to surgery.

"Of note," he added, "all of the patients in the study had regained full swallowing ability at the time of the last follow up visit and none remained feeding-tube dependent."

Magnuson said the study's results are encouraging and show robotic surgery offers a technically feasible and oncologically sound alternative treatment for some patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, but he cautions more work needs to be done.

"This is a relatively new technique, and long-term oncologic outcomes are not available," he said. "However, the early functional and oncologic results justify the continued treatment of select patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas with robotic-assisted surgeries."

ScienceDaily

APPLIED SCIENCES



New chemical-free, anti-bacteria plastic 'skins'

Taking a leaf from animals like dolphins and pilot whales that are known to have anti-fouling skins, researchers from A*STAR's Industrial Consortium On Nanoimprint (ICON) are using nanotechnology to create synthetic, chemical-free, anti-bacterial surfaces. The surfaces can reduce infections caused by pathogens such as S. aureus and E. coli and can be used on common plastics, medical devices, lenses and even ship hulls. Conventional methods for preventing bacterial surface attachment may use potentially harmful metal ions, nanoparticles, chemicals or UV-radiation.

Nanoimprint technology, a form of nanotechnology, is a simple technique that has been developed by IMRE to make complex nanometer-sized patterns on surfaces to mimic the texture of natural surfaces. This gives the engineered material 'natural' properties such as luminescence, adhesiveness, water-proofing and anti-reflectivity.

The anti-bacterial surfaces research is ICON's second industry-themed project and will involve A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) and companies like Nypro Inc (USA), Hoya Corporation (Japan), Advanced Technologies and Regenerative Medicine, LLC (ATRM) (USA), NIL Technology ApS (Denmark) and Akzo Nobel (UK). This is also the first time that 3 local polytechnics, namely Singapore Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic are working with the consortium partners, under a special arrangement.

"With millions of years of experience behind her, nature has produced some of the most rugged, adaptable life forms. Who better to learn engineering from than Mother Nature?", said Dr Low Hong Yee, IMRE's Director for Research and Innovation and head of the consortium. She added that the anti-microbial surfaces project will demonstrate the versatility of nanoimprinting technology and its benefits to a wide range of industries.

"The strong support given by industry to this second project and to the consortium is a resounding seal of approval of the research, the talent expertise, the technology and its real-world applications", said Prof Andy Hor, Executive Director of IMRE.

Dr Raj Thampuran, A*STAR Science and Engineering Research Council's (SERC) Executive Director added, "Working closely with companies ensures that our R&D and expertise is translated at the earliest possible time and contributes value to the economy. Borrowing intimately from characteristics in nature represents some of the most frontier and innovative ideas in science and engineering. I am pleased that IMRE's research will help companies challenge difficult engineering problems".

"ICON and nanoimprint research gives our own R&D an added dimension and provides us with alternative options on how our existing technology can be applied", said Mr Steve Ferriday, Technical Manager, Worldwide Marine Foul Release, International Paint Ltd (UK), which is part of Akzo Nobel, the world's largest global paints and coatings company. The company recently established their worldwide marine research laboratory in Singapore and is keen to explore how these surfaces might work in a marine environment.

"Chemical additives in biomedical devices can adversely affect different users in different ways. The anti-microbial surfaces derived from nanoimprint technology without the need for additional chemicals and coatings may offer us an alternative solution to this issue", said Mr Tsuyoshi Watanabe, General Manager, R&D Center of Hoya Corporation, a Japanese-based company dealing in advanced electronics and optics technologies. The company has a plant in Singapore producing implanted lenses for the eye.

"Nypro is excited to be a part of this second project. Our participation in such a world class collaborative programme gives Nypro a competitive advantage in bringing innovation to our customers", commented Mr Michael McGee, Director of Technology from Nypro Inc., a leading global solutions provider in the field of manufactured precision plastic products.

"This collaboration will enable the R&D partners to leverage on their areas of expertise to investigate how bacteria attach to specially designed surfaces of different materials. The industrial applications are tremendous and Ngee Ann Polytechnic is excited to be part of the team. Our student interns from various courses at the School of Life Sciences & Chemical Technology will also benefit from working on projects under the supervision of top researchers," said Mrs Tang-Lim Guek Im, Senior Director for Technology Collaboration at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore.

This post has been edited by tzmmalaysia: Dec 29 2010, 09:08 AM

ROBOTICS



Robot solves Rubik's cube in 15 seconds

A Rubik's cube is probably not on most people's Christmas list this year, but it's still inspiring engineers to create novel ways of solving it. Zachary Grady and Joe Ridgeway, students at Rowan University in New Jersey, built a robotic arm from scratch and created software that can solve the cube in just 15 seconds.

The system uses a camera to capture how the cube is scrambled and sends the images to a computer. It determines the pattern on each face and algorithms are used to solve the cube. The solution is then translated to the arm's pneumatics and motors (see video above).

Ridgeway was inspired by his own expertise - he can consistently solve the cube in about 45 seconds. "We knew the device was capable of doing these movements," he says. The team designed the arm so that the cube could be held in one corner, allowing it to be quickly rotated without having to re-grip it after each move.

VIDEO

NewScientist

APPLIED SCIENCES



Self-Cleaning Fridge Concept Makes Meals, Saves Money

When I first saw this futuristic fridge, my thought was "What ever happened to the simple insulated box that makes things cold?" The full-size touch screens look like energy wasters and the whole thing seems like an ugly addition to your kitchen. However, looking a little more closely, this fridge could actually be a solution for shrinking your overall environmental footprint.

The concept was dreamed up as a project between University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado, a UK-based grocery with a mind for the planet. In fact, their tag line is "Quality groceries that won't cost the earth." A significant part of minimizing the eco-impact of food is minimizing waste -- and that is a primary purpose of this concept fridge.

According to the Daily Mail, the fridge scans its contents and comes up with recipes you can make from whatever you have in there, including your leftovers. This helps to ensure that you never waste food by forgetting about it and letting it go bad, or never figuring out what to cook with it before it expires.

It can move food around its shelves according to expiration date, so the stuff that needs to be used first is up front. And it can also reorder fresh food when needed. Plus, the designers dreamed up coordinating trashcan technology that would scan foods tossed out -- the fridge would read the data and reduce these ingredients in future meals.

How easy would it be to come home after a long day and just look at the fridge to know what you can whip up without having to go to the store for ingredients?



The screens also show you what you have inside so you don't have to open the doors to find out, and that alone is a big energy saver.

So let's say the fridge is built to the highest of energy efficiency standards, and the screens are e-paper with a smaller touch screen for navigation, or the latest in energy efficient display that stays turned off until you're ready to grab a recipe or a snack -- you also throw in zero food waste and saving energy by opening it as few times as possible, and suddenly the giant screens aren't so wasteful. However, there is also the energy use of those scanners and the shelf tiles that shuffle food around inside. But maybe it could be built to at least break even with the average fridge's energy use. There's still years before the technology dreamed up for this fridge would be realistic, so who knows what could happen.

TreeHugger

APPLIED SCIENCES



Scientists Plan "Living Earth Simulator" to Track Disease, Disasters and Traffic

It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived.

An international group of scientists are aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth - from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or congestion on Milton Keynes' roads.

Nicknamed the Living Earth Simulator (LES), the project aims to advance the scientific understanding of what is taking place on the planet, encapsulating the human actions that shape societies and the environmental forces that define the physical world.

"Many problems we have today - including social and economic instabilities, wars, disease spreading - are related to human behaviour, but there is apparently a serious lack of understanding regarding how society and the economy work," says Dr Helbing, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, who chairs the FuturICT project which aims to create the simulator.

BBC Science

APPLIED SCIENCES



Water purification made simpler

Inside a growing number of homes in the developing world, sand and biological organisms are collaborating to decontaminate drinking water.

Arranged in barrels of concrete or plastic, these biosand water filtration systems (BSFs) remove 95 to 99 percent of the bacteria, viruses, worms and particles contained in rain or surface water. A layer of microorganisms at the top of the sand bed consumes biological and other organic contaminants, while the sand below removes contaminants that cause cloudiness and odor.

A BSF can produce several dozen liters of clean water in an hour. But it can weigh several hundred pounds and cost up to $30, an expense some families in developing countries cannot afford.

Kristen Jellison and her students are trying to build a BSF that is smaller than the standard system, but just as effective.

“Smaller, lighter BSFs,” says Jellison, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, “would be cheaper, easier to transport and available to a broader global market. Preliminary research has shown the potential for smaller systems to remove most disease-causing organisms, except possibly viruses.”

Jellison, who is affiliated with the university’s STEPS (Science, Technology, Environment, Policy and Society) initiative, has devoted most of her career to improving drinking water. As a co-adviser to Lehigh’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders, she helped lead efforts to design and build a 20,000-gallon water-storage tank and chlorination system in Pueblo Nuevo, Honduras.

With support from NSF and the Philadelphia Water Department, she has spent five years studying the parasite Cryptosporidium parvum and its transport and fate in water bodies. The parasite is found in multiple hosts, is difficult to eradicate, and can be deadly to people with compromised immune systems.

In an effort to identify possible sources of Cryptosporidium contamination in the Philadelphia watershed, Jellison studies the DNA of various species using a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). She also studies the impact on Cryptosporidium of biofilms, the slimy layers of microorganisms that form on rocks, pipes and other surfaces in water.

Jellison’s group is conducting experiments on BSFs of various sizes, including systems that fit inside two- and five-gallon plastic pails. (The typical BSF is 3 feet high.) The group will change the depth of the sand column, add rusty nails to several pails (in an effort to increase virus removal), and alter other parameters.

“BSFs were developed in the 1980s,” says Jellison. “This is the most comprehensive study to date to characterize the efficiency of different filter types.”

PhysOrg

ENERGY



NASA takes a look at the Jet Stream to get 50 times more wind power

NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore is using a $100,000 federal grant to research what it will take to create a jet stream-based wind industry 30,000 feet above the ground.

The reason the US government is interested in developing the jet stream is that up there, winds blow consistently at 150 miles per hour, so futuristic satellite-based wind turbines or kite-type turbines such as those from Kitegen and Magenn flying at that altitude have the potential to generate 50 times the gigawatts that ground-based turbines can. So far, the early Magenn prototype flies at 1,000 feet.

“At 2,000 feet, there is two to three times the wind velocity compared to ground level,” Moore said. “The power goes up with the cube of that wind velocity, so it’s eight to 27 times the power production just by getting 2,000 feet up, and the wind velocity is more consistent.”

50 times greater energy density

Higher still: 30,000 feet is where this new resource will play out. If you can send turbines further up, to 30,000 feet, into the jet stream, “instead of 500 watts per meter for ground-based wind turbines, you’re talking about 20,000, 40,000 watts per square meter,” Moore said. “That’s very high energy density and potentially lower cost wind energy because of the 50-plus fold increase in energy density.”

Moore has undertaken the wind-power study to streamline the development of R&D and to reduce friction between competitors for airspace. As more kite-type wind turbines are moving from the pie-in-the sky idea to the deployment stage, one entity needs to develop a plan that makes it possible to coexist in the same airspace; only NASA has that kind of experience.

That means dealing with current Federal Aviation Administration regulations and with those that might be necessary to accommodate an airspace that includes manned aircraft, the unmanned aircraft in the future, plus wind-borne energy turbines. The jet stream is very useful to commercial airlines, because the much greater wind speeds greatly reduce their need for fuel.

One solution? Site future potential jet-stream-based wind farms in little-traveled areas of the jet stream over the ocean.

“Offshore deployment of these airborne systems probably makes the most sense in terms of both airspace and land use”, says Moore, “because there is little to no demand for low altitude flight over oceans 12 miles offshore.”

His research also involves some of the core capabilities of NASA in aeronautics, composite materials and air space management. So leaders in this area of the wind power industry, as well as other government agencies, including the Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, have been working with NASA on the research.

“They welcome this study because they’ve never dealt with flying systems and NASA has,” Moore said. “You can’t come up with advanced concepts until you understand the requirements well, and frankly, I don’t think anybody understands the requirements well.”

As we catapult into a real clean energy future, the sky is the limit.

CleanTechnica

ROBOTICS



IBM's TriviaBot Watson to Take on Ken Jennings in Man Vs. Machine Episode of Jeopardy

Watson, an artificial intelligence program created by IBM (and named after Thomas J. Watson, IBM's founder, not Sherlock Holmes's roommate), is designed as a question-and-answer bot, able to interpret and respond to questions posed in normal human language patterns. The natural use for such a program is, of course, the greatest game show that ever was or ever will be: Jeopardy!. In February, Watson will be facing off against two of Jeopardy!'s toughest competitors ever: Ken Jennings, whose 74-day winning streak was the longest in the show's history, and Brad Rutter, whose $3.3 million winnings are the show's highest.

Creating an AI that can compete on Jeopardy! is an incredibly difficult task for any programmer. The venerable show poses questions not only as simple shows of trivia knowledge, but also puns, various forms of wordplay, trick questions, riddles, and other complex queries. It takes uniquely flexible and quick thinking to succeed at Jeopardy!, placing Watson on a pedestal with chess-playing robot (and IBM sibling) Deep Blue.



On February 14th, Watson will go head-to-head-to-head on a very special episode of Jeopardy!, playing against trivia legends Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. (In case you were wondering, Watson's spot at the challenger podium will be taken by an avatar--no word on what strained anecdote Trebek will coax out of him and then casually mock.) Watson has been prepping for the battle by sparring with other Tournament of Champions competitors, though neither IBM nor Jeopardy! has released the trivia-bot's record against human competitors. You can see in the video above that some wordings can trip him up, so nobody knows exactly how capable a competitor he'll be. The winner will receive $1 million--if Watson wins, IBM will donate the money to charity, and both of the human competitors have pledged to donate half the prize if either wins.

PopSci

APPLIED SCIENCES



Army evaluating transportable solar-powered tents

ARLINGTON, Va. (Army News Service, Dec. 8, 2010) -- The U.S. Army is evaluating a host of flexible, portable, lightweight solar-powered shades and tent-like technologies.

The products are designed to allow expeditionary units to deploy with transferrable, exportable electrical power that can charge batteries, computers and other essential gear without needing fuel or a generator, service officials said.

Using a fast-evolving technology known as Flexible Photovoltaics (PV), the solar-powered tent structures convert light energy into electricity, thus removing the need to haul generators and large amounts fuel.

“They are ideal for charging up batteries, making sure your (communications), night vision goggles and computers are powered up. You don’t want a generator on top of a mountain, and you don’t want to have to bring fuel to a generator or haul batteries,” said Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment.

Technological advances in the area of photovoltaics have made it possible to build lightweight, portable materials which are flexible and can easily travel with dismounted units.

In fact, the Army has already deployed some of these technologies to forward locations around the world for additional evaluation, sending some to places such as Afghanistan, said Steven Tucker, a senior engineer in the Shelters Technology, Engineering and Fabrication Directorate at the Natick Soldier Research Design and Engineering Center.

In addition, Hammack said the Army is hoping to deploy more of the solar-powered tents in the near future.

“The technology has reached the point where the testing has shown they [solar-powered tents] are proven. Our teams have worked on the inverters and the durability of the systems. The durability of the tent covers has evolved to a point where we would like to see more of them deployed,” Hammack said.

Some of the Flexible PV products being evaluated are called: Power Shade, TEMPER Fly and QUADrant – military shelter items of various sizes and configurations which use flexible solar panels to harness light energy and convert it into transferable electricity.

“The technology we are using is called amorphous silicon. It’s been around since the early 80s. It takes the energy from the sun – photons. They [photons] go into the PV materials and they essentially knock loose electrons. Those electrons are then gathered and utilized for power, converting solar power to electrical power,” Tucker explained.

The TEMPER Fly is a roughly 16-by-20-foot tent structure able to generate 800 watts of electricity. A QUADrant is a smaller variant of the TEMPER Fly, able to generate 200 watts of power, and the Power Shades range in size and are capable of generating up to 3 kilowatts of exportable electrical power, Tucker said. The PV integrated military shelter items use a lamination process to combine the PV materials into the textile substrate, Tucker explained.

“Alternative energy sources are really going to shine in mission scenarios where you don’t want to use a generator because you don’t want the noise or heat signature that goes along with it, or where re-supplying that generator with fuel doesn’t make sense,” said Tucker.

US Army

NANOTECHNOLOGY



Japanese researchers create palladium-like alloy using nanotechnology, 'present-day alchemy'

Japanese researchers have created an alloy with properties similar to palladium, a precious metal used in many high-tech goods, a news report said Thursday, dubbing the breakthrough "present-day alchemy".

Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Kitagawa and his team said they used nano-technology to combine rhodium and silver, elements which do not usually mix, to produce the new composite, the Yomiuri daily said.

The alloy has similar properties to palladium, which is used in cars' emission-reducing catalytic converters as well as in computers, mobile phones, flatscreen TVs and dentistry instruments.

Like other white metals, such as silver and platinum, palladium is expensive, with its deposits largely limited to South Africa and Russia.

Palladium also has applications in the production of fuel cells -- a clean and renewable energy source that produces electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with water as the only byproduct.

To make the new alloy, the Kyoto team used nano-technology to "nebulise" the rhodium and silver and gradually mixed them with heated alcohol, with the two metals mixed stably at the atomic level, the report said.

Japan's industry ministry has listed 31 rare metals, including palladium and lithium, which are used in industrial products, such as electronic devices and batteries. Of these, 17 elements are called rare earth minerals.

Resource-poor Japan has tried to shift from its dependence on China, which controls the bulk of global rare earth production.

Kitagawa said he hopes to create more alloys using nano-technology, without specifying which ones, the Yomiuri said.

PhysOrg

ENERGY



New Floating Wind Turbine Harvests Energy from on High

Think of highly portable wind turbines that can adjust their height to take advantage of the best winds, and you’ve got the next generation of airborne wind energy devices. A 100-kW model from Mageen Power, Inc. is about to go on the market, so let’s dig a little deeper into the idea of harvesting energy through a kite string.

Airborne Wind Energy

The basic principle is simple: instead of anchoring a wind turbine to the ground, you float it up and make its tether double as a grid connector. Their portability, ease of installation and minimal use of land space could make airborne turbines ideal for innumerable small scale uses, including disaster relief and other emergency services.

Many Places for Airborne Wind Energy

One potential use for airborne wind energy is at sites that are not suitable for on-ground alternative energy installations. For example, airborne turbines could be tethered at brownfields as part of the U.S. EPA’s RE-Powering America's Land program, or at construction sites where extra space is minimal. They could also become an important alternative energy source for outdoor festivals and other temporary events (which are already beginning to introduce solar power and pedal power, by the way).

Magenn’s Airborne Turbine

The Magenn Power Wind Turbine, called MARS, differs from a kite-style wind power system in that it’s held aloft by helium rather than relying on the force of wind. It’s basically a blimp that houses rotors which spin on a horizontal axis. It can range up to 1,000 feet, and the system includes a battery so energy can be used immediately on site, stored for later use, or transferred to the grid. The company foresees a diverse market that includes isolated communities and remote facilities such as cell towers or mines, as well as farms, factories and the aforementioned disaster relief.

CleanTechnica

ENERGY



China says it knows how to reprocess nuclear fuel

Chinese scientists have mastered the technology for reprocessing fuel from nuclear power plants, potentially boosting the supplies of carbon-free electricity to keep the country's economy booming, state television reported Monday.

The breakthrough will extend by many times the amount of power that can be generated from China's nuclear plants as fissile and fertile materials are recovered to be new fuel, CCTV said.

Several European countries, Russia, India and Japan already reprocess nuclear fuel - the actual materials used to make nuclear energy - to separate and recover the unused uranium and plutonium, reduce waste and safely close the nuclear cycle.

The CCTV report gave no details on whether or when China would begin reprocessing on an industrial scale.

China overtook the United States as the world's largest energy consumer in 2009, years before it was expected to do so, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

But it is heavily dependent on coal, a major pollutant. It has 13 nuclear power plants in use now and ambitiously plans to add potentially hundreds more.

Reprocessing nuclear fuel costs significantly more than using it once and storing it as waste. It is also controversial because extracted plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons, although China has long had a nuclear arsenal.

U.S. commercial reprocessing of plutonium was halted by then-President Jimmy Carter because of nuclear proliferation worries. Then-President George W. Bush proposed a resumption, but the National Research Council found it not economically justifiable. President Barack Obama scrapped the Bush effort.

Recovered plutonium and - when prices are high - uranium can be re-used. Some reactors can use other reprocessed components, potentially multiplying the amount of energy that results from the original uranium fuel by about 60 times.

Wang Junfeng, project director for the state-run China National Nuclear Corporation, told CCTV the Chinese scientists employed a chemical process that was effective and safe.

"In this last experiment, we made a preparation of standard quality uranium products and standard quality plutonium products, so we can say we were successful," Wang said.

CCTV said the country has enough fuel now to last up to 70 years and the breakthrough could yield enough to last 3,000 years.

To produce that amount of fuel, however, China would have to build a hugely expensive and highly dangerous breeder reactor, said Matthew Bunn, an expert on the Chinese nuclear program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Rather than build a breeder reactor or even start reprocessing on a commercial scale, China should simply store used fuel for the next several decades while safer and less expensive technology emerges, Bunn said.

"Reprocessing the spent fuel is much more dangerous," Bunn said, adding that it increased the risk of nuclear terrorism if recovered fuel were stolen.

CCTV says the details of the process the Chinese scientists developed after 20 years' work are being kept secret. The technologies used in other countries also are considered industrial secrets and generally not shared.

Bunn said China build a pilot-scale reprocessing plant several years ago but repeatedly postphoned using it, possibly because of technical problems.

"My interpretation of this statement is that they have resolved whatever issues were delaying that," Bunn said.

China's total 2009 energy consumption, including sources ranging from oil and coal to wind and solar power, was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared with 2.169 billion tons used by the U.S., the IEA said.

The consumption boom reflects China's transformation from a nation of subsistence farmers to one of workers increasingly trading bicycles for cars and buying air conditioners and other energy-hungry home electronics.

That has also bestowed on China status as the world's biggest polluter, although Beijing has long pointed at developed nations in climate change talks and resists international pressure for it to take a larger role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

PhysOrg

ENERGY



New solar cell self-repairs like natural plant systems

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers are creating a new type of solar cell designed to self-repair like natural photosynthetic systems in plants by using carbon nanotubes and DNA, an approach aimed at increasing service life and reducing cost.

"We've created artificial photosystems using optical nanomaterials to harvest solar energy that is converted to electrical power," said Jong Hyun Choi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

The design exploits the unusual electrical properties of structures called single-wall carbon nanotubes, using them as "molecular wires in light harvesting cells," said Choi, whose research group is based at the Birck Nanotechnology and Bindley Bioscience centers at Purdue's Discovery Park.

"I think our approach offers promise for industrialization, but we're still in the basic research stage," he said.

Photoelectrochemical cells convert sunlight into electricity and use an electrolyte - a liquid that conducts electricity - to transport electrons and create the current. The cells contain light-absorbing dyes called chromophores, chlorophyll-like molecules that degrade due to exposure to sunlight.

"The critical disadvantage of conventional photoelectrochemical cells is this degradation," Choi said.

The new technology overcomes this problem just as nature does: by continuously replacing the photo-damaged dyes with new ones.

"This sort of self-regeneration is done in plants every hour," Choi said.

The new concept could make possible an innovative type of photoelectrochemical cell that continues operating at full capacity indefinitely, as long as new chromophores are added.

Findings were detailed in a November presentation during the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exhibition in Vancouver. The concept also was unveiled in an online article (http://spie.org/x41475.xml?ArticleID=x41475) featured on the Web site for SPIE, an international society for optics and photonics.

The talk and article were written by Choi, doctoral students Benjamin A. Baker and Tae-Gon Cha, and undergraduate students M. Dane Sauffer and Yujun Wu.

The carbon nanotubes work as a platform to anchor strands of DNA. The DNA is engineered to have specific sequences of building blocks called nucleotides, enabling them to recognize and attach to the chromophores.

"The DNA recognizes the dye molecules, and then the system spontaneously self-assembles," Choi said

When the chromophores are ready to be replaced, they might be removed by using chemical processes or by adding new DNA strands with different nucleotide sequences, kicking off the damaged dye molecules. New chromophores would then be added.

Two elements are critical for the technology to mimic nature's self-repair mechanism: molecular recognition and thermodynamic metastability, or the ability of the system to continuously be dissolved and reassembled.

The research is an extension of work that Choi collaborated on with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois. The earlier work used biological chromophores taken from bacteria, and findings were detailed in a research paper published in November in the journal Nature Chemistry (http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v2/n11.../nchem.822.html).

However, using natural chromophores is difficult, and they must be harvested and isolated from bacteria, a process that would be expensive to reproduce on an industrial scale, Choi said.

"So instead of using biological chromophores, we want to use synthetic ones made of dyes called porphyrins," he said.

Eurekalert

ROBOTICS



NASA Tests Handy-Man Space Robots For Orbital Repairs

Springing off the heels of a successful repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA has been quietly working on developing a new specialty: satellite repair-bots.

The goal of the NASA project is to demonstrate to commercial firms the feasibility of refueling, repairing and servicing spacecraft in orbit.

There are more than 360 operational commercial satellites and hundreds of government spacecraft currently in orbit, many of which will run out of fuel long before they sustain electronics or other systems failures.

"It's our idea to stimulate a pathfinder kind of mission," said Frank Cepolina, a Hubble mission development manager now spearheading NASA's new Satellite Servicing Development Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Once we're done, commercial takes over."

The first of what could be several demonstration missions is expected to fly on the International Space Station sometime next year. The plan is to use Dextre, the station's Canadian-built robot, to demonstrate autonomous orbital refueling.

Outfitted with smart sensors and tools, Dextre would basically pump fuel through tank valves that are identical to equipment flying on hundreds of satellites today. The robot would have to remove insulation, disconnect safety wires and prepare ports as part of the job.

"We want to demonstrate our ability to get up there...and pass fuel into valves and into a receiving tank, and do this test in many configurations, many different times," said Cepolina.

Dextre already has been through the paces. Before it was launched to the space station, the Hubble team used it to test robotic servicing options for fixing the telescope. NASA initially canceled the shuttle servicing mission after the 2003 Columbia accident, believing it was too risky to fly astronauts anywhere but the space station. In the end, NASA reinstated the shuttle's mission to Hubble, which was successfully completed last year.

The robotics work, however, was not in vain. Tools and techniques developed for the robotic servicing of Hubble were adapted for the shuttle mission, boosting productive of the spacewalking service teams. After the flight, NASA began thinking more generically about robotic satellite servicing.

"We're trying to build an industry, not a government program in whatever NASA does and leave something behind," Dave Huntsman, who oversees commercial space initiatives at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., told Discovery News.

"In area after area, we're falling behind. We're fourth in commercial launches now, with less than 10 percent of the market. We used to have 100 percent of the commercial satellite launch market," he said.

"It isn't just a matter of money," Huntsman added. "It's whether the government leverages the money to leave a sustainable industry behind. The U.S. hasn't been doing that. That's why our competitive industries are falling behind."

Cepolina's team would like to get its refueling demonstration gear on the last shuttle flight to the station, currently scheduled for September, but with just four flights remaining, there is a lot of competition. Ground demonstrations of robotic refueling are under way.

DiscoveryNews

APPLIED SCIENCES



Ceiling lights in Minn. send coded Internet data

(AP) -- Flickering ceiling lights are usually a nuisance, but in city offices in St. Cloud, they will actually be a pathway to the Internet.

The lights will transmit data to specially equipped computers on desks below by flickering faster than the eye can see. Ultimately, the technique could ease wireless congestion by opening up new expressways for short-range communications.

The first few light fixtures built by LVX System, a local startup, will be installed Wednesday in six municipal buildings in this city of 66,000 in the snowy farm fields of central Minnesota.

The LVX system puts clusters of its light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, in a standard-sized light fixture. The LEDs transmit coded messages - as a series of 1s and 0s in computer speak - to special modems attached to computers.

A light on the modem talks back to the fixture overhead, where there is sensor to receive the return signal and transmit the data over the Internet. Those computers on the desks aren't connected to the Internet, except through these light signals, much as Wi-Fi allows people to connect wirelessly.

LVX takes its name from the Latin word for light, but the underlying concept is older than Rome; the ancient Greeks signaled each other over long distances using flashes of sunlight off mirrors and polished shields. The Navy uses a Morse-coded version with lamps.

The first generation of the LVX system will transmit data at speeds of about 3 megabits per second, roughly as fast as a residential DSL line.

Mohsen Kavehrad, a Penn State electrical engineering professor who has been working with optical network technology for about 10 years, said the approach could be a vital complement to the existing wireless system.

He said the radio spectrum usually used for short-range transmissions, such as Wi-Fi, is getting increasingly crowded, which can lead to slower connections.

"Light can be the way out of this mess," said Kavehrad, who is not involved in the LVX project.

But there are significant hurdles. For one, smart phones and computers already work on Wi-Fi networks that are much faster than the LVX system.

Technology analyst Craig Mathias of the Farpoint Group said the problems with wireless congestion will ease as Wi-Fi evolves, leaving LVX's light system to niche applications such as indoor advertising displays and energy management.

LVX Chief Executive Officer John Pederson said a second-generation system that will roll out in about a year will permit speeds on par with commercial Wi-Fi networks. It will also permit lights that can be programmed to change intensity and color.

For the city, the data networking capability is secondary. The main reason it paid a $10,000 installation fee for LVX is to save money on electricity down the line, thanks to the energy-efficient LEDs. Pederson said one of his LED fixtures uses about 36 watts of power to provide the same illumination that 100 watts provides with a standard fluorescent fixture.

Besides installation costs, customers such as St. Cloud will pay LVX a monthly fee that's less than their current lighting expenses. LVX plans to make money because the LED fixtures are more durable and efficient than standard lighting. At least initially, the data transmission system is essentially a bonus for customers.

Pederson said the next generation of the system should get even more efficient as fixtures become "smart" so the lights would dim when bright sunlight is coming through a window or when a conference room or hallway is empty.

Because the lights can also change color, Pederson said they could be combined with personal locators or tiny video cameras to help guide people through large buildings. The lights could show a trail of green lights to an emergency exit, for instance.

While Kavehrad and Mathias credited LVX for being the first company in the United States to bring the technology to market, Kavehrad said it trails researchers and consumer electronics companies in Japan and Korea in developing products for visible-light networks.

Pederson's previous company, 911 EP, built high-powered LED roof lights for squad cars and other emergency vehicles. He said he sold the company in 2002. He said the visible-light network grew out his interest in LEDs that goes to the mid-1990s.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, which pays for 24-hour lighting and replacing fluorescent bulbs on high ceilings, is considering an LVX system, said Jeffrey W. Hamiel, executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

The system might include mounting cameras on the light fixtures to bolster the airport security system, but the real attraction is the savings on electricity and maintenance.

"Anything we can do to save costs is worth consideration," he said.

Michael Williams, the city administrator in St. Cloud, said the city had been considering LVX for some time.

"It's pretty wild stuff," he said. "They have been talking about it with us for couple of years, and frankly it took a while for it to sink in."

PhysOrg

APPLIED SCIENCES



Electronics on Anything[:] Chemical trick puts solar cells and other electronics on rice paper, Saran wrap, and more practical things, too

There's probably not much call for printing solar cells on toilet paper, but a method developed at MIT can do just that, if it's ever needed.

More to the point, oxidative chemical vapor deposition (oCVD) could allow low-cost production of solar cells and other electronic devices on thin, flexible materials that other processes can't easily handle. Miles Barr, a graduate student in the lab of MIT chemical engineering professor Karen Gleason, described the process at the fall meeting of the Materials Research Society, in Boston.

The technique deposits conjugated polymers, plastics with good conductivity and semiconductor properties that are also flexible, stretchable, and even foldable. "We're particularly interested in polymers because of their good mechanical properties," Barr says.

The process sprays a vapor of a monomer and an oxidizing agent onto a substrate. When they meet on the surface, they polymerize, joining into long chains to form a plastic popularly known as PEDOT. Varying the surface temperature of the substrate between 20 ªC and 100 ªC dictates how the surface of the film forms; it can range from smooth to studded with nanopores. The polymer is conductive on its own, but lacing the nanopores with silver particles can increase conductivity up to a thousandfold. Barr says the process allows users to synthesize, deposit, and pattern the conjugated polymer all in one step.

To show off oCVD's abilities, Barr and his colleagues used the process on a number of extremely delicate materials. Rice paper, used to make spring rolls in restaurants, would dissolve in most processes, but because this one is free of solvents, it remained intact. A plastic film, such as Saran wrap—hard to coat because it repels water—could be coated with this dry process. The researchers even constructed a solar cell printed on toilet paper.

"This is kind of just to illustrate the versatility, not that these are substrates we necessarily want to process with electronics," Barr says. "You don't typically think of paper as a good substrate for photovoltaics, because it's not very transparent."

There may, however, be applications where the ability to build electronics, such as flexible displays, on fabrics or paper will come in handy. And engineers are increasingly looking to roll-to-roll printing—in which inks are printed onto plastic or another flexible material as it unspools from one machine and is wound up on another—as a faster, less costly method for producing some electronics, including photovoltaics.

The team built solar cells on a commonly used plastic and bent them to a radius of less than 5 millimeters more than 1000 times, then tested them to see if they still worked. Their efficiency was still greater than 99 percent of what it had been before bending, Barr said. Electrodes were bent to a radius of less than 1 mm, creased more than 100 times, and stretched to approximately 200 percent and still maintained high conductivity. A solar cell built on Saran wrap performed well even while it was stretched to about 180 percent, at which point the wrap pulled apart, destroying the cell.

To illustrate the point, Barr printed a solar cell on a piece of paper. In a video he showed at the conference, a student folded the paper into the shape of an airplane, attached leads, and shone a light on the folded device. It still generated current.



"I don't know if paper airplanes are the future of solar cells," Barr concedes. But in case they are, he's got it covered.

IEEESpectrum

NANOTECHNOLOGY



'Nanoscoops' could spark new generation of electric automobile batteries

Troy, N.Y. – An entirely new type of nanomaterial developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could enable the next generation of high-power rechargeable lithium (Li)-ion batteries for electric automobiles, as well as batteries for laptop computers, mobile phones, and other portable devices.

The new material, dubbed a "nanoscoop" because its shape resembles a cone with a scoop of ice cream on top, can withstand extremely high rates of charge and discharge that would cause conventional electrodes used in today's Li-ion batteries to rapidly deteriorate and fail. The nanoscoop's success lies in its unique material composition, structure, and size.

The Rensselaer research team, led by Professor Nikhil Koratkar, demonstrated how a nanoscoop electrode could be charged and discharged at a rate 40 to 60 times faster than conventional battery anodes, while maintaining a comparable energy density. This stellar performance, which was achieved over 100 continuous charge/discharge cycles, has the team confident that their new technology holds significant potential for the design and realization of high-power, high-capacity Li-ion rechargeable batteries.

"Charging my laptop or cell phone in a few minutes, rather than an hour, sounds pretty good to me," said Koratkar, a professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer. "By using our nanoscoops as the anode architecture for Li-ion rechargeable batteries, this is a very real prospect. Moreover, this technology could potentially be ramped up to suit the demanding needs of batteries for electric automobiles."

Batteries for all-electric vehicles must deliver high power densities in addition to high energy densities, Koatkar said. These vehicles today use supercapacitors to perform power-intensive functions, such as starting the vehicle and rapid acceleration, in conjunction with conventional batteries that deliver high energy density for normal cruise driving and other operations. Koratkar said the invention of nanoscoops may enable these two separate systems to be combined into a single, more efficient battery unit.

Results of the study were detailed in the paper "Functionally Strain-Graded Nanoscoops for High Power Li-Ion Battery Anodes," published Thursday by the journal Nano Letters. See the full paper at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl102981d

The anode structure of a Li-ion battery physically grows and shrinks as the battery charges or discharges. When charging, the addition of Li ions increases the volume of the anode, while discharging has the opposite effect. These volume changes result in a buildup of stress in the anode. Too great a stress that builds up too quickly, as in the case of a battery charging or discharging at high speeds, can cause the battery to fail prematurely. This is why most batteries in today's portable electronic devices like cell phones and laptops charge very slowly – the slow charge rate is intentional and designed to protect the battery from stress-induced damage.

The Rensselaer team's nanoscoop, however, was engineered to withstand this buildup of stress. Made from a carbon © nanorod base topped with a thin layer of nanoscale aluminum (Al) and a "scoop" of nanoscale silicon (Si), the structures are flexible and able to quickly accept and discharge Li ions at extremely fast rates without sustaining significant damage. The segmented structure of the nanoscoop allows the strain to be gradually transferred from the C base to the Al layer, and finally to the Si scoop. This natural strain gradation provides for a less abrupt transition in stress across the material interfaces, leading to improved structural integrity of the electrode.

The nanoscale size of the scoop is also vital since nanostructures are less prone to cracking than bulk materials, according to Koratkar.

"Due to their nanoscale size, our nanoscoops can soak and release Li at high rates far more effectively than the macroscale anodes used in today's Li-ion batteries," he said. "This means our nanoscoop may be the solution to a critical problem facing auto companies and other battery manufacturers – how can you increase the power density of a battery while still keeping the energy density high?"

A limitation of the nanoscoop architecture is the relatively low total mass of the electrode, Koratkar said. To solve this, the team's next steps are to try growing longer scoops with greater mass, or develop a method for stacking layers of nanoscoops on top of each other. Another possibility the team is exploring includes growing the nanoscoops on large flexible substrates that can be rolled or shaped to fit along the contours or chassis of the automobile.

Eurekalert

TRANSPORTATION



Eaton Hybrid Trucks Have Logged 100 Million Miles, Saving 4 Million Gallons of Fuel

Hybridization Isn't Just for Private Vehicles

Eaton makes, among other things, hybrid drivetrains for commercial trucks and buses. The most familiar models to most people is probably the one used by UPS for local deliveries, but their hybrid vehicles are also used as city buses, school buses, package delivery trucks, beverage delivery trucks, refrigerated delivery trucks, refuse and recycling trucks, utility vehicles, etc. With more than 4,500 hybrids on the road, Eaton has just hit a milestone: "customers of its hybrid systems have collectively accumulated more than 100 million miles of service, reducing fuel consumption by 4 million gallons of diesel fuel and harmful emissions by 40,000 metric tons."

The hybrid system provides an "up to 50 percent improvement in fuel economy and emissions" and the regenerative brakes reduce brake and engine wear. It also reduces considerably emissions when the trucks would usually be left to idle, and since they are mostly diesel and used in urban areas were air quality is especially crucial, this is a very good thing.

Let's hope that the market for hybrid and electric commercial vehicles will stay healthy, because while many cars can be taken off the roads by doing things like expanding public transit and walking/biking infrastructure, commercial vehicles are harder to eliminate (long-haul trucking can be replaced by rail, but you still need to move goods around inside cities).

TreeHugger

TRANSPORTATION



Hybrid Car Drives 2269.3 Miles Across U.S.A. On Less Than 2 Tanks of Fuel


The ultimate test for a fuel efficient vehicle is a long drive with an expert hypermiler at the wheel. In the past few years, it's been done with a variety of cars, including the Honda Insight, Toyota Prius, Ford Fusion hybrid, Toyota iQ, etc. Sadly, it's not the best way to compare these cars because the driving conditions are different each time, but it still gives a good idea of what's possible with extra-careful driving. The latest long-distance hypermiling stunt was done by Wayne Gerdes (who coined "hypermiling") with the new Hyundai Sonata hybrid. Read on for more details.

Wayne drove the Hyundai from San Diego to Jekyll Island, Georgia. A 2269.3 miles trip that only used 38 gallons of gasoline, for an average of 59.58 miles per gallon (MPG). Not bad for a car that is rated at 37 MPG combined by the EPA!

The first tank of fuel was enough for 1221.2 miles, and the second one for 1048.1 miles with 2.5 gallons remaining.

This is impressive considering that the driving conditions were real-world and not ideal (mountains, winer weather, sometimes traffic, etc). This isn't like other hypermiling records that are achieved at much lower speeds while looping around on a track. Wayne could no doubt beat 59.58 MPG in such conditions...

Of the drive, Wayne said: "As a fan of fuel-efficient vehicles, I enjoy the challenge of putting new technology to the test," says Gerdes. "This demonstration shows how the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid can deliver extremely impressive fuel economy and range for drivers who value fuel savings. This is the first time I've driven a car that 'does it right!' Driving on the interstate at the posted speed limit (or 65 mph, whichever is slower), the Sonata Hybrid will exceed or equal its competition while offering a much larger, roomier, and comfortable car."

But remember that he's a pro, and that some hypermiling techniques are a bit too extreme (and sometimes even unsafe, though I don't think he went that far) for the average person. If you buy a Sonata hybrid, dont expect to be getting 60 MPG just with normal driving.

TreeHugger

TRANSPORTATION



South-Korea's Capital Starts Commercial Operation of Electric Buses

Seoul's residents now have access to high-tech full-sized electric buses on the Mt. Namsan circular routes. So far only 5 out of the 14 buses that serve this route have been swapped for EVs, but over time they will all be replaced. This is an initiative of the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and part of a larger goal: By 2020, the SMG would like to see 120,000 electric vehicles on the city's roads, "which will account for 50% of all public transport vehicles, 10% of sedans and 1% of trucks and vans."


The buses are being produced by Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hankuk Fiber.


The electric coaches now serving on the Mt. Namsan circular routes are 11.05 meters long and run up to 83 km (52 miles) with a single charge. They can be fully charged in less than 30 minutes with a high-speed battery charger. The electric bus, with a maximum speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), has a low floor and a 240 kW motor. It features a high-capacity lithium-ion battery and a regenerative braking system.

Its body is made of a carbon composite material which considerably reduces the vehicle's weight while reinforcing durability. The electric buses are also equipped with automatic slant boards for wheelchair users. (source)

The 30-minute charging time is particularly impressive. It's easy to extrapolate a bit in the future and imagine electric buses that have a longer range and a similar or shorter charging time, making them a perfect fit for even more types of routes.

TreeHugger

TRANSPORTATION



A.N.T. Aid Necessities Transporter concept vehicle


The initial inspiration for the A.N.T came from wanting to design a better vehicle for disaster relief

A multi-purpose vehicle capable of delivering emergency housing and supplies to disaster areas then rapidly returning to base ready for another mission – that is the concept behind the Aid Necessities Transporter (A.N.T.). The idea takes inspiration from it's namesake in the insect world – creating more than just a unique concept vehicle but an entirely new aid distribution system. The A.N.T has been designed to traverse rough terrain that would be impossible for conventional trucks to navigate, delivering supply pods and temporary shelter to disaster stricken communities. The vehicle then transforms itself into a low-profile form for a swift return to headquarters.

The concept was developed by Melbourne (Australia) designer Bryan Lee for his graduate design project while studying Industrial Design at Monash University in 2009. Lee told Gizmag his initial inspiration came from wanting to design a better vehicle for disaster relief.

“At the beginning of 2009 I took notice of the increasing numbers of natural disasters due to global warming,” he said. “From this, I decided that I would design a vehicle the address this problem however through a different direction. Instead of addressing the issue by preventing global warming, I thought that we will need some solutions to address problems when natural disasters hit. This is where my path began which led me to research on organizations such as the United Nations.”

While researching for his project the student designer came across a documentary that changed the direction of the concept.

“It was about ants and their colony,” Lee told Gizmag. “I was fascinated with their aesthetics, ability and system they run on which led me to believe that they are truly natures transporters. One of the biggest inspirations I took from ants were how they transported their food back to their nest. In groups. From this, instead of using the conventional way organizations deliver supplies all at once by land, I decided to create a new system where although it carries slightly less, the A.N.T's will travel back and forth from HQ's to the disaster zone delivering supplies faster and earlier.”

Just like their insect namesakes, the A.N.T in Transport mode would head towards the disaster stricken area traveling in groups. On arrival the vehicle would quickly deploy the supply unit, which doubles as a temporary housing module. The A.N.T would then rotate its cockpit section 90 degrees downwards transforming to Rapid mode allowing the swarm of A.N.T.s to quickly travel back to headquarters ready to load up another supply unit.



The A.N.T employs a number of intelligent design features that allow for swift aid distribution. These include six independent electric in-wheel motors, a large unique all-terrain suspension system that also allows for rapid loading and deployment of supply units, rotational hydraulics for transformation from Transport to Rapid modes, and a well thought out supply unit design that doubles as temporary housing.

Lee graduated from Monash University in Australia with Bachelor of Industrial Design with honours in 2009. He now works at Ford Australia in the Visualization department.

GizMag

TRANSPORTATION



Anti Sleep Pilot detects drowsy drivers

The Anti Sleep Pilot is a dashboard device that lets drivers know when they're becoming too fatigued

According to a 2008 study by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, about 20 percent of all road traffic accidents are caused by driver fatigue. Tired motorists are also eight times more likely than rested motorists to get in an accident, displaying driving abilities similar to those of someone who is intoxicated. The problem is, we often don’t know when we’ve reached that “too tired” state – a situation that the Anti Sleep Pilot was created to address. The Danish-designed device sits on your dashboard, monitoring you and your driving conditions, and lets you know when it’s time to pull over and take a ten-minute rest.

To start using the Anti Sleep Pilot, you complete a short test to determine your personal risk profile. This information is stored by twisting a knob on the bottom of the unit, so several drivers can keep and access their profiles on one device. An adhesive-backed magnetic base attaches to the dashboard, which provides a mount for the device when in use.

Once you start driving, the Pilot continuously calculates your fatigue level, and displays your status. Its calculations combine 26 different parameters, including your personal risk profile, your fatigue status when you started driving, and input from a clock and accelerometer. It also maintains and measures driver alertness through occasional reactive tests, in which you must touch the device as soon as indicated. The longer you take to react, the slower your reaction time is getting – it sounds like it would be kind of like having a little Simon on your dashboard.

Unlike systems developed by Fraunhofer and Lexus, it does not use cameras to monitor the driver’s eyes.

When the combination of variables indicate that you’re reaching your limit, the Pilot’s visible and audible signals alert you to the fact that you need to take a break – the device is light- and sound-sensitive, so its display and alarm automatically adjust for cabin conditions. As the unit is able to monitor time and vehicle speed, it also knows how long you’ve stopped for, so there’s no pulling over for only a few seconds just to shut it up.

GizMag

ENERGY



NANO VENT-SKIN: Solar, wind and nanotechnology combine to deliver a new green alternative


Mexican born Agustin Otegui is reaching out to Calgarians and Albertans to help him bring a new green alternative to the market. Analyzing architecture and understanding leading-edge power technologies inspired Otegui to design Nano Vent-Skin (NVS). “Since Architecture is focused mainly in building habitable spaces, all the industry behind it invests more money in developing products that solve almost the same needs. Watching how all the architects were focusing on building bigger and bigger structures with turbines at the same scale, I thought why shouldn’t we think on a smaller scale,” explains Otegui. Nano Vent-Skin (NVS) was designed as a green alternative for existing buildings or smaller scale projects.

Nano Vent-Skin works in a very efficient way. Basically, it combines solar and miniature wind turbines to create energy. The outer skin of the structure absorbs sunlight through an organic photovoltaic skin that transfers it to the nano-fibers inside the nano-wires. This is then sent to the storage units at the end of each panel.

Each turbine on the panel generates energy by chemical reactions on each end where it makes contact with the structure. “Polarized organisms are responsible for this process on every turbine’s turn. The inner skin of each turbine works as a filter absorbing CO2 from the environment as wind passes through it. By using nano-bioengineering and nano-manufacturing as means of production, it achieves an efficient zero emission material which uses the right kind and amount of material where needed. These microorganisms have not been genetically altered; they work as a trained colony where each member has a specific task in this symbiotic process. For example, an ant or a bee colony, where the queen knows what has to be done and distributes the tasks between the members,” explains Otegui.

If you analyze Nano Vent-Skin with human skin, it is easier to understand. When we suffer a cut, our brain sends signals and resources to this specific region to get it restored immediately. NVS works in a similar way. Every panel has a sensor on each corner with a material reservoir. When one of the turbines has a failure or breaks, a signal is sent through the nano-wires to the central system and the building material (microorganisms) is sent through the central tube in order to regenerate this area with a self-assembly process.

In order to achieve the best outcome of energy, the blades of each turbine are symmetrically designed. With this feature, even if the wind's direction changes, each turbine adapts itself by rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise, depending on the situation.

“NVS is not trying to reinvent or reshape nature. It’s just acting as a merger of different means and approaches into energy absorption and transformation which will never happen in nature. For example, a palm tree can never learn from an arctic raspberry bush or a bonsai tree if they never coexist within the same surroundings. NVS takes advantage of globalized knowledge of different species and resources and turns them into a joint organism where three different ways of absorbing and transforming energy work in symbiosis. By using nano-manufacturing with bioengineered organisms as a production method, NVS merges different kinds of microorganisms that work together to absorb and transform natural energy from the environment,” clarifies Otegui.

According to Otegui, what comes out of this merging of living organisms is a skin that transforms two of the most abundant sources of green energy on earth: sunlight and wind. The other advantage of using living organisms is the absorption of CO2 from the air. Currently, biologists are creating these materials on a much smaller scale.

In Otegui’s opinion, since the main source or materials involved in this process are living organisms, there is only this kind of process being investigated on a medium scale in the medical industry where they are creating tissues in order to restore organs.

The Examiner

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Amazing new kidney treatment

When Mirror journalist Steve Purcell, 52, needed a kidney his son didn’t hesitate to volunteer. But as their blood types were different, doctors had to use a revolutionary transplant technique.

I was on the M25 driving to work when the doctor called to tell me that my kidneys had ceased to function. Deadly toxins were building up in my body and I could have a heart attack at any time.

This bolt from the blue was a bit of a heart-stopper itself and, having first told me to pull over onto the hard shoulder, the doctor said I had to get someone to drive me to hospital at once for emergency dialysis.

Within hours I was facing the prospect of spending the next 20 years or more having debilitating dialysis three days every week.

Now though, just 12 months on, I am living a “normal” life following a groundbreaking new type of kidney transplant which allows a person with a different blood group to donate an organ.

My son Patrick, 28, volunteered to give me a kidney the moment he heard the news that mine had failed but he had his mum’s blood group not mine.

Most transplants have to meet a stringent set of criteria matching the donor to the recipient – with the same blood group being one of the most important. Currently a third of all potential donors are rejected because of blood incompatibility.

At first it was a crushing disappointment to both of us but the transplant co-ordinator explained about the possibility of a new ABO Incompatible transplant.

While Patrick’s blood was type A and mine was type B, the transplant team at St George’s Hospital, South London, were prepared to go ahead.

It meant, however, that I would be the first patient at St George’s, one of Britain’s leading transplant centres, to have this treatment and one of only a handful in this country so far.

Rules governing transplants have been relaxed in recent years due to the growing numbers of people desperately needing this life-changing surgery. More than 8,000 are currently waiting for a kidney donor and three die every day while on the waiting list.

But results in Sweden have shown the ABO Incompatible transplants to be every bit as successful as normal live donor ones.

And so, almost 10 months later, Patrick and I were at St George’s for the transplant. Everything went well.

The following day Patrick was able to shuffle round to my room where we planned a celebration with juicy steak dinners – when you’re “nil by mouth” you can’t think about anything other than food!

It’s hard to begin describing your emotions and what you owe to your donor and the medical professionals who’ve made your new life possible all on the much-maligned NHS.

Article continues on The Mirror

Scientific Study Publication HERE

ROBOTICS



Willow Garage’s PR2 Robot Operates Autonomously for 139 km!

What do you do when your robotic child is all grown up? I guess you make it run a marathon. Over the past few years, Willow Garage has taught its PR2 Robot to be autonomous. The Silicon Valley startup showed the bot how to plug itself in. They taught it to navigate on its own. They even taught it how to call for help in case of emergency. On December 8th it was time to see how well those lessons were learned. Willow Garage told the PR2 to start rolling and not stop. It traveled over 70 km in 7 days…then it kept going for six days more! On December 21st the bot ended its marathon having gone a total of 138.9 km (~ 86 miles). The PR2’s epic journey probably doesn’t look like much from the outside, after all the robot was simply wandering around the Willow Garage office, but it represents a major accomplishment for the company and for open source robotics. In the future, robots like the PR2 will be able to perform a wide variety of jobs, and without human supervision.

This marathon run is important because it pushed the limits of the PR2’s autonomous operation, not because it could gauge the physical stamina of the machine’s parts. I don’t just care if a wheel breaks, I want to know how long I can leave a robot alone and not have to worry about whether it is stuck or fallen over. To that end, this in-office demonstration was a great example of how the robot could function on its own. When the PR2 encountered an obstacle, it moved around it. When its batteries were low, it found an outlet and plugged itself in. Most importantly, when it got desperately stuck it sent a text message to an engineer who could log on to a web portal and remotely get the robot rolling again. According to Willow Garage, that scenario only happened twice: “During the run, there were only two interventions: one to help the robot maneuver around a chair, and another to tell the robot where it was (“re-localization”). In both cases, the robot noticed there was an issue and sent a message for help, and the issue was resolved over the web.” Two bugs in 139 km? Not bad.

What finally did the robot in? Its plug got stuck somewhere the robot couldn’t reach. That simple. If this robot was in your house, doing chores, you could have solved that problem in 5 seconds. This 139 km marathon run shows that personal robots will not only be able to operate autonomously, but that their most common failures might be very easy to fix.

Certainly engineers have created robots that have gone farther than the PR2. NASA's Mars Rover? That has Willow Garage beat thousands of times over. Yet the PR2 is both more practical and more accessible. The techniques used to keep the PR2 running autonomously are available to all robot developers through the open source ROS software library. There are now 16 different groups around the world developing the PR2, and many more using ROS. PR2 developers can write code for the robot that takes days, or even weeks, to finish and remain confident that the bot can finish the task. The PR2’s marathon session is just a tiny step in the grand history of robotics, but with the connectivity of the open source community it will be a step multiplied many thousands of times.

SingularityHub

BIOTECHNOLOGY



Electrifying New Way to Clean Dirty Water

Newswise — University of Utah researchers developed a new concept in water treatment: an electrobiochemical reactor in which a low electrical voltage is applied to microbes to help them quickly and efficiently remove pollutants from mining, industrial and agricultural wastewater.

The patented electrobiochemical reactor (EBR) process replaces tons of chemicals with a small amount of electricity that feed microbes with electrons. Tests have shown that the electrons accelerate how quickly the microbes remove pollutants such as arsenic, selenium, mercury and other materials, significantly reducing the cost of wastewater cleanup.

The research is now being used by a University of Utah startup company named INOTEC, which was honored at the 2010 Cleantech Open competition in San Jose, Calif. INOTEC and its EBR technology won the $40,000 Rocky Mountain regional award in what is nicknamed the “Academy Awards of Clean Technology.” INOTECH was one of 18 teams that became finalists out of 271 in the event.

Metallurgical engineer Jack Adams of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences pioneered the process. He and graduate student Mike Peoples, who co-founded INOTEC, say the award is validation that their research can save the wastewater industry money.

“It is great to be recognized for an innovative clean technology,” says Adams, president of INOTEC and a research professor in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering. “We’re currently in the early stages of growing the company, and every bit of recognition and support we get fits in with our go-to-market model. It will open new opportunities for securing partnerships and investor funding that will allow us and a partner to take the technology further faster.”

Adams says the new method can enhance just about any type of wastewater treatment. It now is being tested primarily for removing metals from mining wastewater, but also could be used for other industrial and agricultural wastes, he adds.

INOTEC has received support and an exclusive license to the EBR technology from the University of Utah’s Technology Commercialization Office, which protects and manages the university’s intellectual property and helps faculty members create startup companies. INOTEC is working with the office’s new Energy Commercialization Center to secure business partners and funding.

In conventional wastewater treatment, microbes or chemicals alter or remove contaminants by adding or removing electrons. The electrons come from large excesses of nutrients and chemicals added to the systems to adjust the reactor chemistry for microbial growth and contaminant removal. Those large excesses must be added to compensate for changes in water chemistry and other factors that limit the availability of electrons to remove pollutants.

The electrobiochemical reactor or EBR system overcomes these shortcomings by directly supplying excess electrons to the reactor and microbes using low voltage and no current, unlike other systems that provide large electrical currents. One volt supplies about one trillion trillion electrons (note: trillion twice is correct). These electrons replace the electrons normally supplied by excess nutrients and chemicals, at a considerable savings and with greater efficiency.

The electrons needed for a full-scale facility can easily be supplied by a small solar power grid. “The provided electrons make reactors more efficient, stable and controllable,” Adams says.

The researchers, through INOTEC, have successfully completed five laboratory tests of waters from various metal and coal mines in North America containing selenium, arsenic, mercury and nitrates.

INOTEC recently completed its first on-site, pilot-scale contract, treating wastewater containing arsenic and nitrate from an inactive gold mine. This demonstration was partially funded through a University of Utah Virtual Incubator Program grant.

INOTEC has also secured its own contract for a second pilot-scale test at a mine for silver and other metals in the Yukon in spring 2011.

Newswise

NANOTECHNOLOGY



Building 3D Batteries from the Bottom Up with Coated Nanowires

To continue on with the string of nanotechnology developments at the end of last year (here and here) that were aimed at improving the battery, I start this New Year with another such story this time coming from researchers at Rice University.

This news actually broke in December when it was originally published in the December 6th online edition of Nanoletters.

The research, which was led by Pulickel Ajayan, managed to find a way to coat nanowires with PMMA coating that provides good insulation from the counter electrode while still allowing ions to pass easily through.

This minimized separation between two electrodes manages to make the battery much more efficient.

"In a battery, you have two electrodes separated by a thick barrier," said Ajayan, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry. "The challenge is to bring everything into close proximity so this electrochemistry becomes much more efficient."

To achieve this, the Ajayan and his lead researchers Sanketh Gowda and Arava Leela Mohana Reddy took the concept of 3D batteries and coated millions of nanowires to create the 3D structure from the bottom up.

“We wanted to figure out how the proposed 3-D designs of batteries can be built from the nanoscale up," said Gowda, a graduate student in Ajayan's lab. "By increasing the height of the nanowires, we can increase the amount of energy stored while keeping the lithium ion diffusion distance constant."

As Gowda readily admits in the news release, 3D designs are nothing new. However, the achievement here was the process they developed for coating the nanowires in the PMMA without any break in the coating.

The process involves the growing of 10-micron-long nanowires through electrodisposition in the pores of an anoidized alumina template. They then drop-coated PMMA onto the nanowire array resulting in an even casing from top to bottom.

The result of this work is ultimately expected to be batteries for scalable microdevices that possess a greater surface area than thin-film batteries.

IEEESpectrum

ENERGY



Humans – A Viable Source of Green Energy

The science has reached a high level, especially in the past few years, but what really surprises is the fact that human body can be used as a battery. It sounds odd, but it is a fact, especially for few Parisian scientists that invented an unusual way to power the metro.

Their idea is quite simple – they installed an experimental heating system in a public housing project. This heating system will have a very strange source of energy- the human bodies in the nearby Metro station.

They are the source, which will power the heating system. The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTU’s of body heat. It is a well known fact, so the scientists decided to use it for heating of nearly 17 apartments.

The body heat is actually efficient and its usage cuts the carbon emission by a third compared to a boiler heating system. If the project of the Parisians is released, it will also change the modern way of heating.

In case you think this news is too strange, here is another: Urine can also generate power. Yes, our excrements are source of clean energy, believe it or not. The news came from UK, where the chemist Shanwen Tao is trying to create a cell that simply turns the urine to energy. The urine contains urea, which is a special component able to provide energy generation.

Another good factor that can turn our urine into an energy generator is the chemical composition of the urine. The development of the UK scientist isn’t yet ready, but what matters is his invention that by adding the urine into a fuel cell generates a chemical reaction. That reaction can power the battery.

This progressive news can be compared with odd news, this time about our poo. The so called poo power is discovered by California based Orange County Sanitation District`s researchers that discovered a fuel cell that turns the human waste into hydrogen fuel.

Their invention is developing so far, but we know it is going to work soon. In case you think that’s all from the human body, you are wrong.

The blood and the sweat can also be used as energy sources. Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are trying to create a battery that is able to turn the electrolytes from our blood and sweat into a battery fuel.

TheNewEcologist