Tuesday, October 30, 2007
"The integration of electronic components into clothing is becoming an increasingly important area in the field known as wearable computing," says the electronics giant Philips
in one of its latest patent filings.
The textile industry can today produce threads that are highly conductive and as flexible as regular fabric so that sensors in garments can measure biometric characteristics, like the wearer's temperature or heart rate. Such garments could have important applications in medicine and sports.
The trouble is that weaving sensors into these textiles is tricky. Threads not only need to be highly durable to survive the weaving process but, because fabrics are woven on a large scale and then cut to size, it is hard to ensure they will end up where they are needed in the garment. This fabrication method also limits the choice of sensors that can be used.
So Philips is pioneering another approach. This involves making a fabric that acts like a flexible circuit board to which any variety of sensors can then be attached. The company suggests weaving a fabric out of both conducting and non-conducting fibres, and then cutting the garment to size.
Sensors can be pinned to the garment where they are needed, with the conducting wire providing power but also communications between different sensors. The resulting fabric can easily be tailored to any size and can carry a variety of sensors for monitoring the wearer's body.
Read the full sensor fabric
patent application.Justin Mullins
Autonomous robots, micro-scale air vehicles, and prosthetic limbs are all supposed to operate for long periods without recharging or refuelling, making efficient energy supply crucial.
Nature's choice is to provide chemical power for natural actuators like muscles. Human engineers have typically taken another route, relying on converting electrical energy into mechanical energy using motors, hydraulic systems, or piezoelectric actuators.
This is much less efficient, meaning even the most athletically capable robot must be wired to a stationary power source for much of the time.
The ideal solution is an artificial muscle that can convert chemical energy directly and efficiently into mechanical energy, says Ray Baughman
a physicist at the NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas, US.
Baughman says he has built such a device made of a "shape memory" alloy of nickel and titanium. The metal is coated with a platinum catalyst and placed in a device that allows methanol to be drawn along the surface.
Exposing the surface to air causes the methanol to be oxidised, which heats the alloy and makes it bend in a pre-determined way. Cutting off the methanol supply lets the alloy cool and causes the alloy to its original shape.
Baughman says the device can generate stresses 500 times greater than human muscle and believes further significant improvements should be possible.
Read the full metal muscle
patent application.Justin Mullins
Monday, October 29, 2007
Nano-rice particles for small scale imaging
Create a ball of metal only a few nanometres across and it interacts with light in an entirely different way to larger samples. The light sends waves of electrons called plasmons sloshing across the metal surface. But because of the nanoparticles' size, only certain-sized waves are allowed.
Consequently, nanoparticles can be tuned to absorb or emit fairly specific frequencies of light, depending on their size. This makes them useful for tagging biomolecules or for other sensing applications.
Now Naomi Halas
at the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University in Houston Texas says one problem is that some nanoparticles, such as nanorods and nanospheres end up responding to a range of frequencies of light because plasmons of various sizes can move around on their surfaces.
So she and her team have created rice-shaped nanoparticles which can be tuned much more precisely to specific frequencies. So scientists should be able to track these nanorice particles more easily.
Read the full nano?rice patent application
.Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The study of cellulite is a relatively recent development in physiology. In 1999, researchers in the US found that cellulite is associated with a thin layer of connective tissue made of collagen that sits just below the skin. In people without cellulite, this layer is smooth and continuous. But in those with cellulite it is irregular and discontinuous, which gives rise to the dimpled effect associated with cellulite.
Now Alexander Dagum, a plastic surgeon at Stony Brook University Hospital
in New York state, US, has come up with a novel way to treat the condition.
Dagum says cellulite can be reduced by injecting affected areas with collagenase, an enzyme that digests collagen. The treatment can be given either by injection or by applying patches every 4 to 6 weeks. In his patent application, Dagum even claims to have tested the treatment on 10 women, reducing the cellulite by over 70%.
Read the full digesting cellulite
patent applicationJustin Mullin, New Scientist contributor
Monday, October 22, 2007
Virtual environments like Second Life work best when a user accepts them as real. But suspension of disbelief can be a fragile thing, and in practice, users are constantly being reminded of the shortcomings of such environments. One of the biggest failings is the inability of avatars to communicate the emotional state of their users.
Various attempts have been made to do this ? for example, by fitting users with sensors that measure parameters such as heart rate and skin conduction. However, this is a complex and time-consuming process. So Penny-Anne De Byl and Christopher Mills at the University of Queensland
in Australia have come up with an alternative: analysing the user's conversation.
Analysis of the choice of words and "emoticons" used in a conversation can be used to make an avatar appear, for example, happy or sad. Specific words are associated with different emotions beforehand. The researchers say the same thing can be done with speech by monitoring the pitch and other features of the speaker's voice. The result is an avatar that more accurately conveys the user's emotional state and so makes virtual interaction more realistic.
Read the full emotional avatar
patent application.Justin Mullins
Friday, October 19, 2007
Software that lets a number of people work on the same document has been growing in popularity. However, problems can arise when two people are editing one piece of work at the same ? how do you know what the other person is doing?
Microsoft's idea is to generate an on?screen shadow behind each person's document to show the work currently being done by the other editor.
"A 'write shadow' may be used to indicate a position in a document being modified by a user. A 'read shadow' may be used to indicate a position being viewed by a user. A 'shadowbar' may be used to indicate areas of overlap among users with shading and colouring indicative of a degree of overlap," the company says.
Providing it doesn't make things more confusing, the approach could allow more effective collaboration by ensuring that both editors know just what the other is doing.
Read the full shadow editor patent application
Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Labels: computing, software
Bacterial infections can usually be treated with antibiotics but sometimes the resulting inflammation can do more damage than the bacteria. In eye infections, for example, inflammation of the cornea can cause scarring that leads to blindness. Inflammation in other parts of the body can also hide a bacterial infection from the body's immune system allowing it to spread unchecked and leading to blood poisoning ? a condition that affects 750,000 people in the US each year.
But Fu-Shin X Yu
and colleagues at Wayne State University in Michigan, US, have found an exotic way to combat the condition.
They note that inflammation is often caused by the body's reaction to flagellin
? a protein produced by common bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. So the inflammation can be reduced by treating it with the polypeptide building blocks of flagellin in addition to antibiotics.
The body then becomes conditioned to handle the polypetides and is less likely to become inflamed. The team says that in addition to eye infections, the technique could be used to tackle the inflammation associated with cystic fibrosis and asthma.
Read the full patent application for reducing inflammation
Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Wireless body sensing
To monitor the health of patients and to make diagnoses, doctors routinely use the results of measurements such as blood pressure levels, blood oxygen levels and electrocardiograms. It is often useful to take these kinds of measurements continuously over a long period of time but the number of wires associated with these devices makes this all but impossible unless the patient is bed?bound.
But now the electronics giant Philips
has develop a wireless sensor network that transmits data from a patient's body to a central computer.
Philips says an important feature of its network is the ease with which it can be set up securely using Bluetooth wireless technology. Sensors also hunt for the central computer and connect to it automatically, meaning medical staff can concentrate on their traditional roll of healthcare rather than IT support.
Read the full medical sensor body network patent applicationJustin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Lack of exercise causes numerous health problems, and the personal computer particularly discourages exercise, admits the software giant Microsoft
PC use encourages people to sit motionless for hours at a time, which may result in chronic back pain. Constant tapping on a keyboard and use of a mouse can also cause repetitive strain injuries. What's needed, Microsoft says, is a different form of interaction that encourages more vigorous movement.
The company thinks it has developed one in the form of a foot-based interface that asks users to tap their feet on an interactive mat to perform basic tasks such as browsing the web and reading text. The mat below a user's feet would feature the commands needed to open and close documents and click on different web links.
Information could then be beamed onto a large screen, Microsoft says, so that it can be seen easily while standing up. This "can transform tedious tasks, such as reading through email messages or managing photos, into a more fun and enjoyable experience," the company reckons.
Read the full foot-based computing patent applicationJustin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Metamorphic amphibious vehicle
The next generation of military vehicles will need to suitable for deployment anywhere in the world within hours rather than weeks or months. This places important limitations on the size and weight of these vehicles ? they must be both small and light enough to by carried by aircraft and also be capable of driving over rough ground or through thick vegetation as well as moving swiftly along conventional roads.
Among the limiting factors for off?road travel is how far the wheels can move up and down to accommodate rough terrain. This, in turn, is determined by the size of the vehicle.
Now the American truck manufacturer Oshkosh
has come up with a design that it says should allow give smaller vehicles more movable wheels. The trick is to allow the axle to "morph", says Oshkosh. This means the axle can pivot in its centre so that both wheels can ride up and down independently without affecting the vehicle's overall distance from the ground. The trick should help a light amphibious truck travel over rough ground or other terrain and even operate in water more effectively.
Read the full metamorphic amphibious vehicle patent applicationJustin Mullins
Monday, October 15, 2007
Microsoft mind reading
Not content with running your computer, Microsoft
now wants to read your mind too.
The company says that it is hard to properly evaluate the way people interact with computers since questioning them at the time is distracting and asking questions later may not produce reliable answers. "Human beings are often poor reporters of their own actions," the company says.
Instead, Microsoft wants to read the data straight from the user's brain as he or she works away. They plan to do this using electroencephalograms (EEGs)
to record electrical signals within the brain. The trouble is that EEG data is filled with artefacts caused, for example, by blinking or involuntary actions, and this is hard to tease apart from the cognitive data that Microsoft would like to study.
So the company has come up with a method for filtering EEG data in such a way that it separates useful cognitive information from the not-so-useful non-cognitive stuff. The company hopes that the data will better enable to them to design user interfaces that people find easy to use. Whether users will want Microsoft reading their brain waves is another matter altogether.
Read the full Microsoft mind reading patent applicationJustin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Smart mortar fuse
Once a bomb has been primed, an accidental shock can cause it to explode. The US Army would like charges that can tell the difference between accidental impacts and intended ones, so it tasked Jahangir Rastegar and colleagues at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, US, with designing them.
The team has proposed a system which it says could work for explosive devices that are launched before detonating, such as rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The idea is to have the mortar "know" it has been launched, and that on the next impact it should explode.
A piezoelectric sensor in the shell turns the vibration from a shock into an electric signal. If that signal is characteristic of the launch charge, the fuse becomes primed so the next impact triggers detonation. If the shock is purely accidental, the signal will have a different signature, and the fuse ignores it.Read the full piezoelectric fuse patent application
.Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
About 140,000 people each year in the US alone suffer damage to the nerve that controls blinking on one side of the face or the other. About 15% of these never recover the ability to blink, which is crucial for lubricating and cleaning the eye. Many suffer permanent eye damage as a result.
The traditional treatments for this problem are crude: implanting gold weights into the upper eyelid to help it close, connecting the eyelids to other nerves in the face, or even sewing the eyelids together in extreme cases.
But Doreen Jacob and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh
, Pennsylvania, US, have devised a pair of glasses that communicate with sensors attached to the eyelids' muscles. The sensors report whether the muscles controlling the eyelid have contracted or not. If they haven't for a certain time, the glasses send a command to force a blink by stimulating the muscles electrically.
The team says that the device can prevent eye damage by ensuring that the build up of dirt and bacteria is prevented by regular blinking.
Read the full automatic blink
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Cellular energy booster
All living cells are powered by a molecule called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. It is a mobile power store that carries energy from the breakdown of nutrients in the form of double bonds within its structure. Its energy can be released when and where the cell needs it by breaking these bonds.
However, when the blood flow is stopped to a region of the body, during a heart attack, for example, the supply runs out. Researchers have tried to get around this problem by injecting ATP directly into the bloodstream. But this has had limited success, because the ATP rarely makes it to the inside of the cells. Now William Ehringer
from the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville, US, plans to deliver ATP by encapsulating it within a wrapper of fatty lipid molecules.
The resulting tiny containers, or vesicles, are then injected into the bloodstream and distributed around the body. Importantly, the lipids are similar to those in the membranes of cells within the body. As a result, the vesicles will be partially absorbed into the cells, ensuring that the ATP is delivered directly where needed.
Ehringer has tested the technique with cells from human umbilical cords and says it works well. However, more tests will be needed to see whether it has a clinically valuable role to play in humans.
The method of using vesicles to carry biomolecules directly to cells within the body is not limited to ATP alone, and might have other useful applications in the future.Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Read the full cellular energy booster
Labels: biology, health
Identifying damaged aircraft parts is a tricky business. Unless there are visual signs of damage, such as buckling or a dent, the part has to be X-rayed to determine whether it may contain microfractures that could endanger the aircraft.
So the US Air Force
funded a US company called Luna Innovations
to develop an easier way to spot damage.
The technique that Luna Innovations has come up with is to coat an aircraft part with a polymer containing a fluorescent dye held in tiny capsules. If that part is struck with force or twisted beyond a certain limit, the capsules break releasing the dye. A visual inspection of the aircraft then reveals exactly where any damage might have occurred.Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Read the full pressure-sensitive paint
Labels: aerospace, vehicles
In severe epileptic fits, over-excited brain cells fire at such a rate they can raise the brain's temperature in that area. This causes more nerves to fire in a feedback mechanism that makes the fit even worse. One way of preventing such escalating fits is to cool the area of the brain that is susceptible.
So Takashi Saito and colleagues at Yamaguchi University
in Japan have developed a heat pipe that is surgically implanted into the affected region of the brain and then connected to a heat sink on the outside of the skull. This device carries heat away from the affected area, keeping it cool and reducing the chances of severe epileptic fits in future.Justin Mullins, New Scientist contributor
Read the full brain radiator
Labels: brain, engineering, health