Unbeknownst to me, and probably 99% of the population, surgery under the guidance of a live operating MRI was impossible due to the magnetic fields. The NeuroArm is the world’s first MRI-guided neurosurgical robot allowing for microscopic surgeries. The NeuroArm’s motors were designed and built using ceramics, enabling it to work within magnetic fields and allowing surgeons and scientist to navigate and see how the brain is impacted during surgery.
Students at the University of Boulder Colorado have developed a device that can identify diseases from a simple breath. It works by detecting single molecules that are associated with the disease. The students’ work is based off a 2005 Nobel winning device called the optical frequency comb, which they paired with spectroscopy. To achieve a reading the patient simply breathes into a microwave oven sized device. Lasers are then passed through the molecules tens of thousands of times for analysis. For example, a student that smoked had 5 times the amount of carbon monoxide normally found in nonsmoking individuals. Total cost of the device was just $50,000, but they hope a market ready device will be far cheaper. Although the machine is very much in a nascent stage and can only detect attributes associated with lung diseases, the team has already received numerous calls from companies looking to take the technology to market.
How they know this is beyond me, but according to U.S. physicists they’ve crafted a clock that will neither gain nor lose a second in the next 200 million years. The unnamed clock even out performs the U.S Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology clock, which promises to keep time accurate to the second for 80 million years. So what are these clocks used for? Deep space navigation where a slight error could disrupt and destroy a mission. Other uses include synchronizing telecommunication networks ‘that some day lead to things like hands-free driving in satellite-guided cars.’ If you ask me, it all sounds like a bunch of smoke, but I’m not a scientist.
Ever wondered about your genetics? For $0 (that reads FREE) flexSCAN is providing ‘comprehensive genetics testing’. Apparently, Genetic testing costs upwards of $1000 per test. Paired with flexSCAN’s wellness360 service, and you’ve got a genetically dictated health plan. How’d they accomplish this free feat? flexSCAN offers advertisers ‘highly granular demographics, psychographics, health and wellness targeting’. They say they’ll never sell or divulge individual information to anyone.
Ann Arbor, Michigan has been on a green project ‘tear’ lately. Earlier this year they began by replacing all standard streetlights with LEDs. Now they’ve got a project on the books called The Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Highway. The state of Michigan hopes to connect Ann Arbor and Detroit using a raised railway like system that combines Maglev, Hydrogen and Solar Power technology. The system, called the ‘rail conduit cluster’, will be zero emission and carry cars, people, and even distribute electricity, water, liquid waste, fiber optics, hydrogen, oxygen (not sure what this would be used for) and other fuels. The project’s brainchild is NEWTY award recipient Justin Eric Sutton. They’ve even designed an ‘active floor restraint’ for loading cars and cargo. The construction is set to start this year.
More pics and details after the ‘leap’
Update: According Megan Owens, the Exectuive Director, Transportation Riders United of Detroit this story is incorrect. “Your story about a maglev train being built in Ann Arbor is wrong. The idea is neat, but Ann Arbor officials confirm that there is no truth to this rumor.”
Thousands of war veterans have returned home from the wars in the Middle East. Unfortunately, a large number of them have returned home missing limbs due to IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Often adapting to life with a missing limb is challenging to say the least. Lower replacement prosthetics are advanced - in the 21st century as Dean Kamen puts it. Upper prosthetics on the other hand, are decades behind and offer little articulation.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency finally decided to address this growing issue. In 2005, Dean Kamen, the famed inventor of the Segway, won $18 million in funding to produce a bionic limb. What they’ve conceived is both mind blowing and exciting.
Video and more info after the ‘leap’
Called the Luke Arm, named after Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films (he lost his hand in Empire Strikes Back), is the first bionic upper limb, or arm to offer 18 degrees of freedom. Previous prosthetics only offered a mere 3 degrees of freedom. The arm can be assembled in 4 modular parts to fit all types of amputees (think forearm or hand only). It’s driven by 12 microprocessors and weighs no more then 8lbs. Powered by an onboard lithium ion battery, the Luke Arm can be controlled in a number of ways. The amputee can have the device hard wired into their muscle or nerves, or opt for a foot module. A pad is placed in the user’s shoe, and based on pressure and toe articulation the amputee can control the arm. Obviously this isn’t the ideal choice for those without legs, but a good alternative.
If you’ve ever seen “The Million Dollar Man” then you’re probably pondering the military applications. The current state of the Luke Arm seems to be for practical use only – so no bone crushing power just yet. But, as with a human arm and hand, it’s easy to crush lightweight objects. To avoid the embarrassment of an exploding soda can or paper cup, Kamen’s team installed a tactile feedback sensor in the hand of the Luke Arm. As the individual grips harder a vibration is felt and grows increasingly stronger as their grip tightens
Watching the linked video is amazing. The man displaying the Luke Arm has been an amputee for 26 years. He is able to pick up objects as small as a marble and softly place it on a stacked paper cup. In the video he remarks ‘how he hasn’t been able to do these things in 26 years’ and ‘that his wife will have plenty for him to do’ as soon as he gets one of these.
Currently Deka, Dean Kamen’s research team, is looking for a partner to go into clinical studies. They hope to keep the Luke Arm’s cost to under $100,000.
Researchers from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia have developed a knee brace like device, that when worn while walking will charge an internal battery. The Biomechanical Energy Harvester (sounds more like an implant - it ain’t) generates power at the end of a walker’s step similar to that of an electric or hybrid car braking (that’s according to the researchers). Wearing the device on each leg can generate 5 watts of electricity at a normal pace. At a fast pace the device can generate up to 13 watts. With just one minute of walking and the Biomechanical Energy Harvester can power a standard cell phone for 30 minutes of talk time. That puts the Hymini to shame. Although, I doubt it costs a mere $49 like the Hymini. Dare I say: “The green energy race is on’.
The biggest scam in home computing has to be the printing. Sure printers are cheap, but you’ll fork over your kid’s college fund to print the family album. Plus, it’s a total pain to manage since half the ink cartridges get clogged and don’t last that long. ZINK technology, or Zero Ink technology, removes the ink and bundles it in a piece of paper. No word on cost just yet (probably not cheap, though), but Polaroids got a mobile printer using the technology. Here’s how it works:
ZINK Paper™ is at the heart of ZINK™ Zero Ink™ Technology. ZINK Paper is an advanced composite material with cyan, yellow, and magenta dye crystals embedded inside and a protective polymer overcoat layer outside, enabling true ink-free prints. Before printing, the embedded dye crystals are colorless, so ZINK Paper looks like regular white photo paper. A ZINK-enabled device uses heat to activate and colorize these dye crystals.These crystals, named Amorphochromic™ crystals, represent an entirely new class of molecules, invented by ZINK Scientists through a rigorous discovery process. The properties of each dye crystal were finely tuned to achieve the color palette and image stability required for beautiful, full-color digital prints. ZINK™ scientists also invented a way to activate each of the crystals independently using heat pulses of precisely determined duration and temperature to achieve any color under the rainbow. The printing process is now radically simple.
I wrote about a ‘floating bed‘ back in July ‘06. It went for a cool $200,000 for a 1/5 scale model. The full scale went for over $1 million. Hoverit Lounger is essentially the same thing, but in an acrylic like lounge chair that you’d fine pool side at the hippest Hollywood hotel pool. It uses opposing magnets and costs a reasonable $11,500. Hoverit plans to release a fully cushioned version in March. The pics don’t really show full flotation but it’s good enough.
Here’s the full quote from Mr. Rutan, Richard Branson’s head of Virgin Galactic space flight operation: “Don’t believe anyone who tells you that the safety level of new spaceships will be as safe as the modern airliner”. That’s probably exactly what you DON’T want to say when trying to sell the-yet-released million dollar-a-ride commercial space flight program. Nonetheless, Virgin Galactic already has over 200 “firm reservations” and $30 million in deposits. More importantly, and hence the true purpose of this article, is that Rutan revealed Virgin Galactics new space craft today (as seen above) called SpaceShipTwo. Although flights won’t begin until 2009 or 2010, Branson’s space planes are more then half way to completion. Space PLANES you ask? SpaceShipTwo will carry the actual passenger in space, while WhiteKnightTwo, a glorified carrier plane, will carry SpaceShipTwo high into the sky for release. Currently, Virgina Galactic is putting some of it’s tentative passengers through G force testing as I recently saw on MSNBC.
Students at the University of Boulder Colorado have developed a device that can identify diseases from a simple breath. It works by detecting single molecules that are associated with the disease. The students’ work is based off a 2005 Nobel winning device called the optical frequency comb, which they paired with spectroscopy. To achieve a reading the patient simply breathes into a microwave oven sized device. Lasers are then passed through the molecules tens of thousands of times for analysis. For example, a student that smoked had 5 times the amount of carbon monoxide normally found in nonsmoking individuals. Total cost of the device was just $50,000, but they hope a market ready device will be far cheaper. Although the machine is very much in a nascent stage and can only detect attributes associated with lung diseases, the team has already received numerous calls from companies looking to take the technology to market.
How they know this is beyond me, but according to U.S. physicists they’ve crafted a clock that will neither gain nor lose a second in the next 200 million years. The unnamed clock even out performs the U.S Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology clock, which promises to keep time accurate to the second for 80 million years. So what are these clocks used for? Deep space navigation where a slight error could disrupt and destroy a mission. Other uses include synchronizing telecommunication networks ‘that some day lead to things like hands-free driving in satellite-guided cars.’ If you ask me, it all sounds like a bunch of smoke, but I’m not a scientist.
Ever wondered about your genetics? For $0 (that reads FREE) flexSCAN is providing ‘comprehensive genetics testing’. Apparently, Genetic testing costs upwards of $1000 per test. Paired with flexSCAN’s wellness360 service, and you’ve got a genetically dictated health plan. How’d they accomplish this free feat? flexSCAN offers advertisers ‘highly granular demographics, psychographics, health and wellness targeting’. They say they’ll never sell or divulge individual information to anyone.
