Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged scibyte51

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Mars Base

Student's 'emergency stretcher' invention could prove a lifesaver - 0 views

phys.org/...gency-stretcher-lifesaver.html

scibyte51 MedicalDevice StudentDesign

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • The Rapid Evacuation Stretcher (RES) device was created by Craig Ball as a final year project for his BA
  • talked to firefighters at Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service
  • , before designing
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • returned with the prototype stretcher, which is fitted with carry handles, so its officers could suggest further practical improvements
  • idea is that the rolled-up RES could be strapped up alongside the firefighter's breathing apparatus
  • two-person team enter a building
  • the RES could be unrolled and secured around the injured person
  • product as far as I can as a degree project, fashioning it in the same heat resistant materials the fire services use
Mars Base

New energy source for future medical implants: sugar - 0 views

phys.org/...e-future-medical-implants.html

scibyte51 medical FuelCell

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • This silicon wafer consists of glucose fuel cells of varying sizes; the largest is 64 by 64 mm
  • MIT engineers have developed a fuel cell that runs on the same sugar that powers human cells: glucose
  • This glucose fuel cell could be used to drive highly efficient brain implants of the future, which could help paralyzed patients move their arms and legs again
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • strips electrons from glucose molecules to create a small electric current
  • The idea of a glucose fuel cell is not new
  • In the 1970s, scientists showed they could power a pacemaker with a glucose fuel cell, but the idea was abandoned in favor of lithium-ion batteries, which could provide significantly more power per unit area than glucose fuel cells
  • glucose fuel cells also utilized enzymes that proved to be impractical for long-term implantation in the body, since they eventually ceased to function efficiently
  • The new twist
  • is that it is fabricated from silicon, using the same technology used to make semiconductor electronic chips
  • has no biological components
  • consists of a platinum catalyst that strips electrons from glucose
  • mimicking the activity of cellular enzymes that break down glucose to generate ATP
  • So far, the fuel cell can generate up to hundreds of microwatts — enough to power an ultra-low-power and clinically useful neural implant.
  • in theory, the glucose fuel cell could get all the sugar it needs from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that bathes the brain and protects it from banging into the skull
  • are very few cells in the CSF
  • There is also significant glucose in the CSF, which does not generally get used by the body
  • only a small fraction of the available power is utilized by the glucose fuel cell, the impact on the brain’s function would likely be small.
  • the work is a good step toward developing implantable medical devices that don’t require external power sources.
  • ultra-low-power electronics, having pioneered such designs for cochlear implants and brain implants
  • combined with such ultra-low-power electronics, can enable brain implants or other implants to be completely self-powered
  • group has worked on all aspects of implantable brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthetics, including recording from nerves, stimulating nerves
  • decoding nerve signals and communicating wirelessly with implants
  • designed to record electrical activity from hundreds of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex, which is responsible for controlling movement
  • data is amplified and converted into a digital signal so that computers
  • can analyze it and determine which patterns of brain activity produce movement
Mars Base

Uncanny Valley robots essay resurfaces 42 years later - 0 views

phys.org/...y-robots-essay-resurfaces.html

scibyte51 robot

shared by Mars Base on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • An essay on robots by a professor in Japan over 40 years ago has just got its official translation
  • An English translation was done in 2005 but the translation that has been authorized and and reviewed by Mori was published Tuesday in IEEE Spectrum.
  • accompanied by an interview with Mori, who can look at the validity of his remarks 42 years later, when robotics has gone through so many developments
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • counterpoint to the popularity of Mori’s essay has been the contention that the essay was an essay, after all, of limited scientific value.
  • observation from his original essay is what sparked conversations and interest among robotic designers
  • Mori maintains that humans are drawn to human-like robots with positive feelings of affinity until the robot moves or reveals itself in such a way that triggers the person’s realization that it is not human. Then it becomes “uncanny” or in popular-culture terms, creepy
  • Mori said that pointing out the existence of the uncanny valley was intended as advice for people who design robots rather than a scientific statement itself.
Mars Base

Pitcher plant uses power of the rain to trap prey (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...012-06-pitcher-power-prey.html

scibyte51 PitcherPlant

shared by Mars Base on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • During heavy rain, the lid of
  • pitchers acts like a springboard, catapulting insects that seek shelter on its underside directly into the fluid-filled pitcher
  • Pitcher plants (Nepenthes) rely on insects as a source of nutrients, enabling them to colonise nutrient-poor habitats where other plants struggle to grow
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Prey is captured in specialised pitcher-shaped leaves with slippery surfaces on the upper rim and inner wall
  • If an insect tries to walk on the wet surface, its adhesive pads (the 'soles' of its feet) are prevented from making contact with the surface and instead slip
  • similar to the 'aquaplaning' effect of a car tire on a wet road.
  • scientists simulated 'rain' with a hospital drip and recorded its effect on a captive colony of ants that was foraging on the nectar under the lid
  • ants were safe before and directly after the 'rain', but when the drip was switched on about 40% of the ants got trapped.
  • Further research revealed that the lower lid surface of the N. gracilis pitcher is covered with highly specialised wax crystals
  • structure seems to provide just the right level of slipperiness to enable insects to walk on the surface under 'calm' conditions but lose their footing when the lid is disturbed (in most cases, by rain drops).
  • scientists also found that the lid of N. gracilis secretes larger amounts of attractive nectar than that of other pitcher plants, presumably to take advantage of this unique mechanism
Mars Base

Data From NASA's Voyager 1 Point to Interstellar Future - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 0 views

www.jpl.nasa.gov/...news.cfm

scibyte51 voyager Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased
  • draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system
  • someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly
  • data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth
  • These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.
  • From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays
  • Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month
  • The second important measure
  • is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself
  • there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off
  • could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.
  • The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft
  • While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction
  • Such analysis will take weeks
  • Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun
Mars Base

NASA: Donated NRO Space Telescopes 'Came Out of the Blue' | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/y-space-telescopes-budget.html

scibyte51 hubble SpaceTelescope

shared by Mars Base on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • A pair of space telescopes that were donated to NASA from the secretive National Reconnaissance Office could be repurposed for a wide variety of science missions
  • it will likely be years before the agency's budget can accommodate them.  
  • two spy satellite telescopes were originally built
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • but they were never used
  • June 4, NASA announced its acquisition of the telescopes, and the agency's intention to use them for future astronomical research
  • The two telescopes have main mirrors that measure nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), making them comparable to the veteran Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into orbit 22 years ago. Grunsfeld called the donated optical hardware "very high quality."
  • currently being stored in Rochester, N.Y., in facilities belonging to the hardware's manufacturer,
  • cost to keep them in storage is about $70,000 a year
  • not insignificant, but it's not something that's unmanageable
  • One possible application for the telescopes is as a base for NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which is being designed to hunt for dark energy
  • Given budget projections for the next several years
  • in an extremely confined fiscal environment
  • NASA does not anticipate being able to dedicate any funding to the newly acquired telescopes until the James Webb Space Telescope successfully launches
  • In the meantime, NASA is investigating different uses for the telescopes, and hopes to have input from the scientific community to guide the decision-making process
  • Mars Base on 15 Jun 12
     
    Grunsfeld co-hosted a town hall-style gathering Tuesday (June 12) to discuss NASA's budget and plans here at the 220th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Mars Base

Voyager 1 Entering Interstellar Space - Space News - redOrbit - 1 views

www.redorbit.com/...-1-entering-interstellar-space

scibyte51 voyager Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 16 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • now roughly 11 billion miles away and traveling at 6 miles per second
1 - 20 of 23 Next ›
Showing 20▼ items per page