Technology Trends

How is it possible that we perceive our world in 3D when our eyes only register 2D images? And how do we decide in a millisecond if something in front of us is a bouquet of flowers or a painting? Researchers from Johns Hopkins University think they know how our brain is analyzing pictures. They say that their research “answers the century-old question of the basis of subconscious processes in visual perception.” According to the researchers, we’re capable to “process visual information automatically and independently of what we know, think or expect.” This research might lead to future treatments of human brain disorders. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the Johns Hopkins University news release.

The figure is famous: a deceptively simple line drawing that at first glance resembles a vase and, at the next, a pair of human faces in profile. When you look at this figure, your brain must rapidly decide what the various lines denote. Are they the outlines of the vase or the borders of two faces? How does your brain decide?

Below is an illustration describing the problem of interpreting 2D images in terms of objects in a 3D world (Credit: Johns Hopkins University).

Images are composed of regions that correspond to objects in space (A). The boundaries of these regions are generally the contours of objects that occlude more distant parts of the scene (occluding contours). To interpret images successfully, the visual system has to detect these contours and link them to the occluding regions. (B) The light textured region is generally perceived as a tilted square on a dark background, and the light-dark border as the contour of the square. But the display is ambiguous: the square could be a window. (C) The concept of border ownership. The interpretation of a 2D display depends on how the contrast borders are assigned (top). Consider the border marked by a black dot: if the border is assigned left, the square is an object in front of a dark background; if the border is assigned right, the square becomes a piece of background that is seen through a window. Given flat displays without depth cues, the visual system assumes the object interpretation.

The above image and legend come from a paper recently published by Neuron, “Figure and Ground in the Visual Cortex: V2 Combines Stereoscopic Cues with Gestalt Rules.” Here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 12 pages, 323 KB).

Now, let’s return to the original news release for more explanations.

“Our paper answers the century-old question of the basis of subconscious processes in visual perception, specifically, the phenomenon of figure-ground organization,” said Rudiger von der Heydt, a professor in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute.

The report, based on recordings of nerve cells in the visual cortex of macaque monkeys, suggests that this automatic processing of images is repeated each time an individual looks at something new, usually three to four times per second. What’s more, the brain provides what von der Heydt calls “a sophisticated program” to select and process the information that is relevant at any given moment.

But the researchers recognize that there are still lots of work to do before treating human brain disorders. Their current research needs to be “complemented by new brain imaging techniques, traditional psychophysics, psychology and computational and theoretical neuroscience.”

Sources: Johns Hopkins University news release, August 9, 2005; and various web sites

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• Medicine
  


• Psychology
  


• Science
  


• Vision and Visualization Apps
  

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I’m sure you’ve read dozens of stories about how our cell phones could be dangerous to our health, causing brain tumors for example. But so far, there is not a definitive answer. But now, according to IsraCast, a team of Israeli researchers has discovered that the microwave radiation used by our cell phones could destroy our eyes by causing two kinds of damages to our visual system, including an irreversible one. If the researchers are right, and even if you only occasionally use your cell phone, the lenses in your eyes can suffer from microscopic damages that won’t heal themselves over time. Now, let’s wait until another scientific team says it’s not true…

Here is the introduction of the IsraCast article.

In a recent scientific study conducted by a team of researchers from the Technion, a possible link between microwave radiation, similar to the type found in cellular phones, and different kinds of damage to the visual system was found. At least one kind of damage seems to accumulate over time and not heal, challenging the common view and leading the researchers to the assertion that the duration of exposure is not less important than the intensity of the irradiation. The researchers also emphasized that existing exposure guidelines for microwave radiation might have to change.

The article contains several illustrations, but here is the most spectacular (Credit: The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion).

[Above are] microscope photographs of lenses incubated in organ culture conditions for 12 days. Right frame shows Control lens with no damage. Bottom frame demonstrates the effect of microwave radiation on bovine lens sutures for a total exposure of 192 cycles (1.1GHz, 2.22mW). Each cycle lasts 50min followed by 10 min pause.

The potential risks from radiation on our visual system have previously been studied, but until recently, the effects of microwave radiation have not been evaluated.

Before going further, I need to introduce two concepts here. Cell phone companies use the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) to measure microwave radiation — “it is the average power density absorbed in a given volume per average weight density (Watt/Kg).” “A less common measure is called Specific Energy Absorption (SA), and is defined as the energy density absorbed in the tissue divided by its weight density.”

Now we can look at the experiments.

Eye lenses of one-year-old male calves obtained from a slaughterhouse were exposed to microwave radiation - one eye from each pair used for control. Each exposure session lasted about two weeks. Both control and exposed lens were kept in an incubator at a constant temperature. During this period each exposed lens had experienced up to 2mW of 1.1GHz radiation virtually around the clock, and each hour it was exposed for a 50 minute session followed by a 10 minute break.

And the researchers were able to measure two different effects:

• macroscopic damages affecting the optical quality of the lens, which can gradually heal
  
• and microscopic damages, which don’t heal after the experiments stopped, and are even growing when a new exposure starts

Here are some warnings from one of the researchers.

Professor Levi Schächter, [of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Technion,] who worked on the research, told IsraCast that attention should be paid not only to the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) but also to the total energy absorbed by the tissue (SA), which is not currently under supervision by the appropriate regulative authorities.

The latest research work on this subject has been published by Bioelectromagnetics under the name “Localized effects of microwave radiation on the intact eye lens in culture conditions” (Volume 26, Issue 5 , Pages 398-405, May 10, 2005). Here is a link to the abstract, which I reproduce below.

A novel experimental system was used to investigate the localized effects of microwave radiation on bovine eye lenses in culture for over 2 weeks. Using this setup, we found clear evidence that this radiation has a significant impact on the eye lens. At the macroscopic level, it is demonstrated that exposure to a few mW at 1 GHz for over 36 h affects the optical function of the lens. Most importantly, self-recovery occurs if the exposure is interrupted.

At the microscopic level, close examination of the lens indicates that the interaction mechanism is completely different from the mechanism-causing cataract via temperature increase. Contrary to the latter’s effect, that is particularly pronounced in the vicinity of the sutures and it is assumed to be a result of local friction between the edges of the fibers consisting the lens. Even if macroscopically the lens has recovered from the irradiation, microscopically the indicators of radiation impact remain.

Finally, as this study has not been done — yet — on humans, I guess the controversy can begin. And whether you think that cell phones can damage our eyes or not, feel free to post your comments below.

Sources: Iddo Genuth, IsraCast, July 25, 2005; and various web sites

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• Medicine
  
  
• Science
  
  
• Vision
  
  
• Wireless
  

A team of chemists from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has built the world’s first nano valve. This device can trap and release molecules on demand. This mechanical system can control molecules like a water faucet you can open or close at wish. This nano valve has moving parts — switchable rotaxane molecules — attached to a piece of porous glass, with pores only a few nanometers in size. As this nano valve is much smaller than living cells, we can imagine a day when we swallow a nano valve combined with bio-molecules to release drugs inside our bodies. But the full potential of artificial molecular machines will take a long time to materialize. Read more…

“With the nano valve, we can trap and release molecules on demand. We are able to control molecules at the nano scale,” said Jeffrey I. Zink, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and a member of the research team.

The image below shows how the nano valve works. And here is a link to a larger version of this diagram.

[On this picture,] “a” shows the structural formula of the rotaxane molecule and the procedure for tethering it to the surface of a tiny piece of glass while “b” shows how the nano valve opens and closes (Credit for image and legend: UCLA).

Now, here are more technical details about this nanofaucet.

This nano valve consists of moving parts — switchable rotaxane molecules that resemble linear motors designed by California NanoSystems Institute director Fraser Stoddart’s team — attached to a tiny piece of glass (porous silica), which measures about 500 nanometers, and which Thoi Nguyen is currently reducing in size. Tiny pores in the glass are only a few nanometers in size.

The valve is uniquely designed so one end attaches to the opening of the hole that will be blocked and unblocked, and the other end has the switchable rotaxanes whose movable component blocks the hole in the down position and leaves it open in the up position. The researchers used chemical energy involving a single electron as the power supply to open and shut the valve, and a luminescent molecule that allows them to tell from emitted light whether a molecule is trapped or has been released.

The research work has been published in the July 19, 2005 of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as an “open access article” under the name “A reversible molecular valve.” Here is a link to the abstract.

In everyday life, a macroscopic valve is a device with a movable control element that regulates the flow of gases or liquids by blocking and opening passageways. Construction of such a device on the nanoscale level requires (i) suitably proportioned movable control elements, (ii) a method for operating them on demand, and (iii) appropriately sized passageways.

These three conditions can be fulfilled by attaching organic, mechanically interlocked, linear motor molecules that can be operated under chemical, electrical, or optical stimuli to stable inorganic porous frameworks (i.e., by self-assembling organic machinery on top of an inorganic chassis).

In this article, we demonstrate a reversibly operating nanovalve that can be turned on and off by redox chemistry. It traps and releases molecules from a maze of nanoscopic passageways in silica by controlling the operation of redox-activated bistable [2]rotaxane molecules tethered to the openings of nanopores leading out of a nanoscale reservoir.

And if you really want to read more about this molecular valve, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 6 pages, 495 KB). But if you’re not a chemist, I doubt you’ll understand the contents.

I’ll leave the last words to Fraser Stoddart.

“Building artificial molecular machines and getting them to operate is where airplanes were a century ago,” Stoddart said. “We have come a long way in the last decade, but we have a very, very long way to go yet to realize the full potential of artificial molecular machines.”

And now, I’m waiting for your own comments: what do you think of these future molecular machines?

Sources: UCLA news release, July 15, 2005; and various web sites

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• Biotechnology
  
  
• Chemistry
  


• Medicine
  


• Nanotechnology
  

For many years now, R&D Magazine has given its R&D 100 Awards, also known as “The Oscars of Invention,” to the most innovative ideas of the year. The winners will be announced in the September issue of the magazine, but they already have been notified by — guess what? — fax. This year, the Department of Energy (DOE) labs have won 29 awards, and four of them went to Livermore Nat’l Lab (LLNL). Here I’ve chosen to focus on one of these awards, the bioaerosol mass spectrometer (BAMS). “BAMS has the potential to identify bioagents, such as anthrax, from only a single spore or cell and to clarify the molecular changes that occur in normal and cancerous cells.” But read more…

Below is a diagram showing this bioaerosol mass spectrometry (BAMS) system used to analyze bacterial spores and identify bioagents, such as anthrax, from only a single spore or cell (Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).

Here are some more details from the LLNL news release.

Using a laser to peel cells apart and a mass spectrometer to identify the chemicals inside, BAMS can identify airborne pathogens at the single-cell level in about 100 milliseconds. Combining an understanding of laser-particle interactions, the biochemistry of bacteria and mass spectrometry analysis, BAMS is a prototype system that can identify pathogens and differentiate between harmful anthrax spores and benign agents.

BAMS is designed for operation in office buildings that could be targets for a terrorist attack using a biological agent such as anthrax, or at ports of entry such as airports or train stations to monitor for potential epidemic diseases. Future biomedical applications could include rapid detection of respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis and SARS.

As you can easily guess, there are not many reference papers which have been published about this technology. But you can still read two previous articles published by Science & Technology Review, a LLNL publication.

Here are the links to “When Every Second Counts: Pathogen Identification in Less Than a Minute” (September 2003) and “Life at the Nanoscale” (May 2004). The first one gives additional details on the BAMS technique.

The premise of a detect-to-warn system is to allow time to react. “A minute gives people enough time to put on masks, leave the room, hold their breath. The challenge was to actually make a device that could provide answers in less than a minute,” explains Livermore chemist Eric Gard.

The BAMS technique, which Gard and others have been working on for nearly five years, can successfully identify a single airborne particle in about 100 milliseconds. This technique has other applications as well, Gard notes. “In the future, BAMS could also be used as a medical diagnostic to, for instance, track small subpopulations of cancerous cells that deviate from their normal development cycle. As such, BAMS may make far-reaching contributions in the fields of oncology, microbiology, and public health.”

The other article from Science & Technology Review discusses other techniques, but gives a very short summary of the missions of the Livermore’s BioSecurity and Nanosciences Laboratory (BSNL).

One of BSNL’s most important research goals is developing fast, sensitive, and accurate instruments to detect and identify a wide range of pathogens. In the area of airborne pathogen detection, Livermore researchers have worked with colleagues at the University of California (UC) at Davis to develop the bioaerosol mass spectrometer (BAMS). BAMS combines advanced laser desorption and ionization techniques with mass spectrometry, and its sensitivity is two to three times greater than that of other laser ionization techniques. In addition, BAMS’s response time is fast — it can identify a single airborne particle in about 100 milliseconds.

Sources: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory news release, July 11, 2005; and various web sites

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• Biotechnology
  


• Chemistry
  


• Innovation
  


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• Military Apps
  

You probably remember the story which surfaced in May 2005 about monkeys using robotic arms as their own (check here or there to refresh your memory). Now, according to the ANBA press agency, Miguel Nicolelis, the professor of neurology at Duke University who was behind the experiments with the monkeys, wants to go further. He plans to install chips in humans’ brains in order to control prosthetic arms. Of course, there is still some work to do with animals before this kind of surgery can be practiced on humans. But the first surgery in the world to implant a neuro-prosthesis inside a human being is expected to be performed in a Brazilian hospital by 2008.

Here is the introduction of the ANBA report.

The Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, in the southeastern Brazilian city of São Paulo, is going to perform the first surgery in the world for implantation of robotic arms into a human being, to be moved by brain signals. The agreement for realization of the surgery was singed last month with the Santos Dumont Association for Support to Research. The surgery is scheduled to take place in three years.

According to the hospital’s corporate superintendent, Mauricio Ceschin, the technique consists on implanting a microchip into the human brain to translate the nerve pulses into electric pulses, making it possible for the patient to move robotic prosthetics.

Below is a diagram describing how a patient’s brain can control the prosthetics (Credit: Miguel Nicolelis’s Laboratory at Duke’s Center for Neuroengineering).

Of course, this will take time before this technique can be applied to a human.

According to Ceschin, up to the execution of the first surgery for implantation of robotic arms moved by brain signals, the Education and Teaching Institute of the Syrian-Lebanese hospital will have a laboratory turned to research in neuroscience, where new tests will take place before the first surgery.

The superintendent also stated that a team of hospital neurosurgeons is getting ready to apply the new technique. “It will still take between two and three years for tests to be concluded on animals. The doctors must feel secure,” he said.

For slightly more information, you also can read a former news release from the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital.

As you can guess, there is no scientific paper available on this subject. But if you want to read the latest research paper about this brain-machine interface, at least for monkeys, The Journal of Neuroscience has published “Cortical Ensemble Adaptation to Represent Velocity of an Artificial Actuator Controlled by a Brain-Machine Interface” (May 11, 2005, Vol. 25, Num. 19, Pages 4681-4693). Here is a link to the abstract.

Monkeys can learn to directly control the movements of an artificial actuator by using a brain-machine interface (BMI) driven by the activity of a sample of cortical neurons. Eventually, they can do so without moving their limbs. Neuronal adaptations underlying the transition from control of the limb to control of the actuator are poorly understood. Here, we show that rapid modifications in neuronal representation of velocity of the hand and actuator occur in multiple cortical areas during the operation of a BMI. Initially, monkeys controlled the actuator by moving a hand-held pole.

As the monkeys started using their cortical activity to control the actuator, the activity of individual neurons and neuronal populations became less representative of the animal’s hand movements while representing the movements of the actuator. As a result of this adaptation, the animals could eventually stop moving their hands yet continue to control the actuator. These results show that, during BMI control, cortical ensembles represent behaviorally significant motor parameters, even if these are not associated with movements of the animal’s own limb.

Sources: Marina Sarruf, ANBA (Brazil Arab News Agency), translated by Mark Ament, July 8, 2005; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Biotechnology
  
  
• Chips
  
  
• Human Computer Interface
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Robotics
  

Several companies are currently developing ‘augmented reality’ systems to help surgeons to simultaneously see inside and outside their patients. In this short article titled “And No, It’s Not for Seeing Through Clothes,” Fast Company describes a solution from Siemens. This system consists of a custom video-see-through head-mounted display (HMD), two color video cameras attached to the HMD that provide ultrasound, magnetic resonance (MR), or computer tomography (CT) pre-recorded images, and a third infrared video camera for tracking what’s doing the surgeon. Such systems could become available in three to five years. But they will not be cheap. A complete augmented reality system should cost as much as $400,000.

Here are some short excerpts from the Fast Company article.

While current medical-imaging techniques such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance (MR), and computer tomography (CT) harvest a wealth of data from inside our bodies, the resulting images can be viewed only on light boards and computer screens. To a neurosurgeon plunging a seven-inch needle into a patient’s brain, that’s clearly an imperfect solution: He has to take his eye off the incision to see where he’s headed.

Siemens’s response, called “augmented reality,” starts with a headset that overlays prerecorded ultrasound, MR, or CT images with real-time video captured by a pair of cameras just above the physician’s eyes. A third infrared camera, also mounted on the headset, spatially orients the video in relation to a set of optical tracking markers placed around the patient’s body. The resulting picture is projected onto two tiny screens positioned directly in front of the physician’s eyes.

Below are two previous examples of Siemens technologies that will make patients appear transparent and may one day allow surgeons to operate through micro robots on a cellular level. (Credit: Siemens)

Using a head mounted display and marker bridge, a researcher checks how closely the image of a tumor corresponds with the position of an actual (mock-up) tumor. What the researcher sees is shown on the monitors with the tumor marked in red.

Virtual (also called “optical”) biopsies may provide an inexpensive method of pin-pointing individual cancer cells, thus opening the door to the potential of cellular surgery. The biopsies use a novel fluorescent agent that is activated when in contact with tumor specific enzymes.

Both of these images were extracted from the Fall 2001 issue of Pictures of the Future, a former online magazine from Siemens. Here is a short excerpt of what wrote Arthur F. Pease four years ago.

Probably the most far-reaching of these nascent technologies is “in situ visualization.” Also known as augmented reality image guidance, in situ visualization can use a head mounted display (HMD) or semi-transparent plate to superimpose 3D computer images of anatomical structures on the actual environment. The images may originate from just about any digital diagnostic modality, and can be dynamically introduced into the surgeon’s field of vision. Otherwise invisible structures such as deep seated tumors appear in their exact sizes, shapes and positions vis-à-vis visible objects such as the surface of a patient’s head, anchored in their real-world structures with an accuracy of +1/-1 mm. In short, in situ visualization is a revolutionary step that sets the stage for the symbiosis of all digital imaging technologies and opens the door to the transparent patient.

Now, let’s return to 2004 for more technical papers with the abstract of a paper named “An Augmented Reality System for MRI-Guided Needle Biopsies: Initial Results in a Swine Model.”

The system for augmented reality (AR) visualization enables the physician to perceive MR images in-situ. It consists of a custom video-see-through head-mounted display (HMD), two color video cameras attached to the HMD that provide a stereo view of the scene, and a third video camera for tracking. Optical marker sets are used for viewpoint adjustment and needle tracking. The system runs on a PC and achieves real-time performance (30 fps) with a latency of 0.1 sec, generating a stable augmentation with no apparent jitter visible in the composite images.

Finally, if you’re interested by augmented reality systems developed at Siemens, one of them was awarded the U.S. patent number 6,856,324 on February 15, 2005 under the name “Augmented reality guided instrument positioning with guiding graphics.” Here is a direct link to this patent.

Sources: Lucas Conley, Fast Company, Issue 96, July 2005, Page 32; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Innovation
  


• Medicine
  


• Virtual Reality
  


• Vision and Visualization Apps
  

At Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), researchers are using new materials to build new and more efficient batteries to put in the vests that will wear next-generation soldiers. For example, the future Army’s Power Vest will use lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which will deliver almost twice energy as current Li-ion ones. But Argonne scientists are also developing implantable batteries. These rechargeable batteries, which are 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery, can power implantable microstimulator systems designed to help patients with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, or muscular impairments. These batteries are currently under evaluation by industrial partners and should soon be available. Read more…

The ANL news release is almost written in PR lingo, so you’ll find below only short excerpts of it. Let’s start with the body batteries.

Below is a picture of “the world’s smallest cylindrical, rechargeable battery ever made. It is 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery.” (Credit: ANL)

With research partners Quallion LLC and the University of Wisconsin, Argonne developed the battery chemistry for a tiny rechargeable battery — the smallest cylindrical polymer rechargeable battery ever made. The battery is 100 times smaller than a standard AA battery, and powers an implantable microstimulator system designed to help patients with neurological disorders and muscular impairments, such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease and urinary incontinence.

These microstimulator systems would be implanted near nerves, where they emit electrical micropulses that stimulate nearby muscles and nerves. Batteries previously used for medical devices are large, have short lives and are not rechargeable.

Quallion is already selling implantable batteries and here are its I SERIES Specifications.

Now, let’s look at the wearable batteries designed for the Army at ANL’s Chemical Engineering Division known as CMT.

The Army’s Power Vest requires almost double the best energy density currently available and safe, stable operation at varying temperatures. Some of CMT’s patented electrode materials and one of its electrolyte systems are being adapted for the Power Vest.

Compared to conventional materials, Argonne’s new cathode material extends the useable capacity from 150 milliampere-hours per gram to 260. When combined with Argonne’s new process for making spherical dense cathode particles, the combination could provide a 40 percent increase in available energy from the same size battery.

If you’re interested by these developments of new batteries at ANL, you should check this page about their lithium battery technology patents.

Sources: Evelyn Brown, Argonne National Laboratory news release, June 24, 2005; and various web sites

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• Energy
  


• Engineering
  


• Materials
  


• Medicine
  


• Military Apps
  


• Wearable
  

We’re using computers for so long now that I guess that many of you think that our brains are working like clusters of computers. Like them, we can do several things ’simultaneously’ with our ‘processors.’ But each of these processors, in our brain or in a cluster of computers, is supposed to act sequentially. Not so fast! According to a new study from Cornell University, this is not true, and our mental processing is continuous. By tracking mouse movements of students working with their computers, the researchers found that our learning process was similar to other biological organisms: we’re not learning through a series of 0’s and 1’s. Instead, our brain is cascading through shades of grey. Read more…

According to this study, learning — at least language comprehension — is a continuous process.

“For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols — like a digital computer,” said Michael Spivey, a psycholinguist and associate professor of psychology at Cornell.

His experiments are somewhat fascinating — even if limited.

In his study, 42 students listened to instructions to click on pictures of different objects on a computer screen. When the students heard a word, such as “candle,” and were presented with two pictures whose names did not sound alike, such as a candle and a jacket, the trajectories of their mouse movements were quite straight and directly to the candle.

The picture below shows Michael Spivey with one of his students looking at two objects on her screen.

[He asked her] to listen for a word and then to click on its picture. By studying the curvature of the trajectory of the mouse, he can analyze language comprehension processes (Credit: Kevin Stearns, Cornell University).

But when the students heard “candle” and were presented with two pictures with similarly sounding names, such as candle and candy, they were slower to click on the correct object, and their mouse trajectories were much more curved. Spivey said that the listeners started processing what they heard even before the entire word was spoken.

Spivey concludes that our brains can handle ambiguities.

“When there was ambiguity, the participants briefly didn’t know which picture was correct and so for several dozen milliseconds, they were in multiple states at once. They didn’t move all the way to one picture and then correct their movement if they realized they were wrong, but instead they traveled through an intermediate gray area,” explained Spivey.

For more information, the research work has been published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under the name “Continuous attraction toward phonological competitors.” Here is a link to the abstract.

Certain models of spoken-language processing, like those for many other perceptual and cognitive processes, posit continuous uptake of sensory input and dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations. Here, we provide compelling evidence for this continuity assumption by using a continuous response, hand movements, to track the temporal dynamics of lexical activations during real-time spoken-word recognition in a visual context. By recording the streaming x, y coordinates of continuous goal-directed hand movement in a spoken-language task, online accrual of acoustic-phonetic input and competition between partially active lexical representations are revealed in the shape of the movement trajectories. This hand-movement paradigm allows one to project the internal processing of spoken-word recognition onto a two-dimensional layout of continuous motor output, providing a concrete visualization of the attractor dynamics involved in language processing.

The access to the full article will cost you $10.

Now, I have a question for you. Even if this new study is right, what will it change for us? Will you wake up differently tomorrow morning? I don’t think so.

Sources: Susan S. Lang, Cornell News Service, June 27, 2005; and various web sites

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• Computers
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Psychology
  
  
• Science
  

Once again, man is imitating nature for the best. A team of Dutch physicists has created artificial cricket hairs, which are among the most sensitive sound detectors on Earth. These artificial sensory hair systems will help to develop sensor arrays useful for a variety of applications. For example, these sensor arrays could be used to visualize airflow on surfaces, such as an aircraft fuselage. But more importantly, this “could lead to a new generation of cochlear implants, for people with severe hearing problems.” Even if it doesn’t happen overnight, the low energy consumption and costs of fabrication are excellent news for deaf people. Read more…

First, let’s look at how real crickets are using their hairs.

Crickets spend most of their lives on the ground, making them vulnerable to wandering and flying predators. Species such as the wood cricket Nemobius sylvestris have developed a pair of hairy appendages at the abdominal end of their body called cerci, which are incredibly good at detecting small fluctuations in air currents — the kind that might be caused by the beating of a wasp’s wings or the jump of an attacking spider.

On the figure below, you can see the sensory hairs of the cricket (Credit: University of Twente, The Netherlands).

The sensory hairs of the cricket are situated on the back of the cricket’s body on appendices called cerci. [...] Each hair is lodged in a socket, guiding the hair to move in a preferred direction. The hair is held in its socket by an elastic material surrounding the base. Airflow causes a neuron to be fired, by rotation of the hair base. The cricket is able to pinpoint low-frequency sound from any given direction, by using the combined neural information of all sensory hairs.

Now, let’s focus on how these Dutch physicists have created artificial cricket hairs.

Physicists at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have now succeeded in building artificial sensory hair systems, which they hope will enable them to unravel the underlying process and develop sensor arrays with a variety of important applications.

The Twente team built a mechanical array with up to a few hundred artificial hairs using technologies often referred to as MEMS technology. The sensors are made by depositing and structuring various thin layers of electrically insulating and conducting materials, creating structured electrodes on a suspended membrane. The structured electrodes form two capacitors with the underlying substrate.

Below is a picture of an array of spiral-suspended sensory hairs, obtained through “a relatively simple fabrication process” (Credit: University of Twente, The Netherlands).

The news release gives some more details, but for more information, the research work has been published on June 20, 2005 by the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering under the name “Artificial sensory hairs based on the flow sensitive receptor hairs of crickets.” Here is a link to the abstract.

This paper presents the modelling, design, fabrication and characterization of flow sensors based on the wind-receptor hairs of crickets. Cricket sensory hairs are highly sensitive to drag-forces exerted on the hair shaft. Artificial sensory hairs have been realized in SU-8 on suspended Si_xN_y membranes. The movement of the membranes is detected capacitively. Capacitance versus voltage, frequency dependence and directional sensitivity measurements have been successfully carried out on fabricated sensor arrays, showing the viability of the concept.

And if you’re a registered member of the Institute of Physics, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 7 pages, 686 KB) (you can register for free from the abstract link). The above illustrations were extracted from this paper.

Finally, you can find other technical information on the CICADA project page at the University of Twente — CICADA standing for ” Cricket Inspired perCeption and Autonomous Decision Automata.”

Sources: Institute of Physics news release, June 20, 2005; and various web sites

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• Engineering
  


• Medicine
  


• Nature
  


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• Sensors
  

Nanoscientists and food industry specialists are meeting right now at Nano4Food 2005, a conference held in Wageningen, The Netherlands, on June 20-21. They will discuss how nanotechnology can help food processing companies to improve the safety and quality of their products by using nanosensors and diagnostic machines. But, in this article, FoodProductionDaily.com writes that there is another subject on the agenda. New kinds of foods, embedded with nanoparticles, could one day deliver their contents in our bodies, such as medicines or nutrients. So far, food companies are only investigating, and no product has been released yet. But technology is almost ready for these companies to sell you interactive drinks you can play with, changing colors or textures. Read more…

Let’s start with a financial forecast from an analyst — who certainly never ate nanofood. And don’t forget to read this again in 2010!

The nanofood market is expected to rise from $2.6bn today to $7bn next year and to $20.4bn in 2010 according to a study by consultant Helmut Kaiser.

Please notice that ‘nanofood market’ doesn’t mean edible food. And this brings us back to how nanotechnology can be used for food safety.

On the processing line nanotechnology can be used to create tiny sensors and diagnostic machines that can help ensure food does not leave the factory with contaminants. Such nanodevices can also help processors detect harmful microbes and determine the shelf life for their foods. Such fine scale detection could help food processors make strategic decisions, such as the best transportation method for their products and storage methods, said Frans Kampers [, the program manager of bio-nanotechnology at Wageningen University.]

“The use of nanotechnology to ensure the quality of a food product has obvious benefits for consumers,” he said. However, such robotic nanosensors and detectors are still being developed in food processing and research laboratories. Kampers forecasts that the first such machines will appear on the food production line within four years.

On the other hand, incorporating nanoparticles in our food is an entirely different story.

Researchers generally refer to nanofoods as being embedded with either “soft particles”, those using common biological materials or with “hard particles”, made up of non-organic substances.

“Soft particles” might be harmless to us, because our bodies can recognize them. But what about these “hard particles”?

Here the work is more speculative as the body is not used to ingesting and processing such substances, even if they are so tiny. As they are so tiny, nanoparticles exhibit different chemical behaviour than would normally be found in larger masses of material. Quantum mechanics, the behaviour of particles and surfaces at the microscopic level, comes into play.

“We do not really know exactly how these nanoparticles go through different routes in the body and where they end up,” said Kampers. “We need more research about the effects on food and on the body.”

So will we soon eat nanofoods? A long article from the Observer, U.K., about the cutting edge of food technology, published in May 2004, already mentioned that “food technologists are dreaming up ever new ways of feeding us — and the future is any colour you want.” Here is a selected quote.

Manuel Marquez-Sanchez [, a scientist at Kraft Foods,] has big hopes for nanotechnology. By manipulating ingredients at the nano level, and storing them in ‘nanocapsules’, he believes that Kraft will be able to devise such treats as an interactive, customisable drink. ‘The idea is that everyone buys the same drink, but you’ll be able to decide its colour, flavour, concentration and texture,’ he explains enthusiastically. ‘Once you have a technology to design nanocapsules, based on food-grade materials, you can offer products that put the consumer in control.’ Although the industry, one presumes, will wish to retain control of everything from labelling requirements and costs to the degree of prior safety testing.

So what do you think? Are you really ready for nanofood or not?

Sources: Ahmed ElAmin, FoodProductionDaily.com, June 17, 2005; and various web sites

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Thanks to a program called YourAir, thousands of people suffering from asthma and other breathing problems, and living in Central London will soon be able to be alerted of peaks of pollution by text messages sent to their cell phones. This program, which soon will be extended to other areas in London, has been developed with the help of the European Space Agency (ESA). Currently, YourAir uses air quality forecasts provided by satellites as well as information coming from local traffic roads. But it should soon incorporate more European regional data, as it becomes obvious to ESA researchers that a peak of pollution in London might have originated in the Ruhr Valley in Germany — or even in Italy. Read more…

As an example of what peaks of air pollution can look like, below is a picture showing the nitrogen dioxide concentrations over the city of London during a high-pollution event that occurred on November 15, 2000 (Credit: ESA).

But here is a better illustration, with this animation (in Macromedia Flash format).

Now, let’s get back to the YourAir service.

Around a thousand asthma sufferers and other vulnerable individuals in Croydon should soon receive text message warnings to their mobile phones before elevated air pollution days, with additional patients in other London boroughs receiving the service later on.

The YourAir service predicts levels of the pollutants nitrogen dioxide, ozone and airborne particles — exposure to which can harm people with asthma, lung and heart problems, and in the very highest concentrations can harm otherwise healthy people.

Even if current results are pretty accurate — about 90% — there are still ways for improvements, especially by incorporating other European regional data.

Regional air quality information is important because not all the pollution affecting a city actually originates there. Depending on the weather, studies show that up to half the air pollution found in some European cities might have come from elsewhere in the continent — the Ruhr in Germany for instance, or as far away as Italy’s Po Valley.

“With air pollution arising, its distribution drops off steeply away from major roads or other sources because it mixes vertically as well as horizontally,” explained Iarla Kilbane-Dawe of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC). “On most days the air rises, taking the pollution with it — as high as 800 metres in the winter, or two kilometres in the summer. So within an hour or so of rush hour the concentrated pollution can waft away.”

The YourAir service is being developed by different organizations through ESA, and trying to find more information is like peeling an onion. It is part of the PROMOTE project, intended to deliver atmospheric information to support informed decision making in this field and improve quality of life.

And PROMOTE is itself part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), a joint initiative between ESA and the European Union.

And to finish to peel the onion, where is the European Union going today? No one seems to know.

Sources: ESA news release, June 16, 2005; and various web sites

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A team of researchers at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has developed the first true, three-dimensional, holographic movies. These movies should appear on a screen near you in about a decade. For the moment, the initial markets for this holographic television system will be in medical visualization and military applications. The system is based on regular digital light processing (DLP) micro-mirror chips, but there is a twist. Instead of using regular lights, the researchers are using laser lights, which are using a unique wavelength. And they feed the chip with interferograms coming from regular 3-D imaging applications. This unique combination leads the micro-mirrors to project a 3-D moving image that appears suspended in air, like a 3-D hologram. Read more today, or wait until 2020…

Here is the introduction of the UT Southwestern Medical Center news release about this future projection system.

In a small research laboratory at UT Southwestern Medical Center, a grainy, red movie of circling fighter jets emerges from a table-top black box, while nearby, a video of a rotating human heart hangs suspended in a tank of gooey gel.

These images - the first true, three-dimensional, holographic movies - are the brainchild of Dr. Harold “Skip” Garner, professor of biochemistry and internal medicine at UT Southwestern.

Below are three images showing the — early — technology at work (Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center). You’ll find more explanations below.

So when will be able to watch holographic television in our living rooms?

“An important next step is to take our proof of principle technology that we have now and move it into a commercial entity,” said Dr. Garner. “We think the two initial markets will be in medical visualization and military applications, such as heads-up displays for helmets and military aircraft and coordinating battlefield information.”

In the long term, Dr. Garner said, entertainment uses could include 3-D multiplayer games, theme park or advertising displays, and “Holo TV.” He and his colleagues have worked with students in Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business to develop a tentative business plan that explores the possible commercialization of the technology, focusing on medical applications.

“I predict that by the year 2020, that being the year of ‘perfect vision,’ we will have Holo TV in our homes,” said Dr. Michael Huebschman, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Garner’s lab and one of the developers of the technology.

Back in 2005, the “What’s New” section of Popular Science dated June 16, 2005, carries a special report named “The Future Starts Here,” which takes “a look at five unbelievable technologies trucking toward reality” and includes a very interesting article about the “Holographic Television.”

For more technical information, you should read this page about Holographic Imaging from Skip Garner’s lab, which also has links to several video demonstrations.

Finally, you should read a paper published by Optics Express in March 2003, “Dynamic holographic 3-D image projection” (Vol. 11, No. 5, pp. 437-445). Here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 9 pages, 1.69 MB). The images above are extracted from this paper.

Sources: UT Southwestern Medical Center news release, June 14, 2005; Jonathan Keats, Popular Science, June 16, 2005; and various sites

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According to Reuters, a Canadian company, Zarlink Semiconductor, has developed a wireless chip for medical implants to be used for in-body communication systems. With such a chip, a pacemaker could wirelessly be monitored by a doctor or an hospital several miles away. The company thinks there are many other applications for the chip, such as in implanted blood glucose meters, which control insulin for diabetics. This is possible because the chip is sleeping most of the time, waiting for wake-up calls from a base station located far away. This allows the chip to use only 20% of the power needed by previous systems while sending much more data when awake. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs from the Reuters article.

Zarlink Semiconductor Inc. unveiled a ground-breaking chip for medical devices on Tuesday that it says could let doctors monitor a patient’s pacemaker or even control a diabetic’s insulin dosage from miles away using wireless technology.

The Ottawa-based company said it has the world’s first chip designed specifically for in-body communication systems, which wirelessly links implanted devices via base stations to a doctor or hospital.

“Baby boomers are getting older and they require pacemakers and defibrillators and various other devices,” said Steve Swift, general manager of Zarlink’s ultra low-power communications unit.

This diagram shows how the Zarlink’s in-body communications system works. It comes from “Wireless Revolution” (PDF format, 2 pages, 671 KB), in which Henry Higgins of Zarlink Semiconductor discusses the latest in radio frequency technology and in-body communications systems.

Some implants will require an almost constant two-way link, while others only require occasional communication initiated by a base station. Data can be stored in memory and transmitted in bursts on request from the base station. This means the implant can be put into sleep mode between data transmissions to save battery power and allow a longer operating time, with the base station sending a “wake-up” signal to the implant before data is transmitted.

Reuters adds that because the chip is sleeping almost all the time, it consumes only 20% of the power of rival products, while transmitting ten times more data to a distance up to two meters.

For more information about these in-body communications systems, you also should read “The Ultra-Low-Power Wireless Medical Device Revolution” published by Medical Electronics Manufacturing in April 2005. Here is the conclusion of this well-documented article written by Peter Bradley, who is a project engineer and system architect with Zarlink Semiconductor’s ultra-low-power communications division.

The design considerations for implantable radio-frequency (RF) communication systems require careful consideration of transceiver design, power consumption, and data integrity. Moreover, when designing an implantable RF communication system, it is essential to consider the issues related to remote management of these devices via the MICS band. The transceiver IC discussed in this article uses an architecture that provides the basic concepts of achieving low power and high data integrity.

These concepts will lead the way to high-performance, low-power RF communication. Such transceiver technology will facilitate clinically significant improvements in healthcare for the development of next generation of medical implants.

Now, a question remains. Who will license this promising new technology?

Sources: Susan Taylor, Reuters, May 31, 2005; and various websites

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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a robot combined with a swallowable camera could give doctors a better look inside the small intestine. This medical robot, dubbed ‘bugbot,’ is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Laboratory. It will measure less than 800 nanometers in diameter and will transmit thousands of images during its trip inside yourself with its embedded camera. With the six legs attached to the microrobot, CMU researchers want to give more control to camera operators, such as coming back to a suspected lesion. This robot should be ready for human inspection within 2 to 3 years and opens the way for future nanorobots. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the Post-Gazette article.

The words “intestinal bug” could gain a whole new meaning if a Carnegie Mellon University engineer is successful in his efforts to develop a medical robot for examining the intestinal tract.

Metin Sitti, director of the NanoRobotics Lab, is developing a set of legs that could be incorporated into the swallowable camera-in-a-pill that has become available in the past four years for diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders in the small intestine.

The capsule camera snaps thousands of pictures as it makes its way slowly through the narrow tract, carried by the wave-like peristaltic motion that moves all contents through the intestines.

This picture, from Steve Mellon, of the Post-Gazette, shows Sitti with a prototype of his six-legged intestinal robot. And the newspaper has additional explanations about this robot in this graphical representation of intestinal locomotion.

So far, this robot is not really ready to explore your body.

[Sitti] has devised a simple, three-footed apparatus less than two-thirds of an inch in diameter to test its stopping power in flexible plastic tubes and, in preliminary testing in South Korea, in pig intestines. A six-footed apparatus for testing the inchworm-like locomotion has been assembled and will soon be ready for testing.

The legged devices thus far do not incorporate a camera and are not designed to be swallowed.

For more information about previous research on this subject, you can read more about Micro Swimming Robots at CMU’s NanoRobotics Laboratory.

Here are the goals of the project.

Developing a microrobot which can travel to currently inaccessible parts of the body and perform user directed tasks such as highly localized drug delivery and screening for diseases that are in their very early stages.

And here are the benefits expected by the researchers.

We envision this robot having the capability to swim to inaccessible areas in human body and perform complicated user directed tasks such as diagnosis of diseases at early stages and targeted drug delivery.

Now, let’s return to the Post-Gazette which tells us about the future of the ‘bugbot.’

If the gutbot proves feasible for the small intestine, other applications may await it in the colon. Though the colon can be visualized with a long, flexible colonoscope, the procedure is not a popular one. Sitti [and his fellow researchers] suggested it may someday be possible to use a legged camera introduced through the anus as a substitute for traditional colonoscopy. They emphasized, however, that such an application is still years away.

For that matter, Sitti said, it may be possible to someday equip an intestinal robot to perform surgeries beyond just biopsies. But for now, developing a robot that could improve diagnosis of digestive tract disease is the immediate concern.

Sources: Byron Spice, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 30, 2005; and various websites

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Many announcements related to nanotechnology have been made last week, so I just want to make a quick summary. A team of chemists have found that buckyballs could have a negative impact on our environment while other researchers used nanotechnology to find tumors before they are visible in conventional MRI. A team at CMU could revolutionize nanoelectronics manufacturing by making ordered nanocarbons while a chemist at New York University thinks that DNA molecules could lead to the smallest computing devices ever built. Cornell University researchers have designed a nanoscale switch linking electronics to photonics and others at the University of Leeds, U.K., have identified antimicrobial nanoparticles for safer food packaging. In the commercial sector, Dimatix is developing nano-printing technologies which could lead to human skin cells, and Accelrys is using molecular modeling and simulation software tools to design potential new materials. Read more…

Please read all the articles or news releases mentioned above to find more information about these new discoveries. Here I just want to focus — briefly — on three of them.

Let’s first look briefly at this new use of nanotechnology to find tumors.

Biomedical engineers have used nanotechnology to find human melanoma tumors in mice while the growths are still invisible to conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Earlier detection can potentially increase the effectiveness of treatment. This is especially true with melanoma, which begins as a highly curable disorder, then progresses into an aggressive and deadly disease.

A second benefit of the approach is that the same nanoparticles used to find the tumors could potentially deliver stronger doses of anti-cancer drugs directly to the tumor site with fewer side effects.

Now, here is a short description of the nano-printing technologies developed by Dimatix.

Dimatix currently employs about 50 people in its Santa Clara offices, where it is developing ink-jet printing technologies for a wide range of possible uses. Some futuristic uses of Dimatix’s super-small ink jets could include making semiconductor interconnects, or electronic screen displays so thin and flexible they wrap around a column in a department store.

Dimatix is developing a new generation of print heads that can deposit microscopic droplets of conductive ink, or even droplets of organic materials. They call these nano-particle inks, because they are at the atomic level in size, or smaller than a virus.

In the future, Dimatix expects its printing technologies to be used in the life sciences, where scientists could re-create human cells by layering down DNA substrates.

Finally, it’s time to look at the modeling software tools developed by Accelrys.

Here is the introduction of the article.

As electronics companies find themselves increasingly needing to characterise their materials at nanometre length scales, they are resorting to modelling software packages that until recently were seen as pure research tools.

Cambridge-based molecular modelling and simulation specialist Accelrys says its products, which are built on quantum mechanical descriptions of particular systems, are now being employed for real-world applications, rather than simply in more blue skies research.

Accelrys’ tools are typically applied in the fields of chemistry and fundamental materials science. They are used to address questions of what is happening at the molecular and atomic scales, and below, and enable the modelling of properties such as the electronic behaviour of solids, molecules, interfaces, and molecules on surfaces.

And here is the conclusion from Stephen Warde, European director of marketing for Accelrys.

“What our technology can help you do today is make smarter decisions about materials designs, and understand the materials science issues in more depth… I think it’s fair to say that we’re at the beginning of making those sorts of connections.”

And for more information about the involvement of Accelrys in this field, please read this page about Life Science Modeling.

Sources: American Chemical Society, May 9, 2005; The Whitaker Foundation, May 18, 2005; Carnegie Mellon press release, May 6, 2005; Spencer Reiss, Technology Review, June 2005; Cornell University news release, May 19, 2005; Food Production Daily, May 13, 2005; Therese Poletti, Mercury News, May. 16, 2005; Harry Yeates, ElectronicsWeekly.com, May 19, 2005; and various websites

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