and cater walls during the summer months on Mars. Eventually these dark streaks dry up as the planet's surface cools in autumn.
water is the central building block to all animals, bacteria and everything else alive today y
#Sharp wants to sell you a little robot as your next smartphone Not taken by the Nexus 6p?
Turned off by the iphone 6s? A little cool on the Lumia 950 XL? If you remain to be convinced by any of the current handsets then Sharp
"a mixture of the Japanese words for"robot"and"phone")and it does everything from make phonecalls to project movies on your living room wall.
The underlying idea is to make the phone more personal: like Siri in a physical form.
a phone that you feel like talking to, a phone that also wants to know you".
"Or at least a phone that wants to know you until the robot revolution arrives. Standing 19. 5cm tall (a robot head taller than the iphone 6s Plus) and weighing 390g (almost three times the Samsung galaxy S6),
Robohon has a 2-inch QVGA screen and can connect to 3g, 4g and Wi-fi networks.
Inside there's a 1. 2ghz CPU keeping everything moving...quite literally. It can make calls,
send texts and manage your email, as well as respond to your questions and even recognise your face in a crowd.
Robohon is able to walk and move independently, so you can send it to the other end of the room to take a photo of you and your friends.
A modified version of Android runs the whole show. It's certainly something different if nothing else.
The humanoid robot is going on sale in 2016 but at the moment we don't have any details on pricing or international availability y
#Bacterial Enzyme an Antismoking Aid? Available treatments for quitting smoking fail in the vast majority of those who try them,
but the study tells us the enzyme has the right properties to eventually become a successful therapeutic.
Sure enough, when the researchers spiked mouse serum with a dose of nicotine equivalent to one cigarette, then added Nica2 to the mix, the enzyme cut nicotine half-life from more than two hours to less than 15 minutes.
and its degradation of nicotine produced no toxic metabolitesll good signs for a potential therapeutic. opefully we can improve its serum stability with our future studies
so that a single injection may last up to a month, first author Song Xue, a Scripps graduate student, said in the release d
#Stimulating Neurons with Sound Over the past five years, optogenetics method for stimulating genetically engineered neurons with lightas taken the life sciences by storm.
Now researchers also have the option of engineering subsets of neurons and activating them with ultrasound,
Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La jolla, California, have used the method, dubbed onogenetics,
Study coauthor Sreekanth Chalasani, a molecular neurobiologist at the Salk Institute, explained that sonogenetics will complement optogenetics,
People using optogenetics in mammals for instance, must surgically insert a probe, whereas stimulation with ultrasound will require no such surgery. his is said noninvasive,
Chalasani. t the first demonstration of this genetic enhancement of ultrasound neurostimulation, said Stephen Baccus, a neurobiologist at the Stanford university School of medicine,
who was involved not in the study. t an awesome study because it really opens up new possibilities for how we modulate biology,
said Jamie Tyler, a neuroscientist at Arizona State university who led the first group to directly stimulate neurons with ultrasound in 2008. t shows the mechanical sensitivity of ion channels
they may inject them into the mouse bloodstream. The bubbles should travel into the tiny blood vessels of the brain.
the amplified ultrasound waves also do appear to affect some other neurons. t not he same thing at this point as optogenetics, where it really an all-or-none thing,
In addition to being a step in the right direction for eventual lab-grown kidneys for transplant, the structures could help scientists screen drugs for toxicity and model normal and diseased kidney function,
the authors argue in Nature today (October 7). ) t not a kidney, it a kidney model, study coauthor Melissa Little of the Murdoch Children Research Institute in Melbourne
Jamie Davies of the University of Edinburgh wrote in an accompanying commentary. here is a long way to go until transplantable kidneys can be engineered,
The team found a similar gene expression profile to that of kidneys of first-trimester human fetuses, for example,
The work follows a similar success just last month when researchers at the Jikei University School of medicine in Tokyo created mini-kidneys that from human stem cells that excreted urine
when transplanted in rats and pigs t
#Artificial skin Communicates with Neurons Researchers have developed a new type of artificial skin that could pave the way for responsive prosthetics.
The flexible, carbon nanotubeaced polymer detects pressure and translates the sensation into pulses of electricity that can be interpreted by the mammalian nervous system,
according to the in vitro mouse study published last week (October 15) in Science. reviously, with plastic material,
we and others in the field have been able to make sensitive touch sensors, but the electrical signal that comes out from the sensor is not the right format for the brain to be able to interpret it,
study coauthor Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer at Stanford university, told BBC News. ur sensor is coupled now with a printed, simple electronic circuit.
That circuit allows our sensor to generate electrical pulses that can communicate with the brain.
We see this as the first step towards using plastic materials for artificial skin on prosthetic limbs.
Bao and her colleagues demonstrated that the sensors could relay pressure signals to the mammalian nervous system by linking them to a blue LED light that in turn stimulated slices of mouse brain that had been engineered to respond to those wavelengths.
When the researchers measured the responses of individual neurons within the brain slice they found that it correlated perfectly with the pulses produced by the artificial skinlike materialp to 200 beats per second.
The work represents n important advance in the development of skinlike materials that mimic the functionality of human skin at an unprecedented level, Ali Javey,
who is developing electronic skin at the University of California, Berkeley, told Chemical & Engineering News. t could have important implications for the development of smarter prosthetics.
Even before that, Bao told the BBC, the sensors could serve as the basis of wearable technology. hey are very thin and flexible,
and are also stretchy. So you could mount a sensor on your skin and use it to detect vital signs like heartbeat and blood pressure. e
#Graphene's thermoelectric properties to help cars recover lost thermal energy Charging bateries or running air conditioning could be assisted by energy from fuel normally wasted as heat emissions One of the less well-known properties of graphene could enable the carbonaceous wonder-material to help combustion engine vehicles to make better use of the energy from their fuel by converting waste heat into electricity
to charge the batteries or power onboard systems, according to the University of Manchester. Graphene-doped strontium titanium oxide has the ability to generate electricity from relatively small amounts of heat
according to a team working with a Leicester-based thermal management specialist called European Thermodynamics. Thermoelectric graphene composite, with graphene fragments ringed in the 2 m-scale image Internal combustion engines lose about 70 per cent of the energy from their fuel as heat,
so recovering some of that energy would obviously be beneficial. But materials that exhibit thermoelectric properties the ability to convert heat to electric current tend to work only at higher temperatures than those seen in engines.
Working with the thermoelectric base material strontium titanium oxide, the team led by Professors Ian Kinloch and Robert Freer has found that making it into a composite with grapheme could be advantageous.?
Our findings show that by introducing a small amount of graphene to the base material can reduce the thermal operating window to room temperature
which offers a huge range of potential for applications, Freer said. he new material will convert 3-5%of the heat into electricity.
That is not much, Freer conceded, but considering the usual 70 per cent loss, ecovering even a small percentage of the lost energy with thermoelectric technology would be worthwhile.
The team has published its findings in the American Chemical Sociey Journal Applied materials and Interfaces. Other graphene-related automotive research at Manchester includes using the material in composites for lightweight bodywork
which could improve the fuel economy of vehicles o
#Tilted nanomagnets open door for advances in computing The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
means that the high-density storage of computers could now be incorporated directly into the circuits that perform calculations.
This would significantly reduce energy dissipation, increasing the speed of those calculations and improving computer performance. o reduce the power draw
and increase the speed, we want to be able to manufacture a computer chip that includes memory
so that it is close to the computational action, said Sayeef Salahuddin, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences,
and head of the research team at Berkley. owever, the physics needed to create long-term storage are not compatible with integrated circuits.
Creating a magnetic field for long-term magnetic memory requires power and space, which is why up until now computational
and storage systems have always been separate. Previously, Salahuddin and his colleagues had discovered that passing a current through the rare metal tantalum creates polarity in magnets without an external magnetic field.
However, packing them extremely close together on a chip negated this effect. In its latest research, the team discovered that by tilting the nanomagnets slightly
they could be aligned in close proximity yet retain the desired properties. e found that by tilting the magnet-just 2 degrees was enough-you get all the benefits of a high-density magnetic switch without the need for an external magnetic field,
said Salahuddin i
#obo-whiskers build picture of surroundings Researchers at the University of Illinoisadvanced Digital Sciences Centre in Singapore have developed a whisker-like sensor array that measures the fluid flow of its surroundings
and creates tomographic images. The results, published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, describe the array as consisting of five superelastic wires made from nitinol, an alloy of nickel and titanium.
Each wire is covered with a plastic straw, making the whiskers about 15 cm long and 3 mm wide.
Strain gauges attached at the base measure movement in each whisker, and these signals are used to build up an image of the fluid flow past the array. hen it is dark,
whiskers play a key role for animals in exploring, hunting or even just living undergroundsays electrical engineer Cagdas Tuna,
a lead author on the paper. or example, seals can catch fish in the dark by following the hydrodynamic wake using their whiskers.
According to the research team, the array could work as either an alternative or complimentary technology to existing systems for navigating, tracking and detection in dark conditions.
Plans to miniaturise the technology could see wider adoption, says Tuna, with potential medical uses. his may even find use in biomedical applications,
such as cardiac surgeryhe says. thin-whiskered catheter tip could be used during surgery to track the relative position inside the heart,
potentially reducing the risk of injury, or atrial fibrillation. t
#Epilepsy drug is approved first FDA 3d printed pill The first 3d printed pill has been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA.
Developed by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, Spritam (levetiracetam) is an oral adjunctive therapy to treat a range of seizures in adults and children with epilepsy.
The drug is fabricated with Aprecia proprietary Zipdose Technology platform, which uses 3d printing to produce a porous,
high-dose formulation that rapidly disintegrates with the intake of a small amount of liquid.
According to Aprecia, potential therapies made via Zipdose are assembled in layers without using compression forces or traditional moulding techniques.
Thin layers of powdered medication are repeatedly spread on top of one another, as patterns of liquid droplets are deposited
or printed onto selected regions of each powder layer. Interactions between the powder and liquid then bond these materials together at a microscopic level.
The resultant drug is highly porous and can support doses of up to 1, 000mg that disintegrate in the patient in less than 10 seconds. y combining 3d printing technology with a highly-prescribed epilepsy treatment,
Spritam is designed to fill a need for patients who struggle with their current medication experience,
said Don Wetherhold, CEO of Aprecia. his is the first in a line of central nervous system products Aprecia plans to introduce.
Spritam is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2016 r
#ew memory materials could boost storage density It comprises a layered structure of tantalum, nanoporous tantalum oxide and multilayer graphene between two platinum electrodes.
The researchers claim that the design details of which are published online in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters-could allow for crossbar array memories that store up to 162 gigabits (around 20 GB.
his is a new way to make ultradense, nonvolatile computer memory, said James Tour, professor of materials science, nanoengineering and computer science at Rice university.
While current flash technology requires three electrodes per circuit, the device developed by the team at Rice needs just two.
According to Tour, it uses 100 times less energy than current devices. his tantalum memory is based on two-terminal systems,
so it all set for 3d memory stacks, he said. nd it doesn need even diodes
or selectors, making it one of the easiest ultradense memories to construct. This will be a real competitor for the growing memory demands in high-definition video storage and server arrays. uring development
the researchers found the tantalum oxide gradually loses oxygen ions, changing from an oxygen-rich, nanoporous semiconductor at the top, to oxygen-poor at the bottom.
Where the oxygen disappears completely, it becomes pure tantalum. he exchange of contact barriers causes the bipolar switching,
including a method for controlling the size of the nanopores, and fabricating a dense enough crossbar device to address individual bits t
and the University of North carolina at Chapel hill. his could be used to release painkillers whenever a patient with arthritic knees goes for a walk,
co-senior author of a paper describing the work and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel hill.
According to NC State, the technology consists of an elastic film that is studded with biocompatible microcapsules.
These microcapsules, in turn, are packed with nanoparticles that can be filled with drugs. The university said in a statement that the microcapsules stick halfway out of the film, on the side of the film that touches a patient skin.
The drugs release slowly from the nanoparticles and are stored in the microcapsules. When the elastic film is stretched
it also stretches the microcapsules enlarging the surface area of the microcapsule and effectively squeezing some of the stored drug out onto the patient skin,
co-senior author of the paper and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. hat compression helps push the drug out of the microcapsule.
After being stretched, the microcapsule is refilled by the drugs that continue to leak out of the nanoparticles. his can be used to apply drugs directly to sites on the skin
such as applying anticancer medications to melanomas or applying growth factors and antibiotics for wound healing, said Jin Di,
and a Ph d student in Gu lab. The researchers are said also to have incorporated microneedles into the system,
and a Ph d student in Zhu lab. ee now exploring how this tool can be used to apply drugs efficiently
The paper, tretch-Triggered Drug Delivery from Wearable Elastomers Containing Therapeutic Depots, is published online in the journal ACS Nano.
Co-authors include Yanqi Ye and Jicheng Yu of the joint biomedical engineering program and Zheng Cui and Tushar Ghosh of NC State
#Metamaterials assist in'cocktail party'voice recognition Engineers at Duke university have developed a new type of sensor that enhances a computer ability to identify individual sounds that are overlapping,
helping address the so-called ocktail partyproblem of voice recognition software. The device, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is shaped like a large honeycombed pie with dozens of interlocking slices.
The depth of the openings varies in each slice of honeycomb, meaning sound passing over each section has a unique pattern. he cavities behave like soda bottles
professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke. heepth of the cavitiesffects the pitch of the sound they make,
When sound passes over the acoustic metamaterials, it gets slightly distorted depending on the depth of the cavities.
The sound is picked up by a microphone on the other side of the device, then transmitted to a computer that is able to separate the overlapping noises based on the unique distortion patterns.
According to the team at Duke, the six-inch wide prototype used in testing had a 96.7 per cent success rate in identifying sounds from three different directions.
the researchers believe it has a wide range of potential applications, from consumer electronics and medical sensing devices,
to hearing aids and cochlear implants. ee invented a sensing system that can efficiently, reliably and inexpensively solve an interesting problem that modern technology has to deal with on a daily basis,
a Phd student in electrical and computer engineering at Duke and lead author of the paper. e think this could improve the performance of voice-activated devices like smart phones
and game consoles while also reducing the complexity of the system. ith the extra information,
it should also be possible to improve the sound fidelity and increase functionalities for applications like hearing aids and cochlear implants.
#Researchers demonstrate thought-controlled exoskeleton Scientists have developed a brain-computer control interface for a lower limb exoskeleton by decoding specific brain signals.
Using an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap, the system allows users to move forwards, turn left and right, sit
and stand by staring at one of five flickering light emitting diodes (LEDS). The results delivered by scientists at Korea University
and TU Berlin-are published in the Journal of Neural engineering. Each of the five LEDS are said to flicker at a different frequency,
and when the user focusses their attention on a specific LED this frequency is reflected within the EEG readout.
This signal is identified and used to control the exoskeleton. The researchers say that a key problem has been separating these precise brain signals from those associated with other brain activity,
and the highly artificial signals generated by the exoskeleton. xoskeletons create lots of electrical oise? said Klaus Muller,
one of the paper authors. he EEG signal gets buried under all this noise but our system is able to separate not only the EEG signal,
but the frequency of the flickering LED within this signal. Although the paper reports tests on healthy individuals,
the system reportedly has the potential to aid sick or disabled people. eople with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) motor neuron disease,
or high spinal cord injuries face difficulties communicating or using their limbssaid Muller. ecoding what they intend from their brain signals could offer means to communicate
and walk again. The control system could serve as a technically simple and feasible add-on to other devices
with EEG caps and hardware now emerging on the consumer market. It only took volunteers a few minutes to be trained in how to operate the system
and researchers are now working to reduce the isual fatigueassociated with longer-term users of such systems. e were driven to assist disabled people,
#K scientists create magnetism in nonmagnetic metals Scientists at Leeds University have discovered a method to create magnetism in metals that aren naturally magnetic,
opening up the possibility of using a range of abundant metals for magnetic applications. The study, published in the journal Nature, details a way of altering the quantum interactions of matter
including power generation in wind turbines, memory storage, and medical imaging. However, only three metals iron cobalt and nickel-are naturally ferromagnetic,
meaning they remain magnetic in the absence of a field. aving such a small variety of magnetic materials limits our ability to tailor magnetic systems to the needs of applications without using very rare
or toxic materials, said Tim Moorsom from the School of Physics & Astronomy at Leeds University,
co-lead author on the paper. aving to build devices with only the three magnetic metals naturally available to us is rather like trying to build a skyscraper using only wrought iron.
Why not add a little carbon and make steel? In the new study, the researchers have shown how to alter the behaviour of nonmagnetic materials by removing some electrons using an interface coated with a thin layer of the carbon molecule C60,
which is also known as a uckyball The movement of electrons between the metal and the molecules allows the nonmagnetic material to overcome the Stoner Criterion
and become magnetic. According to the researchers, the discovery opens up new possibilities across a host of different industries. eing able to generate magnetism in materials that are not naturally magnetic opens new paths to devices that use abundant and hazardless elements
such as carbon and copper, said co-lead author Fatma Al Maari, also from the University School of Physics & Astronomy. uture technologies,
#Tadpole endoscope offers new hope for gastrointestinal cancer detection Hong kong researchers have devised a swimming housing for a capsule endoscopy camera which can be steered around to provide better images inside the stomach
and intestines The problem of looking at the inside of the body is a pressing one for doctors,
Cancers in this system the oesophagus, stomach, intestines and rectum are major causes of death and difficult to investigate,
and endoscopy, where a similar system goes in the other end are so unpleasant and traumatic for the patient.
and send pictures back to doctors isn a new one: indeed, so-called capsule endoscopy currently the best way to get pictures of the intestines between the stomach and colorectal system, the boundary zone between gastroscopy and endoscopy.
But it isn without drawbacks: The speed of transport through the system, from muscular ripples along the intestines called peristalsis can vary widely from person to person;
it can be difficult to determine precisely where lesions and growths are, because of mismatches between imaging speed and peristalsis,
it can sometimes be pointing in the wrong direction to provide a picture of a site of concern.
The tadpole endoscope, with drive unit at the back This is where the tadpole comes in, with researchers Yong Zhong and Ruxu Du from the Institute of Precision Engineering and Philip W Y Chiu of the Jockey club Minimally Invasive
Surgery Training Centre, both at the Chinese University of Hong kong, attempting to mimic the movement of the larval amphibians to design a capsule endoscope with a controllable swimming action that doctors can steer around inside the stomach to provide a guided tour,
then orient it ideally for its dive into the intestines where peristalsis can take over for the rest of its journey.
and tested it inside a pig stomach. The tadpole endoscope, swimming in a stomach-shaped test tank The capsule itself is a simple structure, 13mm in diameter,
designed to hold a camera, LED light, an integrated circuit for receiving control instructions and transmitting data, antenna, 1. 5v button battery and, at the rear, the drive unit, to
which a rubber flapping tail is attached. This is much shorter compared with the body than a tadpole tail
which genersates its own magnetic field, one of the permanent magnets attracts it while the other repels it.
Further tests using a pig stomach proved that the capsule could be manoeuvred around using an IR remote control
and turn when it reached the stomach wall. The researchers envisage that the patient would swallow the capsule on an empty stomach
The patient would then be sent home with a sensor pad strapped to their abdomen while the capsule negiotiated the twists and turns of the intestine,
returning to the hospital the following day for the clinician to retrieve images from the pad. uture works include optimising the system model
#Algorithm helps prosthetic leg automatically adapt to user Researchers in the US have developed software that enables powered prosthetic legs to automatically adapt to individual users.
Typically, such devices have to be regularly unedby prosthetics experts so that a patient can move normally.
However, a special algorithm, developed by a group from North carolina State university and the University of North carolina, allows this process to happen automatically,
The system works by taking into account the angle of the prosthetic knee while walking.
During the conventional prosthetic tuning process, a prosthetist adjusts the powered prosthesis system so that it exerts the power necessary to recreate those normal joint motions while walking.
or gait, can affect the prosthesis ability to achieve that aturaljoint angle. The automatic-tuning algorithm takes a similar approach,
tracking the angle of the prosthetic joint while walking. But it is able to adjust the amount of power the prosthesis receives in real time,
in order to maintain the proper angle. Helen Huang, an associate professor in the biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel hill
said that as well helping streamline the initial set up of prosthetics, the software is also able to track changes in a patient physical condition
and make adjustments accordingly. or example, the algorithm could provide more power to a prosthesis
when a patient carries a heavy suitcase through an airport, she said r
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