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#21st-century medicine: Gauss guns, magic bullets, and magnetic millibot surgeons Sometime around the turn into the 20th century,

medical extraordinaire Paul Ehrlich coined the word zauberkugel or agic bulletto describe new drugs he was working on to cure syphilis and cancer.

In theory, such drugs would leave healthy tissue intact while targeting only the diseased. Psychologists later appropriated this term to describe the phenomenally widespread panic that ensued

when H. G. Well epic 1938 thriller The War of the Worlds was broadcast to an unsuspecting American public.

Incidentally, these psychologists also liked to refer to their magic bullet theory as the ypodermic syringe model

reflecting the media new found ability to inject a radical concept directly into the minds of a captive audience with pinpoint accuracy.

While neither of the highly idealized magic bullets we just alluded to may be entirely realistic conceptions,

We are not referring to a deadly kind of bullet that often follows a highly contorted trajectory.

Instead, we are talking about a device fired by a much more controllable kind of gun namely,

something called a Gauss gun, after the famous mathematician of the same name. Similar to a coil or rail gun, a Gauss gun linearly accelerates an object using electromagnetic fields.

It can also be configured to store potential energy in the positions of objects inside its bore,

and then amplify the kinetic energy of an incoming particle by converting that potential energy into a larger kinetic energy added to an exiting object.

A simple video probably illustrates the basic principle much more clearly: Researchers Aaron Becker, Ouajdi Felfoul,

and Pierre Dupont have built a proof-of-principle Gauss gun that could propel a tiny device they call a millibot throughout the body.

or built dedicated ctomagsto magnetically steer catheters and other devices throughout the liquid compartments of the body, this is the first indication that forces high enough to traverse solid barriers in the body could be attained magnetically.

The main trick behind the scheme is to preload the chamber of a hypodermic needle with a series of magnetizable steel balls and spacers.

Neodymium permanent magnets have a lower magnetic saturation (at only 77%that of steel they can only produce 43%of the equivalent magnetic force of steel),

On the other hand, with steel electromagnets, the force goes away when you turn off the electromagnet. If you were to introduce permanent magnets into the body, by eating them for example,

your bowels would quickly be cinched together and the magnets would inexorably bore themselves directly through tissue in mutual attraction.

The key insight made by the researchers is that the coils of an MRI machine could be used to implement a Gauss gun.

but for our purposes here we can think of it as an electric motor. The MR scanner acts as the stator and generates propulsive torques on an actuator rotor containing the ferroelectric material.

To generate maximum torque, the smaller gradient coils (as opposed to the large static field of the MRI) need to be put under closed loop control,

The Gauss gun would enable tiny devices to breach barriers between fluid chambers or even go through solid tissue itself.

for example, and would have immediate applications in conditions like hydrocephalus, where proper flow through these chambers is disrupted.

The beauty of the Gauss gun is that the MRI magnets do everything position the components,

The authors note that the maximum gradient available in most clinical scanners is in around 20-40mt/m. This would produce a force on a magnetized steel particle equal to 36-71%of its gravitational force.

not a whole lot of force to work with. Custom high-strength gradient coils up to a 400mt/m coil have been tried,

We asked corresponding author Pierre Dupont directly what the Gauss gun could put out. He said that they have demonstrated already up to 15mm penetration depth into a brain tissue phantom using an 18gauge needle.

and cytoskeletal protein composites that should be expected to behave nonlinearly with regards to impacts. In other words like a pool surface, impact speed should greatly affect the material stiffness that is felt by a penetrating object.

The operators don even sit in the surgical amphitheater, but rather run the show from a separate control room.

steers a catheter through the vasculature by bending it at various control points that react to the magnetic field.

when devices like the Niobe eventually add beefy Gauss gun style attachments, remote robotic surgery will have entered a new era.

Some time ago, we discussed some of the finer points of installing and manipulating neural hardware in the ventricular system of the brain.

Of the 1700ml or so available space in our skull, 1400ml of that is the brain itself, 150ml is for the blood,

That a fairly roomy working environment. The fine membranes that separate these spaces are precisely the targets a Gauss gun could work on.

Of note we would offer that one of the key procedures would be making or stitching passageways between the brain and the larger immune and lymphatic systems of the body.

#Terapio autonomous medical robot can assist nurses Japan has a rapidly aging population, along with the longest life expectancy in the world.

And while a worldwide shortage of nurses means Japan isn the only country facing this problem,

the country is nonetheless leading the way in developing robots that can assist nurses with the enormous workloads they handle on a daily basis. The latest example is from researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology,

a medical robotic assistant that relieves nurses from some of the mundane tasks of collecting patient data and vital signs.

This allows the nurses to give more personal attention to the patient. Electronic Medical records (EMR) have been implemented in most Japanese medical facilities,

However, the task of manually entering data into EMR systems remains time consuming. To relieve that problem,

Terapio is programmed to follow a nurse as he or she makes the rounds. There a touch display panel on the top to input collected data straight into the patient EMR.

Patient records history, and medications are available instantly on the robot display for reference. Terapio can recognize possible allergies and potentially dangerous medication interactions.

And naturally, when not displaying data, the display shows the robot ace, which offers a friendly smile

and can change the shape of the eyes to convey emotion. Terapio has three modes of operation:

ower Assistallows the device to be maneuvered by applying slight force to a power-assist handle;

rackinglets Terapio automatically follow the nurse around, avoiding any objects or collisions on its own; and ounds,

which hints at the possibility of the robot making rounds by itself to collect data in some manner,

or just check on the patient. A camera would allow for remote viewing by the medical staff.

Toyohashi University professor Ryosuke Tasaki says, n ongoing daily effort to incorporate high-tech robotics into our activities will be the best way to realize life in our future society. arlier this year,

Japan demonstrated the latest generation of RIBA, the Robobear medical assistant robot. RIBA nickname, Robobear, comes from the large teddy-bear-like head that sits atop the robot.

RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is designed to gently lift patients into or out of bed,

The robotic assistant can also carefully lift patients from a wheelchair and place them in the bed r

#Low-cost, tunable smart windows developed with lectrokinetic pixelsresearchers at the University of Cincinnati with industry partners,

have created low-cost, smart window technology based on electro-kinetic pixels, which can dynamically adapt for brightness,

color temperatures and opacity something that neither blinds nor existing smart windows can do. This patent-pending research, supported by the National Science Foundation, will hopefully lead to low-cost window tinting that can provide a wide range of optical functionality such as adjusting for color and brightness.

What is the problem? Currently, most home and commercial windows use inexpensive, mechanical shades to provide privacy

and to block light, heat or cold. These (as you may have guessed) are quite effective, which has slowed the adoption of relatively expensive and seemingly unnecessary electronically controlled window tinting.

Previously these electronic windows could only mimic the clear-to-opaque performance of mechanical shades therefore offering no additional performance or functionality benefit,

but at a cost far greater than existing, and much simpler, age-old technology. For any real-world interest to gain hold, smart windows need to be both inexpensive

and offer something that shades cannot. What have the researchers actually created? The researchers have produced electrokinetic pixels for use as a fundamental smart window element.

These are capable of dimming light transmission and fully altering the color temperature of transmitted light.

They can be integrated easily into new windows or even easily applied to already existing windows,

by means of a roll-on coating consisting of a honeycomb of electrodes (see bottom right image).

The devices are based on electrophoretic principles, which is the technology underlying e-paper and e-ink displays.

So far, the team has created only a proof-of-concept device, but envisage future functionality where?

the pixels could easily go milky for privacy so no one can see in, but still allow 90 percent (or more) of the available light in.

or change the color of the light along a spectrum from cooler blue to warmer yellow The image to the above right shows the different potential states the window tiles could operate In this is a mock-up based on the results from the single device.

How do the pixels work? As stated, the device works off electrophoretic principles, the phenomena behind e-ink/e-paper displays,

whereby opaque, charged particles (approx. 1 micron in size) are attracted to electrodes that posses an opposite charge.

Thus the electric field created between the two electrodes causes the flow of these particles back and forth.

The interaction of incoming light with each electrophoretic pixel (two electrodes) depends on the position of the particles relative to these electrodes,

and the light can be scattered (white state), or not (dark-state), or somewhere in-between (grey scale).

In reference to these, the device uses electrophoresis to attract charged color particles to the top transparent electrode to preadtheir color,

which are adjacent to the electrode. The device is filled with dual-colour, dual-particle colloidal dispersion inks.

It is common in e-ink displays to use sub-pixels (i e. multiple electrodes to do some fancy charged transport),

They use three electrodes and by altering the applied voltages between them all, many color states are created during operation,

Well, the basic technology is similar to that in electronic display devices. The challenge for the the team from the university,

and the two companies (Merck and HP), was how to apply common e-paper technology to larger structures such as windows, but inexpensively.

For example, $30 per square foot is the industry standard for window manufacturing, so in order to become viable,

the technology must attempt to meet this figure. The researchers realized the potential in having a few selective,

which is the same technology used to pattern microchips and is very expensive. But the design here can be integrated with HP roll-to-roll micro-patterning technique, a much cheaper and large scale alternative.

In summary, the work here provides a unique design for smart windows using existing e-ink technologies,

Rivals to this technology are based liquid-crystal wallpapers and windows, and electrochromic materials (such as vanadium dioxide).

The specific details of the work can be found in their Applied Optics paper i

#Breakthrough quantum dot hybrid LED is inexpensive and delivers vibrant color Light-emitting diodes (LEDS) are prevalent in everything from digital clocks to solar panels, traffic lights, electronic banners and signs, Christmas decorations,

as well as smartphone and tablet displays. However, LEDS are created using organic materials that can be costly for researchers.

The end result of the manufacturing process is that LEDS cost more for the consumer.

While LED lighting systems last longer, are more energy-efficient, and provide an improved color gamut above that of fluorescent lights,

the price is the technology greatest drawback. A new cost-effective quantum dot (QD) hybrid LED could enable LED lighting system adoption on a mass scale.

University of Hiroshima (Japan) researchers created the new light-emitting diode using silicon quantum dot solution and a polymer solution on top of an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) glass ply that was used as the anode for the LED.

The silicon quantum dot solution was placed in the bottom of a glass vial that sat on a rotating stage.

It was synthesized through pulsed laser ablation (PLA) with Tokyo Chemical industry Co. 1-octyne solution (10ml) over several eight-hour periods.

After the 1-octyne solution was removed and the silicon quantum dots solidified they were submerged then in either 1) 2-propanol

or 2) o-dichlorobenzene. he color of Si QD solution is a transparent yellow but a white-blue PL is observed during the UV excitation,

the team wrote in its report. The study is the first of its kind to produce silicon quantum dot LEDS by way of a solution-based process

and marks an advancement of LED TECHNOLOGY, seeing that the use of organic film as the electron transport in past LED production resulted in a decreased photoluminescence and an inaccurate color reproduction.

The solution-based process described here was done at room temperature and pressure resulting in a more cost-efficient process by which to manufacture LEDS.

Fluorescent bulbs are cheaper than LEDS, with a box of fluorescent bulbs costing no more than a few dollars,

but consume more energy and lead to higher energy bills. LEDS are more expensive up-front, with some costing as high as $70 a piece,

but conserve energy and money later on. Quantum dots are nanocrystals that emit light when xcitedbased on their size,

and, when implemented in QLED TVS, replace red, green, and blue sub-pixels. QLED TVS, like LED lighting systems, cost more up-front than traditional LCD TVS

but are cost-efficient and color-effective. Quantum dot technology, while providing some insight into the future of lighting systems,

has made also already its mark in the TV industry. Sony worked with Quantum dot supplier QD Vision to produce its own QD TVS in 2013 under the riluminouslabel,

but Samsung is one of the major manufacturers now advancing QD technology over OLED with the recent release of its Super Ultra High-Definition TVS (SUHD)

and the purchase of Utah-based LED digital billboard and message sign company Yesco Electronics in March n

#lastic bucklinghoneycomb structures bounce right back from major impacts The concept of impact resistance likely brings to mind vehicle airbags, trampolines, helmets, kneepads,

and other protective gear, but Cockrell School of engineering (University of Texas-Austin) researchers, led by mechanical engineering professor Dr. Carolyn Conner Seepersad

and research scientist Michael Haberman, are seeking to make such items more protective than ever before.

The solution? Elastic buckling honeycomb structures. Known officially as negative-stiffness honeycombs, these hexagonal cell structures are named

so because they are able to provide continued support from repeat impact events. Current traditional honeycomb structures can support an individual only once before breaking down

and deforming permanently due to plastic buckling. Elastic buckling honeycomb structures provide the materials needed so that a given item could stretch

or bend and protect a victim or item when necessary, but return to its normal shape afterward without any inward breakdown of its parts.

The idea is credited to Germany Karlsruhe Institute of technology professor Dr. Martin Wegener who first dabbled into cloaking before he stumbled upon negative stiffness honeycombs last year.

In fact, Leiden University Phd student Bastiaan Florijn created a sponge-like object as a prop for the concept at the American Physical Society March Meeting,

with punched holes that are either vertical or horizontal in direction. Wegener work, picked up by Florijn to produce a rubber material that could make items beneath it nfeelable,

spun an idea with French physicists who decided to make the ground its own elastic buckling device and drill holes that proved earthquake-resistant and absorbed impact energy.

Now University of Texas-Austin (UT-A) researchers are using Wegener work (and that of others) to apply negative stiffness to ballistics by using nylon (rather than a sponge) as their build material.

So far, the UT-A team has created 3. 5-inch prototypes that prove resilient under pressure:

They can absorb the impact of a fastball traveling at a speed of 100mph in 0. 03 seconds.

The US Department of defense provided a research grant for the team last year, enhancing the potential of this technology for both military

and consumer applications. hether youe serving our country in uniform, playing in a big game,

or just driving or biking to work, the potential for multiple collisions or impacts over time however big or small is a reality,

Seepersad said in a statement. Leiden University student Florijn dreamed of alleablecar bumpers at that time. magine a car bumper that you can program for instance

if you drive in a neighbourhood with a lot of small kids, you want to have a very soft bumper.

But then if youe going fast on the highway, you want it to be said stiff, he u

#irigamistretchable batteries could herald flexible electronics era Fitness trackers and smartwatches aren known for their battery life,

and it may have something to do with the inflexible, fixed-shape cell packs inside. A new experiment bears testimony to the idea that,

if computers have become more mobile and flexible batteries should become more flexible, too. Arizona State university and China Jinan University have teamed up to create

what could become the first flexible batteries inside wearable electronics. The secret to these tretchable batteriesconsists of a traditional Japanese fold-and-cut practice of kirigami (which derives from origami.

irigamiis a compound word made of two words, iru (to cut), and ami (paper. The Japanese practice involves making small slits

or paper crease cuts and folding the paper remnants to create some form of design.

In this case, the ASU team, led by ASU mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Hanqing Jiang, created cut

-and-twist patterns in the creases of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil; coated the foil with electrode-laden, conductive material;

and then replaced the 300mah battery inside Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch with the coated kirigami-cut aluminum foil.

To test out the new battery, the researchers connected the aluminum foil with two pliers, attached it to both the Gear 2 smartwatch

and an elastic band that was pulled up from the wrist to the bicep, and stretched the lithium-ion battery to 150%of its original size.

The result? The wearer bent and stretched his bicep 15, %the kirigami battery remained intact,

and the Gear 2 smartwatch continued its video playback. ASU leader Dr. Jiang says that the kirigami-based design is the secret to the future of flexible electronics. he kirigami-based methodology can be expanded readily to other applications to develop highly stretchable devices

and thus deeply and broadly impact the field of stretchable and wearable electronics, he said. ther applications may include smart bracelets and smart headbands.

The results and other details regarding the study can be found in the Scientific Reports journal as well as Nature magazine.

The goal behind stretchable batteries is to create mobile computing devices that are fully flexible devices that need not sacrifice elegance for functionality Flexible batteries will allow devices to become thinner, lighter,

and more formal while leaving room for two batteries to be placed inside a device instead of just one.

The Gear 2 300mah battery, as stated in the report, could become a 600mah battery that keeps a smartwatch

or smart fitness band alive for twice as long on a single charge f

#Evaporation engines using artificial muscles made from bacteria A team of researchers from the US have created evaporation-driven engines that can power common tasks like locomotion and electricity generation.

These engines start and run autonomously when placed at airater interfaces. They are made from biologically inspired artificial muscles

which respond to humidity fluctuations. Doesn evaporation take too long for any reasonable device? Evaporation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the natural environment and a dominant form of energy transfer in the Earth climate.

Engineered systems rarely use naturally occurring evaporation as a source of energy, despite a vast number of examples in the biological world.

The potential of evaporation to power engineered systems is neglected largely. Furthermore, normal evaporation time scales (daily/weekly) are too slow to use for everyday devices,

yet the process carries a significant amount of energy. The breakthrough here is that near the evaporating surfaces,

there exists spatial gradients in relative humidity which provides a potential opportunity to exploit. By confining water to the nanoscale

in specially designed hydroscopic materials, it possible to convert energy from evaporation to mechanical work.

The confinement induces large pressures in response to changing relative humidity. Scaling this phenomena up to macroscopic (real-world) devices has faced many problems in the past,

but the team have managed to overcome a number of them here. Their solution: Artificial muscles from bacteria By using cleverly modified naturally occurring bacteria,

the team of researchers created hygroscopy-driven artificial muscles (HYDRAS) that exhibit strong hydration-driven actuation.

The HYDRAS can be thought of as muscle-like elastic bands that contract and expand under changes in humidity.

The material is made from plastic tape coated with a micrometer-thick bacterial spore layer. This layer is formed with modified Bacillus subtilis spores,

missing most of their outer protein protective layers. These films change curvature as a function of relative humidity,

Assembling several tapes as a stack (while leaving air gaps) allows rapid moisture transport to and from the spores,

The engines are able to power an electricity generator to light up LEDS and drive a miniature car as the water evaporates please see the video on this page.

Impressive performance When loaded with increasing weight the range of motion of the artificial muscles reduces,

The estimated work density of the entire strip is 17 J/kg, which is close to mammalian skeletal muscles.

Evaporation-driven engines may find many ff-the-gridapplications in powering things such as robotic systems, sensors,

devices and machinery that require function in the natural environment. Furthermore, the researchers suggest the efficiency of the material (which is currently only a few percent),

and the building blocks (spores) are naturally occurring. Places where access to electricity is limited to non-exist,

would find this technology truly magnificent t

#New 2d super-material could beat graphene to becoming the new silicon A purely theoretical mathematical study has inspired an experiment that could have serious real-world applications:

potentially making it a better candidate than graphene to allow truly next-generation electronics. The work here is very preliminary, but promising.

It began with a computer simulation of a particular crystalline compound of titanium and sulfur what if it could be made in a Dconformation,

they wondered? This material would be just a single molecule thick, much like graphene but without being chemically pure.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln chemist Xiao Cheng Zeng found that the computer model predicted the crystals were incredibly conductive,

and in theory work as the basis for a next-generation computer processor. Happily, this purely theoretical study was supplemented by another, practical one,

Sinitskii turned these short whiskers into titanium trisulfide transistors, and tested their performance, confirming that they had expected the properties, and abilities.

What this means is that purely scientific proofs of concept like current graphene computer chips might be made fully digital

Right now, graphene lack of a useful bandgap means that graphene computers are limited to analog computation only;

and off by the same process as a silicon transistor could let it power continued increases in processing speed without requiring engineers to invent a whole new sort of logical architecture.

applies more widely than just processors. Its achievable bandgap also makes silicon highly absorptive to incoming energy sources like photons,

and today most solar cells are based on silicon. In theory, the success with simple transistors implies that this material could also help continue advances in solar cells.

What most exciting here after graphene has saturated headline space for so long, is that there was only a few months needed to take this purely theoretical 2d substance from a computer simulation to practical, working transistors.

It possible that some of graphene newer, more efficient production processes might continue to work for titanium trisulfide and if so,

there no telling how quickly it might reach the pure production efficiency graphene science has been developing for almost a decade.

The pure transistor density already achieved with graphene, combined with the ability to create relatively ormaldigital architecture,

could allow truly advances in computer processors. And combining graphene power efficiency with silicon current ability to soak up solar radiation could have an even bigger impact.

It will all come down to whether this material can indeed match or exceed the current practicalities of graphene,

for a price real people could ever actually afford

#Ford GPS aims headlamps around dark corners Now there are headlamps that will steer around the corner before you reach the corner,

before you start to turn the steering wheel. Your car uses GPS map data to tell the headlamps when to swivel.

If GPS isn available, the front-facing camera in the rear view mirror watches for signs the road is curving.

This is Ford Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System project being developed in Europe. Ford says he technology will be available for customers in the near term.

It one more tool to keep drivers safer at night along with better xenon, LED and laser headlamps;

steerable headlamps; and night vision. How it works: GPS knows where the road curves If the car has built-in GPS,

Ford says, the car will use the map data to see when the car is about to go around a curve.

It then swivels the headlamps to the right or left to lead the driver into the curve.

Ford since 2007 has had an Adaptive Front Lighting System and Traffic Sign Recognition that turned the car headlamps up to 15 degrees as the driver turned the wheel to steer into the curve.

Steerable headlamps are now common, especially in conjunction with premium headlamp options. Ford says the headlamps can also be steered to show dips in the road.

If there no GPS the fallback is to use the lane departure/forward collision warning camera to track which way the road curves,

and steer the headlamps accordingly. Spot Lighting shows people, animals near the road In pre-development at Ford is Spot Lighting using an infrared camera in the grille to find

and track up to eight people and larger animals (deer and horses yes, terriers maybe not), at ranges up to 120 meters or about 400 feet.

Ford says it can illuminate two of the bogeys with a pair of special purpose LED lamps next to the fog lamps.

The two most serious threats are illuminated inside the car on an LCD display. This is Ford take on infrared night vision systems that now employ algorithms to detect people and animals,

then shine a light on them if theye a likely hazard (on or along the side of the roadway).

Night vision supplier Auotliv says the cost of night vision systems could fall form $2, 000 to $500 with greater volume and also if automakers did away the in-cockpit view,

going straight to the shine-light-on-the-deer part. Headlamp arrays offer promise, once the US signs on Ford system uses LED LIGHTS separate from the headlamp systems.

Mercedes-benz and BMW in Europe are offering multi-array headlamps where one or more of the beams can be swiveled to shine on the deer or human,

possibly strobing (flashing) the object to lock them in place. Unfortunately US highway regulations aren keeping up with safety technologies

and bright flashing lamps front or rear aren allowed yet. The same goes for swiveling headlamp elements.

Automakers would like to use multi-array headlamp elements to paint a high-beam picture of the road ahead,

then mask or move the elements that would shine at oncoming cars. That would give you a mostly high-beam view of the road.

Why you want integrated GPS and navigation Without GPS and maps, these predictive headlamps won be as effective.

Automakers need to work harder to bring the cost of navigation down drive down what they pay for maps (automakers pay more for maps than do makers of $199 dashboard GPS SYSTEMS),

and make the interface drop dead simple. Most users still don like how you can tell a phone,

irections to address and the phone knows what to do, but that the address entry process takes more time with far costlier car navigation c

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