#Google Presents Steady Spoon for Shaky Hands Using advanced technology, Google has engineering a spoon that promises to make the daily lives of people suffering from tremors easier.
The spoon uses a number of algorithms and helps in steadying the tremors so that the patients can eat without spilling the food.
The shaking pattern of a hand is sensed by the spoon which then instantly adjusts itself to remain in balance.
and hopefully increase understanding of disease in the long run. Many other devices have marked their presence for helping the people suffering from tremors like pen grips
However, according to the experts, Google has utilized the technology in a unique way. Dr. Jill Ostrem, a neurologist at the University of California San francisco Medical center, commented t totally novel.
Ostrem, who helped the inventors with her advice, opines that this spoon with a fork attachment is a remarkable asset.
It doesn cure the disease they still have tremor but it a very positive change.
when Google indulged into no-shake utensil business and acquired a small startup called Lift Labs funded by National of Institutes of Health.
Over 10 million people across the globe, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin mother, suffer from tremors and Parkinson disease.
Anupam Pathak, the founder of Lift Lab, appreciated the shift of a four-person startup in San francisco to the colossal Google campus in Mountain view which has encouraged them to enhance their creativity.
Google (x) Life sciences is the department where his team works. It is involved also in developing a contact lens for measuring glucose levels in tears for diabetics
and researching the role of nanoparticles in blood in diseases detection. Clinical trials have revealed that the spoon reduces shaking by about 76 percent.
Pathak is also hoping to incorporate sensors in the spoon which would help the researchers to have a better understanding about tremors
and devise therapies to alleviate them s
#CERN Scientists Welcome Two New Particles To The Atomic Family CERN Large hadron collider in Europe, the giant atom-smashing machine, has discovered two new subatomic particles.
This will help physicists in their understanding of the behavior between elementary particles. The existence of these particles was known theoretically,
but now the scientists have existential data. The two new members of the subatomic family, known as Xi b and Xi b*-,are baryons.
Baryons are a group that includes protons and neutrons. They are made up of three even tinier building blocks, called quarks.
Together in different combinations, quarks construct a different baryon each time. The two new particles that were discovered recently
have the same quarks but with different configurations. The new particles are also positively charged (similar to protons) and six times larger than a proton.
The measurements that pinpointed the baryons were collected based on data at the Large hadron collider during 2011 and 2012.
The giant LHC smashes proton beams together and the scientists are left with the job of trying to find the presence of the data of the particles,
as the data is massive the answers generally scattered amongst it. But with the case of these two particles it was slightly easier.
According to the study co-author Matthew Charles, a particle physicist at The french National Center for Scientific research LPNHE laboratory at the University of Paris VI
the data of the new particles was found surprisingly quickly. t reassuring, adds Dr Charles,
#Muscle like Microbots Developed By University of Michigan In an innovative research, the scientists from the University of Michigan have devised special microbots that could possibly work as muscles in the body of human beings.
These synthetic muscles, which are even smaller than a grain of sand, have a gold plating over them
However, on application of electric field, things take an interesting turn. When the gold plating over the miniature robots interacts with an alternating electrical field passing through them,
Sharon Glotzer, stated in a presser that their motive was to make the chains to work like muscles,
whereas Michael Solomon, one of her colleagues and a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, explained that the chains in groups demonstrated great potential. f we can get the chains to swarm together,
move around, do things that biological muscles do added Solomon. If the technology of microbots attains success on a large scale,
Scientists have conceptualized these microbots doing work which cannot be accomplished by normal robots o
#El nino Has arrived And May Bring Increased Rain To The West Coast US officials have stated that El niño has arrived finally,
In the United states, it can lead to storms along the West Coast and affect hurricanes and other tropical storms.
Presently, photovoltaic cells are used to convert solar energy into hydrogen, which is stored then in fuel cells for future use.
However, hydrogen has succeeded not yet in marking its prominent presence as an energy source because presently the world has an infrastructure
which can better handle liquid fuels. Harvard researchers have invented a bionic leaf an integrated system, in which sunlight can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The catalysts which have been used in the system are adapted highly well as well as compatible with the conditions required for the bacterial growth.
vehicles known as CICADAS. These micro-drones, which can be deployed from military aircraft at altitudes close to 50,000 feet
and still fit in the palm of your hand, could represent the next big thing in the way wars are waged.
Think military infestations rather than military invasions. The CICADA (which stands for Close in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft) is relatively cheap
easy to make and totally disposable. Best of all, theye as hard to destroy as the cicadas in your backyard during summer in one test scenario in Arizona,
the U s. Naval Research Laboratory released these micro-drones 57,600 feet in the air, let them free fall 11 miles in the sky,
and then watched as they glided to within 15 feet of their target destination. heye flown through trees.
For the foreseeable future, most of the work of these CICADAS will be related to surveillance and intelligence-gathering,
just as the Black Hornet mini helicopter drones were used by The british Army in Afghanistan to detect Taliban fighting units.
Some of the scenarios outlined by the U s. Naval Research Laboratory include dropping CICADA drones tens of thousands of feet above enemy lines,
where they can be used to eavesdrop on troop movements once they are equipped with microphones. At the very least
If you add magnetic sensors, they might even be able to pick up the movement of submarines below the water surface.
But here another thing the official description of these CICADAS is unmanned n glider, nearly undetectable,
that delivers payloads to precise waypoints. The word that should have sparked your attention, of course, is ayloads.
The fascinating part of the CICADA program is how these micro drones could eventually be used as part of a obotic swarmto overwhelm an adversary.
An enemy may be able to defend against several of these drones, but just try to defend against a giant swarm of them launched out of the back of a plane.
Imagine 30 micro aerial vehicles launched all at once to carry out strikes on enemy territory. And, in fact, there a growing literature about so-called obotic swarmswhich are essentially drones
or bots that can be programmed to behave intelligently during combat. And best of all, these bots and drones can form warmswithout the need for humans to control them.
In another related experiment, the U s. Naval Research Laboratory showed how a group of 13 warm boatsall of them without requiring a human drone operator could be used to protect a high-value naval vessel.
And it doesn stop there. Imagine giant ircraft carriers in the sky capable of launching whole fleets of mini-drones at one time.
Or, better yet, how about underwater aircraft carriers? As Peter W. Singer, an expert on drones and warfare, pointed out about recent DARPA initiatives,
f you are looking at other places where you might see aircraft carriers, don look up in the air, look under the water.
Yes, that right underwater aircraft carriers for drones. In yet another experiment, the U s. Naval Research Laboratory showed that it was possible to release a drone from a submerged submarine with the robotic drone shot out of a Tomahawk missile tube.
As the drone emerges from the tube, its wings unfold before it speeds off to its destination.
Mind blown. What makes micro aerial vehicles such as the CICADA so attractive of course, is that theye cheap to make
and simple to operate. By the estimates of the U s. Naval Research Laboratory, a single prototype for a CICADA can be produced for less than $1, 000.
And as more uses are found for these micro-drones, it easy to see the price falling further.
One scenario being bandied about is using these CICADAS to monitor extreme weather situations, such as tornadoes. Within a few years,
as more applications are discovered, that price might drop to as low as $250. In terms of simplicity, theye basically a iece of cardboard with a circuit board.
Theye not sophisticated drones that you have to learn how to pilot. You just load them up in a plane
fly really high, and drop them out the back end of a plane. That huge, if you take into account the latest report from the GAO,
which suggests that there just aren enough drone pilots out there to keep up with the military use of drones.
Cheap, simple, disposable and without the need for a human operator it no wonder, then, that the military is interested
so in the potential applications of these micro CICADA drones. Remember when the future of warfare was bigger bigger missile payloads, bigger tanks and bigger warplanes?
In an era of asymmetric warfare, tiny innovations such as the CICADA are what might be needed to take the fight to the enemy in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Imagine if the U s. military had been able to drop off hundreds of these CICADAS over mountainous areas of Afghanistan
or Pakistan in the search for Osama Bin laden. Forget oots on the ground, nsect wings in the skymight be a better metaphor.
If giant swarms of insect-like drones can save the lives of U s. soldiers abroad,
then let the CICADA infestation begin
#Researchers develop catalyst to remove endocrine disruptor from wastewater Researchers from the Carnegie mellon University in US
and Brunel University London have developed a TAML catalyst which claimed to remove endocrine disruptor from wastewater.
Researchers claimed that the tiny man-made catalysts can purify drinking water and waterways by getting rid of oestrogenic hormones and pharmaceuticals,
usually pass through conventional wastewater treatment methods. The TAML activators can activate nature's own oxidants hydrogen peroxide
and oxygen can remove ethynylestradiol (EE2), a contraceptive pill hormone from wastewater. Around 1, 360 sewage plants in the UK are likely to fail the European union proposed standards for EE2
according to government estimates. Upgrades for the facilities with ozone or carbon-activated treatment technology will not only involve tens of billions of Euros,
but will also leave behind massive carbon footprints. TAML activators can thus be a cost-effective solution,
since just a kilogram of catalyst can be used to treat tens of thousands of tons of wastewater.
The activators have been created by US based Carnegie mellon University's Institute for Green Science, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry Terence Collins. Professor Collins said:"
"Pharmaceuticals can be bioactive at low environmentally-relevant concentrations and are typically tough to break down.
"Brunel University Ecotoxicology professor and Institute of Environment, Health and Societies director Susan Jobling said:"
which could be achieved by retro-fitting TAML treatment rather than building expensive high-energy plants."
"Preliminary research suggests they would be equally effective against pollution caused by antimicrobials in personal care products and antibiotic pharmaceuticals.
"Research teams at Brunel University London and Carnegie mellon University intend to conduct comparison tests for TAMLS against ozone
and activated carbon treatment systems in pilot treatment plants to find out about the exact costs of purification and carbon footprint savings s
#MIT researcher develops solar-powered desalination technology A student at Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) has designed a village-scale desalination technology that is powered by the sun
and can turn saline water palatable by removing its salty taste. MIT Mechanical engineering Phd student Natasha Wright worked for the project over three years to come up with the technology,
which initially focused on filtering biological contaminants from groundwater to make it potable. She joined MIT Mechanical engineering assistant professor Amos Winter's laboratory in 2012,
and started working on the project. The solar-powered technology uses electrodialysis which uses electric potential to extract salt from the water.
The ultraviolet light from the sun rays are used to kill biological contaminants in the water. While similar desalination technologies have already been discovered,
none of the available filters were able to remove the saltiness of the water post-treatment.
During her visits to rural India for the project, Wright found desalination devices were not much use to villagers.
Such devices, though purified the water, could not eliminate its salty taste. Wright said:""The biggest surprise of the project so far has been this salt issue,
"It's useful to install a small-scale desalination system where people are so spread out that it's more costly to pump in water from a municipal plant."
We are prepared to work with customers to ensure we deliver on the state-required 20 percent water-use reduction,
#New Invention Boosts Fiber optic Transmission Up to 400%June 30, 2015-Just in case you were worried that we didn't have enough data traveling through fiber optic cables, engineers at University of California,
In a recent series of experiments engineers at the university have been able to increase both optical signal power and distance.
For the Internet backbone which is built largely on fiber optic cables, this has significant ramifications. Before this breakthrough fiber optic signals ran into a limit.
For the Internet this means an infrastructure of supercomputers strategically located at network nodes regenerating
The university team found a way to add more power and eliminate the need for repeaters.
The implications on Internet infrastructure will be significant. Eliminating repeaters will make the Internet cheaper to operate
while increasing the amount of information transmitted through the pipe. So what did these University of California engineers discover to achieve their success?
It is called a wideband frequency comb. The analogy of a hair comb may help explain this.
The results of their work appears in a paper published on June 26, 2015 in the journal Science,
and entitled,"Overcoming Kerr-induced capacity limit in optical fiber transmission.""For the telecommunications industry this is a very big deal.
The engineers have filed a patent covering their method and application to transmission of data. Essays and comments posted in World Future Society
and THE FUTURIST magazine blog portion of this site are the intellectual property of the authors,
who retain full responsibility for and rights to their content. For permission to publish, distribute copies,
2015-Just in case you were worried that we didn't have enough data traveling through fiber optic cables, engineers at June 29,
Boeing and Spacex to continue supporting low-Earth orbit unmanned and human space activities. June 28 2015-In his latest email blast Peter Diamandis talks about four revolutions in transportation that he expects will take place within this decade.
June 27, 2015-One of my readers constantly points out when I write about climate change that atmospheric carbon isn't the problem.
Instead it is the continuing hockey stick graph of human population growth which closely resembles the rise in CO2.
June 25, 2015-For future astronauts on Deep space missions, a technology developed at University of California
The process is energy intensive and a carbon polluter. June 24, 2015-When I was a child
I didn't know anyone with a peanut allergy. At school peanut butter and jam sandwiches were standard fare for lunches.
But something happened over the 60 years since my kindergarten days a
#Scratch Wireless Unveils New i-Fi Firstsmartphone for $99 Scratch Wireless is trying to make bills from wireless companies a relic of the past.
It an ambitious dream, and the Cambridge, MA, startup has taken a step forward by partnering with a Chinese manufacturer to release an inexpensive smartphone that could move it a little closer to its goal.
The new Coolpad Arise is powered an Android smartphone that can use Scratch software to make voice, text,
and data services free whenever smartphone users have access to a Wi-fi network. The device sells for $99
and can be bought from the Scratch Wireless website as of today. Users won have to pay Scratch anything more for service
as long as they use Wi-fi It the first time Scratch Wireless is opening up its service to the general public.
Scratch is betting that customers, especially those on tight budgets, will go for low-cost smartphones even if the devices are dependent on Wi-fi. Most of the time, that not a problem,
as users are in range of their home or office network. Plus, public Wi-fi hotspots are getting better,
cable companies including Comcast are offering subscribers access to their networks when theye away from home,
and Google is testing out Wi-fi-based mobile wireless services with its Project Fi. Wireless provider T-Mobile also is selling handsets that can make calls
and send texts over Wi-fi . But everyone is out of range sometimes, especially when commuting.
Scratch has a contract with Sprint that allows Scratch phones to use Sprint network for voice, texts,
and data on a pay-as-you-go model. Scratch users pay an extra fee that as low as $1. 99 per month for a limited amount of time on Sprint national 3g network.
In an interview last year with Xconomy, Scratch cofounder and CEO Alan Berrey said the startup approach is disruptive, both from a technical (the shift to Wi-fi) and economic perspective.
Scratch is going after consumers who want smartphones and data packages but with low-cost plans. ur biggest competitors are not AT&T and Verizon.
It actually more the entry-level folks, for people who want a low-cost service, Berrey said.
Typically those customers have relied on prepaid services instead of using major carriers. Scratch would not say how many customers it has said,
but it it has operated on an nvitation onlybasis since launching in 2014. nder the invitation only wall,
Scratch has had hundreds of thousands of consumers express interest in purchasing a Scratch phone, a representative said. ith the introduction of this new Coolpad device,
Scratch will be removing the invitation only wall and make phones generally available to consumers. ith the new product,
theyl have access to a capable Android smartphone with a 4-inch display, rear camera,
and ability to run apps from the Google Play Store. Scratch also says Wi-fi call quality, multimedia messaging,
and call handoffs across networks are improved. The phone is made by Coolpad, a Chinese company that makes low-cost handsets.
Coolpad is a virtual unknown in the U s. he company only entered the market in 2012ut it expects to sell about 100 million smartphones
and is one of the five largest sellers in the Chinese market. The Coolpad Arise is the second model that works with Scratch.
The previous phone was the Motorola Photon Q, an Android phone that sold for $269.
Scratch Wireless has raised $5 million from investors including Commonangels and has the equivalent of 20 full-time employees.
It declined to release sales and revenue information. Michael Davidson is the editor of Xconomy Boulder/Denver.
Contact him at mdavidson@xconomy. com. Follow@Michaelxb
#Surge Focusing on More Mature Energy companies, Raising Bigger Fund The change of one word can signify a lot.
Surge Accelerator has become Surge Ventures, a name change that reflects the maturing mission of the cleantech accelerator in Houston.
The shift comes amid a downturn in the oil and gas industry as a whole: Oil prices are down to about half of their peak of $100-plus a barrel a year ago.
Both the economic times as well as Surge new focus were apparent recently at the accelerator annual demo day for its fourth class of startups.
As usual, the event was held at the House of Blues in Houston. But, unlike previous years, the raduationof its latest class had subdued a decidedly flavor.
Rock music clips still accompanied the entrepreneurs before they gave their pitches, but the onstage DJ was gone,
the lights were less flashy, and coffee was the beverage of choice. In previous Surge demo days
the atmosphere had a rock-concert feel, with House of Blues employees handing out mimosas, bloody marys,
and breakfast tacos for morning attendees. Redlabs founder and University of Houston business professor Hesam Panahi manned a turntable on stage, spinning tunes as DJ Surge.
There was apparently enough grumbling from the audience to bartenders, because Surge founder Kirk Coburn announced from the stage that the absence of alcohol was his decision.
For Blair Garrou, cofounder and managing director of the Mercury Fund in Houston and a mentor to Surge companies, Surge shift in approach reflects the culture of its biggest customers:
oil and gas companies. any corporates have given the feedback that they like to see a ighterand more professional demo day,
and to save the celebratory atmosphere for later, he says. t may not be the ah-rahevent that the tech community was looking for
but Surge responded with its most cohesive group of presentations ever. oburn founded Surge four years ago.
A serial entrepreneur in Austin, he saw an opportunity in his hometown of Houston to boost energy innovation.
#After Celgene Deal, Juno Revs Armored CAR For Ovarian Cancer Trial Juno Therapeutics has built remarkable momentumncluding last week much-dissected $1 billion deal with Celgenepon
early success treating leukemia and lymphoma patients with a first generation of experimental T cell therapies developed by its academic partners.
Now, with one of those partners, Seattle-based Juno (NASDAQ: JUNO) is about to start another landmark trial:
which some call rmored CARS. he basic idea behind T cell immunotherapy is to use a patient own immune cells as the medicine.
engineered to become better cancer killers, and reinserted into the patient. CAR stands for chimeric antigen receptor,
which is the piece of the T cell modified to zero in on proteins on the surface of cancer cells.
an upcoming Phase 1 trial will treat patients with relapsed ovarian cancer, one of many solid-tissue tumors that are expected to be a much higher hurdle for the field of cell-based immunotherapy.
Though T cells still have much left to prove in blood-borne cancers, which are relatively rare,
scientists want to use the technology to target a cancer like ovarian, which will kill an estimated 14,000 women in the U s. this year. he big question is, an you cross over to solid tumors?'
'says Renier Brentjens, the director of cellular therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New york and a Juno scientific founder.
Brentjens will begin to answer his own question soon. He tells Xconomy that in August
or September he will begin treating ovarian cancer patients with armored CAR-T cells, engineered to send out a chemical signal that recruits the patientsnon-engineered T cells to come join the attack. ee going full force forward,
says Brentjens. That extra boost is one of three main modifications. The cells will also zero in on a tumor cell target called MUC16
and they will carry a self-destruction switch that clinicians can trigger in case the cells get too aggressive, hit unintended targets,
Those modifications are meant to overcome some of the challenges solid tumors present, although Brentjens cautions not to expect the same results that CAR-T cells have shown so far in leukemia and lymphomaemission rates well above 50 percent.
Just as it did with some of the blood-cancer programs now under Juno roof, Sloan Kettering will run the trial.
Juno has license to the technology, says Juno chief financial officer Steve Harr. The trial is important on two fronts.
To date T cell therapies have treated relatively rare blood-borne cancers. If that the extent of the treatment reach,
it would still be a medical breakthrough. But researchers, doctors, and patients dream of the cells attacking solid tumors,
which account for about 90 percent of all cancers. The American Cancer Society estimates that ovarian cancer is the fifth-deadliest in the U s. he animal data have been compelling,
and we want to get this into patients, says Harr. The Sloan Kettering trial won be the first test of engineered T cells in solid tumors.
In a tiny six-person study reported in April, CAR-T cells from the University of Pennsylvania appeared to be safe.
But the university, which has an exclusive partnership with Novartis (NYSE: NVS), reported the cells showed no effect on the tumors.
And Juno partner, Seattle Children Hospital, has started just a Phase 1 CAR-T trial for children with neuroblastoma,
a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells. In the case of Brentjens cells, the protein that signals to other T cells to help with the attack, could be the difference.
His cells use interleukin-12, or IL-12, a so-called cytokine that has powerful immune stimulation properties. f we can safely deliver the cytokine
and help turn on the rest of the immune system, and do that locally instead of systemically, it would be a major advance,
says Harr. Brentjens says by restricting the secretion of IL-12 to the area right around the tumor,
the armored CAR-T cells become a icro-pharmacy. eeping tight control of that secretion is important.
Cytokines are a double-edged sword; if the body produces too many of them, they set off a dangerous immune over-reaction,
sometimes called a ytokine storm. In an earlier CAR-T trial at Sloan Kettering, to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma,
two patients suffered a cytokine storm and died, halting the trial for a few weeks but not derailing the program.)
Researchers are slowly learning which patients might be more susceptible to the overreaction. For example, people with a lot of tumor mass in their bodies might need to be monitored more closely.
Overall, however, Brentjens cautions that no one can yet predict which patients might respond favorably to T cell therapy.
Researchers at the University of California, Los angeles published work late last year that showed why certain patients responded well to a different kind of cancer immunotherapyn antibody called pembrolizumab (Keytruda.
But that was looking back, not looking forward. For extra safety, Juno, Sloan Kettering, and others working in the field are also building ill switchesinto Next Page r
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