GLIMPSES OF THE
FUTURE |
Pedal-Powered Submarine For Two Fancy your own sub? Russian company Marine Innovation Technologies (MIT) has developed a £50,000 ($70,000) pedal powered submarine that will not only be cheaper to buy and run than existing submersibles, it will be simpler to operate, requiring no special training or expertise. According to MIT, its underwater craft differs from comparable small tourist submarines in overcoming some of the difficulties associated with the use of traditional screw propulsion and accumulator batteries to generate motion. The company claims that an average person, with the help of pedals, can generate the necessary underwater speed of between two and three knots, for two to four hours, to propel the submarine at depths of up to 30m. Just keep pedalling. The Portable E-Bomb Arrives High-power microwave (HPM) bombs that use an enormous electromagnetic radio pulse to disable computers, electronics, vehicles, guided missiles and communications - while leaving people and structures unharmed - have, until recently, been impractically large with typical sizes of over 3.5 metres long, But researchers at Texas Tech University have now built a self-powered device with U.S. Army funding that measures 15cm in diameter and only 1.5 meters long, making it small enough to be considered portable. The device now being tested at an arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama should produce a peak power of 35 MW with a pulse length of 100 to 150 nanoseconds, emitting a microwave beam in the 2- to 6-GHz range. That'll do some damage. Stem-Cell Switch Offers Hope Of Muscle Regeneration In a genetic engineering breakthrough that could help everyone from bed-ridden patients to elite athletes, a team of American researchers have created a 'switch' which, in laboratory mice, allows mutations or light signals to be turned on in muscle stem cells to monitor muscle regeneration in a living mammal. This work could lead to a genetic switch, or drug, for humans that allows people to grow new muscle cells to replace those that are damaged, worn out, or not working for other reasons (e.g., muscular dystrophy). In addition, this same discovery also gives researchers a new tool for the study of difficult-to-treat muscle cancers. Implantable Heart-Attack Monitor Reduces Risk An implantable device that alerts high-risk patients when they show signs of a heart attack could shorten the time it takes for the wearer to seek medical attention. The device, being developed by AngelMed, an American medical-devices company is already approved for use in Brazil and is now undergoing clinical testing in the United States. Called the Guardian, it is similar to other implantable cardiac monitors, such as defibrillators. Leads are attached to the patient's heart to record the electrical activity of the muscle. But while existing devices are designed to detect electrical problems in the heart, known as arrhythmias, the Guardian uses novel algorithms to detect problems with blood flow in the heart - the signature of heart attacks. Mobile Phone Becomes An Ultrasound Scanner Computer engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have coupled USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, creating a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand. In order to make commercial USB ultrasound probes work with smartphones, the researchers had to optimise every aspect of probe design and operation, from power consumption and data transfer rate to image formation algorithms. As a result, it is now possible to build smartphone-compatible USB ultrasound probes for imaging the kidney, liver, bladder, and eyes, endocavity probes for prostate and uterine screenings and biopsies, and vascular probes for imaging veins and arteries for starting IVs and drips. And A Microscope... The CellScope is a revolutionary attachment that turns a standard camera-enabled mobile phone into a clinical quality microscope, with magnification up to 50X. Health workers in developing countries, where expensive equipment, facilities and on-the-ground physicians are scarce, will be able to use the mobile microscope to quickly and easily capture images of blood cells, lesions and infections and transmit them via the cellphone network to remote experts for analysis and diagnosis.
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Drug Boosts Stem Cells To Heal Bones More Rapidly A drug that boosts the body's production of stem cells appears to 'jump-start' the bone-healing process to a point that older adults' bones heal as fast as young people's, suggest preliminary results released recently by U.S. researchers. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York gave teriparatide (Forteo) to 145 people who had bone fractures that had not healed, many for six months or more. They found that 93 percent of them showed significant healing and pain control after eight to 12 weeks. Teriparatide speeds the healing of fractures by changing the behaviour and number of cartilage and bone stem cells involved in the healing process, the researchers found. Large scale clinical trains have now been approved. iPhone Becomes An Autocue If you forget your lines when the video camera is running, you need the new iPhone autocue application from Bodelin of Oregon. Called the ProPrompter, the new iPhone app features landscape mode, smooth scrolling, seven speed levels with on the fly adjustment, unlimited script capacity, a wide variety of fonts and font sizes, and background colours, excellent readability in bright sunlight, looping, recue and an extensive help menu - according to the company. The app is available free of charge from the iPhone store. Bodelin then hope to sell you a $130 mounting boom to attach the iPhone to your video camera. Now Here's A Growth Market - 'Robotic' Walking Aids For The Elderly With increasing numbers of post-war baby boomers beginning to face old age, devices assisting people to remain mobile as they grow older will become big business. Honda, a company that started out making motorcycles, has anticipated the needs of an aging population and invested heavily in mobility robotics research. The results were demonstrated in New York recently. Honda has built the Stride Management Assist and the Bodyweight Support Assist devices, which are principally designed to help the elderly and people with weakened leg muscles to walk. The devices are still being tested under real-life conditions to evaluate their effectiveness. Now Pedestrians May Get Safely Air Bags In Cars A Europe-wide collaboration led by the Cranfield Impact Centre at Cranfield University in the UK has developed an experimental system for cars that aims to cut the pedestrian death toll in vehicle accidents and reduce the severity of injuries. When the system detects that the car is about to hit a pedestrian, it automatically raises the rear of the bonnet (hood), releasing a giant airbag in front of the windscreen. The raised bonnet absorbs some of the energy of the impact, reducing the risk of serious injury to the pedestrian. The new airbag was tested successfully in a prototype Fiat Stilo by engineers at the Fiat Research Centre in Turin, Italy. Plastic Solar Generator Floats On Water A new solar technology is not only taking a fresh approach to capturing the sun’s energy, it is also promising to produce electricity at a comparable cost to fossil fuel generators. The liquid solar array power generator (LSA), made predominantly from plastic, floats on water. Each LSA panel has a tiny area of silicon photovoltaic cells on the water’s surface with a large rotating plastic focusing-lens above, which tracks the sun. According to the technology’s developers, Sunengy, the water plays an important role in cooling the silicon cells. MRI Scan Sensitivity Boosted a Thousand Times A novel method of transferring magnetic spin can amplify the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) a thousandfold, according to new research from the University of York in the UK. Scientists say the leap could be as revolutionary for medicine as the development of MRI was 30 years ago. The new method enables the magnetization of a broad range of molecules - including drugs such as nicotine, and organic molecules such as antibodies designed to bind to tumours - so that they can be used as contrast agents. The technique has the potential to 'bring benefits to diagnosis and treatment of virtually every area of medicine,' says Ian Greer, head of Hull York Medical School. The technology allows MRI images to be captured much more rapidly and cheaply than is possible with existing methods. Back issues of 'Glimpses' are archived here. |