Discovery News: Material World

Battery Made from Viruses

A couple of years ago, MIT researchers announced that they had found a way to use viruses to assemble tiny components of a battery. Basically, they altered the viruses' genetic makeup so that it would produce proteins that attracted molecules of cobalt. When the colbalt built up on the stringy virus, vóila, you had an ultrathin wire. Such batteries could one day power miniature devices and sensors.

Now those scientists are saying they have a developed a method to fabricate and then position some of the battery components  (two opposite electrodes — an anode and cathode — separated by an electrolyte) onto a variety of surfaces.

 
First, the scientists create a particular pattern into a clear rubbery material (right). Then, they spread over it several layers of a solution containing two polymers. As they solidify, one solution acts like a battery electrolyte. On top of that, the scientists deposit the genetically altered viruses, which self-assemble into neat formation. They become the anode. (The team is still working to create the cathode.)

With the parts assembled on the rubbery material, the scientists then turn into arts and crafts majors and use that as a stamp. They turn the stamp over and transfer the electrolyte and anode to a platinum structure. You could imagine that eventually, if all of the planets align, such a process could be scaled up to a factory setting, where little virus batteries are stamped out at hundreds or thousands per hour.

If this battery were ever used in an iPod or an electric car, would it catch a cold ?

Photo courtesy / Belcher Laboratory, MIT

Worried that the United States Lacks Future Scientists?

Kids these days. Playing Wii. Eating cheetos. Messing up their rooms. Scoring low in math and science. How will they ever buck up, grow up and run the country?

Well, take a chill pill. After coming across this little nugget, I'm gonna hunker down in front of the Wii myself with a bowl full of cheese that goes crunch.

The link is to the Davidson Institute for Talent Development and every year they award scholarships to "profoundly gifted" young people under 18. I get a little narrow-eyed whenever I hear the words "gifted child." Everyone thinks their kid is super smart and needs special attention. But, seriously, these kids are no joke, winning $10,000 to $50,000 scholarships for their brainy ideas. Some examples:

• In his project, “Translation – Invariant Binary Representations,” Akhil Matthew worked on a problem involving the encoding of real numbers into zero-one sequences without reference to an origin.
• In her project, “Investigating an Allosteric Binding Site for a New Class of HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors,” Christine Shrock developed an approach to finding a more effective HIV treatment.
• In his project, “High Efficient 3-Dimensional Nanotube Solar Cell for Visible and UV Light,” Williaminvented a novel solar panel that enables light absorption from visible to ultraviolet light.   
• In his project, “Novel Herd Immunity Threshold Analysis Incorporating Population Dynamics and Gradual Immunization,” Nathan Georgette developed a novel mathematical model intended to reduce the costs of stopping viral disease outbreaks in impoverished nations.

Wowsers. Disease, energy, algorithms for signal processing....I think we're going to be okay. 

Photo: Paul Taylor

Green Roofs, Warp Engines and Cheap Solar Power

These are the coolest stories I read this past week.

July 25 / Scientific American
Urban Roofscapes: Using "Wasted" Rooftop Real Estate to an Ecological Advantage
How a green roof can minimize run-off and mitigate the urban “heat island effect.”

July 25 / BBC
HP's Plan to Fix Ailing Planet
Trillions of sensors deployed worldwide will monitor the state of the planet and pick up ailments (wildfires, hurricanes, bacteria, hazardous chemicals) that may need to be warded off or remedied.

July 26 / The New York Times
China Surpasses U.S. in Number of Internet Users
Is anyone surprised? I'm so not surprised that I almost didn't put this on the list. You're right. I'm taking it off. 

July 28 / Discovery News
Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than Light
Gather 'round Trekkies. Your time has come. Two physicists have figured out warp drive works without breaking the laws (of physics, that is).

July 28 / Scientific American
Engineering Silicon Solar Cells to Make Photovoltaic Power Affordable
One company is on a mission to get the cost of solar cells down to a buck a watt. Those are light bulb prices that would make energy from the sun competitive with that from coal-burning power plants.

July 28 / The New York Times
Former Employees of Google Prepare Rival Search Engine
This company pronounces their name, Cuil, as "cool." That, and the fact that they are trying to upstage Google, makes me narrow my eyes with skepticism.

July 30 / Nature
Energy: Upgrading the Grid
What it takes to make a stupid power grid super smaht.

July 30 / Wired
Project to Rebuild Internet Gets $12M, Bandwidth
There's a project dedicated to rebuilding the Internet's underlying architecture? Whoa. I didn't even know about that.

July 30 / BBC
Olympic Link to Early 'Computer'
A closer look at an ancient Greek timepiece discovered in 1901 reveals that it has dials that record the dates of the original Olympic games.

July 31 / Technology Trends
OmegaTable, A 24-million Pixel VR Display
This virtual reality display is a multi-sensory touch tabletop that gives people a 3D experience without looking like a giant dork in those special glasses.

July 31 / Technology Review
3-D Printing for the Masses
This printing service takes orders from customers and turns ideas into three-dimensional prototypes at an affordable cost. If you're an artist, architect, designer, or general hobbyist, you might want to read this article.

July 31 / The Guardian
Sweet Peas Make a Second Skin
Didn't know this, but an enzyme in sweet pea pods and seeds can cause floppy skin in grazing animals. That's totally weird. But that same enzyme, when used in a polymer gel wound dressing, could relieve shrinking or lumpy skin grafts on burn victims.

July 31 / Economist
Genetically Modified Olympians?
You can detect performance-enhancing drugs, for the most part, but how do you detect gene therapy?

July 31 / New Scientist
Solar-Cell Material Can Soak Up More Sun
The sun cranks out a ton of energy, but conventional solar cells are only able to absorb the visible light part of the sun's spectrum. A new material that absorbs the infrared could, in theory take energy absorption from 30 percent to 63 percent.

The Week (According to Me)

I've read and scanned hundreds of articles this week from some of the big technology mags and papers. Here are the stories that stood out for me. Let me know if I missed anything.

June 20 / The Engineer
Matching Tatoos
Researchers have created a system that could allow police to identify individuals by matching marks on their body with those stored in a computer database.

June 21 / Guardian
Boss Hu Avoids Tricky Questions In Online Chat
Chinese president, Hu Jintao, made his mark with a four-minute online debut in front of the world's biggest population of Internet users.

June 23 / Guardian
Contraceptive Pill Goes On Sale Online
Women will be able to order the contraceptive pill online from today without having to visit a doctor or clinic.

June 23 / Discovery News
Flying Saucer Craft Set to Fly
A new wingless, saucer-shaped aircraft is scheduled to take to the skies. Just don't call it a UFO.

June 23 / Guardian
Hydrogen Cars and Hot Air
The new breed of hydrogen fuel cell-powered auto isn't as environmentally friendly as you think

June 23 / New Scientist
PC Population Reaches a Billion as E-Waste Piles Up
The number of personal computers in use around the world has surpassed one billion, research firm Gartner reports.

June 23 / Technology Review
Curating Yourself Online
In the old days, the issue was keeping your data secret. Now, the challenge is making sure your data isn't mixed up with someone else's, and controlling it as it spreads out over the Web. This means managing and curating it.

June 24 / Wired
Greener Jet Engine Could Reduce Aviation's Carbon Footprint
One of the biggest names in aviation has developed a jet engine that is more efficient, less polluting and cheaper to use than almost everything else in the sky, and it could revolutionize an industry facing skyrocketing fuel prices and mounting pressure to clean up its act.

June 24 / The Engineer
100 miles per gallon
A experimental version of a 2006 Toyota Prius sedan modified by U.S. researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has achieved a record 100 miles per gallon.

June 24 / The New York Times
The High-Tech Job Capital Is…The Big Apple?
If you’re looking for a tech job in the United States, the best place to go is not Silicon Valley. It’s New York.

June 24 / Popular Science
Oscillate Wildly
Metronomes generally keep their own beat -- that's why we love them -- but when several get together, a compromise is hammered out.

June 24, 2008 / ScienceDaily
Building Giant 'Nanoassemblies' That Sense Their Environment
Researchers in Texas are reporting the design, construction, and assembly of nano-size building blocks into the first giant structures that can sense and respond to changes in environmental conditions.

June 25 / The New York Times
U.S. High Tech Said to Slip
The United States may be synonymous with the high-tech revolution, but it is in danger of losing its high-tech edge, according to Cybercities 2008, a report released Tuesday by AeA, a technology industry trade association.

June 26 / Guardian
Website Domain Names: Any Suffixes Could Be Possible After Landmark Vote
Icann, the organisation that regulates the internet domain name system, has passed a landmark vote to relax rules limiting web addresses to "top-level" suffixes, such as .com and .uk, a move that could see people and companies register almost anything they want.

June 26, 2008 / ScienceDaily
Cooperative System Could Wipe Out Car Alarm Noise
The persistent, annoying blare of an ignored car alarm may become a sound of the past if a cooperative, mutable and silent network of monitors proposed by Penn State researchers is deployed in automobiles and parking lots.

June 26 / Technology Review
Want to Enhance Your Brain Power?
Research hints that electrically stimulating the brain can speed learning.

Convergent Innovation

Last night, I read a great article in the May 12 issue of the New Yorker. It's called "In the Air," by Malcolm Gladwell. It focuses on Nathan Myhrvold, once the CTO of Microsoft, but now the co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, a firm that invents ideas.

But what caught my eye was the mention of a scientific phenomenon of simultaneous discovery called "multiples." Apparently some of the greatest inventions of humankind were discovered almost at the same time by different people in different parts of the world who had little or no association with each other.

Here are some examples:

• Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz discovered calculus
• Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace discovery evolution
• Joseph Priestly and Carl Wilhelm discovered oxygen (thank goodness)
• Charles Cros and Louis Ducos du Hauron invented color photography
• John Napier, Henry Briggs and Joost Burgi invented logarithms
• Galileo, Scheiner, Fabricius, and Harriott discovered sunspots
• Alexander Graham Bell (photo) and Elisha Gray invented the telephone

An article published by William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas in 1922 describes 148 such multiples. And David Lamb wrote about it in his book, "Multiple Discovery: The Pattern of Scientific Progress." (If there wasn't just one copy available on Amazon for $122, I might buy it.)

I was astounded to learn of this phenomenon. How amazing....how cosmic that strangers can be separated physically by miles, even countries, and yet demonstrate almost identical inventions. Almost in the next moment, though, I was reminded of something in biology called convergent evolution, which is the process whereby organisms not related to each other, separated by continents, even, independently evolve similar traits. For example:

• Hedgehogs and porcupines have spines
• Bats and birds have wings
• Anteaters and armadillos have long, sticky, insect-lapping tongues
• Koala bears and humans have fingerprints
• Monkeys and chameleons have prehensile tails

The phenomenon is also evident in plants, fish, and even cellular functions. A reason for convergent evolution is that an ecological niche (living in the trees or in the water) force an organism to adapt. So, similar niche, similar adaption.

It seems to me that this is what's happening with innovation. A technological niche opens up and inventors adapt to fill it. Progress is inevitable and will no doubt occur in different parts of the world at the same time. It makes the idea of patenting seem silly, in a way. Greedy. It's a bit like the bird claiming he had wings first. Or the monkey filing a patent on his tail. Could it be that open source pans out to be a natural law in the invention universe? Are clinging to ideas and new inventions simply out of our hands?

Treadmill Goes Both Ways

When you think "treadmill," you think gym—not virtual reality. But take a look at this. It's CyberCarpet, a treadmill that moves front-to-back and side-to-side. As a moving floor in a VR room, it could make a person feel like she's walking in the woods or along a city street.

The contraption is made up of several treads that move side-to-side, while collectively, all of those treads rotate front-to-back.

The device uses cameras to track the position and posture of the walker and uses this information to control the velocity of the treadmill and, ultimately, interactions with the virtual environment. A biff harness helps prevent nasty tread rash.

Check it out.

Eyes Free Access to Your Mobile Phone

First there were headsets that offered a hands-free mode on mobile phones. Now there's an audio program that allows a person to access calendar or contact information without looking at the screen or the buttons. Hence, eyes free.

The prototype version, called Blindsight, comes from the folks at Microsoft Research. You can see a video here. It works on flat mobile phones (not the clamshells). The speaker holds the phone backward and upside down, using the keypad button to access information. An audio voice provides the necessary information without disrupting the conversation. That's because the listener on the other end can only hear the person speaking and not the audio calendar or contact information.

It's an interesting concept, but how would something like this work with clamshell phones, which are so popular in the States? Also, if you're using a headset, you wouldn't need the function at all.

SmartCane Helps Prevent Senseless Falls

More than 4 million people in the U.S. use canes. And although the staff is meant to help, sometimes it does more harm than good. People use canes improperly, experience repetitive stress injuries, or rely on the device in the presence of obstacles, which can lead to a bad fall.

Now researchers have developed an electronic cane that is embedded with sensors, a computer, and wireless networking technology. The SmartCane can, among other things, detect usage patterns, predicts outcomes, such as a fall, and inform the patient or caregiver about how the device is being used in the first place--which can improve safety and performance.

The technology comes out of the University of California, Los Angeles and was recently presented at the BodyNets 2008 conference.

Rug Lights Up Your Life

I love simple tech solutions like this electro-luminescent rug that lights up only when you step on it. How cool is that? It uses a rechargeable battery for power and operates by pressure--when you put weight on it, it emits a glow. The perfect night-light for someone like me, who prefers sleeping in an ultra dark room, but is prone to bumping a knee in the absence of a night lite.

The rug is one of 31 innovations competing in this year's Ideal Home Show (in London) for Home Invention of the Year. Finalist are listed in two categories: Concept Products and Iconic Products.

Cast your vote online for your favorite.

Remote Control Finally Makes TV Mindless

I have yet to understand why there are so many buttons on television remote controls. Just when I figure out how to interpret my device, I go to my friend's house, and it's like stepping onto another planet. His has twice as many buttons and the two most used (volume control and channel changer) are among the smallest.

Shouldn't television watching be mindless?

A team of researchers from Philips Research in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, think so. They've invented a remote control that makes the experience far less complicated.

Called "Remote Touch," the device incorporates a laser pointer, a specially designed transparent sheet that fits over the display, and control options at the edge of the screen that are sensed by  position-sensitive photodetectors.

Instead of scrolling through menu options, the user points the laser at the screen. (You can read the press release here.) The transparent sheet has microscopic structures that direct the laser to the photodedectors and allow the watcher to basically point at what they want to control.   

If that's not simple enough, you can always get the remote control that's operated by remote.