Breakthroughs and trends in the world of technology.
Civil Engineering
Web of Steel
When finished, this structure rising in southern France will house a laboratory that stretches the limits of physics, testing the likelihood of harnessing fusion energy as an unlimited, clean, and safe source of electricity. Chronically delayed and way over original cost estimates, the project has sown criticism and doubt in the U.S. Senate. But for now, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is a civil engineering project, and little is being left to chance. The core of the project is the tokamak, a device that will create a plasma of hydrogen isotopes and control it with a very strong magnetic field, forcing the plasma to spin in a doughnut-shaped containment vessel. It will weigh as much as a fully loaded Boeing 747 and unleash earth shaking forces. To support it, builders will pour a football-field-size concrete base mat 1.5 meters thick. Reinforcing the concrete, reports The Engineer, a British publication, is “a dizzyingly complex spiderweb” of rebar – 40-millimeter-thick steel bars arranged in a pattern that corresponds to the powerful reactions inside the fusion machine. – Thomas K. Grose
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Robotics
Android Anchors
One could say there is something mildly robotic about TV anchors – announcing the latest news from around the world day in and out. So when Hiroshi Ishiguro, a roboticist at Japan’s Osaka University, wanted to show off his latest humanoid creations, it wasn’t a stretch when he turned them into newsreaders. Ishiguro presented talking heads Kodomoroid, a “female” robot with long, dark hair, and Otonaroid, a childlike bot of uncertain gender, at a recent press conference at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. The two are powered by compressed air and servomotors, and are covered in a skin of silicone. During their show, they blinked and moved their heads, lips, and hands but remained seated behind a desk. Kodomoroid read the news flawlessly and also recited some tongue twisters – an impressive, if somewhat creepy, display of cutting-edge robotics. The two news-reading bots will act as museum guides for a new, permanent exhibition on robotics, and Ishiguro says they’ll help with his research on how humans interact with humanoids. – TG
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Smart Clothing
Tech Up Your Sleeve
Wearable technology is always predicted to be right around the corner, but somehow we never seem to reach that corner. Google Glass is bug prone and expensive, for instance. But the Pebble smartwatch, which syncs to both Apple iOS and Google Android, is selling well since debuting last year after a crowd-funded financial boost on Kickstarter. And both LG and Samsung have recently released Android Wear watches, essentially Android phones shrunk down and worn on a wrist. The watches, mainly voice activated, can receive notifications and send texts, but really cool apps – like using it to, say, set your Nest thermostat – are still to come.
Will haptics bring the first big hit in wearable tech? Two separate Japanese researchers have each developed vibrating devices — the Traxion and the Buru-Navi3 – that you hold and squeeze with your fingers. Both use the perception of pulling that vibrations can cause to guide someone to their destination. Or maybe the breakthrough will belong to India’s Ducere Technologies, which this month is unveiling the Lechal smart shoe that synchs to Google maps. Punch in where you want to go, and let your shoes do the rest. When you need to go left, the left shoe vibrates; a vibrating right shoe says go right. – TG
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Autonomous Vehicles
Yellow Submarine
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keeps track of every species of sea turtle found in American waters because they’re all endangered. In the past, NOAA scientists surveyed the turtles from the air, but could see the creatures only when they surfaced to breathe. This May they deployed for the first time an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) fitted with side-scan sonar to keep tabs on the turtles. The torpedo-shaped, six-foot-long, yellow robot is the same type of submersible used to scour the Indian Ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. AUVs have been used for years to track marine life but only those that travel near the bottom, not on it, like turtles. That makes turtles harder to find because, down in the mud, they can resemble a pile of rocks. Moreover, the acoustic signature of turtle shells is weak. Scientists will still use hands-on methods – capturing a few turtles and measuring, weighing, and tagging them – to collect data, but sonar will help them more accurately extrapolate data that were collected hands-on to the wider population. – TG
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Medical Software
Saving their Strength
Top professional soccer players are paid big bucks to ply their skills, giving teams a reason to keep their players fit and healthy. A recent study found that injuries cost English Premier League teams nearly $170 million a year in salaries to sidelined stars. So researchers at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University have developed a software system called Indicio that crunches a host of data to forecast when a player is at higher risk of injury and should temporarily ratchet down his training regimen. Top jocks’ health data are typically recorded daily anyway – aspects like mood and fatigue levels, body mass, exercise intensity, and vital statistics. Indicio’s algorithm adds in other variables, including travel schedules, weather conditions, and even what type of field is being used, to make its forecasts. Most injuries are not caused by the intensity of exercise but its duration. Knowing when players should ease back on workouts could help keep them playing for a full season. The researchers, led by David Corne, a professor of mathematical and computer science, will test the program this upcoming season with at least two pro soccer teams. If it works as planned, it could help save the seasons of other sports stars too. Well, maybe not darts players. – TG
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Materials
Bug Business
Nature is an unending source of inspiration for engineering researchers. Consider the Namib beetle, native to the African Namib Desert. Its back consists of hydrophilic bumps, which retain water that condenses from morning fogs, and are separated by waxy-like areas that are hydrophobic. When the droplets on the bumps get too big, they fall onto the waxy surface and roll down to the beetle’s mouth. Boston’s NBD Nanotechnologies is a start-up named after the bug (Namib Beetle Design), and its engineers are using materials engineering and nanoscience to mimic what the beetle does naturally. Condensers used in fridges, cars, and air conditioners will run more efficiently and use less energy if there is more condensation, so NBD is developing industrial coatings that are either superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic. The superhydrophobic coatings flick away water as soon as it forms from vapor, which allows condensation rates to increase. Other uses for water-loving or water-repelling materials or coatings are self-cleaning windows, airplane wing de-icers, and improved disposal strips to field-test water samples. But Kripa Varanasi, an MIT mechanical engineer, may have come up with one of the coolest applications for nanoscale hydrophobic patterning: ketchup bottles that run freely. – TG
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3-D Printing
Museum Quality
Researchers continue to find new and interesting uses for 3-D printers, like the official bust of President Obama that will soon go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. A team led by the Smithsonian Institution used two different processes to capture Obama’s visage: First, University of Southern California experts used a Light Stage scanner to make a high-resolution image of the president’s face. Next, Smithsonian experts used 3-D scanners and traditional SLR cameras to record peripheral 3-D data. It then took 40 hours to print. One specialist told the Associated Press: “You can see down to the wrinkles in the skin and the pores on his face.”
In Britain, Abby Paterson, a recently minted doctor of design at Loughborough University, has developed software that will let doctors customize and 3-D-print wrist splints for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, getting rid of conventional bulky, ugly, and uncomfortable splints. Using a scan of a patient’s arm in the appropriate position, the software directs the printer to spit out splints that are an exact fit, lighter and breathable. Even better: They should also be cheaper than traditional splints. – TG
© Smithsonian Institution
Bioengineering
Head in the Game
More than just headache for players and teams, repeated concussions have clearly caused serious health problems for professional and collegiate football players. And some studies show that the biomechanics of skull movement caused by an impact might determine how badly a brain is injured. To better understand what happens when a player’s bell is rung, Stanford assistant professor of bioengineering David Camarillo has developed a mouth guard fitted with accelerometers that measure the impacts players receive on both game and practice fields. Because it’s firmly in the grip of a player’s upper row of teeth, the mouth guard is an excellent device for measuring skull accelerations. The guards also include infrared proximity sensors to detect if the piece is indeed in direct contact with teeth, and machine-learning algorithms can remove other “noisy” signals that aren’t caused by real impacts. The result, Camarillo says, is a device that’s 99 percent accurate and can give researchers a better idea of the mechanics that cause serious head injuries. The hope is to use that knowledge to design better helmets. – TG
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Prosthetics
Nature’s Way
Technologies blurring the distinction between human and machine are being developed at a furious pace. It sounds unnerving, but it may be good news for the disabled and amputees. This summer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an exoskeleton that lets paraplegics and quadriplegics walk on their own. Developed in part by Israeli engineer Amit Goffer – who was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident – along with friends and colleagues, the ReWalk is pricey at $69,500 but works amazingly well. One woman completed the London Marathon with it.
While prosthetic hands with sensors attached to the outside of residual limbs are not new, they’re limited to just opening and closing. But University of Colorado researchers are developing sensors to better sense the electrical activity of all 18 forearm muscles and give prostheses more natural movements. A team at MIT, meanwhile, is working on a robotic extension of the human hand – basically two extra digits located next to the thumb and pinky that wearers can operate simply by moving their hand. And at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, engineers have developed 3-D-printed bio-bots made with flexible hydrogels and living skeletal muscle cells that can be activated with electric pulses. Such bio-bots are easily controlled and can be customized to do specific tasks. – TG
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Biomedical Engineering
‘Bloodless’ Surgery
The idea sounds like something from Star Trek: a surgical technique that involves no cuts or blood. In fact, the method developed by medical robotics expert Sunita Chauhan, a systems engineering professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, is so non-invasive, it doesn’t even scratch the skin. The procedure uses high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with precisely targeted waves to burn cancerous tumors while leaving surrounding tissue undamaged. Though still experimental, the method “works well in the lab,” says Chauhan, who predicts it initially will provide a lifesaving alternative to conventional surgery for tumors in such difficult locations as the stomach, liver, and kidneys, as well as for breast cancer and high-risk brain procedures. Noting the popularity of laparoscopic or “keyhole” surgery, she calls HIFU “the next step in reducing surgical trauma,” and expects it to spread worldwide – after human trials and regulatory approvals – in five to seven years. Paging Dr. McCoy! – Chris Pritchard
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Plastics
Processed Food
For better or worse, plastics are a necessary component of modern life. And who knows? One day we may also eat the stuff to help ensure survival on a planet plagued by food shortages. At least, that’s German designer Johanna Schmeer’s idea. The recent master’s graduate of the Royal College of Art in London was inspired by research by American and Dutch scientists who have successfully synthesized biological cells from plastic. Schmeer’s Bioplastic Fantastic project is a work of art that imagines what seven different plastic-derived foods might look like. Each contains elements essential to the human diet: water, vitamins, fiber, sugar, fat, proteins, and minerals. One, for example, looks like a rather large, white sponge sprouting flexible, green, hose-like nozzles that squirt syrup. Tasty.
Also this month, fashion brand G Star is bringing out a line of plasticized gear – including jeans, jackets, and T-shirts – whose provenance might make customers more aware of the problem of sea debris, as they’re woven with fibers made from recycled marine plastic. The full collection – curated by pop star Pharrell Williams and called G Star RAW for the Oceans – will use 10 tons of the junk. – TG
© Christian Schmeer
Chemical Engineering
Extra, Extra!
Mosquitoes are a menace in Sri Lanka. They carry the dengue fever virus, which last year infected 30,000 people there. There’s no cure for it, and while most people recover after battling high fever and flu-like symptoms for two weeks, dengue can be fatal in extreme cases. The Sri Lankan newspaper Mawbima wanted to help the fight against the disease (and also sell additional newspapers), so it made its product mosquito resistant. Mawbima mixed citronella essence, a natural repellent, with the ink, so that anyone reading the newspaper’s print edition would be somewhat protected. The mosquito-fighting edition was the brainchild of Leo Burnett Asia, the paper’s ad agency. For a week this summer, it ran a print campaign in the run-up to the special edition. Poster versions of the ads, also drenched in citronella, were placed in bus stops to help keep people waiting for buses mosquito-free. On the day of the special run, Mawbima’s sales jumped 30 percent and the entire press run sold out by 10 a.m. Of course, if the citronella didn’t work, the paper also proved handy for swatting the pests. – TG
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Origami Engineering
Fold & Scamper
Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding that’s gaining new currency as an inspiration for startlingly clever inventions. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the National Science Foundation’s Odissei program has funded at least 13 grants, at around $2 million each, for origami-inspired research, both basic and applied. Last month, Harvard engineering Ph.D. student Sam Felton unveiled robots made from composite materials that could fold themselves into shape and scurry away without human assistance. Felton used paper infused with a shape-memory polymer that’s activated by temperatures over 100 degrees Celsius. The polymer was also embedded with electronics. After four minutes of heat treatment, the robots self-assembled and began crawling at speeds of two inches per second. Earlier this year, Stanford bioengineering postdoc Manu Prakash showed off his Foldscope microscope, made from layered card stock and a micro-lens – materials that together cost no more than 50 cents. It can be assembled within minutes and is capable of 2,000-times magnification. It’s also extremely rugged, so it has huge potential for use in remote regions of developing countries. And Caltech aeronautical engineer Sergio Pellegrino is designing high-precision retinal implants using origami principles. The future truly is unfolding now. – TG
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