Breakthroughs and trends in the world of technology.
Fire Protection Engineering
Feel the Burn
Combatting California’s drought-fueled wildfires, which have displaced thousands, destroyed homes, and charred some 700,000 acres, has required unusually creative engineering. The state’s perilously low reservoirs, for example, mean crews must shuttle water closer to the blaze using special tanker trucks and large, portable plastic basins. A continuing drought will no doubt increase Californians’ interest in fire protection engineering programs, such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s. An East Coast leader in this emerging field is the University of Maryland, where two fire-protection engineering professors are developing computer simulations that draw on fire physics, satellite observation systems, and atmospheric science to understand the impact of wildfires on air quality and climate change long after the smoke clears. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech engineering students are developing a firefighting robot for the Navy, and New York University’s Polytechnic School of Engineering has studied wind-driven fire dynamics in high-rise buildings. NYU’s research has led to changes in the New York fire department’s standard operating procedures and an interactive, web-based training tool for disseminating new, more effective firefighting techniques. – Mary Lord
Genetic Modification
Simpler Drug-making
The chemotherapy drug etoposide has been in use for more than 30 years to treat a number of cancers, including lymphoma and lung cancer. Like half of all drugs, it’s derived from a plant. Initially, it came from the slow-growing and endangered Himalayan mayapple. Later, drug-makers switched to American mayapple, but it’s also slow-growing and doesn’t produce much of the compound. But now there may be a way to make the drug without the need of plants. A Stanford University team led by Elizabeth Sattely, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, realized that the mayapple leaf produces the chemical to ward off pests. The researchers then determined that the plant starts production only once it’s been damaged. So Sattely’s team punctured some mayapple leaves, and before-and-after tests revealed that 31 new proteins appeared around the damaged tissue. After many tests of various combinations of the different proteins, Sattely found that 10 of them combined to manufacture the drug. The researchers then spliced the genes that comprise those 10 proteins into a common lab plant, and it began producing the drug. Eventually, she hopes to put the proteins in yeast so they can be grown in vats, giving drug-makers a more stable supply of etoposide. That also may make it possible to tweak the formula to produce even more effective versions. – Thomas K. Grose
Biomedical Engineering
Spit Monitor
Biomarkers like lactate, uric acid, and cortisol are found in blood, and the only way to measure their levels is by drawing blood. But a growing body of research is finding that when higher concentrations of these health markers build up in blood, they’re also found in saliva. Accordingly, researchers at the University of California, San Diego’s Center for Wearable Sensors have devised a mouth guard that can continuously monitor the levels of these chemicals in saliva and send the results to a smartphone, PC, or tablet. The device could be worn by athletes to determine if lactate is building up in their muscles, or by soldiers and pilots to measure stress levels. In a proof-of-concept test, researchers used the device to measure uric acid, high levels of which are linked to diseases like diabetes and gout. Saliva from healthy volunteers was smeared on the monitors, and the results were compared with saliva that came from someone with hyperuricemia, which causes a buildup of uric acid in the blood. The mouth guard’s monitors found four times more uric acid in the patient’s saliva. When the volunteer took a medication to treat the condition, the device was able to track the subsequent reduction in uric acid levels. The team is now within spitting distance of its next step: shrinking the components and properly embedding them into a mouth guard. – Thomas K. Grose
©UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Computer Modeling
A Better Heat Shield
If humans are ever to journey to Mars, their ships will need extra protection once they reach the Red Planet’s atmosphere. The supersonic speeds they’ll be traveling as they enter Martian air space will produce extraordinarily high temperatures, measured in the tens of thousands of degrees. Since it’s not possible to field-test protective coatings, scientists need to build models that can accurately predict how they would fare in such harsh conditions. Which is why NASA recently gave an Early Career Faculty Award to Marco Panesi, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois. He’ll use the grant to develop a framework to construct predictive models based on detailed chemical kinetic processes at peak heating, which can be used to better design and select materials for thermal protection systems that can handle super-intense temperatures. All in all, a pretty cool assignment. – Thomas K. Grose
Sensor Technology
Smart Safety Vests
In 2013, 579 people were killed by cars in road construction zones. One way to reduce that toll might be to equip the reflective safety-zone vests worn by construction workers with sensors, which would warn them when a vehicle came too close for comfort. The InZoneAlert vest, under development by Virginia Tech engineers, would use the same kind of wireless sensor technology that enables cars to “talk” to one another to avoid collisions and communicate with roadside infrastructure. The idea is not only to give the vest-wearer a few seconds of warning – enough time to move out of danger – but also to send a dashboard alert to the driver. The engineering team, led by Tom Martin, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been working on the vest for a couple of years. The latest iteration has shrunk the electronic components from backpack to around cell-phone size. Ideally, the size will further shrink to something akin to a pack of gum. Early tests found that the InZoneAlert vest worked successfully 90 percent of the time. Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute plans to give the vest some real-world tests at a Smart Road it’s built to test vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications (“Driver’s Ed,” Prism, March 2015). The researchers are still trying to figure out the best alert to use. They want it to be distinct and not jarring, yet it has to be noticeable in loud construction zones. One possibility would be an audible alarm that’s sent through hearing-protection earphones, perhaps coupled with a vibration or some other type of tactile alert. – Thomas K. Grose
©HYVE
Aerospace
Towering Ambition
Around a century ago, sci-fi pioneer H. G. Wells envisioned a space elevator. Now a Canadian firm says it has patented a design to build one. Its 12-mile-high, self-supporting tower, with an electrical elevator inside, would be made of Kevlar and inflated with highly pressurized hydrogen or helium. Flywheels would provide dynamic stability and also power compressors to maintain pressure. It would be topped by a platform for space planes to launch at a fraction of the $10,000 per pound it currently costs to put a payload into orbit. The structure is the brainchild of Brendan Quine, chief technology officer at Thoth Technologies and associate professor of space engineering and planetary physics at York University in Toronto. Quine believes the ThothX Tower could draw tourists, affording them views of more than 600 miles in any direction – “the same things an astronaut sees.” It could be used as a communications tower, and if it were affixed with turbines, could generate enough non-stop electricity from the jet stream to power 700,000 houses. Thoth says it plans to build a 1.5-kilometer-tall demonstrator tower by 2019 as an initial step. – Thomas K. Grose and Pierre Home-Douglas
©Thoth Technology
Solar Technology
Innovations Bloom
Thanks to falling prices and increasing efficiencies, solar technology is becoming mainstream and mature. Still, there’s room for improvement. In the United States, around 85 percent of solar panel installations are on home rooftops. Motorized photovoltaic cells that can track the sun are 40 percent more efficient than stationary panels, but they’re too heavy for residential use. Researchers at the University of Michigan have a possible solution: flat solar panels composed of arrays of smaller cells that tilt within each panel to keep their surfaces in line with the sun’s movement across the sky. The researchers used a method devised from the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting called kirigami. They used lasers to cut patterns in flat sheets of a plastic to which solar cells were then affixed. The sheets become flexible, wavy meshes of ribbons that, when stretched, allow the cells to tilt toward the sun. By making flat panels more efficient, the technology could lower costs even further. Meanwhile, industrial researchers in Switzerland have developed a solar “sunflower” that combines concentrated solar thermal power and photovoltaics in one device. Reflectors concentrate sun rays to temperatures that can melt lead. The concentrated power is then focused on small cells of the most efficient photovoltaic material, gallium arsenide. To keep the intense heat from melting the cells, a cooling device uses excess thermal energy to heat water, which in turn can supply heat to buildings. One “flower” can produce 12 kilowatts of electricity and 21 kilowatts of thermal energy. Airlight and IBM, the companies behind Project Sunflower, plan to start marketing it next year, hoping for a blooming success. – Thomas K. Grose
©Airlight Energy
Graduate Education
Design for the Future
Technically complex, open-ended problems like extreme urbanization, climate change effects, and aging populations will demand multidisciplinary solutions. That’s the goal of a new Master of Design Engineering (MDE) that Harvard University will begin offering next fall. The two-year program, led by Mohsen Mostafavi (left), dean of the Graduate School of Design, shown with engineering dean Frank Doyle, aims to help students make greater use of emerging technologies and design practices, including new materials, innovative fabrication techniques, and sophisticated distribution systems. Student teams will have to develop workable plans to address such challenges as converting American transportation away from a reliance on gasoline, transforming health care delivery for better results and lower costs, and adapting to rising sea levels. – Thomas K. Grose
©Eliza Grinnell/Harvard SEAS
QUOTED: “The first thing you do is beat yourself up and say, ‘Did we not do something right?’ You always blame yourself.” – Daniel Carder, interim director of West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions, after his engineering research team found evidence that Volkswagen had cheated on U.S. vehicle emissions tests. (Reuters)
Surgical Tools
Your Brain in 3-D
Stereo-imaging endoscopes that combine two cameras are typically used for many minimally invasive operations these days. But for brain surgery, they’re too big to be of use. So for the past eight years, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California have been working on a commission from the Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles to develop a single tiny camera that could produce 3-D images from within the brain. The working prototype is called MARVEL, for Multi-Angle Rear Viewing Endoscopic tool. Its camera is only 0.2 inches in diameter and 0.6 inches in length, and is attached to the working end of a bendable neck that can move left and right and peer around corners with a 120-degree arc. It can take images by mimicking an eye pupil: Two apertures, each using a different color filter, transmit distinct wavelengths of red, green, and blue light but also block the bands to which the other filter is sensitive. Images from the two filters are merged to create a 3-D effect. It’s hoped the JPL endoscope will greatly reduce the need to use craniotomies – removing big chunks of the skull – in brain surgery, which would cut costs and speed recovery. The JPL team is now working on a clinical prototype that could pass U.S. Food and Drug Administration muster. – Thomas K. Grose
©NASA/JPL-Caltech/Skull Base Institute
3-D Printing
A Silk Purse
Research to use 3-D printers to create implants, prosthetics, and even organs is a hot area of bioengineering. One approach is creation of living tissue that could be packed with medicine, cytokines to choreograph stem-cell development, or antibiotics to fight infections. But a stumbling block has been the bio-inks now available. Most are made from thermoplastics, silicones, gelatin, or alginate, and some of their manufacturing processes, which can include pH and temperature changes, aren’t compatible with many of the biological additives researchers need to use. Now a team at Tufts University, led by David Kaplan, chair of its biomedical engineering department, has developed a bio-ink made from silk proteins diluted in polyols, nontoxic sugar alcohols. The silk-based ink does not need any processing, so high temperatures aren’t needed either. It’s also clear, flexible, and stable in water. Kaplan has pioneered using silk for many bioengineering applications, including silk-protein orthopedic screws and plates for patching broken bones. Most recently, his team 3-D-printed bone marrow that can produce human platelets, a blood component that enables clotting. – Thomas K. Grose
©American Chemical Society
Music
Rhapsody in Goo
Laurent Bernadac, a mechanical engineer as well as a professional musician, enjoys playing electric violins but finds them too heavy. So the Frenchman decided, as he told the BBC, to design and build a featherweight instrument that’s loosely based on a Stradivarius. After unsuccessfully trying aluminum and plexiglass, Bernadac opted to use a 3-D printer and a transparent resin to fashion his violin layer by layer. Before that, however, he ran analyses to determine how best to get the acoustics and wave propagation through the instrument’s body, as well as mechanical resistance studies to ensure the violin would properly resist pressure from the strings. Overall, the violin – printed as a single piece – took three weeks to make at a cost of $11,000. The futuristic, clear-bodied result looks nothing like the 18th-century masterpiece suggested by Bernadac’s website, 3Dvarius.com. But can it capture that nectarlike tone? Play Bernadac’s video and decide. – Thomas K. Grose
©Laurent Bernadac
Health Care
Game the Test
Could a medical exam ever be fun? Possibly, says Specular Projects, a New York technology studio that’s come up with a prototype virtual game that would double as a fitness test. The Fitzania game was designed as an interactive exhibition for Dubai’s Museum of Future Government Services. The idea was to give visitors an idea of what it would be like to make health care more personalized, accessible, and enjoyable. It’s based on body-tracking software, not unlike Microsoft’s Kinect. Players grab with both hands a four-pound, vibrating orb and enter a virtual game space where they move the ball around following on-screen prompts. The movements become increasingly harder as the game progresses. All the while, the game measures their biometrics, including heart rate, reflexes, and cognition speed. If that sounds like fun to you, you’ll have to be patient. A working version of Fitzania is probably 15 years away. – Thomas K. Grose
©Specular Projects
Chemical Engineering
Space-aged Single Malt
A whisky’s taste is derived from years spent in charred-oak barrels that were previously used to store other types of adult beverages, like sherry or bourbon. The distillate – initially colorless and harsh – mellows and takes on color and flavors from both the wood and remnants of the liquors that were previously stored in the kegs. NanoRacks, a Houston company, got to wondering if the aging process of Scotch would be altered by microgravity. Ardbeg, a 200-year-old single-malt distillery on the Scottish island of Islay, agreed to help with an experiment. Raw distillate was poured into experimental tubes with shavings from the inside of one of Ardbeg’s barrels. Some were then shipped to the International Space Station; the rest remained on Earth as control samples. After 971 days in space, the ISS samples were returned to Earth a year ago, and the testing began, using gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, and human taste buds. The main difference between the two sets of samples: higher concentrations of the lignin breakdown products – which come from the actual oak – were found in the control samples, while concentrations of the tannin breakdown products were higher in the ISS samples. Tasting experts said that the control samples were similar to the Ardbeg style and had a woody aroma; the ISS batch’s aroma was more intense and its taste more redolent of smoked fruits. In a white paper published by Ardbeg’s director of distilling, the Scotch maker says it hopes that “further analysis will be carried out to elucidate the creation of different flavors.” Cheers. – Thomas K. Grose