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Neuron cell diagram. Source: Wikipedia.org

Neuron cell diagram. Source: Wikipedia.org

Issue no. 24, 2009 Published: Jul 10, 2009
Artificial nerve cell uses real neurotransmitters
Forget gas, batteries - pee is new power source
Interplanetary internet gets permanent home in space
A fabric with vision
Pink silicon is the new black
Methanol could power artificial muscles
Google planning Chrome-based operating system
'A touch of glass' in metal, settles century-old question
Computer learns sign language by watching TV

Artificial nerve cell uses real neurotransmitters
Organic electronics interfacing seamlessly with our nerves could pave the way for prosthetic brains. A team of Swedish scientists say they have created the first device that communicates with nerves in their own language of neurotransmitter chemicals, rather than electrical impulses. Previous neuroprothesis worked through electric signals that triggered already existing nerves to release neurotransmitters. However, the electric signals did not discriminate between different types of nerve cells, which greatly reduced the fidelity and usefulness of the devices. The new device utilises the same neurotransmitters that natural nerves use. That allows the robotic nerve to target specific neural pathways, without the random side effects of electronic neural stimulation. The technology is still in its infancy, but contains the potential for a radical shift in brain/electronics interfaces. In the short term, this technology could help people who suffer from diseases like schizophrenia, by releasing the neurotransmitters needed to regulate the out-of-control nerve firings associated with those diseases. In the long term, as the technology becomes smaller, cheaper, and able to receive neurotransmitter signals as well as send them, these artificial nerves could be used to create bionic brain prostheses for stroke victims, or even serve as the intermediate between our biological brains and electronic computers.
Popular Science / Nature Materials Jul 07, 2009	back to top

Forget gas, batteries - pee is new power source
Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months with new technology developed by scientists from Ohio University. Using a nickel-based electrode, the scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. Pee power is based on hydrogen, the most common element in the universe but one that has resisted efforts to produce, store, transport and use economically. Storing pure hydrogen gas requires high pressure and low temperature. New nanomaterials with high surface areas can adsorb hydrogen, but have yet to be produced on a commercial scale. Chemically binding hydrogen to other elements, like oxygen to create water, makes it easier to store and transport, but releasing the hydrogen when it is needed usually requires financially prohibitive amounts of electricity. By attaching hydrogen to another element, nitrogen, however, the hydrogen can be stored without the exotic environmental conditions, and then release it with less electricity, 0.037 Volts instead of the 1.23 Volts needed for water.
MSNBC / Discovery Channel Jul 08, 2009	back to top

Interplanetary internet gets permanent home in space
The interplanetary internet now has its first permanent node in space, aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The new software will make sending data from space less like using the telephone, and more like using the web. Teams still have to schedule times to send and receive data from space missions. But the new system could one day allow data to flow between Earth, spacecraft, and astronauts automatically, creating what is being dubbed the 'interplanetary internet'. A box boasting a computer and modules for science experiments owned by non-profit BioServe Space Technologies on the ISS was loaded with the necessary software. The payload recently sent down its first science data using the new programming. Its new capability has already speeded up the transfer of data back to Earth by about four times. If data is lost during a link, the system automatically transmits lost data later. Until now someone had to schedule a second attempt. While the Earth-bound internet uses TCP/IP to allow distant machines to communicate over cables, the ISS payload uses delay-tolerant networking (DTN), which is being developed to cope with the patchy coverage in space that arises when spacecraft pass behind planets or suffer power outages. If data passing between computers using TCP/IP goes missing, the two keep communicating until everything has been sent. But in space such to-ing and fro-ing of data is impractical. DTN circumvents this problem by commanding each node in the network to store information until it can find another node that can receive it. Data is relayed in a chain and should only need to be transmitted once.
New Scientist Jul 06, 2009	back to top

A fabric with vision
Imagine a soldier's uniform made of a special fabric that allows him to look in all directions and identify threats that are to his side or even behind him. MIT researchers have developed light-detecting fibres that, when weaved into a web, act as a flexible camera. Fabric composed of these fibres could be joined to a computer that could provide information on a small display screen attached to a visor, providing the soldier greater awareness of his surroundings. Our eyes are a great example of Nature's approach to imaging: they involve a highly sophisticated and localized organ made in part of a delicate lens. Technologists have mimicked this approach in cameras, telescopes and even microscopes. But lenses of natural or man-made origin have a limited field of view, and are susceptible to damage, leading to the loss of the imaging or seeing capacity altogether. Optical fibre webs, in contrast, provide a distributed imaging capability provided by the entire surface of a fabric, which is in principle much more robust to damage and 'blindness'. If one area is damaged, other fibres can still function, extracting the image. The individual fibres measure the intensity of the light illuminating them and convert it to an electrical signal. Importantly, they are also designed to differentiate between light at different wavelengths or colours. A mesh of fibres is then deployed to measure light intensity distribution at different wavelengths across a large area.
MIT / Nanoletters Jul 08, 2009	back to top

Pink silicon is the new black
A material dubbed black silicon has shown great promise for making cheaper, more sensitive light detectors and imaging devices, while potentially taking advantage of established silicon manufacturing methods. But one of black silicon's key characteristics - a forest of microscopic cones that form on its surface and give the material its black colour - may not be as important as it first appeared to be. The Harvard University researchers who first discovered black silicon are now studying a modified form of the material that has no cones but exhibits the same unique optoelectronic properties. Because of its faint colouring, the new material is nicknamed pink silicon, although it can barely be distinguished from a regular silicon wafer. Black silicon was discovered accidentally by throwing together a gaseous sulphur compound and a silicon wafer in a vacuum, then blasting the silicon with a femtosecond laser to restructure it on the nanoscale. The scientists have now added a new twist to the black-silicon production process, taking advantage of the absorption and high-gain properties of black silicon but keeping the material completely flat. That could help overcome fabrication challenges and allow for more detailed study of the material.
Technology Review Jul 09, 2009	back to top

Methanol could power artificial muscles
Scientists have experimented with artificial muscles for decades. These often work by converting electricity into mechanical energy, but the problem there is that batteries neither deliver energy very quickly nor store energy efficiently given the space they occupy. Instead of using batteries, artificial muscles could rely on chemical fuels, according to scientist at the University of Texas. For instance methanol has 30 times the energy storage density of a conventional battery. So far, the most powerful type of muscle the researchers have created is made from a nickel-titanium alloy coated in platinum particles only manometers or billionths of a meter wide. The behave as catalysts, helping fuels such as methanol, hydrogen or formic acid to react with the oxygen in the air, generating heat. The alloy does not expand when heated, unlike most materials. Instead, it contracts, generating roughly 500 times more force than natural muscles of the same diameter. The main problem this muscle faces is cooling off so it can get reused. One idea to solve that concern involves evaporating methanol off the system to cool the muscles down, much as evaporating sweat helps cool down human bodies. Artificial muscles could find use in prosthetic limbs, exoskeletons, druids that fly or swim, or humanoid robots.
MSNBC / LiveScience.com Jul 09, 2009	back to top

Google planning Chrome-based operating system
Less than a year after unveiling the Chrome web browser, Google has stepped up its battle against Microsoft with the announcement of the Google Chrome Operating System. Chrome OS is basically the Chrome browser running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. It is designed to be fast and lightweight with a minimal interface, playing to Google's online strength by focusing most of the experience through the browser. Netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010, the company says. An increasing number of services and applications now being delivered online, and several companies have created fast-booting, stripped-down operating systems that offer just basic applications such as web browser, email client, media player and productivity suite. These are usually Linux-based and installed alongside Windows.
VNUnet UK Jul 08, 2009	back to top

'A touch of glass' in metal, settles century-old question
Better predictions of how many valuable materials behave under stress could be on the way from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have recently found evidence of an important similarity between the behaviour of polycrystalline materials-such as metals and ceramics-and glasses. Most metals and ceramics used in manufacturing are polycrystals. Each crystal, or 'grain', is highly ordered on the inside, but in the thin boundaries it shares with the grains around it, the molecules are quite disorderly. Because grain boundaries profoundly affect the mechanical and electrical properties of polycrystalline materials, engineers would like a better understanding of grain boundaries' formation and behaviour. Unfortunately, grain boundary formation in most technically useful alloys has eluded efforts to observe it for a century. While scientists have speculated that the molecules in grain boundaries behave similarly to the way molecules do in glass-forming liquids, whose properties are well understood, none had found conclusive evidence. But now the NIST researchers found that strings of atoms arising in grain boundaries are strikingly similar in form, distribution and temperature dependence to the string-like collective atomic motions generally found in glass-forming liquids - and that properties for both types of substances change with temperature in virtually the same way. The findings could permit substantial progress in predicting the failure of many materials important in construction and manufacturing and could improve our understanding of how crystals form boundaries with one another, according to the researchers.
ScienceDaily / National Institute of Standards and Technology Jul 04, 2009	back to top

Computer learns sign language by watching TV
It is not only humans that can learn from watching TV. Software developed in the UK has worked out the basics of sign language by absorbing TV shows that are both subtitled and signed. While almost all shows are broadcast with subtitles, some are also accompanied with sign language because it is easier for many deaf people to follow. Shows with both text and signing are a bit like a Rosetta Stone - a carving that provided the breakthrough in decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics from an adjacent translation in classical Greek. Researchers at the Universities of Oxford and Leeds used software that can interpret the typed word and made it learn British Sign Language from video footage. They first designed an algorithm to recognise the gestures made by the signer. Then they exposed it to around 10 hours of TV footage that was both signed and subtitled. They tasked the software with learning the signs for a mixture of 210 nouns and adjectives. Starting without any knowledge of the signs for those 210 words, the software correctly learnt 136 of them, or 65 per cent. The technique could be used to create a way to automatically animate digital avatars that could fluently sign alongside any TV programme.
New Scientist Jul 08, 2009	back to top