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Issue no. 11, 2006 Published: Mar 17, 2006
ICANN to test non-English domain names
RFID chips capable of transmitting viruses
Nanotech helps blind hamsters see
DNA origami yields micro map
Methanol-powered artificial muscles start to flex
Bacteria could power tiny robots
Card-block avoidance
Pentagon plans cyber-insect army

ICANN to test non-English domain names
The internet's key oversight agency has outlined a plan for testing domain names entirely in non-English characters, bringing closer to reality a change highly sought by Asian and Arabic internet users. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) this week announced a tentative timetable that calls for tests to begin in the second half of the year. The tests would help ensure that introducing non-English suffixes would not wreck the global addressing system. The internet's main traffic directories know only 37 characters: the 26 letters of the Latin script used in English, the 10 numerals and a hyphen. Constraining non-English speakers to those characters is akin to forcing all English-speakers to type domains in Chinese. As a result, ICANN has faced pressures to adopt technology that let the directories understand other languages. China already has set up its own '.com' in Chinese within its borders. Such efforts risk fracturing the internet, such that the same address could reach two different sites depending on a user's location.
ABC News / AP Mar 15, 2006	back to top

RFID chips capable of transmitting viruses
A group of Dutch researchers at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam have demonstrated that it is possible to insert malicious code into an RFID chip. Until now the prospect of viruses appearing on RFID units has been considered remote because of the tiny memory capacity in the devices and the possibility of transmitting remote code simply by scanning. Typically, computer-bound or mobile RFID readers query RFID tags for their unique identifier or on-tag data which provides a database key or launches some other software. A typical application might be supermarket checkout scanner which reads the RFID tag on the items, which are checked against a database of the store's inventory and price lists and produces the total. The assumption has been that the act of scanning could not be used to modify the database or other back end systems. However, the researchers discovered that if certain vulnerabilities exist in the RFID software, an RFID tag can be infected with a virus that can infect the backend database. From there it can be easily spread to other RFID tags.
PCPro Mar 16, 2006	back to top

Nanotech helps blind hamsters see
Nanotechnology has restored the sight of blind rodents. Scientists mimicked the effect of a traumatic brain injury by severing the optical nerve tract in hamsters, causing the animals to lose vision. After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned. The team hopes this technique could be used in future reconstructive brain surgery. The team based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, and Hong Kong University injected the blind hamsters at the site of their injury with a solution containing synthetically made peptides. Once inside the hamster's brain, the peptides spontaneously arranged into a scaffold-like criss-cross of nanofibres, which bridged the gap between the severed nerves. Brain tissue in the hamsters knitted together across the molecular scaffold, while also preventing scar tissue from forming. Importantly, the newly formed brain tissue enabled the brain nerves to re-grow, restoring vision in the injured hamsters.
BBC News / Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 14, 2006	back to top

DNA origami yields micro map
Technology really is shrinking the globe. In a map of the Americas unveiled this week, the journey from Los Angeles to New York becomes a hop of just tens of nanometres. That's a scale of 1:200,000,000,000,000. The entire western hemisphere is smaller than a bacterium, and 50 billion copies of the chart could fit inside a drop of water. This might seem tiny, but the map, which is made of DNA, is the biggest and most elaborate nanoscale object created in the lab so far. Paul Rothemund from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena has invented what he calls 'DNA origami', a method for building just about any two-dimensional pattern out of DNA molecules. His portfolio includes smiley faces, triangles, snowflakes and flowers. Each item takes a month to plan and a few hours to make. All are made of a standard, single strand of viral DNA folded back and forth over rows of double helices in a template shape. The shape is maintained by DNA 'staples' - specially designed short strands - that stop the viral strand from unravelling. Rothemund hopes his method will find a use in electronics and molecular biology. The technique could be used to build a flat scaffold to carry microscopic electronic components. Enzymes could also be attached, creating a tiny protein factory.
Nature Mar 15, 2006	back to top

Methanol-powered artificial muscles start to flex
Methanol-powered artificial muscles have been created by researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas, US, aiming to create battery-free robotic limbs and prosthetics. The researchers have designed two types of artificial muscle that also act as fuel cells - converting chemical energy to mechanical movement. The first type of muscle is made from a nickel-titanium shape-memory wire coated in a platinum catalyst. When fumes of methanol, hydrogen and oxygen pass over the platinum coating, they react, releasing heat that warms the wire, making it contract. When the flow of fuel is stopped, the wire expands and returns to its original length. The wire muscle can generate 100 times the force of a natural muscle of the same size. The team's second artificial muscle is made from sheets of carbon nanotubes, coated in a catalyst. It is not yet as powerful as the wire muscle, but could potentially overtake it, the researchers believe. As the fuel reacts with oxygen above the surface of the nanotube sheet, it releases a charge that make the sheet expand. The big advantage of the nanotube muscle is that it can also act as a capacitor, storing up electric energy it does not immediately need for later use.
New Scientist / Science Mar 16, 2006	back to top

Bacteria could power tiny robots
A strain of bacteria that releases electrons as a waste product could become the secret ingredient for developing fuel cells for spy drones and other small robots. Researchers at Rice University and the University of Southern California have embarked on a project to harness the power of Shewanella oneidensis, a micro organism that consumes metals. The waste product of its metabolic process comes in the form of excess electrons stripped from the metals but not recombined in subsequent chemical reactions. The bacteria lives in soil, water and other environments and can extract its necessary nutrients from a variety of materials. In a fuel cell, the idea is that colonies of Shewanella will attach themselves to the anode, a component inside fuel cells and batteries that gathers electrons, and produce electrons. Hybrid fuel cells - where one strain of bacteria feeds off the waste product of another to produce electricity - are also possible.
CNET News Mar 15, 2006	back to top

Card-block avoidance
We now have so many smart bank cards with different PINs that it is all too easy to enter the wrong code when trying to authorise a payment. Make three mistakes and the card locks up. It can then only be used again after calling a helpline and answering secret security questions such as 'what is your mother's maiden name?'. RSA Security of Massachusetts has developed a system which it claims is just as secure, but saves time, money and frustration. The card uses a PIN in the usual way but also stores its own menu of secret questions. When the card is first used and the PIN correctly entered the owner is invited to choose from a menu of questions with hard-to-guess answers. Then, if the owner enters the wrong PIN, they are presented with the questions and asked to key in answers. If they answer correctly the card is unlocked on the spot, without the need to call a helpline. RSA says the answers are stored in an encrypted format, making them very difficult for a hacker to extract. The patent adds that the card will overlook a few typos, providing the answers seem correct.
New Scientist Mar 14, 2006	back to top

Pentagon plans cyber-insect army
The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later. The new scheme is a brainwave of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is tasked with maintaining the technological superiority of the US military. It has asked for 'innovative' bids on the insect project. Darpa believes scientists can take advantage of the evolution of insects in the pupa stage. The foreign objects it suggests to be implanted are specific micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed, could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals, including those in explosives. The invasive surgery could 'enable assembly-line like fabrication of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces', Darpa says. A winning bidder would have to deliver 'an insect within five metres of a specific target located 100 metres away'. The insect must also 'be able to transmit data from relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc.'
BBC News Mar 15, 2006	back to top