The BBC recently reported on developments in prosthetic hand technology which include the addition of sensory feedback via a direct nerve interface. The research was part of the SMARTHAND project and was led by a team at Lund University, Sweden. According to CORDIS:
What is unique about the sophisticated prototype artificial hand developed by the SMARTHAND partners is that not only does it replicate the movements of a real hand, but it also gives the user sensations of touch and feeling. The researchers said the hand has 4 electric motors and 40 sensors that are activated when pressed against an object. These sensors stimulate the arm’s nerves to activate a part in the brain that enables patients to feel the objects. [CORDIS News]
The research strategy attempting to deepen the feedback and control may involve the use of nanotechnology to further miniaturise components of the interface between the hand and arm:
The hurdle they need to cross is to make the cables and electric motors smaller. Nanotechnology could help the team iron out any problems. Specifically, they would implant a tiny processing unit, a power source and a trans-skin communication method into the user of the hand to optimise functionality. [CORDIS News]
The story ran with the emphasis on the inclusion of sensory feedback. It often seems as though people are much more accepting of the mechanical side of prosthetic technologies than the sensory side (despite the availablility of cochleal implants). It seems to be a violation of intuition that adding sensory capacity might be the easy part of the problem - give a brain a signal and some feedback and it’ll detect patterns and correlate them with events in the world. It’s the giving of the signal and feedback that presents the greatest difficulties. It will be fascinating to watch for changes in what counts as intuitive as the availability of technologically mediated raw experience increases.
Sources:
The Foresight Nanotech Institute’s Christine Peterson was interviewed by Earth & Sky about nanotechnology and surveillance.Peterson raises serious questions about the types of data that will exist in the surveillance environments of the near future as a result of nanotech-enabled chemical sensing technologies.
(More ….)
The Foresight Nanotech Institute have published glowing praise for the aspirations of PuramatrixTM founder, Prof. Shuguang Zhang. They approvingly quote Zhang from an eJournal article:
For example, aging and damaged tissues can be replaced with the scaffolds that stimulate cells to repair body parts or to rejuvenate the skin. We also might be able to swim and dive like dolphins or to climb mountains with a nanoscaffold lung device that can carry an extra supply of oxygen. It is not impossible to anticipate painting cars and houses with photosynthesis molecular machines that can harness the unlimited solar energy for all populations on every corner of the planet, not just for the wealthy few…[source]
The Puramatrix company website has an impressive publications list. The company is basing its business on nano-scaffolding techniques that can be used to facilitate the construction of any number of other structures and mechanisms.
Science Daily report that a technique has been developed allowing viruses to be indentified in seconds. The method involves measuring the shift in the frequency of light as it is scattered off DNA or RNA molecules - the Raman shift. The effect has been too weak to be of practical use until an interdisciplinary team deployed nanotechnology to take greater control of the light scattering event. The innovation involves laying nanorods at an angle of 86 degrees over the sample in order to amplify the measurable Rama shift.
“It saves days to weeks,” said lead author Ralph Tripp, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Vaccine Development at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. “You could actually apply it to a person walking off a plane and know if they’re infected.” [Source]
Bib Ref:
Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Respiratory Virus Molecular Signatures Using a Silver Nanorod Array SERS Substrate
Shanmukh, S., Jones, L., Driskell, J., Zhao, Y., Dluhy, R., and Tripp, R.A.
Nano Lett., 6, 11, 2630 - 2636, 2006, 10.1021/nl061666f
Plans for a space elevator as a cheaper, safer alternative to riding on explosives have encountered a hitch. New Scientist reports that:
humans might not survive thanks to the whopping dose of ionising radiation they would receive travelling through the core of the Van Allen radiation belts around Earth. These are two concentric rings of charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic fields.[Source]
Liftport plan to get around the problem by increasing the shielding on the lifts. Shield mass will entail 100-tonne lifters for a passenger complement of 20.
Wikipedia have an entry of the physics and history of the concept of space elevators.
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