Drones, Brains, Bones

Drone flies you

Remote controlled helicopters are of course a lot easier to fly than the real thing — but I always managed to crash mine over the years… Now a top drone-maker is promising its full-sized flying device will get you in the air — and back on the ground — safely.

Actually, watch the video at Ehang.com and you’ll see they stress safety more than anything else, as two friends of the company founder died in copter crashes, prompting his drive for a safer way to go.

Their answer: an app-controlled device, so no piloting skills are necessary. With multiple redundant systems, the 184 AAV “is the safest, eco-est and smartest low altitude autonomous aerial vehicle,” the Chinese company says. “If one part of the power system is operating abnormally, the vehicle can still operate a normal flight plan and ensure the safety of the passenger… Even if one propeller malfunctions, it can still land in the nearest possible area safely.”

The electric vehicle has four arms and eight propellers (and carries one passenger, thus “184”). It reportedly will fly about 60 mph at 11,000 feet, for 20 minutes — and sell for $200-300,000. (So no, I won’t ever be buying one, but I’d certainly pay to go for a ride!)

Here’s the company’s page.

Here’s the video.

PC World has some details — and skepticism — here.

Nano-reactor releases hydrogen biofuel

Combining bacteria and viruses doesn’t seem like a fundamentally good idea — but the technique may yield efficient hydrogen power.

A new biomaterial has a modified enzyme that “gains strength from being protected within the protein shell -- or "capsid" -- of a bacterial virus,” reports Indiana University. “This new material is 150 times more efficient than the unaltered form of the enzyme” at catalyzing the formation of hydrogen. “Essentially, we've taken a virus's ability to self-assemble myriad genetic building blocks and incorporated a very fragile and sensitive enzyme with the remarkable property of taking in protons and spitting out hydrogen gas," says a professor there.

The material is potentially far less expensive and more environmentally friendly to produce than other materials currently used to create fuel cells, IU adds. “This material is comparable to platinum, except it's truly renewable.”

Also, P22-Hyd both breaks the chemical bonds of water to create hydrogen, and works in reverse to recombine hydrogen and oxygen to generate power. “The reaction runs both ways -- it can be used either as a hydrogen production catalyst or as a fuel cell catalyst,” IU says.

Here is the full announcement.

Boost your brain's garbage disposal

Your brain's proteasome system “grinds up old proteins so they can be recycled into new ones,” and neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Center found it can be boosted by a discontinued medication, Science Alert reports.

So far it’s only been tested on mice, and the medication, rolipram, causes nausea in humans — but other drugs without that side effect may provide similar brain benefits.

Removing toxic proteins from the brain may prevent or alleviate Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Here is the full article from Columbia.

Foam repairs bones

An injectable foam can help repair and regrow degenerating bones.

The injectable macroporous foam offers a quick and minimally invasive way for surgeons to perform bone repair, Chemistry World reports here.

The University of Nantes researchers use a silanised-hydroxypropyl methylcellulose hydrogel as a foaming agent.

Science Alert has more here.

Pill videos cancer via fluorescent

Researchers from Using fluorescent light, a pill camera can detect cancers in your throat and gut.

Current video-pills illuminate your innards with a built-in small light source, “restricting clinicians to conclusions based on what they can see in the spectrum of visible light,” reports the University of Glasgow. Now researchers there have used fluorescent light “for the first time to expand the diagnostic capabilities of the video-pill.”

“Fluorescence imaging is already a powerful diagnostic tool in medicine, capable of clearly identifying in patients the rich blood supplies which support cancers and help them to grow, but which can be missed by examination under visible light,” the university adds. “However, past fluorescence imaging technologies have been expensive, bulky and consume substantial power, confining the technique to laboratories and hospital examination rooms. Using an advanced semiconductor single-pixel imaging technique, the researchers have managed to create fluorescence imaging in a small pill form for the first time.”

Here is the full article.

Reanimating paralyzed limbs

Flexible neural recording fibers can be used in implantable devices for restoring motor function in stroke and spinal cord injury patients.

The Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering says it’s received $16 million from the National Science Foundation “to support research on implantable devices that promote brain plasticity and reanimate paralyzed limbs.”

It is working on closed-loop bi-directional brain-computer interfaces — implants that can interpret brain signals and wirelessly transmit that information to another part of the nervous system to restore movement and promote plasticity for rehabilitation.

But it ain’t here yet: “The goal is to achieve proof-of-concept demonstrations in humans within the next five years,” the Center says.

Here is the full announcement

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Power from cleaner poop

A new toilet may turn your excrement in water and energy.

The Nano Membrane Toilet developed at Cranfield University “aims to treat human waste in the home without external energy or water,” the school says. “It has an innovative flush which does not require water but still blocks odor. It uses membrane technology produce clean water, and solid waste is gasified to convert it to ash and energy to power the membrane process.”

Science Alert notes that around 2.3 billion people around the world “are living without access to safe and sanitized toilet facilities.” The cheap, waterless, and energy-producing toilet is “scheduled for trials in Africa later this year.”

Here is the full announcement.

Vertical take off and landing combat drone

Semi-autonomous fixed-wing drones initially aimed at gathering and transmitting data now may also sport “weapons capable of pinpoint strikes.”

DARPA says it plans to build a full-scale demonstration system of a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS designed to use forward-deployed small ships as mobile launch and recovery sites. “Initial ground-based testing, if successful, would lead to an at-sea demonstration of takeoff, transition to and from horizontal flight, and landing—all from a test platform with a deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other small surface-combat vessel,” the agency adds.

Northrop Grumman is developing the fixed wing unmanned aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically.

For much more on the US Navy’s plans for “Distributed Lethality,” read here.

Micro-cannon fire drugs

Nano-scientists at the University of San Diego may have come up with an ideal delivery system for getting drugs to wherever in the body they’re needed most: micro-cannons that use ultrasound to shoot virus-sized nano-bullets containing therapeutic agents deep into diseased tissue, Gizmodo reports.

The micro-cannon measures 5 micrometers, and is made with coatings of graphene oxide and gold. The 1-micrometer bullets have a perfluorocarbon propellant in a gel.

Here is the full article.

Here's more information.

3D laser vision in Space

A new vision system for the International Space Station's robotic helper will combine a 3D laser, a high-definition camera, and an infrared camera.

“The harsh environment of space takes its toll on the ISS,” says the Canadian Space Agency. “In addition to the natural aging of the orbiting lab's materials, the Station is regularly hit by small meteorites and small pieces of orbital debris.” In 2020 the agency will equip Dextre — “The most sophisticated space robot ever built,” which works as a virtual handyman on the Station — with a tool to regularly inspect the Station's external surfaces “and sleuth out signs of damage as early as possible.”

The system is being designed by Neptec Design Group of Ottawa, and will be roughly the size of a microwave oven, the agency adds. It will be operated by mission controllers on the ground at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, or at the CSA's headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. The vision system could also be used to assist visiting spacecraft as they dock and are installed on the ISS, and “Imagery generated by the system will be available to the public, who will see the ISS as they have never seen it before.”