Technut News

The U.S. military’s small, but growing, arsenal of armed robots has a new addition. Bot-maker Foster-Miller has shipped the first of its new killer machines to the Defense Department’s Combatting Terrorism Technology Support Office.

The 350-pound MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) machine can carry a 40mm grenade launcher or a M240B medium machine gun. Or, if the robot’s operators want their killer ‘bot to be a little less-lethal, the thing can be equipped with a laser dazzler, a loudspeaker, or pepper spray.

After years of safety testing and modifications, three of MAARS kill-bot predecessors were sent to Iraq in 2007. But after nearly nine months in the field, safety concerns (among other reasons) have kept those machines from firing a shot in combat.

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Dean Kamen showed some video of the impressive, mind-controlled prosthetic robot arm he’s invented today at D6 in Carlsbad. Kamen has been showing the arm off since early 2007, usually via video clips like what he showed today. But today’s demonstration at D6 was impressive enough that it’s got the gadget blogs and the Twitterverse all aflutter today.

Deservedly so: Kamen’s arm, dubbed “Luke” (after Skywalker, I assume), is an incredibly sophisticated bit of engineering that’s lightyears ahead of the clamping “claws” that many amputees are forced to use today. The arm is fully articulated, giving the user the same degrees of movement as a natural arm, and is sensitive enough to pick up a piece of paper, a wineglass or even a grape without mishap.

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have illuminated a window into how abnormalities in microRNAs, a family of molecules that regulate expression of numerous genes, may contribute to the behavioral and neuronal deficits associated with schizophrenia and possibly other brain disorders.

In the May 11 issue of Nature Genetics, Maria Karayiorgou, M.D., professor of psychiatry, and Joseph A. Gogos, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and neuroscience at Columbia University Medical Center explain how they uncovered a previously unknown alteration in the production of microRNAs of a mouse modeled to have the same chromosome 22q11.2 deletions previously identified in humans with schizophrenia.

“We’ve known for some time that individuals with 22q11.2 microdeletions are at high risk of developing schizophrenia,” said Karayiorgou, who was instrumental in identifying deletions of 22q11.2 as a primary risk factor for schizophrenia in humans several years earlier. “By digging further into this chromosome, we have been able to see at the gene expression level that abnormalities in microRNAs can be linked to the behavioral and cognitive deficits associated with the disease.”

The investigators modeled mice to have the same genetic deletion as the one observed in some individuals with schizophrenia and examined what happens in the expression of over 30,000 genes in specific areas of the brain. When they discovered that the gene family of microRNAs was affected, they suspected that the Dgcr8 gene was responsible. The Dgcr8 gene is one of the 27 included in the 22q11.2 microdeletion and has a critical role in microRNA production, so this was a logical hypothesis. Indeed, when they produced a mouse deficient for the Dgcr8 gene, and tested it on a variety of cognitive, behavioral and neuroanatomical tests, they observed the same deficits often observed in people with schizophrenia.

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Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically modified (GM) human embryo.A team from Cornell University in New York produced the GM embryo to study how early cells and diseases develop. It was destroyed after five days.

The British regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has warned that such controversial experiments cause “large ethical and public interest issues”.

News of the development comes days before MPs are to debate legislation that would allow scientists to use similar techniques in this country.

The effects of changing an embryo would be permanent. Genes added to embryos or reproductive cells, such as sperm, will affect all cells in the body and will be passed on to future generations.

The technology could potentially be used to correct genes which cause diseases such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia and even cancer. In theory, any gene that has been identified could be added to embryos.

Ethicists warn that genetically modifying embryos could lead to the addition of genes for desirable traits such as height, intelligence and hair colour.

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Cells grown in the laboratory may offer a possible solution to hair loss, preliminary trials have suggested.The technique involves taking small amounts of the remaining hair cells, multiplying them, then injecting them into bald areas.

Six months after treatment, 11 out of 19 patients had grown new hair, UK researchers told an Italian conference.

However, a UK specialist said further work would be needed so that the new hair looked right.

Hair loss affects two-fifths of men over 50, and can be a long-term problem for some people following radiotherapy or burns.

Currently available methods of hair transplantation involve taking large clumps of remaining follicles under local anaesthetic and moving them to the desired area, a technique dependent on the amount of hair left, as no new hair is created.

The new method, called “follicular cell implantation”, developed by UK firm Intercytex, claims to be able to provide a limitless supply of replacement hair cells, and, if other trials show it to be safe and effective, could be available within five years.

Doctors take only the dermal papilla cells - cells found in the follicle which are responsible for hair growth.

They are harvested from areas on the back of the head, which usually still have hair growth, and then bathed in a specially-developed chemical in the laboratory, before being placed back into bald areas of the scalp.

The early results suggest that most patients appear to benefit after just a few months, although the numbers involved in the trial are relatively small.

Dr Paul Kemp, Intercytex’s Scientific Officer, said that the presence of the dermal papilla cells encouraged skin cells to start building a brand new hair follicle, or rejuvenated follicles which have stopped producing hair properly.

He said: “It will revolutionise hair care, I think. People will use this when they are starting to go bald - they’ll come and see us, we’ll take a few dermal papilla cells, grow them up in the lab, freeze most of them, and inject some.

“They can keep coming back as the balding process continues. I’m convinced it will work, it’s just a question of fine-tuning the technique.”

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They might not look like your Ford F-150 or Toyota Camry, but a new generation of nanocars and nanotrucks (along with nanotrains and even nanobackhoes) could eventually build anything from computer memory chips to entire buildings, atom by atom.

Now they don’t even have to be built; some nanomachines can build themselves, according to an upcoming study.

“Most things that people build are top-down. You cut down a tree to build a table,” said James Tour, a scientist at Rice University and co-author on the upcoming study, which will appear in the upcoming issue of the new journal Tetrahedron.

“But what if you could make the table from assembling molecules together from the bottom up?” said Tour.

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Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized “nanoworms” that can travel through the bloodstream and — like tiny anti-cancer missiles — zero in on tumors. These can circulate in the body for hours since they do not trigger the immune system.

These nanoworms, composed of magnetic iron oxide and coated with a polymer, are able to find and attach to tumors. The nanoworms are superparamagnetic and show up very well on MRIs.

Using these nanoworms, doctors could eventually be able to target and reveal the location of developing tumors that are too small to detect by conventional methods.

With the use of this nanoworms concept, researchers are developing chemical attachments that will help to reach specific targets in the body, and are adding drugs that would be released when these targets are reached.

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Three-dimensional processors took a baby step towards commercial reality today, thanks to IBM’s water-cooling research. Big Blue and the Fraunhofer Institute have successfully tested a multistack CPU prototype that’s cooled by pumping water directly through the separate layers of the processor. If you aren’t used to thinking of processors in terms of layers, you may need to check Jon Stokes’ “Dagwood Sandwich” analogy before continuing on.

3-D chip stacking uses a technology referred to as “through silicon via” (TSV) to build processors vertically, rather than just horizontally. By using both dimensions, CPU engineers can reduce wire delay, improve CPU efficiency, and significantly reduce total power consumption. We’ve previously covered both Intel and IBM’s efforts in this area; readers should consult those articles for a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.

Thermal dissipation, however, is the Achilles’ heel of any three dimensional processor. The more layers in a processor, the more difficult it is to effectively remove heat emanating from the lower levels. CPU architects can compensate for this by placing the hotter parts of a core on upper layers and by avoiding designs that stack core hotspots vertically, but the complexity of the problem increases with every additional layer. Simply leaving more space between the individual layers is not a solution, as this would quickly recreate the wire delay problems three-dimensional processors are meant to alleviate.

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IM Flash Technologies LLC, a joint venture between Intel and Micron has made world’s first sub-40nm Nand memory device.This 34nm 32Gb multi-level chip which is due this year is the smallest Nand process geometry on the market.

NAND Flash architecture is one of two flash technologies (the other being NOR) used in memory cards such as the CompactFlash cards. It is also used in USB Flash drives, MP3 players, and provides the image storage for digital cameras.

According to the statement released by Intel and Micron the chip is the only monolithic device at this density that fits into a standard 48-lead thin small-outline package, providing a cost-effective path to higher densities in existing applications.

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Imagine being trapped in your own body, aware of what’s going on around you but unable to move or even speak.Thanks to a modern technological innovation known as a neural interface — a direct link between the human brain and a computer — there may be hope for sufferers of what’s commonly known as “locked-in syndrome.”

As portrayed in the 2007 movie “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” locked-in patients are conscious, but fully paralyzed except for their eyes.

Thanks to advances in life-support technology and rising survival rates following brain-stem strokes, there may now be as many as 50,000 locked-in patients in the United States, the National Institutes of Health estimates.

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It may have seemed like just another improbable scene from a Hollywood sci-fi flick ? Tom Cruise battling against an army of robotic spiders intent on hunting him down.But the storyline from Minority Report may not be quite as far fetched as it sounds.

British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.

Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.

Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.

Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers’ hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.

BAE Systems has just signed a £19million contract to develop the robots for the US Army.

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RiSE is a small six-legged robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE’s feet have claws, micro-claws or sticky material, depending on the climbing surface. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and a fixed tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is about 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.Each of RiSE’s six legs is powered by two electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors. The sensors include an inertial measurement unit, joint position sensors for each leg, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors.

Future versions of RiSE will use dry adhesion to climb sheer vertical surfaces such as glass and metal. Boston Dynamics is developing RiSE in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark University. RiSE is funded by the DARPA Defense Sciences Office.

You can view a movie of RiSE in action at the source, or you can directly download it by clicking here.

Someday soon your car may be able tell you about an oncoming vehicle in your lane on a blind curve or even calm you down on a harried commute. But it may also tell your insurance company how often you drive over the speed limit or alert Starbucks when you drive by so that you can be offered a discount on a latte.Stanford professor Clifford Nass and his colleagues at the university’s CarLab are figuring how to make vehicles collect information on where you drive, how fast you go, your preferences and how you react when some jerk cuts you off. The technology could make you a better driver and even save you time and money - but it also could let insurers keep tabs on you and help advertisers reach right into your car.

Nass, who’s being funded in part by automakers, is not the only guy working on this. Microsoft wants to bring Google-style advertising to your dashboard.

“From the point of view of advertisers, the driver is a great captive audience,” Nass says. “You have the ability of knowing where the person is, so you can have very location-specific advertising.”

But if advertisers know where you are, your insurance company will too. And that’s where things get problematic.

“The insurance company could say, ‘Look, you’ve been parking in high-risk areas. I’m going to raise your collision insurance,’ or ‘We’ve detected that you’ve been driving at 80 miles per hour; that will affect your liability rates.’ So there are huge social issues about the car,” he says.

Still, Nass stresses there’s more to the technology than being spied on or pitched products. Your car could recommend a someplace to get a decent pizza, for example, and your insurance company would know you obey the speed limit and don’t speed up for yellow lights and so cut you a break on your premium.

“Insurance rates are a sensitive topic, but you could have a much more efficient insurance market with better data,” Nass says.

A thinking car also could make you a safer, happier driver. A large part of his research focuses on how a car’s voice can influence your emotional state. He believes that as the car of the future studies the driver’s voice, facial expressions and emotional state using a camera and even blood pressure monitors in the steering wheel, it could change its tone to match your mood. In other words, it’ll know when you’re about to blow your top because someone cut you off, and soothe your nerves with a friendly voice.

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A surgical team in Calgary on Friday extolled the virtues of using a robotic arm to perform groundbreaking surgery to remove a woman’s brain tumour.Paige Nickason, 21, was discharged from the Foothills Medical Centre after surgery Monday by Dr. Garnette Sutherland of the University of Calgary.

“Paige’s brain surgery represents a technical achievement in the use of image-guided robotic technology to remove a relatively complex brain tumour,” Sutherland told a press conference.

“This is wonderful and represents the beginning of something new in surgical care,” he said.

“I had to have the tumour removed anyway, so I was happy to help by being a part of this historical surgery,” Nickason said in a press release on Friday.

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Researcher Daan Hobbelen of TU Delft has developed a new, highly-advanced walking robot: Flame. This type of research, for which Hobbelen will receive his PhD on Friday 30 May, is important as it provides insight into how people walk. This can in turn help people with walking difficulties through improved diagnoses, training and rehabilitation equipment.

If you try to teach a robot to walk, you will discover just how complex an activity it is. Walking robots have been around since the seventies. The applied strategies can roughly be divided into two types.

The first derives from the world of industrial robots, in which everything is fixed in routines, as is the case with factory robots. This approach can, where sufficient time and money are invested, produce excellent results, but there are major restrictions with regard to cost, energy consumption and flexibility.

TU Delft is a pioneer of the other method used for constructing walking robots, based on the way humans walk. This is really very similar to falling forward in a controlled fashion. Adopting this method replaces the cautious, rigid way in which robots walk with the more fluid, energy-efficient movement used by humans.

PhD student Daan Hobbelen has demonstrated for the first time that a robot can be both energy-efficient and highly stable. His breakthrough came in inventing a suitable method for measuring the stability of the way people walk for the first time. This is remarkable, as ‘falling forward’ is traditionally viewed as an unstable movement.

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