Genetically Engineered Tadpoles glow to indicate Pollution

Genetically Engineered Glowing Tadpoles Detect Pollution

A new environmental monitoring system. Tadpoles have been genetically engineered to express a protein that lights up like a fairground in the presence of pollutants.

Researchers in France and a University of Wyoming professor have developed an innovative application of the technology by genetically engineering tadpoles to monitor heavy metal pollution in water. The system offers a way of rapidly detecting the physiological effects of environmental pollutants and is cheaper and more convenient than traditional means.

In this new approach African clawed frog tadpoles (Xenopus laevis) are modified with jellyfish genes so that they fluoresce when exposed to toxins. They light up in response to dosages that could be harmful to a human, and can indicate the presence of several different types of chemicals at the same time. Some tadpoles have been engineered to glow in the presence of metals, and others in response to plastics.

The scientists involved in this project are already looking to future applications for their tadpole technology. They believe the genetically engineered animals could be deployed to detect toxins in food. Foodstuffs could be turned into liquid and put into the aquarium.

In addition, future genetically engineered tadpoles could fluoresce different colors depending on the pollution they encounter. This requires genes that fluoresce different colors such as some coral genes that glow red.

Read more at: http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/12/28/engineered-glowing-tadpoles-detect-pollution.html

Plastic Houses

Affresol makes modular portable homes from recycled plastic

After working with Cardiff and Glamorgan universities for two years, Affresol Ltd., an innovative manufacturer of high quality, low cost, quick construction systems, has developed a new material called Thermo Poly Rock (TPR) from recycled plastics and minerals. The Building Research Establishment (BRE) and the Carbon Trust also played a vital role in developing the revolutionary construction material. Now the company is using this newly developed material in making eco-friendly homes, each of which is made up of four tons of it. Until date, the company has recycled 18 tons of waste plastic in making modular portable buildings.

Ian McPherson, Affresol managing director, says, “ Every country in the world has issues with waste and we now have an opportunity to turn waste into an enduring housing resource that is 100% recyclable.”

Making use of a patented low energy cold process, Affresol converts the plastics into concrete, waterproof, fire retardant TPR panels. These panels form the load-bearing frame of the house and can support brick, block or stone, when it’s properly insulated and plastered. The roof is tiled with recycled materials. When the inhabitants abandon their living place – estimated life of the house is 60 years – the remnants of the TPR could be recycled again. Affresol will soon be launching a range of eco-friendly modular homes made from recycled plastic waste.

Read more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8531170.stm

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ0FSX8i6S0&feature=player_embedded

A cost-effective solution to make city buses cheaper and greener

Ultracapacitors Make City Buses Cheaper, Greener

Buses with ultracapacitors stop at recharging stations, which double as bus stops, to recharge in less than a minute. A fleet of 17 buses near Shanghai has been running on ultracapacitors for the past three years, and in October 2009 that technology came to the Washington, DC, for a one-day demonstration. Chinese company Shanghai Aowei Technology Development Company, along with its US partner Sinautec Automobile Technologies, predict that this approach will provide an inexpensive and energy efficient way to power city buses in the near future.

A bus with ultracapacitors uses 40% less electricity compared to an electric bus with lithium-ion batteries, and requires just one-tenth the energy cost of a typical diesel-fuelled bus, which would save about $200,000 during the life of the vehicle. Plus, the buses are environmentally friendly: "Even if you use the dirtiest coal plant on the planet, it generates a third of the carbon dioxide of diesel when used to charge an ultracapacitor," said Dan Ye of Sinautec.

The biggest advantage of ultracapacitors is that they can fully recharge in less than a minute, unlike lithium-ion batteries which can take several hours. The downside of ultracapacitors is that they currently have a very short range, providing a distance of only a few miles, due to the fact that ultracapacitors can store only about 5% of the energy that lithium-ion batteries can hold.

Although their short range makes ultracapacitors impractical for cars, city buses have to stop frequently anyway.

The two companies hope that this is just the beginning for ultracapacitor buses. The company that makes the Shanghai buses, Foton America Bus Co, based in Tennessee, plans to deliver another 60 buses to the Chinese city in early 2010. The new buses will have ultracapacitors manufactured by Shanghai Aowei that supply 10-watt hours per kilogram, compared with the current ultracapacitors that have an energy density of six watt-hours per kilogram. Other US cities, including New York City, Chicago, and some towns in Florida, have also expressed interest in trailing the buses.

A cost-effective solution to make city buses cheaper and greener

Ultracapacitors Make City Buses Cheaper, Greener

Buses with ultracapacitors stop at recharging stations, which double as bus stops, to recharge in less than a minute. A fleet of 17 buses near Shanghai has been running on ultracapacitors for the past three years, and in October 2009 that technology came to the Washington, DC, for a one-day demonstration. Chinese company Shanghai Aowei Technology Development Company, along with its US partner Sinautec Automobile Technologies, predict that this approach will provide an inexpensive and energy efficient way to power city buses in the near future.

A bus with ultracapacitors uses 40% less electricity compared to an electric bus with lithium-ion batteries, and requires just one-tenth the energy cost of a typical diesel-fuelled bus, which would save about $200,000 during the life of the vehicle. Plus, the buses are environmentally friendly: "Even if you use the dirtiest coal plant on the planet, it generates a third of the carbon dioxide of diesel when used to charge an ultracapacitor," said Dan Ye of Sinautec.

The biggest advantage of ultracapacitors is that they can fully recharge in less than a minute, unlike lithium-ion batteries which can take several hours. The downside of ultracapacitors is that they currently have a very short range, providing a distance of only a few miles, due to the fact that ultracapacitors can store only about 5% of the energy that lithium-ion batteries can hold.

Although their short range makes ultracapacitors impractical for cars, city buses have to stop frequently anyway.

The two companies hope that this is just the beginning for ultracapacitor buses. The company that makes the Shanghai buses, Foton America Bus Co, based in Tennessee, plans to deliver another 60 buses to the Chinese city in early 2010. The new buses will have ultracapacitors manufactured by Shanghai Aowei that supply 10-watt hours per kilogram, compared with the current ultracapacitors that have an energy density of six watt-hours per kilogram. Other US cities, including New York City, Chicago, and some towns in Florida, have also expressed interest in trailing the buses.

Bio-inspired computer networks self-organise and learn

Bio-inspired computer networks self-organise and learn

European researchers have developed an innovative computing platform. The European PERPLEXUS project draws on another hot topic in research: self-organising wireless networks which can adapt to the job in hand.

This idea began with an earlier European project, POEtic, which developed a processor based on a large number of identical sub-units or cells. Depending on the current task, each cell can vary its function by changing its internal wiring; at a higher level, links between cells can also be made or broken. Until now, such flexibility has only been available from chips that are externally programmed. The ubichip, in contrast, works out the necessary wiring for itself.

Another branch of the project involved a fleet of small but sophisticated all-terrain robots fitted with ubichips. The researchers developed a new strategy in the field known as collective robotics, whose premise is that groups of robots which communicate with one another are more effective than the same robots acting individually.

In this case, the researchers looked at how foraging robots locate an important place such as a collection point for items they have picked up. Each robot displays a coloured beacon and carries a video camera which can see other robots’ beacons. Robots change the colour of their beacons to signal that they have successfully found the target, and nearby robots copy this behaviour.

The result is a gradient of beacon colours which guides other robots towards the target, rather as in an unfamiliar shopping mall where you might locate a particular store by following a trail of people carrying distinctive plastic bags. According to Pérez-Uribe, this technique is promising for situations where navigation by fixed coordinates or GPS is impossible.

Read more at: http://www.perplexus.org/

Office A4 Sheets into toilet roll in half an hour

Turn waste office paper into toilet paper

While many environmentalists hope that we can eventually have a paperless office, one company in Japan has developed a machine that shreds paper and then converts the waste into readily usable toilet paper.

The process requires you to add water, and it requires about 30 minutes to thin out the paper and generate one roll of toilet paper. This 'TP' looks far from snuggly soft, but it's undeniably a significant step towards a greener office space. The entire process is automated, so it's definitely a big convenience.

The 'White Goat' as it's called is not a contraption that you're likely to squeeze under your desk however. It's mammoth size (1.8m tall and 600kg) would definitely be a better fit in your server room if you have one.

It's set to go on sale this summer in Japan for a price of about US$100,000.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i51zo3LA70U&feature=player_embedded

Read more at: http://www.gizmag.com/waste-paper-in-toilet-paper-out/14048/

High-tech handrest for a steady hand

Keeping a steady hand is vitally important for many professions where the use of a static or purely mechanical handrest just isn’t practical or possible. A new computer-controlled, motorized hand and arm support will let doctors, artists, machinists and others precisely control scalpels, brushes and tools over a wider area than otherwise possible, and with less fatigue.

A person using the Active Handrest puts their wrist on a support that can slide horizontally in any direction. The user's wrist sits on a round wrist pad on an arm that is attached to a motorized base that can move from side to side and back and forth to re-center the hand. Under the wrist rest is a force sensor similar to a bathroom weight scale. The base also is attached to an elbow rest.

The system includes a personal computer to control the handrest. The computer detects the position or force of the user’s wrist and decides how the armrest should move. Meanwhile, with position control the device monitors the tool motion and repositions the handrest to follow the tool’s motion.

In this way the handrest allows a person to maintain a steady hand while it senses the position of a hand-grasped tool or the force exerted by the hand - or both. Then, the device's computer software moves the handrest so it constantly re-centers the user’s fingertips in the center of their dexterous workspace – that is the range over which users can move their fingers and be very precise.

For example, if a person places their arm on a desk to write, their hand is able to move the pen about 4 inches in any direction, but precise writing is practical only within a 1-inch wide "dexterous workspace," says Provancher.

Read more at: http://www.gizmag.com/high-tech-handrest/14444/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=cbaa12a540-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Micro-ear to evesdrop on bacteria

Micro-ear lets scientists eavesdrop on the micro-world

Acting as a microscope for sound, a new device called a micro-ear could make objects on the micro-scale audible. The device could enable scientists to listen to the sounds that cells and bacteria make as they move about, as well as listen to micro-scale events such as how drugs interact with microorganisms.

"We are now using the sensitivity afforded by the optical tweezer as a very sensitive microphone," said Jon Cooper from the University of Glasgow, who is heading the micro-ear project.

While optical tweezers work by suspending tiny electrically-charged beads in a single beam of laser light, the micro-ear concept consists of several of these light beams arranged in a ring in order to surround and eavesdrop on a tiny object. Sound emitted from the object causes the beads suspended in the light to vibrate, and these vibrations can be measured by a high-speed camera.

The scientists have already used the micro-ear to listen to Brownian motion - the random movement of particles in a fluid. They also plan to use the device to listen to bacterial flagella, the tail-like motors that propel bacteria through their environments. Currently, in order to study the movement of flagella, scientists have to genetically engineer bacteria to enable beads to be stuck to their flagella, and observe the beads with a camera. The micro-ear will hopefully make it possible to observe natural bacteria in a non-invasive way.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news186426510.html

G-Speak will make the mouse obsolete

G-Speak will make the mouse obsolete

The mouse may soon become obsolete, with interfaces that interpret gestures rapidly approaching a stage at which they can be released for general consumers.

A new system being developed by Oblong Industries harnesses gesture technology that uses special surfaces and displays that can track hand movements, providing the operator is wearing the special conducting gloves. The system works with images and videos, and has been dubbed the “G-Speak” spatial operating environment (SOE).

In a G-Speak environment everything on screen can be directly manipulated by gestures such as pointing, and the system simplifies the control of real-world objects such as robots or vehicles, and allows physical tools and interfaces to be used as input devices. G-speak controls applications through hand poses, pointing, and hand movements, with input from several hands simultaneously being fully supported. Hand and finger motions are tracked to an accuracy of 0.1 mm at 100 Hz.

Check out the full video (its only 3 min!): http://www.physorg.com/news186646144.html

A new technology transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice

The sound of silence: an end to noisy communications: A new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.

It has happened to almost everyone. You are sitting on a train or a bus and someone right next to you is annoyingly shouting into his or her mobile phone. But those days could soon be past with "silent sounds", a new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair on Tuesday that transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.

The device, developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), uses electromyography, monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech, without a sound uttered. "We currently use electrodes which are glued to the skin. In the future, such electrodes might for example by incorporated into cellphones," said Michael Wand, from the KIT. The technology opens up a host of applications, from helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident to telling a trusted friend your PIN number over the phone without anyone eavesdropping -- assuming no lip-readers are around.

"Native speakers can silently utter a sentence in their language, and the receivers hear the translated sentence in their language. It appears as if the native speaker produced speech in a foreign language," said Wand. The translation technology works for languages like English, French and Gernan, but for languages like Chinese, where different tones can hold many different meanings, poses a problem, he added.

The engineers have got the device working to 99 percent efficiency, so the mechanical voice at the other end of the phone gets one word in 100 wrong, explained Wand. "But we're working to overcome the remaining technical difficulties.” he said.