In biological nanostructures, like DNA networks, it has been difficult to measure this stiffness, which is essential to their properties and functions. But scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have recently developed techniques for visualizing the behavior of biological nanostructures in both space and time, allowing them to directly measure stiffness and map its variation throughout the network.

The new method is outlined in the February 4 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“This type of visualization is taking us into domains of the biological sciences that we did not explore before,” says Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics at Caltech, who coauthored the paper with Ulrich Lorenz, a postdoctoral scholar in Zewail’s lab. “We are providing the methodology to find out—directly—the stiffness of a biological network that has nanoscale properties.”

A DNA structure as seen through the 4D electron microscope invented at Caltech – Credit: Zewail & Lorenz/Caltech

Knowing the mechanical properties of DNA structures is crucial to building sturdy biological networks, among other applications. According to Zewail, this type of visualization of biomechanics in space and time should be applicable to the study of other biological nanomaterials, including the abnormal protein assemblies that underlie diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Zewail and Lorenz were able to see, for the first time, the motion of DNA nanostructures in both space and time using the four-dimensional (4D) electron microscope developed at Caltech’s Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology. The center is directed by Zewail, who created it in 2005 to advance understanding of the fundamental physics of chemical and biological behavior.

“In nature, the behavior of matter is determined by its structure—the arrangements of its atoms in the three dimensions of space—and by how the structure changes with time, the fourth dimension,” explains Zewail. “If you watch a horse gallop in slow motion, you can follow the time of the gallops, and you can see in detail what, for example, each leg is doing over time. When we get to the nanometer scale, that is a different story—we need to improve the spatial resolution to a billion times that of the horse in order to visualize what is happening.”

Zewail was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of femtochemistry, which uses ultrashort laser flashes to observe fundamental chemical reactions occurring at the timescale of the femtosecond (one millionth of a billionth of a second). Although femtochemistry can capture atoms and molecules in motion, giving the time dimension, it cannot concurrently show the dimensions of space, and thus the structure of the material. This is because it utilizes laser light with wavelengths that far exceed the dimension of a nanostructure, making it impossible to resolve and image nanoscale details in tiny physical structures such as DNA .

To overcome this major hurdle, the 4D electron microscope employs a stream of individual electrons that scatter off objects to produce an image. The electrons are accelerated to wavelengths of picometers, or trillionths of a meter, providing the capability for visualizing the structure in space with a resolution a thousand times higher than that of a nanostructure, and with a time resolution of femtoseconds or longer.

The experiments reported in PNAS began with a structure created by stretching DNA over a hole embedded in a thin carbon film. Using the electrons in the microscope, several DNA filaments were cut away from the carbon film so that a three-dimensional, free-standing structure was achieved under the 4D microscope.

Next, the scientists employed laser heat to excite oscillations in the DNA structure, which were imaged using the electron pulses as a function of time—the fourth dimension. By observing the frequency and amplitude of these oscillations, a direct measure of stiffness was made.

“It was surprising that we could do this with a complex network,” says Zewail. “And yet by cutting and probing, we could go into a selective area of the network and find out about its behavior and properties.”

Using 4D electron microscopy, Zewail’s group has begun to visualize protein assemblies called amyloids, which are believed to play a role in many neurodegenerative diseases, and they are continuing their investigation of the biomechanical properties of these networks. He says that this technique has the potential for broad applications not only to biological assemblies, but also in the materials science of nanostructures.

Funding for the research outlined in the PNAS paper, “Biomechanics of DNA structures visualized by 4D electron microscopy,” was provided by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at Caltech is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Author: Katie Neith | Source: California Institute of Technology [February 11, 2013]

Users control the set by staring at the top or bottom of the screen to activate a user-interface.

The user can then change the volume, switch channel or carry out other functions by looking at icons shown on the display.

The technology is still at prototype stage and prone to glitches, but it has the potential to offer an alternative to the traditional remote control.

Existing smart TV’s also offer hand gesture and voice controls as alternatives, but again the functions can be hit-and-miss in real-world use.
Table-top sensor

The key part of Tobii’s technology is not built into the television set itself at this stage. Instead an attached sensor sits in-between the viewer and screen monitoring the person’s eye movements.

By tracking the shift in gaze and blinks given it allows the user to point, zoom, scroll, select and navigate menus and features.

The device has to be calibrated to each user before use and becomes less accurate if they are wearing glasses.

But its developers say they think it has the potential to offer a more natural way to control TVs and other devices, and are hoping to partner with more manufacturers.

“The free Tobii Gaze Interaction software development kit is available to companies interested in exploring the possibilities of gaze interaction and using this revolutionary technology to develop gaze applications that will take part in the future of computing and consumer electronics,” said Tobii’s chief executive Henrik Eskilsson.
Eye-controlled cars

Tobii originally developed its products to help disabled people control computers.

Its sensors and software currently cost thousands of pounds to purchase, which have prevented their widespread adoption.

But over recent months the firm has been showing off concept designs for gaze-controlled car information systems, surgery room image display screens, and video games.

PC-maker Lenovo has also created a concept laptop with the technology built-in which scrolls through text documents, keeping pace with the user as they look through a document.

Tobii says it hopes to have its first consumer-focused product on the market by 2013.

For its part, Haier is developing a reputation for showing off futuristic concept designs.

The Chinese company unveiled a “completely wireless” TV at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show in January.

It used a separate power transmitting coil to send it energy using magnetic resonance technology, and the high-speed WHDI (wireless home digital interface) format to beam it video and sound

Thousands of people are trying to evacuate, but like the banks of the Thames, the mobile networks are overwhelmed.

It is time to send in the drones.

Professor Nick Jennings prefers to call them unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). He is one of the chief scientific advisers to the government, and drew up this fictional scenario as part of his multi-million pound Orchid research project.

Prof Jennings believes the key to mastering the pandemonium that follows large-scale disasters lies in intelligent, co-ordinated action between man and machine.

The system he is testing will be ready next year, and will allow teams of drones to help emergency services from the air with minimal human supervision. It is yet another non-military spin-off in the burgeoning field of drone technology.

After studying real disasters like the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Prof Jennings realised that the key to successful disaster response – amidst all the chaos – is the intelligent allocation of tasks and resources, and humans on the ground are not always best placed to make those life and death decisions.

“Humans can do things like fill in maps based on what they see, starting from a blank map, which is exactly what happened in Haiti. What buildings are damaged, where facilities are, that kind of basic crowd-sourcing already happens,” says Prof Jennings.

“But we want to augment that with autonomous flying vehicles that are able to get a view of the bigger picture on the ground, to improve situational awareness. They can figure out where the disaster responders should go, where the resources should go.”

In his proposed system, UAVs will be launched immediately to monitor the unfolding disaster from the air.

They will provide real-time footage to disaster responders on the ground, who can request specific information from the drones using hand-held electronic devices.

They might ask, for example, ‘how stable is this building’s roof?’ before entering to look for victims.

“We could also have robots on the ground, that would go into areas too dangerous for humans,” says Prof Jennings.

His team is looking at ways that information from members of the public sent by smartphones could be integrated into this system.

Research into non-military applications for drone technology is a booming area, with companies vying to find commercial applications.

From their origins as expensive pieces of military hardware, the price of drones themselves has fallen dramatically, to the point where they are even within the budget of the hobbyist.

Private individuals are adapting these drones, which are capable of programmable flight paths, for their own uses, including everything from wildlife surveillance to farm management.

BAE Systems recently unveiled its research into technology that could allow pilot-less planes to fly in UK airspace, potentially for operations like border control and search and rescue.

But what makes Prof Jennings’s research stand out is that he is interested in allowing drones to fly as squadrons, improvising their own flight paths as a unit in response to new information, without human intervention.

The teams of drones that will patrol a disaster have already been tested extensively in Sydney, Australia.

The drones he uses are in fact Mikrocopter Hexacopters, which have six rotary blades and are just under a metre in width.

“The underlying research is based on aspects of artificial intelligence, getting software to do clever things, and underpinning that is a form of mathematics”, explains Prof Jennings.

During tests, the drones are flown as a unit and allocated multiple tasks from the ground. What is in fact being tested on site is the mathematical algorithms that control the drones’ joint movement.

If successful, these algorithms will direct the drones so that they are in the optimal position to collect information requests from humans and distribute them back to the ground.

‘Decentralised coordination algorithms’ are intelligent enough to deal with out of sync data requests, lost data, and can even predict where future requests will come from. They allow the drones to communicate between each other and work effectively as a team.

The algorithms themselves have already been tested on computer software, like RoboCup Rescue Simulator, that simulates human catastrophes with mock ups of people fleeing towns and cities.

“The next stage,” says Prof Jennings, “is to run some mock disasters in open spaces, and have individual human actors in there, interacting with the robots, doing it for real.”

This is scheduled to take place in October.

A fully operational system is said to be 18 months away.

Several police forces are already interested, Pof Jennings says, and he hopes both governments and NGOs will take up the technology.

So if in the future you are unfortunate enough to find yourself caught up in a terrorist attack or natural disaster and see a robot hovering above your head, take heart – help may be closer than you think.

Source: BBC News

Under the new law, mobile internet providers like KPN won’t be able to charge for access to particular services like Skype or throttle traffic through them — both techniques that the company was intent on using to manage its mobile traffic.

Some exceptional reasons, such as network congestion and security, are allowed for slowing down users’ connections, but the general thrust of the law is that operators ought to be blind to the traffic they carry and treat all of it equally. Dutch lobbying group Bits of Freedom also notes that the net neutrality law includes anti-wiretapping provisions, making it unlawful to use deep packet inspection on users’ internet communications without their express consent or a legal warrant. All in all, it’s a good day for privacy and internet freedom in the Netherlands, now how about we spread the good cheer throughout the whole European Union? Source>The Verge

These proposed exobots could efficiently explore our local galactic neighborhood and help locate any extraterrestrials that may be sending radio signals in our direction.

After 50 years of searching the heavens with radio telescopes and coming up empty, the SETI Institute’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence may need an extra robotic boost.

In the current issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, John D. Mathews, a Penn State University professor of electrical engineering, offers his vision of a future populated by helpful and cost-effective exobots.

“It’s extremely expensive to put humans in space,” Mathews told The Huffington Post. “It’s relatively cheap to put robotic vehicles in space. It’s the path I started exploring and realized along the way that maybe we’ve elevated ET to this sort of god-like creature with amazing technology, and maybe that’s not true — maybe that’s why we haven’t found ET.”

Mathews suggests that extraterrestrials may be traveling the same path to the stars as humans are, sending robots instead of living beings.

“If we explore our solar system, we’ll use robots first,” he said. “Humans may follow, and we can’t launch everything from Earth because of the cost. We need to have robots reproduce themselves. Furthermore, they would communicate using very narrow-beam laser systems. If ET is doing that, it makes them very difficult for us to see, except by accident.”

NASA took its first step in using humanoid robots in space last year when Robonaut 2 hitched a ride to the International Space Station on board one of the final space shuttle missions.

R2 was created to help with specific tasks, and with many more robots planned for future space endeavors (like the two mechanical men at right), it’s a natural leap to have robots help make that first contact with an alien civilization.

But there are still some who oppose reaching out to ETs.

In 2010, famed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said he believed aliens are out there, but cautioned against trying to make contact with them, fearing it might turn out very badly for Earth.

“Hawking is concerned about the possibility of betraying our presence, that, if they were to come here, it might not be good for us,” said Seth Shostak, senior SETI astronomer. “It’s hard for me to believe that they actually have (hostile) intentions on us,” he added.

Shostak told AOL News that the search for aliens is like listening to a radio station: “When you tune in your favorite DJ, he doesn’t know you’ve tuned him in, so there’s no danger in SETI.”

Mathews agrees that there’s probably nothing to worry about if aliens pick up on any signals humans send into deep space.

“Unless there’s a way around the limitation of the speed of light, it’s very difficult for me to see why anyone — why ETs — would want to come to Earth in robotic form to do any harm. The barrier is immense, but if there’s a way around the speed of light, all bets are off.”

Check out this SETI video:
[youtube width="500" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ_oNK8jOkA[/youtube]

The Penn State engineering professor would like to see humans go back to the moon to establish a robotic factory. From there, he envisions sending exobots to asteroids to monitor the many large space rocks that pose potential threats as their orbits sometimes bring them close to Earth.

These exobots could aid the search for alien signals and might eventually intercept one from an extraterrestrial robot coming toward Earth. “As we go out into the solar system, we might actually find that ET is already here in the form of robots,” Mathews said.

“We need to make decisions on what we will do when approached or when we discover that we’re not alone, because I firmly believe we are not alone.”

The survey dwarfs the previous largest map, shown at centre alongside the moon for comparison of size in the sky

The team from the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope inferred the dark matter’s existence by the way it bends light.

The images were presented at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, US.

The four images were taken at four different seasons of the year, each capturing a swath of the sky about as large as a palm held at arm’s length.

They are a big step forward in understanding both dark matter itself, and the means by which dark matter influences the way normal matter clumps into the galaxies we see in the night skies.

Together, they represent the images of more than 10 million galaxies, whose light gives the only hints of the large-scale structure of dark matter.

Light coming toward us from a distant galaxy is bent by the gravity of a lump of matter in the middle,” explained Catherine Heymans of the University of Edinburgh.

“Einstein’s theory of general relativity tells us that mass bends space and time, so when light comes toward us through the Universe, if it passes some dark matter, its light gets bent and the image we see gets bent and distorted,” Dr Heymans told the meeting.

“Dark matter is leaving its signature on the images of very distant galaxies.”

The survey is some 100 times larger than the previous largest map of the web of dark matter, gathered by the Hubble telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Survey, or Cosmos.

* Gravity acting across vast distances does not seem to explain what astronomers see * Galaxies, for example, should fly apart; some other mass must be there holding them together * Astrophysicists have thus postulated "dark matter" - invisible to us but clearly acting on galactic scales * At the greatest distances, the Universe's expansion is accelerating * Thus we have also "dark energy" which acts to drive the expansion, in opposition to gravity * The current theory holds that 73% of the Universe is dark energy, 23% is dark matter, and just 4% the kind of matter we know well

Thankfully for theoretical astrophysicists, these images line up neatly with theory.

“Our theories of dark matter say that it should form a giant intricate cosmic web and that’s exactly what we see in this data, a cosmic web that’s housing the galaxies that we can see,” Dr Heymans told BBC News.

Astronomy of scale

Dark matter at these huge, cosmological scales is only one part of the story, however, and Sukanya Chakrabarti of Florida Atlantic University presented work showing how the “dark matter halo” that surrounds individual galaxies can be characterised.
Continue reading the main story

It’s very widely believed that our final understanding of the ‘dark universe’ is going to have to invoke some new physics, something that will forever change our view”

Catherine Heymans University of Edinburgh

Building on work first presented at last year’s meeting, Dr Chakrabarti showed how the ripples in the gas trailing behind spiral galaxies are giving an ever-better view of how dark matter is distributed around galaxies, and how it may influence how they form.

Rachel Mandelbaum of Princeton University said that the findings were significant, tackling the mystery on two fronts.

“Both of these results represent two important ways of studying dark matter but in very different regimes,” she told the meeting.

“They’re important in themselves, but they’re also important as a proof-of-concept for the future, allowing us to see how powerful these methods will be with other data sets to do additional work.”

And a great deal of work is still needed. Dr Heymans conceded that we still need to find out the nature of the dark matter particle, as well as discover more about the even more mysterious dark energy, which serves to drive the Universe’s expansion even as dark matter works to draw things together.

“I’ll be very honest with you, we don’t know what the dark matter particle is, we don’t know what this dark energy is coming from,” she said.

“It’s very widely believed that our final understanding of the ‘dark universe’ is going to have to invoke some new physics, something that will forever change our view of the Universe.

“What the team is presenting today are the first steps to reaching this goal.”

Author:Jason Palmer | Source bbc[January 14, 2012]

Who hasn’t dreamt of floating on a cloud? Whether we are looking up at the sky or gazing out of an airplane window, those giant beds of fluff are irresistible.

New York designer Tiago Barros is on the same wavelength and created an incredible, cloud-like balloon that takes travelers for a floating ride around the country. While the project, called Passing Cloud, may be making all our dreams come true, it is also a treat for the environment as it may turn out to be one of the greenest forms of transportation yet.

Passing Cloud is, in fact, not a cloud at all. It is a series of heavy duty balloons held together in the shape of a cloud, reminiscent of the old Zeppelins. The balloons are surrounded by a stainless steel structure covered in tensile nylon fabric. The fabric is incredibly strong and flexible, moving with the wind and capturing the biggest gusts to power movement and protect passengers from blowing away.

Those who are looking to ride the Passing Cloud better not have a schedule in mind. The idea of this mode of transportation is focused on the journey and experience of floating along the sky like a cloud. Passengers board the structure by ladder and simply sit upon the surface for the entirety of the ride. There is no destination, no schedule, no speed to adhere by. The wind determines both where the cloud goes and exactly how fast.

One thing that is for certain, is that the Passing Cloud is incredibly easy on the environment. It emits no exhaust, produces no waste, and uses very little energy to function. By simply floating through the air, the vehicle becomes a part of nature and its courses.

This design is certainly an eye catcher, but it was even more surprising to its initial viewers. Tiago Barros submitted the Passing Cloud plan to the Van Alen Institute and the Department of Cultural Affairs of New York for their international “Life at the Speed of Rail” competition. Expecting to see only designs of high speed rail networks, this floating oasis was a jaw dropper. Though the design did not win the competition, it must have at least been a breath of fresh air.

Author: Molly Cotter| Source: inhabitat [January 12, 2012]

Architects say this new technology paves the way for new methods of engineering buildings of the future.

[youtube width="500" height="344"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvN9Ri1GmuY[/youtube]

“It was important to me that the odours and chemicals came from within the robots and that they were an integrated means for them to communicate with the humans who would surround them. Each robot that I have augmented with a ‘sweat gland’ emits a particular chemical that has a specific effect on humans and the chemical has been chosen to further enable the robot’s primary function.

In the case of the bomb disposal robot the ‘sweat gland’ releases the smell of human fear. It has been proven that humans can identify this specific smell and it tends to enhance cognitive performance in. I propose that this robot would enable surrounding humans to work more effectively and to differentiate dangerous situations from false alarms.

In the case of the picker robot. It releases a chemical called androstadienone, which is found in male sweat. This has be shown in research to effect mood in females under certain circumstances. I have speculated that this robot when used on a production line could enhance the performance of female employees in it’s vicinity.”

Author: Cory Doctorow | Source: Boing Boing [Jun 28th, 2011]

Part of the Robotic Lander Development Project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, the prototype is part of an attempt to create landers not only capable of performing science and exploration research, but fit to cope with landing on airless bodies, such as the Moon and near-Earth asteroids, without the need for aero-braking and parachutes.

In this flight, the robotic lander flew up to 2.13 meters for 27 seconds, before landing safely. This proves it could control its position, orientation and hover independently. Despite these successes, however, this is just the start — more flight tests are planned for a lander to reach heights of up to 30 meters for around a minute.

Video and image: NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center

Source: Wired.co.uk [Jun 23rd, 2011]