Article 10 3/28/2010

Electronic Cells for our Human Cells

In this article, researchers from the University of Illinois as well as Northwestern University engineered a single crystal silicon layer that wraps around a network of sensors that can detect your exact heart beats. They have created these patches to place on your heart while the 2,000 silicon nanomembrane transistors accurately detect every heart beat. This new technology is much more efficient, cost effective, and reliable than previous methods. Before this new market changing idea, the previous method was not accurate in the way that doctors could not track the patient’s heart beat live, it had to be recorded, then the stats and data was later read by a doctor. Where as now, with this new creation, doctors can read the data the millisecond it is sent to his computer, allowing for much more precision while testing each and every patient.
This new sensor is not yet ready for, or available for daily use in the field. More testing is required, but look for this in your local hospitals soon, but I hope you won’t need to have them used on you.
But is this a trend for the future? Will sensors soon be permanently place through out your body that monitor your diagnostics every second, of every day, for the rest of our lives? Possibly. In my opinion that may not be bad for people who are terminally ill or have serious health concerns. With the readily available technology that surrounds us, maybe we can next program this in body computer to send text messages to our phones to tell us when we need a dose of our medicine, or when it is detecting a new problem and that we should see a doctor soon. Just another way technology is continually evolving to help make human life happier and healthier!

Original Article:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/flexible-sensor-array-wraps-beating-hearts-monitor-cardiac-electrical-activity-real-time

Supporting Articles:

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-08/heart-pumping-machine-lets-researchers-experiment

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/sensitive-heart-monitor-detects-problems-earlier

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100128101859.htm

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-10/patch-uses-stem-cells-plug-holes-heart

Article 9 03/21/2010

Camera Aided Driving

General Motors has come out with a new system that aids automobile drivers in difficult driving conditions; conditions such as heavy rain and or fog. The assist is to highlight on the windshield when and where danger is approaching, such as small children, animals, or obstructions in the roadway. In another series of camera, they are able to alert the driver when other vehicles are in the commonly known areas, “blind spots.”

I think this new idea has both positives and negatives tied into it. Let me start out with the positives. First off, as the picture displays in the original article, I believe that the driving assists can possibly be of beneficial assistance in non-desirable conditions such as heavy rain, dense fog, and even at night when two cars are approaching each other, blinding themselves from the head lights. If the program really is able to accurately light up on the windshield where the while line, yellow line, and maybe even more beneficial, the centerline, I believe this program can be beneficial. Another helpful aspect to the new programming will be if they can accurately detect if another vehicle is beside the vehicle your piloting. This may be helpful I both interstate and city driving.

Unfortunately, there are usually some downfalls that ride along side the positives. First and foremost, I believe that if GM does install these features into a car, I hope that they would strongly stress that even with these new components, the driver is still the one at fault if there is an accident. The driver must understand that these features may become defective and are no excuse for the pilots poor driving. I also am afraid that these types of programs become defective overtime. In this case, I would hope GM would give the driver full ability to turn off all of these programmable assists, so that if one is faulty, they do not create an even bigger issue for the consumer.

Also, GM is considering including a “heads up” navigation system, which would display the directions on the windshield, which is supposed to help keep drivers eyes on the road. But let’s be honest, heads up or down, the driver is focused on reading or playing with his/her navigation system, not driving. So let’s not over think the obvious.

I understand the need for assisting driving on the roadways, especially those who probably shouldn’t have a driver’s license in the first place. I am just worried about the possible law suits that could potentially come out of this. These new ideas may help to prevent many accidents and fender benders, but at the end of the day, assists or not, I believe that the drivers around the country, and the world, need to stick to paying attention to driving, nothing else. Not even the electronic falsities we install into vehicles.

Original Article
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-03/gm-wants-turn-car-windshields-navigation-displays

Supporting Article
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/gm-tinkers-with-augmented-reality-system-for-cars/

http://www.gm.com/experience/technology/research/

http://www.cmu.edu/index.shtml

http://www.usc.edu/

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/01/04/1015176/turn-left-into-snowbank-dont-blindly.html

http://www.garrygolden.net/2010/02/26/future-of-auto-industry-telematics-and-connected-cars-will-transform-the-driver-into-captain/

Article 8 02/04/2010

Health Concerns from Radio Waves

From the original site, the article presents information on how Mr. Per Segerbäck is “allergic” to radio waves. Segerbäck was at his home outside of Stockholm Sweden. He claims to be living out in the country where there are few people, away from the madness of cities. One afternoon he was outside when one of his neighbors approached him. While they were standing aside each other, the neighbor’s cell phone rang, which brought Segerbäck to his knees and eventually fell unconscious. He claims to suffer from electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), which means he physically suffers from electromagnetic radiation produced by our everyday electronic communication devices. Is this possible?

I sat back in my chair and thought of it this way; during war, the most destructive bomb is a nuclear bomb. Not only because it delivers an intense blast, which levels anything in its path, but also because of what is left after the explosion, radiation. There are many different types of radiation, but the radiation that parallels radio waves is called Gamma radiation. Like radio waves, gamma radiation consists of high frequency waves traveling through space, or in our case, one’s body, which destroys human body matter. Granted, from studying the electromagnetic spectrum, gamma waves are a much higher frequency than radio waves. But think of this topic like this; radio waves can affect each person differently, much like alcohol effects each individual differently. Now think of radio waves as a 20 proof drink, and think of gamma radiation as 190 proof alcohol. Obviously consuming 190 proof is going to mess with the body in a very short amount of time, meanwhile the 20 proof takes a larger amount of time to enable a body. Now apply it to our lives right now. As you read this, there are radio waves all around you, from your wireless router serving your computer, your cell phone is constantly transmitting waves, and the radio you may be listening also operates off of radio waves. Now through in effect of the microwave every time you use it, televisions, computers, iPods, refrigerators, dishwashers, electric can openers, electric shaves, they all give off radio waves at different frequencies. None of which are any good to our bodies. Much like constantly consuming low amounts of alcohol, right away the effects are minimal, but after constant consumption, the effects are great.

As a society, we can all agree that technology has great effects on our lives, but we need to start considering the unseen harms that we do not think about. I believe that we are setting ourselves up for disaster. If we are not careful, we will all suffer from brain cancer from the effects of our electronics. We all may soon become victims of electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

Original Site:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/disconnected

Supporting Sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electromagnetic-Spectrum.png
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF3/386.html