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

Article 7 02/28/2010

80 Year Old Question, Solved!

In 1927 Llewellyn Hilleth Thomas and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi dreamt up a theory. There theory was, if they could calculate the energy of the in motion electrons within a material, then they could better understand the geometrical structures, which in return would help them calculate material strength. This was only an idea until 1964 when Pierre Hohenberg and Walter Kohn proved that Thomas-Fermi theorm was solvable.

Solving for this theory has proved to be overwhelming. Hohenberg and Kohn were able to solve the intense equation, but due to its colossal level of intricacy, it requires an extremely powerful computer to be able to compute it. Computers today are only strong enough to solve the problem for basic elements, which is a start, but engineers today need to be able to evaluate many more materials for this theory to be effective.

Problem solved! Emily Carter and her team of engineers at Princeton University have studied the theory and the equation, worked with it, then made it better. The team kept the ideology, but made the equations more efficient, allowing for today’s computers to quickly reveal the information desired. And this isn’t just for simple matter, but the new efficiency allows for the study of much more complex materials. The new system of equations is not able to calculate the impact of flaws within the material, which allows for much more realistic results that can directly relate in real world industrial applications.

This new discovery is not yet available to the general engineering public, yet. But do to it’s revolutionary concept and growing popularity, look for the program to be available at the highest levels for engineering coursed, and engineering universities and companies, not only in the United States, but crossing the entire globe! This new technology is going to help companies design stronger and safer products, for less money by being able to test new designs, find flaws, and improve without the astronomical cost of materials for stress testing.

80 years of questions answered for an eternity of benefits!

Original Site:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/reworked-formula-allows-computers-model-new-materials-100000-times-faster

Supporting Sites:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100225140904.htm

http://cmt.dur.ac.uk/sjc/thesis_ppr/node6.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kohn

Article 6 02/20/10

Not Just a Parked Car

Currently, parked cars are in terms considered inanimate objects. Parked vehicles are big hunks of metal, plastics, and cloth. The mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan is actively working to try to change that. They want the parked hunks of metals, plastics, and cloth to serve a purpose.

The University of Michigan is engineering a new energy transfer system for cars within a city. The idea is when you park your hybrid, or even your fully electric vehicle, you plug into a charging station. Depending upon your batteries charge and your discretion, you can choose to either charge your cars battery, or sell energy back to the power company.

This is a great idea but is it worth it? After reading the original article, and after doing some research, I did a little pondering of my own. In conclusion to my thoughts, I came up with the following; in order for someone to feel the need to sell back electricity, there would need to be a benefit. Benefit being, more than likely, money. Let’s say on your new fully electric vehicle, you charge your batteries of your car from an outlet in your garage. Let’s also say that you pay one dollar per unit of energy that comes out of that electric outlet. First off, if you sell your cars energy for less than one dollar per unit back to the power company, obviously your loosing money, and no one will participate in that program. Secondly, if you sell energy back at the same price per unit, you may get a small percentage of participants in this program, but without any benefit, it won’t be worth the hassle to most. But, if you can sell energy back to the power company for $1.10, this may become an interesting program to most everyone, because if you can drive your electric car to work, park at one of these stations, sell energy for more than what you paid, you may have a large portion of your travel expenses paid for just by plugging your car in! Not a bad idea, if there is a benefit to the consumer.

Mechanical engineers across the globe are working to improve the world, to enhance technology in the world that surrounds us. In the future, this new invention may litter parking ramps and lots around our city, our state, and even our country!

Original Source:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/future-electric-cars-could-earn-money-homeowners-while-sitting-still

Supporting Sources:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/future-electric-cars-could-earn-money-homeowners-while-sitting-still

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-06/wind-power

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-10/google-working-smart-charging-software-electric-cars

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100218173118.htm

Article 5 02/14/10

Study Bus

A high school in Tucson Arizona has made technology in society more available! In 2005, Empire High School became a “digital school” by supplying lap tops to students instead of text books. In an effort to increase productivity outside of the classroom, the school district added Wi-Fi access to school busses. With this new idea, students are given the opportunity to turn their bus ride into continued, productive learning time from the classroom. Back when I was in grade school, I was on the bus for just less than an hour, this opportunity could potentially have freed up my evenings for more time spent with friends and families. Sure, some students will take this opportunity to jump online to play games, or chat with friends, or even update their cyber page.
Kids in high school used to steal pens and pencils on the bus. Now they will be able to steal lap tops! But, maybe that won't be an issue because every student at the high school is given a computer, which will eliminate the need to steal a lap top for those who otherwise wouldn’t have one.
With this concept put into place, officials of the study say that with the students occupied during their ride home, there has been less conflict, and lets face it, students have always said that if they would have something to do, they probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble in the first place. This idea will solve many problems with just one stone. But is this concept just for digital school?
I believe this concept will take off even if the elementary, middle, or high school is not considered a digital school. In today’s world, we all know kids are getting more technology devices at younger ages, and probably the most popular device other than a cell phone is the ipod touch. This device is also capable of connecting to a Wi-Fi server, to also keep students occupied during their ride. Along with the ipod, now the newer and bigger version the ipad can also be a great tool to help productivity, as well as reduce conflict on the school bus. And if this works with school busses, hopefully soon a small and less expensive model will come out for our cars! This technology could dramatically impact our society in a positive way!

Original Site:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/wi-fi-enabled-school-bus-makes-all-work-and-less-play

Supporting Sites:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/education/12bus.html?hp

http://www.autonetmobile.com/about/

Article 4 02/07/10

Gene Therapy

In sports, it used to be about who could bench the most, or run the longest and fastest. Then a new era came, who could swallow the most steroids. Surprising to many, those fads are out. What is the new trend? They call it “Gene Therapy.” Gene therapy is described to be when a procedure is done to a human’s DNA that permanently alters its make up. Technology has given doctors and athletes the ability to make ones body faster and stronger.
Currently, there are procedures readily available to test athletes for steroid consumption, and testing positive can suspend an athlete indefinitely in their sport. But is there a testing procedure available to tell if ones genes and DNA have been altered? Hardly. Some scientists have clamed that if tested close to the time of taking the altering drug that it can be detected. Unfortunately, with the highly anticipated, and highly competitive Winter Olympics speedily approaching, and the new push for public awareness that is attached to the DNA altering, athletes have since ceased the consumption for such powerful, yet dangerous drugs.
Through testing on monkeys, scientists have found that although these chemicals can alter the genes and improve one’s ability to perform, it comes with a downfall. Tested monkeys have had offspring that hasn’t survived the birthing process. Although that’s a heavy chance to risk, there are benefits. First off it improves athletes. Through testing, it has improved that sight of the colorblind, and has dramatically improved muscle growth.

With the Winter Olympics right around the corner, expect to have athletes in the running for gold metals, as well as winning them that have taken the dramatically shocking, yet dangerous performing enhancing chemicals. Although we wished that the athletes would remain “clean” and drug free, for those going for the break of their lifetime, biomedical engineering has made these opportunities possible for those truly unworthy of a gold metal.
If biomedical engineering can create such a monster, I hope to see in the future a testing procedure that can ban such athletes from performing, and only allow those from a natural, health birthed child, who has worked all their life for such and opportunity, to compete.

Original Site:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/gene-therapy-marks-next-frontier-sports-doping

Supporting Sites:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml

http://www.nature.com/gt/index.html