New space race aims at creating breathable air on Mars

 

Mars One's vision of a Martian base The race to reach Mars is more like a decades-long marathon, but in the short term the latest space race involves inventing ways that might make setting up shop on the Red Planet possible. In the past few months alone, three teams have unveiled their visions of how humans might breathe on the fourth planet from the sun. NASA hopes to conduct a manned mission to the Red Planet, but probably not until the mid-2030s. Meanwhile, SpaceX and Mars One are talking about making the trip in under 10 years from now. Whenever it is, establishing any kind of presence on Mars is going to require some new innovations just to deliver basic life support for anyone looking to stay for any extended duration. Students from the University of Western Australia and Mars One astronaut candidate Josh Richards are finalists in the Mars One University competition, which would send key experiments to the surface of Mars in 2018. Mars One is a non-profit that has used a contest and media-centric approach to fund a one-way manned mission to establish a base on Mars, as soon as the mid-2020s. The team, which calls its effort the "Helena Payload Project," hopes to demonstrate its method of extracting water from Martian soil and using electrolysis to produce breathable air. The Australian team will be competing with another finalist team dubbed the Cyano Knights, who hope to show that oxygen can be produced on Mars using cyanobacteria to change a small amount of Mars' 95 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere into oxygen. "Our experiment will hopefully pave the way to ensure the survival of the elected astronauts on the Red Planet, as we attempt to produce oxygen from Martian resources," said UWA engineering student and Helena co-lead, Andre Van Vulpen. The two student concepts join MIT's Mars OXygen In situ resource utilization Experiment (MOXIE), which was selected earlier this year for inclusion on board NASA's Mars 2020 rover. MOXIE is similar to Helena's approach, using solid oxide electrolysis to peel oxygen off of carbon dioxide, splitting it into O2 and carbon monoxide. Check out Gizmag's earlier coverage of MOXIE for more on how the concept works. Naturally, the stakes are a little higher for the Mars One teams, who are looking to test technologies that could generate molecules to be inhaled by real humans in the next 10-12 years, whereas MOXIE will just be conducting experiments aboard a robot. Somewhat ironically, another team of MIT students also called the viability of the Mars One plan into question this year, including major concerns over managing the vital supply of oxygen on a Martian base. Regardless of how soon we might actually see humans breathing on the surface of Mars, the odds seem good that we will at least be creating breathable air there within the next 5 – 10 years. Sources: Mars One, University of Western Australia

Forget Hydrogen Cars, and Buy a Hybrid

 

Hybrids are a much more cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions than newly released hydrogen fuel cell cars. By Kevin Bullis on December 12, 2014 Why It Matters About a third of carbon dioxide emissions come from transportation. The Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle. If you want to help cut greenhouse gas emissions, you should probably skip the hydrogen fuel cell cars now coming to market and buy a (much cheaper) hybrid instead. After decades of research and small-scale demonstrations, hydrogen cars are finally rolling into view. These vehicles use electric motors, but their electricity comes not from a battery but from hydrogen, processed in a chemical reaction that takes place inside a fuel cell. Researchers and engineers have greatly lowered the costs of fuel cells—by as much as 95 percent—in recent years. That, along with pressure to meet emissions regulations in California, means the technology is finally coming to market. Earlier this year, Hyundai started leasing hydrogen-powered Tucson Fuel Cell SUVs in California. Toyota plans to launch a newly designed compact hydrogen car called the Mirai in Japan this month and in the U.S. next year. Meanwhile, GM, Honda, and others are developing their own hydrogen vehicles. Carmakers are keen to extol the environmental credentials of these new models. Hyundai advertises that its cars emit no carbon dioxide, while Toyota boasts that its hydrogen cars “leave nothing behind but water.” But these ads are a little misleading. The only thing that comes out of the cars’ tailpipes is, indeed, water vapor, but the hydrogen they run on is mostly made from natural gas via a process that releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Fuel cells are still greener than some conventional cars. Based on an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, producing hydrogen from natural gas for the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell vehicle emits about as much carbon dioxide as a car that gets 38 miles per gallon. That’s far better than the gasoline-powered version of the Tucson, which gets 25 miles per gallon. But you can buy a number of cars that get better than 38 miles per gallon. That’s relatively easy to do with small cars. But even the hybrid Toyota Prius v, which is slightly roomier than the Tucson, gets 42 miles per gallon. And it’s far cheaper than the Tucson Fuel Cell vehicle. The Tucson Fuel Cell leases for about $499 per month, which includes the cost of hydrogen fuel. In some areas, you can lease a Prius v for $159 per month. Emerging technologies for producing hydrogen could eventually make fuel-cell cars cleaner and cheaper. For example, hydrogen can be made using renewable sources of electricity to power an electrolyzer, which splits water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The problem is that this is still far more costly than making hydrogen from natural gas. Longer term, instead of using solar power to generate electricity, and then using that electricity to split water, it may be possible to engineer catalysts to absorb sunlight and use its energy to split water. That would make hydrogen generation simpler and cheaper. But for now, the main advantage of hydrogen cars over electric cars is that they can be recharged more quickly. Even the fastest chargers available— for the Tesla Model S—take about 20 minutes to add 130 miles of charge. You can fill a Hyundai’s hydrogen tank, which holds enough for 265 miles, in 10 minutes. Quick refills would be more convenient for long road trips. On the other hand, while there are plans to install 40 public hydrogen-fueling stations next year—mainly as a result of investment by the California government and some automakers—right now there are still only three public hydrogen stations in the entire United States.  www.technologyreview.com

Chemical-Sensing Displays and Other Surprising Uses of Glass

 

An inside look at Corning’s labs suggests what’s next for the inventor of Gorilla Glass. By Kevin Bullis on December 17, 2014 Even some of the most advanced synthetic materials can’t match the optical and physical properties of glass. A Slinky-like object made of Gorilla Glass using new laser manufacturing technology. Someday your smartphone might be able to help you in a new way when you’re traveling: by telling you whether the water is safe to drink. Although a water app isn’t close yet, researchers at Corning and elsewhere recently discovered that they could use Gorilla Glass, the toughened glass made by Corning that’s commonly used on smartphone screens, to make extremely sensitive chemical and biological sensors. It could detect, say, traces of sarin gas in the air or specific pathogens in water. The sensors are just one project I learned about during a visit to Corning’s R&D labs in upstate New York. In the last few decades, Corning’s advances in glass-making have led to technologies such as fiber optics and flat-panel displays. Now, thanks to Gorilla Glass, it’s associated with the latest smartphones. But despite the remarkable success of that product, it is keen to catch the next high-tech boom. Corning spends about 8 percent of its sales on R&D—which will amount to about $800 million this year. It’s a hedge against the very real possibility that one of its businesses could go dark—as has happened in the past. Between 2000 and 2002, Corning lost more than half of its revenue when its fiber-optics business collapsed with much of the rest of the telecom market. Its stock plummeted from $113 to just over $1. This year, it got another scare when one of its largest customers, Apple, came close to replacing Gorilla Glass in iPhones with sapphire (see “Why Apple Failed to Make Sapphire Phones”). Displays, in one way or another, account for about half of Corning’s revenue, with roughly a third of that coming from Gorilla Glass. To expand this market and withstand challenges from other materials, Corning is trying to add capabilities to Gorilla Glass, such as the sensor application. And it’s looking for new markets for Gorilla Glass beyond displays. The ability to turn your phone into a biological and chemical sensor is one of the earliest-stage projects in the lab. Researchers at Corning and Polytechnique Montreal discovered that they could make very high quality waveguides, which confine and direct light, in Gorilla Glass. The researchers were able to make these waveguides very near to the surface, which is essential for sensors. Doing so in ordinary glass would break it. Making the waveguide involves focusing a beam of intense laser light near the surface of the glass, then tracing it along the glass, which locally changes its optical properties. To make a sensor, the researchers make a waveguide that splits into two identical pathways for light. Then the paths converge, and the light from both paths meet up. One path serves as the sensing path, and the other as a reference. Even a tiny change to the light in the sensing path—such as its intensity—can be detected by observing how the light from the two paths interacts when they meet, producing distinct patterns. The researchers demonstrated a simple sensor that detects changes in temperature. Heating up the sensing path changes its shape, which changes the properties of the light passing through it. Because the waveguide is so close to the surface, part of the light actually extends out of the glass, and anything placed on the surface of the glass will interact with part of the light. This means that to make a chemical or biological sensor, you could prepare the surface of the glass so that a specific target will bind to it. For example, you might treat it with antibodies that latch onto E. coli. or other contaminants; detecting their presence would be as simple as putting a drop of water on the phone. The waveguides are microscopically thin, and therefore invisible, so they wouldn’t obscure a display. And because they’re quite small, sensors for several different biological or chemical targets could be incorporated into a smartphone. Corning researchers have also discovered that Gorilla Glass has useful acoustic properties. The way it vibrates is different than conventional glass—it damps sound waves. The simplest application is noise insulation—it blocks sound better than ordinary glass. But the same acoustic properties could also turn displays into speakers. I saw such a prototype in one of Corning’s labs. A wire in the display attaches to a small actuator that vibrates the glass to produce sound waves. Because of the way the waves propagate through the glass, they can be more precisely controlled than with ordinary glass, allowing for higher quality sound reproduction. In another lab, researchers showed off a seemingly ordinary window. Then, with a flip of a switch on a circuit board, it turned into a display—one showing an old Coke commercial—and I could only barely make out what was behind the image. When the ad was over, I could see through the display again. Corning was particularly secretive about how it managed to make this technology work. The most uncanny thing I saw was a Slinky-like glass toy. It’s made of thin Gorilla Glass cut in a spiral shape with a new laser manufacturing tool. As with a Slinky, if you hold one part and let go of the rest, it extends toward the floor. Ordinary glass would just shatter, but because it’s tougher, this glass springs back like plastic. The key to having glass this flexible is making it thin. Corning recently developed Willow Glass, which is about 100 micrometers thick, one-fourth the thickness of the Gorilla Glass normally used for displays. It can be shipped to customers in rolls, making it easier and cheaper to use in manufacturing. Potential customers are still evaluating how to use it; one likely application is as a component inside displays. But already, an even more flexible kind of glass is in development, says Corning’s chief technology officer, David Morse. It can fold around the edge of something as thin as a reporter’s notebook, and do so millions of times without breaking. It could be important in future foldable electronic devices. Founded in 1851, Corning survived in the past because of its ability to keep reinventing the possibilities of glass. At about the same time that the market for fiber optics collapsed, its business selling glass for cathode-ray-tube TVs also took a steep dive. It was saved by a process it had invented for making the high quality glass needed for the transistors that control pixels in LCD displays—the very display technology that was destroying its cathode-ray business. A few years later, the company got a call from Steve Jobs, who needed tough glass for the first iPhone. Corning just happened to have a technology sitting on the shelf—the toughened glass that came to be called Gorilla Glass. Corning hopes to be ready for the next call. source to this article : www.technologyreview.com

Feeling younger than actual age meant lower death rate for older people

 

Turns out, feeling younger than your actual age might be good for you. A research letter published online by JAMA Internal Medicine found that older people who felt three or more years younger than their chronological age had a lower death rate compared with those who felt their age or who felt more than one year older than their actual age. Self-perceived age can reflect assessments of health, physical limitation and well-being in later life, and many older people feel younger than their actual age, according background information in the report. Authors Isla Rippon, M.Sc., and Andrew Steptoe, D.Sc., of the University College London, examined the relationship between self-perceived age and mortality. The authors used data from a study on aging and included 6,489 individuals, whose average chronological age was 65.8 years but whose average self-perceived age was 56.8 years. Most of the adults (69.6 percent) felt three or more years younger than their actual age, while 25.6 percent had a self-perceived age close to their real age and 4.8 percent felt more than a year older than their chronological age. Mortality rates during an average follow-up of 99 months were 14.3 percent in adults who felt younger, 18.5 percent in those who felt about their actual age and 24.6 percent in those adults who felt older, according to the study results. The relationship between self-perceived age and cardiovascular death was strong but there was no association between self-perceived age and cancer death. "The mechanisms underlying these associations merit further investigation. Possibilities include a broader set of health behaviors than we measured (such as maintaining a healthy weight and adherence to medical advice), and greater resilience, sense of mastery and will to live among those who feel younger than their age. Self-perceived age has the potential to change, so interventions may be possible. Individuals who feel older than their actual age could be targeted with health messages promoting positive health behaviors and attitudes toward aging," the study concludes.

LG announces new 4K TV with layer of quantum dots to boost color

 

The new LG 4K TV will make use of quantum dot technology As can be expected from TV manufacturers across the board, LG has announced that it will unveil a new 4K UHD TV at CES 2015 in January. What makes this (as yet nameless) model interesting is the fact that it will make use of quantum dot technology. In short, that means brighter, more colorful viewing. Quantum dots are semiconducting crystals that range in size from 2 to 10 nanometers. The color of light emitted by a quantum dot when it is excited is determined by its size. LG says it is adding a film of quantum dots in front of the LCD backlight in its 4K TV, with the aim of improving picture color reproduction rate and overall brightness. "Quantum dots provide an amazing super high technology performance enhancement for LCDs through a unique application of quantum physics," explains Dr. Raymond M. Soneira of display calibration firm DisplayMate (not affiliated with LG) in an article on his company's website. "By incorporating them within the backlight, the LCDs then produce highly saturated primary colors that are similar to those produced by OLED displays, plus they also improve the brightness and power efficiency at the same time." LG says the technology will be used to enhance the capabilities of its In-Plane Switching (IPS) displays. The firm says that that the color reproduction rate (that is, the extent to which natural colors can be accurately reproduced on-screen) in its IPS screens will be increased by more than 30 percent compared with conventional LCD/LED TVs. LG's 4K UHD TVs will be on display at CES 2015 in Las Vegas from January 6-9. Source: LG

When you lose weight, where does the fat go?

 

Most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide, study shows. The most common misconception among doctors, dieticians and personal trainers is that the missing mass has been converted into energy or heat. "There is surprising ignorance and confusion about the metabolic process of weight loss," says Professor Andrew Brown, head of the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences. "The correct answer is that most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide. It goes into thin air," says the study's lead author, Ruben Meerman, a physicist and Australian TV science presenter. In their paper, published in the British Medical Journal today, the authors show that losing 10 kilograms of fat requires 29 kilograms of oxygen to be inhaled and that this metabolic process produces 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide and 11 kilograms of water. Mr Meerman became interested in the biochemistry of weight loss through personal experience. "I lost 15 kilograms in 2013 and simply wanted to know where those kilograms were going. After a self-directed, crash course in biochemistry, I stumbled onto this amazing result," he says. "With a worldwide obesity crisis occurring, we should all know the answer to the simple question of where the fat goes. The fact that almost nobody could answer it took me by surprise, but it was only when I showed Andrew my calculations that we both realised how poorly this topic is being taught." The authors met when Mr Meerman interviewed Professor Brown in a story about the science of weight loss for the Catalyst science program on ABC TV in March this year. "Ruben's novel approach to the biochemistry of weight loss was to trace every atom in the fat being lost and, as far as I am aware, his results are completely new to the field," says Professor Brown. "He has also exposed a completely unexpected black hole in the understanding of weight loss amongst the general public and health professionals alike." If you follow the atoms in 10 kilograms of fat as they are 'lost', 8.4 of those kilograms are exhaled as carbon dioxide through the lungs. The remaining 1.6 kilograms becomes water, which may be excreted in urine, faeces, sweat, breath, tears and other bodily fluids, the authors report. "None of this is obvious to people because the carbon dioxide gas we exhale is invisible," says Mr Meerman. More than 50 per cent of the 150 doctors, dieticians and personal trainers who were surveyed thought the fat was converted to energy or heat. "This violates the Law of Conservation of Mass. We suspect this misconception is caused by the energy in/energy out mantra surrounding weight loss," says Mr Meerman. Some respondents thought the metabolites of fat were excreted in faeces or converted to muscle. "The misconceptions we have encountered reveal surprising unfamiliarity about basic aspects of how the human body works," the authors say. One of the most frequently asked questions the authors have encountered is whether simply breathing more can cause weight loss. The answer is no. Breathing more than required by a person's metabolic rate leads to hyperventilation, which can result in dizziness, palpitations and loss of consciousness. The second most frequently asked question is whether weight loss can cause global warming. "This reveals troubling misconceptions about global warming which is caused by unlocking the ancient carbon atoms trapped underground in fossilised organisms. The carbon atoms human beings exhale are returning to the atmosphere after just a few months or years trapped in food that was made by a plant," says Mr Meerman, who also presents the science of climate change in high schools around Australia. Mr Meerman and Professor Brown recommend that these basic concepts be included in secondary school curricula and university biochemistry courses to correct widespread misconceptions about weight loss among lay people and health professionals.

Thumbs-up for mind-controlled robotic arm

 

This is an image showing one of four new hand movements from the 10D control of the robotic arm. A paralysed woman who controlled a robotic arm using just her thoughts has taken another step towards restoring her natural movements by controlling the arm with a range of complex hand movements. Thanks to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Jan Scheuermann, who has longstanding quadriplegia and has been taking part in the study for over two years, has gone from giving "high fives" to the "thumbs-up" after increasing the manoeuvrability of the robotic arm from seven dimensions (7D) to 10 dimensions (10D). The extra dimensions come from four hand movements--finger abduction, a scoop, thumb extension and a pinch--and have enabled Jan to pick up, grasp and move a range of objects much more precisely than with the previous 7D control. It is hoped that these latest results, which have been published today, 17 December, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Neural Engineering, can build on previous demonstrations and eventually allow robotic arms to restore natural arm and hand movements in people with upper limb paralysis. Jan Scheuermann, 55, from Pittsburgh, PA had been paralysed from the neck down since 2003 due to a neurodegenerative condition. After her eligibility for a research study was confirmed in 2012, Jan underwent surgery to be fitted with two quarter-inch electrode grids, each fitted with 96 tiny contact points, in the regions of Jan's brain that were responsible for right arm and hand movements. After the electrode grids in Jan's brain were connected to a computer, creating a brain-machine interface (BMI), the 96 individual contact points picked up pulses of electricity that were fired between the neurons in Jan's brain. Computer algorithms were used to decode these firing signals and identify the patterns associated with a particular arm movement, such as raising the arm or turning the wrist. By simply thinking of controlling her arm movements, Jan was then able to make the robotic arm reach out to objects, as well as move it in a number of directions and flex and rotate the wrist. It also enabled Jan to "high five" the researchers and feed herself dark chocolate. Two years on from the initial results, the researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have now shown that Jan can successfully manoeuvre the robotic arm in a further four dimensions through a number of hand movements, allowing for more detailed interaction with objects. The researchers used a virtual reality computer program to calibrate Jan's control over the robotic arm, and discovered that it is crucial to include virtual objects in this training period in order to allow reliable, real-time interaction with objects. Co-author of the study Dr Jennifer Collinger said: "10D control allowed Jan to interact with objects in different ways, just as people use their hands to pick up objects depending on their shapes and what they intend to do with them. We hope to repeat this level of control with additional participants and to make the system more robust, so that people who might benefit from it will one day be able to use brain-machine interfaces in daily life. "We also plan to study whether the incorporation of sensory feedback, such as the touch and feel of an object, can improve neuroprosthetic control." Commenting on the latest results, Jan Scheuermann said: ""This has been a fantastic, thrilling, wild ride, and I am so glad I've done this." "This study has enriched my life, given me new friends and co-workers, helped me contribute to research and taken my breath away. For the rest of my life, I will thank God every day for getting to be part of this team." A video of Jan controlling the robotic arm.

These 17 Inventions Prove That The Future Really is NOW!

 

Some of the things in this list we know about, and we’ve gotten used to them. But we never actually stop to think how amazing they really are. Other things on this list…I didn’t even know existed!    Smart Dictionary   The smartphone…what a breakthrough! Digital menu   Tesla driving display   The world’s first virtual reality store has opened in S. Korea. All the walls are actually touchscreens. You simply tap what you want, and it’ll be waiting for you at the exit.   3D printed souvenirs  Camera eye Digital library  Door lock  The cast of the future  Fridge of the future   Google fiber = super high download speeds    Iron man suits?  Moving trash can Bendable phone screen  And of course…the self driving Google car The future really IS here so please share with others   source : www.somuchviral.com