::Full Body Scanner Vans.

It's not just airport security that can see you naked with their full-body scanner, AS&E's Z Backscatter Vans do the same thing. Only difference is that, well, vans are mobile vehicles that can hit the streets and target anyone.

How do these vans work? Forbes says:

The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control.

The "primary purpose" of the ZBV's is "to image vehicles and their contents". They promise that "the system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, sex or age of the person." Which sounds safe BUT AS&E admit that the scanners in ZBV's will penetrate clothing aka the scanners go deep enough to see your ittie bitties.

Perhaps the scariest thing is that we don't know who AS&E sell these Z Backscatter Vans to, they only cryptically say that they have customers on "all continents except Antarctica". Call me prude but if someone is looking at me naked, I want to at least know their name. 

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Forbes.

::Dry Water Absorbs Greenhouse Gases.

Apparently, something called dry water has been kicking around since 1968, although it wasn't until recently that scientists at the University of Hull and, later, the University of Liverpool, have begun to take it seriously. It's made by encasing a water droplet in sand that's been modified to be hydrophobic -- that is, it won't absorb water, giving this "water" the consistency of powdered sugar. There seem to be a gazillion potential uses for the stuff, all of which our friends who are chemical engineers will undoubtedly find fascinating, including: soaking up carbon dioxide (it's three times more effective at absorbing the greenhouse gas than "wet" water), storing methane, and as a catalyst to speed up production of succinic acid, which is used to make a wide array of drugs, food ingredients, and consumer products.


Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Science Daily.

::New Record for Ferroelectric Storage.

Ferroelectric isn't just a ridiculously fun word to say, it might just also be the future of computing. While that possibility is still a ways off, researchers have been making considerable progress in recent years, and a team from Japan's Tohoku University has now set a new record for ferroelectric data storage. That was accomplished with the aid of a scanning nonlinear dielectric microscope, which allowed the researchers to hit a data density of 4 trillion bits per square inch. As you might expect, the exact process is a bit complicated -- involving a pulse generator that's used to alter the electrical state of tiny dots on the ferroelectric medium -- but the researchers say that the technology is a leading candidate to replace magnetic hard drives and flash memory, or "at least in applications for which extremely high data density and small physical volume is required." Unfortunately, they aren't going so far as to speculate when that might happen.


Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Gizmag.

::NEC Face Rec Tech.

NEC's newest facial recognition tech is able to track changes of substantial age and weight to match faces to their younger, slimmer selves. A recent Homeland Security test within a 1.6 million person criminal database saw 92% accuracy.

NEC's error percentage was only 0.3%, compared to the next best system in the report, which came in with 2.5%. If that doesn't sound impressive, consider that NEC was able to pair one of its employees—pictured above—with an image of himself 23 years ago. The software, geared towards security and immigration control, works by focusing on certain features (such as eyes and mouth) while ignoring others, such as the eyebrows. 

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Crunchgear.

::AIST's i3Space tactile 3D interface.

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST, to friends) is responsible for a good many innovations that the denizens of the year 2030 take for granted, and the new i³Space certainly won't tarnish the institute's record. Built on the foundation of AIST's own GyroCubeSensuous for tactile feedback, the i³Space tracks the motion of the operator's two index fingers in 3D space, and sends back "illusionary tactile and kinesthetic sense" through the controllers. Details are still a little thin, but AIST plans to show the full rig off at CEDEC next week, with eyes on reducing the size of the system of courting gaming, design, and medical applications in the near future. Hopefully they throw in this Earth-prodding simulator for free, we always wanted to have a good go at Greenland.

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Tech-On.

::Stove Top Concept.

"The William" stove-top concept isn't bossy like most stove-tops. It doesn't stipulate what size your pots and pans should be, or where and how many you can use. This is my dream stove. Check out the video and be amazed.




Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Private Info.

::Oil Eating Bacteria.

You know when you drop some food on the kitchen floor and eventually the cockroaches eat it all up and there's nothing left? The same thing is happening in the crisis-hit Gulf of Mexico, with bacteria chomping up the hydrocarbons.

The oil-eating bacteria, many of the Alcanivorax variety, are currently gorging themselves on the hydrocarbons accidentally pumped into the ocean, with a group of scientists believing they're detected twice as many of the oil-consuming lifeforms living within the plume of pollution as outside it in the neighbouring sea.

In total, 16 groups of hydrocarbon-digesting bacteria were found in the crude cloud, selflessly gorging themselves at BP's all-you-can-eat buffet for the good of mankind. 

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Private News.

::Biosynthetic Corneas.

"This study is important because it is the first to show that an artificially fabricated cornea can integrate with the human eye and stimulate regeneration," said senior author Dr. May Griffith of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the University of Ottawa and Linköping University. "With further research, this approach could help restore sight to millions of people who are waiting for a donated human cornea for transplantation."

The cornea is a thin transparent layer of collagen and cells that acts as a window into the eyeball. It must be completely transparent to allow the light to enter and it also helps with focus. Globally, diseases that lead to clouding of the cornea represent the most common cause of blindness. More than a decade ago, Dr. Griffith and her colleagues began developing biosynthetic corneas in Ottawa, Canada, using collagen produced in the laboratory and moulded into the shape of a cornea. After extensive laboratory testing, Dr. Griffith began collaborating with Dr. Per Fagerholm, an eye surgeon at Linköping University in Sweden, to provide the first-in-human experience with biosynthetic cornea implantation.

Together, they initiated a clinical trial in 10 Swedish patients with advanced keratoconus or central corneal scarring. Each patient underwent surgery on one eye to remove damaged corneal tissue and replace it with the biosynthetic cornea, made from synthetically cross-linked recombinant human collagen. Over two years of follow-up, the researchers observed that cells and nerves from the patients' own corneas had grown into the implant, resulting in a "regenerated" cornea that resembled normal, healthy tissue. Patients did not experience any rejection reaction or require long-term immune suppression, which are serious side effects associated with the use of human donor tissue. The biosynthetic corneas also became sensitive to touch and began producing normal tears to keep the eye oxygenated. Vision improved in six of the ten patients, and after contact lens fitting, vision was comparable to conventional corneal transplantation with human donor tissue.

"We are very encouraged by these results and by the great potential of biosynthetic corneas," said Dr. Fagerholm. "Further biomaterial enhancements and modifications to the surgical technique are ongoing, and new studies are being planned that will extend the use of the biosynthetic cornea to a wider range of sight-threatening conditions requiring transplantation."

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

::When Worlds and Black Holes Collide.

Tight binary solar systems are inhabited in science fiction -- remember the Star Wars world of Tatooine -- but humanity might find such planets inhospitable over the long term, and not just because of the heat. Using NASA's Spitzer telescope, scientists discovered clouds of dust around three such binary systems far too recent to come from the stars themselves, and theorize that as the stars attract one another over time and get closer and closer together, their respective orbiting planets may get closer as well, and crash into one another catastrophically. 

Meanwhile, when supermassive black holes dance in pairs, they can merge as one, and astrophysicists have recently simulated how such a joining might appear on our telescopes. According to a team of US and Canadian researchers, the pair may emit strong jets of electromagnetic radiation before they merge, which twist around one another and throw off gravitational waves that can help pinpoint the source. 


Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, ARSTechnica.

::Open Source Robot and OS, the Start of a New Era.

While the Willow Garage-initiated ROS is designed to consolidate and accelerate robotics innovation for the long term, it's still a long ways from powering your robotic butler / life coach / best friend, so it's exciting to see it put to use in the here and now. The folks at Thecorpora, responsible for the Qbo open source robot project, have been busy converting Qbo's original Java API into ROS, and just announced they're at 99.9 percent completion of that task. That means the Qbo gets instant access to some of the fun development going on in ROS, like stacking all its cameras and ultrasonic sensors into a system for machine vision, or controlling the bot with a Wiimote or a PS3 controller. (There's a video after the break of the Wiimote in action). Don't think Qbo will be powerful enough for you? Willow Garage just announced that it's about to put its own ROS-powered PR2 bot on sale soon, after a few months of its (highly successful) PR2 Beta Program. 






Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, ROS.

::World's Largest Amateur Rocket.

Next Monday, a small group of crazy Danish geniuses plan to launch their own homebuilt rocket into space, after towing it to the launch site via their homebuilt submarine.

The non-profit firm known as Copenhagen Suborbital left port with the Heat1X-TychoBrae rocket on Friday, towing the rocket and its launching pad to a spot in the Baltic Sea. If everything goes as planned, the rocket will rise to about 93 miles above the earth — about halfway to the International Space Station — where a capsule with a test dummy will float back to water.

The team, founded by Peter Madsen and Kristian von Bengtson, started testing their rocket designs and engines in February. Their goal is to eventually build a large enough rocket to support a manned flight; even with a test dummy, the Heat1X will still be Denmark's largest rocket launch ever. (Madsen oversaw the construction of the firm's submarine — the same one that towed the rocket and pad to the launch site.)

Here's a video of the static fire test of the rocket engine:

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain and Private Info.

::Amygdala, The Biological Emotion Engine.

The existence of the amygdala was first formally recognized in the early 19th century. The name, derived from the Greek, was meant to denote the almond-like shape of this region in the medial temporal lobe. Much debate has since ensued, and continues today, about how the amygdala should be subdivided. Also controversial is how the subdivisions relate to other major regions of the brain.

One long-standing idea is that the amygdala consists of an evolutionarily primitive division associated with the olfactory system (cortical, medial and central nuclei) and an evolutionarily newer division associated with the neocortex (lateral, basal, and accessory basal nuclei). The areas of the older division are sometimes grouped as the cortico-medial region (cortical and medial nuclei) and sometimes as the centro-medial region (the central and medial nuclei). In contrast, the newer structures related to the neocortex are often referred to as the basolateral region. The almond shaped structure that originally defined the amygdala included the basolateral region rather than the whole structure now considered to be the amygdala.

In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to reclassify the amygdala and its relation to other areas. For example, Heimer and colleagues have argued for the concept of an extended amygdala. In this view, the central and medial amygdala form continuous structures with the lateral and medial divisions of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. A more radical notion comes from Swanson and Petrovich, who propose that idea that “the amygdala,” whether extended or not, does not exist as a structural unit. Instead, they argue that the amygdala consist of regions that belong to other regions or systems of the brain and that the designation “the amygdala” is not necessary. For example, in this scheme, the lateral and basal amygdala are viewed as nuclear extensions of the neocortex (rather than amygdala regions related to the neocortex), the central and medial amygdala are said to be ventral extensions of the striatum, and the cortical nucleus is associated with the olfactory system. While this scheme has some merit, the present review focuses on the organization and function of nuclei and subnuclei that, while traditionally said to be part of the amygdala, nevertheless perform their functions regardless of whether the amygdala itself exists, or whether it is extended.

The Function 

Although fear is the emotion best understood in terms of brain mechanisms, the amygdala has also been implicated in a variety of other emotional functions. A relatively large body of research has focused on the role of the amygdala in processing of rewards and the use of rewards to motivate and reinforce behavior. As with aversive conditioning, the lateral, basal, and central amygdala have been implicated in different aspects of reward learning and motivation, though the involvement of these nuclei differs somewhat from their role in fear. The amygdala has also been implicated in emotional states associated with aggressive, maternal, sexual, and ingestive (eating and drinking) behaviors. Less is known about the detailed circuitry involved in these emotional states than is known about fear.

Because the amygdala learns and stores information about emotional events, it is said to participate in emotional memory. Emotional memory is viewed as an implicit or unconscious form of memory and contrasts with explicit or declarative memory mediated by the hippocampus.

Basically its an amazing part of the brain, any damage to this can result in Cotards Syndrome and Capgras delusion as discovered by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran ( UCSD) and as mentioned in his papers.

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain(LOL), Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran( UCSD).

::The Science of Love.

When do you know if you fancy someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals, and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive? We call it love. It feels like love. But the most exhilarating of all human emotions is probably nature’s beautiful way of keeping the human species alive and reproducing. With an irresistible cocktail of chemicals, our brain entices us to fall in love. We believe we’re choosing a partner. But we may merely be the happy victims of nature’s lovely plan. It’s not what you say... Psychologists have shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you fancy someone. Research has shown this has little to do with what is said, rather 55% is through body language 38% is the tone and speed of their voice Only 7% is through what they say

The 3 stages of love Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different hormones and chemicals. Stage 1: Lust This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen – in both men and women. Stage 2: Attraction This is the amazing time when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Adrenaline The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry. Dopamine Helen Fisher asked newly ‘love struck’ couples to have their brains examined and discovered they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine! Fisher suggests “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship” . Serotonin And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts. Does love change the way you think? A landmark experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love (the attraction phase) really changes the way you think. Dr Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at the University of Pisa advertised for twenty couples who'd been madly in love for less than six months. She wanted to see if the brain mechanisms that cause you to constantly think about your lover, were related to the brain mechanisms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By analysing blood samples from the lovers, Dr Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients. Love needs to be blind Newly smitten lovers often idealise their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws says Ellen Berscheid, a leading researcher on the psychology of love. New couples also exalt the relationship itself. “It's very common to think they have a relationship that's closer and more special than anyone else's”. Psychologists think we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to enter the next stage of love – attachment. Stage 3: Attachment Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin - The cuddle hormone Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm.  It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes.  Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond between mum and baby and is released during childbirth. It is also responsible for a mum’s breast automatically releasing milk at the mere sight or sound of her young baby. Diane Witt, assistant professor of psychology from New York has showed that if you block the natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own young. Conversely, injecting oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if they were their own. Vasopressin Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex. Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole. Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds. When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors. And finally … how to fall in love Find a complete stranger. Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour. Then, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes. York psychologist, Professor Arthur Arun, has been studying why people fall in love. He asked his subjects to carry out the above 3 steps and found that many of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects later got married. Information Courtesy: Helen Fisher of Rutgers University.

::Paving Slabs That Clean the Air.

The concentrations of toxic nitrogen oxide that are present in German cities regularly exceed the maximum permitted levels. That’s now about to change, as innovative paving slabs that will help protect the environment are being introduced. Coated in titanium dioxide nanoparticles, they reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide in the air.

In Germany, ambient air quality is not always as good as it might be – data from the federal environment ministry makes this all too clear. In 2009, the amounts of toxic nitrogen oxide in the atmosphere exceeded the maximum permitted levels at no fewer than 55 percent of air monitoring stations in urban areas. The ministry reports that road traffi c is one of the primary sources of these emissions. In light of this fact, the Baroque city of Fulda is currently embarking on new ways to combat air pollution. Special paving slabs that will clean the air are to be laid the length of Petersberger Straße, where recorded pollution levels topped the annual mean limit of 40 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) last year. These paving slabs are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), which converts harmful substances such as nitrogen oxides into nitrates. Titanium dioxide is a photocatalyst; it uses sunlight to accelerate a naturallyoccurring chemical reaction, the speed of which changes with exposure to light. The »Air Clean« nitrogen oxide-reducing paving slabs were developed by F. C. Nüdling Betonelemente. Proof of their effectiveness has subsequently been provided by the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Schmallenberg, where researchers also determined the risk to the environment posed by the resulting nitrates. Their work was funded by the German Environment Foundation.

Dr. Monika Herrchen, a scientist at the IME, says: »Experiments in Italian cities had already shown that photocatalytic paving slabs can improve the air quality. We wanted to see if they would also be effective here in Germany, where we have lower levels of light intensity and fewer hours of sunshine. Of course, the more intense the sunshine, the quicker the degradation of harmful substances, so our aim was to identify the formula with the highest photocatalytic effi ciency rating.«

To begin with, concrete manufacturer F.C. Nüdling produced a range of sample slabs incorporating different surfaces, colors, types of cement and TiO2 contents. Since the nitrogen oxide degradation rates achieved using standard commercial photocatalytic cement (i.e. cement that reacts to solar radiation) proved unsatisfactory, the company ultimately had to develop its own, more effective formula. »We were able to verify the effectiveness of the optimized slabs in a variety of tests,« confi rms Herrchen. During an extended time fi eld test, the scientist and her team recorded nitrogen oxide degradation rates of 20 to 30 percent in specially-created street canyons. The measurements were taken at a height of three meters above the photocatalytic slabs, in variable wind and light conditions. When the wind was still, the experts recorded degradation rates as high as 70 percent for both nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Measurements likewise taken at a height of three meters above the Gothaer Platz in Erfurt, which is already paved with Air Clean paving slabs, revealed an average degradation rate of 20 percent for NO2 and 38 percent for NO.

Herrchen points out an additional benefi t of these paving slabs: »They also remain stable over the long term. Measurements recorded from 14 to 23 months after they were laid revealed no change from the initial degradation capability.« Furthermore, the nitrate that is generated during the conversion process poses absolutely no risk to the environment. It runs off into the drainage system, then into a wastewater treatment plant, before fi nally ending up on a farmer’s fi eld or in the groundwater. The maximum possible nitrate concentration traceable back to photocatalytic reactions is around fi ve milligrams per liter (mg/l), while the maximum permitted concentration of nitrate in groundwater is 50 mg/l. Herrchen sums up: »All in all, it’s possible to say that Air Clean signifi cantly improves the air quality within a short space of time, and thus helps protect the environment.

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Fraunhofer Institute P.R.

::Phasma Insectoid bot.

Is it possible for something to scamper into our heart and our nightmares simultaneously? Phasma is making a bid for that distinction. The hexapedal running robot, built by Takram Design Engineering, is based on Stanford's cockroach-inspired iSprawl, and is built to look all cold and mechanical at rest, but to move very much like an insect, churning those springy six legs in a tripod gait. At first we were terrified by the motion, depicted on video after the break, but the more we watch it the more we're struck by how eager and exuberant it looks. Eager and exuberant to dwell inside our hollowed out carcass during the end of days? May we never find out. The robot is currently on exhibition at the Science Museum in Tokyo, if you care for a look. Take care while you go to meet your new friend.




Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Takram Engineering.

::Greek Statues were Colorful!

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be that's required to see them the way they were thousands of years ago.

Although it seems impossible to think that anything could be left to discover after thousands of years of wind, sun, sand, and art students, finding the long lost patterns on a piece of ancient Greek sculpture can be as easy as shining a lamp on it. A technique called ‘raking light' has been used to analyze art for a long time. A lamp is positioned carefully enough that the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object. When used on paintings, this makes brushstrokes, grit, and dust obvious. On statues, the effect is more subtle. Brush-strokes are impossible to see, but because different paints wear off at different rates, the stone is raised in some places – protected from erosion by its cap of paint – and lowered in others. Elaborate patterns become visible.

Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. UV light makes many organic compounds fluoresce. Art dealers use UV lights to check if art has been touched up, since older paints have a lot of organic compounds and modern paints have relatively little. On ancient Greek statues, tiny fragments of pigment still left on the surface glow bright, illuminating more detailed patterns.

Once the pattern is mapped, there is still the problem of figuring out which paint colors to use. A series of dark blues will create a very different effect than gold and pink. Even if enough pigment is left over so that the naked eye can make out a color, a few thousand years can really change a statue's complexion. There's no reason to think that color seen today would be anything like the hues the statues were originally painted.

There is a way around this dilemma. The colors may fade over time, but the original materials – plant and animal-derived pigments, crushed stones or shells – still look the same today as they did thousands of years ago. This can also be discovered using light.

Infrared and X-ray spectroscopy can help researches understand what the paints are made of, and how they looked all that time ago. Spectroscopy relies on the fact that atoms are picky when it comes to what kind of incoming energy they absorb. Certain materials will only accept certain wavelengths of light. Everything else they reflect. Spectroscopes send out a variety of wavelengths, like scouts into a foreign land. Inevitably, a few of these scouts do not come back. By noting which wavelengths are absorbed, scientists can determine what materials the substance is made of. Infrared helps determine organic compounds. X-rays, because of their higher energy level, don't stop for anything less than the heavier elements, like rocks and minerals. Together, researchers can determine approximately what color a millennia-old statue was painted.

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My Brain, Harvard.