Scientists from the Netherlands have proposed the use of a molecular assembly to drive a molecular motor and receive a feedback on its rotation.
Molecular motors are very sensitive to heat and difficult to control so this conceptual design is theoretical, nevertheless many parts of this concept already exist.
Molecular motors have been described for first time from Eric Drexler as a computational and theoretical entity in his books which I definitely recommend especially the “Engines of Creation” which is a popularized book for those that are interested in a nanotechnology.
Enjoy the schematics for these molecular motors below…
or watch another video produced by Biovision Harvard team about the mitochondria which are the energy producers of life.
I have also created some videos based on my molecular simulations data. You may take a look how the purely scientific videos may look below through ab initio molecular simulations data. The first one is the brake mechanism from the inside pressure of hydrogen in a fullerene molecule used as a hydrogen storage device
and the second video is about a diamond formation from hydrogens inside a relaxated strcture of fullerene containing 58 hydrogen atoms.
as you may see the purely scientific data are a bit crude in respect to Biovision’s data that do not lack the soundness of science but are adjusted to create artistic effects that popularize biological mechanisms in the molecular scale.
Do you want to learn a secret about nanotechnology?
If you want to produce a material with exotic properties, just use normal physicochemical modifications that take place in a relatively huge surface area and small volumes. The ability to do this is nanotechnology…
If you compact a lot of hydrophobic molecules in a huge surface area, what do you get then? Superhydrophobicity….
Look at the video below to see superhydrophobicity in action….
When two planets, a big one and a small one, interact through gravity then they jiggle, the small one following an elliptic orbit and the big one making small steps forth and back. These movements produce changes in the light that comes from the star.
These changes in light are used by astronomers to deduce the existence of planets orbiting the big star.
Another way to discover planets is through the changes of light as the planet passes in front of the star. These minute changes of light are studied through extra sensitive photoreceptors. The amount of light reduction is analogous to the size of the planet passing in front of the star.
Recently, the discovery of a planet orbiting a star which we named Gliese 581g was announced (we have posted about this).
The importance of this discovery is that we have discovered a possibly habitable planet so close, in an astronomical sense, to our earth. This means two things: either we are very lucky or habitable planets are scattered all over the universe bearing life.
See the video below to see animations from JPL on how this planet may look like:
If the latter is true, life is the virus of the universe, common all over it with many intelligent beings awaiting to be discovered.
If you owned the most powerful telescope humanity has ever made, how would you make best use of it?
Knowing that every minute counts, would you turn it towards the darkest spot of the sky?
Towards the part of the sky where phenomenologically nothing exists? It is a huge risk indeed….
Thankfully, scientists responsible for Hubble telescope have already delved into the “darkest part of the sky”. They waited anxiously for whole 10 days only to see the light from galaxies from the edges of our universe.
Take a look at the video below to experience a rendering of this image in 3D.
Humanity+ is organizing a new conference on December with a dazzling team of speakers . The panel is meant to push forward to the state of the art in the radical effects of technology in your life in the near future.
There will be 4 sessions with thematology spanning from Human Life span enhancement to artificial intelligence and then business in the new technomorphing environment.
If you love the future and want to learn more about the impact of it in your life then be there!
How would you feel if your body’s vital signs where constantly monitored?
Would you feel that your privacy is invaded….?
or what if….
If you could have you data analyzed and get health suggestions in real time?
If a loved one of yours was constantly monitored and any critical health condition was reported in real time to his personal doctor?
If you could share all these data with a community of users and get healthstyle recommendations and targets or even enter clubs of people with the same trends or targets like you….
Science fiction?
All these will soon be a reality.
The major hurdle of these technology is the size and non invasiveness of sensors. Neverthless the miniaturization process of these sensors is already on it’s way.
There are some good efforts for commercialization of this concept with current sensors. Look below the video for vital sign monitoring solution from General Electric
Even smart phones have come into play with companies grabbing the opportunity to offer high tech services to patients. One of these companies is AirStrip. Check the site to see the technology and their case reports.
How about devices that sense the aura of an epileptic episode and react with an electrical charge that negate the onset of a full episode?
Devices that work like this in heart are the pacemakers. People that bear these machines would die without them. Are these people cyborgs?
Want to see the future of body signs sensors? It is minute, biocompatible, and made from polymer that is made from silk.
It will be like a tattoo on you, one that will be constantly monitor your vitals.
Want to learn more about this implantable sensor emerging technology? Click here
Touch screens are the future of human computer interface.
The Astonishing Tribe is a company pioneering in touch screen displays. Organic electronics (OLEDs) are super thin, flexible and super efficient screen technologies based on organic substrate.
It is not too fat in the future that these displays will be available revolutionizing the screen technologies and everything with it.
TAT has released videos presenting their technology and how they believe that it will be used in 2014.
Originally proposed and developed from Dr. Richard Ehman, a professor of radiology at the Mayo Clinic this technique is all about minute displacements detected through a modified MRI system. Diseased tissues have increased stiffness and an image of elasticity of the tissue (elastogram) is obtained with this method.
MRE has been used primarily for liver diseases in Mayo Clinic since 2007. For example cirrhotic liver has increased stiffness due to the development of scars and this is detected with MRE. This technology is already licenced to General Electric healthcare and a product called MR-Touch is being commercially available.
A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star’s “habitable zone” or else goldilocks zone.
A habitable planet is one that has water and an atmosphere and this one is in a zone that potentially allows this.
Planets are discovered by the spectral effect of the gravity “dancing” of star with it’s planets around it called wobble.
“Keck’s long-term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system,” said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Keck is once again proving itself an amazing tool for scientific research.”
“Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet,” said Vogt. “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common.”
The new planet designated Gliese 581g has a mass three to four times that of Earth and orbits its star in just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere.
The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness. One effect of this is to stabilize the planet’s surface climates, according to Vogt. The most habitable zone on the planet’s surface would be the line between shadow and light (known as the “terminator”).
“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” said Vogt in a press conference.
We live in an exciting time of technological advances.
Last year NIH launched the connectome project through which research institutes will be funded $30 million in a five year period. Connectome is the new hot field of neuroscience which aims in developing technology that will be able to map the neurons and connections of human brain.
We came a long way in brain research. During 60’s we treated brain like a chemical soup with chemical balance between neurotransmitters that are responsible for specific functions. As technology advanced we started treating the brain as a 100 billion neuronal wiring machine, which is the most complicated and efficient computational machine known to us.
The state of the art today is the effort to reverse engineer the brain and it’s neuronal connections. In fact, Blue Brain project is doing this the last 10 years with great breakthroughs in reverse engineering rat brain columns. The simulated neurons (about 1000) respond the same way as the real cells do in the latest news updates from Blue Brain Project.
We are just starting to scratch the potential of this technology. Our 100 billion nerve cells with 10.000 times the connections between them are the host of our personality, our thinking abilities and our skills. Our connectome changes from time to time.
I believe that through accelerating technologies we will soon be able to map a whole connectome of a human brain. Can you imagine the possibilities?
Will the connectome reveal bad connections in people with mental illness? Will we find the place where memories or skills are shaped? Will we be able to reshape our connectome in a way that we will be able to treat mental disorders or even enhance our brain’s function?
The connectome project is one of the most important technological steps in our history. It is the moment where we will be able to answer one of the most fundamental questions: What are we are made of and how our higher level functions work. Will we be able to achieve immortality by finding a way to simulate how brain works and copying our connectome in computational substrates that mimic our brain’s connections and function?
Some people are already trying to conserve their bodies through cryonics. If this procedure keeps their brain undamaged maybe there will be a way to bring them back. If not then their effort to preserve themselves is futile.
The questions above and many more are presented in one of the most exciting talks ever given to TED, by Sebastian Seung leader in the hottest right now neuroscience research field.
Universe is our home and we still have very much to learn about it.
When one tries to think of the vastness of the universe, he can only make comparisons with his everyday experience in order to surpass the limits of his brain to understand sizes.
Imagine that a small grain of sand is our sun. If you counted all the grains in all the beaches of the earth, you would still have more stars in the visible universe. This is beyond imagination.
This exercise to understand the vastness of the universe is one of humbleness, a realization that everyday small problems are indeed very small.
We are still in our technological infancy of exploring the universe. Nevertheless we have great maps of it through the Hubble and other telescopes. All these astronomical data have been compiled and used to create software that allow us to explore the universe.
There is of course Google Sky . A great online start in your space exploration.
Another great software is Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope. . Download it and enjoy your walk in the sky and on Mars with the latest data from NASA rovers. I also liked the guided tours from astronomers. A definately must have programme.
Last but not least the Celestia Software. Using it feels like having a spaceship and exploring the space with it. I always enjoy travelling in our solar system with Celestia. It also has time acceleration features in oder to watch the orbits of planets, asteroids and even galaxies.
Looking Mars from it’s moon Phobos with Celestia Software.
Enjoy all the software above and happy explorations of our universe!!!
Recently I stumbled upon a video from Daniel Kraft about the future of medicine given at singularity university.
Daniel Kraft has an impressive bio
Daniel Kraft has over 20 years experience in both biomedical research and clinical practice. He is a member of faculty at the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and works on the clinical faculty for pediatric bone marrow transplantation at University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Kraft is also the founder and past CEO of StemCor Systems, a company that develops tools to enable adult stem cell based regenerative therapies. Through StemCor, he has developed and implemented original ideas and designs for new medical equipment that have been granted FDA approval. Today, he serves on the company’s board and is the consulting Chief Medical Officer.
He served as flight surgeon with an F-15 squadron in the Massachusetts Air National Guard and conducted research on aerospace medicine that was published with NASA. Recently, he was named a finalist for astronaut selection. (abstract from TED.com)
So when a person like this speaks about the future of medicine we should listen. In his talk he speaks about personalized medicine, brain computer interface, better database control and systemic biology in everyday health care.
In ten years everybody will have his/hers genome sequenced and then according to personalized living styles and enviromental factors the healthcare practice will be personilized. Even more stem cells will be used as a regenerative option for many patients.
Google has organized a competition for the most innovating ideas that leverage technology and have great impact on our every day life. More than 150.000 participants and only 5 winners which received funding from google.
Two of the winners I mostly liked was the Khan Academy, an online resource of video educational material leveraging youtube to provide great lessons for free to anyone. Make sure to visit it by clicking here…
Another idea I really liked was the Shweeb personal transportation design with monorails. What a cool idea!
If you want to learn the latest about forthcoming technologies even before they hit the headlines then this is the seminar you should watch.
With great names, leaders in their field and great presentations now available to you for free through livestreaming.com below. This is a do not miss for all technology lovers.
This is one of the greatest documentaries ever created.
Describing our knowledge about the largest scales till the cosmic horizon of our universe and the smallest scales of subatomic particles, all with great computer generated realistic graphics.
Special thanks to National science Museum for this life changing documentary. You will never have the same perspective about our place in the universe after watching it….
Another great documentary from National Geographic takes you to a virtual trip in our universe with great graphics. Enjoy both parts below:
The advent of stent technology has greatly enhanced vascular surgery minimal invasive results.
Stents are like metal or polymer tubes that are inserted into patients vessels in order to open a priorly stenosed artery. There are certain indications and contradictions for therapy using stent technology but generally the where a quantum leap in vascular therapy since their initial use around 1995.
In order to deliver a stent in vascular system a guide wire is used which needs sensitive and precise maneuvres inside the lumen of a patient’s artery. The correct positioning of this guide wire is important for the successful procedure and minimization of side effects and complications.
Hansen medical has created and tested a robotic technology that helps the physicians to deliver a guide wire efficiently with minimal movements to the correct position. It is supposed to reduce complications during endovascular treatments. It is still under investigation since the first papers have been recently published but the overall state of art in robotic guide wire guiding is here and will be enhanced in the near future.
Biomaterials are materials that are used in surgical practice to substitute a malfunctioning live tissue. Biomaterials try to mimic the function and properties of the real tissue. The word substitute is important here because live tissue has many properties in the nanoscale that render it “alive” and these functions till recently were not known.
With the advent of nanotechnology we realized that biological tissue has patterns in the nanoscale, just as the earth is patterned when studied from above with it’s geographical features (in fact there are many similarities between the patterns of these two size scales). These cellular patterns play an important biological role. For example, these patterns may act as highways to coordinate cells’ proliferation or act as markers for specific cells only access, or even guide the flow of blood in a way that reduces stress on the arteries.
While the important of this nanotopology in live tissue is still under investigation it is well established that we need to import these nanopatterns on the next generation of biomaterials (such as vascular stents or artificial joints). There are many studies that support the fact of enhanced biocompatibility of these nanopatterned biomaterials. Enhanced biocompatibility means that the organism accepts these artificial materials and renders them functional.
Image showing a cell on a nanopatterned surface
What we need is the technology to embed these nanopatterns on biomaterials with a scalable and cheap method. NanoInk company has a line of nanolithography products for biological material such as NLP 2000 system. Nanolithography is like having a pen that can write on a material, only that the pen is very very small so that the writing is in the nanoscale. Recently, NanoInk has released a new method of nanopatterning based on PEG hydrogels, that enhances the writing abilities of the patterning pen. PEG stands for polyethyl glycol which is a polymer that is accepted by the organism. Hydrogels are ultraviolet sensitive chemicals that change their shape when UV light is shed upon them. With this combination NanoInk 2000 sets the state of the art for nanopatterning on biomaterials.
Image that Shows a Nanopatterning Device
Imagine all the possibilities in the years to come. When we decode the patterns of the live tissue and the importance of them in their function we will be able to design biomaterials with enhanced properties that are biocompatible. Imagine an artificial joint that has self-healing properties or a vascular graft, which is resistant to atherosclerosis. This is the future of artificial biomaterial and will soon be a reality…
Louizos Alexander Louizos, MD MSc Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences.
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