No Battery Required for This Wireless Device

Sending texts after a phone’s battery dies sounds impossible, right? Soon it might not, thanks to a new technology that not only uses TV and Wi-Fi signals for device communication, it taps those signals as a power source. No batteries required.

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Developed by researchers from the University of Washington, the technology is known as “ambient backscatter” and could potentially create networks of devices and sensors that can transmit information by reflecting existing signals to exchange information, without the need for internal batteries.

“We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium,” lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, said in a press release. “It’s hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks.”

Researchers built small, credit card-sized devices equipped with antennas that detect, harness and reflect those signals to similar devices. The team tested the prototypes in various locations around the Seattle area, including a street corner, inside an apartment building and on top of a parking garage. Locations ranged from less than a half a mile away from a TV tower to about 6.5. miles away.

The receiving devices picked up a signal at a rate of 1 kilobit per second when 2.5 feet away from their outdoor counterparts and 1.5 feet apart when inside. That’s enough to transmit a text message, sensor reading and contact information.

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Researchers envision the technology being used in sensors that monitor bridges for hairline cracks. Potentially, the tech could be built in to cell phones to provide emergency power when the battery has died. While the applications are endless, researchers want to advance the capacity and range of the devices.

“Ambient Backscatter” sounds like a fantastic name for an electroclash band, so while you round up your synth-playing posse, check out this video of your band’s namesake device.

via University of Washington

Source : discovery.com

Canser

Cancer is a condition where cells in a specific part of the body grow and reproduce uncontrollably. The cancerous cells can invade and destroy surrounding healthy tissue, including organs.

Cancer sometimes begins in one part of the body before spreading to other areas. This process is known as metastasis.

There are over 200 different types of cancer, each with its own methods of diagnosis and treatment. You can find out more about specific types of cancer by using the links on this page.

Spotting signs of cancer

Changes to your body's normal processes or symptoms that are out of the ordinary can sometimes be an early sign of cancer.

For example, a lump that suddenly appears on your body, unexplained bleeding or changes to your bowel habits are all symptoms that need to be checked by a doctor.

In many cases, your symptoms will not be related to cancer and will be caused by other, non-cancerous health conditions. However, it is still important that you see your GP so your symptoms can be investigated.

Reducing your risk of cancer

Making some simple changes to your lifestyle can significantly reduce your risk of developing cancer. For example, healthy eating, taking regular exercise and not smoking will all help lower your risk.

How common is cancer?

Cancer is a common condition. In 2009, 320,467 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the UK. More than one in three people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.

Cancer treatment

Each specific type of cancer has its own set of treatment methods.

However, many cases of cancer are treated usingchemotherapy (powerful cancer-killing medication) andradiotherapy (the controlled use of high energy X-rays). Surgery is also sometimes carried out to remove cancerous tissue.

Waiting times

Accurately diagnosing cancer can take weeks or months. As cancer often develops slowly, over several years, waiting for a few weeks will not usually impact on the effectiveness of treatment.

Patients suspected of having cancer and urgently referred by their GP, should have no more than a two week wait to see a specialist.

In cases where cancer has been confirmed, patients should wait no more than 31 days from the decision to treat to the start of their treatment.

In 2010-11, 95.5% of patients who were urgently referred for suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within 14 days of referral.

In the same period, 98.4% of patients receiving their first treatment for cancer began their treatment within 31 days. For breast cancer, 99.1% of people began their treatment within 31 days of diagnosis.

Source : www.nhs.uk

This Machine Converts Human Sweat Into Drinkable Water

Nowadays one might just confuse science and technology being used to come up with fancy gadgets only. However, that is not the case. The primary purpose of science, for which it is still being used, is improving the lifestyle of humans and to come up with ways to protect life and enhance it. Science is tackling the world problems and is striving to find solutions to them. Our today’s article deals with one such endeavor. How many of you are aware that drinking water and its availability is an issue. Experts are already foreseeing the third world war being fought over water resources?

Recently UNICEF teamed up with two other concerned entities; PR agency Deportivo and youth soccer competition Gothia Cup to come up with a gadget that could be used to convert sweat to drinking water. The key idea behind the so called Sweat Machine is to take the sweat, extract the liquid and convert it into drinkable water.


While one may not see this gadget as solving the problem of drinking water, this sure is a nice way to get attention of people. However, let’s not forget that this gadget may solve individual needs of drinkable water for those who don’t have access to clean water. Just sweat a little and there you go; clean and drinkable water!

Source : wonderfulengineering.com

World’s Smallest Flying Robot Is Here

We are living in the era of technology and innovation. Not a day goes when something unique and eye-catching doesn’t come to light. Scientists are working around the globe to come up with new and efficient inventions, preparing more efficient and sophisticated methods of production and what not. Technology has touched every profession and improved it. Robotics for instance, has taken a giant leap in the past few years and today we stand at a point where all the impossible things are becoming possible. We have already talked about robotic jellyfish; Cyro.

Today we shall be presenting you the world’s smallest flying robot; the robotic insect. Invented by the US scientists, this robot, which is the size of a fly is able to perform maneuvers just like any other normal insect. Known as ‘Robo-fly’, this robot has been made from carbon fiber and weighs only a fraction of a gram. It has electronic ‘muscles’ which power its wings. The developers who are from Harvard University, are hoping that their robot might prove useful in a lot of situations. This development has been reported in the Science Journal and there is a lot of potential for this invention in the future. The robot has agility that is at par with that of a real insect and is able to evade the swiftest of human efforts to dispose it. The timely wing movements make such maneuvering possible. The art of adjusting lift and thrust help insect (robot) to hover and make it able to perform superb maneuvers while in hover. This is done by high speed movement of their wings. Mimicking this movement in the Robo-fly was the real challenge and it has been tackled quite beautifully by the scientists. A special material known as piezoelectric material was used to achieve the 120 times per second of wings beating. The material contracts every time a voltage is applied to it. A rapid switching of voltage led the scientists into mimicking the real insect’s wing mechanism.



As per Dr. Ma; “We get it to contract and relax, like biological muscle.” The basic purpose of this research was to understand how the flight mechanism of an insect works. The robotic insect really comes as a by-product. Dr. Ma also stated that; ‘We could envision these robots being used for search-and-rescue operations to search for human survivors under collapsed buildings or [in] other hazardous environments. They [could] be used for environmental monitoring, to be dispersed into a habitat to sense trace chemicals or other factors.’ He also stipulated that this robot could be made to behave like real insects in order to help in the pollination of crops; ‘to function as the now-struggling honeybee populations do in supporting agriculture around the world.’ Scientists are now working to provide a means to power it wirelessly; however, they say it might take a couple of years to achieve. Dr. John Dyhr, a Biologist from the University of Washington who is a student of insect flight, had the following to contribute; ’The physics of flight at such small scales is relatively poorly understood which makes designing small flying systems very difficult.’

Source : wonderfulengineering.com

Autonomous Robots Self Assemble And Fly

This one comes as an innovation from the faculty of the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich. They are teaching ‘Distributed computation algorithms’ which is a pretty dry discipline. The faculty came up with a better way of teaching the subject rather than using the sets and lengthy exam which is indeed the conventional method. They encouraged students into developing robots which would work on these principles. The result of this unique approach is Distributed Flight Array (DFA). This DFA is a transformer, prototype of course, which allows a number of self-directed robots to assemble with one another into a bigger robot and take flight while providing a platform for experimentation.  The ultimate goal would be to remove even the tiniest bit of human touch in this robotic platform.

These DFA bots have a 3D printed chassis and there’s more to them than what meets the eye. They are small yet packed full of surprises. The whole system has been designed with a propeller which enjoys the central position. This propeller provides the system with the thrust for the take off. Three omni-directional wheels surround the propeller which allows the DFA bots to get into position while they are on the ground. Then we have magnets that have been embedded into the frame for the sake of connection. Moving on, there is a gyroscope which helps provide the information related to position to the microprocessor which is mounted onboard. The last but crucial piece is the infrared sensor which works in real-time to help them maintain their individual thrusts in order to keep the combined unit stable. Quite a sensitive package, yet at the end of a flight, these robots disengage from one another in mid-air and fall safely on the ground.

United we stand, divided we fall! This is the rule here too; the bots alone can only move around spastically in the room but join them together and you have a traditional quad-copter which is more advanced. They can simulate typical and asymmetrical arrays which basically defy the conventional aeronautics aesthetics! These combinations, although odd, sometime produce quite fascinating flight patterns which are interesting to watch.

The DFA was basically supposed to be an art installation and a platform dedicated to research by Professor Raffaello D’Andrea at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Controls. However, the student group working under Dr. Raymond Oung have helped it become something much more and today it stands as a unique and quite fascinating teaching tool. Dr. Oung said; ‘The DFA is, and will always be, a pedagogical tool, both for high-end research and for the main-stream public.’ Dr. is confident that this technology will provide the tools for many other researches as well. Dr. Oung also said; ‘What I would love to see is in-flight reconfiguration. Which I think is certainly possible with the current system.’ He further added that they have very little clear use cases and that ‘Apart from being both a research/educational tool, we never designed the DFA with a particular application in mind.’
The sad news is that we might not see a commercial use of these DFA bots, as in words of Dr. Oung; ‘Honestly, I don’t see a mainstream commercial opportunity here.’ However, let’s not kill our hope of this becoming an open source project one day!

Source : wonderfulengineering.com

Build your own 3D Printer Using LEGO

3D printers sure are becoming the talk of the day. We don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be this famous. They can do almost everything; print guns, food that we can eat, printed prosthetic hands, rocket engine parts and the list goes on! While the wonders of 3D printers are amazing, their price is still a bit too high for many. One particular engineer aka Mastermind tackled this problem in a wonderful new way. Meet the author of Instructable, Matthew Krueger. He has managed to create a functional 3D printer using the LEGOs that were lying around in his house.

This whole project kicked off as a mere practical exercise. Matthew had an encounter during his college with a Makerbot and that had him gain interest in 3D printers and their uses. However, as with most of the students during their studies, he didn’t have enough cash to afford a ‘ready-made’ 3D printer. Must have been a real let down situation but he being an engineering student decided to change it. This resulted in Matthew building his very own 3D printer. He made use of LEGOs Digital Designer software to create a fully functional 3D printer using just a few hundred LEGOs, a motor from an old VCR and a hot glue gun. There you have it folks, that’s the arsenal you need and of course the genius mind of an engineer to achieve an operational 3D printer. The LEGObot takes commands from the LEGO NXT control module which runs the VCR motor and results in the activation of the print head!

Matthew has termed his LEGObot as a ‘of a prototype than a finished project.’ He hopes to eventually run it using the G-code and to make some mechanical improvements in the design. While yes, the LEGObot sure lacks the build volume and isn’t very classy nor too high end result oriented, it gets the job done. Above all, this  sure is one heck of an innovation.

Source : wonderfulengineering.com

Fugu Fish – A Deadly Catch.

The legendary Fugu – A Puffer Fish:

Fugu gets its name from puffer fish as the Japanese call them that and have been eating puffer fish for centuries. Fugu bones have also been found in various shell mounds from Jomon period that are more than 2200 years old. This species of fish was banned for consumption from time to time and where the law makers could’nt control the usage, interesting ways to eat this fish without consuming it’s deadly toxins, evolved.
As they say that “Invention is the mother of all necessity, wonder what made the Japs go to such an extent of discovering ways to avoid eating a part of Fugu flesh with poison which is considered 1200 times more powerful then potassium freaking cyanide making the possibility of this finest fish meal the last. The taste probably, they say it matches nothing else and i do not doubt that. I mean if it could be my last meal, heck it should taste crazy.

The Toxins:

Fugu holds a reserve of lethal amounts of a poison know to mankind as ‘Tetrododxin’ in their livers, skin and ovaries. Once consumed this nasty toxin runs through the body paralyzing the muscles, just the muscles while the fine diner stays fully conscious and probably swearing himself to death. As there is no antidote, the victim ultimately goes through shortage of air in the lungs and the eventually dies of ‘asphyxiation’. They’ve also figured in captive breeding that while breeding if Fugu can stay away from eating certain other animals that contain the deadly poison Tetrododxin laiden bacteria, they can have a 100% guarantee of waking up next morning. The blow fish without any poison, sweet.

And they Still want more of the puffer fish:

Getting this fish is not easy and making this fish, not easy at all. Most fugu are caught in the pacific ocean and in order for a chef to dream about making this exquisite meal he or she has to first acquire a license to do so. That license gives them the right to prepare and sell the puffer fish in public. Getting this license in no sunshine as it includes a journey through a series of tests both written and identifying correct things to be taken off and learn it to an extent where they just can’t make a mistake. Some chefs choose to end their lives, if by their hand someone else does, but what’s delighting to know is that on an avenger only 35% pass the apprenticeship. Sadly, last 10 years stand witness to 26 deaths in Japan alone. It’s so dangerous that even the Emperor of Japan is banned from eating blow fish. I  wonder if he has a big bag in the secret section of his royal refrigerator saying Emperors stash, do not nick!

Blowfish does not come cheap:

A fresh catch of this puffer fish can fetch up to USD 100-300 and a full meal for four in a fine dine can go up to USD 1000 easy. With the demand increasing the recipes are getting modified and improvised creating an opportunity for the culinarians to produce the most exhilarating experience out of eating a possible last meal. Fugu fish prices make them one of the most expensive fishes around, and in constant demand. Legend has it that it contains an arsenal of subtle power ranging from aphrodisia to euphoria. Poisonous yet Tasty!

Strange for me to digest, may be ill give it a chance to kill me someday. May the better species win! and i’d pray that i don’t die.

Source : buzzbringer.com