In search of forever
Jun 12th 2008
From The Economist print edition
As a source of power for cars, fuel cells have been a disappointment. For laptops and mobile phones, they are just about to take off
METHANOL is nasty stuff. Careless distillation in many a backwoods still has caused it to blind the imbibers of “alternative” alcoholic drinks. Yet it has its uses, and one of them may be to restore fuel cells to their oft-vaunted role as the power packs of the future—but with a twist. The main role that has been discussed for fuel cells over the past few decades is as replacements for the internal-combustion engine. Their actual use may turn out to be to provide power for portable electronic devices.
A fuel cell is a device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity. The traditional approach has been to use the gas itself in the cell—and that is the approach taken by the world's carmakers in their so-far not very successful attempts to make a commercial fuel-cell-driven car. Since gaseous hydrogen is hard to store and handle, an alternative that some people have considered is to lock the hydrogen up in methanol, a liquid whose molecules are made of a carbon atom, an oxygen atom and four hydrogen atoms. Methanol will react with water in the form of steam to make hydrogen and carbon dioxide—a process known as steam reformation. Put a steam reformer in a car along with the fuel cell and you can fill the tank with methanol instead of hydrogen.
That idea has not gone very far, either. But it has provoked another thought. What if it were possible to decompose the methanol without steam, and within the fuel cell itself? And that has, indeed, turned out to be possible. The resulting cells are nowhere near powerful enough to run cars, but they are plenty powerful enough to stand in for small batteries. What is more, they last far longer than batteries and when they do need recharging, it is the work of a moment.
Proton power
In a direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) the methanol is oxidised at the anode in the presence of liquid water. The reaction, which requires a catalyst, turns the methanol and water into protons and electrons (in other words, dissociated hydrogen atoms) and carbon dioxide. While the electrons pass along an external circuit as an electric current, the protons diffuse through a membrane to the cathode, where they recombine with the incoming electrons to form hydrogen atoms that react instantly with oxygen to make water. With pleasing symmetry the water is then channelled back to mix with the incoming methanol. Even though DMFCs produce carbon dioxide, the amount is small enough for the cells to count as a much greener technology than batteries. Some companies also think the new cells could be safer than batteries, which can burst into flame if short-circuited.
The efficiency of a DMFC is determined by its membrane. One of the most commonly used sorts is made of Nafion, a polymer developed by DuPont from a variation of Teflon. Nafion, however, can be expensive and it allows some methanol to seep through, which wastes fuel. Researchers are therefore trying to come up with more efficient membranes—and one group, led by Paula Hammond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), appears to have done so.
Dr Hammond and her colleagues used a newish thin-film fabrication technique known as “layer-by-layer”. This repeatedly dips a material into a solution, to build it up one layer at a time, while the properties of the liquid are gradually changed. That enables the structure of the resulting film to be fine tuned. When Dr Hammond coated a Nafion membrane in this way it became less permeable to methanol but kept its ability to transport protons. The effect, which the group reported in a recent issue of Advanced Materials, was to boost the cell's electrical output by more than 50%. The next stage, which the team has now embarked on, is to build complete membranes rather than mere coatings. The researchers think these may be able to work as proton-exchange membranes in their own right.
Squeeze me, please me
Toshiba, a large Japanese electronics firm, reckons that DMFCs can be used to produce mobile devices that have no need for batteries at all. In its latest investment plan, it says it will begin making such cells within a year for mobile phones and laptops. Sharp, one of its rivals, recently said that it had developed new microfabrication techniques to build DMFCs with the highest power densities yet achieved. Sharp reckons this will enable it to produce cells that are the same size as the lithium-ion batteries used in mobile devices, but which can run those devices for much longer. Some in the industry talk of mobile phones capable of operating continuously for several weeks before their fuel cells need topping up.
The most likely way that topping up will be done is with a cartridge of methanol that is inserted into the device and replaced when it is running low. As portable devices become more sophisticated, with added functions and large colour screens, they are draining batteries faster. MTI Micro, an American company, has put its version of a DMFC into satellite-navigation devices, which are often used for long periods. The company says it can run even a power-hungry model for up to 60 hours before the gadget needs refuelling.
Longer life is a big appeal; some people would like to run their laptops continuously on a 12-hour flight. Hence, new rules are being drawn up for aircraft. America's Department of Transportation is planning a rule change from October 1st to allow passengers and crew to bring fuel-cell-powered electronic devices and one or two fuel cartridges on board in their carry-on baggage. To qualify, the devices will have to meet certain safety standards. It is proposed that each passenger would be limited to about 200ml of fuel.
Successful work like that at MIT will help to make DMFCs cheaper and more efficient, which will, in turn, make them even more attractive as power sources for portable devices. Already, some companies are predicting that sales of refuelling cartridges could run into the billions within a few years of them coming into the market. Forget, then, the familiar cry: “Has anyone got a charger I can borrow?” It will be replaced by: “Can you spare me a squirt of methanol?”—and that won't mean in your hooch.
Nothing to lose but their chains
Jun 19th 2008 | MUNICH
From The Economist print edition
Robots are getting cleverer and more dexterous. Their time has almost come
TITAN is a bit of a hulk. It can lift a BMW into the air with just one arm, swing it around and then set it down again in exactly the same spot with barely a quiver. Moving cars is a piece of cake for the world's strongest robot. Built by KUKA, a large German robot-maker, Titan lifts 1,000kg and with its arm extended is as tall as a giraffe. It works out by moving huge concrete structures, steel-castings and pallets loaded with glass.
At just 1.4 metres in height, Partner Robot is a wimp—but its talent is versatility, not strength. Made by Toyota, Partner Robot is humanoid. Rather than being bolted to the floor like Titan, it can walk on two articulated legs. One version can even run a little. Instead of a single giant limb, it has two arms each with four delicate fingers and a thumb. With a violin tucked under its chin, Partner Robot can make a decent fist of the tune to “Land of Hope and Glory”. If you give Partner Robot a shove, its sense of balance is good enough to stop it from falling flat on its expressionless face.
As different as these two machines are, they share a common ancestor: the industrial robot. The first factory robots appeared in the 1960s. They could do only simple, monotonous and mundane things, like moving objects from one production line to another—they were drudges, like the slaves Karel Capek described in 1920 in the play that coined the term from the Czech word robota, or “forced labour”. By the 1990s factory robots had become adept at cutting, milling, welding, assembling and operating warehouses. The cost of industrial robots has also fallen sharply against the cost of people (see chart), which has helped to boost their numbers to more than 1m worldwide. Most of them are built in Europe and Japan, with about half at work in Asia.
Today, thanks to the relentless increase in the power of computing, the latest robots are being fitted with sophisticated systems that enable them to see, feel, move and work together. Robot engineers call this “mechatronics”: the union of mechanics, optics, electronics, computers and software. Some factory robots are now smart enough to be released from their safety cages to work among humans. And as they become cleverer and more dexterous, they are starting to move from factories to offices and homes.
A robot is defined not by its appearance, but by how it is controlled. The more automated it is and the more it can determine its behaviour, the more likely it is to count as a robot. Many single-function service robots are already familiar. They could be vacuuming the floor, cutting the grass or guarding your property while you are away. In some clinics transport robots ferry around paperwork and medicine; or they may be cleaning the office windows. Thousands of robots are also enrolled in the armed forces where they defuse bombs, fly reconnaissance and attack missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and meander under the sea. They do not look at all human: most are blobs on wheels or, if they are airborne, they may look like insects. But they are robots nonetheless.
Partner Robot is a guess at what a multi-skilled service robot may one day look like, but for the time being it lives in a laboratory. There is a lot of work to do before it and other humanoid machines, like Honda's ASIMO, can be sent to earn their living in the outside world. Even now, humanoid robots greet people or guide them through exhibitions, but they are curiosities rather than something for people to buy and use at home. Eventually, advanced humanoid robots will escape from the laboratory. Indeed, Toyota and Honda expect domestic robots to become a huge market in the future, with machines working as a family helper.
Until humanoid robots are mass produced, robotic blobs, arms and devices that resemble spiders will pave the way. A lot more of these are coming to work in offices and homes, and some will do more than one thing. That, at least, was the message broadcast loud and clear last week at Automatica, a two-yearly robotics trade fair held in Munich. Among a bewildering array of robots that can now do most jobs in a factory there were also machines that could fly, fetch, carry, talk and even perform surgery (see article)—a far cry from the factory drones of 50 years ago. Four trends were on show: robots are rapidly becoming more responsive, cheaper, simpler to program and safer. Take each in turn.
See me, feel me
Aptly for Munich, home of the Oktoberfest, the fair introduced Roboshaker, an automated bartender, created by PAAL, a German company that specialises in packaging systems. Roboshaker, based on a small robot made by Japan's FANUC, can mix a fair cocktail and clear up afterwards. Whenever it picks up a can of drink to add to the ingredients, it examines the lid with a camera so that it can work out where to find the ring-pull. PAAL knows very well that Roboshaker is not about to replace the mädchen serving armfuls of frothing beer. Its job is to demonstrate just how much more capable robots become when they have machine vision.
Vision gives robots the power not only to do more in factories, but also to spread into other industries, such as the food and drinks business, which struggles to find people to do lots of boring, repetitive and unpleasant jobs. Robots with machine vision check to see that bottles and jars are filled to the right level, that the tops and caps fit, that the right labels are stuck on (and neatly, mind). They can recognise and sort pretty much anything extremely accurately and rapidly. Robots put chocolates into a box, sort apples, make salads and wield knives in chilly abattoirs, butchering carcasses without having to take a rest or visit the toilet. Robots even work in bakeries, slicing cakes—because they are more accurate than people and if you make thousands of cakes a day, all those wasted crumbs add up.
Robots are also gaining a sense of touch. Sensors can analyse the surface of materials and, using the amount of resistance they show, work out the force to apply to an object. Giving robots touch allows them to be gentle and to handle things that come in many shapes and materials. Different grippers may be needed for different jobs, and instead of using several robots, some machines now automatically swap hands; for instance choosing flat paddles to lift a box onto a production line and then hands with fingers to pick up small things to put into the box.
Robots need this flexibility now that production managers are having to cope with increasingly varied product lines in their factories. Even the car industry, which pioneered factory robots and which still accounts for some 60% of their use, now makes different models on the same assembly line. The carmakers want to tailor each vehicle to a customer's order, so they are buying robots that can recognise different models and adapt accordingly.
Then there are more ingenious ways of helping robots navigate their surroundings. Even though the arms of industrial robots can twist and turn like a contortionist, they have limitations. When spot-welding, for instance, a robot has to touch the metal with an electrode. This can be awkward inside complicated structures such as the shell of a car. Lasers, however, can be aimed to weld a join from a distance. Comau, an Italian robot specialist, now produces a 3D remote-laser welding system that helps make the new Fiat 500. It transmits a laser beam through an optical cable to a robot, which angles lenses and mirrors in the end of its arm to aim the laser towards the parts that need welding. Using a laser, the robot can make highly accurate welds and position itself for each one a lot faster than it could if it were spot-welding in the normal way.
Big, sophisticated robot systems used on car-production lines can cost millions of dollars. One reason for the high costs of automation in the past is that the price of a robot could sometimes count for only a quarter of the total cost of installing and maintaining it, according to Martin Hägele, who heads SMErobot, a European Union-backed initiative to develop robots for small and medium-sized companies. But now costs are coming down. Robots are continuing to get cheaper—a medium-sized robot able to stack goods onto pallets now goes for about $50,000. And the cost of installing and maintaining them is falling as they become better adapted.
“Some companies think robots are too big, too costly and can only be justified with high-volume manufacturing,” Mr Hägele says. “But robots can now be made that are flexible and much quicker and easier to program.”
The falling cost of computing power makes it practical to give robots features like vision, touch and awareness, says Charlotte Brogren of Sweden's ABB Robotics. The producers that are part of the SMErobot initiative are starting to make light robots small enough to sit on a workbench. When the job is done, they can be picked up and moved somewhere else. That may appeal to carpenters and small engineering firms.
Different sorts of low-cost robots are also emerging that do not look at all like the bulky beams of factory robots. This type of robot contains rigid frames and tubes that use linear motors to slide and swing tools into position for welding, cutting, gluing and assembly. The robot can easily be taken to bits and moved to the next job in another part of a factory.
Such robots are useful in foundries that cut and grind components. These processes often have to be done by hand, because production volumes in small firms are too low for automation. They are expensive, because the law protects workers from the long-term injury caused by vibrations, restricting the hours they can work. The new frame-type robots are flexible and cheap enough for smaller foundries to buy, reckons Peter Haigh, in charge of R&D for Castings Technology International, a British consultancy. “When you have installed robots, you also tend to design things to use them more effectively, which increases their return on investment.”
A lot of effort is going into making robots easier to program. “If we want to sell more robots, we need to make robots easier to use,” says Jürgen Schulze-Ferebee, of KUKA. His company was one of the first to introduce PC-based programming, instead of the specialised code that only the engineering departments of big firms could understand. Some robots are also set up from hand-held devices called “pendants”, which can often program more than one robot at the same time. Robots are getting better at co-operating with each other: in some car plants a big robot now lifts a small one inside the vehicle to assemble components.
Robots are also learning how to understand direct instructions. Some can be “led by the nose”—when an operator moves the arm of a robot around to show it what to do. The software is intuitive, so the robot can describe a perfect circle, say, if the operator shows it just a few points. Some robots also respond to speech.
Obey the law
If robots are to be widely used in offices and homes, they must be safe. They need to learn Isaac Asimov's first law of robotics: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Many robots today are treated like wild animals, caged behind security fences. The working area is often called a robot “cell”, and nobody can enter it until the machine is switched off. This is for a good reason: a heavy, blind robot arm swinging heedlessly from one position to another could kill anyone in its path.
Making robots safer means giving them more sense of their environment. If the doors to their cells open and someone wanders in they must slow down or stop. Vision and touch are improving fast enough for the cage soon to be removed.
At that point, robots could help a carpenter, or an assembly worker on a production line. Toyota already uses a partly automated robot to lift a 50kg dashboard into a car, which enables a single human worker to position and install it. “One of our goals is to move robots from the factory to the home without any safety fence,” says Toru Miyagawa of Toyota.
The next task will be to write programs that meet Asimov's second law—that a robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law. The third law asks a robot to protect its own existence so long as that does not conflict with the first or second law. When robots are safe and aware of their surroundings, they will start to encroach on complicated, unstructured places such as offices and houses. Eventually, sophisticated multi-task service robots should be able to comply with all three of Asimov's laws and fulfil many of science fiction's promises.
These service robots may be humanoid—after all, they will be working in an environment designed for humans. But then again, many may continue to assume entirely different forms. As with industrial robots, the first service robots to enter production will be shaped by their job.
For instance, it makes sense for a robot that carries someone to look like a wheelchair. A robot chair could be told where to go. It would know how to steer itself without banging into anyone. Later this year Toyota aims to put two-wheeled robotic chairs, able to stabilise themselves, into a Japanese shopping centre and some of its company hospitals. They look a bit like large Segways.
A few other service robots are already making their way into the wider world, and they do not look human either. Care-O-Bot is a single-armed robot that rolls along on spherical wheels. It is a butler, fetching and carrying, working appliances and making telephone calls. It is built by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute with parts from SCHUNK, a robotics specialist, and is the type of service robot that is closest to production. Care-O-Bot can sidle up to Roboshaker, fetch a drink and serve it on a silver salver. But, if you value your ears, don't ask it to play the violin.
It's funny how they mention Asimov's laws so directly... I remember someone on the forum, maybe Mario, stating very astutely that the laws were made so that there would be very interesting loopholes.
Might have been me. Asimov's Laws of Robotics make for good reading, but they'd be pretty ineffectual if you tried to program them into an actual robot. The laws have no provisions for telling a robot what a human being is, or defining what it means to "come to harm." Asimov's robots had intelligence equal to a human's, which is what would be required to parse out sentences like those written in the laws and make any sense of them. If we actually built robots with intelligence equal to our own and a sense of self-awareness (basically, if The Singularity went down), they'd probably be more valuable to us as equals than as subservient slaves. That said, Asimov's Laws are useful as a thought experiment in the design of artificial intelligence systems, but not as a model to follow verbatim.
MEYRIN, Switzerland (AP) -- The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.
But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth?
Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?
Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN -- some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.
"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.
David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.
"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.
The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.
The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.
Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.
The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.
The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10 dimensions -- far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.
The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million -- long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.
By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is "no conceivable danger" of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.
Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was "a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet."
One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN's safety report, released June 20, "has several major flaws," and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.
On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.
The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.
The lawyers called the plaintiffs' allegations "extraordinarily speculative," and said "there is no basis for any conceivable threat" from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August.
In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.
And so far, Earth has survived.
"The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years," said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN.
Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays.
Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes -- collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars.
But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth.
Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field -- and eventually threaten the planet.
Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.
As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down.
When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space.
Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets -- to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch.
The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.
Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.
Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit.
The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don't seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring.
"There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC," said project leader Evans.
It's sad that people still think the LHC will destroy the world. HEY PEOPLE, THE LHC WON'T DESTROY THE WORLD. Didn't we get this all figured out on late-night talk shows, like, months ago?
I had been following this a while ago, but I kind of forgot about it until just now when it got the attention of CNN.
I don't think it would be too bad. As far as I know, strangelets would transform the entire planet into some crazy ass substance in like a second or two. It'd be so fast we wouldn't even notice. Blip, we're dead.
And maybe this is morbid, but death by black hole is arguably one of the coolest possible ways to die. I'd rather die from a black hole than by cancer or something.
If a professor at the University of Florida (U.F.) has his way, the first flying saucer to grace Planet Earth's skies isn't likely to come from outer space but rather from Gainesville, where the faculty member is drawing up plans to build a circular aircraft that can hover in the air like a helicopter without any moving parts or fuel.
In other words, it will look like a UFO, but will actually be more of an IFO—an identified flying object.
The saucer will hover and propel itself using electrodes that cover its surface to ionize the surrounding air into plasma. Gases (such as air, which has an equal number of positive and negative charges) become plasma when energy (such as heat or electricity) causes some of the gas's atoms to lose their negatively charged electrons, creating atoms with a positive charge, or positive ions, surrounded by the newly detached electrons. Using an onboard source of energy (such as a battery, ultracapacitor, solar panel or any combination thereof), the electrodes will send an electrical current into the plasma, causing the plasma to push against the neutral (noncharged) air surrounding the craft, theoretically generating enough force for liftoff and movement in different directions (depending on where on the craft's surface you direct the electrical current).
The concept sounds far-fetched, but U.F. mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy plans to have a mini model ready to demonstrate his theory within the next year.
At six inches (15.2 centimeters) in diameter, the device, which Roy calls a "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle" (WEAV), will truly be a flying saucer. Theoretically, Roy says, the flying saucer can be as large as anyone wants to build it, because the design gives the aircraft balance and stability. In other words, this type of aircraft could someday be built large enough to ferry around people. But, Roy says, "we need to walk before we can run, so we're starting small."
The biggest hurdle to building a WEAV large enough to carry passengers would be making the craft light, yet powerful enough to lift its cargo and energy source. Roy is not sure what kind of energy source he will use yet. He anticipates that the craft's body will be made from a material that is an insulator such as ceramic, which is light and a good conductor of electricity. "In theory you probably should be able to scale it up," says Anthony Colozza, a researcher with government contractor Analex Corporation who is stationed at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and helped Roy draw up the original plans for powering the saucer. The choice of a power source that is powerful, yet lightweight is "probably going to be the thing that makes or breaks it."
Roy began designing the WEAV in 2006. The following year, he and Colozza wrote a paper for the now-defunct NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) about the use of electrohydrodynamics, or ionized particles, as an alternative to liquid fuel for powering space vehicles. When NASA shut down NIAC in August 2007, Roy decided to continue his work at U.F.
If he's successful, Roy hopes to develop a more stable aircraft and a new form of fuel—air. Other craft that interact with the atmosphere have a problem: moving parts, whether jet engines, propellers or rotors. "My interest started when I saw inherent problems in helicopters and airplanes," Roy says. If these parts stop moving, the aircraft falls from the sky. The flying saucer, on the other hand, has no moving parts.
In theory, the WEAV would be more stable than an aircraft—airplanes and helicopters, for example—that rely on aerodynamics to provide lift. Using a plasma field, "you could produce lift in any direction, you could change direction quickly and that power could be turned on or off almost instantly," Colozza says. If the pilot wanted such an aircraft to move to the right, he or she would increase power to electrodes on the left side of the craft and vice versa for moving to the left. Electrodes on the bottom of the craft would power its lift, whereas those on top would bring the craft back down to Earth.
Assuming Roy's WEAV prototype gets off the ground next year—and that's a big if—it could prove useful in a number of ways. What makes the WEAV potentially appealing as a way to power spacecraft is that it relies on electricity (from a battery or some other power source) rather than combustion—a process that requires oxygen, which is in short supply outside Earth's atmosphere, Colozza says. Still, the WEAV's biggest fans are likely to be in the U.S. military, who would use the craft as a drone for gathering intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance information.
Roy has been working with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, since 2001 to study how plasma could be used to control the flow of air—pushing air in different directions—and thereby the vehicle's movements. "If plasma (flow) is turned on the right way, I can blow air any direction I want to blow air," says Doug Blake, deputy director of the Air Force Research Lab's Air Vehicles Directorate, of the craft's ability to push air away from itself. "If I have a jet coming out of the bottom of this, I can create a helicopter with no moving parts. Things that you would use a helicopter for, you could use this for."
But this does not mean the Air Force is ready to order a fleet of Roy's flying saucers. "We have worked with (Roy) on plasma studies but there are no concrete plans in place that I'm aware of to explicitly support the development of this device," Blake says.
At this early stage, and without a clear decision on how the craft will be powered, Roy says it is unclear how much a WEAV might cost to build and operate. Still, he is optimistic. "All of the materials needed to make this aircraft currently exist," he says, "and plasma is the most abundant form of matter in the universe. If we can somehow tap into that in the future we should be able to fly anywhere."
Could popping a pill turn you into a long-distance runner? Researchers report that they have identified two signaling pathways that are turned on in response to exercise — and that artificially turning those pathways on in mice produced rodents with much greater endurance.
Best SCIENCE! ever! I foresee a totally awesome future of couch potato workouts.
Double Post Alert!
Alright I give up, it's a number that Rick rolls you when you call it. I wanted to see if anyone would call it.
But anyway, mice, smice. I want a gigantic radioactive SCIENCE!-y duck-billed platypus that can cause random chalupas to appear when he smacks his tail against the water. I just learned that the regular, non-SCIENCE!-y kind are venomous, and now I wonder what a gigantic radioactive SCIENCE!-y one could do.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- From sensors in workout gear that monitor sweating while you run at the gym, to underwear that aims to detect cancer cells, the contents of our wardrobes have been quietly undergoing a revolution.
Over the past decade, there has been a rise in the number of ways that technology is being incorporated into items of our clothing.
Trials of smart clothes that can repel insects and mask nasty odours such as cigarette smoke have proved successful and are already being marketed.
Last year, a design student at Cornell University designed a garment that can prevent colds and flu and, crucially, never needs washing.
While, Textronics, a Delaware-based company, has developed a sports bra which monitors the heart rate and motion of runners. The company has patented stretchy textile electrodes that can be incorporated into the garments.
We can expect to see, in the not-too-distant future, fabrics that have in-built cooling, deodorant, moisturizer and even vitamins, experts say.
"The world is your oyster when it comes to the sorts of things you can do with clothing and technology. You're only limited by your imagination, really," says Dr Adam Best, a research scientist who has developed a shirt that produces electricity simply by being moved, such as when the wearer is walking.
Researchers at the Wearable Computer Laboratory at the University of Australia say it is now possible to insert cameras, microphones, accelerometers and GPS units into clothing.
"Your whole body can be equipped with an array of sensors," Bruce Thomas, co-director of the lab, tells CNN.
Analysts estimate the industry is worth roughly $400 million today and may reach $700 million by 2010, according to Military and Aerospace Electronics magazine.
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments in this field is ongoing work on a breast screening smart bra which could allow wearers to detect breast cancer at the earliest stage.
Professor Elias Siores, of the University of Bolton, England, says the bra can detect cancer before the tumor can develop and spread into surrounding areas. Crucially, Professor Siores says the bra can also monitor the effectiveness of any breast cancer treatment the wearer is undergoing.
The smart bra works using a microwave antennae system device which is woven into the fabric of the bra. The antennae picks up any abnormal temperature changes in the breast tissue, which are often associated with cancer cells.
It is hoped the bra will be on sale in stores in a couple of years.
However, some remain doubtful as to whether the science behind the bra is achievable. There are also doubts whether the bra could replace traditional screening methods, such as a mammogram.
This is because the idea behind the bra supposes that as tumors grow, there will be a higher demand for blood flow. The increased blood flow then produces elevated temperatures around the affected area of the breast, sending a warning to the wearer.
Critics say blood flow rates could be increased for any number of reasons.
There are benign growths and nonmalignant inflammatory changes, which might also increase blood flow," said Anne Rosenberg, a breast surgeon at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Despite the reticence from some quarters, work in this burgeoning field forges ahead.
Scientists in Europe are at at an advanced stage of developing outfits which they say will be able to monitor the body's vital signs and detect illnesses and infections at their earliest stages.
The European Commission sponsored research project centers on the development of biochemical sensing techniques compatible with integration into textile, called Biotex.
The first version will be able to monitor sweat by measuring acidity, salinity and perspiration rate.
Shirley Coyle, an engineer based at the National Center for Sensor Research at Dublin City University, Ireland, is involved in the Biotex program.
"If clothes could talk, they could tell us so much about our bodies," says Dr Coyle.
"They are an interface between our bodies and the environment and in the future will prove a vital tool in health care. We are creating clothing with sensors that does not intrude on the comfort of the patient with wires."
"This is an entirely new area, but every day we are discovering ways of adding new functions to textiles. It has so much potential. Our clothes will definitely play a very different role in the future," says Dr Coyle.
Biotex project co-ordinator Jean Luprano stresses that these new "intelligent textiles" are designed to complement, not replace traditional diagnostic methods, especially when it is not practical for someone to visit the doctor.
"In these cases, wearable monitoring systems, even if less accurate, can help the physicians get additional information they would not have without them if the patients are away from the hospital."
Comments
In search of forever
Jun 12th 2008
From The Economist print edition
As a source of power for cars, fuel cells have been a disappointment. For laptops and mobile phones, they are just about to take off
Nothing to lose but their chains
Jun 19th 2008 | MUNICH
From The Economist print edition
Robots are getting cleverer and more dexterous. Their time has almost come
I don't think it would be too bad. As far as I know, strangelets would transform the entire planet into some crazy ass substance in like a second or two. It'd be so fast we wouldn't even notice. Blip, we're dead.
And maybe this is morbid, but death by black hole is arguably one of the coolest possible ways to die. I'd rather die from a black hole than by cancer or something.
Also, the LHC can't be referenced without mentioning this.
The World's First Flying Saucer: Made Right Here on Earth
Best SCIENCE! ever! I foresee a totally awesome future of couch potato workouts.
Which is why they have to do it right now.
Weird.
Alright I give up, it's a number that Rick rolls you when you call it. I wanted to see if anyone would call it.
But anyway, mice, smice. I want a gigantic radioactive SCIENCE!-y duck-billed platypus that can cause random chalupas to appear when he smacks his tail against the water. I just learned that the regular, non-SCIENCE!-y kind are venomous, and now I wonder what a gigantic radioactive SCIENCE!-y one could do.
I. LOVE. YOU.
OH, WAIT!