Lake Baikal responds to climate change
A decades-long study of Lake Baikal—an effort that survived the reign of Stalin and the fall of the Soviet Union—shows that the world’s largest body of freshwater is warming, trending the way of other large lakes. Scientists previously thought the lake would be immune to warming effects.
Lab-on-a-chip technology to go searching for Martian life
Remember the meteorites rumored to contain evidence of biological life. A new instrument that is accompanying a European Space Agency mission to Mars has been designed eliminate doubts about the biological, or non-biological, origins of extraterrestrial materials. The palm-size device can both heat and freeze-dry samples using a laser-enabled microfluidic sensor.
U.S. Climate Reference Network nears conclusion of major overhaul
Dotting the American landscape are more than 1,000 small climatology data stations and more than 100 larger stations tracking national temperature and precipitation trends. NOAA, which oversees this system, hopes the new data will give scientists and the public a better long-term view of climate change in the U.S., and help predict changes such as drought.
Zero Shaping for Tough Tuning
PID command control is a time-honored tool used by many modern industrial facilities. These days, loop tuning setups rely on optimization software to help deliver consistent results.
RF is Expanding with MIMO Technology
Keithley Instruments, Cleveland, Ohio, recently announced a partnership with the Institute of Mobile Communications (IMC) at the Southwest Jiaotong Univ. in Chengdu, Sichuan, a major city in the southwest area of China.
Antarctic sensors catch polar seas in a deep freeze
German researchers have announced the first results of their extensive study of Antarctic sea thermal conditions, revealing a significant deep sea cool down, even while the Arctic last year had the warmest summer on record. The team uses dozens of floating buoys and sensing systems to record data such as iron concentrations.
National Instruments’ controller is FIRST’s choice
A dozen high-technology companies have contributed parts to help NI build the CompactRIO embedded control platform. Features such as an FPGA-based I/O should give rise to more innovative solutions from the more than 42,000 students who participate annually in FIRST’s Robotics Competition.
Micro sensor and micro fridge make cool pair
The combination of a transition-edge sensor (TES) and a solid-state refrigerator by NIST scientists has led to the first cooling of a fully functional detector with a micro refrigerator. One promising application is cheaper, simpler semiconductor defect analysis using x-rays.
High-level calibration moves out of the laboratory The Laser TRACER, developed by a UK measurement institute and recently introduced to market, should be of interest to users of spatially-precise equipment, such as CNC machine tools. The new device brings a mechanically and thermally decoupled laser design and flexible algorithm to a portable platform.
Vapor-sniffing chemicals find IEDs from a distance Roadside bombs, a deadly threat to soldiers in Iraq, have led to heavily-armored Humvees. But a better solution would be to find the bombs before it’s too late. Univ. of Michigan research has created fluorescing materials that “sniff” out explosives, suggesting an inexpensive sensor network.
Needle-like RFID sensor pinpoints tumors and measures radiation Purdue engineer Babak Ziaie has developed prototype wireless dosimeter that he hopes will one day soon shrink to the size of a rice grain. Shaped to fit inside a large diameter needle, the radio device can measure radiation precisely and pinpoint the real-time tumor location without expensive x-ray imaging.
Antarctic surface snowmelt down 40% in 2008 The breakage of Antarctic ice shelves continues to grab news headlines, yet surface thaw on the southern continent in 2008 has been sharply below a recent 20-year average. Derived from microwave observations from space, the data raises still more questions about global climate behavior.
Martian clues help reveal new mineral on Earth Through an unusual intersection of Earthbound analytical science and raw Martian data, Canadian scientists have reported finding a previously unobserved mineral: meridianiite (MgSO411H2O). The special steps needed to find it help explain why it’s gone unnoticed before now.
The call of the wild Antarctic To obtain the acoustic baseline of a “pristine” ocean, the otherworldly sounds of from the bottom of a floating Antarctic ice shelf are available to the public for the first time. German scientists are streaming the noise they gather real-time from hydrophones located deep under the Ekström ice shelf.
Climate change’s poster child is poorly understood Frustrated by both difficult-to-interpret satellite data and a lack of knowledge about pollution transport from the Arctic, NASA scientists this week take to the air to conduct a comprehensive field study of atmospheric chemistry in the lower Arctic.
Does the future hold an algae-powered Bimmer? An interesting thought, but hydrogen is the missing link. Argonne National Lab’s engineers have measured extremely low levels of emission from the BMW Hydrogen 7’s hydrogen combustion motor. At the same time, Argonne’s chemists are looking to harness the photosynthetic power of algae to commercially generate hydrogen gas.
Is it real, or synthetic? A tricorder could help A genomics gives rise to modified genetic sequences, the need for sensors to detect the difference between natural and engineered DNA has prompted Lawrence Livermore National Lab to develop a detection technique that could one day be used in handheld device straight out of Star Trek.
Bomb sniffer and industrial monitor in one tiny sensor Building on the tendency for metallic phthalocyanine films to alter electrical conductivity when exposed to either oxidizing or reducing, chemists and physicists at the Univ. of California, San Diego, have made a coin-sized detector that can ferret out vapors of hydrogen peroxide, the common ingredient in most homemade explosives.
Satellite makes first observation of man-made CO2 emissions For the first time, reports the European Space Agency, the Envisat satellite has detected regionally elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in an area from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Frankfurt, Germany. Distinguishing natural from man-made CO2 should help scientists track the carbon cycle.
Antineutrino detector not so far-fetched, scientists say A simple, robust antineutrino detector seemed out of the reach of the nuclear power industry until recent R&D at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. The discovery is important because such a device can independently (as well as remotely and securely) differentiate between fissile uranium-235 and plutonium-239, an important feature for nonproliferation efforts.
Researchers quadruple wireless data rate A group of people talking all at once won’t make much sense to the listening. But Zurich engineers have discovered a wireless transceiver doesn’t need hear messages one a time. Called multiple input multiple output technology, it greatly boosts transmission rates.
World’s fastest, and space’s biggest, laboratory Japan’s Kibo laboratory, when complete, will be the largest of the International Space Station study modules. Packed full of high-tech experiments, Kibo is the size of a bus and will need three Shuttle missions to install. The first portion is already in orbit.
Moon rocket motor gets a makeover In the coming years, NASA will depend on the J-2X rocket engine, a developed version of the J-2 used in the Saturn V rocket. Performance analysis requires sophisticated testing setups, including a seven-element heat sink test chamber to accommodate pressures up to 5,000 psi.
Powerful bio tool springs from mathematical theory In an interesting cross-discipline scientific paper, a mathematician at the National Univ. at San Diego has provided the blueprint for a powerful biological device: a handheld DNA detector. A new instrument, the ion-selective field-effect transistor, is key to the concept.
May 9, 2008
There are roughly 78 million baby boomers in the U.S. and about 8,000 of them turn 60 every day. A small number still have parents, many of whom are in continuing care retirement facilities, which many of the baby boomers themselves will have need of in the future. A number of studies have revealed that, under current situations, there won’t be enough health care workers available in the future to properly take care of the residents in these facilities.
One of the solutions noted was the implementation of robotic systems for many of the routine chores, thereby freeing up the available health care providers to do the more personal and intensive jobs. Other robotic systems have been demonstrated for the in-home care and monitoring of elderly citizens. Health care robotic assistants’ duties include systems for delivery and disposal of materials, infirm patient guidance and tracking, rehabilitation assistants, and overall monitoring and analysis. But while many of these systems have been demonstrated, relatively few have been transitioned into actual products and integrated into health care facilities or available for in-home use.
Likely, the overall costs for the systems including their initial acquisition, maintenance, and monitoring and control networks are still beyond the payback range required by the care facility operators or individuals. Their reliability, especially in power outage situations, also has not been proven. Certainly, the looming volume of potential customers for these products is highly visible and without question, so as to create a marketplace with adequate revenue possibilities and high-volume cost reductions. Regardless, the manufacturers of such systems are not visibly increasing, and the integrations of systems into facilities is meager at best. Indeed, research in robotic health care appears to be increasing in the EU and Japan—who have their own rising levels of senior citizens—faster than it is in the U.S.
Is this going to become a situation where robotic systems needed to take care of our elderly are sourced from suppliers outside the U.S.? These are primarily high-technology products and not commodities, so that the cost advantage for foreign suppliers should not be an issue. It will become primarily a situation of who actually designs and builds these systems and offers them for sale. I sincerely hope that U.S. industry will take advantage of this opportunity to create a new market sector.
