Monthly Archives: May 2012

Memristors: they are older than you think

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I got an email this morning (May 22, 2012) informing me that an article, Two centuries of memristors by Themistoklis Prodromakis, Christofer Toumazou and Leon Chua, had just been published in the journal Nature Materials. The article situates memristors in an historical context stretching back to the 19th century. Sadly, the article is behind a paywall so I won’t be copying too much material but I will attempt to give you the flavour of the piece.

The focus is on 19th century scientists and their work with what we are now calling ‘memristors’.  Before moving on to the article, here’s a good definition of a memristor, from the Wikipedia essay (note: I have removed links and footnotes),

Memristor (…  a portmanteau of “memory resistor”) is a passive two-terminal electrical component envisioned as a fundamental non-linear circuit element relating charge and magnetic flux linkage. The memristor is currently under development by a team at Hewlett-Packard.

When current flows in one direction through the device, the electrical resistance increases; and when current flows in the opposite direction, the resistance decreases. When the current is stopped, the component retains the last resistance that it had, and when the flow of charge starts again, the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last active. It has a regime of operation with an approximately linear charge-resistance relationship as long as the time-integral of the current stays within certain bounds.

This Wikipedia essay also offers an historical timeline, which starts in 1960 with Bernard Widrow and his memistor, adding very nicely to the discussion in the Nature Materials article which focuses on such 19th luminaries as Sir Michael Faraday, Hertha Ayrton, Alessandro Volta, and Humphry Davy, amongst others.  Here’s a helpful description of hysteresis and how it relates to the memristor from the article (note: I have removed footnotes),

The functional properties of memristors were first documented by Chua and later on by Chua and Kang, with their main fingerprint being a pinched-hysteresis loop when subjected to a bipolar periodic signal. This particular signature has been explicitly observed in a number of devices for more than one century, while it can be extrapolated for devices that appeared as early as the dawn of the nineteenth century.

Hysteresis is typically noticed in systems and devices that possess certain inertia, causing the value of a physical property to lag behind changes in the mechanism causing it, manifesting memory.

The authors go on to outline the various  scientists who have grappled with the ‘memristive effect’ dating back to two centuries ago.  They finish their essay with this (note:  I’ve removed footnotes),

The memristor is not an invention. Rather it is a description of a basic phenomenon of nature that manifests itself in various dissipative devices, made from different materials, internal structures and architectures. We end this historical narrative by noting that even though the memristor has seen its light of joy only recently in 2008, and has been recognized as the fourth circuit element along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, it actually predates the resistor, which was formally published by Ohm in 1827, and the inductor, which was formally published by Faraday in 1831.

If you are at all interested in memristors and have access behind the paywall, I strongly recommend reading this paper not only for the historical context but for how the authors support their contention that the memristor is a fourth circuit element.

A contrasting perspective is offered by Blaise Mouttet (discussed in my Jan. 27, 2012 posting) who contends that the what we are now calling a ‘memristor’ is part of a larger class of variable resistance systems.

Voting opens today for online science video (and poster) competition

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The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has a special program to encourage both interdisciplinary work and communication with the public, the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program which is holding an online video (and poster) competition. From the May 22, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The 2012 IGERT Online Video and Poster Competition is showcasing the cutting-edge interdisciplinary research of 180 graduate-school students from 114 graduate programs funded by the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Through this competition, up-and-coming scientists use videos and posters to communicate their innovative, interdisciplinary research, which bridges traditional disciplines such as physics, engineering, nanotechnology, computer science, biology, and the social sciences to address complex challenges of our time. The online platform designed by TERC [Technical Education Research Centers] enables the public to view the videos and posters, ask the researchers questions, and vote for the Public Choice Award by “liking” their favorite presentations on Facebook.

The deadline for voting on the Public Choice Award is May 25, 2012 12 noon EDT. Winners will be announced June 1, 2012. I was unable to login directly at the IGERT website so found access through the Nanowerk links. Here’s one of the nanotechnology videos,

Here’s how the students, Kristy Jost and Carlos Perez from Drexel University (Pennsylania, US)  describe the work on the IGERT webpage hosting their video,

Energy Textiles: a Multidisciplinary Approach to Integrated Electronics in “Smart” Garments

Fashionable Technology is a multidisciplinary field of study, focusing on the fabrication of wearable electronics by combining fashion design techniques with advanced nanotechnology. Applications of fashionable technology range from wearable and soft bio-sensors to integrated circuitry that can monitor human vitals in hospitals, combat, or in space. Beyond the engineering perspective, the field has shown applicability in the aesthetic realm as a transformable means of expression on the body, including clothes that change color and shape while performing electronic functions similar to an iPhone. However, previous designers and researchers in the field of “smart” textiles still struggle with the challenge of finding seamless solutions to currently available, and bulky, power sources. Therefore, the focus of our presentation will be on one of the fundamental components to all electronics: energy storage. We will present cutting edge research on textile energy storage, the design and engineering challenges researchers like ourselves still face, and how textile energy storage fits into the world-scope of research on flexible energy technologies. We will also elaborate on the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and how it has been a key element to the success of our research.

I last posted about  about nanotechnology-enabled textiles, which harvest energy  in my May 9, 2012 posting about a project at the University of Utah for the US Army.

More on quantum dots: a toxicity study; Merck action in Israel

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I have two items on quantum dots today. The first concerns a toxicity study performed on primates at the University of Buffalo (NY, USA). From the May 22, 2012 news item by Will Soutter for Azonano,

A multi-institute toxicity study on quantum dots in primates has discovered that these nanocrystals are safe for a period of one year.

This finding is encouraging for researchers and physicians looking for novel techniques to treat diseases such as cancer using nanomedicine. The organizations involved in the study included the University at Buffalo, Nanyang Technological University, ChangChun University of Science and Technology, and the Chinese PLA General Hospital.

On digging a little further, I found this information on the University of Buffalo website, from their May 21, 2012 news release,

— Tiny luminescent crystals called quantum dots hold great promise as tools for treating and detecting diseases like cancer.

— A pioneering study to gauge the toxicity of quantum dots in primates has found cadmium-selenide quantum dots to be safe over intervals of time ranging from three months to a year. The study is likely the first to test the safety of quantum dots in primates.

— The authors say more research is needed to determine quantum dots’ long-term effect on health; elevated levels of cadmium from the quantum dots were found in the primates even after 90 days.

The research, which appeared on May 20 in Nature Nanotechnology online , is likely the first to test the safety of quantum dots in primates.

In the study, scientists found that four rhesus monkeys injected with cadmium-selenide quantum dots remained in normal health over 90 days. Blood and biochemical markers stayed in typical ranges, and major organs developed no abnormalities. The animals didn’t lose weight.

Two monkeys observed for an additional year also showed no signs of illness.

The first  results are hopeful but there are some concerns,

The new toxicity study — completed by the University at Buffalo, the Chinese PLA General Hospital, China’s ChangChun University of Science and Technology, and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University — begins to address the concern of health professionals who worry that quantum dots may be dangerous to humans.

The authors caution, however, that more research is needed to determine the nanocrystals’ long-term effects in primates; most of the potentially toxic cadmium from the quantum dots stayed in the liver, spleen and kidneys of the animals studied over the 90-day period.

…

The cadmium build-up, in particular, is a serious concern that warrants further investigation, said Ken-Tye Yong, a Nanyang Technological University assistant professor who began working with Prasad [Paras N. Prasad] on the study as a postdoctoral researcher at UB.

Unusually, this article seems to be open access at Nature Nanotechnology,

A pilot study in non-human primates shows no adverse response to intravenous injection of quantum dots

Ling Ye, Ken-Tye Yong, Liwei Liu, Indrajit Roy, Rui Hu, Jing Zhu, Hongxing Cai, Wing-Cheung Law, Jianwei Liu, Kai Wang, Jing Liu, Yaqian Liu, Yazhuo Hu, Xihe Zhang, Mark T. Swihart, and Paras N. Prasad

Nature Nanotechnology (2012) doi:10.1038/nnano.2012.74

The acquisition of an Israeli quantum dot company by Merck is my second bit of quantum dot news, from the May 22, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Merck announced today that within the scope of a capital increase by the Israeli start-up company QLight Nanotech, it is acquiring an interest in the Jerusalem-based company. QLight Nanotech is a spin-off subsidiary of Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. QLight Nanotech develops products for use in displays and energy-efficient light sources based on semiconductor nanoparticles known as quantum dots.

I understood that Merck was a pharmaceutical company so I was bit surprised to see this (from the May 22, 2012 news item on the Solid State Technology website)

“I am excited that our basic science discoveries on semiconductor nanocrystals are now being realized in innovative technological applications. The partnership with Merck, a world leader in materials for display applications, is a synergistic one allowing us at Qlight Nanotech to implement advanced chemicals manufacturing and applications’ know-how,” said the scientific founder of  QLight Nanotech, Professor Uri Banin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who will continue to support the company as a shareholder and advisor alongside of Yissum.

In fact, Merck bills itself as a pharmaceuticals and a s chemicals company.

Benny Landa and nanoprinting

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There’s one more announcement from DRUPA (the 2012 edition of the International Trade Fair for prepress, premedia, printing, book binding, print finishing and paper converting held May 3 – 16, 2012) that I want to feature here, especially since it’s nanotechnology-related.  From the May 17, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Landa Corporation announced the details of its groundbreaking Landa Nanographic Printing™ Presses that are set to transform mainstream commercial, packaging and publishing markets. With output speeds comparable to offset presses and employing NanoInk™ colorants that create unprecedented image qualities, the Landa Nanographic Printing™ Press portfolio is set to fundamentally change printing as we know it.

Landa Founder, Chairman and CEO Benny Landa says, “Nanography™ is a new technology for applying ink to paper. In developing Landa Nanographic Printing we had to re-think and reinvent the printing press. The result is digital printing with remarkable performance – from a family of presses that share stunning ergonomic design, a small footprint and some of the most advanced user functionality available in the market.”

There is very little technical detail which is typical of Landa’s approach. As I recall from my days working for a competitor, Indigo, Landa’s last printing company, sold presses built on proprietary software. Any printer who purchased Indigo products was locked into the ‘Indigo world’ as there was no possibility of mixing and matching products from other manufacturers.

On that note, I notice this reference to a propriety ink in Landa’s latest product announcement (May 17, 2012 news item),

At the heart of the Nanographic Printing™ process are Landa NanoInk™ colorants. Comprised of pigment particles only tens of nanometres in size (1 nanometer is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair), these nano-pigments are extremely powerful absorbers of light and enable unprecedented image qualities. Landa Nanographic Printing is characterised by ultra-sharp dots of extremely high uniformity, high gloss fidelity and the broadest colour gamut of any four-colour printing process.

Nanographic Printing begins with the ejection of billions of microscopic droplets of water-based Landa NanoInk onto a heated blanket conveyor belt. Each droplet of aqueous NanoInk lands at a precise location on the belt, creating the colour image. As the water evaporates, the ink becomes an ultra-thin dry polymeric film, less than half the thickness of offset images.

The resulting image is then transferred to any kind of ordinary paper, coated or uncoated, or onto any plastic packaging film – without requiring pre-treatment. The NanoInk film image instantaneously bonds to the surface, forming a tough, abrasion-resistant laminated layer without leaving any residual ink on the blanket.

Since NanoInk images are already dry, there is no need for post drying. Two-sided printing becomes simple and printed goods can be immediately handled, right off the press, even in the most aggressive finishing equipment.

Given that the printing industry is not experiencing growth these days, it’ll be interesting to see if this ‘nano’ approach is going to work. My last posting about the 2012 DRUPA focused on 3-D printing and paper loudspeakers (May 4, 2012).

Memory of the world

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The fact that UNESCO will be holding its International Conference: “Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation” in Vancouver (Canada), Sept. 26 – 28, 2012 was one of the many snippets of information that Luciana Duranti, Chair and Professor at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, passed on during her talk on Thursday, May 17, 2012 in Vancouver.

Organized by ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada), Duranti’s talk Trust and Authenticity in the Digital Environment: An Increasingly Cloudy Issue, first delved into definitions of trust, authenticity and cloud computing before focusing on the issues presented by storing our data on the  ‘cloud’. As Duranti noted, this is a return, of sorts, to the 60s and its mainframe environment.  However, unlike the 60s our data is not stored on one server, it may be split amongst many servers in many countries making our data quite vulnerable. For example, different laws in different countries means you can lose data if the legal situation changes as it did in the US recently.  According to Duranti (as best as I can recall), one of Megaupload’s servers has been shut down in the state of Virginia because of a problem with data from one business. Unfortunately, all of the data held there was also destroyed.

On investigating this further, I found a more general discussion of the situation with Megaupload on Techdirt (May 1, 2012 posting by Mike Masnick) which highlights law professor Eric Goldman’s extraordinary indictment of the government’s action in his April 20, 2012 posting, excerpt of 2nd point,

2) Taking Megaupload offline. Megaupload’s website is analogous to a printing press that constantly published new content. Under our Constitution, the government can’t simply shut down a printing press, but that’s basically what our government did when it turned Megaupload off and seized all of the assets. Not surprisingly, shutting down a printing press suppresses countless legitimate content publications by legitimate users of Megaupload. Surprisingly (shockingly, even), the government apparently doesn’t care about this “collateral,” entirely foreseeable and deeply unconstitutional effect. The government’s further insistence that all user data, even legitimate data, should be destroyed is even more shocking. Destroying the evidence not only screws over the legitimate users, but it may make it impossible for Megaupload to mount a proper defense. It’s depressing our government isn’t above such cheap tricks in its zeal to win.

As Masnick notes on Techdirt,

The more we hear and see about the government’s case against Megaupload, it really appears that the government was relying almost entirely on the fact that Megaupload looked bad. It’s hard to deny that there were plenty of things that Kim (in particular) [CEO Kim Dotcom] did that makes him appear pretty obnoxious. But being a crass showoff doesn’t automatically make you a criminal.

The Jan. 19, 2012 article by Nate Anderson for Ars Technica seems more sympathetic to the government’s position, initially,

The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site’s key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom. In a 72-page indictment unsealed in a Virginia federal court, prosecutors charged that the site earned more than $175 million since its founding in 2005, most of it based on copyright infringement.

As for the site’s employees, they were paid lavishly and they spent lavishly. Even the graphic designer, 35-year-old Slovakian resident Julius Bencko, made more than $1 million in 2010 alone.

The indictment goes after six individuals, who between them owned 14 Mercedes-Benz automobiles with license plates such as “POLICE,” “MAFIA,” “V,” “STONED,” “CEO,” “HACKER,” GOOD,” “EVIL,” and—perhaps presciently—”GUILTY.” The group also had a 2010 Maserati, a 2008 Rolls-Royce, and a 1989 Lamborghini. They had not one but three Samsung 83″ TVs, and two Sharp 108″ TVs. Someone owned a “Predator statue.” …

Yet the indictment seems odd in some ways. When Viacom made many of the same charges against YouTube, it didn’t go to the government and try to get Eric Schmidt or Chad Hurley arrested.

Anderson mentions that Megaupload had 525 servers in Virginia state and many more around the world. (I’m not sure why Duranti stated that one server had been shut down in Virginia but perhaps she was using it as an example to demonstrate what happens when just one server is shut down.) Regardless of whether it’s one server or 525 , I’m with Eric Goldman when he points out that destroying legitimate data is shocking.

Duranti’s talk was illuminating and I look forward to hearing more about these issues when the UNESCO conference takes place here in Vancouver next September. From the conference news webpage,

Digital information has economic value as a cultural product and as a source of knowledge. It plays a major role in national sustainable development as, increasingly, personal, governmental and commercial information is created in digital form only. But digitized national assets also constitute an immense wealth of the countries concerned and of society at large. The disappearance of this heritage will engender economic and cultural impoverishment and hamper the advancement of knowledge.

Ensuring digital continuity of content can only be overcome if a range of legal, technological, social, financial, political and other obstacles are addressed. The Vancouver Conference therefore seeks to achieve:

  • the launch of specific initiatives related to digital preservation and to the fostering of access to documentary heritage through digitization;
  • the revision of the UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage;
  • the identification of the legal frameworks and solutions to facilitate long-term digital preservation;
  • the agreement on the promotion and/or development of exchange standards;
  • the definition of the respective roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and elaboration of a cooperation model.

I have mentioned Duranti and issues relating to digitization and archives before (March 8, 2012 posting: Digital disaster).

Quantum dots and graphene; a mini roundup

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I’ve done very little writing about quantum dots (so much nano, so little time) but there’s been a fair amount of activity lately which has piqued my interest. In the last few days researchers at Kansas State University have been getting noticed for being able to control the size and shape of the graphene quantum dots they produce.  This one has gotten extensive coverage online including this May 17, 2012 news item on physorg.com,

Vikas Berry, William H. Honstead professor of chemical engineering, has developed a novel process that uses a diamond knife to cleave graphite into graphite nanoblocks, which are precursors for graphene quantum dots. These nanoblocks are then exfoliated to produce ultrasmall sheets of carbon atoms of controlled shape and size.

By controlling the size and shape, the researchers can control graphene’s properties over a wide range for varied applications, such as solar cells, electronics, optical dyes, biomarkers, composites and particulate systems. Their work has been published in Nature Communications and supports the university’s vision to become a top 50 public research university by 2025. The article is available online.

Here’s an image of graphene being cut by a diamond knife from the May 16, 2012 posting by jtorline on the K-State News blog,

Molecular dynamics snapshot of stretched graphene being nanotomed via a diamond knife.

Here’s why standardizing the size is so important,

While other researchers have been able to make quantum dots, Berry’s research team can make quantum dots with a controlled structure in large quantities, which may allow these optically active quantum dots to be used in solar cell and other optoelectronic applications. [emphasis mine]

While all this is happening in Kansas, the Econ0mist magazine published a May 12, 2012 article about some important quantum dot optoelectronic developments in Spain (an excellent description for relative beginners is given and, if this area interests you, I’d suggest reading it in full),

Actually converting the wonders of graphene into products has been tough. But Frank Koppens and his colleagues at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona think they have found a way to do so. As they describe in Nature Nanotechnology, they believe graphene can be used to make ultra-sensitive, low-cost photodetectors.

…

A typical photodetector is made of a silicon chip a few millimetres across onto which light is focused by a small lens. Light striking the chip knocks electrons free from some of the silicon atoms, producing a signal that the chip’s electronics convert into a picture or other useful information. …

Silicon photodetectors suffer, though, from a handicap: they are inflexible. Nor are they particularly cheap. And they are not that sensitive. They absorb only 10-20% of the light that falls on to them. For years, therefore, engineers have been on the lookout for a cheap, bendable, sensitive photodetector. …

By itself, graphene is worse than silicon at absorbing light. According to Dr Koppens only 2.7% of the photons falling on it are captured. But he and his colleague Gerasimos Konstantatos have managed to increase this to more than 50% by spraying tiny crystals of lead sulphide onto the surface of the material.

So combining the ability to size quantum dots uniformly with this discovery on how to make graphene more sensitive (and more useful in potential products) with quantum dots suggests some very exciting possibilities including this one mentioned by Dexter Johnson (who’s living in Spain these days) in his May 16, 2012 posting on Nanoclast (on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] website),

The researchers offer a range of applications for the graphene-and-quantum-dot combination, including digital cameras and sensors.  [emphasis mine] But it seems the researchers seem particularly excited about one application in particular. They expect the material will be used for night-vision technologies in automobiles—an application I have never heard trotted out before in relation to nanotech.

You can get more insights, more precise descriptions if you want to follow up from the Econ0mist article,  and Dexter’s links to more information about the research in his posting.

In my final roundup piece, I received a news release (dated April 24, 2012) about a quantum dot commercialization project at the University of Utah,

One of the biggest challenges for advancing quantum dots is the manufacturing process. Conventional processes are expensive, require high temperatures and produce low yields. However, researchers at the University of Utah believe they have a solution. They recently formed a startup company called Navillum Nanotechnologies, and their efforts are gaining national attention with help from a team of M.B.A. students from the David Eccles School of Business.
The students recently won first place and $100,000 at the regional CU Cleantech New Venture Challenge. The student competition concluded at the University of Colorado in Boulder on Friday, April 20. The student team advances to the national championship, which will be held in June in Washington, D.C. Student teams from six regions will compete for additional prizes and recognition at the prestigious event. Other regional competitions were held at MIT, Cal Tech, the University of Maryland, Clean Energy Trust (Chicago) and Rice University. All the competitions are financed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The students will be competing in the national Clean Energy Business Plan Competition taking place June 12-13, 2012 in Washington, D.C.  Here are a few more details from the national competition webpage,

Winners of the six regional competitions will represent their home universities and regions as they vie for the honor of presenting the best clean energy business plan before a distinguished panel of expert judges and invited guests from federal agencies, industry, national labs and the venture capital community.

Confirmed Attendees include:

The Honorable Steven Chu
Energy Secretary [US federal government]

Dr. David Danielson
Assistant Secretary, EERE  [US Dept. of Energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies)

Dr. Karina Edmonds
Technology Transfer Coordinator [US Dept. of Energy]

Mr. Todd Park
Chief Technology Officer, White House

Good luck to the students!

Curved glass, Italy, and Diamon-Fusion

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You just don’t expect a glorious moment when you’re searching for more information about a glass company but I had it on seeing some of the gallery images at the Curvet website (Italy),

_Edilizia facciate, vetrate isolanti, fotovoltaic (Curvet Italy website)

Getting to the news part of this, Curvet has signed with Diamon-Fusion international (they produce nanocoatings used on glass) for a third renewal  of their licensing deal. From the May 17, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Diamon-Fusion International, Inc. (DFI), global developer and exclusive licensor of patented hydrophobic nanotechnologies, announced today the renewal of its license agreement with Italian glass manufacturer Curvet Group, one of the world’s leaders in the fabrication of specialty bent and flat glass in the architectural field for its application license agreement for Diamon-Fusion® glass nano-coating. This is the third renewal for Curvet Group and extends the partnership with DFI into 2017. For over a decade, Curvet has utilized DFI’s industrial flexibility in its 3D ultra-efficient CVD chamber, a patented technology that showcases DFI’s exclusive production capabilities.

Here’s a little more about Curvet,

Curvet Group produces glass for use in many different applications, incorporating modern stylish designs and a myriad different colors and effects, while maintaining and enhancing the inherent safety aspects and practical uses of this versatile product. Its wide-range of market segments include; home furnishings, bathroom furniture, automotive, transportation, marine, construction, architecture, urban furniture, household appliances, lighting and new technologies. In addition, the importance of renewable energy products today is an area in which glass plays a prominent part and where Curvet is an international leader in the field.

Curvet, a 30-year Italian privately-held holding group, is the only company in Europe that is able to produce bent glass of every type with unique and innovative solutions for every sector. The differentiation in equipment and the resulting flexibility are the key factors of Curvet’s success. It is the only company to carry out the whole processing of flat glass into any kind of curved finished product. Curvet is also a manufacturer of tempered, laminated and security glass with strategic distribution and sales offices in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, Russia, USA and Morocco.

I have mentioned Diamon-Fusion and its technology previously (in a Nov. 26, 2009 posting and in a Feb. 11, 2011 posting) but here we go again with a very brief description  (from the May 17, 2012 news item),

Through DFI’s patented nano-coating process, the treatment to the glass creates a water repellent effect which enables ease of cleaning and protection against scratches, abrasion, hard water, soap scum, mildew and environmental elements, therefore considerably reducing the overall costs of maintenance. The Diamon-Fusion® nano-coating is optically clear, and does not affect the natural reflection of the glass.

If you want to see more beautiful images of Curvet glass, go here and click on the coloured boxes.

Mice crash ScienceOnline Vancouver’s May 2012 event at Science World

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The second ScienceOnline Vancouver event (a May 15, 2012 event mentioned in my May 14, 2012 posting, which has links to speakers’ blogs and also mentions a few still upcoming science events [May 22 and May 29, 2012]) with Eric Michael Johnson and Raul Pacheco-Vega discussing how to use social media effectively went well.

I can see the organizers refined their approach and the integration of technology (livestreaming, tweeting, etc.)  with a live event was smoother than the last one plus the transition from listening to the speakers to participating in discussion was smoother too.

Both Johnson and Pacheco-Vega highlighted how their use of social media has enhanced professional and personal connections and/or opened up new opportunities. For example, Johnson was asked to do a cover story for Times Higher Education (UK publication) that started with a tweet he wrote about bonobos (a primate found in the Congo only and his field of study for one of his degrees). After years of blogging, Johnson’s efforts were recognized in other ways as well,  his blog is now part of the Scientific American blogging network. Also present at the May event, but in the audience, was another local scientist and Scientific American blogger, Dr. Carin Bondar, who too has had opportunities open up as a consequence of social media. (BTW, she’s auditioning to be a TED speaker soon. I’m not sure which of the major TEDs but she has expressed her excitement about this on Twitter (#SoVan).

Pacheco-Vega focused more heavily on Twitter, Pinterest (consolidates your various social media efforts on a ‘bulletin or pin’ board), and timely.is (a software that allows you to schedule your tweets and allows you to analyze the best timing for releasing them during the day)  and offered tips and suggestions for other tools. (He maintains two identities online, a professional one and a personal one.) He also offered some insight into the nature of the doubts many scientists have about engaging in social media. Lack of time, why bother?, how does this help me professionally?, this is going to hurt me professionally, etc.

There were fewer people (about 1/2 the number they had at the April 2012 event) resulting in a crowd of about 30. Happily they had a liquor licence this time,  so libations were available.

As for the mice (or perhaps one very active mouse excited by the liquor licence), I had several sightings. Hopefully, Science World will have addressed the problem before the next ScienceOnline Vancouver event.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this evolves. To this point, I like the direction they’re taking.

Brain-controlled robotic arm means drinking coffee by yourself for the first time in 15 years

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The video shows a woman getting herself a cup of coffee for the first time in 15 years. She’s tetraplegic (aka quadraplegic) and is participating in a research project funded by DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for developing neuroprostheses.

Kudos to the researchers and to the woman for her courage and persistence. The May 17, 2012 news item on Nanowerk provides some background,

DARPA launched the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program in 2006 to advance the state of upper-limb prosthetic technology with the goals of improving quality of life for service-disabled veterans and ultimately giving them the option of returning to duty. [emphasis mine] Since then, Revolutionizing Prosthetics teams have developed two anthropomorphic advanced modular prototype prosthetic arm systems, including sockets, which offer increased range of motion, dexterity and control options. Through DARPA-funded work and partnerships with external researchers, the arm systems and supporting technology continue to advance.

The newest development on this project (Revolutionizing Prosthetics) comes from the BrainGate team (mentioned in my April 19, 2012 posting [scroll down about 1/5th of the way) many of whom are affiliated with Brown University.  Alison Abbott’s May 16, 2012 Nature article provides some insight into the latest research,

The study participants — known as Cathy and Bob — had had strokes that damaged their brain stems and left them with tetraplegia and unable to speak. Neurosurgeons implanted tiny recording devices containing almost 100 hair-thin electrodes in the motor cortex of their brains, to record the neuronal signals associated with intention to move.

…

The work is part of the BrainGate2 clinical trial, led by John Donoghue, director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science in Providence. His team has previously reported a trial in which two participants were able to move a cursor on a computer screen with their thoughts.

The neuroscientists are working closely with computer scientists and robotics experts. The BrainGate2 trial uses two types of robotic arm: the DEKA Arm System, which is being developed for prosthetic limbs in collaboration with US military, and a heavier robot arm being developed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) as an external assistive device.

In the latest study, the two participants were given 30 seconds to reach and grasp foam balls. Using the DEKA arm, Bob — who had his stroke in 2006 and was given the neural implant five months before the study —- was able to grasp the targets 62% of the time. Cathy had a 46% success rate with the DEKA arm and a 21% success rate with the DLR arm. She successfully raised the bottled coffee to her lips in four out of six trials.

Nature has published the research paper (citation):

Reach and grasp by people with tetraplegia using a neurally controlled robotic arm

Authors: Leigh R. Hochberg, Daniel Bacher, Beata Jarosiewicz, Nicolas Y. Masse, John D. Simeral, Joern Vogel, Sami Haddadin, Jie Liu, Sydney S. Cash, Patrick van der Smagt and John P. Donoghue

Nature, 485, 372–375 (17 May 2012) doi:10.1038/nature11076

The paper is behind a paywall but if you have access, it’s here.

In the excess emotion after watching that video, I forgot for a moment that the ultimate is to repair soldiers and hopefully get them back into the field.

Nanomedicine flash mob at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a ‘bio’ flash mob on April 26, 2012 according to the May 15 ,2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Their purpose: to bring the tiny technologies of nanomedicine to life in a “Bio Flash Mob.” In this giant-scale science animation, each participant moved, swayed and interacted with neighbors to reenact nanoparticle-based delivery of therapeutics to a cancer cell.

It didn’t entirely work for me but I applaud the creativity and I trust they will be developing this idea further.