Thumbing through a recent copy of Scientific American, I found a feature about recent innovations that will improve our lives. Some are in limited use today. I thought they were worth sharing in case they are as new to you as they are to me.
n There is now a smart phone that will monitor your vital signs, alert you to trouble and slash 75 percent of health care spending on chronic diseases. Alive Cor’s iPhone ECG, scheduled for FDA approval early this year, has two metal electrodes in the back of the case that record heart rhythms when held in both hands or pressed against the chest.
French company, Withings, has a blood pressure monitoring device that works with an iPhone. There is one for diabetes management, detection of antibodies, and tumor markers — ever-present guards that will protect people before they recognize a risk.
n Writer Christopher Mims says, “Dharmendras Modha is probably the only microchip architect on the planet whose team includes a psychiatrist — and it’s not for keeping his engineers sane.” His collaborators are working on a microchip modeled after neurons. Their ambitious goal is to put the neural computing power of the human brain in a bit of silicon for a program called SYNAPSE.
n Schools in Pinellas County, Florida, have installed square inch sensors at cafeteria cash registers that can identify students by the patterns of veins in their palms. It is more accurate than fingerprints, faces, or irises and easier. Bye-bye, credit cards?
The only barrier to widespread use of this “digital wallet” is the slowness of banks and technology to adopt it. Does this mean that someday we will be able to pay for things by giving a high five? It is not experimental. It is working in limited venues today.
n There is currently technology to keep computers from freezing up. Some of us would stand in line for that.
n “Bitcoins” is an all-digital currency that is both liquid and anonymous, easy to use as cash. There is no need to supply all the personal information required to buy on the Internet. At the present time, however, few on-line merchants will accept Bitcoins. But just think how few were the early adopters of the Internet. Today you cannot apply for a job, be admitted to college or engage in many activities without a computer.
n As a bacteriologist I am pleased to read that there are bacteria being used now to extract metal from ore. They are much more efficient and cheap that conventional methods, functioning at ambient temperature and capable of extracting metal from “waste ore” which would otherwise be unusable. Bacteria can also clean up acidic runoff from old mines, extracting a few more bits of metal.
Biomining has grown greatly in recent years because of the scarcity of high-grade ores. About 20 percent of the world’s copper comes from biomining, and the production of copper has doubled since the mid-1990s. An additional advantage is that the process in not energy-demanding.
n Scientists are currently developing perennial food crops like corn and wheat. This is becoming possible because of genetic technology developed in the last 10 or 15 years. These plants also require less fertilizer and water than annual plants. In addition, biotechnologist Douglas Kell has calculated that replacing 2 percent of the world’s annual crops with perennials each year could remove enough carbon from the atmosphere to halt the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, reducing dramatically the concentration of greenhouse gases.
n There is a new way of organizing modern batteries in order to double the amount of energy such batteries can store. This could lead to electric cars that can drive for hundreds of miles by using liquid fuel.
n We have become so used to antibiotics that the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens is sinister. A drug-resistant tuberculosis is now raging through Europe. Half the people who contract it will die from it. MRSA, methecillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, is a grim staphylococcus infection that kills 19,000 U.S. residents each year. Clostridium difficile is another resistant pathogen.
Scientists at IBM Research-Almaden have designed a nanoparticle capable of utterly destroying bacterial cells by piercing their membranes. The particle shell has a positive charge that binds to the negatively charged bacterial membrane. The punctured bacterium shrinks away like a punctured balloon. Although not available yet, researchers hope to see human trials in the next few years.
n Finally, work is underway to develop a machine to predict the future. Analyzing the current monetary crisis in Greece is cited as a target for this computer which, when fed an enormous amount of data, could predict the most likely results. Models are not perfect, however, and work on this computer system is still in progress. Even so, will wonders never cease?
As Annie Warbucks sang, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow. It’s only a day away!”
Betty Boyls Stone is a freelance writer, who grew up in Columbus.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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