Exoskeletal robot suit to make astronauts super-strong

X1 was initially designed as a human assist device to allow persons with paraplegia to walk again. Strategically designed motors allow for high torque applications such as stair climbing, while multiple points of adjustment allow for a wide range of users. We are now exploring space applications for exoskeletons, such as amplifying astronaut strength, or even as exercise devices for long duration missions.

Read more over on TechLand

3D Printer Can Build You A House In 20 Hours: Welcome To The Future

We’ve seen 3D printers used for everything from iPhone cases to makeshift weapons, but if you think bigger, what can these new printers really be used for? Could you really make your own house with a 3D printer in less than 20 hours? Turns out you can, and the technology is now set to be used by NASA for a future Moon colony.

The man behind this ambitious housing project is Professor Behrock Khoshnevis, and he’s disgusted that in the 21st century, the world is still ridden with poverty-stricken slums characterised by make-shift corrugated iron shacks. He wanted to find a way to improve the basic concept of house construction so that it was accessible to everyone, because with better shelter comes a more civilised society.

To build a house right now, you’re looking at a slow, labour-intensive, dangerous process that’s almost always over-budget. Professor Khoshnevis said that housing construction is one of the only industries that still does things manually, unlike the motoring or technology industries for example that use automated production methods to complete routine construction tasks.

So how do you fix a slow, expensive housing concept that has been set in stone for the last few centuries so that everyone around the world can get access to it? That’s easy, Professor Khoshnevis says. You use 3D printing.

Khoshnevis is heavily involved in computer-aided design (CAD), robotics and rapid prototyping with the University of Southern California, and he’s using that experience to scale up 3D printing so that it can be used in housing construction.

“I name this process Contour Crafting, which is essentially a way of streamlining the process by benefiting from the experience we have gained in the domain of [automated and technology-assisted] manufacturing,” he told TEDxOjai attendees earlier this year.

Khoshnevis wants to build entire neighbourhoods with Contour Crafting, and he claims it can be done at a fraction of the cost in a smaller block of time.

As far as expenses go, the materials for the 3D printed house are projected to cost 25 per cent less than traditional houses and labour costs can be cut in half. In terms of timing from start to finish, Khoshnevis said that “we anticipate that an average house, like 2500 square foot house, can be built in about 20 hours from a custom design”.

Here’s how it works. A CAD design is sent to a large-scale 3D printer that is mounted to a block of land. The printer lays out the concrete-like foundation of the home through a nozzle that can move anywhere on the property. Like any 3D print-out, the house is made layer-by-layer and reinforced with various materials — like electrical, plumbing and communication infrastructure — as the build progresses.

The concrete used is a mixture of concrete and fibre polymers, meaning that it is more than three times stronger than traditional concrete used in today’s houses. The concrete that goes into your house right now can withstand roughly 3000 pounds per square inch of pressure, while the new printed concrete can withstand around 10,000 pounds per square inch.

The best thing about the construction process, Khoshnevis added, is that it can print out any house design you like. Curved walls? No problem. Water feature in your front yard? Can do. Custom tile design and a few feature walls? Simple, thanks to the addition of laser jet printer nozzles attached to the printing array.

As if that’s not impressive enough, Professor Khoshnevis’ concept is currently being supported by NASA so that the space agency can one day be used to build a colony on the Moon.

via Gizmodo

Mars One introduction film

Mars One plans to establish a human settlement on Mars in 2023. The first crew of four astronauts emigrate to their new planet from Earth, a journey that takes seven months. A new team will join the settlement every two years. By 2033 there will be over twenty people living, working and flourishing on Mars, their new home.

Battery-powered Portable X-ray Machine

Battery-powered Portable X-ray Machine. The device is capable of taking approximately 300 consecutive xrays on a single charge, so it can be used in remote areas or in emergency circumstances when the power supply has been cut.

Scientists regenerate hair on bald mouse

After cultivating two different kinds of cells taken from hair follicles in mice, the team transplanted the cells into the hair follicles of a bald mouse. Within three weeks, 74% of the hair follicles implanted with the cells grew back hair. The new hair connected with nerves and surrounding tissues showing that the follicles had become fully functional and were able to regrow hair even after hair was pulled out. The scientists were also able to play around with the density and color of the hair by changing the type of cells they transplanted into the mouse’s hair follicles. When they used cells from a human hair follicle, a human hair grew.

Evacuated Tube Transport could take you around the world in just 6 hours

Evacuated Tube Transport is an airless, frictionless, maglev-like form of transportation which is safer, cheaper and quieter than trains or airplanes. Six-person capsules travel in the tubes and can reach a maximum speed of 6,500 km/h, and provide 50 times more transportation per kwh. A tube can travel from New York to Beijing in two hours, and make a round-the-world trip in just six hours.

Cheetah Robot Gallops at 18 mph

Cheetah is a new robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program. Last week Cheetah set a new land speed record for legged robots, galloping 18 mph on the treadmill. This version of the Cheetah is a lab prototype with offboard power and a boom that planarizes its motion. Testing on a free-running version of the Cheetah that will run 'unplugged' in the field starts later this year. For more information about Cheetah or the other robots we develop, visit http://www.BostonDynamics.com.

Lisa Harouni: A primer on 3D printing

2012 may be the year of 3D printing, when this three-decade-old technology finally becomes accessible and even commonplace. Lisa Harouni gives a useful introduction to this fascinating way of making things -- including intricate objects once impossible to create.

A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021

Invisibility cloaks. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence. A Facebook for genes. These were just a few of the startling topics IFTF explored at the recent Technology Horizons Program conference on the "Future of Science." More than a dozen scientists from UC Berkeley, Stanford, UC Santa Cruz, Scripps Research Institute, SETI, and private industry shared their edgiest research driving transformations in science. MythBusters' Adam Savage weighed in on the future of science education. All of their presentations were signals supporting IFTF's new "Future of Science" forecast, laid out in a new map titled "A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021." The map focuses on six big stories of science that will play out over the next decade: Decrypting the Brain, Hacking Space, Massively Multiplayer Data, Sea the Future, Strange Matter, and Engineered Evolution. Those stories are emerging from a new ecology of science shifting toward openness, collaboration, reuse, and increased citizen engagement in scientific research.

Download the Map as a pdf here

via IFTF

Starfish-inspired 'soft' robot squeezes under obstacles

A "soft" robot inspired by squid and starfish can crawl, undulate, and squeeze under obstacles.

Built by a team at Harvard University, this robot has several advantages over those with treads, wheels and rigid parts - which have a limited repertoire of movements and may have trouble navigating difficult terrain.

The sea creature-inspired creation was manufactured with soft materials and its motion is driven by compressed air.

via BBC and PNAS

Petri dish to dinner plate, in-vitro meat coming soon

"Cultured meat" -- burgers or sausages grown in laboratory Petri dishes rather than made from slaughtered livestock -- could be the answer that feeds the world, saves the environment and spares the lives of millions of animals, they say.

The first lab-grown hamburger will cost around 250,000 euros ($345,000) to produce, according to Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who hopes to unveil such a delicacy soon.

Experts say the meat's potential for saving animals' lives, land, water, energy and the planet itself could be enormous.

"The first one will be a proof of concept, just to show it's possible," Post told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Maastricht lab. "I believe I can do this in the coming year."

via Reuters

All-new ASIMO (Nov 2011)

Honda unveiled "All-new ASIMO", a new version of their humanoid robot. It can run at 9kph and hop on one or both legs, and more.

More info:
http://world.honda.com/news/2011/c111108All-new-ASIMO/index.html
http://www.plasticpals.com/?p=30620

Flagships of the Future

Shipping operates out of the jurisdiction of any laws or regulations that cover emissions, but some companies are making attempts to reduce their footprint. One idea: good old-fashioned wind power.

Shipping has not exactly been at the forefront of clean energy innovation. While carmakers have built the Prius and the Volt, and airlines have tested fuels made from algae and jatropha, much of the maritime industry has kept on cruising.

Part of the reason for that is regulatory. Shipping is not covered by the Kyoto Protocol, and is exempted from schemes like the European Union's Emissions Trading System. There is also a lot of conservatism in the industry, according to Diane Gilpin, of B9 Shipping, which is developing some of the first ships running solely on renewable power--ships with sails.

"Shipping is offshore, so none of the emissions fall into national jurisdiction. There are also complex problems about accounting for carbon, and it is a relatively hidden industry. As consumers, we tend not to be aware of it," she adds.

Things could be changing, though. This week, a key U.K. committee recommended that shipping be included in plans to cut GHGs. Earlier this summer, California expanded rules aimed at cutting GHGs from in-bound boats. And, the UN International Maritime Organisation has pledged to improve fuel efficiency.

And, several environmentally friendly vessels have started appearing. There was the Auriga Leader, Toyota's 60,000-ton solar-powered car-carrier; this wave-powered concept ship from the Fraunhofer Center of Manufacturing Innovation; and the Swiss-built Türanor--the world's largest solar-powered yacht, covered in 6,458 square feet of PV.

Massively Parallel Computer Built From Single Layer of Molecules

Japanese scientists have built a cellular automaton from individual molecules that carries out huge numbers of calculations in parallel

via Technology Review

Quantum Levitation

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field.

Video courtesy of Association of Science - Technology Centers (ASTC), representing the science centre and museum field worldwide. To learn more, visit http://www.astc.org/

Monkeys' brain waves offer paraplegics hope

Monkeys have been trained to control a virtual arm on a computer screen using only their brain waves. Scientists say the animals were also able use the arm to sense the texture of different virtual objects.

Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers say their work could speed up the development of wearable exoskeletons. This technology could help quadriplegic patients not only regain movement but a sense of touch as well.

via BBC

Is the speed of light broken?

Additional links from the BBC

Harvesting 'limitless' hydrogen from self-powered cells

US researchers say they have demonstrated how cells fuelled by bacteria can be "self-powered" and produce a limitless supply of hydrogen.

via BBC

IBM cooks up a new silicon brain

What you are about to read is not science fiction. IBM, the 100-year-old company that started out making old-fashioned cash registers and “business tabulating machines” has come up with a new chip that marries our brain’s architecture with silicon guts. Like people, it learns instead of being programmed and like a good semiconductor, it’s easy to make based on today’s chip production technologies. While it might have started out as a research project seeking to develop chips that deliver mor oomph while being stingy about power consumption, today it is a radical idea that takes computing to more places and in doing so potentially unleashes new waves of innovation.

“The goal is not to replace today’s computers. It’s to really take the road less traveled and build new generation of computers with a totally new approach to problems in business and science and government,” Modha says. “If today’s computers are left brained, rational and sequential then cognitive computing is intuitive and right-brained and slow, but the two together can become the future of our civilization’s computing stack.”

via Gigaom

Reverse engineering a human brain

Bluebrain | Year Two from Couple 3 Films on Vimeo.

Henry Markram is attempting to reverse engineer an entire brain, one neuron at a time, on IBM supercomputers. This piece is the Year Two preview to director Noah Hutton's 10-year film-in-the-making that will chronicle the development of The Blue Brain Project (bluebrain.epfl.ch), a landmark endeavor in modern neuroscience, culminating in a documentary feature in 2020.