The Science of Sleep: Seeing Dreams and Augmenting Your Z’s

Sleep is a preoccupation the vast majority of human beings simply cannot shake. Unlike those lucky few who seem to be able to get by on a few hours a night, most people require a good eight hours of rest to be able to work, play, and function properly. Given that so much of our lives are spent in sleep – a full third, if we’re lucky – it’s little wonder then why the science of sleeping continues to fascinate us and garner so much attention.

Just this past April, Yukiyasu Kamitani and his colleagues at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, announced that they were close to realizing their goal of being able to visualize people’s dreams. By this, of course, they meant the ability to take what a person was seeing while in deep REM sleep and project it onto a screen.

The process relies on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device, which examines the flow of blood in the brain to monitor activity. Using this data, the team then managed to create an algorithm that they claim can accurately display in real time what images are appearing in the subject’s dream. This is the first time, it is believed, that objective data has been collected from dreams.

But of course, the concept is predicated on the idea that when you experience a thought, your brain behaves in a specific, repeatable function. Assuming that this much is true, then the results could very well be quantifiable and rendered. The technology has already been demonstrated to work with a fair degree of effectiveness, as shown as the 2011 experiment at the University of California, where subjects watched movie trailers and had the images they were watching reconstructed.

And while some researchers are working on seeing dreams, others are working to reduce the time we spend doing it. Yes, given the hectic pace people who live in the modern, industrialized world are now forced to live by, there are actually research teams out there looking to find ways – pharmaceutical and neurological – to reduce our dependency on sleep.

The purpose is simple, to increase the amount of time we have in which live, produce and enjoy ourselves not by living longer, but by increasing the efficiency of sleep so we can spend more of our lives awake. In an extended essay that is available at Aeon magazine, Jessa Gamble – a writer specializing in the science of sleep – explains how new technologies could make this a reality.

Such technologies include things like the Somneo Sleep Trainer, a special mask that is being developed by Advanced Brain Monitoring and DARPA to help US servicemen and women combat fatigue, sleep deprivation, and experience more restful sleeps when they take them. By using a device that combines an EEG monitor and a series of blue-LED lights to supress melatonin, the mask is able to restrict the wearer’s sleep to only the most restorative phases of sleep.

And then there is the technology of transcranial direct-current stimulation, which involves such devices as the tDCS headband. Here, an electrical current is sent through the sleep-important parts of the brain, specifically the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The mild stimulation augments awareness and allows subjects, according to Gamble, to “learn visual search skills at double the speed.” They also sleep better later on, with “briefer waking periods and longer deep-sleep sessions.”

A third potential technology that could be used is known as “transcranial magnetic stimulation” (TMS), a process which induces “slow-wave oscillations” in the brain, pushing the subject into a state of deep sleep in less time. Whereas the Somneo Sleep mask puts people into a lighter phase of sleep quicker, TMS will allow them to achieve a deeper state of sleep almost instantaneously. Add to that a better sleep cycle and better periods of wakefulness, and you’ve got what can only be described as “augmented sleep”.

But of course, this technology is being spearheaded for the sake of armed services, but has immense civilian applications as well. According to the CDC, roughly 30% of Americans live with less than adequate amounts of sleep, which drastically increases the risks of chronic disease. So realistically, this technology has the power to remediate the problem of those not getting enough sleep before it begins “enhancing” the sleep of others.

And I for one wonder where I might get myself a tCDS headband. While I have no intention of cutting down on the total number of hours I spend in the sack, I do like the idea of making the sleep I get more sound and my waking hours more wakeful. Then people can expect me to be a lot more productive. I know there have been some complaints about my output on this site lately 😉

Sources: cnet.news.com, fastcoexist.com, theloop.ca

The Future is Here: The Real-Life Tricorder

It was only a matter of time, I guess. But we really should have known that with all the improvements being made in biometrics and biotechnology – giving patients and doctors the means to monitor their vitals, blood pressure, glucose levels and the like with tiny devices – and all the talk of how it looked like something out of science fiction that it wouldn’t be long before someone took it upon themselves to build a device right out of Star Trek.

It’s known as a the Scanadu Scout, a non-invasive medical device that is capable of measuring your vitals simply by being held up to your temple for a mere 10 seconds. The people responsible for its creation are a startup named Scanadu, a group of research and medtech enthusiasts who are based at the NASA Ames Research Center. For the past two years, they have been seeking to create the world’s first handheld medical scanner, and with the production of the Scout, they have their prototype!

All told, the device is able to track pulse transit time (to measure blood pressure), temperature, ECG, oximetry, heart rate, and the breathing rate of a patient or subject. A 10 second scan of a person’s temple yields data that has a 99% accuracy rate, which can then be transmitted automatically via Bluetooth to the user’s smartphone, tablet or mobile device.

The device has since been upgraded from its original version and runs at a rate of 32 bits (up from the original 8). And interestingly enough, the Scouts now runs on Micrium, the operation system that NASA uses for Mars sample analysis on the Curiosity rover. The upgrade became necessary when Scanadu co-founder Walter De Brouwer, decided to add an extra feature: the ability to remotely trigger new algorithms and plug in new sensors (like a spectrometer).

One would think that working with NASA is effecting his thinking. But as Brouwer points out, the more information the machine is capable of collecting, the better is will be at monitoring your health:

If we find new algorithms to find relationships between several readings, we can use more of the sensors than we would first activate. If you know a couple of the variables, you could statistically predict that something is going to happen. The more data we have, the more we can also predict, because we’re using data mining at the same time as statistics.

One of the Scout’s cornerstone algorithms, for example, allows it to read blood pressure without the inflating cuff that we’ve all come to know and find so uncomfortable. In the future, Scanadu could discover an algorithm that connects, age, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate with some other variable, and then be able to make recommendations.

Everyone who pre-orders a Scout has their data sent to a cloud service, where Scanadu will collect it in a big file for the FDA. Anyone who opts-in will also gain access to the data of other users who have also elected to share their vitals. Brouwer explains that this is part of the products early mission to test the parameters of information sharing and cloud-medical computing:

It’s going to be a consumer product in the future, but right now we are positioning it as a research tool so that it can be used to finalize the design and collect data to eventually gain regulatory approval. In the end, you have to prove how people are going to use the device, how many times a day, and how they are going to react to the information.

In the future, De Brouwer imagines this kind of shared information could be used for population scanning, kind of like Google Flu Trends does, except with data being provided directly from individuals. The focus will also be much more local, with people using the Scout’s stats to able to see if their child, who suddenly has flu symptoms, is alone of ir other kids at their school are also sick. Pandemics and the outbreaks of fatal diseases could also be tracked in the same way and people forewarned.

Naturally, this raises some additional questions. With it now possible to share and communicate medical information so easily between devices, from people to their doctors, and stored within databases of varying accessibility, there is the ongoing issue of privacy. If in fact medical information can be actively shared in real-time or with the touch of a button, how hard will it be for third parties to gain access to them?

The upsides are clear: a society where health information is easily accessible is likely to avoid outbreaks of infectious disease and be able to contain pandemics with greater ease. But on the flip side, hackers are likely to find ways to access and abuse this information, since it will be in a public place where people can get at it. And naturally, there are plenty of people who will feel squeamish or downright terrified about the FDA having access to up-to-the-moment medical info on them.

It’s the age of cloud computing, wireless communications, and information sharing my friends. And much as people feel guarded about their personal information now, this is likely to take on extra dimensions when their personal medical info is added to the mix. Not a simple or comfortable subject.

But while I’ve still got you’re here, no doubt contemplating the future of medicine, take a look at this video of the Scanadu Scout in action:

Source: fastcoexist.com, google.org/flutrends/

Hacker Wars: Westboro Baptists Church Gets Jestered!

By now, I imagine everyone is familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church, the notorious ultra-militant Christian cult best known for its slogan “God Hates Fags”. Well, it seems that the group has expanded its message of hate, no longer content to celebrate the deaths of gays or of US servicemen and women – with such slogans as “Thank God for dead soldiers” or “Thank God for IEDs”. Yes, it now seems they have widened their focus and chosen to embrace new tragedies in their quest to spread their message of hate.

These include such tragedies as the Newton, Connecticut shooting and the Oklahoma tornadoes. And while their efforts to protest the funeral of Principal Dawn Hochsprung – one of the many victims of the tragic school shooting – were thwarted by a group of good Samaritans, the group still managed to make some headlines for themselves with the creation of the website GodHatesOklahoma.com, claiming once again that the tragedy in Oklahoma was God’s judgement, and praising Him for taking the lives of the 24 people who were killed.

Luckily, the hacker community stepped in to teach these hate-mongers a lesson. Shortly after the website went up, all the original content was deleted and replaced with a picture of Jesus giving the Westboro Church the middle finger. The words ” “Westboro Faptist Church — Even Jesus Hates You” were added to let them know exactly who the Savior was cursing and why. (FYI: Faptist is a reference to the word “fap,” Internet slang for “masturbate”).

Clearly, the Westboro techs took the website down, because none of the content is avaiable for veiwing anymore. But according to some additional rumors, the person responsible was Jester, a relatively well-known hacker. This was indicated by the added message: “On the 8th day, God created hackers, and he saw that it was good. From the Gospel according to @th3j35t3r Redirecting in 5 seconds…….” After waiting, visitors were taken to a Red Cross donation site for victims of the storm.@th3j35t3r refers to Jester’s Twitter account, which contained the message: “Westboro Faptist ‘Church’ – My God loves everyone, especially you. You need it the most”, followed by a link to an article at The Daily Dot which acknowledged his efforts. It is unclear at this time if Westboro will attempt to put their site up again, but given their inferior programming skills, I would imagine they’d not want to tempt fate, or the hacking community, a second time.

And might I take this opportunity to commend Jester and those like him. This incident, much like Anonymous’ exposure of the internet predator who ruined Amanda Todd’s life, shows how hackers can be a truly positive influence on society. Much those people who originally came together at MIT to found the “Hacker Ethic”, these individuals are proof that some people are still capable using technology for good and not abusing their freedom.

Sources: mashable.com, huffingtonpost.com

Drone Wars: New Promises, Same Problems

The practice of using UAV’s as part of a targeted strategy in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen has become so frequent that its come to characterize the Obama administration’s handling of the “War on Terror”. Reaction to this policy has been increasingly critical, due in no small part to unanswered questions surrounding civilian death tolls and the rapid escalation of deployment. In response, the Obama administration announced this past week that the surge is at an end.

In a speech made to the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday, Obama emphasized that from now on, the use of UAV’s would be in the hand of the military instead of clandestine intelligence organizations such as the CIA. He also indicated that the rules for launching the strikes would be stricter. For instance, there must be a “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed, and the strikes are to become less frequent.

While Obama would not declare an end to the war on terrorism, he did offer to work with Congress to constrain some of his own authorities for waging it, which may include the creation of a court modeled on the secretive one used by the NSA to oversea the surveillance of suspected foreign agents. He also expressed a preference to constrain “and ultimately repeal” the broad latitude of warmaking powers granted in the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), an act that was created in 2001 by the Bush administration which is considered the wellspring of the “War on Terror”.

And above all, issues of legality are to take a backseat to the moral and ethical implications raised by ongoing use. Or as he put it: “To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance.”

Naturally, a great many questions remain. In addition to how drones will be used in the years to come to combat terrorism and militants, there’s also questions surrounding their use thus far. Despite pledges made by Obama that changes will be made, the history of the program is still shrouded in mystery. Fittingly, Bloomberg Businessweek created a map to serve as a reminder of the scope of that program, calling it the first ever “comprehensive compilation of all known lethal U.S. drone attacks.”

It should be noted though that the numbers represent an estimate which were compiled with the help of the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Sources in Washington apparently offer a wide range of numbers, and the State Department remains hush hush on the issue of casualties. However, the estimates presented in this infographic still present a stark and sobering picture:

Yemen: at least 552 killed between 2002 and 2013. The site of the first ever drone strike in 2002.
Pakistan: at least 2,561 killed between 2004 and 2013.
Somalia: at least 23 killed between 2011 and 2012.

Naturally, it is hoped that Obama’s promise to curb the use of drones represents a renewed commitment to comply with international law, treaties and human rights. However, what was apparently missing from the speech was an indication about how easy it will be to get information about strikes that are made in the future. According to the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti, who provided live analysis of the speech, Obama’s speech didn’t address the issue:

One of the big outstanding questions is just how transparent the Obama administration will be about drone strikes in the future. Will administration officials begin to publicly confirm strikes after they happen?

There was no mention of this in the speech, and it is telling that the president did not mention the C.I.A. at all. It seems quite certain that past operations in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere are not going to be declassified anytime soon.

Also, moving operations from the C.I.A. to the Pentagon does not automatically mean that the strikes will be publicly discussed. The Pentagon is carrying out a secret drone program in Yemen right now, and it is very difficult to get information about those operations.

So… promises to curb the use of drones have been made, as well as promises to create some kind of oversight for future operations. And this does seem consistent with many of the criticisms made about the ongoing war on terrorism, specifically the Bush administrations handling of it and how his reliance on special executive powers were unlawful and unconstitutional.

But until such time as information on how these strikes occur and who is being killed, the issue will remain a contentious and divisive one. So long as governments can wage war with automated or remote machinery and kill people without transparency and in secrecy, will this not constitute a form of illegal – or at the very least, a very opaque – warfare?

Sources: wired.com, fastcoexist.com, businessweek.com

The Future of Medicine: The Spleen-On-A-Chip

Sepsis, a full-body inflammatory state caused by infection, is a notorious killer, being both deadly and difficult to treat. As it stands, doctors use broad-spectrum antibiotics that have only a limited chance of success, and a misdiagnosis can cost a patient vital time. For military personnel serving overseas, where conditions are difficult and medical treatment not always readily available, it is a particular problem.

Hence why DARPA has been keen on finding new treatment options and contracted the Wyss Institute at Harvard University to the tune of $9.25 million to find it for them. Their solution: the “Spleen-on-a-Chip” – a blood-cleaning device that acts much like a kidney dialysis machine. Blood goes out through one vein, and back through another, but the real key is the magnetic nano-beads coated in a protein that binds to bacteria, fungi, parasites, and some toxins.

With these impurities coated in microscopic metal beats, the blood then flows through micro-channels in the device where a magnet pulls the pathogens free, leaving the blood clean. The technique also takes out dead pathogens (killed by antibiotics) that can also cause inflammations, if there are enough of them. In this way, it not only removes the cause of sepsis, but one of the common side-effects of conventional treatment.

Don Ingber, director of Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, described the benefits of their Spleen-on-a-chip:

The idea with this therapy is that you could use it right away without knowing the type of infection. You can remove pathogens and infections without triggering that whole cascade that gets worse and worse.

Since it mimics the effects of a real spleen, many have taken to calling it a “biospleen”, indicating that it is a genuine biomimetic device. At the present time, Ingber and his associates are testing it on rats, with the hope of expanding their trials to larger animals, like pigs. But given the limits of their funding, Ingder estimates that it will be a good five years before a serviceable model is available to the public.

By that time, however, the biospleen may be just one of several organs-on-a-chip available for purchase. The Wyss Institute is hardly alone in developing biomimetics, and their spleen is just on of many devices they are working on. Ingber and his associates are currently working on the lung-on-a-chip and a gut-on-a-chip, devices that are able to oxygenate blood and process food into useable energy.

These latter devices will come in very handy for people with emphysema or other respiratory diseases, and people suffering from digestive problems or stomach cancer. And while larger aim, says Ingber, is to raise the effectiveness of drug testing and improve understanding of how the body reacts to disease, the potential is far more astounding. Within a few decades, we may be capable of getting our hands on machines that can compensate for any kind of limitation imposed by disease or our biology.

It’s a biomimetic future, people – technology imitating biology for the sake of creating enhanced biology.

Source: fastcoexist.com

Big News in Quantum Computing!

For many years, scientists have looked at the field of quantum machinery as the next big wave in computing. Whereas conventional computing involves sending information via a series of particles (electrons), quantum computing relies on the process of beaming the states of these particles from one location to the next. This process, which occurs faster than the speed of light since no movement takes place, would make computers exponentially faster and more efficient, and lead to an explosion in machine intelligence. And while the technology has yet to be realized, every day brings us one step closer…

One important step happened earlier this month with the installment of the D-Wave Two over at the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab (QAIL) at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, NASA has announced that this is precisely what they intend to pursue. Not surprisingly, the ARC is only the second lab in the world to have a quantum computer. The only other lab to possess the 512-qubit, cryogenically cooled machine is the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which upgraded to a D-Wave Two in 2011.

And while there are still some who question the categorization of the a D-Wave Two as a true quantum computer, most critics have acquiesced since many of its components function in accordance with the basic principle. And NASA, Google, and the people at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) even ran some tests to confirm that the quantum computer offered a speed boost over conventional supercomputers — and it passed.

The new lab, which will be situated at NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing Facility at the Ames Research Center, will be operated by NASA, Google, and the USRA. NASA and Google will each get 40% of the system’s computing time, with the remaining 20% being divvied up by the USRA to researchers at various American universities. NASA and Google will primarily use the quantum computer to advance a branch of artificial intelligence called machine learning, which is tasked with developing algorithms that optimize themselves with experience.

As for what specific machine learning tasks NASA and Google actually have in mind, we can only guess. But it’s a fair bet that NASA will be interested in optimizing flight paths to other planets, or devising a safer/better/faster landing procedure for the next Mars rover. As for Google, the smart money says they will be using their time to develop complex AI algorithms for their self-driving cars, as well optimizing their search engines, and Google+.

But in the end, its the long-range possibilities that offer the most excitement here. With NASA and Google now firmly in command of a quantum processor, some of best and brightest minds in the world will now be working to forward the field of artificial intelligence, space flight, and high-tech. It will be quite exciting to see what they produce…

Another important step took place back in March, when researchers at Yale University announced that they had developed a new way to change the quantum state of photons, the elementary particles researchers hope to use for quantum memory. This is good news, because it effectively demonstrated that true quantum computing – the kind that utilizes qubits for all of its processes – has continually eluded scientists and researchers in recent years.

To break it down, today’s computers are restricted in that they store information as bits – where each bit holds either a “1″ or a “0.” But a quantum computer is built around qubits (quantum bits) that can store a 1, a 0 or any combination of both at the same time. And while the qubits would make up the equivalent of a processor in a quantum computer, some sort of quantum Random Access Memory (RAM) is also needed.

Gerhard Kirchmair, one of Yale researchers, explained in a recent interview with Nature magazine that photons are a good choice for this because they can retain a quantum state for a long time over a long distance. But you’ll want to change the quantum information stored in the photons from time to time. What the Yale team has developed is essentially a way to temporarily make the photons used for memory “writeable,” and then switch them back into a more stable state.

To do this, Kirchmair and his associates took advantage of what’s known as a “Kerr medium”, a law that states how certain mediums will refract light in a different ways depending on the amount shined on it. This is different from normal material materials that refract light and any other form of electromagnetic field the same regardless of how much they are exposed to.

Thus, by exposing photons to a microwave field in a Kerr medium, they were able to manipulate the quantum states of photons, making them the perfect means for quantum memory storage. At the same time, they knew that storing these memory photons in a Kerr medium would prove unstable, so they added a vacuum filled aluminum resonator to act as a coupler. When the resonator is decoupled, the photons are stable. When resonator is coupled, the photons are “writeable”, allowing a user to input information and store it effectively.

This is not the first or only instance of researchers finding ways to toy with the state of photons, but it is currently the most stable and effective. And coupled with other efforts, such as the development of photonic transistors and other such components, or new ways to create photons seemingly out of thin air, we could be just a few years away from the first full and bona fide quantum processor!

Sources: Extremetech.com, Wired.com, Nature.com

The Phosforce: A Real-Life Lightsaber?

Sure, it may not be able to cut your hand off or deflect blaster shots, but this invention has geeks and engineers all experience a collective fangasm! In honor of Star Wars Day this year, the company known as Wicked Lasers debuted the Phosphorce, a laser-turned flashlight with the power to both illuminate and incinerate. Now tell me that doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping and make you wonder if it comes in designer shades and in both the single and double-bladed form!

As the video below shows, the Phosphorce is the company’s most powerful handheld laser married to a special lens. Attached, the lens turns the laser into a flashlight that produces some 500 lumens of power, making it the most powerful light on the market. Once removed, the device is back to being its usual, single-watt Spyder 3 Arctic laser, which is capable of projecting a beam up to a distance of 10km and incinerating at close range – just balloons, in case you were worried.

And if case that’s not enough, the company also designs handles like the SABER, an attachment that turns their Arctic or Krypton lasers handhelds into the most stunning approximation of a lightsaber available. Already, BMW is in talks with Wicked Lasers to use the technology to fashion laser headlamps for their cars. The laser goes for a hefty $299.95, while the lens is available for a comparatively modest $79.85.

Yeah, not the cheapest lightsaber replica on the market, but at least it comes in Arctic blue. Tell me that doesn’t bring the Jedi’s weapon to mind! And be sure to check out the video, it is sure to pop your eyes!

The Future is Here: Cellular Computers!

Computing has come so far in such a relatively short space of time. Beginning with comparatively basic models, which relied on arrangements of analogue circuits (such as capacitors and resistors), scientists were able to perform complex calculations, crack impenetrable cyphers, and even know how and where to deploy counter-measures against incoming missiles. And as we all know, sometimes you have to look back to the fundamentals if you want to move any farther ahead.

And that’s precisely what researchers at MIT have done with their latest innovation: an analog computer that works inside a living cell! A massive step towards a future where machinery and biology are one and the same, these “cellular computers” were not only able to perform arithmetic, but also more complex functions like taking logarithms, square roots, and even do power law scaling.

This news comes on the heels of researchers at Stanford who were able to create a biological transistor inside a cell. Relying on DNA and RNA to create a “transcriptors”, the Standford researchers were able to create a biological logic gate, and all on the microscopic scale. When combined the sorts of digital and analog circuits common to computing, this research could lead to powerful sensing and control platforms built on very small scales.

And like many recent innovations and developments made within the world of computing and biotechnology, the possibilities that this offers are startling and awesome. For one, all cells work with a certain biological clock, which regulates growth, circadian rhythms, aging, and numerous biological process. Thus far, the researchers in question have been hosting their biological computers in bacterial cells. But if they were to develop analogous circuits that operate in mammalian cells, these functions might be brought into better use.

What this means is that we could be very well seeing the beginning of biology that is enhanced and augmented by the addition of technology on the cellular level. And not in the sense of tiny machines or implants, things made of silicon and minerals that would regulate our blood flow, administer drugs or monitor or vitals. No, in this case, we would be talking about machines that are composed of self-regulating DNA and RNA and work in the same way our organic tissues do.

On top of that, we would be able to create things like flash drives and computation software from living tissue, cramming thousands of terabytes of into into a few cells worth of genetic material. Human beings would no longer need smartphones, PDAs or tablets, since they would be able to carry all the information they would ever need in their body. And the ability to do this could very well lead to the creation of AI’s that are not build, but grown, making them virtually indistinguishable from humans.

And you know what that means, don’t you? The line between biological and artificial would truly begin to dissolve, Voight-Kampff and genetic tests might have to become mandatory, and we could all be looking at robots that look something like this…

Man the future is awesome and scary!

Sources: Extremetech.com, (2)

Fundawear: A New Era of Cybersex!

Have you ever experienced the frustrations and difficulty of a long-distance relationship? My wife and I did during the first few years of our courtship. And let me tell you, there’s few things worse than to be in love with someone and not be able to see them. And even in this age of high-tech communications, where we are able to talk, Skype, instant message, email and text, the physical barrier created by space can still be a killer. Luckily, the condom company Durex is working on a solution…

It’s called Fundawear, a new type of undergarment that is outfitted with electronic pulses that lets couples – or willing cybersexers – send physical touches to each other via remote control. Using a smartphone or tablet, the sender initiates contact by simply stroking the touchscreen, and the recipient receives a mild shock on their sensitive spots. To make things fun, the jolt can happen anywhere the underwear has contact with the skin.

The key word here is mild, just in case anyone is thinking that the underwear is for those who have an extreme BDSM fetish! But then again, stranger things have happened haven’t they? Of course, it should be noted that the Fundawear is not yet a mass-market product, but the company is having a contest on its Australian Facebook page and hints that those who enter will be eligible to win a pair.

Created in conjunction with the advertising firm Havas Sydney, Fundawear is Durex’s first attempt at a connected product. It comes in both women’s and men’s designs, offering stimulation for men around the nether regions, and for women in both the chest and nether area. And who knows? Given time and added guarantees of safety, we could be looking at the future of cybersex. I guess guys like Gibson were wrong, cyber stuff really isn’t all dark!

To check it the FB contest, click here, and be sure to watch the video of the Fundawear in action below:

Source: fastcocreate.com

The Future is Here: Blood Monitoring Implants!

The realm of nanotechnology, which once seemed like the stuff of science fiction, is getting closer to realization with every passing year. And with all the innovations taking place in tiny-scale manufacturing, molecular research, and DNA structures, we could be looking at an age where tiny machines regulate our health, construct buildings, assemble atomic structures, and even contain enough hardware to run complex calculations.

One such innovation was announced back in March by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where researchers created the world’s smallest medical implant capable of monitoring critical chemicals in the blood. Measuring a mere 14mm in length, the device is capable of measuring up to five indicators, like proteins, glucose, lactate, ATP, and then transmit this information to a smartphone via Bluetooth.

In short, it is capable of providing valuable information that may help track and prevent heart attacks and monitor for indications of harmful conditions, like diabetes. Each sensor is coated with an enzyme that reacts with blood-borne chemicals to generate a detectable signal, and is paired with a wearable battery that provides the 100 milliwatts of power that the device requires by wireless inductive charging through the skin.

For patient monitoring, such a device has so many useful applications that it is likely to become indispensable, once introduced. In cancer treatment for example, numerous blood tests are often required to calibrate treatments according the to the patient’s particular ability to break down and excrete drugs. And since these parameters often change due the patient’s reaction to said treatments, anything that can provide up-to-the-minute monitoring will spare the patient countless invasive tests.

In addition, in cases of heart attacks, the signs are visible in the hours before the event occurs. This occurs when fatigued or oxygen-starved muscle begins to break down, releasing fragments of the heart-specific smooth muscle protein known as troponin. If this protein can be detected before disruption of the heart rhythm begins, or the actual attack, lifesaving preemptive treatment can be initiated sooner.

At the moment, the sensors are limited by the number of sensors they hold. But there is no theoretical limit to how any sensors each implant can hold. In the future, such a device could be equipped with electronics that could monitor for strokes, blood clots, high cholesterol, cancer cells, HIV, parasites, viruses, and even the common cold (assuming such a thing continues to exist!) Just think about it.

You’re going about your daily activities when suddenly, you get a ringtone that alerts you that you’re about to experience a serious a health concern. Or maybe that the heavy lunch you just ate raised the level of LDL cholesterol in your bloodstream to an unwanted level. Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how cool would that be?

Source: Extremetech.com

Stories by Williams

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

Category: Technology

The Science of Sleep: Seeing Dreams and Augmenting Your Z’s

The Future is Here: The Real-Life Tricorder

Hacker Wars: Westboro Baptists Church Gets Jestered!

Drone Wars: New Promises, Same Problems

The Future of Medicine: The Spleen-On-A-Chip

Big News in Quantum Computing!

The Phosforce: A Real-Life Lightsaber?

The Future is Here: Cellular Computers!

Fundawear: A New Era of Cybersex!

The Future is Here: Blood Monitoring Implants!

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

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