The future: TVs on bullets, inserted directly into brain
in Life Science, Structure of Matter, Scientific Enterprise, and Human Organism
Not Annie: I tried this on my own eyes, bu they were too gross.
Courtesy tryingmyhardestOh, my goodness. What did I just write?
What I meant was “TVs on contacts, popped directly into eyes.” Except that I would never write “popped” and “eyes” in the same sentence.
Anyway, it’s looking like the future is still a bright place to live. Especially if the TVs stuck to your eyeballs are malfunctioning. See, Ian Pearson, a British “futurologist” (that means that he’s a guy who thinks about living in the future, even though he actually lives in Britain), has gotten some press lately regarding his prediction that we’ll have contact lens TVs/computer monitors within the next ten years. Displays integrated into contact lenses would superimpose images over what we see of the real world (or, as I like to call it, the “real” world), and, potentially, could be powered by our own body heat.
The technology such products would be based on already exists, according to Pearson. It’s just a matter of shrinking it down to size, and sticking it on your eyes. Contact lenses with non-functioning circuits and lights have already been tested on rabbits, which, after 20 minutes of exposure, had no particular complaints.
While the lens TVs might add a slight tint to your eyes, other people (or, as I like to call them, other “people”) would not be able tell what you were watching. So, while everybody might assume that the guy with the glowy eyes is stumbling around watching something very naughty indeed, I’d actually be watching the video of my sixth grade play, Annie. The joke is on you! (Although I suppose it depends where I have to insert the VHS tape—the joke might also be on me.)
Pearson also declared that we all could also have “digital tattoos” in the near future. Aside from letting the world know what you thought was cool the day you got the tattoo, this digital ink could potentially “pick up on the emotions portrayed by actors in TV shows and create impulses allowing us to feel the same emotions.”
I’m really into this digital tattoo thing, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, I have always really wanted to feel what it looks like Will Smith feels like (I’m guessing “sassy” but it’s hard to say at this point.) Also, I’ve found that my favorite emotions are the ones I feel in my skin. Emotions like “humiliation,” and “second degree burn”. Yeah, those are about two of my favorite emotions (so naturally “Home Alone” will be viewed frequently), and I think I’m not the only one. This one is going to take off. Zoom!
Now, it turns out that this report on the future was commissioned by the British electronics retailer Comet. I don’t think that this fact should affect our reception of the predictions in any way (Comet, after all, probably just wants to know what they’ll be selling in a couple years, so it’s in their interest to have an honest report), but I am a little sore that Pearson is getting paid for this sort of thing, and I’m not. Come on, now! I’m always coming up with great ideas for the future.
Instant cat whiskers
Instant cat whiskers… for girls!
TVs on bullets
The last meal you’ll ever eat (trademarked)
Playstation 5
TVs on teeth
Laser-powered lasers
Better spaceships
Hinged money (for folding)
TVs on money (regular money, not the hinged kind)
Non-functional t-800 model robots
Electronic smile cream
The technology exists, people, it’s just a matter of time and engineering. So where’s my freaking check, Comet?
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Hey, wait a second...: How could you ever balance one of those on a pencil? Bad science!
Courtesy Matthieu :: giik.net/blogAll y’all up on graphene?
I knew you were. You’re Buzzketeers, the best of the best, the biggest of the brains, the coolest of the cids.
There’s no need to explain graphene to this team (the Lil’ Professors), so it would be totally unnecessary for me to point out that graphene is a fancy material made of a single layer of carbon atoms attached to each other in a honeycomb pattern. It’s about as flat as can be, and when you roll it up you get those little things Science Buzz is so crazy about: carbon nanotubes.
Nanotubes are awesome, and if you click on the link above you can learn about all the awesome things they can do. But graphene…graphene itself may be pretty awesome too. The problem with testing just how awesome graphene is is that it has been exceptionally difficult to a) make a piece of graphene so small that it hasn’t got any of the imperfections that naturally come in large chunks of things, and b) make a device to actually hold the itty bitty graphene well enough to really test the stuff out.
But science has now done those things! Using a tiny sheet of perfect graphene (about 1/100s the width of a human hair) and a really tiny diamond…poker-thing (about 10 billionths of a meter wide), scientists have finally been able to find out exactly how strong graphene is.
So, how strong is it? It’s the strongest! That is to say, the strongest material measured so far. It’s about 200 times the strength of structural steel, or, says Columbia Professor James Hone, “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.”
This statement, of course, wins professor Hone July’s “Awesome explanation, Scientist” award. That’s a good mental image, and it shows a non-scientist like me how strong graphene is.
So…awesome explanation, Scientist! More of that, please!
Boring ol' fashion paper: practically falling apart under its own weight. Get ready for the awesome new generation of paper (your parents probably won't understand how to use it, though).
Courtesy NathanBeachAnd it’s about time, I think.
I keep expecting too much out of my paper, I guess. I can’t fry eggs on it. I can’t tie up bank robbers with it. I can’t construct a balcony out of it. I can’t even write on it (I have powerful and intense handwriting).
In short paper is weak. It’s weak as paper, and I’m sick of it.
No longer. Scientists in Sweden and Japan have developed a new type of paper that has the tensile strength of cast iron. That is to say, its ability to “resist pull before snapping” is like that of iron.
Like normal, milquetoast paper, the new material is primarily composed of cellulose, the tough cell walls of plants. This paper is altered on the nano level, however—its structure is changed on the scale of billionths of a meter by exposing it to certain chemicals.
The creators of the tough nanopaper hope that it might someday be used as strong, lightweight construction material, among other applications.
I’m thinking something along the lines of origami body armor.
A denrimer molceule: Image from Wikimedia Commons.
New treatments for AIDS and cancer, based on nanoparticles, are about to go into human trials. Both treatments use dendrimers, molecules with multiple arms. Each arm can be designed to do different things. In the case of the AIDS treatment, the arms clasp onto docking sites on the virus’s coating, preventing it from attaching to and infecting healthy cells. In the cancer treatment, some of the arms hold folic acid, which cancer cells absorb; the other arms hold an anti-cancer drug, which is then released inside the cancerous cell.
Dendrimers were invented 30 years ago, but have had few practical applications, since they are difficult and expensive to make. But new processes promise to speed up production, perhaps unlocking the promise of these molecules.
To see images of dendrimers, go here.
Nano light emitters: Credit: Lorelle Mansfield/NIST NIST "grows" semiconductor nanowires that emit ultraviolet light as part of a project to make prototype nano-lasers and other devices and the measurement tools needed to characterize them. Electron micrograph shows the gall Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are growing nanowires made of gallium nitride alloys and making prototype devices and nanometrology tools. The wires are grown under high vacuum by depositing atoms layer by layer on a silicon crystal.
When excited with a laser or electric current, the wires emit an intense glow in the ultraviolet or visible parts of the spectrum, depending on the alloy composition.
The NIST team has used the nanowires to make a number of prototype devices, including light-emitting diodes, field-effect transistors, and nanowire "bridge" structures that may be useful in sensors and nanoscale mechanical resonators.
Nanolight sources may have many applications, including "lab on a chip" devices for identifying chemicals and biological agents, scanning-probe microscope tips for imaging objects smaller than is currently possible, or ultra-precise tools for laser surgery and electronics manufacturing.
Source: NIST Tech Beat
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