2022 – Page 11 – Impact Lab

Robots

Smart Plastic Material Eyed for Next-Gen Soft Robots, Electronics

November 18, 2022

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin created a new plastic-like material developed that can be manipulated to change its properties. It can be soft and stretchy or hard and rigid with only the application of a catalyst and visible light.

By Elizabeth Montalbano

Researchers used light to create a polymer that is 10 times more durable than natural rubber.

Researchers have taken inspiration from living things such as trees and shellfish to create a new plastic material that is both flexible and strong, showing a toughness that’s 10 times more than that of natural rubber, they said.

A team at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) used a unique process that involved applying light and a catalyst to change the properties of a material. Their aim was to mimic natural materials that can be hard and rigid in some places and soft and flexible in others, they said. Indeed, while naturally occurring materials such as skin and muscle easily combine properties such as strength and flexibility, it’s been historically difficult for scientists to recreate this in synthetic materials, said Zachariah Page, a UT Austin assistant professor of chemistry, who led the research.

In the past, when using a mix of different synthetic materials to mimic these attributes, materials would come apart or rip at the places where the different materials met, he said. In this case, Page and his team could control and change the structure of a plastic-like material, using light to alter how firm or stretchy the material would be. “This is the first material of its type,” he said in a post on UT News.

Where these researchers had success while others failed is in their ability to control crystallization, and therefore the physical properties of the material, particularly using the application of light, which “is potentially transformative for wearable electronics or actuators in soft robotics,” he said.

Robots

Handheld diagnostic lab uses ‘ferrobots’ to automate viral testing

November 18, 2022

By Rich Pell

Researchers at UCLA say they have developed the technology for a handheld lab kit that could significantly increase the speed and volume of disease testing, while reducing the costs and usage of scarce supplies. Using swarms of pinhead-sized magnets, the handheld, all-in-one diagnostic lab kit is capable of fully automated multiplexed and pooled testing.

The automated tests, say the researchers, can be easily manufactured, deployed and performed timely at a doctor’s office, health clinic or at mass testing sites in airports and schools at the onset of any major infectious disease. In a paper on the project, the researchers outlined how the lab kit works and included findings from a clinical study with test samples from individuals who experienced COVID-19 symptoms.

More than 100 test results using the lab kit were compared to the same samples tested for COVID-19 using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based molecular diagnostics performed as part of UCLA Health’s routine clinical care.

3D Printer

A Fleet of Robots is Building a Huge Community of 3D-Printed Homes

November 18, 2022

All the homes will be powered by rooftop solar panels.

By Ben Munson

An entire community of homes is currently being 3D-printed in Georgetown, a city north of Austin, Texas.

Lennar and ICON are partnering to construct 100 homes in a planned community called Wolf Ranch using only 3D printing.

The homes are being constructed using ICON’s Vulcan robotic construction systems, software and advanced materials.

“For the first time in the history of the world, what we’re witnessing here is a fleet of robots building an entire community of homes,” said ICON CEO Jason Ballard.

“In the future, I believe robots and drones will build entire neighborhoods, towns, and cities,” he added.

AI

New Chip Expands the Possibilities for AI

November 18, 2022

An energy-efficient chip called NeuRRAM fixes an old design flaw to run large-scale AI algorithms on smaller devices, reaching the same accuracy as wasteful digital computers.

By Allison Whitten

Artificial intelligence algorithms cannot keep growing at their current pace. Algorithms like deep neural networks — which are loosely inspired by the brain, with multiple layers of artificial neurons linked to each other via numerical values called weights — get bigger every year. But these days, hardware improvements are no longer keeping pace with the enormous amount of memory and processing capacity required to run these massive algorithms. Soon, the size of AI algorithms may hit a wall.

And even if we could keep scaling up hardware to meet the demands of AI, there’s another problem: running them on traditional computers wastes an enormous amount of energy. The high carbon emissions generated from running large AI algorithms is already harmful for the environment, and it will only get worse as the algorithms grow ever more gigantic.

One solution, called neuromorphic computing, takes inspiration from biological brains to create energy-efficient designs. Unfortunately, while these chips can outpace digital computers in conserving energy, they’ve lacked the computational power needed to run a sizable deep neural network. That’s made them easy for AI researchers to overlook.

That finally changed in August, when Weier Wan, H.-S. Philip Wong, Gert Cauwenberghs and their colleagues revealed a new neuromorphic chip called NeuRRAM that includes 3 million memory cells and thousands of neurons built into its hardware to run algorithms. It uses a relatively new type of memory called resistive RAM, or RRAM. Unlike previous RRAM chips, NeuRRAM is programmed to operate in an analog fashion to save more energy and space. While digital memory is binary — storing either a 1 or a 0 — analog memory cells in the NeuRRAM chip can each store multiple values along a fully continuous range. That allows the chip to store more information from massive AI algorithms in the same amount of chip space.

As a result, the new chip can perform as well as digital computers on complex AI tasks like image and speech recognition, and the authors claim it is up to 1,000 times more energy efficient, opening up the possibility for tiny chips to run increasingly complicated algorithms within small devices previously unsuitable for AI like smart watches and phones.

Researchers not involved in the work have been deeply impressed by the results. “This paper is pretty unique,” said Zhongrui Wang, a longtime RRAM researcher at the University of Hong Kong. “It makes contributions at different levels — at the device level, at the circuit architecture level, and at the algorithm level.”

AI

How AI Is Revolutionizing The Ways We Can Detect Mental Illness

November 18, 2022

By Robin Farmanfarmaian

Predictive AI applications are relatively new to mental and behavioral health, but are already showing a lot of promise. In a recent publication on detecting suicide risk through analyzing text messages, UW Medicine researchers found that algorithms performed as well as trained evaluators. This is great news for predictive AI and the ability to save lives at risk for suicide through data analysis in real-time, when and where the individual is located. This is important because some healthcare providers may be concerned when they communicate by text message with a patient, they might miss something they are trained to pick up from voice inflection, facial expression, and other auditory or physical signals. Algorithms like this can help enhance the provider’s ability to analyze the patient when communicating by text, an increasingly popular way for people to access mental health.

Beyond text messaging, there are many companies already working on analyzing a person’s speech through vocal biomarkers. Vocal biomarkers describe using someone’s voice and speech as vital signs. Digitizing the human voice and metricizing the various features of voice and speech means software programs can find patterns and detect small changes humans might not recognize. Vocal biomarker measurements and analysis for anxiety, stress, sleepiness and depression are some of the early applications.

A great example of AI voice technology that can be used directly by healthcare providers now to detect mental illness is Ellipsis Health. By harnessing the power of the human voice as a biomarker for mental health, Ellipsis Health can be used as a clinical decision support tool during clinic visits. Its technology augments the care team by helping to assess the severity of stress, anxiety, and depression.

Robotics

Robotics and AI: The future of designing for assisted living

November 18, 2022

The National Robotarium at Heriot-Watt University is focused on the development and testing of robotics and AI solutions

By Hollie Tye

Designing and manufacturing assisted living technologies, Pressalit were asked to contribute to the work being carried out by the Ambient Assisted Living Lab (AAL) at Heriot-Watt University

Demonstrating how assisted living technologies can help transform lives, solutions from manufacturer and designer, Pressalit, have been chosen to feature in the National Robotarium.

Now open on Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus, the National Robotarium houses technology and facilities, central to the development and testing of robotics and AI solutions across three distinct areas; Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Human and Robot Interaction and High-Precision Manufacturing.

Focusing on entrepreneurship, job creation and building digital skills in the workforce, the centre hopes to offer a data-driven approach for industry collaboration where humans and robots work in partnership.

Within the centre, the Ambient Assisted Living Lab (AAL) is focused on reforming the way assisted living care is delivered in the UK, with the help of robotics and AI.

Using a recreated care home setting, scientists and engineers within the AAL will research and create smart technology solutions in a bid to help improve the physical and mental wellbeing of people with assisted living needs who strive to live independently.

Designing assisted living technologies for kitchens and bathrooms for almost fifty years, Pressalit were asked to contribute to the work being carried out at the National Robotarium.

Cancer

This Personalized Crispr Therapy Is Designed to Attack Tumors

November 16, 2022

In a small study, researchers modified patients’ immune cells to target their particular cancer—but it only worked for a third of volunteers.

IN A NEW step for Crispr, scientists have used the gene-editing tool to make personalized modifications to cancer patients’ immune cells to supercharge them against their tumors. In a small study published today in the journal Nature, a US team showed that the approach was feasible and safe, but was successful only in a handful of patients.

Cancer arises when cells acquire genetic mutations and divide uncontrollably. Every cancer is driven by a unique set of mutations, and each person has immune cells with receptors that can recognize these mutations and differentiate cancer cells from normal ones. But patients don’t often have enough immune cells with these receptors in order to mount an effective response against their cancer. In this Phase 1 trial, researchers identified each patient’s receptors, inserted them into immune cells lacking them, and grew more of these modified cells. Then, the bolstered immune cells were unleashed into each patient’s bloodstream to attack their tumor.

“What we’re trying to do is really harness every patient’s tumor-specific mutations,” says Stefanie Mandl, chief scientific officer at Pact Pharma and an author on the study. The company worked with experts from the University of California, Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology, and the nonprofit Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle to design the personalized therapies.

The researchers began by separating T cells from the blood of 16 patients with solid tumors, including colon, breast, or lung cancer. (T cells are the immune system component with these receptors.) For each patient, they identified dozens of receptors capable of binding to cancer cells taken from their own tumors. The team chose up to three receptors for each patient, and using Crispr, added the genes for these receptors to the person’s T cells in the lab.

Medical Breakthrough

Scientists look to grow ‘mini livers’ for patients with organ damage

November 16, 2022

After decades of overblown expectations, regenerative medicine looks ready to take a step further

By Daniel Bardsley

It sounds like science fiction: people with end-stage liver disease are injected with cells from a donor liver and, in response, their body produces multiple mini livers that keep them healthy.

Yet, science fiction really could be on the verge of becoming scientific fact, because US company LyGenesis is about to begin clinical trials in which participants are expected to develop such “ectopic” livers.

What is more, LyGenesis’s method could see as many as 75 patients receive liver cells from a single donated organ, and organs that have been discarded from transplant programmes are likely to be suitable for the technique.

It represents a stark contrast to standard transplant surgery, where just a single patient benefits for each donated organ, and that organ must have passed quality checks.

It certainly is a solution to an unmet need for patients who would be sitting waiting for an organ transplant for, sometimes, until death

Jacqueline Jeha of LyGenesis

After decades of overblown expectations and false starts for regenerative medicine, where old or non-functioning organs or tissues are replaced, it represents a potentially significant development.

Amazon.com

Amazon unveils smaller delivery drone that can fly in rain

November 16, 2022

New drone, dubbed MK30, will go into service in 2024 and replace the existing MK27-2

Amazon.com Inc. unveiled a new delivery drone on Thursday that’s smaller, makes less noise and can fly through light rain, the latest effort to get the troubled and long-developing project off the ground.

The company has spent nearly a decade pursuing founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of autonomous drones that can deliver a package weighing less than 5 pounds as little as 30 minutes after a customer places an order. Beyond speeding delivery times, drones could significantly cut the cost of delivery which still mostly requires a person driving a vehicle to someone’s home.

The new drone, dubbed MK30, will go into service in 2024 and replace the existing MK27-2, the model that will be used to make deliveries in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, this year. The new unit has a longer range, can fly in a wider range of temperatures and has new safety features, Amazon said.

brain hacking

1st patient with new ‘mind-reading’ device uses brain signals to write

November 15, 2022

An implanted device translates brain activity into written sentences.

By Nicoletta Lanese

An implanted device allows a man to translate his brain signals into written words.

A man who developed paralysis and lost his ability to speak following a stroke can now communicate using a system that translates his brain’s electrical signals into individual letters, allowing him to craft whole words and sentences in real time.

To use the device, which receives signals from electrodes implanted in his brain, the man silently attempts to say code words that stand in for the 26 letters of the alphabet, according to a new report, published Tuesday (Nov. 8) in the journal Nature Communications(opens in new tab). These code words come from the NATO phonetic alphabet, in which “alpha” stands for the letter A, “bravo” for B and so on.

“The NATO phonetic alphabet was developed for communication over noisy channels,” Sean Metzger (opens in new tab), the study’s first author and a doctoral candidate in the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco’s Graduate Program in Bioengineering, told Live Science. “That’s kind of the situation we’re in, where we’re in this noisy environment of neural recordings.” The researchers initially tried using individual letters instead of code words, but their system struggled to distinguish phonetically similar letters, such as B, D, P and G.

Cancer

Scientists Are Using the “Dark Matter” of the Human Genome To Help Cure Cancer

November 15, 2022

The researchers are planning to continue their research and develop a drug that can treat patients.

Scientists have identified new cancer treatment targets.

In Switzerland, cancer is the second-leading cause of death. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the cancer form that kills the most people and is still mostly incurable. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of patients survive the metastatic stage for a long time, and even recently approved therapies can only prolong patients’ lives by a few months. As a result, researchers are looking for innovative cancer treatments. Researchers from the University of Bern and the Insel Hospital identified new targets for drug development for this cancer type in a recent study published in the journal Cell Genomics.

3D Printer

A California Startup Says 3D Printing Batteries Could Double Capacity

November 15, 2022

By Edd Gent

Solid-state batteries could be more energy dense, safer, and faster charging than today’s technology, but finding a way to make them commercially viable is challenging. One company thinks 3D printing holds the answer.

In recent years, the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles have seen huge improvements in their safety and energy density (a measure of how much power they pack in per pound). But progress is slowing, and it seems likely that we will need to switch to novel battery designs if we want to banish the gas-powered car to the history books.

Solid-state batteries, which replace the liquid electrolyte found in today’s cells with a solid one, are some of the most promising candidates in the near term. They would not only make batteries safer by removing the flammable liquid electrolyte, but could also boost energy density and allow faster charging.

A number of startups have developed promising prototypes, but working out how to manufacture these kinds of batteries at scale is a major challenge. California-based startup Sakuú thinks the answer is to use 3D printing, which would allow them to make much more efficient use of space and therefore produce batteries with much higher capacity than competitors.

Batteries are made up of three key components: a positive electrode called an anode, a negative electrode called a cathode, and an electrolyte that allows ions to travel between the two. In today’s most advanced lithium-ion batteries, the electrodes are made using a production process known as “roll-to-roll” manufacturing.