Blog

Robot and human surgeons compare micro-gravity operating skills

Robot surgeon at work in Aquarius underwater habitat

Good news for future space travelers: the world’s first demonstration of robotic surgery in a simulated micro-gravity environment takes place this week, in a collaborative effort between SRI International and the University of Cincinnati.

On four parabolic flights September 25 to 28 aboard a NASA C-9 aircraft (nicknamed the "Weightless Wonder"), a human surgeon will match suturing and similar skills with a robot surgeon tele-operated from thousands of miles away. The robot surgeon is equipped with special software that is designed to help it compensate for "errors in movement" (what you might call those pesky "oops!" moments that surgeons–and patients–just hate) due to turbulence or lack of gravity. The human surgeon is equipped with an airsickness bag.

The remote-surgery robot has already been tested on the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, 60 feet under the water off the coast of Key Largo, where SRI demonstrated the robot could operate successfully even with a two-second latency, similar to that an Earth-based surgeon would experience if operating such a robot on the moon. Future beneficiaries of such tele-operated surgery could include not only astronauts and military casualties but anyone who needs attention by a surgeon when the hospital is a long way away.

Those who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens and subjected to medical testing, however, might wish to ask for a sedative or a blindfold before a knife-wielding robot is positioned above them.

(Via MedGadget.)

(Photo from NASA via SRI International.)

[tags]robots, medicine, space travel, surgery[/tags]

Blog

Scientist brings laser engines into realm of possibility

6 Comments

Destiny Gundam light propulsionImagine a spacecraft that could travel faster than 100km/sec. Something like that might get us to Mars in about a week. Well, as happens so often, technology seen in Japanese anime is stepping out of the pages into real life. Dr. Young Bae of the Bae Institute demonstrated his engine back in 2006, and this week he presented his concepts at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space 2007 Conference.

All this may seem rather far-fetched and crazy, but Dr. Bae is publishing his discovery in the AIAA’s peer-reviewed journal (scheduled out later this year), so it must have some basis of truth behind it. I’d caution skepticism all around, and I’ll believe it when I see it. Too often, somebody forgets to carry the one or they realize that the technology causes babies to be born with an extra appendage. On the other hand, this could be really cool, and I’m sure it will have applications elsewhere, too. Oh yeah, did I mention this contraption was built with off-the-shelf parts?

(via DailyTech)
{image from sunrise anime

Blog

160,000 year journey of man

ice in europeA lot can happen in 160,000 years. Back then a handful of human beings scraped out a life in Africa and at various hard times during the centuries catastrophes have pushed the total world population down to barely 10,000 people. This excellent animation by the Bradshaw Foundation shows how the human race expanded and contracted as climate changed, eventually spreading to all the continents after the last ice age. Watching the ice and glaciers advance and retreat and volcanoes erupt and change and the impact this had on human lives is a stark warning to anyone denying climate change. It’s amazing how much the Earth can effect our lives.

And here’s a reminder of just how small even mankind’s efforts are amidst the vastness of the universe. This wonderfully kitsch 1977 video zooms out at a power of ten from the earth out into space. Alternatively, why not go the other way, as in this zooming in animation.

[via Dark Roasted Blend][image courtesy of gipuzkoakultura.net]

Blog

Pulp-based computing

Computer chip embedded in paper In computers, we have software and hardware. Jokingly, the human brain is sometimes called wetware. Up next: pulpware!

OK, technically it’s hardware–wires, sensors and computer chips–embedded in paper or cardboard. A spiral of conductive ink can be a speaker, or a touch sensor. Two layers, and a page can tell when it is being bent. Among the possible creations are books that talk or light up when their pages are turned (personally, I can’t think of anything more annoying!), or boxes that can tell you how much their content weighs. (Maybe with voice messages. "Don’t even try it, buddy! I’m a hernia-in-waiting!")

The project was outlined at the recent International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing in Innsbruck, Austria. Here’s a video of the production process and some applications. Here’s the original paper. And here’s the research project’s website.

(Via New Scientist Tech.)

(Photo from MIT.)

[tags]computers, MIT, technology, paper[/tags]

Blog

Geoff Ryman on Mundane SF

3 Comments

Since they started a few years back, the Mundanes have been quietly providing the science fiction field with one of its few non-SFWA-related controversies. By challenging writers to imagine realistic futures stripped of many of the field’s standby tropes–most of them deemed scientifically unlikely by their manifesto–the Mundanes seem to have pissed off a lot more people than they’ve inspired.

I’ve always felt they’ve been on to something. Now they’ve posted a Guest of Honor speech by one of the movement’s chief progenitors, Geoff Ryman, which I think provides plenty of important food for thought about SF literature and how science fiction writers treats the future. In my opinion it provides a pretty cogent argument for more Mundane SF. I’m guessing others will see it as an affront. What say Futurismic readers?

Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001