Medical vital-sign monitoring reduced to the size of a postage stamp

Electrical engineers at Oregon State University have developed new technology to monitor medical vital signs, with sophisticated sensors so small and cheap they could fit onto a bandage, be manufactured in high volumes and cost less than a quarter.

A patent is being processed for the monitoring system and it’s now ready for clinical trials, researchers say. When commercialized, it could be used as a disposable electronic sensor, with many potential applications due to its powerful performance, small size, and low cost.

Heart monitoring is one obvious candidate, since the system could gather data on some components of an EKG, such as pulse rate and atrial fibrillation. Its ability to measure EEG brain signals could find use in nursing care for patients with dementia, and recordings of physical activity could improve weight loss programs. Measurements of perspiration and temperature could provide data on infection or disease onset.

And of course, if you can measure pulse rate and skin responses, why not a lie detector?

“Current technology allows you to measure these body signals using bulky, power-consuming, costly instruments,” said Patrick Chiang, an associate professor in the OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

“What we’ve enabled is the integration of these large components onto a single microchip, achieving significant improvements in power consumption,” Chiang said. “We can now make important biomedical measurements more portable, routine, convenient and affordable than ever before.”

The much higher cost and larger size of conventional body data monitoring precludes many possible uses, Chiang said. Compared to other technologies, the new system-on-a-chip cuts the size, weight, power consumption and cost by about 10 times.

Electrical Engineer Turns Brain Implant Research into Products

University of Utah electrical engineering professor Florian Solzbacher is helping turn science fiction into reality through his research and related startup companies. Solzbacher is pushing the boundaries of electrical devices that can be implanted into the brain and used as an interface between neurons and computers. If you’re thinking about the “Six Million Dollar Man,” you’re not entirely off base.

Solzbacher’s research builds on Utah Electrode Array (“Utah Array”) technologies, which were invented by another University of Utah professor, Richard Normann, and are recognized as the leading approach for selective communication with hundreds of neurons in the central and peripheral nervous systems. The Utah Array is a computer chip that is implanted in, and takes signals from the brain. It transmits them in a way a computer can understand – in short, a neural interface. Solzbacher has improved how the chip works and pioneered its applications.

“We are making things work,” says Solzbacher. “People have had the idea to invent better technologies like ours for years, but we are the first to make them work and get them into patients. There are over 10,000 labs worldwide that can make things with our technologies, and they, in turn, pull us in and involve us in theirs.”

Solzbacher is commercializing his research through startup company Blackrock Microsystems and sister company Blackrock NeuroMed. Both firms employ a combined 50 people and are selling their neural interface technologies and related tools to researchers and companies around the globe. Their customers are using the technologies to find new approaches for treating nervous system disorders such as blindness, deafness, Parkinson’s and epilepsy, while another set of clients is using them to control prosthetic limbs.

Brain Power: From Neurons to Networks is a 10-minute film and an accompanying TED Book. Based on new research on how to best nurture children’s brains from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child and University of Washington’s I-LABS, the film explores the parallels between a child’s brain development and the development of the global brain of Internet, offering insights into the best ways to shape both. The film and TEDBook launched at the California Academy of Sciences on November 8, 2012.

Virtual reality ‘beaming’ technology transforms human-animal interaction

Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, researchers have ‘beamed’ a person into a rat facility allowing the rat and human to interact with each other on the same scale.

Published in PLOS ONE, the research enables the rat to interact with a rat-sized robot controlled by a human participant in a different location. At the same time, the human participant (who is in a virtual environment) interacts with a human-sized avatar that is controlled by the movements of the distant rat. The authors hope the new technology will be used to study animal behaviour in a completely new way.

Computer scientists at UCL and the University of Barcelona have been working on the idea of ‘beaming’ for some time now, having last year digitally beamed a scientist in Barcelona to London to be interviewed by a journalist.

The researchers define ‘beaming’ as digitally transporting a representation of yourself to a distant place, where you can interact with the people there as if you were there. This is achieved through a combination of virtual reality and teleoperator systems. The visitor to the remote place (the destination) is represented there ideally by a physical robot.

A US man who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident is to attempt history by using a thought-controlled bionic leg to reach the top of one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers simply by thinking: “Climb stairs”.

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Advanced exoskeleton promises more independence for people with paraplegia

The dream of regaining the ability to stand up and walk has come closer to reality for people paralyzed below the waist who thought they would never take another step.

A team of engineers at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Mechatronics has developed a powered exoskeleton that enables people with severe spinal cord injuries to stand, walk, sit and climb stairs. Its light weight, compact size and modular design promise to provide users with an unprecedented degree of independence.

The university has several patents pending on the design and Parker Hannifin Corporation – a global leader in motion and control technologies – has signed an exclusive licensing agreement to develop a commercial version of the device, which it plans on introducing in 2014.

People plus: is transhumanism the next stage in our evolution?

Inviting artificial intelligence into our bodies has appeal – but it also carries certain risks.

I have often wondered what it would be like to rid myself of a keyboard for data entry, and a computer screen for display. Some of my greatest moments of reflection are when I am in the car driving long distances, cooking in my kitchen, watching the kids play at the park, waiting for a doctor’s appointment or on a plane thousands of metres above sea level.

I have always been great at multitasking but at these times it is often not practical or convenient to be head down typing on a laptop, tablet or smartphone.

It would be much easier if I could just make a mental note to record an idea and have it recorded, there and then. And who wouldn’t want the ability to “jack into” all the world’s knowledge sources in an instant via a network?

Who wouldn’t want instant access to their life-pages filled with all those memorable occasions? Or even the ability to slow down the process of ageing, as long as living longer equated to living with mind and body fully intact, as outlined in the video.

Transhumanists would have us believe that these things are not only possible but inevitable. In short: we Homo sapiens may dictate the next stage of our evolution through our use of technology.

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