MushROOMS, AI Drug Testing, Toyota Woven City, With Ralph Bond!

February 2020 show notes    

For more about me, see: https://ralphbond.wixsite.com/aboutme

Story 1: Future Mars inhabitants could live in houses made of fungi

Source: Teslarati.com Story by Amy Thompson

Link: https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-mars-mission-fungi-homes/

  • Instead of habitats made of building materials like metal and glass, NASA is exploring ways to grow buildings out of fungi
  • The myco-architecture project, a part of NASA’s Ames Research Center, is developing technologies that could “grow” habitats on places like the Moon and Mars.  
  • Not only could the fungus be used to create future structures on the moon or Mars, it could also create a more sustainable way of living on Earth as well.
  • To that end, NASA researchers are looking at mycelium — the mass of underground fibers that make up the main part of a fungus — to help construct outposts on the moon and Mars. 
  • Ultimately, the team envisions a future where human explorers can bring along bring bricks produced using dormant fungi designed to last on long journeys
  • Upon arrival on the moon or mars, the crews would then add water and the fungi bricks which would then grow into a suitable habitat. 
  • The fungi would also be self-contained within the habitat so as not to contaminate the Moon or Martian environment with any Earth microbes.

Story 2: Living robots built using frog cells: Tiny ‘xenobots’ assembled from cells promise advances from drug delivery to toxic waste clean-up

Source: Science Daily Story by/from University of Vermont

Link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200113175653.htm

  • A team of scientists at the University of Vermont has repurposed living cells — scraped from frog embryos — and assembled them into entirely new life-forms
  • These millimeter-wide “xenobots” [as the researchers call them] could be used for multiple tasks, from targeted drug delivery within the human body, to toxic waste clean-up.
  • They are living entities that can move toward a target – and heal themselves after being cut.
  • These new entities are neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. 
  • The researchers claim for the first time ever they can design completely biological machines from the ground up
  • The research team contents the xenobots are a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.
  • The new creatures were designed using a supercomputer at University of Vermont — and then created and tested by biologists at Tufts University
  • These new living robots could have many useful applications such as searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, or traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque.
  • How these entities were developed to perform functions is extremely complex, so check out the article for more information.

Story 3: Reforestation Drones Can Plant 100K Trees in a Day ***note: article headline says in one hour, but that’s a mistake

Source: Geek.com Story by Lee Mathews

Link: https://www.geek.com/tech/reforestation-drones-can-plant-100k-trees-in-an-hour-1729318/

  • U.K.-based BioCarbon Engineering has been developing a system that uses drones to replant deforested areas devastated by fires — even in areas where planting wouldn’t be feasible using older methods.
  • BioCarbon’s system utilizes drones for two separate stages of the process. 
  • First, they’re sent into the target area to create a detailed, three-dimensional map. 
  • Once they’ve completed that step, the planting drones return to the site, and using GPS to precisely guide them, they fire thousands of “agri-bullets” into the ground below. 
  • Using biodegradable seed pod “agri-bullets” the drones can plant a tree in less than a second, or upwards of 100,000 trees in a single day. 
  • And, BioCarbon’s drones can plant multiple species at the same time. 
  • They can also plant them in a highly-optimized arrangement, thanks to the advanced scouting work by the mapping drones.

Story 4: AI-formulated medicine to be tested on humans for the first time

Source: MSN News Story by Rachel England

Link: https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBZB6LM?m=en-us&ocid=News

  • A drug designed entirely by artificial intelligence is about to enter clinical human trials for the first time. 
  • The drug, which is intended to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, was discovered using AI systems from Oxford-based biotech company Exscientia
  • While it would usually take around four and a half years to get a drug to this stage of development, Exscientia says that by using the AI tools it’s taken less than 12 months.
  • The drug, known as DSP-1181, was created by using algorithms to sift through potential compounds, checking them against a huge database of parameters, including a patient’s genetic factors. 
  • The researchers described the trials as a “key milestone in drug discovery” and noted that there are “billions” of decisions needed to find the right molecules for a drug, making their eventual creation a “huge decision.” 
  • With AI, however, “the beauty of the algorithm is that they are agnostic, so can be applied to any disease.”
  • Key questions raised in the article: 
  • Will patients be comfortable taking medication designed by a machine? 
  • How will these drugs differ from those developed by humans alone? 
  • Who will make the rules for the use of AI in drug research?

Story 5: Walmart Wants to Build 20,000-Square-Foot Automated Warehouses With Fleets of Robot Grocery Pickers

Source: Gizmodo.com Story by Jody Serrano

Link: https://gizmodo.com/walmart-wants-to-build-20-000-square-foot-automated-war-1840950647

Alphabot

  • Speed and efficiency are some of the problems Walmart and other companies struggle with when it comes to store or warehouse fulfillment directly to customers waiting at the site. 
  • The current fulfillment model for online grocery orders is labor intensive, requiring dozens of employees to run around the store to gather everything on the customer’s list and more employees to pick up the order and take it to the customer’s vehicle.
  • Walmart’s new experimental solution is called Alphabot, a robotic fulfillment system located in Salem, New Hampshire 
  • Alphabot is a 20,000 square foot automated warehouse that uses humans and a fleet of robots to put together customers’ grocery orders as fast as possible. 
  • The prototype system uses human labor and robot speed to pick more than 800 products per hour and deliver to customers waiting in their cars at the site.  
  • This compares to human warehouse or store workers who, on average, can pick around 80 products from shelves in an hour. 
  • The key here is a symbiotic relationship between the robots and the humans.
  • Once the robots collect all the products, humans pack up the groceries and take them to the client’s car. 
  • My take: Good news, humans are still part of the equation.  Bad news, most likely a reduction in workers needed. 

Story 6: First-of-its-kind technology lights up lung cancer cells during surgery

Source: Medical Express Magazine Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Link: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-first-of-its-kind-technology-lung-cancer-cells.html

  • A groundbreaking tumor-highlighting technology—OTL38—enhances the visualization of lung cancer tissue during surgery, providing surgeons with a significantly better chance of finding and removing more cancer than previously possible
  • The new technology was spearheaded by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
  • In coordination with six other institutions, including Harvard, 92 lung cancer patients received an intravenous dose of OTL38, composed of near-infrared dye and a targeting molecule. 
  • The molecule attaches to folic-acid-based receptors on cancer cells and can be illuminated during surgery using a special surgical endoscope. 
  • This helps identify small, hard-to-detect cancer lesions that might otherwise have been missed and should be surgically removed.
  • OTL38 is believed to be the first targeted fluorescent marker to provide this type of benefit for lung cancer surgical procedures. 
  • The OTL38 technology is different in its ability to detect cancerous tissue not previously identified on preoperative scans — and do so in real-time, while the surgeon is operating.

Story 7: Ultra-Light Robotic Insect Uses Soft Artificial Muscles to Move – Survives Being Flattened by a Fly Swatter

Source: Science Daily Story by EPFL

Link: https://scitechdaily.com/ultra-light-robotic-insect-uses-soft-artificial-muscles-to-move-survives-being-flattened-by-a-fly-swatter/ 

See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkO3xuO54vI&feature=emb_logo

  • Imagine swarms of robotic insects moving around us as they perform various tasks. It might sound like science fiction, but it’s actually more plausible than you might think.
  • Researchers at Switzerland’s EPFL School of Engineering have developed a soft robotic insect, propelled at 3 cm per second by artificial muscles.
  • The team developed two versions of this soft robot, dubbed DEAnsect. The first, tethered using ultra-thin wires, is exceptionally robust. 
  • It can be folded, hit with a fly swatter or squashed by a shoe without impacting its ability to move. 
  • The second is an untethered model that is fully wireless and autonomous, weighing less than 1 gram and carrying its battery and all electronic components on its back. 
  • This intelligent insect is equipped with a microcontroller for a brain and photodiodes as eyes, allowing it to recognize black and white patterns, enabling DEAnsect to follow any line drawn on the ground.
  • DEAnsect is equipped with dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), a type of hair-thin artificial muscle that propels it forward through vibrations. 
  • These DEAs are the main reason why the insect is so light and quick. They also enable it to move over different types of terrain, including undulating surfaces.
  • What the heck would you use them for?  Perhaps for inspection or remote repairs, or even for gaining a deeper understanding of insect colonies by sending a robot to live amongst them.

Story 8: European Space Agency scientists make oxygen from Moon dust

Source: WTSP.com Story by Chelsea Tatham

Link: https://www.wtsp.com/article/tech/science/space/esa-scientists-make-oxygen-from-moon-dust/67-2d30436f-a084-4141-a44f-23527d7d7bcb

  • Scientists at the European Space Agency say they’ve found a way to make oxygen out of Moon dust — a big step toward the possible future of human settlement on the Moon or Mars.
  • The Agency says it has opened an oxygen plant at the Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory in the Netherlands, focusing on extracting oxygen from simulated moon dust. 
  • Fun fact: The Moon actually has a large supply of oxygen. It’s just not in the Lunar atmosphere. 
  • Lunar regolith, a mixture of loose dust and dirt covering solid rocks, is made up of 40-45 percent oxygen.
  • This oxygen, scientists say, is chemically bound up as oxides like minerals or glass. So, it can’t immediately be used for breathable air or fuel.
  • To extract the oxygen, the researchers used a method called molten salt electrolysis. 
  • The lunar regolith is placed in a metal basket with molten calcium chloride salt and heated to about 1,742 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • At this point, the regolith is still solid, but an electrical current is applied to extract the oxygen. 
  • Scientists say this method also produces a bonus: usable metal alloys.

Story 9: Toyota to build prototype city of the future, test connected AI tech  

Source: Metro Magazine

Link: https://www.metro-magazine.com/technology/news/736929/toyota-to-build-prototype-city-of-the-future

See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGihNp3p1E0&feature=emb_logo

  • Toyota revealed plans to build a prototype “city” of the future on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan
  • The groundbreaking for the site is planned for early 2021.
  • Called the Woven City, it will be a fully connected ecosystem powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
  • Envisioned as a “living laboratory,” the Woven City will serve as a home to full- time residents and researchers who will be able to test and develop technologies such as autonomous vehicles, robotics, personal mobility, smart homes, and artificial intelligence in a real-world environment.
  • The masterplan of the city includes three types of roads: 
  • for high-speed vehicles only, 
  • for a mix of lower speed, personal mobility and pedestrians, 
  • and for a park-like promenade for pedestrians only. 
  • To move residents through the city, only fully-autonomous, zero-emission vehicles will be allowed on the main thoroughfares.
  • Residences will be equipped with the latest in human support technologies, such as in-home robotics to assist with daily living. 
  • The plan is for 2,000 people to start, adding more as the project evolves.

Story 10: Scientists just 3D printed a superweapon to fight back against bacteria

Source: BGR.com Story by Mike Wehner

Link: https://bgr.com/2020/01/21/health-news-antibacterial-surface-3d-printing/

  • The war against the spread of bacteria in places like hospitals and medical centers is often waged using chemical sprays. 
  • The sprays tend to work great, but they’re not suitable for every application and have to be used repeatedly to keep a surface sanitary.
  • But what if a surface itself could fight back against bacteria? 
  • Scientists from the University of Sheffield in the UK might have pulled off that incredible feat with a lot of help from 3D printing technology. 
  • What they developed takes advantage of the antimicrobial properties of silver.
  • Silver is used to prevent microbial growth in certain applications, such as water cooling systems for electronics. 
  • With this in mind, the researchers involved in the project developed a “silver-based antibacterial compound” which they then incorporated into 3D printing material.
  • The idea is that such a manufacturing technique could be used to create bacteria-resistant instruments and surfaces for use in medical settings including hospitals even nursing homes.  *** I say, “how about airplane seats and trays?”
  • What makes this approach especially interesting is that it combats the spread of bacteria without the use of antibiotics, which are suspected to be a major driver in the evolution of so-called “superbug” bacteria that are resistant to common drugs.

Story 11: Magnetic Microbots Deliver Stem Cells to Heal Knee Cartilage

Source: Medgadget.com Story by editorial staff

Link: https://www.medgadget.com/2020/01/magnetic-microbots-deliver-stem-cells-to-heal-knee-cartilage.html

  • As has been widely hyped for many years now, mesenchymal [“mess-em-chi-mal”] stem cells have the capacity to heal all sorts of damage in our bodies.
  • Damaged cartilage, for example, doesn’t heal well on its own and so would be a prime beneficiary of well targeted stem cell therapies. 
  • Current injection methods are not very effective, but researchers from South Korea are reporting in journal Science Robotics on specially designed “microrobots” that can carry and deliver mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) precisely to sites of damage within knee cartilage.
  • The microrobots are tiny spheres with pores within which MSCs can reside in. 
  • The microbots can be moved around using a magnetic field, and an external 3D magnetic system is used to target the microbots toward specific areas of cartilage. 
  • Once injected and placed at their final destination, the microbots can be kept there using a simple magnetic band wrapped around the knee while the stem cell differentiate and turn into healthy tissue.
  • This approach has already been successfully tried and tested on lab rabbits, successfully helping to heal damaged knee cartilage. 
  • The results of this study may help the research team move their technology from the lab stage toward clinical trials.

Story 12: Scientists built a robot pigeon that flaps just like the real thing

Source: BGR.com Story by Mike Wehner

Link: https://bgr.com/2020/01/18/pigeonbot-robot-wings-flight/

  • Scientists have long struggled with replicating the flight mechanics that birds are naturally blessed with.
  • Building a “bird robot” that flies with fixed wings is easy enough, but creating something that bends and flaps its wings like a real animal is surprisingly difficult. 
  • Now, a team of researchers at Stanford University has taken a huge step toward achieving that lofty goal with a new artificial avian aptly named PigeonBot.
  • So, how do you go about replicating the wings of a pigeon? You use real pigeon wing feathers, of course!
  • The aim of the project was to give researchers an easier way to study how the wings of a pigeon work to keep it aloft.
  • Using the robotic wings revealed one of the secrets of how pigeon wings move during flight.
  • The researchers in that study, published in Science, explain that the feathers themselves have “hooks” that latch on to neighboring feathers as the bird flaps its wings. 
  • These hooks are so small that you can’t see them with the naked eye, but they were revealed using microscope technology.
For full show notes, check out ComputerAmerica.com!