Show Notes 6 October 2023
Story 1: Smart ePants – US Intelligence to spend $22 million on smart electrically powered and networked textile systems
Source: IARPA website
Link: https://www.iarpa.gov/research-programs/smart-epants
See also: ExtremeTech.com Story by Adrianna Nine
Link: https://www.extremetech.com/defense/us-intelligence-to-spend-22-million-on-surveillance-underwear
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJWRpAEife8
First things first – where this research is coming from:
ABOUT IARPA – Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of the agencies and disciplines in the Intelligence Community.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity mission [let’s go with the acroynm IARPA] is to push the boundaries of science to develop solutions that empower the intelligence community to do its work better and more efficiently for national security. The IARPA does not deploy technologies directly to the field. Instead, they facilitate the transition of research results to their Intelligence Community customers for operational application.
AREAS OF INTEREST for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity team include:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Quantum Computing
- Machine Learning
- And Synthetic Biology -The IARPA is investing in cutting-edge synthetic biology research that will help the Intelligence Community address biothreats along with other possible applications.
Okay, with that background covered, here’s the news:
- The IARPA’s SMART ePANTS program seeks to develop clothing with integrated audio, video, and geolocation sensor systems that feature the same stretchability, bendability, washability, and comfort of regular textiles.
- By weaving these devices directly into garments, Intelligence Community personnel will be able to record information from their environment hands-free, without the need to wear uncomfortable, bulky, and rigid devices.
- As a result, personnel will have greater range of motion, thus improving their response time in challenging circumstances.
- Active smart textile research is a burgeoning field where fabrics are designed to adapt and change their functionality in response to changes to their external environment and/or user input.
- Unlike passive smart textiles, such as Gore-Tex® which rely on their structure to function, active smart textiles employ energy to power built-in sensors and/or actuators that sense, store, interpret, and/or react to information from their environment.
- New, enabling, research to transfer many of the capabilities of rigid wearable electronics into active smart textiles includes:
- weavable conductive polymer “wires”,
- energy harvesters powered by the body,
- ultra-low power printable computers on cloth,
- microphones that behave like threads,
- and “scrunchable” batteries that can function after many deformations.
- In order to transfer this research into active smart textile products, revolutionary new materials and manufacturing techniques are needed to develop complete and integrated systems containing mechanically deformable and durable items such as:
- power sources,
- sensors,
- computation and data storage, and
- electrically conductive system component “wires” and interconnects.
- The IARPA’s SMART ePANTS goal is to build sensor systems that are comfortably integrated into primary clothing (e.g., shirts, pants, socks, and underwear). Research committed to developing these systems will be divided into three demonstration tracks:
- Audio recording
- Video and photography capture
- Indoor geolocation
Story 2: Scientists knit futuristic eco-building designs using fungal networks
Source: Frontiers Science News Story by Angharad Brewer Gillham
- Scientists at England’s Newcastle University are hoping to reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry. With this goal in mind, they have developed a way to grow building materials using knitted molds and the root network of fungi.
- Although researchers have experimented with similar composites before, the shape and growth constraints of the organic material have made it hard to develop diverse applications that could fulfil its potential.
- Using the knitted molds as a flexible framework or ‘formwork’, the scientists created a composite called ‘mycocrete’ which is stronger and more versatile in terms of shape and form, allowing the scientists at England’s Newcastle University to grow lightweight and relatively eco-friendly construction materials.
- Dr Jane Scott of Newcastle University noted: “Our ambition is to transform the look, feel and wellbeing of architectural spaces using mycelium in combination with biobased materials such as wool, sawdust and cellulose”.
- Time out, what is/are mycelium? It’s the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments.
- To make composites using mycelium, part of the root network of fungi, the scientists mixed mycelium spores with grains they can feed on and material that they can grow on.
- This mixture is packed into a mold and placed in a dark, humid, and warm environment so that the mycelium can grow, binding the substrate tightly together.
- Once it’s reached the right density, but before it starts to produce the fruiting bodies we call mushrooms, it is dried out.
- This process could provide a cheap, sustainable replacement for foam, timber, and plastic. But mycelium needs oxygen to grow, which constrains the size and shape of conventional rigid molds and limits current applications.
- England’s Newcastle University team says knitted textiles offer a possible solution: they have developed oxygen-permeable molds that could change from flexible-to-stiff with the growth of the mycelium. Dr. Scott and her colleagues set out to design a mycelium mixture and a production system that could exploit the potential of knitted forms.
- Dr. Scott notes, “Knitting is an incredibly versatile 3D manufacturing system.It is lightweight, flexible, and formable. The major advantage of knitting technology compared to other textile processes is the ability to knit 3D structures and forms with no seams and no waste.”
Story 3: Humans as batteries: future smart devices could use our bodies as a power source
Source: The Science Times Story by Conelisa N. Habilla
- Smart devices could soon tap their users as a power source by converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. Scottish researchers at a firm called Integrated Graphene may have figured out how to tap body movements to generate electricity.
- Mechanical energy is one of the most abundant sources of energy in nature, and the daily actions of humans can generate a small amount of electrical power. However, most of our mechanical energy is wasted in the environment, waiting to be converted into more valuable forms.
- New technology is being developed where super thin matting placed on floors can capture the energy of each step.
- Side note, as part of our August 25 podcast we talked about a U.K. tech company called Pavegen that has invented a way to generate renewable energy from people’s footsteps.
- Integrated Graphene’s idea is closely related to Pavegen’s basic concepts.
- The Integrated Graphene team calls for the energy collected from walking around the house to be stored to power household items. However, it has become a challenge to make this possible using traditional triboelectric nanogenerators on a commercially viable scale due to limited energy output, low durability, and inefficiency.
- Side note: As we noted in the August 25 podcast about Pavegen, a triboelectric nanogenerator is an energy-harvesting device that converts mechanical energy into electricity using the triboelectric effect.
- The triboelectric effect describes electric charge transfer between two objects when they contact or slide against each other. It can occur with different materials, such as the sole of a shoe on a carpet, or between two pieces of the same material.
- Okay, with all that said, here’s the news: Tech company Integrated Graphene claims to have developed a graphene-based product that can help solve this problem [meaning the limitations of triboelectric nanogenerators developed to date, such as the solutions from Pavegen].
- Integrated Graphene has developed an innovative 3D graphene foam called Gii which offers potential as an active layer in a triboelectric nanogenerator.
- Experts from the University of the West of Scotland’s Institute of Thin Films, Sensors and Imaging conducted a study focusing on the potential of Integrated Graphene’s 3D graphene foam as a power source for autonomous sensors. The research team aims to transform the mechanical energy of humans wasted in nature into a more helpful form of electrical energy.
- The result of the study reveals that the force of a human footprint exerted on a pressure-sensitive mat containing Integrated Graphene’s Gii-triboelectric nanogenerator sensors can generate enough energy to drive monitoring devices to identify people who enter or leave a room. This can be used as a low-cost, energy-efficient approach to monitor occupancy.
- In addition, the mats can also help optimize energy resources like controlling room temperature upon a person’s entrance or exit. The researchers believe this can be useful in schools and universities that need to connect room occupancy to a ventilating system and CO2 monitoring.
Story 4: Aggressive cancer cells transformed into healthy muscle cells!
Source: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory article
Link: https://www.cshl.edu/once-rhabdomyosarcoma-now-muscle/
Source: ScienceAlert.com Story by Michelle Starr
Link: https://www.sciencealert.com/aggressive-cancer-cells-transformed-into-healthy-cells-in-breakthrough
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists Christopher Vakoc and Martyna Sroka have found a way to morph cancerous rab-duh-mai-ow-saar-kow-muh rhabdomyosarcoma cells into muscle cells. As the cells transform, they take on typical muscle features, including the spindle-like shape shown in the article’s image.
- What is the Cold Spring Harbor Lab? Founded in 1890, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory [in New York state] has shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, and quantitative biology. Home to eight Nobel Prize winners, the private, not-for-profit laboratory employs 1,000 people including 600 scientists, students, and technicians.
- What are rhabdomyosarcoma cells? Rhabdomyosarcoma [usually just referred to as RMS] is a type of sarcoma.
- Sarcoma is cancer of soft tissue (such as muscle), connective tissue (such as tendon or cartilage), or bone. RMS usually begins in muscles that are attached to bones and that help the body move, but it may begin in many places in the body. Source: https://www.cancer.gov/types/soft-tissue-sarcoma/patient/rhabdomyosarcoma-treatment-pdq
- A devastating and aggressive type of pediatric cancer, RMS resembles children’s muscle cells. [Because of this close resemblance] No one knew whether this proposed treatment method, called differentiation therapy, might ever work in RMS. It could still be decades out. But now, thanks to Vakoc’s Cold Spring Harbor Lab team, it seems like a real possibility.
- For six years, Vakoc’s lab has been on a mission to transform sarcoma cells into regularly functioning tissue cells. As noted, a moment ago, sarcomas are cancers that form in connective tissues like muscle. Treatment often involves chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation—procedures that are especially tough on kids.
- If doctors could transform cancer cells into healthy cells, it would offer patients a whole new treatment option—one that could spare them and their families a great deal of pain and suffering.
- To carry out their mission, Vakoc and his team created a new genetic screening technique. Using genome-editing technology, they hunted down genes that, when disrupted, would force RMS cells to become muscle cells. That’s when a protein called NF-Y emerged. With NF-Y impaired, the scientists witnessed an astonishing transformation of RMS cells to healthy muscle cells!
Honorable Mentions:
Zinc Air Batteries Might Be Cheaper and Safer Than Lithium-Ion
Source: Edith Cowan University
- Battery researchers at Australia’s Edith Cowan University discovered the advantages of zinc-air batteries over lithium-ion for electric vehicle applications.
- Zinc batteries, claimed to be the oldest energy storage systems, use a zinc anode (negative electrode) with a cathode comprising air (positive electrode). A different study published on Science Direct states that limited power output is a major disadvantage for Zinc batteries, and their performance and operating period depend on humidity and temperature.
- Scientists at the Australian university redesigned the battery to tackle its inherent flaws using a mixture of new materials like carbon, cheaper iron, and cobalt. The study stated that zinc-air batteries can be low-cost and environment-friendly while being safe and packing a high energy density.
- “Due to the abundance of zinc available in countries such as Australia, and the ubiquity of air, this becomes a highly viable and reliable energy storage solution,” said Dr. Muhammad Rizwan Azhar, who led the project. He also added that the batteries can be low-cost, environment friendly, and pack high energy density (theoretically) while being safe.
90% Reduction: Scientists Discover Natural Molecule That Eradicates Plaques and Cavities
Source: SciTechDaily.com
Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in collaboration with teams from Sichuan University and the National University of Singapore, have identified that 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM) – a naturally occurring molecule also referred to as bisindole – can reduce biofilms responsible for plaque and cavities by a remarkable 90%.