Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers with Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology and Dong-A University, both in South Korea, has developed an artificial skin that can detect both pressure and heat with a high degree of sensitivity, at the same time. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the team describes how they created the skin, what they found in testing it and the other types of things it can sense.

Many scientists around the world are working to develop artificial skin, both to benefit robots and human beings who have lost skin sensation or limbs. Such efforts have led to a wide variety of artificial skin types, but until now, none of them have been able to sense both pressure and heat to a high degree, at the same time.

The new artificial skin is a sandwich of materials; at the top there is a flexible surface meant to mimic the human fingerprint (it can sense texture), beneath that sit sensors sandwiched between graphene sheets. The sensors are domed shaped and compress to different degrees when the skin is exposed to different amount of pressure. The compression also causes a small electrical charge to move through the skin, as does heat or sound, which is also transmitted to sensors—the more pressure, heat or sound exerted, the more charge there is—using a computer to measure the charge allows for measuring the degree of sensation “felt.” The ability to sense sound, the team notes, was a bit of a surprise—additional testing showed that the artificial skin was actually better at picking up sound than an iPhone microphone.

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These people have got a leg — or an arm — up on the future.

Thanks to the latest advancements in medical science, amputees are becoming part robot, with awe-inspiring artificial limbs that would make Luke Skywalker jealous.

These new limbs come armed with microprocessors and electrodes that sense muscle movement. Others can be controlled by a smartphone app. People missing limbs often tried to hide their prosthetics, but these New Yorkers are showing them off with pride.
Rebekah Marine.

Continue reading “Are these artificial limbs better than the real thing?” »

Toyota’s three-seater exoskeleton car and an electric vehicle with touch screens that turn it into a “digital space” are among the concept models that will be on display at the Tokyo Motor Show this week.

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A team from Stanford University might have made a breakthrough that could change the lives of people with missing limbs. Researchers have developed an artificial substitute for skin that is capable of sensing when it is being touched and sending that data to the nervous system. It’s hoped that technology like this could be used to build futuristic prostheses that could be wired into the nervous systems of amputees. In addition, not only will these people be able to know if they’re touching something, they’ll also know how much pressure is being used.

Put very simply, the skin is comprised of two layers of rubbery plastic skin with a flexible circuit printed on, courtesy of the folks at Xerox Parc. Sandwiched between the two is a run of carbon nanotubes, which conduct electricity when they’re pushed closer together. The harder the compression, the more current passes between them, which is how the skin can understand differences in pressure.

That, however, isn’t enough, since that data would still have to be transmitted somehow into the user’s brain. In the end, the team opted to harness a field of science called optogenetics, which involves genetically-engineering cells so that they react to specific frequencies of light. By creating optogenetic neurons that are capable of sensing light patterns, the team proved that it’s possible to make this technology work in a person.

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It can transmit different amounts of pressure, just like real skin.

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Mark Pollock became blind asa young man, and was paralyzed by an accident later. Now, he is taking steps with the help of a robotic exoskeleton.

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This neural dust sprinkled into an individual’s brain tissue could form an “implantable neural interface system that remains viable for a lifetime.”

Earlier this month, five researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, put out a paper discussing the possible development of mind-reading “neural dust,” which could be implanted directly into the human brain to allow people to interact with machines.

The paper is what the MIT Technology Review calls a theoretical study: The idea is “littered with challenges beyond the state-of-the-art.”

Continue reading “‘Neural Dust’ May Let Minds Meld With Machines” »

Memory loss is a truly devastating part of dementia, but this invention aims to fix that by bypassing the damage, and repairing long term memory.

Alzheimer’s and dementia are complex diseases, and there’s currently no effective treatment. Given the unpleasant nature of the disease, there’s an urgent need for results. Instead of taking the usual biological route, one team has constructed a prosthetic made up of a small electrode array — which can help re-encode short term memory into long term.

Built using decades of research, the device operates using a new algorithm based on accumulated neural data. New sensory information is normally translated into a quick memory and transported as an electrical signal through the hippocampus, potentially for long term storage. If this region is damaged then the process is disturbed, and new experiences fail to be encoded. Alzheimer’s patients can often remember childhood events, but struggle with recent experiences; specifically because of this hippocampal damage.

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My new and first article for The Daily Dot. It’s about transhumanism and the Immortality Bus tour:

Continue reading “Why I’m running for president—and got a chip implanted in my hand” »