Wearable Sweat Sensors Could Track Your Health by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor Date: 27 January 2016 Time: 01:08 PM ET

Blood tests allow doctors to peer into the human body to analyze people's health. But in the future, there may be a less invasive way to obtain valuable information about a person's health: wearable sensors that use human sweat to look for signs of disease.
Sweat is a rich source of chemical data that could help doctors determine what is happening inside the human body, scientists explained in a new study. Perspiration is loaded with molecules, ranging from simple electrically charged ions to more complex proteins, and doctors can use sweat to diagnose certain diseases, uncover drug use and optimize athletic performance, they said.
"Sweat is pretty attractive to target for noninvasive wearable sensors, since it's, of course, very easy to analyze — you don't have to poke the body to get it — and it has a lot of information about one's health in it," said study senior author Ali Javey, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. [Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies]

Commercially available wearable sensors, like the Fitbit and the Apple Watch, track users' physical activities and some vital signs, such as heart rate. However, they do not provide data about a user's health on a molecular level. Now, scientists say "smart" wristbands and headbands embedded with sweat sensors could sync data wirelessly in real time to smartphones using Bluetooth.
Previously, studies of sweat largely relied on perspiration collected off the body in containers that was later analyzed in a lab. Now, researchers have devised a soft, flexible, wearable sensor array to continuously monitor changes in four molecular components of sweat and to provide real-time tracking of a person's health.
These devices might one day help athletes track their performance and enable doctors to continuously monitor the health of their patients to better personalize their medication, the scientists said.
"This could help tell athletes to take liquids or warn them they are going through heat shock," Javey told Live Science.
The invention uses five sensors to simultaneously track levels of glucose, lactate, sodium and potassium, as well as skin temperature. This data is fed to a flexible board of microchips that processes these signals and uses Bluetooth to wirelessly transmit data to a smartphone. All of these electronics could be incorporated into either a wristband or headband.
"We have a smartphone app that plots the data from sweat in real time," Javey said.
Sweat Sensors Can Sniff Your Health | Video

The researchers tested the device on 26 men and women who pedaled indoors on stationary bikes or ran outdoors on tracks and trails. Sodium and potassium in sweat could help check for problems such as dehydration and muscle cramps. Glucose could help keep track of blood sugar levels. Lactate levels could indicate blood flow problems, and skin temperature could reveal overheating and other problems.
In addition, the skin temperature sensor helps adjust the chemical sensors to make sure they get proper readings, the researchers said. For instance, higher skin temperatures increase the electrical signals from glucose, which can make it look as if people are releasing more glucose in their sweat than they actually are.
Previous wearable sweat monitors could track only a single molecule at a time, which could generate misleading information, the researchers said. For example, if a lone sensor showed a drop in a molecule's level, it might not be because that molecule's level is actually falling in a person's sweat, but rather because sweating has stopped, the sensor has detached from the skin or the sensor is failing. The inclusion of multiple sensors could help shed light on what is happening to a person and the sensor array as a whole.
In the near future, the researchers hope to shrink the device's electronics down and boost the number of molecules it monitors. Such molecules could include heavy metals such as lead, which recently made news for appearing in

Gadget That 'Eavesdrops' on Water Warns You of Waste By Elizabeth Goldbaum, Live Science Contributor Date: 30 January 2016 Time: 09:48 AM ET

A sleek, white gadget that looks more like a trendy speaker than a tool for water conservation could stop people from wasting precious H2O, said one Silicon Valley startup.
The device, invented by the company Nascent, measures how much water you use by "listening" to the flow of H2O leaving the tap. The gadget begins each day with a full bar of light, which gets shorter whenever the device hears the tap left running. The rate at which the bar shrinks varies by home; if there are more people living under your roof, the device takes that into account and the bar will take longer to deplete.
"I know more about the sound of water than you'll ever believe," said Baback Elmieh, founder and CEO of Nascent. [5 Ways We Waste Water]

The device, dubbed the "Droppler," is like Shazam (an app that can identify artists and song titles just by hearing the music) for water, Elmieh said. But there are some caveats, he added. "I call it Shazam for water, and that's true in a sense, but it's actually closer to a speech-recognition system than Shazam," Elmieh told Live Science.
Every sink sounds a little different — similar to different accents, Elmieh said. For example, if water could be represented by the English language, it might sound like a refined Englishman upon splashing in a metal sink and like an American cowboy when flowing in a ceramic sink.
The challenge, Elmieh said, is to collect as many "accents" as possible under as many circumstances as possible. Not only are various sinks accounted for, but also ambient noises are included, such as bathroom fans, music, chopping boards and many others.
"All that data together gives us a really good representation of most sinks," Elmieh said. The data feeds into a model that gets smarter as more information is included. "It is a statistical model that has been trained on hundreds of hours of data of all sorts of different sinks" in an effort to generalize the sound of water, Elmieh said.
He and his collaborators chose sound over a direct attachment to a house's plumbing in order to make the Droppler as user-friendly as possible, he said.
The Droppler's simple interface was also designed with accessibility in mind; the bar of diminishing light reflects how much water people use, "and they're going to see that every time they turn on the tap," Elmieh said. His prediction is the more you know, the more you will react.

Nascent partnered with the University of British Columbia's Behavioural Sustainability Lab, in Vancouver, Canada, to develop the Droppler. The device "is based on the research that was performed in our lab," Jiaying Zhao, the lab’s principal investigator, said in a statement.
"Dr. Zhao is a specialist in trying to figure out how to change human behavior to drive sustainability," Elmieh said. Zhao found that when people could see how much water they used on an egg-timerlike device, they cut their water use by at least 30 percent in laboratory settings, Elmieh said. This was true even for people who weren't predisposed to water conservation, he said.
The Droppler's beta testers report similar outcomes, Elmieh said. He recalled hearing stories about families sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out who used 50 percent of the water at 9 o'clock in the morning. This type of device could create a social stigma around water usage, Elmieh said.
"We're here in California, [where] there's a problem all around us," Elmieh said, referring to California's historic drought. "We built something quickly, addressing a local problem — why wouldn't we try to do something about it?"
When the Droppler isn't needed to monitor water flow, it can break apart into a speaker or camera. It's a transformable gadget, Elmieh said, which also reflects Nascent's eye for sustainability.
To get its product commercialized, Nascent teamed up with the beer brand Shock Top for its "Shock the Drought" initiative, which highlights water-conservation products. Nascent is also raising funds through the crowdfu

US Military’s F-35 Fighter Jets to Make British Debut in July by Denise Chow, Sci-Tech Editor Date: 01 February 2016 Time: 04:36 PM ET

The U.S. military's next-generation F-35 fighter jets will make their long-awaited overseas debut this summer at two air shows in the United Kingdom, Air Force officials recently announced.
The 56th Fighter Wing, stationed at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, will showcase F-35A Lightning IIs at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire and the Farnborough International Airshow in Hampshire, both in July.
The summer events will be the first time the F-35s cross the Atlantic Ocean for the overseas air shows. [Supersonic! The 10 Fastest Military Airplanes]

"We're very excited about demonstrating this capability to the world," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, said in a statement. "The F-35 represents a new way of thinking about data integration, weapons and tactics. We're thrilled to highlight the program and the amazing Airmen who support this cutting-edge fighter."
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is billed as the most advanced warplane of its type yet developed, but the program has been plagued with delays and cost overruns. In July 2014, the U.S. military canceled what would have been the F-35's international air show debut after one of the planes suffered an engine fire. The United States' entire fleet of F-35s was subsequently grounded for two weeks as military leaders and aviation authorities investigated the cause of the fire, which was later determined to be from a damaged turbine blade.
At this summer's British air shows, the U.S. Air Force will also demonstrate World War II-era planes, along with aircraft from the Korean and Vietnam wars, according to military officials.
"Being a part of these heritage flights allows the world to learn more about the F-35 and at the same time see just how far air power has come over the years," Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, commander of the 56th Fighter Wing, said in a statement. "The F-35 will be the backbone of the Air Force fighter fleet and represent the future for the U.S., our partners and allies. This will be a great opportunity for everyone to see how amazing the F-35 is."
The Royal International Air Tattoo, the world's largest military air show, will take place from July 7 to 9 in Gloucestershire, and the Farnborough International Airshow is scheduled to run from July 11 through 17 in Hampshire.

Magnetic 'MoonWalker' Shoes Help You Defy Gravity by Elizabeth Goldbaum, Live Science Contributor Date: 06 February 2016 Time: 08:18 AM ET

The "20:16 MoonWalker" shoes use embedded magnets to simulate what it feels like to walk on the surface of the moon.
CREDIT: Moonshine Crea
Have you ever fantasized about walking on the moon, but you don't want to put on a spacesuit and blast more than 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) through space? A New York-based startup plans to turn this lunar fantasy into a reality, and it could be as simple as putting on a pair of magnetic loafers.
Moonshine Crea, the company developing the out-of-this-world footwear, is strategically inserting superpowerful magnets at the base of its shoes to create a force field, leaving wearers light on their feet.
The shoe, named "20:16 MoonWalker," relies on N45 neodymium magnets, which are among the most powerful permanent magnets known. As permanent magnets, they create their own force field, without an external current, and work like refrigerator magnets. [11 Outdoor Gifts for Exploring Our Amazing Planet]

"There are different levels of magnets, like N40, 42 and 45," said Patrick Jreijiri, a mechanical engineer and designer for the 20:16 MoonWalker. The neodymium magnets' strength level depends on their exact composition, which is primarily a mix of neodymium, iron and boron.
"N45 is stronger than the rest and still on the cheap side," Jreijiri told Live Science, which is why it was chosen. There are around 12 to 13 magnets on one layer that repel a mirror image of 12 to 13 magnets on another layer in each shoe. The repellant force comes from the orientation of the magnets, which are arranged so that their north poles align with each other.
The magnets range from 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) in diameter. The 2-inch magnets are strong enough to move 27 lbs. (12 kilograms) of material, and the 1-inch magnets are capable of moving objects up to 55 lbs. (12 kg), Jreijiri said.
The magnets and resulting repulsion cover the entire area of the foot, so when a person is walking, he or she is pushing against the combined strength of the magnets, Jreijiri said.
"As you're walking, your foot will exert pressure on the magnets unequally," he said. To remedy that, the bigger magnets are directly under the heel and ball of the foot to counteract the extra force placed on these parts when people walk. Furthermore, the space between the magnets creates a sort of cushion and adjusts to how a person walks, he said.
The gap also means that an individual's weight won't be a factor in the sensation he or she will feel while wearing the MoonWalker shoes, Jreijiri said, as long as the wearer is less than 403 lbs. (183 kg), at which point the magnets would collapse.
"The genius design in it is that it has a 6-millimeter [0.24 inches] gap between the magnets, and the closer the magnets come to each other, the more pull you will have," Jreijiri said. "So, if you're 60 kilograms [132 lbs.], you'll feel the same thing as if you are 180 kilograms [397 lbs.]," he said.

And Jreijiri said there's no such thing as too much "moonwalking" — the 20:16 MoonWalker is just like any shoe, but instead of using rubber or springs in the soles, it uses magnets. And the shoes are also lined with memory foam for extra comfort, he said.
The outer layer of the shoe is made of gray and white synthetic fabric, and the inner layer of the shoe is a DuPont Tyvek synthetic polyethylene, which, the company boasts, is the same material used by NASA on its space station modules.
The 20:16 MoonWalker shoes don't have the elasticity that would normally be lost in ordinary shoes after longtime use, Jreijiri said. "The magnetic fields in the magnet are always there, so unless you take a saw and cut it in half, it should be working for a long time," he said.
Moonshine Crea is raising money on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo and plans to deliver its finalized product in September, Jreijiri said. The proje

Hydrogen Bomb vs. Atomic Bomb: What's the Difference?

by Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor   |   January 06, 2016 03:17pm ET

85

 

19

 

80

Submit

3

Reddit

A mushroom cloud from the world's first successful hydrogen bomb test, on Nov. 1, 1952. Credit: Public Domain View full size image

North Korea claims to have tested a hydrogen bomb on Wednesday (Jan. 6), a weapon more powerful than the bombs that devastated the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II.
Experts aren't yet sure whether the notoriously reclusive country has really built and deployed an H-bomb. For one thing, the seismic disturbance caused by the explosion was a magnitude 5.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That's similar in strength to the rumblings from a 2013 North Korea test of an atomic bomb. (Atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs are different types of nuclear bombs.)
Hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear bombs, are more powerful than atomic or "fission" bombs, so the similarly sized seismic events cast doubt on North Korea's claims, experts say. The difference between thermonuclear bombs and fission bombs begins at the atomic level. Fission bombs, like those used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, work by splitting the nucleus of an atom. When the neutrons, or neutral particles, of the atom's nucleus split, some hit the nuclei of nearby atoms, splitting them, too. The result is a very explosive chain reaction. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki exploded with the yield of 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons of TNT, respectively, according to theUnion of Concerned Scientists. [The 10 Greatest Explosions Ever]

In contrast, the first test of a thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, in the United States in November 1952 yielded an explosion on the order of 10,000 kilotons of TNT. Thermonuclear bombs start with the same fission reaction that powers atomic bombs — but the majority of the uranium or plutonium in atomic bombs actually goes unused. In a thermonuclear bomb, an additional step means that more of the bomb's explosive power becomes available.

First, an igniting explosion compresses a sphere of plutonium-239, the material that will then undergo fission. Inside this pit of plutonium-239 is a chamber of hydrogen gas. The high temperatures and pressures created by the plutonium-239 fission cause the hydrogen atoms to fuse. This fusion process releases neutrons, which feed back into the plutonium-239, splitting more atoms and boosting the fission chain reaction.
Governments around the world use global monitoring systems to detect nuclear tests as part of the effort to enforce the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There are 183 signatories to this treaty, but it is not in force because key nations, including the United States, did not ratify it. Since 1996, Pakistan, India and North Korea have carried out nuclear tests. Nevertheless, the treaty put in place a system of seismic monitoring that can differentiate a nuclear explosion from an earthquake. The CTBT International Monitoring System also includes stations that detect the infrasound — sound whose frequency is too low for human ears to detect — from explosions. Eighty radionuclide monitoring stations around the globe measure atmospheric fallout, which can prove that an explosion detected by other monitoring systems was, in fact, nuclear.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us@livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Pocket-Sized Device Charges Your Phone with Water

by Elizabeth Palermo, Associate Editor   |   January 09, 2016 09:34am ET

10

 

11

 

2

Submit

0

Reddit

The JAQ fuel cell charger would allow you to charge your smartphone without an electrical outlet, say at the beach. Credit: myFC View full size image

LAS VEGAS ­– A sleek new device could help you charge your phone without an electric outlet.
Swedish startup MyFC unveiled its cool technology, dubbed JAQ, here at CES on Jan. 6. The device, which is small enough to slip into your back pocket, is a fuel cell charger. It uses saltwater and oxygen to convert chemical energy into electricity. Then it uses that electricity to charge your phone's battery.
The charger consists of a credit card-shaped "power card" and a hollowed out port that's roughly the size of a smartphone. The card contains saltwater, which fuels electricity-producing chemical reactions when you slip the card into the port. To get that electricity to your phone's battery, you simply plug your phone into the port with a standard cable. [Smartphones With the Longest Battery Life]

One JAQ power card produces about 1,800 milliampere-hours' (mAH) worth of electricity — that's nearly enough energy to fully charge an iPhone 6S. Larger devices, like tablets, can also be charged with the fuel cell, but it'll take more than one power card to get them fully juiced. The saltwater-containing power cards are good for just one use. After that, they stop producing the chemical reactions necessary to generate electricity.

The device works by combining two reactants, in this case hydrogen and oxygen, inside an enclosed space. Hydrogen atoms from the saltwater in the power card enter the fuel cell (there are 10 fuel cells in the card) at the anode, where a "chemical reaction strips them of their electrons,"MyFC explains on its website. These electrons then provide the current that powers the phone or tablet that's connected to JAQ.

This smartphone charger uses salt and water to juice up your device.
Credit: myFC

View full size image

Once the hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons, they become positively charged hydrogen ions and are able to move through the fuel cell's electrolyte — a membranelike substance that limits the movement of ions in the cell. At the cathode end of the cell, oxygen from the air enters and combines with the hydrogen ions that made it through the electrolyte and electrons returning from the electrical circuit. This reaction results in a totally harmless byproduct: water (H2O).
JAQ isn't available for purchase just yet, but the company anticipates that the product will be ready to ship later this year. When it does go up for sale, MyFC hopes to implement a subscription service. Customers would sign up to receive a certain number of power cards every month. Individual cards would also be available for purchase and will likely cost about $1.50 each, a company spokesperson told Live Science.
Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science@livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Space Bots & Android Waste Collectors: What's Ahead for Robotics

by Elizabeth Palermo, Associate Editor   |   December 31, 2015 11:46am ET

5

 

8

 

80

Submit

33

Reddit

NASA's Valkyrie robot Credit: NASA/DARPA View full size image

It was a good year to be a robot.
In 2015, researchers in Korea unveiled a robotic exoskeleton that users can control with their minds, a four-legged bot in China set a new world record by walking 83.28 miles (134.03 km) without stopping and 3D-printing robots in Amsterdam started work on a new steel footbridge.
But these smart machines are capable of so much more. Researchers around the world are now designing and building bots that will complete more noteworthy tasks in 2016 and beyond. From exploring other planets to fighting fires at sea, here are a few skills that bots could pick up in the new year. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Travel to Mars
Space robots already exist. Robotic arms and hands on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) assist astronauts during spacewalks, hoist equipment and perform other duties. A humanoid robot named Robonaut 2 also helps out around the orbiting laboratory, doing simple and sometimes dangerous tasks so that human astronauts can focus on other things. And then there are the Mars rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, which serve as rolling robotic laboratories, exploring the surface of the Red Planet, collecting samples and relaying data back to Earth.
But NASA has plans to send a different kind of robot to Mars in the not-so-distant future. The space agency's Valkyrie robot, or R5, is an updated Robonaut that was originally built to perform search and rescue operations as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Robotics Challenge. But NASA's bot did not fair very well in the competition, never qualifying for the last round, which was held in June 2015. Yet the machine's makers still think there's hope for the humanoid robot.
NASA recently asked two universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Northeastern University in Boston, to work on further development of the R5 robot. Researchers at these institutions will receive funding and support from the space agency to create software that will make the bot more useful in space. The ultimate goal of this new Space Robotics Challenge is to develop a humanoid bot that could help humans explore Mars, NASA said.
Trash collecting

An artist's depiction of how the trash-hauling robots might operate.
Credit: Adrian Wirén, Mälardalens Högskola, Courtesy of Volvo Group

View full size image

Sure, future robots could be more useful in space, but there also a few tasks these machines could perform to make them indispensable right here on Earth. For example, they could haul garbage. Researchers in Sweden and the United States are working on the development of such trash-chucking robots.
Spearheaded by Swedish automaker Volvo, the project is known as Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling, or ROAR, and the goal is to develop remote-controlled bots that could be deployed from a garbage truck to the curb outside your home. The bots will lift up heavy refuse bins, empty the trash into the garbage truck and then roll along to the next house to do the same, sparing sanitation workers from any heavy lifting.
Swedish waste-management company Renova is also developing a garbage truck that could accommodate the automated system needed to control the bots and, presumably, carry the helpful machines around when they're not hauling trash. The project is expected to be ready for testing by June 2016.
Fighting fires

The SAFFiR (short for Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot) humanoid bot was developed to one day help put out fires aboard U.S. Navy ships.
Credit: Virginia Tech

View full size image

The middle of the ocean might be the last place you'd expect to find firefighting robots, but that's precisely where the U.S. Navy would like to send these flame-quelling machines. In February 2015, the Navy unveiled its firefighting bot, SAFFiR (short for Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot), which the Navay hopes to employ in the near future aboard ships at sea.
Developed by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the humanoid bot stands nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and is equipped with thermal-imaging technologies that enable the robot to detect heat and see through smoke. It also has a laser range-finder that allows the machine to map out the distance between itself and an object. The bot can hold a fire hose, too, which means it can not only detect fires or potential sources of fires, but also put out flames should the need arise.
The bot isn't meant to replace human firefighters, but could assist them, said the researchers who developed the machine. Before the bot sees any real action, the researchers must improve its intelligence, communications capabilities, speed, computing power and battery life, they said. Considering that it took four years to get the bot ready for its first public demonstration, chances are slim that SAFFiR will be deployed in 2016. But keep an eye out for this firefighting robot in the years to come.
Running wild
Lots of bots can run; there are even superfast cheetah bots and trotting, doglike bots. But getting a two-legged, humanoid robot to move at a jog is something that researchers have struggled to do, until fairly recently. And getting a bipedal robot to run outside of a lab, over rough terrain, has proven to be an even more difficult challenge. [Robots on the Run! 5 Bots That Can Really Move]

Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot, Atlas, can now run around outdoors.
Credit: Boston Dynamics

View full size image

But in August 2015, robotics company Boston Dynamics released a YouTube video showing its humanoid robot, Atlas, jogging through the woods. The robot even climbed down a steep embankment and stepped over a log. This video terrified a lot of people, but it also raised hopes about the utility of bipedal bots, which gained a reputation for being slow and clumsy after the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) final last June (all of the bots fell down while on the competition course, and by the end of contest, the lot of them were in various states of repair). Atlas was one of several bots to compete in the DARPA competition.
Atlas still has a way to go before it will be ready to run through the forest at a full sprint, and before it accomplishes that goal, it will have to overcome another obstacle — its tether. The bot's movements are currently powered by a hydraulic system that is in turn powered by an electric cord that plugs into the robot's back. Before Atlas can really take off, Boston Dynamics scientists need to figure out a better way to power the bot, whose onboard lithium-ion battery pack currently lasts for only about an hour even when the bot isn't moving at full tilt. It's a design challenge the company said it will likely be working on in the new year.
Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.