artificial
Science
Someone Please Build This Woman a Webcam Eye
5:40AM Sean Fallon | In 2005, Tanya Vlach lost an eye in a car accident and has since worn the prosthetic pictured above. While the artificial eye is “an excellent aesthetic replacement,” Tanya notes that she is “interested in capitalising on the current advancement of technology to enhance the abilities of my prosthesis for an augmented reality.” In other words, she is calling out to skilled DIY’ers across the internet to help her build a high-tech “eye-cam.” But this isn’t just about helping people—what she has in mind is just plain cool. More »
Science
Artificial Heart Developed, Beats Almost Exactly Like Real Thing
12:10AM Kit Eaton | Artificial heart technology has been around a while, but this new invention by European scientists is so convincing in its emulation of a real heart’s action that if you plot its output blood flow and show “the graphs to a cardiac surgeon, he will say it’s a human heart” apparently. It also beats previous designs in that it shouldn’t need external wiring connectors and its biosynthetic “skin” means it won’t develop clots that pose a stroke risk to patients. More »
Science
Artificial Diamonds Still Forever, Just Now Sparklier and Defect-Free
8:39PM Kit Eaton | Artificial diamonds are forever, Sparkling on your little scalpel. Unlike before they are shiner, and better: More »
Science
Scientists Make Living Building Blocks: Self-Assembling Artificial Tissue in Future
11:15PM Kit Eaton | A team at MIT and Harvard Medical School has worked out how to cast bricks of artificial tissue into different shapes, and then get them to assemble automatically. The “living Lego bricks” are cast of polyethylene glycol—a biocompatible polymer—and solidified with light exposure. The self-assembling part happens when the bricks absorb water and are then agitated in a bath of mineral oil: The oil/water mix means the bricks move around and can be fixed when they’re in the right place with more light (as shown in the picture here, rod-shaped bricks in red stuck to a central green-stained piece). More »
Robots
New Yorker: Why We Won’t Have Fully Conversational Robots
9:50AM Adrian Covert | John Seabrook wrote a recent feature in The New Yorker about interactive-voice-response systems (I.V.R.) commonly used with customer service and tech support telephone hotlines. Seabrook spent time at B.B.N. Technologies watching these systems transcribe callers’ words and analysing the tone of voice for emotions present. While breaking down the history of automated telephone services and voice recognition innovations, he attempts to tackle the larger question of whether or not we can create a fully conversational, quasi-conscious robot, akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Hal 9000. Judging from the number of experts interviewed for the piece, the answer is a resounding no. More »
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Artificial Skin Merges with Yours for Better Healing
12:20AM Seamus Byrne | British biotech company Intercytex shows that its artificial skin might make painful grafts a thing of the past. Intercytex’s ICX-SKN is made out of fibrin–the same stuff your body uses to heal wounds–and fully integrates with test subjects’ skin in 28 days, leaving little behind to show for the damage. The fibrin matrix that ICX-SKN takes advantage of also contains fibroblasts, the little guys in your body that create and maintain animal tissue, so the artificial skin bonds naturally and seamlessly over a wound with natural skin. Intercytex has managed to clear a few of the hurdles when it comes to skin replacement, though challenges remain. More after the jump. More »
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