Advanced Optics ... on Butterfly Wings
By Sarah Davidson, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 16 November, 2004 9:00 a.m. ET
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Long before engineers sought to create microscopic devices that manipulate light for electronics, known as photonics, Nature had developed animals that reflect light with smaller and more complex structures than any manufactured by man.
New research shows that the wings of the morpho rhetenor butterfly reflect its brilliant blue colors not from pigment but from extremely small scaffolding within the scales of the butterfly's wings.
These types of structures represent a sophisticated level of complexity researchers someday hope to attain through biomimetics, engineering that mimics the natural world.
"The reason for studying the structure on the wings of [M. rhetenor] was that it has strong similarities to the photonic crystals already fabricated," said Luca Plattner, who did his doctoral thesis at the University of Southhampton. "I was able to explore a biomimetic process, one in which we can learn new lessons from Nature which are beneficial to both engineers and entomologists."
Plattner's work will be published Nov. 22 in the Royal Society's Interface magazine.
In the same way we see a variety of colors an oil-covered puddle of water, because of light reflecting at different depths, light rays bouncing off M. rhetenor scales are refracted at varying angles and depths.
Structures in the scales change the wavelength of light that's reflected and are why we see such vibrant hues that alter with only a slight movement of the wing. In the visible spectrum of light, red colors have a longer wavelength and blue and violet are shorter. When the wings reflect colors outside our visible spectrum, we see only the brown color of the underlying tissue.
"In photonics, we want to understand the ways Nature has developed to control the flow of light," Pete Vukusic of Exeter University told LiveScience. "Any optical technology that requires this may one day benefit from some sort of biomimetic input."
Butterflies may have such complicated colors so they can communicate at a distance, scientists say: Females see males up to half-mile away. And a male's brilliance can deter other males from entering their territories.
"Biologically speaking, there's just as much of a story to tell about the evolution of the nanostructures," said Vukusic, who is working on a separate research project. "Even subtle differences such as flight height within the forest canopy can create differences in available light levels for use in communication, influencing wing color brightness and visibility development."
Butterflies are not the only species to use light reflection in their survival and evolutionary plan. There are beetles, dragonflies, and moths that may have developed even more intricate ways to manipulate light that scientists are just starting to investigate.
"Nature always seems to have an extra level of complexity, certainly in optical terms, somewhere up her sleeve," Vukusic said.
http://www.livescience.com/animals/041116_butterfly_light.html
17 comments:
[could do away with most pollutive glass production for lenses... and obviously much lower on energy to do so.]
New Lens May
Revolutionize Photography
By Les Perreaux
Canadian Press
5-23-2005
QUEBEC -- Quebec researchers have created a new lens they say could revolutionize photography by allowing the smallest cameras to take crystal-clear zoom photos.
The new lens, one-fifth as thick as a sheet of paper, can zoom and focus with no moving parts, potentially eliminating the distortion caused by digital zoom and the bulky glass of conventional optical lens.
Tigran Galstian, an engineer and physicist at Laval University who has patented the new lens, says his invention could drastically improve the blurry photos taken by small cameras.
Dr. Galstian said the lens would work in cellphone cameras that take notoriously poor quality images.
"We have found an elegant and simple solution," said Dr. Galstian, who is now looking for an industrial partner to help build a prototype and overcome remaining technical hurdles.
"Right now we're guessing what industry needs and we'd love to work with them on what they really want."
Fred Greenslade, a sports and wildlife photographer in Portage la Prairie, Man., is intrigued by the invention.
Like most professional photographers, Mr. Greenslade carries several heavy lens on most assignments and must switch constantly for different conditions.
"It sounds like something a photographer would dream up," said Mr. Greenslade.
"I'll believe it when I see it but it sounds great. I guess I'd have a few questions. Is it going to work? How fast will it be? What's the quality going to be?
"But it sounds, in theory, like the best thing to have."
Dr. Galstian's lens adds a light-sensitive compound to a thin sheet of liquid crystals, eliminating the need for the finely ground glass of conventional photographic equipment.
When the sheet is zapped with a laser beam, the centre becomes denser than the edges of the lens.
Small jolts of electricity change the material in the lens to bend light and adjust focus and zoom.
Conventional photographic lens move two pieces of curved glass to zoom or focus, requiring bulky lens for top quality close-ups.
Many small digital cameras zoom with computer processors, losing a lot of picture quality in the process.
Dr. Galstian and associate Vladimir Presnyakov published their research in the current edition of the Journal of Applied Physics.
The lens could eventually be adapted for super-lightweight eyeglasses that could be adjusted for focal length, eliminating the need for bi-focals, Dr. Galstian said.
"In the short-term, we are focusing on cellphones but in the long term we think there could be many uses," Dr. Galstian said.
Dr. Galstian said researchers in France are working on a "competing technology" that uses electricity and a liquid droplet.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050522.wlenz0522/BNSt%0Aory/specialScienceandHealth/
Inventor of the Week Archive
Browse for a different Invention or Inventor
Stanford
Amorphous semiconductor materials
In the 1950s, Stanford Ovshinsky created an entirely new realm of materials science, which in turn has given new life to the engineering of semiconductors, solar energy, and electric cars.
Stan Ovshinsky was born in Akron, Ohio in 1922. After graduating from high school, he went straight to work. In 1955, he began working the field of amorphous materials, that is, materials that lack a definite crystalline structure. Ovshinsky was the first engineer to devise a method, called "phase change," for crystalizing these disordered materials, with resulting novel uses: for example, films that gain metallic properties without losing their original optical capabilities. One result was amorphous semiconductors --- which the engineering community had previously considered an utter impossibility.
In 1960, Ovshinsky founded Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD), in order to continue and expand his work in amorphous semiconductors. Meanwhile, engineers nationwide had eagerly entered an entirely new field: "ovonics" (from Ovshinsky Electronics).
Ovshinsky earned numerous patents in the 1970s and '80s for amorphous semiconductor materials. These materials became essential to optoelectronic copying and fax machines, as well as large, flat-panel liquid crystal displays like those of computer monitors. As early as 1970, Ovshinsky had used his ovonic phase change principle to invent a reversible optical memory disk: that is, a prototype rewritable CD-ROM. Today, thirteen high tech companies around the world are developing rewritable CDs using Ovshinsky's technology.
Ovshinsky went on to use his thin-film amorphous silicon to invent a manufacturing method that might do for solar energy what the assembly line did for automobiles. In 1983, he patented a system that allowed photovoltaic solar panels to be manufactured in continuous rolls 1000 feet in length. Ovshinsky's "Continuous Amorphous Solar Cell Production System" operates much like a newspaper rollpress, speedily imprinting a plasma of amorphous silicon semiconductors in a continuous web onto a thin, anodized metal sheet.
The high energy-conversion efficiency of the thin-film cells and the high throughput of the process make Ovshinsky's photovoltaic cells a revolutionary leap forward for solar energy. They have been installed at various sites around and above the globe, from Mexican mountain villages to the Mir space station. Ovshinsky's "Uni-Solar" roofing tiles, for residential buildings, have won Popular Science's "Best of What's New" Grand Award (1996) and Discover Magazine's Discover Award in the Environment category (1997).
More recently, Ovshinsky has taken a strong step closer to a feasible electric car. After years of development, he earned a patent in 1994 for a high energy-storage, environment-friendly, maintenance-free, rechargeable battery. Although he is far from alone in the search for the perfect electric car battery, Ovshinsky's nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) model, when compared with its nickel-cadmium and lead-acid competitors, is twice as powerful, with none of their fatigue and discharge problems. In fact, Ovshinsky's battery shattered the Department of Energy's performance targets. Recently, ECD formed a joint venture with GM, whose EV1 features Ovshinsky's NiMH battery, to mass produce the battery for electric cars worldwide. A more modest version of the NiMH battery has been licensed by many of the world's major battery companies for retail consumption.
In total, Stan Ovshinsky has earned about 200 US patents, at a pace which has not flagged since the early 1970s: eight granted in 1999, and three more by February 1 of this year. He has also won many local, national and international awards for his work, which extends far beyond the products described above; and he will doubtless win further fame, as the once impossible products he has invented come into broader use.
[March 2000]
http://web.mit.edu/invent/i-archive.html
posting without comment
sense extension
eugenics
Magneurol Home magnetism and sense extension
Special Magnetic Material Delivers
Powerful Mind Expansion!
Mysterious One-Celled Bacteria discovered to work with magnetic fields!
Unique magnetic material found in animal brains, explaining Extraordinary Animal Sixth Sense,
Now Discovered in Human Cells & Brain!
Use This Discovery to Surpass Current Human Capabilities by 3,000 Years!
Dear Friend,
In 1974 at the University of New Hampshire, Richard Blakemore made a phenomenal discovery. His research would over time push the world into a quantum leap.
What he discovered was that some bacteria create within their single-cell bodies long strings of magnetic crystals called magnetite. These strings of magnetite would grow allowing the bacteria to become better and better at finding their way (using this special "Sensory") to new locations rather than endlessly spinning in circles.
These micro-sized, one-cell bacteria beat humans to the discovery of the magnetic compass by about 3 million years!
Since that time intrigued scientists have discovered micro-bits of magnetite "Special Magnetic Material" inside many other animals such as Dolphins, Sea Turtles, Salmon, Butterflies, Whales, Honeybees and Homing pigeons and a host of others!
Well, this one, tiny, overlooked-as-inconsequential discovery didn't stop there. More...
Magneurol Home magnetism and sense extension
---
The Missing Link to Mind Expansion!
Unique Magnetic Material Delivers
Powerful Mind Expansion!
Mysterious One-Celled Bacteria discovered to work with magnetic fields!
Unique, Magnetic material found in animal brains, explaining Extraordinary Animal Sixth Sense...
Now Discovered in Human Cells & Brain!
Use This Discovery to Surpass Current Human Capabilities by 3,000 Years!
Dear Friend,
In 1974 at the University of New Hampshire, Richard Blakemore made a phenomenal discovery. His research would, over time, push the world into a quantum leap.
What he discovered was that some bacteria create within their single-cell bodies long strings of Magnetite Strings Inside Bacteriamagnetic crystals called magnetite. These strings of magnetite would grow allowing the bacteria to become better and better at finding their way (using this special "Sensory") to new locations rather than endlessly spinning in circles.
These micro-sized, one-cell bacteria, beat humans to the discovery of the magnetic compass by about 3 million years!
Since that time intrigued scientists have discovered micro-bits of magnetite inside many other animals such as Dolphins, Sea Turtles, Salmon, Butterflies, Whales, Honeybees and Homing pigeons and a host of others!
Whales will migrate over 3,500 miles. Butterflies migrate over 2,796 miles. That distance is roughly 150,000,000 times the average butterfly's body length of 3 centimeters. All of these migratory species demonstrate a mysterious sensory that accurately guides and informs them and they all have magnetite in common!
An article written in 1982 for Science titled, "Magnetic Navigation, an Attractive Possibility" detailed how microscopic examination of the magnetite crystals revealed in nervous system tissue!
Animals use magnetite to read and plug into Earths magnetic fields. With intelligence far below human standards they are able to perform feats practically impossible for any human to perform without the aid of technology.
What Would Happen?
What would happen if you took a human, with an advanced intelligence compared to animals, and gave them the ability to plug into Earths complex magnetic fields?
In 1992 up to 100 million magnetite crystals per gram of tissue were discovered in the human brain! Scientists have noted that the presence of this magnetic material in human brain tissue does allow for the theoretical possibility for us to interact with magnetic fields using the central nervous system.
Humans do not have equal amounts of magnetic material in their brains. This may explain why some people appear to have higher levels of mind-traits such as intelligence, sensory, awareness, stamina, intuition almost naturally.
Magnetism is one of the most pervasive features of the Universe, with planets, stars and entire galaxies all having associated magnetic fields. It is now possible to tap into a unifying universal force!
The potential of this amazing discovery and the realization that we are now able to safely introduce it to our bodies ecosystem creates stunning possibilities to its true application and how it will possibly quantum leap humankind.
Sincerely,
Eric Pepin
CEO Remcure Enterprises, Inc.
---
One of the Greatest Mysteries that has baffled scientists for centuries!
Secret Revealed!
You can Experience it too!
"Animals possess magnetite in their brains and now scientists discover Humans also have it!"
We have known about magnets for a long time. The Chinese and Greeks made the initial discovery of this special, magnetic rock, magnetite, thousands of years ago. Early sea voyagers used the special rock magnetite as a crude compass. We have since learned that the entire planet is embedded with invisible magnetic fields and Einstein said that the entire universe, or reality, is controlled by them!
Animals have been suspected of using some kind of hidden magnetic sensory for migratory journeys. Animal MigrationsIn some cases these migrations span over thousands of miles with the animals displaying astounding and reliable accuracy. This observation created a division between the technology created by humans using magnets and the natural sensory of animals. With the current discovery of magnetic material in both animals and now humans the two worlds suddenly and remarkably have collided! Two small experiments, which were seemingly unrelated, have now exploded into a world of possibilities!
Magnetic Super Food?
It has long been suspected that homing pigeon's magnetoreception may explain how the birds find their way home. A simple homing test was conducted on a group of young birds in a small loft in New Jersey. Researchers were curious to see if any homing anomalies could be observed if the group of birds were fed a blend of food and powdered magnetite designed for them.
The Results were Astounding!
The pigeons were split into two groups. Group one pigeons were fed powdered magnetite only after they were weaned. The second group ate the magnetite mix from their very first day of hatching. All of the pigeons were trained, fed and inoculated identically the same.
Homing Sensory Test
The birds that consumed the magnetite mix after they were weaned experienced 55% losses. 5 out of 9 birds from this group did not successfully return to their loft.
Those that began eating the magnetite mix from birth experienced only 7% losses. Homing PigeonThat's just 1 out of 14 birds! A significant statistical difference!
More Interesting Experiments
Now, you may be thinking, "What does this have to do with humans? What happens to a pigeon doesn't affect me." An experiment at Manchest University may change your mind.
Around 1976, a series of experiments at Manchester University on third-year zoology students appearently proved that humans have a magnetic sense of direction. The students were blindfolded and driven over a complex and winding route until they were between 6 and 52 km away from Manchester University. Each student was asked to point towards the university twice - first, while they were still wearing the blindfold, and secondly, after the blindfold was taken off.
To everybody's shock, they did much better at finding the university when they were blindfolded, when they were following their instincts, instead of trying to work it out from memory or logic. They appeared to have an innate "sense of direction".
The experiment was repeated with the students all wearing little bars of metal on their heads. But the little bars of metal were not all the same, half of them were magnets, while the other half were non-magnetic brass.
The results were impressive.
The students wearing the magnets lost their sense of direction. But the students wearing the non-magnetic brass could still point to the university. Somehow the magnets interfered with their sense of direction. So this means that their sense of direction was, in some way, magnetic!
Human Sensory is altered by Magnetism
If human sensory is altered by magnets then, like the pigeons, it can also potentially be enhanced!
Pigeon racing experts do not allow their birds to race when there are high levels of electro-magnetic interference coming from magnetic storms, sun spots, etc. The pigeon's ability to find their way home is negatively affected. In the same way the students with magnets on their foreheads were affected in their ability to locate the university.
Both humans and pigeons are susceptible to magnetic interference. Both groups can also potentially have this ability enhanced and expanded!
Human Consumption?
A highly refined magnetite with supporting materials could be developed to effect the human brain in the same way the homing pigeons were.
There is much more research being released about the connection of this mysterious sensory demonstrated by animal species and its relation to magnetite.
The Magneurol Connection!
Magnerol has a unique proprietary blend of specific magnetized properties which compliment cells naturally occurring within your body.
Magnetite in CellsThese cells contain within them "Magnetotactic bacteria" which grows magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are then naturally assembled into single or multiple chains and anchored inside the cell, enabling the bacteria to passively orient themselves along geomagnetic field lines.
Cells, nerves and brain synapses also require complex building materials often found in select "Vitamins & Minerals" to achieve this delicate process to its optimal level.
You experience life through your Cells because they work and contribute to maximizing the bodies potential as a whole. What they experience you experience!
There is no product like it on earth!
http://www.magneurol.com/index.html
sense extension
Mind over matter' no longer science fiction
General Science : June 09, 2006
Newsletter Print Email Blog It Font size: - N +
Peter Brunner demonstrating the BCI
Sitting stone still under a skull cap fitted with a couple dozen electrodes, American scientist Peter Brunner stares at a laptop computer. Without so much as moving a nostril hair, he suddenly begins to compose a message -- letter by letter -- on a giant screen overhead.
"B-O-N-J-O-U-R" he writes with the power of his mind, much to the amazement of the largely French audience of scientists and curious onlookers gathered at the four-day European Research and Innovation Exhibition in Paris, which opened Thursday.
Brunner and two colleagues from the state-financed Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York were demonstrating a "brain computer interface (BCI)," an astounding technology which digitalizes brain signals emitted as electrical impulses -- picked up by the electrodes -- to convey intent.
[Peter Brunner demonstrating the BCI]
Peter Brunner demonstrating the BCI
While no spoons were bent, this was definitely mind over matter.
Without recourse to nerves or muscles, BCI "can provide communication and control to people who are totally paralyzed" and unable to unable to speak or move, explains researcher Theresa Sellers, also from Wadsworth.
Dr. Sellers estimates there are some 100 million potential users of BCI technology worldwide, including 16 million sufferers of cerebral palsy, a degenerative brain disease, and at least five million victims of spinal cord injury. Another 10 million people have been totally paralyzed by brainstem strokes, she said.
Scientists have been experimenting with ways to translate thought directly into action for nearly two decades, but BCI has only recently begun to move out of the laboratory and into the daily lives of those trapped inside bodies that no longer respond to their will.
Possible applications extend beyond the written word into physical movement -- it is only a matter of time, Sellers says, before the same technology is used to operate motorized wheel chairs. "We can do already. But it is a complex problem, and for now it would be unsafe," she says.
The frightful condition of being "locked in" came into the public eye in the late 1990s, when French journalist and Elle Magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, after suffering a massive stroke, painstakingly "dictated" a beautiful and moving memoir by blinking his left eyelid.
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," published two days before he died, became an international bestseller.
Had BCI technology been available to him, Bauby would almost certainly have been able to write his book unassisted, and in a fraction of the time.
The Wadsworth system, one of several that detects electroencephalographic (EEG) activity, is based on an algorithm that analyzes the brain waves and identifies peaks in activity that correspond to particular mental efforts.
As Dr. Brunner concentrates on the "B" of "bonjour" in a keyboard-like grid of letters and symbols taking up half the screen, a computer randomly highlights lines of characters in rapid succession.
Each time the row -- vertical or horizontal -- containing the letter "B" is illuminated, Brunner's brain emits a slightly stronger signal. It takes the computer about 15 seconds to figure out what letter he is looking at. The system is doubly adaptive, with both the software and the person using it becoming more efficient over time.
"It may not sound very practical, but for someone who is paralyzed it can make all the difference in the world," says Sellers.
Indeed, for at least one 48-year old neurobiologist in the United States stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- an invariably fatal degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells -- the Wadsworth BCI technology has make it possible not only to communicate but to continue working, even though he can no longer even move his eyes.
"He writes grant proposals, sends e-mails and can use the keyboard of a computer at home," Sellers said of the man, whom she did not identify in order to protect his privacy.
He even wrote a message for the exhibition in Paris, which Sellers projected onto a screen.
"To Altran," he began, referring to the French innovation consulting firm that sponsors an annual competition for public service innovation, won in 2005 by the head of the Wadworth Center, Jonathan Wolpaw.
"I am a neuroscientist wHo couldn't work without BCI," the message read, typo and all. "I am writing this with my EEG courtesy of the Wadsworth Center Brain-Computer Interface Research Program."
2006 AFP
Invisibility at the flick of a switch
This is what you'd see if the system worked with the atoms in your hand
Adverts for x-ray specs have tantalised kids throughout the decades. Sadly the reality is always a pair of useless plastic glasses, but this could all change due to a breakthrough made at Imperial College London.
By exploiting the way that atoms move in solids the researchers have made solid materials turn completely transparent. 'This real life x-ray specs effect relies on a property of matter that is usually ignored that the electrons it contains move in a wave-like way', says Chris Phillips. 'What we have learnt is how to control these waves directly'.
The secret to this breakthrough at Imperial College London is specially patterned crystals made up of nanoscale boxes that hold electrons. 'Basically we have made 'designer atoms'', says Chris. 'By choosing the size and shape of our little boxes, we can use the rules of quantum mechanics to choose the energy levels of the electrons that are trapped inside them'. When light is shone on these crystals it becomes entangled at a molecular level rather than being absorbed, causing the material to become transparent. 'You can think of the effect as similar to the way that the peaks and troughs of water waves cancel each other out to create calm water', explains Mark Frogley.
'In the materials created it is the wave patterns of the electrons that cancel each other allowing light to travel through the material and making it transparent'.
At the moment the effect can only be produced in a lab under specific conditions but future applications could include seeing through rubble at earthquake sites, or looking at parts of the body obscured by bone. [or surgeries they can see to do without breaking the skin, team it with ultrasonics?]
Imaging with a thermal infrared camera shows whether you're hotDespite the almost magical feat of making solids transparent the key finding of this research is the fundamental physical effect creating the transparency. This effect has potential in the development of new efficient lasers, data security and quantum computing.
A stumbling block for the development of lasers has always been the need to create something called population inversion in the material that amplifies the light, normally glass or crystal. 'Einstein showed that, to make lasers, you need to excite the molecules into this population inversion condition, where they no longer absorb light', explains Mark. The breakthrough at Imperial College London demonstrates that light can now be amplified without the need to create population inversion. This contradicts Einstein's long-standing rule, and opens up the way for the development of a whole new range of lasers.
Data security could be improved due to the discovery that as light passes through these crystals it slows right down and could potentially be stopped and stored. Chris explains, 'When we send information as light pulses down optical fibres, it can only be accessed by making a form of measurement, which disturbs the information. This technology means we could send light signals through a network without having to disturb them ourselves. So, if confidential information was being spied on, the disturbance would show up and we could nab the eavesdropper with 100% certainty'.
Dr Mark Frogley and Professor Chris Phillips
Imperial College London
Dr James Dynes
University College London
Dr Mattias Beck
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Prof. Jerome Faist
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
INVENTION 7
A super smeller
WHAT IT IS: An electronic device that can “smell” when food goes bad
LEAD INVENTORS: Electrical engineer Vivek Subramanian and former graduate student Josephine Chang, UC Berkeley
FANTASY APP: Electronic sensors inside perishables that would prevent consumers from getting food poisoning or tossing out fresh food
THE STORY: Every dairy distributor tries to second-guess the behavior of bacteria, which spoil milk yet seldom do so precisely on the carton’s printed expiration date. Far less food would needlessly go to waste if the microbes could announce their presence to the consumer. Bridging the language barrier, Subramanian and Chang have developed a circuit so simple it can be embedded into the milk carton itself with a modified ink jet that literally prints components using semiconducting carbons rather than colored inks. The circuits are so physically fragile they’re affected by the gases that active bacteria produce in dairy products. In fact, the disposable “electronic nose” can be configured to smell almost any kind of chemical trouble, even the subtle changes that happen when drugs go bad. Given the high cost of medicine, the pharmaceutical industry is likely to first adopt electronic-nose technology to detect expired medication.
NVENTION 8
The plague spotter
WHAT IT IS: A network of cell phones that can automatically monitor pollutants around the world
LEAD INVENTOR: Computer scientist R.J. Honicky, UC Berkeley
FANTASY APP: Outfitting the phones with biosensors that act as an early warning system for epidemics
THE STORY: Currently in the hands of 2 billion people, cell phones are distributed more widely than any other electronic device; one sees them wherever people congregate. Grad student Honicky realized that the ubiquitous mobile technology presented an unprecedented opportunity for scientists to monitor ecological conditions: cell phones could be fitted with environmental probes, transmitting information on toxicity levels from wherever users go. The cell phones Honicky is developing will initially report noxious carbon monoxide levels—with associated GPS coordinates—to a central database, but they could also be used for monitoring diseases such as dengue fever and malaria that tend to become epidemic where people gather in large numbers. He’s currently testing the networking technology on the UC Berkeley campus, hardly likely to be the site of the next plague but crowded enough to be an effective test bed.
INVENTION 12
All-seeing dust
WHAT IT IS: A network of wireless sensors, each nearly as small as a dust mote, that serves as remote eyes and ears
LEAD INVENTOR: Electrical engineer Kris Pister, UC Berkeley
FANTASY APP: Instant recognition of impending natural disaster
THE STORY: For purposes of intelligence gathering, dust has a distinct advantage: it gets everywhere. Taking advantage of that attribute, Pister has enabled dust motes to relay information to a base-station computer. About the size of a bottle cap, each mote carries a radio transmitter, battery, and antenna, and can be configured to carry a host of tiny sensors. His motes are already detecting high (or low) energy use in campus classrooms. With microphones, the dust can become a surveillance network; with temperature sensors, the dust may provide the best picture of global warming patterns yet.
A huge sense extension via Digital Biology of water, described below:
Vol 3 No 5
Digital Biology and the Memory
Effect of Water
with Jacques Benveniste, M.D.
by Wynn Free
Will the eternal "Understand I do not, therefore it is not" prevail forever in science? Can we not say once and for all "bye-bye" to Galileo-style prosecution and replace it with genuine scientific debate?
Given my painful ten-year experience, we may as well start by throwing out the "pire-review" system which has become, behind its facade of excellence, the main antibody blocking the nearly deceased scientific free exchange which once was the cornerstone of scientific progress.
—Jacques Benveniste, M.D.
Dr. Jacques Benveniste is a medical doctor who has discovered certain scientific properties of water which defy explanation by the tenets of mainstream physics. His science, which he calls Digital Biology, is based upon two breakthrough observations that he can prove in experiments that have been duplicated by other scientists:
1. If a substance is diluted in water, the water can carry the memory of that substance even after it has been so diluted that none of the molecules of the original substance remain; and
2. The molecules of any given substance have a spectrum of frequencies that can be digitally recorded with a computer, then played back into untreated water (using an electronic transducer), and when this is done, the new water will act as if the actual substance were physically present.
The applications of Digital Biology are endless. Some of them include digital fertilizers and growth enhancers, detection of contaminating organisms in agriculture, digital pharmaceuticals, digital homeopathics, water analysis and purification, and electromagnetic pesticides.
Dr. Benveniste is a French medical doctor and researcher who studied at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California, for three years. We spoke with him by phone at his research facility in Paris, France.
Wynn: Could you just briefly state what it is that you have discovered?
Jacques: It's known as the "memory of water." When you add a substance to water and then dilute the water to the point where there are no more molecules of the added substance left in the water, you can still measure effects of the water as if the originally diluted substance were still present.
Wynn: What made you curious enough to start your research?
Jacques: It was an accident. There was a technician in my lab who accidentally diluted more than she thought, and realized that for the amount of molecules that were left there shouldn't be any indication of the original substance. But there was.
We kept diluting, and the action kept coming back. So we knew we had a new phenomenon.
Wynn: That would it mean if I had a giant lake and I poured something into the lake...?
Jacques: No, it doesn't work that way.
First you have to add the substance to the water in a fixed proportion: one to ten, one to a hundred, one to a thousand... So it's a very small amount of information that you bring.
Wynn: Why do you think those specific proportions are meaningful?
Jacques: We don't know. But out of serendipity and experience, we have shown that without those proportions, it doesn't work as well.
Then, between each dilution, you have to agitate violently for 20 seconds to incorporate the little amount of information you put into the test tube.
So for instance you might put one drop of the diluting medium into nine-hundred-ninety-nine drops of water, then agitate for twenty seconds with a violent motion — in what we call a vortex.
Only then do you get the transmission of the information.
You wouldn't be able to shake your lake.
Wynn: A vortex is like a spiral?
Jacques: Exactly, like a funnel inside of the water.
Wynn: How do you determine that the water has the memory of the original substance?
Jacques: You get a specific effect.
Here's an example. Let's say that you apply a histamine to the skin of an animal and it creates an irritation, like a blister. Then if you apply water that has been given the memory of histamine to the skin of the same animal, you will also end up with a blister. That's what I mean by a specific effect.
We added histamine to an isolated guinea-pig heart and found that the effect was the same whether we used a high dilution or the original strength. We did the same with other compounds and got the same result.
We can take this one step further. We can record the activity in the water that has a diluted substance on a computer, and then play the recording to untreated water. And the computer-treated water will have the same effect as the water that was treated with an actual substance and diluted.
Wynn: Let me see if I understood what you just said. Instead of putting the substance in the water, you can put the frequencies of the substance in the water?
Jacques: We don't like to use the word "frequency," because that implies we know what the frequency is. In fact, it's exactly the same thing when you record something on your computer — a song or a voice — and then you replay it. Your ear is vibrating the same way as if the person were in the room. The ear is fooled by the recording. The ear reacts just as if the singer were singing live in the room. You don't know the frequencies involved, you just know that the voice coming out of the speaker exactly emulates how the singer would sound if they were live in the room.
In the same way, you can record the frequency spectrum of a substance.
Wynn: By what interface do you get the spectrum from the treated water into the untreated water?
Jacques: Instead of replaying to a loudspeaker, we use the loudspeaker outlet of the sound card, and plug in a copper coil. The frequency spectrums are always within the audio range of 20 to 20,000 cycles per second.
The point is that we have solved one of the mysteries of classical biology. The phrase "molecular signal" is one of the most used references in biology, except no one has known or asked, "What is the physical nature of the signal?" And we have discovered that at least a good representative signal of the molecule is between 20 and 20,000 Hertz, which makes sense, as only a low frequency can get through water.
Wynn: How do you record a signal from a substance?
Jacques: Think of a microphone without a membrane, just an electromagnetic coil. You plug that electronic coil into the female receptacle of the sound card. Then you put the molecules in a test tube next to the coil. When those millions of molecules in this liquid vibrate, it's enough for the coil to pick them up.
We are just using commercially available components to measure this.
Wynn: So these experiments sound as though they can be duplicated very easily.
Jacques: Actually, it takes very stringent conditions for the experiment to be repeatable. That's because when you replay to water, the water may or may not take the signal, depending upon local electromagnetic conditions.
For example, now you are recording my voice on tape, and if you put a magnet over the tape, you will erase my voice. But if we were talking face to face, you could put the magnet in front of my mouth and you would still hear my words. So there is a difference between the electromagnetic recording and the real voice, even though they both sound the same.
So the electromagnetic fields in the environment affect whether or not the signal is transferred back to the water.
A lab in Chicago duplicated my experiment where they recorded 26 samples, of which half, or 13, were a control group of random frequencies, and half were actual molecular signals of various substances. Then they sent the untitled computer .wav files to me — so my lab didn't know which was which. But we were able to recognize and identify the 13 real substances, as separate from the control, with a very high significance.
When I published this, no one believed it at first. They thought it was impossible to send molecules over the Atlantic. But they never could point to anything wrong with the experimental protocol.
Wynn: What is it in water that holds the memory?
Jacques: This is the multimillion-dollar question. People will have to rethink the ideas they have on water.
From the get-go, water doesn't behave as it should. There are more than 30 physical constants of water that are "wrong."
For example, water is a mixture of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, that become liquid at ordinary room temperature. That's totally impossible. Water shouldn't exist.
Why is water liquid? The physicists don't understand this. None of this can really be understood by the common laws of physics. So even though it's inexplicable, all I can do is to repeat my experiments and demonstrate that it works.
Wynn: What's the connection between your discoveries and homeopathy?
Jacques: That has actually become an area of controversy. I am not an alternative practitioner, but a very classical doctor. But I was accused of supporting homeopathy. Regular doctors get very upset when you do something that seems to validate homeopathy.
Yet my experiments do show irrefutably that even when you highly dilute a compound, you can still get activity. So in essence my experiments give a scientific explanation of how homeopathy can work.
It's like a CD. When you break open a CD, the singer is not inside. But you can get the same effect. You don't need the real thing.
Wynn: What are some of the other applications of your discovery?
Jacques: One application is that you can put a detector anywhere in the world and detect any bacteria that are around. You can go to the middle of nowhere in Africa, and if you have a telephone or satellite, in seconds you can send anywhere the signal of the bacteria which are in proximity to the detector. You can then identify the specific bacteria. We do it every day in the lab.
The old way of doing this is to manually collect samples of water and send it to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), where they will manually analyze the water for traces of bacteria.
Wynn: So if you were working with a very contagious bacterium, you could analyze it without being in direct exposure to it. But couldn't the signal of the bacteria make someone sick?
Jacques: I don't believe so, unless you would put this person inside of a huge coil and send thousands of watts with the signal of the bacteria through the coil. Then if the bacteria generated a toxin in the body, the toxin could be duplicated through the coil. But by diffusing the signal in the air, it would just be too weak.
Wynn: What are some other applications?
Jacques: We think we could detect the AIDS virus at concentrations way below what is commonly measurable. If someone is contaminated with AIDS, there is a period where the antibodies do not appear, yet the person is very contagious. This is a nightmare for blood banks. This could be done very cheaply as compared to DNA analysis.
So far, we are working on a very small budget, so we've haven't been able to develop these protocols yet.
Another application would be killing pests with the field. This would allow pests to be eliminated without contaminating the environment with toxic chemicals.
Wynn: How have you funded your experiments?
Jacques: I am not funded at all. I have created a company with my collaborator called Digi-Bio. We financed our company with small investors, but we are currently looking for larger sponsors so we can develop applications for this technology. There are many other possible applications yet to be discovered and proven.
Right now there are only three people working on this project. But someday I believe there will be thousands of researchers experimenting on this technology, and then the applications will develop fast. But perhaps that will be 30 years from now.
There's nothing described in physics that explains why, when you put two molecules in proximity to each other, there would be any kind of exchange of information except with radioactive substances. The only way that molecules could communicate is by their vibrations. It is known that molecules vibrate. This has been known for 50 years.
So what we are saying is that the vibration is not separate from the molecule. And these vibrations are the way molecules communicate. Digi-Bio is demonstrating the validity of this communication, and this is a significant breakthrough.
Wynn: Thank you very much for taking your time to explain this research to our readers.
Jacques: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
NOTE: This is a bilingual pun: The French word pire, which is pronounced the same as the English word peer, means "worse."
Dr. Jacques BenvenisteJacques Benveniste is a Doctor of Medicine and a former resident of the Paris Hospital System and research director at the French National Institute for Medical Research. He is known worldwide as a specialist in the mechanisms of allergy and inflammation, and achieved recognition in 1971 by his discovery of Paf (Platelet Activating Factor), a mediator implicated in the mechanisms involved in allergy pathologies (for example, asthma).
In 1984, while working on hypersensitive (allergic) systems, by chance he brought to light the so-called "high dilution phenomenon," which was picked up by the media and labeled "the memory of water."
The DigiBio website contains a wealth of information about experimental protocols that support Dr. Benveniste's discoveries, the many applications to which this new technology might be put, and the beginnings of a theory to explain how molecules actually communicate. You can contact him by email at JBenveniste@DigiBio.com.
Mikes pick up the sounds of cancer
Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 04/02/2008
Cancer patients could have their disease diagnosed with microphones after scientists discovered that cells "scream" when exposed to infrared light.
Researchers at Manchester University have found that human cell samples produce a distinctive noise when heated with an infrared lamp.
Doctors hope to use the noise produced by cancer cells to develop accurate diagnostic techniques without the need for painful surgery to obtain tissue samples.
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Prostate cancer, for example, can be notoriously difficult to detect, even with surgical biopsies, while blood tests can give ambiguous results.
Dr Peter Gardner, the analytical chemist who led the research, said that with a technique called photoacoustics, cells could be taken from urine samples instead and tested using a microphone.
But he warned that it could be up to 10 years before such a test becomes readily available.
He said the sound made by cancer cells was subtly different from that made by healthy cells, "like a tuba in an orchestra being horribly out of tune".
More than 35,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed in Britain every year. It causes 10,000 deaths annually, making it the second most common cause of cancer death after lung cancer.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3Bjsessionid%3DZCURBJ1YZXNEFQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/02/03/ncancer103.xml
Requiem for Royal Rife [curing cancer 100%, with different frequencies, a buried solution in medicine because of other raw material regimes' political power to stop it--the medical industries and the optical glass industries (that would be outclassed in methods for optics that Rife pioneered).]
The Hubbard Interviews: Introduction
Searching For A Lost Way of Looking At Things
By Shawn Montgomery
8-10-6
Have you heard this crazy story?
An eccentric genius in depression-era California invented several fantastic medical devices including super microscopes and a death ray for microbes. In a twenty-year research initiative costing millions of dollars and backed by the most prestigious men in medical science, this genius endeavored to deliver the "cure for cancer" to the world. By 1934, he had discovered a virus in cancer tumors and developed a way to destroy that virus with a beam of electrical energy produced by his invention: the Beam Ray Machine. Human clinical trials were set up and presided over by top-of-their-field doctors who were to discover that the "cure" was one hundred percent effective, with terminal patients enjoying full recoveries. Then, the AMA stepped in and, using nefarious means, shut down the whole endeavor. The cure for cancer was denied to the world because it was not pharmaceutically based and therefore not profitable to drug companies.
The End
Isn't that the craziest thing you have ever heard?
This story actually floated around as rumor for several decades following World War Two. Lacking any corroborative evidence, telling details, or historical presence, it resisted being taken seriously as a "true story." A tad too apocryphal. Surely allegorical. A tale easily dismissed is one with no apparent record.
In the early 1970's, journalist Christopher Bird did some digging. He'd heard this story and wanted to settle its veracity once and for all. It didn't take long for him to find what was probably the source for at least part of the rumor. Bird had found a stunning article printed in two 1944 science journals: The Journal of the Smithsonian Institute and the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The article, titled "The New Microscopes," gave a detailed account of the work of the eccentric genius in the crazy story. Working from there, and digging deeper, journalist Bird was able to finally determine that the crazy story is actually true. He soon published in the New Age Journal an article titled "What Has Become of the Rife Microscope?" It was the saga of Royal Raymond Rife: the eccentric inventor who cured cancer.
Today it is a simple matter to do an internet search on "Royal Raymond Rife" and have delivered to your computer a wealth of information on history's most forgotten scientist. You'll find not just the "New Microscopes" article from the Smithsonian Journal and Bird's article from the New Age Journal, but as well a wealth of corroborative data: dozens of newspaper and science journal articles, hundreds of personal letters between the doctors involved, photographs of Rife's scopes and other inventions, schematics, lab notes, lab films, reports, interviews, documentaries, books - the story of Rife is a rumor no more and his remarkable achievements seem not to be forgotten.
A once-suppressed science released from a veil of obscurity would be a glorious thing, especially a potential cure for cancer - but in the case of Rife, the glory is somewhat diminished. Though many details of his contributions survive as documentary evidence: pictures, films, schematics, testimony, reports and so forth - the real treasure would be actual surviving operational Rife Microscopes, Beam Ray Machines, or other artifacts. Even today the location and condition of many of Rife's inventions remains largely uncertain. Thirty years ago it was not much different even though the trail was much warmer. The documents that attest to the reality of these things were in hand, so where were these things?
It was in the mid-1940's that a young student of pathology first became obsessed with the Rife Universal Microscope. John Hubbard, keeping up with current advancements in the tools of his chosen field, was thumbing through the above-mentioned Journal of the Smithsonian Institute when he came upon the article titled "The New Microscopes." In astonishment, he read of Rife's instrument - a microscope that appeared to defy the accepted limits of optics. At face value the text of the article seemed somewhat incredible. However, three photomicrographs included therein, taken through the Universal Microscope, tempered Hubbard's incredulity. The published photos were all labeled with magnification values: Chlorophyll (Cell) 17,000X; Tetanus (Spore) 25,000X Typhoid Bacillus (B. Typhosus) 23,000X. Hubbard recognized the extraordinary features of the pictures: the uncanny resolution of detail; the fantastic magnification values (one order higher than standard optical scopes); the clear imaging of certain structural features within the specimens (the existence of which had previously only been suspected by microbiologists - never seen and confirmed). Here it was: the ultimate microscope. A tool that could crack open the still-murky world of germs and spill all of the remaining secrets out onto the table. A tool that could help to answer just about any question a microbiologist could ask. Hubbard was duly impressed. In his mind, the near-anomalous-looking photos confirmed the story. This was one microscope he wanted to have. Reading about it was one thing, but actually working with such a scope in one's lab would elevate any microbiologist onto a whole new level.
So he began following up in earnest. He sent letters to everyone he could think of: the Royal Rife in the article of course, it's authors, and any other names or places mentioned in the text. He sent letters to all optical companies: Leitz, Zeiss, American Optical etc... asking if they had any info on this microscope. Unfortunately, it was a fruitless effort. Most of the correspondence went unanswered nobody seemed to know anything about it and those that surely did weren't talking. The microscope and its inventor remained elusive to the young Hubbard.
Almost thirty years later, the inquisitive young student had matured into a tenured Professor of Pathology at New York University in Buffalo. It was in the mid-1970's that Professor Hubbard serendipitously regained the scent from a long lost trail. He happened upon Christopher Bird's article while browsing a magazine rack. Hubbard's fascination with Rife and his super-microscopes had not abated, but Bird's article acted as an accelerant. Armed with new information, the Professor was on the hunt again. He contacted Christopher Bird, who was himself still immersed in his own quest for Rife artifacts while following-up on his own article. In fact, Bird had located the estate of the recently deceased Rife and was in contact with his heir: one John F. Crane, a mechanical engineer from San Diego. By lucky coincidence, Bird was looking for an expert in microscopy and pathology to help him assess the instruments that Crane said were in his possession. Their quests merged and soon Hubbard and Bird were working together in an investigative capacity, determined to unearth, examine, and if possible, obtain a Rife Microscope (to satisfy Hubbard) and a Beam Ray Machine (to satisfy Bird)... and, the WHOLE story on this crazy Rife affair, (to satisfy both of them). They didn't know it at the time, but what Hubbard and Bird did in their initial united effort was pioneer a field of endeavor that would, in decades, become something quite labyrinthine - involving thousands of people. They invented modern Rife Research. John Hubbard and Christopher Bird were the first (post) Rife Researchers. Their mission: reestablish the technology, methodology, and discipline that led Rife to his recorded successes.
From John Crane they obtained a list of about a dozen names with some contact information: people who were still alive that knew or worked with Rife. They went to San Diego, Chicago, England, and Los Angeles, anywhere that the information led. It was an interview process that lasted years, predominantly conducted by Professor Hubbard, and one which, thankfully, he recorded. Ultimately, Hubbard's quest turned into a long, protracted negotiation with John Crane to get him to release the microscopes over to the University of New York for study on purely academic grounds. He was simultaneously trying to marshal the services of a group of men who had actually worked with Rife on the same microscopes in an effort to assemble a reconstructionist team to bring the intricate instruments back into working order. Hubbard had discovered that John Crane was the owner of the lion's share of Rife's surviving "stuff." In fact, he said that Crane was, "the most terrifically awful curator of scientific instruments imaginable." When he arrived at John Crane's house in San Diego to finally set eyes on the precious scientific treasure that he had been dreaming of for decades, he found it to be in "near ruins," surrounded by "disarray and clutter," with a "disheveled and unhealthy-looking" Crane oddly unaware of his glaring ineptness as a guardian, but fully aware of the history, value and importance of the artifacts that cluttered his place.
I met Professor Hubbard in 1996. A few years prior I had become one of those so-called "Rife Researchers." I had seen his name cropping up from time to time among the pages of a rather voluminous pile of my own accumulated "Rife documents" - a stack which cost many years and dollars - compiled with the help of my friend and fellow Rife Researcher, Jason Ringas. We traveled to Buffalo to meet with the Professor, talk shop, and to share information and documents. The most notable item in his data collection were his forty hours of recorded audio interviews with various people who knew and worked with Rife. Hubbard allowed us to make copies of these (then) twenty-year-old recordings. I took the copies home with me and transcribed them.
Ten years later it's 2006 and everyone that was involved in that early research/resurrection effort is dead. John Hubbard died the year before last. Chris Bird died ten years ago. John Crane died in 1995. Rife of course died before all these people met. Everyone who Hubbard and Bird interviewed were old men thirty years ago when the interviews took place. Therefore, in the interest of not letting their voices die with them, Jeff Rense has agreed that it is time to let these people speak again and has allowed his website to platform their discussions.
The Hubbard Interviews
The following people were interviewed by Professor Hubbard (1976 1979):
Ben Cullen Rife's lab assistant and friend for over 30 years.
Henry Siner Rife's microscope assistant and friend for 15 years.
Bertrand Comparet - Rife's attorney. Defended the famous Beam Ray Trial for Rife in 1939 and the infamous Crane/Marsh trial in 1962.
Robert Page Rife's young neighbor, friend and confidant. Later he patented a microscope illumination system based on Rife's design.`
Dr. Henry Visited Rife in conference. Surveyed his lab.
Dr. Renner Visited Rife in conference. Surveyed his lab.
Bernard Gross Employed Rife in later years.
Dr. Seidel Co-wrote "The New Microscopes" for The Franklin Journal (1944).
John Crane Met Rife in 1950 and knew him/worked with him/exploited him for the rest of his days.
Hubbard also interviewed a host of Professors, optics technicians, lens experts and other professionals (who did not know Rife personally).
We'll start with Robert Page because he touches upon some important themes that are familiar to Rense readers.
http://www.rense.com/general73/p1.htm
http://www.rense.com/general76/rfn.htm
Small Fish Detect Big Problems
Environmental Scientists Use Fish Behavior To Monitor Water Quality
March 1, 2007 — Researchers are using bluegills to detect industrial and agricultural spills in water supplies.
Changes in the environment cause the fishes' behavior and breathing patterns to change. Electrodes are placed inside the tanks that contain the fish and water from a nearby water supply, and they set off an alarm if conditions inside the tank change.
Do you know where your water comes from? Tap water comes from many different sources. Before it gets to the faucet, tater treatment plants clean up water from lakes, rivers and reservoirs, but it can still get contaminated by industrial and agricultural spills.
Lt. Col. Matt Schofield, an environmental scientist at the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research in Fort Detrick, Md., says, "Everybody drinks water, and the question of whether or not there's a contaminant or a toxic substance in the water is very real."
According to U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research biologist Tom Shedd, when there are changes in water quality, there are changes in fish behavior.
Now to help make sure your water is safe, environmental scientists are using something that lives in the water to monitor it closely -- fish! In a new early warning system called IAC 1090 or the "intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System," bluegills are signal of toxins in our water.
Eight fish sit in chambers submersed in water from a nearby water supply.
If pollutants are present, the fish will change their breathing patterns.
Electrodes in each chamber monitor any changes.
If six fish are stressed, an alarm goes off.
Shedd says at that moment they don't necessarily know what is the contaminant or the stressor to the fishes, but you know that it's there. The fish have reacted to two farming spills. Officials were able to prevent any toxins from getting into drinking water.
To protect the fish, each fish is replaced with a newer, younger fish after spending three weeks monitoring water supplies. The system, originally developed by the Army for the Army, is now available commercially to cities and towns and is currently being used in New York, San Francisco, and Washington.
"The fish system is a common sense, logical way to monitor for water quality," Shedd says, helping to keep their water -- and yours -- safe.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0303-small_fish_detect_big_problems.htm
New Metamaterial Proves To Be A 'Perfect' Absorber Of Light
Researchers have engineered a metamaterial that uses tiny geometric surface features to successfully capture the electric and magnetic properties of a microwave to the point of total absorption. (Credit: Image courtesy of Boston College)
ScienceDaily (Jun. 2, 2008) — A team of scientists from Boston College and Duke University has developed a highly-engineered metamaterial capable of absorbing all of the light that strikes it -- to a scientific standard of perfection -- they report in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters.
The team designed and engineered a metamaterial that uses tiny geometric surface features to successfully capture the electric and magnetic properties of a microwave to the point of total absorption.
"Three things can happen to light when it hits a material," says Boston College Physicist Willie J. Padilla. "It can be reflected, as in a mirror. It can be transmitted, as with window glass. Or it can be absorbed and turned into heat. This metamaterial has been engineered to ensure that all light is neither reflected nor transmitted, but is turned completely into heat and absorbed.
"It shows we can design a metamaterial so that at a specific frequency it can absorb all of the photons that fall onto its surface."
In addition to Padilla, the team included BC researcher Nathan I. Landy, Duke University Professor David R. Smith and researchers Soji Sajuyigbe and Jack J. Mock.
The group used computer simulations based on prior research findings in the field to design resonators able to couple individually to electric and magnetic fields to successfully absorb all incident radiation, according to their findings.
Because its elements can separately absorb the electric and magnetic components of an electromagnetic wave, the "perfect metamaterial absorber" created by the researchers can be highly absorptive over a narrow frequency range.
The metamaterial is the first to demonstrate perfect absorption and unlike conventional absorbers it is constructed solely out of metallic elements, giving the material greater flexibility for applications related to the collection and detection of light, such as imaging, says Padilla, an assistant professor of Physics.
Metamaterial designs give them new properties beyond the limits of their actual physical components and allow them to produce "tailored" responses to radiation.
Because their construction makes them geometrically scalable, metamaterials are able to operate across a significant portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080529190038.htm
Now Chemistry Keeps Salty Taste Balanced In Smoked Fish
ScienceDaily (June 25, 1998) — PASCO, Wash., June 19 -- People who love kippers for breakfast, smoked salmon on their bagels, and caviar on their canapés, should welcome news of a new technique that could help to assure these delicacies contain precisely the right amount of salt. Researchers at Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, report that a new technique offers fish processors a safer and more economical way to assess how much salt they should use in the drying or smoking process. Salt content is not only crucial to the way fish tastes, but also is an important safety factor, since salt prevents the growth of bacteria in the roe and in the adult fish. Researcher Todd M. Rogers described the new method here today at the Northwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
See also:
Plants & Animals
* Fish
* Food
* Marine Biology
Matter & Energy
* Chemistry
* Vehicles
* Biochemistry
Reference
* Fish migration
* Coho salmon
* Haddock
* Atlantic salmon
The researchers are using a machine--called a near infrared spectrophotometer--that analyzes the salt content of the fish to be processed while the fish are still alive.
Traditionally, processors have had to kill the fish, grind up a portion of the meat or roe, and use a chemical method to measure salt content, thereby wasting part of the product.
The spectrophotometer incorporates an optical-fiber probe that touches the scales of the living fish and records the volume of water and fat, which are known to be proportionate to salt content, in the meat or roe.
Knowing the precise amount of salt already present in the fish, food processors can add the amount needed to meet safety standards and, at the same time, avoid sending overly salted products to the marketplace.
A nonprofit organization with a membership of more than 155,000 chemists and chemical engineers as its members, the American Chemical Society publishes scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences, and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/06/980625083419.htm
Salmon Life Stories Recorded In Strontium
ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2001) — MADISON, Wis. --- In work that has implications for sport fisherman, scientists and natural resource agencies, University of Michigan researchers have developed a method that lets them reconstruct the environmental history of individual salmon and identify the juvenile habitat of an adult fish returning from the ocean to spawn.
See also:
Plants & Animals
* Fish
* Marine Biology
* Wild Animals
Matter & Energy
* Vehicles
* Chemistry
* Thermodynamics
Reference
* Fish migration
* Atlantic salmon
* Trout
* Coho salmon
In research to be presented at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America on Aug. 7, U-M researchers Brian Kennedy, Andrea Klaue, and Joel Blum, along with Dartmouth College researcher Carol Folt, have found that the element strontium, relatively common in bedrock beneath streams, accumulates in the bony tissues of Atlantic salmon and leaves a specific chemical signature, depending on the geology of the watershed in which the fish is living. This discovery could reveal whether certain rivers or tributaries produce fish that are more likely to survive their time in the ocean and successfully make the return trip to spawn in the stream where they hatched.
Conventional methods of tracing fish movements involve tagging thousands of juvenile fish in hatcheries with fin clips, dyes, or PIT (passive integrated transponder) tags and then hoping that the tagged fish are among the fraction that get re-caught as returning adults years later. It is a labor-intensive procedure that does not yield as much information as scientists would like. Young fish do not necessarily stay in the streams into which they are released, so the tag on a recaptured adult fish may only indicate where the fish was released as a juvenile, not where it spent most of its life. By taking advantage of the natural variation in strontium isotopes (alternate forms of the element that are present in different watersheds), scientists now can differentiate fish from specific geologic areas without having to use a man-made marker previously attached to a fish.
"It's a natural tag," says Kennedy, a research fellow in the Department of Geological Sciences. "In addition to linking adult fish to their juvenile stream, now we can look at juvenile movements between streams, so it gives us a really good indication of where they are spending their juvenile phase."
At a given area in a watershed, strontium isotope ratios are very stable and show little seasonal or temporal variation. Kennedy and his colleagues identified 11 different geologic signatures for 18 regions of the Connecticut River and its tributaries in central and southern Vermont, an area that has been the focus of Atlantic salmon restoration efforts for more than 30 years. Then they looked at the strontium isotope ratios in backbone tissue of juvenile salmon and in otoliths—bits of bony material near the brain known as "ear stones"—of adult salmon. Additional tests with independently tagged fish provided a control to measure the natural variability of isotope ratios for neighbor fish.
The otoliths become a record of the fish's environment. "The neat thing about it," says Kennedy, "is the chemical information is laid down in the otoliths on a daily basis, and they can be 'read' much like tree rings, but on an even finer scale."
Atlantic salmon generally spend two years inland in streams and rivers as juveniles, and then head out to the ocean for a few years before returning to their home stream to spawn. Knowing which streams produce salmon that successfully make this round trip will enable specific habitats to be targeted for protection and could provide valuable information about where to release hatchery fish or how regional habitat restoration efforts are influencing adult survival.
"We're letting nature apply the tag and then reading it, without incurring the potentially high financial costs or mortality rates of artificial tags," says Kennedy. "It could be very useful for distinguishing fish populations in both wild and managed settings."
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010809070603.htm
3D tomography without toxic radiation
Baby Thinking
Radiologists Use Light To Scan The Inner Workings Of The Brain
December 1, 2007 — Radiologists have developed a new device to understand brain activity. It is a collection of fiber optic cables attached to a flexible cap placed atop the head. The cables send near-infrared light through the skull and into the brain, where it is diffused or scattered before it is collected by receiver cables. The device is able to interpret the light to measure blood circulation and the amount of oxygen in that blood, which helps explain brain activity.
See also:
Mind & Brain
* Brain Injury
* Intelligence
* Neuroscience
Matter & Energy
* Medical Technology
* Optics
* Biochemistry
Reference
* Functional neuroimaging
* Positron emission tomography
* Brain damage
* Magnetic resonance imaging
When doctors want to find out what's going on inside a baby's brain it usually requires, noisy or dangerous equipment and babies sitting completely still.
But, new technology is now giving researchers a fascinating look inside an infant’s brain in a much easier way.
Radiologists are using a new technique to see what parts of a baby’s brain are working during any given task. Their method is baby-friendly with no exposure to radiation or loud machines.
“It has a more wearable cap so it can be placed in infants heads while they sit in their parents lap,” Joseph Culver, Ph.D., Washington University Medical School said. Culver and his colleagues improved a brain imaging technique called high-density diffuse optical tomography.
It measures how much blood and oxygen are in the brain.
“It’s similar to taking a flashlight and putting it on one side of your hand and looking at the light come through your hand so the light has traveled through your hand and the light that you detect on the other side tells you something about what’s inside your hand,” Dr. Culver said. Fiber optic cables on the cap shine light on the baby’s brain. The light scatters revealing blood flow related to brain activity in a 3D tomographic image. You can see it in action, when a patient watches a flickering light; a similar rotating pattern shows up in the brain’s blood flow.
“There’s an increase in blood flow to that area and that allows us to map that neuron activity,” Dr. Culver said.
Future uses for the cap include researching brain development in the tiniest of babies … or monitoring a baby’s brain during surgery.
BACKGROUND: Researchers have developed a new brain imaging technique for infants called high-density diffuse optical tomography which helps them to study the developing infant brain. This should help treat infant brain injuries by being able to monitor them in their incubators, and help scientists learn important basics about developing brains. The new scanner is quieter, and portable because it is much smaller – about the size of a small refrigerator – than typical MRI or CT scan machines. The developers are working to make the unit even smaller, about the size of a microwave.
THE PROBLEM: Scientists have been able to study brain scans of infants while they are asleep or sedated using functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Ideally researchers would like to scan their brains while sitting on a parent’s lap or interacting with their environment. fMRI requires the patient to be inserted into a tightly confined passage through a large, noisy magnet; most infants find it upsetting and difficult to sit still in that environment. In the same way CT scans involve large, loud equipment, and also expose patients to levels of x-rays considered unsafe for infants.
HOW IT WORKS: The high-density diffuse optical tomography (DOT) uses harmless light from the near-infrared light spectrum. Unlike X-rays or ultrasound, near-infrared light passes through bone easily, so scientists can use the diffusing light to determine blood flow and oxygenation in the blood vessels of the brain. When these characteristics increase, it indicates that the area of the brain they are scanning is contributing to a mental task. To scan a patient, scientists attach a flexible cap that covers the exterior of the head above the region of interest. Inside the cap are fiber optic cables. Some of those cables shine light on the head and by determining the way the light is scattered, researchers can learn more about brain activity. Light passes out of one fiber optic cable, goes through the tissue, and is received by another cable. Based on its interpretation of the diffusion data, the machine creates a 3D image based on whether the red blood cells have lots of oxygen or less oxygen to determine brain activity.
WHAT IS fMRI: Magnetic resonance imaging uses radio waves and a strong magnetic field to take clear and detailed pictures of internal organs and tissues. fMRI uses this technology to identify regions of the brain where blood vessels are expanding, chemical changes are taking place, or extra oxygen is being delivered. These are indications that a particular part of the brain is processing information and giving commands to the body. As a patient performs a particular task, the metabolism will increase in the brain area responsible for that task, changing the signal in the MRI image. So by performing specific tasks that correspond to different functions, scientists can locate the part of the brain that governs that function.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1204-baby_thinking.htm
Are You Really Paying Attention?
Doppler Sonography Helps Psychologists Measure Attention Levels
December 1, 2006 — Psychologists are finding out that even when people try to focus on a task they tend to lose concentration within 40 minutes, and sometimes as little as 10 minutes. The studies are based on a new technique, called transcranial Doppler sonography, that uses ultrasound to monitor blood flow velocity in the brain.
The technique could be turned into a warning system for workers who perform critical tasks -- such as pilots or air traffic controllers -- or even for drivers.
See also:
Mind & Brain
* Intelligence
* Perception
* Stroke
Matter & Energy
* Medical Technology
* Optics
* Ultrasound
Reference
* Doppler effect
* Ultrasound
* Radar
* Flow measurement
CINCINNATI -- Watching ... focusing ... scanning ... Millions of American jobs require intense concentration on monitors or television screens. But are we really paying attention?
Distractions can break anyone's concentration, but new research shows what happens in your brain can, too.
"The phenomenon is such that the more you look, the less you see," Joel Warm, Professor of Psychology at University of Cincinnati, tells DBIS.
To find out just how much you're paying attention, University of Cincinnati researchers tracked mental activity using transcranial Doppler sonography (TDS). The device measures blood flow velocity in the brain. Warm believes the reading could be an indicator of sustained, or non-stop, attention, also known as vigilance.
"The velocity goes up, it means that blood is being rushed to an area to carry away the waste product. The more mental activity, the more the waste product," he says.
During various 40-minute tests, researchers saw a decrease in blood-flow velocity over time, and, therefore, a decrease in attention. "Sometimes in the first 10 minutes," Warm says. "That early." And he says many times the participants didn't realize it was happening.
The Air Force is already interested in the research.
Lloyd Tripp, a research scientist at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio says, "What kind of breaks do we need to give those individuals who are in vigilance type of a job, high-vigilance job?"
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati say soon they will begin studying the sustained attention of drivers. Warm believes the study results can be helpful for the military, security workers, air traffic controllers and many others. He calls it a way to "monitor the monitor."
BACKGROUND: Transcranial Doppler Sonography (TCD) could be used to test the alertness of airport security screeners, air traffic controllers, or quality control and other workers who screen for the public's safety.
ON ONE'S TOES: Vigilance is an area of Human Factor/Ergonomics Research that looks at people's ability to stay focused on a task over long periods, such as someone monitoring the controls at a nuclear power plant. The challenge is how to keep alert when nothing of concern is happing, so that when a problem does occur, it will be recognized and dealt with quickly. Preliminary results indicate that TCD may offer a noninvasive and inexpensive tool to "monitor the monitor," so managers can better determine when operators performing vigilance tasks are in need of rest of replacement.
HOW TCD WORKS: TCD uses ultrasound to image the arteries located at the base of the brain, to detect any narrowing or blockage in those arteries that may decrease or stop the flow of blood to the brain. A hand-held probe resembling a wand is covered with an electrically conductive gel and held at various areas of the head: at each temple, over each eye, and at the base of the skull. The technique enables doctors to record the flow of blood in each artery. TCD is less expensive than both MRI and CT scans, the two most common medical imaging techniques. It is a portable device, so the scanner can be brought to a patient's bedside. It is easy to customize because it allows freehand scanning of the patient, tailoring the image of a patient's head to find the best "window" to see inside the very bony (and therefore difficult to image) adult cranium.
WHAT IS DOPPLER RADAR: Doppler radar uses a well-known effect of light called the Doppler shift. Just as a train whistle will sound higher as it approaches a platform and then become lower in pitch as it moves away, light emitted by a moving object is perceived to increase in frequency (a blue shift) if it is moving toward the observer; if the object is moving away from us, it will be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Doppler radar sends out radio waves that bounce off objects in the air, such as raindrops or snow crystals, and then measures how much the frequency changes in returning radio waves to better determine wind direction and speed.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/1212-are_you_really_paying_attention.htm
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