Tomorrow in Brief (November-December 2010)

Mosquitoes Beware!

Reducing future mosquito populations may be as simple as simulating the scent of an enemy.

When a pregnant mosquito looks for a safe place to lay her eggs, the scent of a predator will steer her away. If she doesn’t die first, she’ll be forced to lay her eggs in a more densely populated area, where the larvae will have a tougher time competing for survival.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel believe they have identified key compounds released by mosquitoes’ predators. Synthesizing these natural chemicals and releasing them in breeding areas could offer an inexpensive, nontoxic alternative to pesticides.

Source: University of Haifa, www.haifa.ac.il.

The Bus Stops Here: Make Way for AutoTram

A public-transportation vehicle that is as long as a streetcar, agile as a bus, and a whole lot cleaner and more efficient than either is the goal of the AutoTram’s developers.

The trick to making such an electric-powered vehicle work is speeding up the time it takes to recharge the batteries. Since public-transit vehicles are in constant motion (unlike cars parked for many hours at a time), engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany were challenged to create fast-changing docking stations that would be positioned at stops along the AutoTram’s routes. The batteries must be made large enough to store the energy, and the materials with which the batteries are made must be capable of withstanding these high-speed charges.

In addition, the system needs to be safe, durable, and efficient, thus requiring more challenges for the multidisciplinary research team to conquer before the AutoTram makes its way to tomorrow’s city streets.

Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, www.fraunhofer.de.

Robots to Learn Emotions from Humans

Human emotions are hard enough for people to understand, so robots are especially challenged to interpret, respond to, or simulate the range of human feelings. Robots’ success so far has depended on how well they have been programmed.

In the future, robots may be able to learn human emotions by interacting with people; they’ll form attachments and convey meaning through body language, suggests researcher Lola Cañamero of the University of Hertfordshire, England.

In research funded by the European Commission, Cañamero and colleagues applied a model of children’s early attachment behavior to the programming of robots. The more interaction with (and feedback from) a human caregiver that the robot has, the stronger the bond becomes and the more emotional expression it learns. The goal is to give robots enough emotional intelligence that they could become the caregivers for children in hospitals.

Source: University of Hertfordshire, www.herts.ac.uk.

Smarter Metals for Cooling Systems

A new “thermally elastic” metal alloy has been developed that could improve the efficiency of refrigeration and air-conditioning systems, saving energy and lowering costs.

The smart metal, developed by researchers at the University of Maryland Energy Research Center, is a two-state alloy that alternatively absorbs and creates heat; used in cooling systems, it would take the place of fluid coolants used in compressors and would use far less energy.

“The approach is expected to increase cooling efficiency 175%, reduce U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by 250 million metric tons per year, and replace liquid refrigerants that can cause environmental degradation in their own right,” according to Center director Eric Wachsman.

Source: University of Maryland, www.umd.edu.

Virtual Autopsies

Advances in medical imaging could reduce the need for invasive autopsies.

A project under way at the University of Leicester in England aims to develop cardiac angiography for use in virtual autopsies. The technology will enable pathologists to diagnose coronary heart disease from CT scans.

“The outcome of this research has the potential to affect every family in the future, and is a significant contribution to the developing practice of using CT scans instead of autopsies,” says project leader Guy Rutty.

Source: University of Leicester, www.le.ac.uk.