Tomorrow in Brief: July-August 2010

Solar Power at the Micro Scale

Tiny, sunlight-capturing cells could one day provide a nearly ubiquitous source of mobile power. Glitter-sized photovoltaic cells, developed at Sandia National Laboratories, would also lower the costs of solar arrays, as they could be mass-produced using common microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) techniques.

Glitter power could be applied on items with unusual shape, such as clothing or other textiles used for hiking, hunting, and military operations.

Source: Sandia National Laboratories, www.sandia.gov.

“Skinput”: Human Skin as Touchpad

Instead of scribbling someone’s phone number in your palm, you may soon be able to tap the number on your arm or some other part of your body.

A technology called “Skinput,” developed by Carnegie Mellon PhD candidate Chris Harrison and team, uses bio-acoustic sensors that can pick up the signature sounds of a finger tapping on specific locations on the skin. An armband device projects the keypad image on the user’s palm or forearm and picks up the acoustic signature of the finger taps.

Simple devices such as MP3 players could be used without the projected keypads, as users learn where to tap without looking — a true touch system.

Sources: Carnegie Mellon University, www.cmu.edu. Skinput, www.chrisharrison.net/projects/skinput.

Biodegradable Packaging

An eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based food packaging could come from dairy farms.

Most foods are wrapped in multilayer films made of synthetic polymers, which has some consumers worried about the use of petroleum in manufacturing the film and disposing of the waste after it’s used.

Agricultural researchers believe dairy proteins such as casein and whey offer a viable alternative to petroleum.

Future research will address the ability of dairy-based packaging to provide adequate barriers to moisture.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, www.ars.usda.gov.

Tattletale Pills

Doctors, caregivers, and clinical researchers may soon have an easy way to make sure patients are taking their medicines: The pills will tell on them.

Engineers at University of Florida have developed a digestible microchip and antenna that can be integrated into a standard medicine capsule; when it’s swallowed, it automatically sends an alert to the doctor or caregiver.

Improving compliance is important not just for patients using prescription drugs, but also for clinical drug research, since a participant’s failure to take the experimental drug will skew the test results.

Source: University of Florida, www.ufl.edu.

Conquering Phobias Pharmaceutically

It may one day be possible to vaccinate yourself against irrational fears.

Researchers at the University of Hiroshima used classical conditioning to “teach” goldfish to become frightened by a flash of light; however, fish that first received injections of the anesthetic lidocaine into their cerebellums maintained steady heart rates, suggesting that they did not learn to fear the flash.

The effects of the lidocaine were temporary, but the researchers hope their work could one day help people overcome phobias. (And perhaps an alternative to injections could help those with a fear of needles.)

Source: “Effects of Local Anesthesia of the Cerebellum on Classical Fear Conditioning in Goldfish,” Masayuki Yoshida and Ruriko Hirano, Behavioral and Brain Functions, BioMed Central, www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com.