Wireless

Ultrathin, wireless, light-operated pacemaker cuts invasive surgery

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Pengju Li, a researcher on the study, holds a prototype pacemaker that's only 1 micrometer thick, and operated by light pulses

Pengju Li, a researcher on the study, holds a prototype pacemaker that’s only 1 micrometer thick, and operated by light pulses

Scientists at the University of Chicago have developed a new pacemaker that’s thinner than a human hair, wireless and operated entirely by light from an optic fiber. The non-invasive device could help regulate heart activity or even stimulate neurons in a set pattern to treat symptoms of conditions like Parkinson’s.

The heart pumps thanks to a series of very carefully timed electrical signals, but if those signals fall out of time, they can lead to all sorts of issues, such as strokes, heart attacks or even a fatal failure of the organ. Pacemakers monitor and correct these abnormal rhythms, but they require invasive surgeries and bring their own risks.

The new device is much less invasive – it’s a thin film just one micrometer thick, which is about 100 times thinner than a human hair, or a recent similar device made of graphene which was also 100 micrometers thick. It tips the scales at just one 50th of a gram, making it 250 times lighter than a regular pacemaker. And rather than needing a battery, it’s powered by light.

Obviously light doesn’t usually reach the heart (unless something is terribly wrong), so an extremely narrow optic fiber is inserted alongside it. The fiber lights up in a specific pattern, which triggers the thin film to produce an electric current. The film is made of two layers of P-type silicon – the top layer is dotted with nano-scale holes that confine the electricity, allowing the device to stimulate very specific parts of the heart on demand, producing the desired rhythm.

The team tested the device in human heart tissue grown in the lab, then in isolated rat hearts, then moving up to living mice and rats, and finally to living pigs. In all cases, the technique worked to stimulate the heart’s rhythm as needed, requiring only endoscopic surgery rather than opening up the chest cavity.

In its current form, this thin pacemaker is designed to be temporary, dissolving into a nontoxic compound called silicic acid, which negates the need for another round of surgery to remove it. But the team says that future versions could be adapted to last different time frames.

The researchers also say that the device could be used to stimulate nerves on demand, in specific patterns. This could be used to treat the symptoms of conditions like Parkinson’s or chronic pain.

Bizarre New Time Crystals Could Make the World More Wireless

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Goodbye phone lines. Hello quantum physics.

ice shard frozen clock time shape abstract, horizontal, isolated, over black
  • Scientists have found a way to amplify light using time crystals.
  • Time crystals are a newly discovered phase of matter that change constantly without ever burning energy.
  • These new time crystals, called photonic time crystals, could someday revolutionize the communications industry.

Scientists may have just found a way to amplify light waves using time crystals. In a recent paper, a group of researchers has announced that they have found a way to make what are called photonic time crystals that amplifies any light that passes through them.

Time crystals of any kind are absolutely bizarre creations of science, first conceptualized in 2012 and first created several years after. They’re a whole new phase of matter made from quantum particles, each of which has what’s called a spin direction. The particles are excited into an energetic state—where they get stuck—and hit with a laser, which starts the process of these particles’ spin directions flipping back and forth.

It’s all very complicated, but here’s the kicker: this never-ending spin-flipping burns no energy. It completely violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics—you get never-ending change for no energy while also not dissolving into chaos. That shouldn’t be possible, so they shouldn’t exist. But they do. It’s one of many places where classical physics falls short of explaining the quantum realm.

Bluetooth group ushers in updated Bluetooth 4.1.

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The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the regulatory body responsible for the standard, announced on Wednesday its release of an updated version of the specification, Bluetooth 4.1. This is the first new update to the standard in nearly four years. Bluetooth has become a familiar and fundamental word in the vocabulary of device interconnectedness and “Internet of Things,” as the technology standard that enables information exchange between wireless devices. Announced by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, Bluetooth 4.1 brings improvements, enablements, and developer support benefits. Also on Wednesday, Suke Jawanda, Bluetooth SIG chief marketing officer , blogged “Improving Usability extends the brand promise to consumers with an ‘it just works’ experience. This spec is engineered with several new features to make it work seamlessly with popular cell technologies like LTE, maintain connections with less frequent manual reconnection, and deliver a more efficient data exchange.”

For device users, Bluetooth 4.1 will show improvements in the form of easier connections. Devices can reconnect automatically when in proximity of one another. The user leaves the room and come back to find the two devices that were recently used reconnected without any intervention.

Device users can also expect improved data transfer. Data-gathering sensors in devices while on a bike ride, run, or swim, will transfer that data more efficiently when the consumer returns home.

For developers, Bluetooth 4.1 will support Bluetooth Smart products and solutions with “dual-mode topology” and “link-layer topology” software features. What that means is that application developers as well as product developers can think about creating products that take on multiple roles. With 4.1, one can think about behavior as a Bluetooth Smart peripheral and also as a Bluetooth Smart hub. A smart watch can behave as a data-gathering information from a heart rate monitor, but at the same time behave as a peripheral to a smartphone, showing notifications from the phone. According to SIG, “As the Bluetooth Smart ecosystem grows, the Bluetooth SIG expects more solutions to play both a hub and peripheral role. Bluetooth 4.1 delivers this type of flexibility to Bluetooth Smart devices and application developers.”

The group regards the new update as “an important evolutionary update to the wireless standard.” The last update in 2010 was instead considered as a revolutionary update in the introduction of Bluetooth Smart (Low Energy) technology. “Bluetooth Smart technology put us on a rocket ship of growth, with Bluetooth annual product shipment projections skyrocketing to more than 4.5 billion in the next five years,” said Jawanda.

To be sure, the standard for wireless interconnections has become a major presence in devices and services used every day. The Bluetooth SIG, a trade association, now counts over 20,000 member companies and oversees the development of Bluetooth specifications, and promotion and protection of the Bluetooth brand.

 

Device Could Harvest Wasted Energy From Wi-Fi, Satellite Signals.

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A wireless device developed by researchers at Duke University that converts microwaves into electricity could eventually harvest Wi-Fi or satellite signals for power, according to its creators. It could also one day be built into cell phones to let them charge while not in use, they say.

Its energy-harvesting capabilities come courtesy of a metamaterial, a synthetic material engineered with characteristics not found in nature, like the ability to bend light the wrong way or shrink when you stretch it. In this case, the microwave-harvesting metamaterial that acts kind of like a solar panel, converting microwaves into up to 7.3 volts of electricity, enough to charge small electronics. It can scavenge stray signals, like from appliances or satellites, to improve efficiency and make lost energy usable.

“It’s possible to use this design for a lot of different frequencies and types of energy, including vibration and sound energy harvesting,” according to Duke graduate student Alexander Katko, one of the inventors.“Until now, a lot of work with metamaterials has been theoretical.”

300% Increased brain cancer risk for long-term users of cell phones and cordless phones.

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A Swedish study on the use of wireless phones, including cell phones and cordless phones, has uncovered a link between electromagnetic radiation exposures and the risk of malignant and non-malignant brain tumors.

Cell phones and cordless phones emit a form of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, radiation which can be absorbed by tissues and cells that come into close contact with the phone, e.g., the head and neck. The most conclusive evidence as to the dangers of cell phone and similar radiation exposures come from studies on long-term exposure (ten years or more) like this Swedish study.

Man-On-Cell-Phone

300% increased risk for long term users

This new study reveals that people who used cell phones and cordless phones for more than a year were at a 70% greater risk of brain cancer compared to those who used cell phones and cordless phones for a year or less. Those who used cell phones and cordless phones for more than 25 years were found to have a 300% greater risk of brain cancer than those who used cell phones and cordless phones for a year or less.

The total number of hours of cell phone and cordless phone use was found to be as important as the number of years of use. A quarter of the study’s subjects were found to have lifetime cell phone or cordless phone use of 2,376 or more hours, which corresponds to about 40 minutes a day over ten years. Heavier users were found to have a 250% greater risk of brain tumors compared to those who’d never used cell phones or cordless phones or used them for less than 39 hours in their lifetime.

Brain cancer risk highest on side of head used to phone

This new study echoes the previous study findings of the decade long 13-nation Interphone study, which found a 180% greater risk of brain cancer among those who used cell phones for 1,640 or more hours in their lifetime. But it also goes further.

In this latest study, for all types of cell phone and cordless phone use, brain cancer risk was found to be greater in the part of the brain where the exposure to cell phone and cordless phone radiation was highest, on the side of the head where people predominantly used their phones.

Wireless safety standards inadequate

Given the consistent results from these studies, public health bodies from around the world are asking that the current wireless safety standards be reviewed.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as a Group 2B possible carcinogen. Doctors groups are also sounding the alarm. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE) and the Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) are all calling for improved standards.

Practice safe use of wireless phones

In the absence of sufficiently protective standards and legislation, individuals need to act now. This means:

  • Limiting calls to those that are absolutely necessary on wireless devices
  • Using a speaker phone or air tube headset whenever possible
  • Keeping cell phones away from the body
  • Turning your cell phone off when not in use
  • Texting instead of talking
  • Alternating from one side of the head to the other when phoning
  • Avoiding using a cell phone when reception is poor
  • Using a corded land line whenever possible
  • Removing cordless phones from bedrooms


Minimizing the effects of these wireless exposures now instead of later is timely and crucial.

Sources :

http://www.saferemr.com

http://www.prlog.org

http://www.spandidos-publications.com

Wireless bio-absorbable circuits could kill bacteria.

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Remote-controlled, dissolvable electronic implants have been created that could help attack microbes, provide pain relief and stimulate bone growth.

The spread of bacteria resistant to antibiotics – popularly called superbugs – is threatening to put the clock back 100 years to the time when routine, minor surgery was life-threatening. Some medical experts are warning that otherwise straightforward operations could soon become deadly unless new ways to fend off these infections are found.

Bacteria often evolve clever ways of evading chemical assaults, but they will always struggle to resist the old-fashioned way of killing them: heating them up. It takes only a relatively mild warming to kill bugs without discomfort or harm to tissues. So imagine if little electric heaters could be implanted into wounds and powered wirelessly to fry bacteria during healing before dissolving harmlessly into body fluids once their job is done.

This is just one potential application of the bio-absorbable electronic circuits made by John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his co-workers. The idea itself is not new: Rogers and others have previously reported biodegradable flexible circuits and electronic devices that can be safely laid directly onto skin. But their success in making their circuits wireless could prove crucial to many potential applications, especially in medicine.

The hope is that radio waves can be used both for remote control of the circuits – to turn them on and off, say, and to provide the power to run them, so that there’s no need for implanted batteries. This kind of radio-frequency (RF) wireless technology is becoming ever more widespread, in food packaging, livestock labelling, tagging of goods in shops for security and in dustbins to monitor recycling, for example.

To make RF circuits, you need semiconductors and metals. Those don’t sound like the kinds of materials our bodies will dissolve, but Rogers and colleagues used layers of non-toxic substances so thin that they disintegrate in water or body fluids. For the metal parts, they used films of magnesium at least half as thin as the average human hair. Magnesium is not only harmless but in fact an essential nutrient: our bodies typically contain about 25g (0.9oz) of it already. For semiconductors, they used silicon membranes 300 nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) thick, which also dissolve in water. They used magnesium oxide as an insulating material when required.

Power scavenger

One of the simplest but most important components of an RF circuit is an antenna, which picks up the radio waves. Rogers and colleagues made these from long strips of magnesium foil deposited onto thin films of silk. Being non-toxic, biodegradable, strong and relatively cheap, silk makes the ideal base for such devices. These antennae, typically about four inches long, dissolve completely in water in about two hours. Although being buried beneath radio wave-absorbing body tissue would hamper performance, they should still receive enough signal for low power applications the researchers are considering.

The researchers have also made a variety of standard circuit components: capacitors, resistors, and crucially, diodes and transistors. Transistors are particularly complex structures, requiring delicately patterned films of a semiconductor like silicon doped with other elements and sandwiched with metal electrodes and insulating layers. Using silicon membranes, along with magnesium and its oxide, Rogers’ team made versions that dissolve within hours.

One of the first full circuits that they have made is an RF “power scavenger”, which can convert up to 15% of the radio waves it absorbs at a particular frequency into electrical power. Their prototype, measuring about 10cm (4in) by 4cm (1.6 in), can pick up enough power to run a small commercial light-emitting diode. The team can control the rate at which these devices dissolve by fine-tuning the molecular structure of the silk sheets on which they are laid down or between which they are sandwiched. This way, they can make devices that last for a week or two – about the length of time needed to ward off bacteria from a healing wound.

As well as deterring bacteria, Rogers says that implantable, bio-absorbable RF electronics could be used to stimulate nerves for pain relief, and to stimulate bone re-growth, a process long proven to work when electrodes are placed on the skin or directly on the bone. Conceivably they could also be used to precisely control drug release from implanted reservoirs.

Source: BBC

Boeing uses potatoes instead of people to test wi-fi.

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_64896854_potatoUS planemaker Boeing used an unusual substitute for passengers to test its in-flight wi-fi system – potatoes.

Passenger seats on a decommissioned plane were loaded with huge sacks of the tubers for several days as signal strengths were checked.

The company’s researchers say that potatoes “interact” with electronic signals in a similar way to humans.

The technique also took advantage of the fact that spuds – unlike humans – never get bored.

Boeing’s engineers did a number of tests to ensure that passengers would get the strongest possible wi-fi signal while in the air, all while meeting safety standards that protect against interference with an aircraft’s electrical systems.

Wireless signals fluctuate randomly in the enclosed space of an aeroplane cabin as people move about.

This means that signal distribution is uneven throughout the cabin, with weaker and stronger connectivity in different seats.

“You want your laptop to work anywhere it’s located on your seat, [but] there can be significant signal changes just due to the location of the laptop,” said Boeing engineer Dennis Lewis.

To test the signal distribution, the firm turned to spuds instead of human test subjects, filling the seats with 20,000lbs (9,000kg) of potatoes in sacks.

According to Boeing, potatoes’ “interactions” with electronic signals mimic those of a human body, making them “the perfect stand-in for people who would otherwise have had to sit motionless for days while the data was gathered”.

The UK Potato Council said many people underestimated the humble potato’s alternative uses.

“[The examples are] in paper and ink manufacturing, potato starch is used in clothing to strengthen the fibres so they don’t break during weaving, and for sweetening – glucose can be extracted from potato starch,” said the council’s spokeswoman.

“For beauty and sores – potatoes have calming, decongestant and astringent properties and raw potatoes can calm tired eyes, potato as alcohol, and potatoes can produce electricity.”

Frederic Rosseneu of the European Potato Trade Association Europatat said the organisation was “looking forward to other experiments in which spuds can help to make our lives more convenient”.

Source:BBC