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DARPA's 'Transient Electronics' Will Disappear Anywhere
Imagine electronic medical devices, implanted to heal wounds and then dissipating inside the human body. Environmental sensors dispersed over an oil spill, collecting data before dissolving into the earth. Or clandestine listening devices, sending recorded conversations back to military operatives and then vanishing before they can be found.
In the near-future, these three scenarios could become reality. All courtesy of a military-backed venture into “transient electronics.” The idea, in essence, is to flip the hallmark elements of electronics technology — durability and long lifespans — in favor of devices that actually disappear within a set period of time.
The technology behind the project, a collaborative effort by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign andTufts University, is described in a paper published this week in the journal Science.
“Historically, the field of electronics has been spectacularly successful because of devices that were stable over time,” Dr. John Rogers, a professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says. “We wondered whether asking the opposite question of electronics could have interesting results.”
Turns out, it did. With funding from the National Science Foundation and military research agency DARPA, the team used “an eclectic mix” of biocompatible materials — which vary depending on the application — combined with nano-layers of silicon and encapsulated in silk. Every single part of each device, from sensors to power sources, dissolves over a period of time. Depending on how the devices are constructed (namely, how thick each layer is) they can last for hours, days, months or even years.
“The electronics are designed to be stable and fully-functional during their lifetime,” Rogers says. “It’s the lifetime itself that sets them apart from the devices that are being used today.”
Already, the team has developed and tested several device prototypes. In one particularly nifty instance, they used a mouse model to demonstrate that an implanted medical device could accelerate wound healing and kill bacteria, then dissolve once the job was done.
“Either these devices would be digested by the body, or they would dissolve within it,” Dr. Yonggang Huang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern, says of the technology. “We used only metals that already exist in the body, so we’re confident they can dissolve without concerns about toxicity.”
The medical implications of such devices are myriad. Implantable electronics could monitor vital signs, deliver medications or track patient recovery. The devices would also circumvent many existing challenges that hamper implantable electronics, namely concerns over longterm effects inside the body, as well as painful or costly implant removal and replacement.
In an environmental or military context, the devices have the potential to save money and time — not to mention lives. “Imagine an oil spill, dropping 100,000 sensors that give realtime information on an area during clean-up,” Rogers says. “Collecting them would be almost impossible, so what if you just didn’t need to?” The same is true, of course, for sensors dropped into combat regions — particularly urban areas or buildings, where collecting the devices is dangerous and preventing their detection is tricky.
The prospects of transient electronics are so far-ranging, and so far-out, that even the researchers behind them haven’t yet grasped every possibility. “Admittedly, we might not be perceiving all the potential uses,” Rogers says. “We’re still asking new questions.”
For now, the team is refining the devices, and evaluating how they operate and dissipate at various temperatures, in different environmental conditions and at several pH levels. They’re also conducting additional animal studies on medical implants, with an eye on human trials in coming years.
And fickle consumer tech aficionados, take note: Rogers also imagines a day where conventional consumer electronics, like smartphones or laptops, might also be designed with transience in mind. “Disposing of these devices is a major waste problem,” he says. “But the reality is, most people don’t want to keep their phone for more than a few years.”
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiedrummond/2012/09/27/darpa-transient-electronics/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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