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'Pop-Up' 3D Structures Can Mimic Brain Circuits
By mimicking children's pop-up books, scientists can now make complex microscopic 3D shapes that model brain circuitry and blood vessels, researchers say.
These intricate structures, which could resemble tiny flowers and peacocks, may one day help scientists electronically control living tissue, the researchers added.
Naturally curved, thin and flexible 3D structures are common in biology; examples include the circuits of brain cells and networks of veins. Materials scientist John Rogers, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues want to create similarly complex devices that can wrap around these biological structures, potentially supporting or improving their function. [5 Crazy Technologies That Are Revolutionizing Biotech]
"Our focus has been on the brain, heart and skin," Rogers said.
Devices that mimic the complex structures found in nature are very difficult to manufacture on microscopic scales. But now, Rogers and his colleagues have developed a simple strategy for such manufacture that involves flat 2D structures that pop up into 3D shapes.
"The analogy would be children's pop-up books," Rogers told Live Science.
To manufacture these structures, the scientists fabricate 2D patterns of ribbons on stretched elastic silicone rubber. In experiments, the ribbons were as small as 100 nanometers wide, or about 1,000 times thinner than the average human hair, and could be made from a variety of materials, including silicon and nickel.
The 2D patterns are designed so that there are both strong and weak points of stickiness between the patterns and the silicone rubber they sit on. After the scientists fabricate the 2D designs, they release the tension on the silicone rubber. The weak points of stickiness break away, "and up pops a 3D structure," study co-author Yonggang Huang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in a statement. "In just one shot, you get your structure."
The researchers generated more than 40 different geometric designs, from single and multiple spirals and rings to spherical baskets, cubical boxes, peacocks, flowers, tents, tables and starfish. Scientists could even arrange patterns with multiple layers, a bit like multi-floor buildings.
This new pop-up technique has many advantages, the investigators said. The strategy is fast, inexpensive and can employ many different materials used in electronics today to build a wide variety of microscopic structures. Moreover, researchers can build many different structures at one time, and incorporate different materials into hybrid structures.
"We are excited about the fact that these simple ideas and schemes provide immediate paths to broad and previously inaccessible classes of 3D micro- and nano-structures in a way that is compatible with the highest-performance materials and processing techniques available," Rogers said. "We feel that the findings have potential relevance to a wide range of microsystems technologies — biomedical devices, optoelectronics, photovoltaics, 3D circuits, sensors and so on."
The scientists said their pop-up assembly technique has many advantages over 3D printers, which create 3D structures by depositing layers of material on top of one another. Although 3D printers are increasingly popular, they work slowly. In addition, it is difficult for 3D printers to build objects using more than one material, and it is nearly impossible for these printers to produce semiconductors or single crystalline metals, the researchers said.
Still, Rogers emphasized the team's new strategy is complementary to 3D printing, and is not an attempt to replace that technique.
The scientists are currently using this pop-up assembly strategy to build electronic scaffolds that can monitor and control the growth of cells in lab experiments, Rogers said. "We are also using these ideas to form helical, springy metal interconnect coils and antennas for soft electronic devices designed to integrate with the human body," he said.
The scientists detailed their findings online today (Jan. 8) in the journal Science.
Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.
Source: http://www.livescience.com/49377-pop-up-3d-structures.html
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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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