World Watch AUSTRALIAN RESEARCHERS LOOK AT TURNING THOUGHTS INTO ACTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH ROBOTIC LIMBS Bionic humans had a certain cache on the small screens of the mid-1970s, in the form of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman . But here in the real world, the chal- lenges of bionics have been many, even though hundreds of thousands of humans have benefited from them. So far, bionic devices—or artificial body parts— have been helpful for some of us, but they’re poor replacements for normal hearing, vision, and strength, says David Grayden, PhD, of the University of Melbourne’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. More research and development are needed to catch the world up to our fictional antecedents. But when it comes to robotic limbs, at least, promising developments are happening in Australia. Dr. Grayden is part of a team working on a device called a stentrode, described as a small stent with electrodes attached. The stentrode—a sort of spine for bionics, in terms of what it does—can be inserted into a blood vessel next to the brain’s motor cortex. The hope is that it could then be used to help paralyzed patients control robotic limbs with their thoughts. The device is currently being developed for its first in- human trials, the university reports. Researchers are also working on designing algorithms to decode neural signals from the brain. SPRAY A FEW SENSORS UNDER THAT WING, PLEASE Monitoring the health of flat or curved structures like airplanes could become easier, thanks to recent innovations by mechanical engineers in Hong Kong. A team from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed spray-on sensors from nanocomposites . The sensors can be networked, providing rich real-time information on a structure’s health. The spray is lightweight and affordable to fabricate, meaning that large quantities can be used at once to search for flaws, fissures, and other material trouble spots. The innovation could signal the start of a new era of ultrasonic monitoring of infrastructure health, the uni- versity says.
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NATURE’S MIGHTIEST FURNANCE CREATES NEW MINERAL When you conduct research into something as geologically amazing as a volcano, you never know what you’ll find. Investigations into the dramatic eruption of Iceland’s Hekla in 1991, for example, have many years later yielded a new mineral. Special geological processes occur in volcanoes, resulting in unusual minerals. In this case, reports the magazine ScienceNordic, Hekla yielded topsøeite , named after a prominent scientific family in Denmark. It’s one of seven new minerals discovered in Iceland since 2009. The elements iron and fluorine, along with water molecules, combine to form topsøeite. Geologists have seen the chemical structure previously, but—important distinction alert—never has it been found in mineral form. To be recognized as a mineral, a substance must occur naturally; it cannot be formed in a laboratory only.
HEKLA RESTS When Mount Hekla in Iceland isn’t erupting in awe- inspiring fashion, it looks like this. A dramatic eruption in 1991 created a new mineral.
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