• Ultra-powerful MRI scanners offer hope for people with Parkinson’s disease

    Parkinson’s is a progressive brain disease that affects movement as well as damage motivation and cognition. These latter symptoms can have a major impact on a patient’s outcome, affecting their survival and general wellbeing, as well as the stress and costs for families. To understand the causes of these cognitive symptoms, the researchers used a new ultra-high strength ‘7T’ MRI scanner to measure changes in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease, those with another brain disease known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), as well as people in good health. 7T refers to the strength of the magnetic field; most MRI scanners tend to be 3T or below. Patients with Parkinson’s disease and PSP are often treated with drugs such as L-DOPA, which compensate for the severe loss of dopamine…

  • Asteroid-mining may be possible with Scar-e robot

    The Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorer known as Scar-e is a six-legged robot capable of mining precious metals from asteroids. Designed by the Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC) in partnership with Tohoku University in Japan, Scar-e could be the key to opening up the exploration of the solar system, in line with current trends in the launch services market, with a low-cost, highly functional, walking and climbing robot. Currently, the world is facing a shortage of precious metals, particularly those vital for the making of consumer electronics such as phones, laptops and cars, as well as battery and hydrogen technology, causing   chaos in supply chains. With only a finite supply of them on Earth, people are increasingly looking to space to meet this increased demand. Enter Scar-e…

  • Drax proposes major hydro power station in Scotland to stabilise energy grid

    If approved, the new power station could be operational as soon as 2030 with construction work getting under way in 2024. It will involve removing around 2 million tonnes of rock from inside the Ben Cruachan mountain. The development would be the first newly constructed plant of its kind in the UK in more than 40 years and will provide low-carbon electricity storage capacity. Drax also operates its namesake power station in Yorkshire that has long been a testing bed for projects designed to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions, such as the introduction of carbon capture technology in its biomass reactors in 2019, and its stated goal to become the first “carbon negative” company by using that technology. The hydro project is expected to generate up to 600MW, more than doubling the current…

  • Seven decades of royal technology

    Although little is known about the Queen’s private life, there are enough clues to create the strong impression that she has been a keen user of contemporary technology throughout her reign. From the first computers to digital connectivity, from recording songs on a cassette recorder to running the Royal train on biofuel, from enjoying computer games to driving hybrid cars, the monarch has stayed in touch with technology trends for more than 70 years. Here we take the opportunity of her Platinum Jubilee to review some of the technologies the Her Majesty is known to have used through the decades, plus a few that we think might come to the rescue of the royal household from time to time. 1950s When the Queen and the late Prince Philip wed in 1947, post-war food rationing was still in place…

  • The bigger picture: FLEX Lunar Rover

    From Californian company Venturi Astrolab, the FLEX vehicle displayed its prowess back in December by riding over the rugged California desert near Death Valley National Park during a five-day field test. The four-wheeled, car-sized vehicle was piloted during the tests by retired Canadian astronaut and Astrolab advisory board member Chris Hadfield, and MIT aerospace graduate student Michelle Lin. Image credit: , FLEX is designed for Nasa’s Artemis programme, aimed at returning humans to the Moon as early as 2025 and establishing a long-term lunar colony as a precursor to sending astronauts to Mars. It is designed as an all-purpose vehicle that can be driven by astronauts or remotely. Built around a modular payload system inspired by conventional containerised…

  • Uganda government sued over digital ID system that excludes vulnerable groups

    The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Unwanted Witness and the Health Equity and Policy Initiative have filed a lawsuit against the Ugandan government for a failure in the rollout of the national ID system, which has reportedly resulted in the exclusion of vulnerable groups from potentially life-saving services, Reuters has found. The three charities estimate that up to one-third of adults do not have a biometric ID card seven years after the system was introduced. The lack of a national ID has also prevented many Ugandans from opening a bank account, buying a mobile SIM card, enrolling in college, gaining formal employment and obtaining a passport. Most of those affected belong to poor and marginalised communities. The flawed rollout has also resulted in elderly people being unable…

  • Bizarre Tech: FishCare Mini, Owl Robot and Cura Light

    FishCare Mini I spy with my little fisheye This Kickstarter campaign was last updated in June 2019, so it’s likely the product went down the toilet, like your goldfish after it kicked the bucket because you didn’t put the right protocols in place when you went on holibobs. However, this product was supposed to fix that. From TAE Fishcare (website no longer online), the FishCare Mini (beta version) was for you to “enjoy your holiday fish can be safe and sound in home” (not my words). This wee gadget was supposed to let you set up threshold values and give you real-time data of temperature, pH, and nitrate measurements. It would broadcast a visual alarm if the measured data was out of threshold values, and also send an alert SMS and email. What do you reckon the alarm would be like?…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • After All: Tiny chapel shows the spirit that sank a huge cruiser

    Bristling with gun turrets, radars and aerials, she looked like a giant porcupine stranded in the Sevastopol harbour. With her massive grey bulk reflected in the oily waters of the port, the battleship looked twice her size – enormous and ominously threatening. ‘Slava’ (Glory) was written along the starboard, close to the bow. It was 1987. I was on a Black Sea cruise on-board MS Tajikistan as an ‘entertainer’, i.e. enjoying a free cabin in exchange for some stand-up comedy (reading my own stories and poems). Sailing past Slava (later renamed Moskva), a 200m-long flagship of the Soviet (and later Russian) Navy, was one of the cruise’s undisputed highlights. Not in their wildest dreams could the passengers on board Tajikistan (including yours truly) have imagined that, 35 years on, Moskva…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • The AI pilot: can we remove Maverick from his cockpit?

    Towards the end of the 20-minute drive from central Belgrade to Nikola Tesla airport, travellers with time to spare can explore the inside of a huge steel and glass doughnut. A curious piece of architecture, the Aeronautical Museum Belgrade appears to have split: as you pass by, you are separated from the museum by fences and then an aeroplane graveyard – a jumble of planes and helicopters that track the history of Serbia’s (and the former Yugoslavia’s) – air force all the way back to the Second World War. Perhaps the museum was once going to be bigger. Perhaps it’s a marketing ploy: ‘if this is what we leave outside, just imagine the stuff we keep out of the alternating summer rainstorms and new year’s blizzards.’ Inside the museum are further examples of aircraft from Serbia’s somewhat…

  • Panama waves magic Wanda to catch floating garbage

    The Juan Díaz is one of the most polluted rivers in Panama. From cans and discarded plastics to bags full of organic garbage, the waste the river carries has darkened its waters. Now, instead of letting the waste build-up, the city’s authorities have devised a plan to catch and recycle it. Wanda - an acronym for 'Wheel and Action' - is the first sustainable wheel in Latin America able to capture floating garbage. “The ultimate goal is to recover what can be recovered to give it a second life, and what is not will be disposed of in the right way,” Sandy Watemberg, executive director of the Panamanian NGO Marea Verde, told Efe. The Juan Díaz River is one of the main tributaries that flow into the Panama Bay, surrounded by a protected area of mangroves that are home to numerous types of…

  • Ofgem considering quarterly energy price cap updates due to market volatility

    Unprecedented rises in gas prices were already occurring during 2021, even before the conflict in Ukraine began (in 2022) causing Europe-wide disruption to energy supplies. The UK's energy price cap was increased last month, but the previous change came in August 2021 and therefore did not reflect the historic rises in wholesale prices for energy firms. This caused a multitude of energy firms to collapse within a short time period as they were forced to sell energy at a lower cost to their customers. Ofgem said that a more frequent price cap would reflect the most up-to-date and accurate energy prices and should mean that when prices fall from the current record highs, customers would see the benefit much sooner.  This change would also help energy suppliers to more accurately predict…

  • UK signs £30m maintenance contract for Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers

    The 10-year agreement will ensure that the two warships – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – are able to undergo dry dockings for planned maintenance and repair at Babcock’s Rosyth facilities. The Ministry of Defence said the work will help to sustain 300 jobs across the facility and the wider supply chain. The 65,000-tonne carriers cost taxpayers £3bn each and are used to launch the F35 Joint Strike Fighter fast jets across the globe. The lead ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was commissioned in December 2017, followed by the HMS Prince of Wales in December 2019. The construction of the two carriers involved more than 10,000 people from 90 companies, 7,000 of them in the six shipyards building the sections of the ships. Defence procurement minister Jeremy Quin said: “The Queen…

  • Sponsored: E&T webinar - Modelling Capacitive Sensors in COMSOL®︎

    A sensor electrode might be 1 millimetre in size, but the electronics ground plane could couple to objects 100 millimetres in size. There can also be extreme aspect ratios, e.g. a sensor with submillimetre gaps between printed circuit board (PCB) layers that extend for 10s of millimetres. If a straightforward finite element method approach is taken for a 3D model, this can result in a large model that is slow to solve. Furthermore, the geometry is likely to have at least one moving part, and running the model over a range of positions can take an inordinate amount of time. Register for this webinar to learn about: FEM and BEM methods for capacitive modelling with COMSOL Multiphysics Multi-scale simulation using equivalent circuit models Combining resistance and capacitance predictions…

  • EU toughens cyber-security rules across the continent

    The European Union (EU) is doubling down in its fight against cyber crime. On Friday (May 13), EU countries and lawmakers agreed to impose tougher cyber-security rules for large energy, transport and financial firms, as well as digital providers and medical device makers, amid concerns about cyber attacks by state actors and other malicious players. The decision was taken as a response to the rise in online threats brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The new policy builds on existing rules proposed by the European Commission in 2020, known as the NIS 2 Directive , which, in turn, expands on the scope of the current NIS Directive. The new rules cover all medium and large companies in essential sectors: energy; transport; banking; financial market infrastructure; health; vaccines…

  • View from India: Security is of paramount importance in 5G

    The pandemic has compelled industries to rely on remote work and minimise human interaction in their operations. As a result, automation has gained precedence. Now industries and manufacturing units are moving to the next frontier for scaling up levels of efficiency. The convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) as well as a shift from industrial automation to industrial autonomy (IA2IA) could enable better efficiency and connected ecosystems. 5G could be a choice for reliable connectivity. Characterised by ultra-low latency and high speed, 5G will connect billions of wireless devices, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This will give a new dimension to smart cities, transportation, warehousing and healthcare among others. What was unthinkable will…

  • Interview: Beth Holmes, principal knowledge engineer, Amazon Alexa

    In Recent years, voice activation has become ubiquitous, with Amazon’s cloud-based voice service Alexa a main player featuring on more than 100 million devices worldwide. Beth Holmes, who is principal knowledge engineer on Amazon Alexa, says there are billions of interactions with these devices per week. Holmes has been with the product since November 2014, when “a small multi­disciplinary team launched Amazon Echo, with the aspiration of revolutionising daily convenience using artificial intelligence”. Before that, she was part of the technology team at start-up Evi Technologies, whose acquisition by Amazon meant its natural language AI program became a key component underpinning Alexa. The statistics are mind-boggling. Holmes provides a screed of numbers. There are more than 200 million…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Net-zero flight to take to the skies in 2023

    Grant Shapps has announced his plans for a competition to encourage the aviation industry to deliver the world’s first transatlantic flight fuelled purely by environmentally friendly aviation fuel by the end of next year. The announcement was made during a speech to industry leaders in the US, in which the transport secretary challenged the sector to deliver the net-zero emissions flight between the UK and America.  The flight will be supported by up to £1 million of competition funding made available from 2022 to 2023 to support the testing, research and personnel costs of the flight, which will use 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The competition is open to airlines, fuel producers, aircraft or engine manufacturers and fuel suppliers. “This trailblazing net-zero emissions…

  • Book review: ‘Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide’

    Unlike other literary genres - fiction, fantasy, creative non-fiction etc – guide books as a rule enjoy a much shorter lifespan, with some already getting out of date by the time of their publication. The notable exception here are the classic ‘handbooks’ - Baedekers, Murrays, Blue Guides, Warlocks, and others - whose readability and informative value, curiously enough, tend to increase with time, alongside their retail prices. Some rare vintage Baedekers, for example, will easily set you back several thousand pounds. And, believe me, they are well worth the price; there’s no greater delight for a knowledge-hungry traveller than to criss-cross the globe with a hundred-year-old Baedeker or Murray which provide the wanderer with a truly unique perspective not only in space, but also in time.…

  • US and UK partner for future commercial spaceflight missions

    The United Kingdom and the United States have signed a collaboration agreement to boost the countries' respective space industries. The agreement will allow firms from both countries to operate from spaceports in either location. Britain said the partnership, signed by transport minister Grant Shapps and his US counterpart, Pete Buttigieg, in Washington this week, would make spaceflight “easier and cheaper”. The move is also expected to “cut down red tape” and reduce the regulatory burden to operators, in order to achieve greater efficiencies and a reduction in costs, resources and duplication while maintaining stringent safety standards. The partnership will also see the two countries collaborate on the licensing of commercial space launches, and provide benefits including critical defence…

  • Gadgets: Miele Boost CX1, Ikea Starkvind table, bamboo electric toothbrush and more

    Miele Boost CX1 Miele’s smallest ever vacuum cleaner, corded and bagless, ideal for homes with scant storage space. It’s small but mighty, with a footprint smaller than an open magazine but powerful suction and filtration and a 10m reach from the socket. The Cat & Dog and Parquet models add a HEPA filter. From £269 miele.co.uk Humax Wi-Fi Smart Plug This cheap-as-chips gizmo gives any mains-powered device smart app control, including Alexa and Google voice commands, timers and IFTTT home automation. It also monitors energy use, so you can spot ‘vampire’ devices wasting electricity while they’re on standby. £14.95 humaxdirect.co.uk Bambooi Bio Max ...

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Letters to the editor: volume 17, issue 5

    Let’s learn more from the planet’s best computer I would like to fully agree (well almost) with David Zilli’s suggestion that artificial intelligence needs to work smarter, not harder ( Comment, April 2022 ). The most successful project on the planet must be the six-million-year-old development of a carbon-based computer, the human brain. In all projects, there is normally a lessons-learnt phase. Artificial neural networks stem from a concept formed over 60 years ago. Only recently, in around the past 15 years, has computing technology been able to make good use of the AI concept. Feeding a neural network lots more training data does not necessarily make it smarter. It will start to identify coincidences and draw parallels that are incorrect, or, worse, solutions will be misleading. Isn…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • How smartphones and computer vision can take security to a new level

    Holography has helped to bring smartphone digital interaction closer in the brand protection and authentication space as security technology discovers new outlets and applications. In turn, this is driving continued expansion, with an increasing number of organisations accepting the advantages holograms offer and investing in digital-based interactive solutions to protect their products against global brand piracy and counterfeiters. In particular, myriad opportunities are emerging for brand protection and anti-counterfeiting through hologram validation using computer vision on smartphones. The use of smartphones with integrated cameras has been transformative, and image and video content captured on these devices dominates so much of contemporary life through social media, entertainment…

  • Solar power imports from Morocco could ‘cut energy bills’, says developer

    Octopus Energy Group yesterday announced a financial and strategic partnership with developer Xlinks, which plans to lay four 3,800km-long subsea cables to connect a huge solar farm in the Moroccan desert with Devon in Southwest England. Neither company has disclosed the financial details of the deal, but they say the plan will supply 3.6GW of reliable, clean power to the UK for an average of 20 hours a day, enough green energy to power about seven million heat pumps all year round. Simon Morrish, chief executive of Xlinks, said the partnership presented “an enormous opportunity to bring down energy bills significantly and help the UK achieve net zero”.   However, it will be a number of years before impacts will be seen. The project is still in the development phase, with Xlinks currently…

  • Musk’s Twitter deal ‘temporarily on hold’

    Musk, Tesla's billionaire owner, agreed a £34.5bn deal in principle to take over the social media giant last month, pledging to improve what he considers to be limitations around free speech on the site and also to remove fake accounts. In a pre-dawn tweet today (Friday 13 May, a date perhaps not entirely coincidental), Musk said the deal is now on hold “pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 per cent of users”. His tweet linked to a report published earlier this month which said Twitter estimates spam and fake accounts comprise less than 5 per cent of its daily users. It is unclear why Musk now considers this detail a potential dealbreaker. It is known that the terms of the deal include a $1bn termination fee that Musk would be…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

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