• Monitor developed to detect Covid-19 infections in a room within minutes

    The team at Washington University in St. Louis combined recent advances in aerosol sampling technology and an ultrasensitive biosensing technique to develop this new device, which is able to detect any of the SARS-CoV-2 virus variants in a room in around five minutes. The device is cheap to produce and can monitor the presence of a virus in a room in real-time. In addition to Covid-19, it could also be used to prevent the spread of  other respiratory virus aerosols, such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). “There is nothing at the moment that tells us how safe a room is,” said Professor John Cirrito , one of the study's authors. “If you are in a room with 100 people, you don’t want to find out five days later whether you could be sick or not. The idea with this device is…

  • Book review: ‘Confessions of an AI Brain’

    There are two major problems confronting any author wishing to write a manual on artificial intelligence. The first is that by the time you’ve written it, the glacial pace of the book publishing world has effectively rendered your work obsolete before the ink has dried. Second, there are simply so many books produced on the subject that it’s virtually impossible to find a differentiating niche. ‘Confessions of an AI Brain’ (Springer, £25.00, ISBN 9783031259340) overcomes the first issue paradoxically by not attempting to say anything new, while the second is countered by the clever literary construction of telling the story from the first-person viewpoint of the AI ‘brain’ itself. Miranda – as authors Elena Fersman, Paul Pettersson and Athanasios Karapantelakis have called their AI brain…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Robots deny they would rebel against humans in UN news conference

    Over the weekend, the United Nations (UN) organised an AI summit to discuss the future of artificial intelligence (AI) how robotics could help governments and organisations meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The Geneva summit included what was described as the world's first robot-human press conference, where journalists were invited to ask the robots questions about their expanding abilities. The conference included  Sophia, the first robot innovation ambassador for the UN Development Program (UNDP); healthcare roboy Grace; Ai-Da, a humanoid robot artist, and Desdemona, a rock-star robot . “We have to engage and ensure a responsible future with AI,” explained ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who took pictures with Sophia.  Built by Hanson Robotics, Sophia has…

  • The six-billion-dollar post-human

    “Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.” If you were a kid during the 1970s, ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ was peak TV and, arguably, James Bond’s closest cultural competitor. Virtually everyone could recite its opening narration. But while 007’s main physiological attribute was an indestructible liver, Steve Austin was cybernetically enhanced with two superstrength legs and an arm, and a computerised eye. His creators were inspired by work being done even then towards increasingly capable prostheses for severely wounded veterans and other amputees (the fictional Austin was a horrifically…

  • The rising and controversial trend of catching killers using genetic genealogy

    Visit any police website across the UK and you will be met with rows of faces – each one belonging to the victim of a crime that has yet to be solved. As of March 2022, the last full year for which we have statistics, only 5.6 per cent of crimes in the UK secured a conviction. At the same time, Home Office figures show sex offences hit a record high, homicides were up 25 per cent, and 2.4 million cases were closed due to “evidential difficulties”, without police ever identifying a suspect. There is a relatively nascent technology that has potential to reverse such trends, called forensic or investigative genetic genealogy (IGG). It’s been both lauded a success and had its legality called into question, and as officials decide its fate, we look at where the battle lines have been drawn. …

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Thames Water shareholders to pump £750m into the service

    Thames Water's shareholders have agreed to a £750m funding deal to the end of March 2025, less than the £1bn the company expected to ensure it avoids nationalisation. The supplier said the agreement is a “major milestone”, but the group admitted that “significantly” greater support will be needed in following years for its turnaround to be delivered. When discussing the possibility of further support from shareholders for the period 2025-2030, Thames Water said it “will depend on the finalisation of the business plan and the regulatory framework that will apply”. Thames Water is the UK’s biggest water supplier. The company has 15 million customers, serving households across London and the South East. However, the company’s annual results showed the utilities supplier has accumulated…

  • Lithium and the dream of Cornwall’s mining revival

    Lithium, the lightest metal element, is a vital resource for the energy transition. It is used in batteries for EVs and grid-scale energy storage – a single Tesla Model S battery contains 12kg of lithium. Cornwall happens to be sitting on a massive lithium deposit, prompting former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to describe it as the “Klondike of lithium”. Would-be miners – most notably the companies British Lithium and Cornish Lithium, both based in the county – have descended on the Cornish landscape, poring over old geological maps to search for buried treasure. At present, there is no full-scale operation or any certainty of a full-scale operation. However, pilot projects have yielded encouraging results, and the companies hope that by 2030 they could be extracting thousands of tonnes of…

  • In the realm of seven animal senses

    Ever since humankind created the industrial system, we’ve been finding ways to streamline the task. We started by replicating the five ‘traditional’ human senses to count objects, weigh them, record sounds, check pH and detect gases. Sensing technology in the 20th century reproduced the human sensor array and gave us the power of mass manufacturing. We also took our first steps out of the human realm and investigated the field of biomimicry that gave us echolocation and the ability to ‘see’ outside the visible light spectrum. All these sensors, along with decades of immense computing strides that led to today’s AI, have been combined to powerful effect: we can predict weather and natural disasters, navigate to extraordinary accuracy using our smartphones, and take photographs in the dark…

  • Mapping drones aid in wildlife monitoring and conservation

    In order to develop a conservation plan for a species, scientists need to know how many animals there are, where they are, and how they use the environment. The same data is needed when human changes to an environment take place so that the impact can first be anticipated, and then can be mitigated from the outset. The introduction of offshore wind farms or the conversion of rainforest habitat to palm oil production can have major impacts on the animals that live there. The usual way to get this data was to put biologists’ boots on the ground – not so easy when the animal is nocturnal and cryptic, or lives most of its life underwater, or in extremely remote areas in challenging conditions. Serge Wich, a conservation biologist and professor of primate biology at Liverpool John Moores University…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Recreating the ‘sixth sense’ and other human sensory abilities in machines

    Precisely how many senses we have depends on how we define them, and it’s far from an exact science. For example, the number could be as small as three if we count physical categories of incoming information (mechanical, chemical and light), or it could run to hundreds or thousands if we count types of receptors in the human body. Sensory expert John Henshaw of the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, thinks we may have nine senses, adding balance, temperature, pain and proprioception (awareness of the position and action of the parts of our body) to Aristotle’s original list of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. While quantifying the senses is interesting, scientists are more interested in recreating them. This could lead to robots with enhanced human-like sensory capabilities and to more…

  • Hands-on review: Lenco PDR-046GY Eco DAB+ Radio

    Despite what streaming music and video services might have you believe, radio lives - and is thriving. All those pop songs about how great the radio is must be paying off. Listening numbers are up across the board: people still want that friendly, familiar voice to accompany them through their day, whether it's mostly concerned with pop, rock, classical, news or sport. Lenco's rather prosaically named PDR-046GY radio is a neat and stylish portable device, offering both DAB+ and FM radio signals (no AM/MW/LW) as well as Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless connections and an Aux In socket for your favourite legacy equipment still performing well (hello, 2005 iPod shuffle). There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack. Image credit: Lenco This being 2023, Lenco has also taken steps…

  • View from India: Draft bill aims to protect digital personal data

    The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill is legislation that will govern the use and protection of personal data in the country. It takes into account the rights and responsibilities of citizens or Digital Nagriks and data fiduciaries. The aim is to ensure lawful and transparent data collection and usage. The draft had been thrown open for public feedback in November 2022, prompting several suggestions for amendments. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, has stated that the DPDP Bill will bring about significant behavioural changes among platforms in India, especially in cases that have exploited or misused personal data. The Bill probably needs to be viewed in its context. We need to go back to 2018 when Justice BN Srikrishna…

  • Drones used to look for sharks off the coast of New York

    Although sharks used to be rare in New York, the increase in sightings of these animals during the summer has prompted the use of new technologies to ensure people's safety.  Over two days this week, five people have reported being bitten by sharks at some of New York’s most popular beaches, with a 10-foot (three-metre) shark being spotted yesterday, Thursday 6 July, at Robert Moses State Park, in Long Island. This same beach also  delayed its opening on July 4th after a drone spotted a group of 50 sand sharks off the coast. “We are now more vigilant than ever,” said George Gorman, the state’s park director in Long Island. “We have drones in the sky that watch over the waters. We have lifeguards on WaveRunners that watch over the waters.” Shark sightings have increased over the last…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Wikipedia could stop being accessible in the UK due to Online Safety Law

    The government has been warned that the requirements of the new bill regulating the online world could lead to users losing access to Wikipedia. This is due to fears that the law could lead to "age-gating" the website, which currently does not require age verification. In order to avoid it, peers have suggested adding a regulatory exemption to the legislation that would cover sites which are considered low risk for harm and provide a public good. “There is a material risk that, without further amendment or clarification, then Wikipedia and other similar services may feel they can no longer operate in the United Kingdom," said Lord Allan of Hallam. The former Facebook director of policy in Europe argued  that sites should be exempt from the scope of the Bill if they are for the purpose…

  • Hands-on review: Unistellar eVscope 2

    This smart telescope aims to hit the ‘Goldilocks’ spot. You can get larger models with larger optics, that deliver more detail, but they’re too bulky to carry with you. You can get smaller models that are highly portable, but the image quality suffers as a consequence. Unistellar hopes that the eVscope 2 is just about right. You can use it in the garden but also grab and go, using it anywhere. The telescope is portable and comes with a large rucksack. A tall ‘going on my Duke of Edinburgh Award hike’ sized rucksack, designed with cushioning to fit the telescope well and space on the outside to strap on the supplied full-size tripod. It’s a neat setup with a premium feel - and portable enough that you absolutely could hike to the top of a mountain to stargaze. Telescope-wise, it’s a 4.5…

  • In search of lost taste

    Eighteen years ago, Duncan Boak was on a night out with friends when he tripped and fell backwards down a flight of stairs, crunching his head against a concrete floor. When he was discharged from hospital and ate his first meal, it tasted of nothing. It was then that he realised he could not smell. On visiting his GP, Boak was “met with a shrug” and told that there was nothing that could be done about it. Several years later, he came across a book which recounted the story of a woman with a similar experience to his own. It was thus that he learnt about the work of German scientist Professor Thomas Hummel – a smell and taste loss expert based at TU Dresden – and was inspired to get in touch with him. Boak spoke with Hummel and other specialists about the subject, became a lay expert, and…

  • Fusing biology with the bionic ear

    If Beethoven, who died in the early 1800s, had gone deaf today, his experience would have been very different. That is thanks to the cochlear implant. Developed in the 1960s, it is the first ever bionic device created to restore a sensory organ and has now been fitted in over a million people. Although not perfect, almost every recipient will eventually understand speech, even in modest background noise. Yet, beside incremental improvements to the implant’s algorithms and coding systems over 40 years of operation, the underlying technology has largely remained unchanged, even though the number of research publications on the topic have tripled per decade in the last 30 years. This could soon change. New research is seeking to combine gene therapy with improvements in the mechanical…

  • ‘Floundering’ HS2 Euston project could rise in costs without a clear plan, MPs warn

    In its latest report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has blamed the delays incurred in the building of the London Euston HS2 station on government indecision.  "Despite spending over eight years on planning and designing the HS2 Euston station, the department still does not know what it is trying to achieve with the station," the MPs said. HS2 was  given the go ahead in 2020 despite a decade of  sharply rising costs  and repeated delays to the original project timeframe. However, earlier this year, work at the line's Euston station was paused due to inflationary pressures coupled with the UK’s struggling finances. The DfT said it remained "committed to delivering HS2 in the most cost-effective way". Protests against HS2 at Euston station in September 2021/ Dreamstime

  • Sniffing out the true value of smell

    One of the symptoms of the bubonic plague is a nasty-smelling rash on the skin. In the 17th century, people carried an assortment of fragrant herbs to mask the smell. (The rash is the ‘ring o’ roses’ and the herbs are the ‘pocketful of posies’ in the nursery rhyme.) As medicine has advanced, understanding smell rather than masking it has become an area of research. Gas sensors can test the components in someone’s breath to indicate some diseases. In 2018, Fujitsu Laboratories developed a portable breath sensor as an alternative to large analytic instruments used to detect high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. The breath sensor analyses gas components which enter the breath from the body’s organs, and which evaporate in the lungs to be exhaled in the breath. Specific gas components can…

  • SpaceX to launch satellite internet service in Mongolia

    Millions of internet users in Mongolia will be able to access high-speed connection via Starlink, the satellite communications service operated by SpaceX, the government said in a statement today (7 July). Starlink has built a fast-growing network of more than 3,500 satellites in low-Earth orbit that can provide connectivity in remote areas. "A network of fibre-optic cables already provides wide-reaching access to high-speed internet across Mongolia, but this technology will provide greater access to hard-to-reach areas," said Uchral Nyam-Osor, the Mongolian minister for digital development and communications. "Herders, farmers, businesses and miners living and working across our vast country will be able to access and use information from all over the world to improve their lives." …

  • Letters to the editor: volume 18, issue 7

    Addressing rural ‘not spots’ should take priority over 6G The article in the July 2023 issue of IET Member News  regarding the ‘Why 6G?’ conference held earlier this year got me thinking. As a former chief engineer at Nokia Networks, I am 100 per cent supportive of research and development into mobile communication technologies. What concerns me is the growing gulf between R&D and deployment. Where I have retired to in rural Wiltshire, there are vast areas where the best mobile communications technology available is 3G, not even 4G let alone 5G. The planned switching-off of 3G – indeed, Vodafone has announced it will start switching off 3G from July this year – will leave most of the rural areas I drive through as mobile data ‘not spots’ with only 2G coverage. I’m not counting GPRS and…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Could EV battery health scupper progress to net zero?

    With the residual price of electric vehicles softening recently, due to supply constraints improving for new EV production as well as ongoing concerns about the state of health of on-board batteries, industry leaders and policymakers may need to intervene to reassure motorists that used EVs are worth buying. Without this, the pace of the transition to EVs could start to slow, undermining progress to net zero. The price disparity that exists between battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and their fossil fuel-powered counterparts means that the former are likely to depreciate more quickly, simply because they are more expensive to start with. As the battery unit can account for as much as half of the overall cost of a new BEV, any degradation it may have suffered at the hands of a previous owner…

  • Book review: ‘The Deep Sky’ by Yume Kitasei

    ‘The Deep Sky’ (St Martin’s Press, £25.99, ISBN 9781250875334) is the debut novel from Brooklyn-based author Yume Kitasei. In the near future, Earth is reaching complete climate collapse – mass extinctions, refugee crises, crackling geopolitical tensions – so 80 young people are selected from a competitive programme to travel to a remote habitable planet and establish a new home for humanity. During the journey, a deliberate explosion kills three members of the crew and knocks the spaceship off course. Asuka, who witnessed the explosion, sets out to find the saboteur. ‘The Deep Sky’ presents some fascinating potential conflicts. All 80 members of the crew are expected to bear a child during the mission for the purpose of populating the distant planet, so the crew is female dominated with…

  • Robots could get muscles using a new ferroelectric material

    The team has demonstrated the potential of a  new type of ferroelectric polymer that can convert electrical energy into a mechanical strain with greater efficiency than previous methods. This material could be extremely useful in the development of medical devices, advanced robotics and precision positioning systems. This new polymer could overcome the limitations of traditional piezoelectric polymer composites. In doing so, it would offer a promising avenue for the development of soft actuators, which are materials that change shape when an external force is applied to them. In contrast to rigid actuators, soft actuators are extremely useful in the field of robotics due to  its strength, power and flexibility.  “Potentially we can now have a type of soft robotics that we refer to as…

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