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Bulletproof material fights bugs
Technology
TO SOUP up your bulletproof vest, why not make it antibacterial, too? Jie Luo and Yuyu Sun of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion have done just that, using a molecule called polymethacrylamide (PMAA). The pair dipped Kevlar fabric – used in fire-retardant clothing and bulletproof vests – in a solution of PMAA and baked it at 110 °C. Next they washed the coated fabric in a mild bleach, where the chlorine atoms converted the ends of the PMAA molecules into N-halamines, which kill many pathogens. The fabric retained Kevlar’s toughness and thermal properties, and killed off E. coli and staphylococcus, a virus called MS2, the fungus candida, and bacillus spores (Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, DOI: 10.1021/ie800021p).
2
watts. The power used by the CherryPal desktop computer, according to its maker. A typical PC uses more than 100 watts
–Find me a face, any face–
Shoe sensors help monitor balance
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
Vest stops more than bullets
Kumar. “The selected faces are aligned to common 3D coordinates, corrected for colour and lighting, and blended into the target image.” The end result is a convincing face rather than a blur, although the team’s images (tinyurl.com/6ehog5) can be spooky, especially when people get features from the opposite sex. What’s more, the software works automatically. “Previous face replacement software required manual assistance, much like editing an image in Photoshop,” says Kumar. Aside from Street View, the system could be used to obscure the faces of military personnel or eyewitnesses to crime. It could also allow amateur photographers to improve group shots, by replacing frowning faces with better photos of the same people.
Graphene, atom-thick sheets of carbon, is the strongest material ever measured Graphene sheet (1 atom thick) supports 2.9 micronewtons
A sheet 100 micrometres thick (equivalent of plastic food wrap) would support a 2-tonne pick-up
FALLS are the leading cause of accidental death in people over 65. Now technology developed for astronauts could help to monitor those at greatest risk. When astronauts return home after months in zero gravity, they have their balance tested. A sensor tracks their changing centre of mass as the floor and walls of the box they are standing in slide
and tilt. A version of the software used in this system has now been developed to fit inside a shoe. Erez Lieberman of HarvardMIT Health Sciences and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues created an insole containing sensors that detect pressure changes when the wearer’s foot moves. The data is passed to a control box outside the shoe, before being sent wirelessly to a computer that could report balance problems to a doctor.
GIZMO
SKINNY BUT TOUGH
Is that person on the phone your friend, an impostor or a prankster? You can find out by taking advantage of the unique way every human ear canal reflects sound – its “otoacoustic signature”. In a US patent filed last week, Alcatel Lucent of France claims that callers can be identified by sending a few clicks down the line and comparing the echo from the ear canal to a database of these otoacoustic signatures. SOURCE: SCIENCE/COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
After finding itself in hot water with privacy advocates, Google has begun obscuring the faces of people in its Street View service, which lets users of Google Maps zoom in to view street level images. But the images look decidedly odd, with whole streets peopled by blurred faces. It needn’t be this way, says Neeraj Kumar of Columbia University, New York. Kumar and his colleagues have developed software that gives everyone a face – just not their own. The software randomly selects 33,000 photos of faces from picture-sharing sites like Flickr. com, then picks the most suitable faces for each person in shot. Only the eyes, nose and mouth are used, resulting in a composite image of the two people. “It matches subject pose, lighting conditions and image resolution,” says
STREETVIEW/GOOGLE 2008
TWO FACES BETTER THAN ONE
UK defence firm Qinetiq is developing an uncrewed surveillance aircraft that can fly like a plane and hover like a helicopter. Previous aircraft have done this by using swivelling propellers, but in Qinetiq’s case the entire vehicle tilts upwards into a nose-up vertical position. When vertical its wings exert no aerodynamic lift, but very high thrust from the propellers, pointing straight up, keep the craft hovering.
“You can’t make fake urine” John Lewis, head of life-support systems for the Orion space capsule at NASA, on why the agency wants its workers’ urine. Designers of the capsule – which will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and the moon – need to find a way to dispose of stored urine (Chinaview.cn, 16 July)
www.newscientist.com
26 July 2008 | NewScientist | 23
TO SOUP up your bulletproof vest, why not make it antibacterial, too? Jie Luo and Yuyu Sun of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion have done just that, using a molecule called polymethacrylamide (PMAA). The pair dipped Kevlar fabric – used in fire-retardant clothing and bulletproof vests – in a solution of PMAA and baked it at 110 °C. Next they washed the coated fabric in a mild bleach, where the chlorine atoms converted the ends of the PMAA molecules into N-halamines, which kill many pathogens. The fabric retained Kevlar’s toughness and thermal properties, and killed off E. coli and staphylococcus, a virus called MS2, the fungus candida, and bacillus spores (Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, DOI: 10.1021/ie800021p).
2
watts. The power used by the CherryPal desktop computer, according to its maker. A typical PC uses more than 100 watts
–Find me a face, any face–
Shoe sensors help monitor balance
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
Vest stops more than bullets
Kumar. “The selected faces are aligned to common 3D coordinates, corrected for colour and lighting, and blended into the target image.” The end result is a convincing face rather than a blur, although the team’s images (tinyurl.com/6ehog5) can be spooky, especially when people get features from the opposite sex. What’s more, the software works automatically. “Previous face replacement software required manual assistance, much like editing an image in Photoshop,” says Kumar. Aside from Street View, the system could be used to obscure the faces of military personnel or eyewitnesses to crime. It could also allow amateur photographers to improve group shots, by replacing frowning faces with better photos of the same people.
Graphene, atom-thick sheets of carbon, is the strongest material ever measured Graphene sheet (1 atom thick) supports 2.9 micronewtons
A sheet 100 micrometres thick (equivalent of plastic food wrap) would support a 2-tonne pick-up
FALLS are the leading cause of accidental death in people over 65. Now technology developed for astronauts could help to monitor those at greatest risk. When astronauts return home after months in zero gravity, they have their balance tested. A sensor tracks their changing centre of mass as the floor and walls of the box they are standing in slide
and tilt. A version of the software used in this system has now been developed to fit inside a shoe. Erez Lieberman of HarvardMIT Health Sciences and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues created an insole containing sensors that detect pressure changes when the wearer’s foot moves. The data is passed to a control box outside the shoe, before being sent wirelessly to a computer that could report balance problems to a doctor.
GIZMO
SKINNY BUT TOUGH
Is that person on the phone your friend, an impostor or a prankster? You can find out by taking advantage of the unique way every human ear canal reflects sound – its “otoacoustic signature”. In a US patent filed last week, Alcatel Lucent of France claims that callers can be identified by sending a few clicks down the line and comparing the echo from the ear canal to a database of these otoacoustic signatures. SOURCE: SCIENCE/COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
After finding itself in hot water with privacy advocates, Google has begun obscuring the faces of people in its Street View service, which lets users of Google Maps zoom in to view street level images. But the images look decidedly odd, with whole streets peopled by blurred faces. It needn’t be this way, says Neeraj Kumar of Columbia University, New York. Kumar and his colleagues have developed software that gives everyone a face – just not their own. The software randomly selects 33,000 photos of faces from picture-sharing sites like Flickr. com, then picks the most suitable faces for each person in shot. Only the eyes, nose and mouth are used, resulting in a composite image of the two people. “It matches subject pose, lighting conditions and image resolution,” says
STREETVIEW/GOOGLE 2008
TWO FACES BETTER THAN ONE
UK defence firm Qinetiq is developing an uncrewed surveillance aircraft that can fly like a plane and hover like a helicopter. Previous aircraft have done this by using swivelling propellers, but in Qinetiq’s case the entire vehicle tilts upwards into a nose-up vertical position. When vertical its wings exert no aerodynamic lift, but very high thrust from the propellers, pointing straight up, keep the craft hovering.
“You can’t make fake urine” John Lewis, head of life-support systems for the Orion space capsule at NASA, on why the agency wants its workers’ urine. Designers of the capsule – which will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and the moon – need to find a way to dispose of stored urine (Chinaview.cn, 16 July)
www.newscientist.com
26 July 2008 | NewScientist | 23