Forget plastic surgery....print a new face

Researchers’ rights here in NC are developing a system that is capable of printing skin on top of burn woods. Using a laser scanner to determine width and depth, then converting those scans to three-dimensional images and calculating the number of layers of skin that's needed, this system has successfully printed skin patches on pigs. It is hard to imagine that this is all contained within one device, which is also portable. Professor James Yoo, from the institute of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University has a group working on just that. Using 3-D printers that deposit material layer by layer and expanding the range of materials capable of being fabricated to include biological materials, his group has printed skin directly on top of burn wounds.
3-D printing has also been demonstrated by a Cornell University professor who used a computer file containing three-dimensional coordinates and a scan of a human ear to print a silicon gel human ear.
This technology could really be helpful to burn victims and others who have been dis figured, there may one day be systems that can "print" organs and bones. I wonder will there be cosmetic applications available so people could.....forget plastic surgery, just have a new face printed.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-3d-bio-printers-skin-body.html

Use your powers for good

On a side note, this guy and his gang used a mp3 player to hack into several ATM machines. They would unplug the phone line that was connected to the ATM, and plug it into a two-way adapter. The mp3 player would then be plugged between the ATM and the phone socket to record the noise made by the ATM machine. This noise contains data, which was then deciphered using computer software (not identified). This information was used to clone credit cards and make fraudulent purchases. So, use your powers for good ….he got 32 months in jail.
http://www.hiptechblog.com/2010/01/31/atms-hacked-using-mp3-player/

Nanowire batteries

Enable IPC is now working on a battery that will utilize wires that are 1000 times smaller than a human hair. The fact that these wires are small is essential to this new technology. These wires allow for less waste and greater efficiency. The energy produced by a battery is determined by the amount of mass of the cathode (more cathode material, more atoms means more electrons available to produce energy). A typical battery consists of a cathode (+) and an anode (-) and a electrolyte, power is created by the electron flow from the cathode (+) to the anode (-), then out through an external circuit.

The surface area of the cathode material is the opening that these electrons use to get to the anode area of the battery. Nanowires, due to their small size greatly increase the surface area of the cathode material and allow for more power to be released. The anodes in conventional batteries are made from carbon. The nanowires made from silicon have a capacity to absorb ten times more energy than carbon. Silicon is a material that changes little at the nanoscale level.

One approach to creating nanowires is to use a CVD (Chemical vapor deposition), a group of processes where solids are formed from gas. Catalysts are deposited on a base, called a substrate. The substrate is placed in a gas chamber with silicon, the atoms in the gas attach to the catalyst atoms, which creates a chain. This chain of atoms is the nanowire.


The advantages of this technology will create batteries with increased life expectancy and safer environmental effects. These improvements are expected to improve the performance of batteries in iPods, laptops, digital and video cameras and other electronic devices.
http://www.enableipc.com/technology.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?Nanowire-Batteries---The-Most-Exciting-Technological-Advancement-In-Recent-Years&id=4996317

Nano-imprintlithography

LED lights have been around for a long time. There benefit is that they use less power and have a longer life span. A disadvantage of LED lighting is low output. Now there is the technology of nano-imprintlithography. This process can make millions of microscopic holes on the surface of a LED light bulb, increasing the output of light.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nano-imprintlithography+in+LED+lighting&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

A nano particle is an aggregate of particles banded together within a radius between 1 and 100 nm. Nano-technology is the engineering of products at the molecular or atomic level. Nanoimprinting is based on mechanical embossing (stamping process) technologies and can achieve pattern resolutions on nanostructures. A mold containing the nanoscale patterns is embossed on a polymer material that is cast on a wafer substrate. This polymer material is applied at a thickness that allows a fluid to form between the mold’s protrusions and the substrate surface. This creates a cushion that protects the nano features on the mold. This is removed by anisotropic etching, and then pattern definition can be completed.
http://www.nnin.org/doc/2004NNINreuFroelich.pdf

It will also be used for pattern imprinting on microdrives for Iphones and MP3 players.

http://www.electroiq.com/index/display/nanotech-article-display/260007/articles/small-times/volume-6/issue-4/features/cover-story/pushing-the-limits-of-light.htmlyers.

Invisibility,...sort of

Yes invisibility does exist. There is technology that can make things invisible by relying on metamaterial and nanotechnology (metamaterial, an emerging technology will be discussed here later in the semester). These materials required a lot of finessing and if made exact enough and at certain angles and light wavelengths, objects behind them disappear.
Now there is a new technology that does not rely on this fabricated material. Researchers from MIT (University of Birmingham, London's Imperial College and Denmark's Technical University also) are using a natural occurring material called calcite to build a carpet cloak. The cloak refers to a device that makes an object invisible. The bottom of the calcite is notched with triangles, or made into two triangles and glued together, which from some angles will appear as a flat plane, but is actually more like a bent mirror. The light enters the calcite and is actually going in different directions at different speeds, resulting in the object being rendered invisible. The optical quality of the calcite will hide any object that is behind the notch or behind the triangles. As you know objects are seen by light being reflected off their surfaces, the calcite has properties that bend light waves. The cloak itself can be seen, but the object behind it is not.
http://factoidz.com/invisibility-cloak-scientists-make-objects-disappear-from-view/http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/invisibility-calcite-crystals/