This EMP Cannon Gun (to halt cars immediate )

6/10/2010 10:59:00 AM gadgets No Comments

This EMP Cannon Gun (to halt cars immediate )


We've heard of electromagnetic pulses cutting steel in milliseconds, but apparently they can also be used to stop moving cars just as fast. The cannon demonstrated in the video here is still a prototype, but it definitely seems to work.

The idea is that an electromagnetic pulse would be used to disable a car's microprocessors, chips, and whatever other electronics are keeping it running. The final "cannon" system, built by Eureka Aerospace, will apparently a bit smaller and lighter than what we see in the video—it'll be suitcase-sized and about 50 pounds—and it will "stop cars in their tracks up to 656 feet (200 m) away."

I wish they tested that cannon on a moving car, but it does just what it should by disabling the car's electrical system. Only trouble is that even once the system is perfected and in use it can still be foiled easily: By using a pre-1970s car which doesn't "rely on microprocessors." Whoops.

Read More

Bionic Hand for disabled

6/06/2010 09:57:00 PM gadgets No Comments

Bionic Hand for Disabled.

The long deserted issue, the human body, has come across the industrial designer’s path, resulting the innovative and functional METIS concept that has been designed to redefine the future of human. Being connected with the human nervous system, this prosthesis concept can provide an amputee his access to the existing virtual dimensions around us by giving back his limb. Moreover, only if you can overlook the reality of a flesh and blood hand, this prosthesis features more advanced technologies than a real hand such as 360 degrees rotating ability of the arm, 3G, Wi-Fi, LCD display and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to power the electric elements. With all these functional features, who knows, maybe future people will consider altering their real hand with METIS.

Read More

Generating Power from a Heart

6/06/2010 09:47:00 PM gadgets, Science 1 Comment

Generating Power from a Heart

Nanowire generators could one day lead to medical devices powered by the patient's own heart.

A tiny, nearly invisible nanowire can convert the energy of pulsing, flexing muscles inside a rat's body into electric current, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have shown. Their nano generator could someday lead to medical implants and sensors powered by heartbeats or breathing.

Zinc oxide nanowires show the piezoelectric effect, producing electricity when they are under mechanical stress. Georgia Tech professor of materials science and engineering Zhong Lin Wang and his group first demonstrated these nanowire generators in 2005. Since then they have made devices that can harness the energy of a running hamster and tapping fingers, and have also combined their piezoelectric nanowires with solar cells.

In their latest work, published in the journal Advanced Materials, Wang's team shows that the nanogenerator works inside a live animal. The researchers deposited a zinc oxide nanowire on a flexible polymer substrate and encapsulated the device in a polymer casing to shield it from body fluids. It was then attached to a rat's diaphragm. The rodent's breathing stretched the nanowire, and the device generated four picoamperes of current at two millivolts. When attached to a rat's heart, the device gave 30 picoamperes at three millivolts.

Zinc oxide nanogenerators would be an ideal power source for nano-scale sensors that monitor blood pressure or glucose levels and detect cancer biomarkers. These can run on low power levels of about one microwatt, but they need a long-lasting nano-sized power source instead of a battery to be truly nano scale. "Our ultimate goal is to make self-powered nano devices for medical applications," says Wang.



The femtowatt scale of power generated by the devices is far too low to be practical right now (power = current x voltage). But that should change soon, Zhang says. While the researchers have only tested a single nanowire device inside a rat, they have also built a device that integrates hundreds of nanowires in an array. This device, which the researchers recently reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, gives an output current of about 100 nanoamperes at 1.2 volts, producing 0.12 microwatts of power. Wang says the next step is to connect this higher-output nanogenerator to a nano sensor inside an animal.

Better piezoelectric materials than zinc oxide nanowires exist and are also being considered for biomedical applications. The most efficient piezoelectric material known is PZT, a compound of lead, zirconium, and titanium. It is 10 times more efficient than zinc oxide at converting mechanical stress into electric current, says Michael McAlpine, a mechanical engineering professor at Princeton University. By sandwiching PZT between silicone pieces, he has made a material that can harvest 80 percent of the energy applied when flexed. Like Wang, he is focusing on using the material to power medical implants.

Read More