Although you go to the toilet at least twice a day, you probably don't know very much about urine. Well, here's a good graphical representation to understand urine better.
(Click to enlarge the picture)
Source: Here
Remember the speech in The World in 2030 where the speaker is the famous Dr Michio Kaku? Well, if not, watch it again here. In the video, he said that as for right now, organs are being created artificially in the lab, with the aim to eliminate the need for organ donor. And this story about the success of transplanted trachea that was grown in the lab may astonish you more.
The story takes place in Sweden, where surgeons transplanted a trachea made by using the patient's stem cells. The patient, a man with his windpipe damaged due to cancer was the first donor-less organ recipient in a collaboration of surgeons between Karolinska University Hospital (Sweden) and University College (London).
The creation of trachea started with a 3D scan of the patient's windpipe. Then an exact replica of the original windpipe is created using the glass scaffold and was soaked in the patient's own stem cells, creating the trachea in a mere two days. The biggest advantage that this technique offers is the almost zero rejection from the recipient's body because of the use of his/her own stem cells. With no rejection from the body, typical anti-rejection drugs can also be eliminated from list of drugs to be consumed everyday.
The story takes place in Sweden, where surgeons transplanted a trachea made by using the patient's stem cells. The patient, a man with his windpipe damaged due to cancer was the first donor-less organ recipient in a collaboration of surgeons between Karolinska University Hospital (Sweden) and University College (London).
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| How the trachea looks like |
The success of the lab-grown trachea and the transplant might as well give some hope to the people who needs the organ for transplant. As for now, kidneys, liver, heart and lungs are among the organs that researchers hope can be created in the future. With this, we can say goodbye to donors while waiting for our new organs to be created in the lab within days.
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If you watch the English series House, you'll see how hard it is for a doctor to diagnose a disease. Well, in that series, the disease may be exaggerated in someway to give more dramatic effect towards the viewer but rest assured, now there's no need for doctors, well except a brilliant one like House. XD
A team of researchers from UC Berkeley, Dublin City University and Universidad de Valpairaiso have developed a plastic biochip using microfluids technology which can revolutionized the world of diagnosticians. The biochip, called SIMBAS (Self-Powered Integrated Microfluidic Blood Analysis System) is basically a system that can diagnosed blood disease in a matter of minutes without using the big and bulky lab equipment.
As for right now, this tool can help in detecting HIV, syphilis and mostly blood-related disease. The professor who lead this project says that this tool can help in detecting disease in developed countries very well and together with the advancement in pharmaceutical area, the disease can be treated early and very well.
Source:
http://gajitz.com/disease-detection-in-minutes-with-incredible-plastic-biochips/
http://gajitz.com/dynamic-diagnostic-tiny-plastic-card-ids-hiv-in-minutes/
The SIMBAS chip, by using tiny microfluidic channels will take the blood samples and separate the plasma from the blood cells. Using gravity to pull the blood cells towards the biomarker detection, the chip is said to be able to accurately diagnose diseases such as AIDS and Tuberculosis. What amazing about SIMBAS is its small size chip (1" by 2") is cheap to produce and does not take much space. It can be used anywhere. The third world countries may be thrilled to hear about this as it gives an accurate result. The team hope that this technology can also be used to diagnose heart disease, sepsis, cancer and other diseases that exist in developing countries.
Following the same topic, University of Columbia, recently has developed tiny plastic card that can be used to diagnosed HIV in a matter of minutes. Using basically the same microfluiditic technology, the researchers are able to produced mChip (that's what they call it) with credit card size. The conventional HIV test will need an expert to draw blood and lab equipment but by using this chip, the cost will significantly reduce, there's no need for lab equipment and we can get the result in 15 minutes.
Source:
http://gajitz.com/disease-detection-in-minutes-with-incredible-plastic-biochips/
http://gajitz.com/dynamic-diagnostic-tiny-plastic-card-ids-hiv-in-minutes/
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In this world, it is important for us to think correctly and to avoid any errors in thinking. This is important no matter who you are because if you don't think correctly, you will end up doing mistakes and that mistakes may cause something. Here I put some of the common errors in thinking and hopefully you'll always aware of it and avoid it from happening at all cost.
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| The Thinker pose. |
- Partialism. This is the major error in thinking where the thinker, only thinks about one part of the problem/thing. Usually happens because inadequacy/insufficiency of perception and information. May be intentional or unintentional.
- Time scale: This is another type of partialism in which the thinker only include a narrow slice of time. For example, an IT undergraduate students sees that his friend who works in a small business obtained RM2000++ per month without having a diploma certificate decided to leave his study and join the business. He didn't think that in the next 5 years after he graduate, he will not only get a degree certificate, but even a higher starting salary than his friend and even a faster promotion.
- Egocentricity: The thinker only think about how the situation is going to affect his own self personally. Example, you are an important person in your company and everyone in the company loves and respects you. But out of the blue you receive an offer from the other company with a higher salary and decide to leave. The error is unable to trace the effect of your action to others as everything is about you.
- Arrogance and Conseit: Arises when there is a logic explanation for something and that logic explanation is taken to be the right explaination. For example, government said that science and mathematics should be teached in English but the standard of science and math dropped after the process begins. So the logic explanation is science and math should not be taught in English as they drop the standard of the subjects and thus academic performance.
- Initial Judgement: When an idea arises, the thinker quickly judge the idea as good or bad. This error in thinking may happen due to like/dislike/position or based on social/emotion/belief. For example, when we saw a person is using a brand new car, we immediately think that he must be CEO of a company when the truth is the person borrowed his sister's car without her knowing it.
- Adversary thinking: In this process, rather than think together, the thinker always try to prove others wrong. He doesn't need to prove that his right to show that others is wrong. Example, if A claims that B is wrong, automatically people will think that A is right although he is not actually right.
- Ego-involvement: In this thinking, the thinker usually think just to protect his own ego or pride. It is usually practised by someone who is smart and famous such as politician, a teacher,professor, lecturers or managers. Usually they do this because they don't want to admit that they have made a mistake. For example, a teacher is solving a math equation using completing the square method but there is some error in the solution. A student raise their hand to say that the teacher's wrong but instead of admit his/her own mistake they say "who's the teacher here? Me or you?."
- Magnitude error: This type of error happen when the thinker can't or forgot to include the problem on the larger scale. For example, since most of the criminals are male, preventing male from going outside at night might be logic as an answer. But on the larger scale, not all male are criminals. So the answer although it is logic, it can't be used as an answer to this problem.
- Extreme thinking: This error happen when the thinker is pessimistic all the time. The pessimistic person always think of something bad although the thing is good. For example, if there is suggestion that weapon system should be introduce as one of a course in university, extreme thinker will say that if people take that course, the student will think like a terrorist and thus the next future leader is also terrorist and also cause the nation to approve terrorism.
Source:
http://www.psychology4all.com/Thinking-Errors.htmhttp://www.educ.uvic.ca/epls/faculty/rowles/typesoferrors.htm
Abby Marks-Beale, “Study Skills, The Tools for Active Learning,”Chapter 13 Developing Critical Thinking Skills – Some Common Mistakes In Thinking,Delmar Publishers Inc.,1994
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If the doomsday 2012 is proven wrong next year, let's hope that we can live for another 20 years in order to see the advancement of technology that we can have during that time that is not available right now. Even as we speak, there are lots of significant achievements made by various scientists, researchers, physicists and many other people that can help towards the easement of mankind.
Below is a lecture given by Dr Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string theory and a brilliant theoretical physicist, about how the world will be in 2030.
The advancement in metamaterial research, artificial intelligence, robots, medical breakthrough are among the things discussed in this lecture. Watch it if you want to know how the world will looks like in 2030!
Below is a lecture given by Dr Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string theory and a brilliant theoretical physicist, about how the world will be in 2030.
The advancement in metamaterial research, artificial intelligence, robots, medical breakthrough are among the things discussed in this lecture. Watch it if you want to know how the world will looks like in 2030!
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Remember the date, August 2nd 2011, because this is the beginning of robot domination throughout the world. Researchers with Hasegawa Group at Tokyo Institute of Technology now have created a robot, called Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) that is able to learn, think and act by itself.
Apparently this robot is not given any name as the true technology that is being demonstrated was the neural technology behind it. Watch the demonstration of the robot to see what it can do.
The most awesome feature in this robot is its ability to connect with other robot throughout the world via internet to ask for things that it didn't know how to do, and within a matter of time, it can learn that new thing and perform it on the spot.
Our hope is that this robot will follow the Asimov's Law of Robotics.
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-robot-ability.html
Apparently this robot is not given any name as the true technology that is being demonstrated was the neural technology behind it. Watch the demonstration of the robot to see what it can do.
The most awesome feature in this robot is its ability to connect with other robot throughout the world via internet to ask for things that it didn't know how to do, and within a matter of time, it can learn that new thing and perform it on the spot.
Our hope is that this robot will follow the Asimov's Law of Robotics.
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
- A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-robot-ability.html
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In this universe, lots of materials exist with only certain properties, therefore limiting their potential for scientific application. The creation of new material, which does not exist in nature, is important as to explore the new possibility of advancing science towards the benefit of mankind. Such a material, called a metamaterial, usually is engineered in order to have specific properties by manipulating its structure of composition.
The research in metamaterials begin when scientists were intrigued about exploring the possibility of having a negative refractive index. In positive refractive index, the light that enters a medium from one direction with an angle of incidence will be refracted towards the opposite side with a refracted angle that can be less or more than the angle of incidence depending on the medium. However in negative refractive index, the light is refracted towards the same side from the imaginary line, the property in which makes invisibility to become reality.
Metamaterial allows the impossible application such as invisibility cloak to be possible. Some applications that are rendered possible because of metamaterial can be seen below:
The research in metamaterials begin when scientists were intrigued about exploring the possibility of having a negative refractive index. In positive refractive index, the light that enters a medium from one direction with an angle of incidence will be refracted towards the opposite side with a refracted angle that can be less or more than the angle of incidence depending on the medium. However in negative refractive index, the light is refracted towards the same side from the imaginary line, the property in which makes invisibility to become reality.
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| Diagram showing the difference between positive refraction index(right) with negative refraction index(left). |
- Terahertz metamaterial - Terahertz frequency is a frequency that is higher than microwave but lower than infrared and visible light. Terahertz wave is used widely in medical imaging to detect tumor, radio astronomy spectroscopy and at some point, for security detection of chemicals, biological agents and weapons.
- Cloaking device - Many proof of working invisibility cloak have been shown although most of them are creating invisibility not in visible wavelength. You can read about the latest achievement in invisibility cloak here.
- Acoustic metamaterial - This artificially created metamaterial is important in work involving sound wave. The fabricated metamaterial is important in order to direct, order or manipulate sound waves. With acoustic metamaterial, sonic waves can now enter the negative refraction domain.
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| Metamaterial could be used to create high def ultrasound image. |
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| Sort of invisible cloak created by David R Smith from Duke University |
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