DailyDirt: Better Robots Keep Coming

Thu, Apr 4th 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
bananas, flu, flublok, gmo, h7n9, robots, sars, tobacco, vaccine

Companies:
darpa

DailyDirt: Fighting The Next Pandemic

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The last flu season was pretty rough, but there's a new H7N9 strain that has no vaccine (yet!) and is starting to infect and kill people (instead of sticking to birds). We're just about coming to the tenth anniversary of SARS, and we're still creating over 100 million flu vaccines every year using egg embryos -- a process that takes months, time that we might not have if a really serious flu strain spreads quickly across the globe. Here are a few projects that are making vaccines more quickly.

Tobacco plants can be made transgenic in order to grow vaccines for us, and they've been shown to be able to produce over a million doses of vaccine in a few weeks. DARPA has a challenge out to anyone who can produce vaccines at a rate of 10 million doses in a month. [url]
Genetically modified tobacco plants can be grown and harvested by robots -- producing vaccine proteins very quickly and efficiently -- without the need for human labor. These robots can grow tens of thousands of tobacco plants in a batch, and it's likely only a matter of time before researchers can get these plant factories to produce other kinds of pharmaceuticals. [url]
Flublok relies on insects to grow flu vaccines for us -- a process that has been used for other kinds of vaccines, but has only started to be used for the flu. Flublok has already been FDA approved, so it will be available to patients for the 2013-2014 flu season. [url]
Bananas could potentially be grown with edible vaccines, but the regulatory hurdles for development have caused researchers to focus on non-edible vaccines grown in other plants (like tobacco). Bananas grown for edible vaccines might still be viable for treating fish or other animals. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

8 Comments

Innovation

Mon, Jul 2nd 2012 5:00pm

Filed Under:
china, low earth orbit, micrometeorites, phoenix, satellites, space, space junk, tungsten

Companies:
darpa

DailyDirt: Who's Going To Clean Up All The Space Junk?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Putting satellites and spacecraft into low earth orbit is getting easier and less expensive all the time, but that also means we're possibly creating even more orbiting space junk around our planet -- without any way to remove this garbage. Man-made space debris is already a problem, and as we shoot more stuff up into space, it could become an even bigger problem. There are at least a few folks who are concerned about space pollution, but there aren't that many workable solutions (yet).

DARPA is working on a project called Phoenix which aims to create new satellites that can cannibalize older satellites in orbit for parts. DARPA wants to demonstrate robotic satellites that can salvage reusable parts such as antennas from obsolete satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but there are quite a few technological and logistical hurdles to overcome. [url]
China's space program has achieved several significant milestones, but its anti-satellite capabilities could turn low earth orbit into an unusable space junkyard. In 2007, China shot down one of its own weather satellites and created a cloud of space debris. [url]
One proposal to reduce space debris in low earth orbit involves deploying tons of micron-scale tungsten dust in space -- which would collide with other debris and slow down the space junk so that it burns up in the upper atmosphere. About 100 tons of cosmic dust from micrometeorites gets captured by Earth's gravity on a daily basis, but it's too spread out to have a significant effect on man-made space junk. Unfortunately, deploying 40 tons of man-made tungsten dust, at about $1000 per pound, is a fairly expensive mission... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

13 Comments

Stupidity

Wed, Dec 14th 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
artificial intelligence, brains, cognitive computing, microbrains, neurons, parallel computers, spinnaker, synapse

Companies:
darpa, ibm

DailyDirt: Creating Virtual And Artificial Brains

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We're a long way away from creating an artificial intelligence from scratch that can perform general tasks. But plenty of researchers are learning some interesting things about AI while they build massively parallel computers or grow microbrains from little clumps of cells. Here are just a few projects where some synthetic brains are being hand-built by people.

One *million* [/Dr. Evil voice] ARM processor cores are being hooked together to create a parallel computer called SpiNNaker that will try to simulate the human brain. Given that the human brain has about 100 billion neurons with 1,000 trillion connections between them all, this project is less than 1% of the way towards a full brain simulation. [url]
Growing a brain in a petri dish from rat neurons might be an interesting approach to building a brain de novo. So far, researchers have created a network of about 60 rat neurons which seem to be able to sustain activity for about 12 seconds. [url]
Folks from IBM are working on cognitive computing like the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project with some DARPA funding to re-create a billion artificial neurons. Trying to beat the power efficiency of the human brain isn't an easy task. [url]
To discover more interesting bot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

7 Comments

Innovation

Mon, Dec 5th 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
cameras, challenges, james bond, shredders, spy

Companies:
darpa, gchq

DailyDirt: Crack A Puzzle And Score Some Cash (Or A Cool Job)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There seem to be plenty of seemingly unsolvable challenges that, once published openly, are completed successfully in an amazingly short amount of time. Clearly there are still a lot of unsolved mysteries left, but the strategy of publicizing problems as a way to get them solved faster is a fascinating phenomenon. Here are just a few more examples of some challenges that have been made open to the public.

DARPA's Shredder Challenge has been solved, and the winner is the team "All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S." Now the companies that make shredders will have to create a challenge that'll make reconstructing shredded documents even harder... [url]
If you have a good idea about how to augment a camera to capture more than a picture, submit it here. The deadline is December 8th, so hurry up! [url]
The next James Bond is apparently supposed to apply online and solve a puzzle for the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Just don't break any laws to crack the code, or else you're disqualified (or worse?). [url]
To discover more interesting business-related content, check out what the deal is on StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

9 Comments

Tue, Nov 8th 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
geosynchronous orbit, satellites, space, space junk

Companies:
darpa

DailyDirt: Look Up, Look Down All Around, Hey Satellite...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Sending stuff up into space is one of the coolest things people have figured out how to do. And just like other technologies, we haven't quite figured out how to deal with the mess we've created from it. Here are just a few interesting links on some nifty space projects for making satellites smarter and more sustainable.

DARPA�s Phoenix program wants to turn orbiting space debris into usable satellites. Great! A step towards creating a Nomad satellite that will have to be talked into a logic trap for self-destruction... [url]
There's a pollution problem caused by putting satellites into space, and the space junk is building up without many good ways to clean it up. Outer space is unimaginably vast, but the amount of it that is useful for geosynchronous orbit is finite (and becoming harder to use now). [url]
Autonomous satellites and spacecraft are learning to control themselves in a solar system simulator. The project actually sounds like a really expensive version of Logo and Turtle. [url]
To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

5 Comments

Bleeding Edge

Thu, Oct 27th 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
fusion, space, spaceflight, spaceplane, starship, x-37b, x-37c

Companies:
darpa, nasa, usaf

DailyDirt: More Manned Spaceflight

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Manned spaceflight has obviously seen better days. There aren't that many ambitious spaceflights that actually have solid funding these days, but there are still a lot of plans and desire for manned space exploration to resume again. Here are just a few projects that might get off the ground.

DARPA has $500,000 in seed money to get folks thinking about interstellar space travel. The 100-Year Starship Study will encourage discussion about what it would take to make a trip to another star system, and a lot of the proposals will be science fiction for a very long time. [url]
The US Air Force has a "secret" mini space shuttle that might be able to take astronauts into space, and return them just like the retired space shuttle used to. The X-37B space plane could spawn a larger X-37C model that is twice a long, but the budget for producing these vehicles isn't exactly guaranteed. [url]
The concept of using nuclear reactions isn't a particularly new idea for space propulsion, but NASA engineers are designing aneutronic fusion reactor schemes that could be useful for shooting satellites across our solar system more efficiently. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe... [url]
To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

6 Comments

Tue, Oct 4th 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
challenges, foldit, games, gamification, recaptcha, translations

Companies:
darpa, duolingo

DailyDirt: Games Aren't Just For Fun Anymore

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Gamification is a nice buzzword for "tricking" people into doing useful things. Players can be rewarded with badges or points or just the satisfaction of winning the game. And in return, the game designer filters out spam or translates text or discovers a genius who can unlock the ninth chevron. Here are a few more examples.

The game Foldit gets players to predict the structure of protein molecules, and it actually helped solve the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme in about 3 weeks. The cheat codes for the game probably helped... [url]
DARPA has a game that lets players track down submarines -- essentially teaching software for autonomous anti-submarine robots while they play. Sounds a bit like The Last Starfighter, but for submarines. [url]
From some of the same folks who brought you reCAPTCHAs, there's a game that helps you learn another language, and at the same time, help translate websites into almost any other common language. "I am a jelly donut" -- for everyone! [url]
To find some cool online games, check out what StumbleUpon has found to play. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

7 Comments

Tue, Aug 2nd 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
$50 paint job, cars, electric vehicles, xc2v

Companies:
darpa, local motors, n2a

DailyDirt: Bespoke Cars

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It seems like custom-built cars are getting more attention, lately. Some car enthusiasts are trying to preserve cool-looking cars that could be considered iconic. Other car builders are trying to retrofit old cars with "green" technologies. Here are a few examples. (And maybe someday Xzibit can pimp-my-ride with a biodiesel hybrid powertrain...)

Converting a classic VW bug into an all-electric vehicle sounds a bit pricey at $25,000. But the battery pack could outlast the vehicle and also serve as a backup power supply for your house? [url]
What do you get when you combine the front end of a 1957 Chevrolet, the mid-section of a 1958 Impala, and the bold tail fins of a 1959 Chevy? A pretty funky-looking car, apparently. [url]
Local Motors has built the first crowd-sourced military vehicle, the XC2V, in just a few weeks. DARPA sponsored this "proof of principle project" to demonstrate how quickly a new military vehicle could be prototyped. [url]
If you want to re-paint your car on a really tight budget, you could actually do it for about $50. Rustoleum, FTW! [url]
To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

1 Comments

Wed, Jun 22nd 2011 5:00pm

Filed Under:
ai, algorithm, c3po, translation

Companies:
darpa, google