Artificial corneas on the way

Researchers at Stanford University may have just gotten us one step closer to creating a cyborg. They've developed a new kind of artificial cornea, one that's "showing promise" in animal studies and could eliminate the need for cornea transplants completely. The cornea is made of two interwoven polymer gels — similar to the kind of squishy material that's in soft contact lenses. One layer provides durability while the other absorbs water, an important quality since cells in the eye need nutrients with high water content.

An estimated 10 million people worldwide have lost their sight to corneal disease. If the Stanford corneas are successful in human trials, some of them may get a second chance at sight. Being able to say you're part machine is a bonus.

Via Web MD

DVICE: Artificial corneas on the way

Teams Set For Mock Moon Landing Contest

Ten teams are gearing up for a fall competition to present a vehicle of their own design that can simulate trips between the moon's surface and lunar orbit.

The 10 teams were announced today by the X Prize Foundation, which is hosting the 2008

Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The contest is planned to take place at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, N.M., Oct. 24-25, 2008.

A $2 million cash prize awaits the team that successfully complete two challenges involving taking off and landing on a simulated lunar surface. The purse is provided by the NASA Centennial Challenges Program, in an effort to encourage commercial research into moon landing technology. The contest is also funded by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and the State of New Mexico.

The first stage of the competition requires a vehicle to take off from a designated launch area, rocket up to 150 feet (50 meters) in altitude, then hover for 90 seconds before landing precisely on a pad 50 meters away. The flight must then be repeated in reverse. In order to pass, the entire two-trip journey must be completed within two and half hours.

And Level 2 is even harder. During this stage the rocket must hover for twice as long in the air before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface, packed with craters and boulders to mimic real moon terrain. The hover time in the Level 2 test was calculated to closely simulate the power needed to perform a real lunar mission.

Though nine competitors signed up to compete in last year's competition, held as part of the X Prize Cup, only one team, Armadillo Aerospace, was prepared to take on the challenge. That vehicle missed passing Level 1 by seven seconds, and ultimately burst into flames.

This year's cache of competitors is hoping things go better this year. The X Prize Foundation also has faith someone will successfully complete the mission.

"Once again, we have excellent teams prepared to compete in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge," said Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation. "We are excited to see new teams join the competition, and I am confident that we will give away prize money this year."

This year's teams will include:

Armadillo Aerospace: Based in Mesquite, Texas, and led by 3D graphics pioneer and video game developer John Carmack, the team was the only one to fly a vehicle at the 2006 and 2007 competitions. The group is also building rocket plane engines for the Rocket Racing League.

BonNova: Led by Allen Newcomb and based in Tarzana, Calif., BonNova was established for the sole purpose of winning the Lunar Lander Challenge. Newcomb designed all of the avionics, flight software, and ground software for SpaceDev's hybrid rocket engine on Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, the winner of the Ansari X Prize.

Paragon Labs: The team is led by Kevin Sagis, a veteran of Lockheed Martin, and headquartered in Denver, Colo. The groups, composed of industry professionals from various disciplines, intends to compete in Level 1 only.

Phoenicia: This group, headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., is led by William Baird. Their Level Two vehicle is called The Wind at Dawn.

TrueZer0: TrueZer0 is a four person team led by Todd Squires and Scott Zeeb and based in Chicago, Ill. The team consists of a mechanical engineer, an electrical/CS engineer, and a father and son who own and operate a machine shop. The team plans to compete in Level 1 with its vehicle, Ignignokt.

Unreasonable Rocket: This group is a father and son team located in Solana Beach, Calif., with a long-term goal of showing that significant rocket and space flight capabilities are achievable by small teams. Their vehicles are called Burning Splinter 90 and Burning Splinter 180.

Four other teams have requested to remain confidential. The X Prize Foundation will announce their names 60 days before the start of the competition.

SPACE.com -- Teams Set For Mock Moon Landing Contest

Minority Report gets real: Multi-touch hologram

Anyone who's seen Minority Report would love a piece of the hologram technology that Tom Cruise uses to flip through holographic images in the air like they were CDs in a jukebox. Obscura Digital has something that's pretty close. The company's new VisionAire tech can sense where a presenter's hands are, letting him or her manipulate a 3D hologram. The holograms are multi-touch, too, so you can zoom, spin or shrink images by using both hands — just like Microsoft Surface (though in this case, surfaceless).

VisionAire uses the Musion Eyeliner holographic projection system, implementing Obscura's proprietary multi-touch tech. The result is unquestionably cool but requires a significant amount of space and cash to pull off, so it would be strictly for big events for now. For something similar but probably more affordable, you might try a Heliodisplay.

DVICE: Minority Report gets real: Multi-touch hologram

Rumor: Sexy Xbox Price Drops Come September

Is the price of every Xbox 360 model going to drop next month? That's what Ars Technica says.

Citing the same anonymous tipster who told them that the 20 GB model of the Xbox would be cleared out to make room for the 60 GB system, Ars says that this is the new price schedule for the 360 starting sometime in September:

• Arcade (no hard drive) to $199
• Pro (60GB) to $299
• Elite (120GB) to $399

I don't have to tell you that those are some major price reductions -- especially the fact that the Arcade system will make the long-overdue trip beneath the $200 price ceiling.

Will it help turn around Microsoft's fortunes this holiday as Xbox languishes in third place month-on-month? Given that Sony has pretty much already said that it won't be dropping price this year, it could.

I agree with analyst Bill Harris' sarcastic take on the Microsoft press conference: "That's excellent, because the reason you guys are puking in terms of consoles sold has everything to do with millions of potential customers waiting until you had a deal with Netflix and dumbed down an interface that a six-year old could already navigate and nothing to do with the price of the unit." 

Rumor: Sexy Xbox Price Drops Come September | Game | Life from Wired.com

Toxin in Soil May Mean no Life on Mars

The existence of a toxic chemical discovered in the Martian soil could reduce the chances of life being found on the planet

Even though there appears to be traces of water on the Red Planet of Mars, a toxic chemical found in the soil located near the Martian north pole has put a damper on the possibility of life on the planet.

The perchlorate chemical, often times used in solid rocket fuel, is an odd discovery, forcing researchers to try and check to ensure the chemical didn't get taken to Mars from Earth.  Several more soil tests in the area will be conducted by researchers, although they are not sure how the chemical develops or the exact amount of it in the soil.

"While we have not completed our process on these soil samples, we have very interesting intermediate results," said Peter Smith, principal investigator from the project.

The Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer aboard the Phoenix recently tested two different soil samples collected at the north pole.  MECA previously painted a rather optimistic picture about the possibility of life on the Red Planet, which became more believable after evidence of ice crumbs found on the planet.

NASA decided to use MECA on Mars because it is able to test the acidity and presence of certain chemicals, salts and minerals in all collected soil samples.

Researchers believe it's still possible that life has existed on the planet, and believe it's possible life could be found in underground aquifers that are able to help reduce exposure to the toxic soil.  

Alongside MECA, NASA also is using the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) to help try and find evidence of organic chemicals and the possibility of life on the Mars' surface.

Brown University researcher John Mustard, who doesn't have a hand in the project, said that all researchers should reserve judgment regarding the possibility of life on the Red Planet because of the existence of perchlorate.

DailyTech - Toxin in Soil May Mean no Life on Mars

Researchers Discover "Holy Grail" of Optical Computing

New breakthrough allows light to be compressed much more readily

Looking to the future, optical computing is one of several technologies being considered as a high-speed replacement to traditional electrical-based computing.  While quantum computing is considered by many as the ultimate future of computing, optical computing is more realizable in the near future. 

In fact, optical computing components have already been realized with fiber optic services available in select parts of the country for high speed computing.  However, more exotic devices like light-based storage or light transistor-composed CPUs, necessary to build a full optical computer, remain in the really of conjecture.

An important breakthrough in optical computing may help to change that.  Researchers at the University of California Berkley have developed a novel method to squeeze light into extremely small spaces, an important hurdle that optical computing faced.  Previously researchers could get light to fit in relatively small spaces -- even as small as 200 nm, about 400 times smaller than a human hair.  This size helps to dictate the necessary size for the smallest fiber optic fibers, which for various reasons are about five times this width -- or about 1 µm wide.

With the breakthrough, researchers were able to cut light down to fit into spaces a mere 10 nm, 20 times smaller than ever before.  The space was a mere five times the width of a single piece of DNA, a size previously thought infeasible to shrink light to.  Rupert Oulton, research associate in the group led by mechanical engineering Professor Xiang Zhang, stated of the discovery, "This technique could give us remarkable control over light and that would spell out amazing things for the future in terms of what we could do with that light."

Professor Zhang added, "There has been a lot of interest in scaling down optical devices.  It's the holy grail for the future of communications."

Mr. Oulton theorizes that the advance and further compression will yield key breakthroughs due to the properties of electricity and magnetism.  In order to achieve an optical computer, you would need at least some electrical components.  However the vastly different scales of electricity and light mean that they do not interact neatly or behave in similar ways.  He believes by shrinking light to wavelengths similar to that of electrons in computer systems, a plethora of new uses will arise.

The key problem is light doesn't like to fit in spaces that small, normally.  While light technically has been squished even farther using a technique called surface plasmonics that bonds photons to electrons, this method in its current state is relatively useless as it only travels a short distance and then the wave dissolves.  And traditional waves were constrained to the bulky 200 nm barrier.

After delving into surface photonics research, Mr. Oulton developed a new approach -- a "hybrid" optical system consisting of a very thin semiconductor wire placed in close proximity to a thin, smooth sheet of silver.  Normally, light would travel down the center of the wire.  But in the new design light travels in the very small gap between the semiconductor and the metal.  This yields a light wave with size similar to surface plasmonic waves, but with longevity closer to normal waves.  The light waves are able to reach 100 times farther than the most advanced surface plasmonic waves.

The end effect is thanks to the semiconductor/silver combination behaving like a capacitor.  As light travels along the gap, it excites electrons, creating a charge on the sheets.  This charge in turn helps to feed the light, helping it to travel farther, in an effect similar, but not identical to surface plasmonics.  Mr. Oulton was surprised at the simplicity of the design.  He stated, "It's really a very simple geometry, and I was surprised that no one had come up with it before."

The approach will offer the best of both worlds in terms of size vs. propagation distance, according to Professor Zhang.  He stated, "Previously, if you wanted to transmit light at a smaller scale, you would lose a lot of energy along the path. To retain more energy, you'd have to make the scale bigger. These two things always went against each other.  Now, this work shows there is the possibility to gain both of them."

Work does remain in physically implementing the device, but this step should be straightforward.  The main reason the team has not yet connected the theoretically modeled devices is that no existing instrumentation can measure light at that small a wavelength.  The researchers are looking at exotic ways to detect the new smaller than ever light.

In the end, though, Mr. Oulton believes the research is a giant leap towards the greatest challenge of optical computing -- achieving unity between light and electricity.  He stated, "We are pulling optics down to the length scales of electrons.  And that means we can potentially do some things we have never done before."

Other researchers on the project included Volker Sorger, Dentcho Genov and David Pile, all part of professor Zhang's group at University of California Berkley. 

The project was funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.

DailyTech - Researchers Discover "Holy Grail" of Optical Computing

Phoenix Lander Tastes Martian Water

The Phoenix spacecraft has tasted Martian water for the first time, scientists reported Thursday.

By melting icy soil in one of its lab instruments, the robot confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost. Until now, evidence of ice in Mars' north pole region has been largely circumstantial.

In 2002, the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft spied what looked like a reservoir of buried ice. After Phoenix arrived, it found what looked like ice in a hard patch underneath its landing site and changes in a trench indicated some ice had turned to gas when exposed to the sun.

Scientists popped open champagne when they received confirmation Wednesday that the soil contained ice.

"We've now finally touched it and tasted it," William Boynton of the University of Arizona said during a news conference in Tucson on Thursday. "From my standpoint, it tastes very fine."

Phoenix landed on Mars on May 25 on a three-month hunt to determine if it could support life. It is conducting experiments to learn whether the ice ever melted in the red planet's history that could have led to a more hospitable environment. It is also searching for the elusive organic-based compounds essential for simple life forms to emerge.

The ice confirmation earlier this week was accidental. After two failed attempts to deliver ice-rich soil to one of Phoenix's eight lab ovens, researchers decided to collect pure soil instead. Surprisingly, the sample was mixed with a little bit of ice, said Boynton, who heads the oven instrument.

Researchers were able to prove the soil had ice in it because it melted in the oven at 32 degrees -- the melting point of ice -- and released water molecules. Plans called for baking the soil at even higher temperatures next week to sniff for carbon-based compounds.

The latest scientific finding is the first piece of good news for a mission that has been dogged by difficulties in recent weeks.

An electrical short on one of Phoenix's test ovens threatened the instrument, but scientists said the problem has not recurred. The lander, which spent the past several weeks drilling into the hard ice, also had trouble delivering ice shavings into an oven until the success this week.

NASA said Phoenix has achieved minimum success thus far. The space agency on Thursday announced that it would extend the mission for an extra five weeks until the end of September, adding $2 million more to the $420 million price tag, said Michael Meyer, Mars chief scientist at NASA headquarters.

Unlike the twin rovers roaming near the Martian equator, Phoenix's lifetime cannot be extended much more because it likely won't have enough power to survive the Martian winter.

The science team also released a color panorama of Phoenix's landing site using more than 400 images taken by Phoenix. The view "was painstakingly stitched together," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, who headed the effort.

The portrait revealed a Martian surface that was coated with dust and dotted with rocks.

Phoenix Lander Tastes Martian Water : Discovery News