Quantitative, high-sensitivity measurement of liquid analytes using a smartphone compass

Smartphones can now measure glucose, a key marker for diabetes, as well as other molecules and biomarkers, thanks to their built-in magnetic compasses.
NIST researchers added magnetic particles to a porous material that reacts to the presence of these molecules and causes the material to expand or contract.
Using these magnetized materials in conjunction with cellphone compasses could potentially enable individuals to diagnose disease and detect environmental toxins.

Source

Synchron Company Plans Major Human Testing of Brain-computer Device

A U.S.-based developer of a brain-computer implant is reportedly preparing to carry out major testing of its device on humans.

Synchron recently launched on online system that permits patients to express interest in taking part in a large research study, or trial.

The company has also been in contact with more than 100 research centers that want to support the study, Synchron chief executive Thomas Oxley told Reuters.

Synchron’s device is known as a brain-computer interface. It is designed to treat individuals who experience paralysis caused by injury or disease. The device contains a small computer built to electronically communicate with the brain.

The first tests aim to use the brain-computer interface to process brain signals to help paralyzed patients type on a computer.

Synchron’s interface is similar to a device currently being tested by its American competitor, Neuralink. One difference is that Neuralink’s device is designed to be implanted inside the skull.

Synchron’s device uses a less invasive implant method known as endovascular. The company says this involves a vein carrying the device into a part of the brain known as the motor cortex. This part of the brain produces signals to direct body movements.

Synchron is farther along in the development of its implant than Neuralink, Reuters reports. Neuralink’s progress has mainly been announced by company chief Elon Musk on the X social media service that he owns. So far, Neuralink has said its device has been implanted in one paralyzed patient.

Testing implants in patients with brain damage can be difficult. This is because an individual's brain may be so severely damaged that there is not effective signaling to record.

Synchron’s Oxley said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked his company to test stroke patients using a non-invasive method to see if they would be good implant candidates.

In 2020, Synchron said experiments involving paralyzed patients in Australia found the individuals could use its device to type letters into a computer at a higher rate than in earlier studies.

Synchron received U.S. approval in July 2021 to carry out early testing. It has implanted its devices in six patients so far. Tests involving four patients in Australia showed no serious side effects, the company has reported.

Synchron says it will be examining data from its current testing to prepare for the larger study. The company must still receive FDA approval to move forward with the new study.

Several U.S. hospitals have cooperated with Synchron on its current testing program. These include Mount Sinai in New York, the University at Buffalo Neurosurgery and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The company has said it hopes to involve these same medical centers in the larger trial.

Dr. David Lacomis is chief of UPMC's Neuromuscular Division. He told Reuters his team is still involved in the current testing program and said “the study is going well.”

The Department of Neurosurgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo has two patients in the current test program.

The head of that effort is department chief Dr. Elad Levy. He told Reuters, “the first and only stroke patient” is taking part in the study. Levy said he feels that is important because this is a large population that might see improvements from Synchron’s device.

He added that he was hopeful and excited about the new research and future deployment of the technology.

#BCI

LoRA+: Efficient Low Rank Adaptation of Large Models

In this paper, we show that Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA) as originally introduced in Hu et al. (2021) leads to suboptimal finetuning of models with large width (embedding dimension). This is due to the fact that adapter matrices A and B in LoRA are updated with the same learning rate. Using scaling arguments for large width networks, we demonstrate that using the same learning rate for A and B does not allow efficient feature learning. We then show that this suboptimality of LoRA can be corrected simply by setting different learning rates for the LoRA adapter matrices A and B with a well-chosen ratio. We call this proposed algorithm LoRA+. In our extensive experiments, LoRA+ improves performance (1-2 % improvements) and finetuning speed (up to ∼ 2X SpeedUp), at the same computational cost as LoRA.

PillBot Could Explore Inner Human Body

A new, small robotic camera designed to be swallowed for use in medical examinations was recently demonstrated at a conference in Canada. The device called PillBot can be guided through a body remotely, meaning electronically from outside. Its creators hope the device will replace traditional endoscopies. An endoscopy is when a camera attached to a wire is directed down the throat and into a sleeping patient’s stomach.

The company Endiatx based in Hayward, California, developed the device. The research hospital, Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, is a partner in the project.

The PillBot is designed to be the first motorized endoscopic camera. Here is how developers say it works: A patient does not eat for one day, then swallows the PillBot with lots of water. The PillBot acts like a small submarine controlled by a wireless remote control. When the exam is complete, the body will expel the PillBot in the same way it expels other solid waste.

Dr. Vivek Kumbhari is co-founder of the company. He is professor of medicine and chairman of gastroenterology and hepatology at the Mayo Clinic. It is the latest step toward his larger goal of making complex medicine more accessible.

If endoscopies can be moved from a hospital setting to a patient’s home, he said, "then I think we have achieved that goal." Use of the device would require fewer medical workers and no anesthesia, he said. The device provides "a safer, more comfortable approach,” he added.

Kumbhari also said the technology is more efficient and permits people to get treatment earlier in the progress of a disease.

Alex Luebke is the co-founder of Endiatx. He said the PillBot can help people in rural areas where medical centers and treatment are lacking.

"Especially in developing countries, there is no access" to complex medical care, he said. "So being able to have the technology, gather all that information and provide you the solution, even in remote areas - that's the way to do it.”

The micro-robotic pill is undergoing testing. It could come before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for consideration in the coming months. If approved, the PillBot could be available by 2026.

Kumbhari hopes the technology can be expanded to the bowels, vascular system, heart, liver, brain and other parts of the body.

BioHome3D 3D Printer Aims to Cut Building Time, Labor Costs

American researchers have developed a new model of what they say is the largest 3D printer in the world.

The device is designed to build full-sized homes faster and for less money than traditional methods.

A team at the University of Maine said the printer is four times larger than the last one the university built in 2019. That device was named the world’s largest polymer 3D printer by the Guinness World Records organization.

Developers of the new printer said it can create objects up to 29 meters long, 10 meters wide and 5.5 meters high. The machine can use up to 227 kilograms of printing materials per hour.

It was recently introduced to the public during an event at the university in the town of Orono. The latest model received new robotic abilities, additional sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) technology, said Habib Dagher. He leads the project for the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures & Composite Center.

Dagher noted his team could build even larger printers in the future after the university opens a new building this summer. “We’re learning from this to design the next one,” he said.

The old 3D printer was used in 2022 to build a 55-square-meter model home made from a mixture of wood fibers and a plant-based plastic material. The home, called BioHome3D, was first printed in four parts before the pieces were moved to a permanent spot at the university. A team then connected the pieces and completed the building in just a few hours.

Officials in Maine said such large 3D printers might be able to help the state meet a growing demand for housing. State housing officials have suggested Maine will need to build another 80,000 homes over the next six years to keep up with demand.

The university aims to demonstrate that homes can be built almost completely with printers that do not harm the environment. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that building-related industries produce about 37 percent of greenhouse gases. The gases come from the production and use of materials including cement, steel and aluminum.

3D printed buildings can also be recycled, which is unusual in the building industry. “You can basically deconstruct it,” Dagher said. “You can grind it up if you wish, the 3D printed parts, and reprint with them, do it again.”

Dagher added that in addition to cutting down on building time and costs, the 3D printer was designed to make homes that look nice. “We wanted to build a house that people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there.’”

The team said it plans next to experiment with different printing materials. The researchers would like to use more wood found locally since Maine is the most heavily forested state in the U.S.

The machine can also be used to print other objects, such as boats or government structures, the developers say. Dagher said upcoming projects with the new printer will include a large boat and small homes to serve the area’s homeless population.

University of Maine Chancellor Dannel Malloy said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided most of the money for the printer, which cost several million dollars.

Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

https://newatlas.com/energy/natron-sodium-ion-battery-production-startt/

JTAG Hacking with a Raspberry Pi - Introducing the PiFex

PiFex is a basic companion board for the Raspberry Pi designed to teach users the basics of hardware hacking and embedded protocols.

https://voidstarsec.com/blog/jtag-pifex

#rPi

Smarter Vehicles Could Greatly Change Traffic Signals

Researchers say the rise of more smart and connected vehicles on American roads could lead to big changes for traffic signals.

The current U.S. traffic signal system has been in existence for more than 100 years. But experts are now studying ways to link technology-equipped vehicles to signal systems in an attempt to improve safety and traffic flows.

One research effort is led by a team at North Carolina State University. Engineering professor Ali Hajbabaie is the leader of that research. He told The Associated Press one major change that signal systems could see is different colored lights.

Most U.S. traffic signals currently include three lights to direct drivers at intersections: red, yellow and green. But Hajbabaie said it might make sense to add a fourth color, possibly white.

This color could inform motorists when there is a large collection of self-driving vehicles in a particular area. When many self-driving vehicles are present, the additional light would signal other drivers to follow the lead of those vehicles.

“When we get to the intersection, we stop if it's red and we go if it's green," said Hajbabaie. “But if the white light is active, you just follow the vehicle in front of you.”

The North Carolina State team estimated that such changes are likely years away. Hajbabaie said one reason for this is because this kind of system would require between 40 to 50 percent of all vehicles on the road to be self-driving.

Sandy Karp is a spokesperson for Waymo. Waymo is a self-driving vehicle company owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet. She told the AP that Waymo had already launched ride-sharing services that use full self-driving vehicles in Los Angeles, California and Austin, Texas. Those services do not use a fourth traffic light.

In an email to the AP, Karp said she thought it was good that researchers are currently “thinking creatively” about ways to change traffic light signals to improve safety and traffic flows. However, she said that officials and companies should think very carefully before deciding on, and moving forward with, major infrastructure changes.

Researchers at the University of Michigan are also testing different methods. They have carried out a test program in an area outside the city of Detroit. Their research collects data on the speed and location of General Motors (GM) vehicles in the area. The data has been used to change the timing of city traffic lights in an effort to improve traffic flows.

Henry Liu is a civil engineering professor at the University of Michigan. He helped lead the research. He said the launch of a new U.S. traffic system could be a lot closer than people might think.

Liu said that even with as few as 6 percent of vehicles connected to the GM system, there is still enough data to change the timing of the traffic lights enough to smooth traffic flows.

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/smart-vehicles-traffic-lights

AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd, by looking at them just once

Noise-canceling headphones have gotten very good at creating an auditory blank slate. But allowing certain sounds from a wearer’s environment through the erasure still challenges researchers. The latest edition of Apple’s AirPods Pro, for instance, automatically adjusts sound levels for wearers — sensing when they’re in conversation, for instance — but the user has little control over whom to listen to or when this happens.

A University of Washington team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets a user wearing headphones look at a person speaking for three to five seconds to “enroll” them. The system, called “Target Speech Hearing,” then cancels all other sounds in the environment and plays just the enrolled speaker’s voice in real time even as the listener moves around in noisy places and no longer faces the speaker.

The team presented its findings May 14 in Honolulu at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The code for the proof-of-concept device is available for others to build on. The system is not commercially available.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/05/23/ai-headphones-noise-cancelling-target-speech-hearing/

Airbus Truck Fitted with Airplane Controls to Test Self-taxiing

European aerospace company Airbus has fitted a special truck with airplane controls in an effort to test self-taxiing abilities.

Airbus officials recently introduced the truck in Paris at Europe’s largest technology event, VivaTech. The electric vehicle can drive like a truck, or it can activate the aircraft system controls.

A demonstration showed how the truck works. It uses numerous cameras and sensors to help follow airport direction signals and avoid obstacles as computers guide the vehicle along its path.

In a statement, Airbus described the effort as a three-year research project called Optimate. The goal is to deploy and test the best technologies to help aircraft better recognize their surroundings and current operating conditions.

In addition, the company said detailed data from the experiments will be examined to help develop pilot assistance systems for airport taxiing.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/airbus-fits-electric-truck-with-airliner-cockpit-study-safer-taxiing-2024-05-24/

#LIDAR

Raspberry Pi is now a public company

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate.

#rPi

CoolMitt Blood Cooling Device Bring Cooling Technology to Paris Games

Craig Heller of Stanford University is an expert in body temperature regulation. Heller told the Reuters news agency, "It can be very hot and miserable (in Paris), as it was in Tokyo during the last Olympics...And that increase in environmental temperature has lots of effects on performance."

Heller co-invented CoolMitt, a device worn like a glove on the hand. The device helps take out heat while cooling the blood. The cooled blood is sent back to the heart and to the athlete's muscles.

Rice Farming Gets an AI Upgrade

Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta, cutting down the amount of pesticides and fertilizers that wash into the ocean in the process.

https://hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/rice-farming-gets-an-ai-upgrade/

Testing Generative AI for Circuit Board Design

Can an AI-powered chatbot help with a task as precise as circuit board design? These LLMs (Large Language Models) are famous for hallucinating details, and missing a *single* important detail can sink a design. Determinism is hard but super important for electronics design!

https://blog.jitx.com/jitx-corporate-blog/testing-generative-ai-for-circuit-board-design

ESP32_C3_Wireless_Adventure.pdf

RP2350 - Raspberry Pi Pico 2

surveillancewatch.io

Surveillance technology and spyware are being used to target and suppress journalists, dissidents, and human rights advocates everywhere.

Surveillance Watch is an interactive map that documents the hidden connections within the opaque surveillance industry. Founded by privacy advocates, most of whom were personally harmed by surveillance tech, our mission is to shed light on the companies profiting from this exploitation with significant risk to our lives.

By mapping out the intricate web of surveillance companies, their subsidiaries, partners, and financial backers, we hope to expose the enablers fueling this industry's extensive rights violations, ensuring they cannot evade accountability for being complicit in this abuse.

Surveillance Watch is a community-driven initiative, and we rely on submissions from individuals passionate about protecting privacy and human rights. Acknowledging that we are barely scratching the surface of this industry, our interactive map is just the beginning – we are continuously working to expand this resource to include other information and integrate with existing databases that track this data.

NASA Launches New Satellite to Study Oceans, Atmosphere

The American space agency NASA has launched a new satellite designed to closely study the world’s oceans and atmosphere.

NASA launched the PACE satellite on February 8. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried PACE into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA confirmed the launch and reported ground controllers had successfully established contact with the satellite.

PACE stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem. The satellite will spend at least three years studying the environment from an orbit 676 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. NASA officials say PACE will map the entire world each day with two science instruments. A third instrument will collect monthly measurements. Scientists should start getting their first data within one or two months.

Jeremy Werdell is the Project Scientist for the PACE project, or mission. He told The Associated Press he sees the effort providing humans “an unprecedented view of our home planet."

Werdell noted a major goal of the observations is to help scientists improve their ability to predict hurricanes and other severe weather events. He said the instruments can provide detailed data on temperature-related changes happening across the world. The satellite data might help scientists better predict when harmful algae blooms will happen.

NASA says PACE will also study aerosols, or particles in the air. Karen St. Germain is NASA’s director of Earth science. She told reporters before PACE’s launch that the study of aerosols is important because they can affect clouds. Aerosols can affect the density of clouds, as well as when and how much precipitation the clouds might release.

St. Germain noted existing satellites are not equipped to collect detailed data on aerosols. She said PACE will help NASA learn more about how aerosols affect clouds and climate over long periods. The new data is expected to give scientists “another dimension” of data on how aerosols affect oceans and the atmosphere.

St. Germain added, “And then, of course, there is a relationship between the phytoplankton and the aerosols.” Phytoplankton are very small plants that float near the surface of water. They serve as a source of food for many sea creatures. NASA says phytoplankton “provide food to all sorts of animals ranging from shellfish to finfish to whales.”

NASA says PACE’s instruments will aim to measure changes in phytoplankton. The satellite will aim to collect data on aerosols that attach to phytoplankton. These studies will be important in identifying any changes in phytoplankton from interactions with aerosols which could affect the ocean and life in it.

NASA has already launched a series of Earth-observing satellites and instruments into orbit. But the agency believes PACE will be able to collect more detailed data on how different aerosols and pollutants get into the oceans and the atmosphere.

Project Scientist Werdell noted that current Earth-observing satellites can only see in seven or eight different colors. But he said Pace will see in 200 colors, permitting scientists to better identify different kinds of algae in the sea and particles in the air.

News reports say the mission will cost about $950 million.

The PACE mission follows the launch in December 2022 of NASA’s SWOT satellite. The SWOT mission measures sea levels and changes in bodies of water over time. SWOT is a cooperative effort between NASA and France’s space agency.

NASA is cooperating with India on another Earth-observing satellite set to launch this year. That spacecraft, called NISAR, will use radar instruments to measure the effects of rising temperatures on glaciers and other melting, icy surfaces.

Build Your Own Chemical Reactor on a Raspberry Pi with Microlab!

The MicroLab is an open-source, DIY, automated controlled lab reactor (CLR) that people can assemble with parts available online. We hope this will do for chemistry what the 3D printer did for manufacturing: provide a DIY, hackable, low-cost method to design and produce certain needful things that otherwise would be out of reach.

#rPi

AppleWatchAmmeter

Turn your Apple Watch or any watch with an accessible magnetometer into an ammeter to measure DC currents.

iFixit Portable USB-C Smart IoT Soldering Iron

https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub

#IoT