Product Inspiration

Up until the last few years, whenever I thought of bacteria, thoughts of sickness and rotting food came to mind. Now, I’m learning that bacteria are being harnessed to do all kinds of work for us- from generating electricity, to processing waste, to sensing chemicals. Here’s another notch in bacteria’s belt of achievements, as they’ve just been proven to clean water for drinking.

Basically, the bacteria are put into the unprocessed water, and consume any contaminants present. This takes a lot of the load off of the expensive and sensitive membranes that are used to purify the water further down the pipe.

With all of these cool abilities, bacteria are becoming less of a nuisance and more of a development platform to build new technologies on. Cool!

http://www.physorg.com/news122896811.html

Stitches could soon be a thing of the past, as this new surgical tape promises to heal wounds better and less problematic than conventional wound closure tools. The tape uses a combination of adhesives and nano pillars to create a strong bond, and is bio-degradable so that an internal (or external, for that matter) wound can be left untouched without any need to go back later and remove stitches.

In addition, the tape has micro-pockets built in that can hold medication, which could further speed the healing process and prevent infections.

This gecko tape concept has been making lots of news lately, and while its not yet really cheap enough to manufacture in large quantities, it will make a significant splash someday.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20301/

With recent advancements in the manufacture of nano-size coatings and particles, there is a growing number of products which offer “self-cleaning” capabilities. Some of these products are simply hydrophobic (repels water), so that no sticky liquids collect on the surfaces. Others incorporate nanoparticles of silver to kill any bacteria which land on them. In particular, these silver nanoparticles have made quite an impact, and are now in everything from door handles to pens to infant shoes.

These particular products use nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, which reacts with light to break down any organic material. So far, the nanoparticle coating has been applied to bathroom fixtures and windows. Much like the silver nanoparticle boom, I bet we will see a bunch more applications where titanium dioxide particles are used to keep surfaces clean, such as on cars, patio furniture, and even perhaps clothing.

Where else would it be nice to have a self-cleaning product?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4696434.stm

http://corporateportal.ppg.com/NA/Glass/ResidentialGlass/Homeowners/Pr oductInformation/SunClean/

As most of your already know, there is a LOT of R & D resources being put into ethanol these days. Here’s one development in particular that seems a good candidate for success. Like other promising methods, it can take a huge range of feed stocks (from food processing by-products to sewage waste), and does the conversion through specially engineered bacteria that consume the processed feedstock and excrete ethanol. Unlike some other promising methods though, this system is both cost effective and immediately ready for deployment.

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

Technorati : bacteria, ethanol

This double feature of related technologies shows how far audio recognition and processing has come in the last decade.

The first product (which is not the only of its kind) listens to a baby’s cry and translates it into a message which us big people can understand; the second is a computer which listens to a barking dog and identifies its meaning.

Now that computers can be programmed to listen for and interpret similar-yet-distinct sounds, there are lots of cool possibilities out there to improve our own hearing abilities with the strengths of a computer. Some other already made examples include an audio system to detect what direction a sniper is shooting from, and biometric voice recognition for security systems. Where else can we augment our hearing to get more info from a sound?

http://ohgizmo.com/2006/03/03/cry-baby-analyzer/

http://www.dailymail.c o.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=508550&in_p age_id=1811

Silver is a strong antibacterial agent which kills any germs which come into contact with it. A few years ago, some researchers came up with a relatively cheap way to make nano-size particles of silver, which has lead to lots of new products with the tag ‘antibacterial’. These new products include pens at the bank, handles on public doors, and various other communal objects.

Paint is the newest product to bring in silver nanoparticles for antibacterial properties. While pens and door handles may keep germs from transferring from one person to another, an entire room of antibacterial walls could significantly reduce the overall germ count in any room.

Now that there is a very easy and cheap way to make practically any device kill germs, I bet we will see many more handheld and communal objects come out that are antibacterial. What else would you like to keep germ-free?

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/dust_repellant_paint.php

A few years ago, scientists discovered that geckos do not use any type of glue or adhesive to walk up walls. This is possible because millions of tiny hairs on the gecko foot adhere to the wall through Van Der Waals forces, which are basically small attractions between molecules that are close together. The small forces add up over the millions of hairs, creating a very strong bond.

Since this discovery, scientists have been working vigorously on creating a tape or glue which mimics this method. A recent prototype shows that a tiny square (2cm) of this material can hold up to a pound of weight.

At some point, we will probably see some useful new ‘tape’ for hanging posters (and paintings) on walls from this innovation, and maybe even some far-out science-fiction stuff like suits for climbing walls.

http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2008/02/gecko_glue.html

Electronic noses are devices which can identify particular molecules and elements in air (or in some cases, in liquids), allowing for the digital measurement of air (and breath) quality. This is a pretty new technology, with a lot of potential benefits down the road, but not a whole lot of practical applications today due to price and lack of developmental maturity. Once it is fully developed, we will be able to monitor and control air quality with an insanely high degree of accuracy, sense bombs and explosives from a long way away, and generally have the use of a highly accurate digital bloodhound to sniff out any airborne agent with remarkable accuracy and sensitivity.

One practical application is the diagnosis of diseases. The presence of certain organic molecules in your breath could indicate a bacterial infection, or certain antibodies could signify a cancerous growth.

While its still a bit early to see much from the electronic nose, lets keep an eye out for new developments which bring this technology closer to mass commercialization. For now, as the article below states, we can look forward to improved early diagnosis of some particular disorders and diseases.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=electronic-noses-could-make-diseas es-something-to-sniff-at

Controlling a computer with your brain has been the stuff of science fiction for years. It has also been achieved with some limited success in laboratories around the world. Neurosky is one of the first companies who seem to have made a functional and useful product using a brain interface. You wear their headband around your head, and are able to control video games by your thoughts alone.

While the technology has a long way to go before we can throw away our keyboard and mouse, its nice to see that someone’s gotten this technology far enough to sell an actual product based on it.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/10/hands-on-or-bra.html

In the last few years of doing research for medical companies, I’ve been amazed how many medical electronic and wireless monitoring devices are coming out It seems almost daily that there’s some new monitor, expected to blow the doors off the industry with wireless insulin monitoring or remote EEG capabilities. The problem is that very few have more than one function, and many are bulky and require the users to not get the device wet and charge it frequently.

So, while this is a very crowded market, this particular device seems a bit stronger than much of its competition. It is small and unobtrusive (the size and shape of a band-aid), provides multiple sensing capabilities, and sends the data without requiring the patient to carry a purse-sized battery pack or plug into a phone line for 15 minutes.

http://www.physorg.com/news116599667.html