The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : Robolobster to the Research Rescue!
Lobsters are remarkably adept at detecting a chemical and then following it to its source. That’s how they track down mussels even through the underwater turbulence that breaks the chemical up into irregular patches of varying concentrations. A robot that mimics the lobster’s remarkable tracking could have a number of scientific and commercial applications: finding underwater vents, tracking fish, locating an underwater oil leak or studying red tides.
Thomas Consi, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant research engineer, has created a Robolobster to study how the lobster processes the chemical information it receives. The nine-inch device consists of a plastic cylinder containing a computer, motor drivers and sensor electronics. Powered by 16 AA batteries and mounted atop two wheels, the robot, though it looks nothing like a lobster, can approximate its speed and turning skill.
Consi and his collaborator, Jella Atema, the director of Boston University’s marine program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, will outfit Robolobster with various sensor designs and computer algorithms until they find the most lobster-like ones. These hypotheses can then be tested on the real thing.
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Speed-of-Light Computing: Scientists have long realized that there are inherent limits to how fast electronic computers can work. In part, this is due to the limited speed of the electrons that carry information through a computer’s circuitry. Devices based not on electrons but on pulses of light theoretically could overcome these limits and perform calculations a million times faster than today’s fastest supercomputer.
In a report in the Aug. 26 issue of the journal Science, scientists at the Institute of Polymers and Organic Solids at UC Santa Barbara announced the development of just such a device: an extremely high-speed optical processor. So how fast is it? In one trial run, the processor was able to compare very similar drawings of three early U.S. presidents and detect their difference in just a tenth of a trillionth of a second--perhaps the fastest calculation ever performed.
At the heart of the optical image processor is a new synthetic polymer that reacts to even extremely slight fluctuations in a beam of light by doubling or even tripling its frequency. Called poly (1,6-heptadiester), the polymer is chemically stable at ordinary temperatures and relatively easy to manufacture. For now, the device is not a full-fledged computer but is designed to perform one or more tasks very quickly. But the scientists’ work could lead to an all-optical computer that could perform pattern-recognition tasks with the same alacrity as the human eye and brain.
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Potassium Please, but Hold the Salt: Plants thrive on potassium but choke on sodium. Biologists at UC San Diego, believe they may have found a way to genetically engineer crops that more efficiently take up potassium from the soil and allow plants to grow in soils containing high levels of salt or other toxic material.
The biologists have isolated a gene in plants that controls the transport pathway for potassium nutrition. Now they believe they can find out whether it is possible to engineer this gene to improve plants’ ability to take up potassium, to cut the need for fertilizer containing potassium. But while the gene selectively takes potassium, measurable quantities of sodium are also accumulated.
In the western San Joaquin Valley and other parts of the world where irrigation is frequently used, 20% to 50% of agricultural land has become almost useless because of high sodium levels. Whether the isolated gene contributes to sodium accumulation--and whether plants can be engineered to feast on potassium while avoiding salt--are questions that can now be addressed, the researchers say.
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Birds and Blades: The government, which seems to have specifications for everything from ashtrays to toilet seats, also has a specification for bird ingestion by jet turbofan engines. The Federal Aviation Administration requires that every aircraft engine be certified to maintain a specified power capability after ingesting “medium-sized birds.” In the case of GE Aircraft Engines’ newest engine, the GE90, this means the ability to ingest up to four birds weighing 2 1/2 pounds each.
Because the GE90 is the first large commercial turbofan that uses fan blades made of a high-strength composite rather than conventional metal alloys, GE has signed a cooperative research and development agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to come up with a computer model to be sure the fan blade and the case that houses it can meet FAA requirements.
