The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : A Knee-High Warrior Robot to Find Enemy Troops in Battle

As American troops move into Bosnia, they may wish their inventory of equipment included the Spiral Tube All-Terrain Robot.

Warrior robots may sound like characters from the latest video game, but the All-Terrain Robot developed by an automation and robotics team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is being prepared to lead real troops into battle.

The robot, which looks something like two rototiller blades joined by an A-frame, is no GI Joe. It is made of aluminum, measures about 2 feet tall, 4 feet long and 30 inches wide and weighs about 125 pounds. It covers about 133 feet per minute when moving sideways, but slows to 20 feet per minute when moving forward or backward.

Depending on production quantities and accessories, the robot could cost about $2,000. When fitted with video cameras and appropriate sensors, it could be sent ahead of soldiers to search out enemy troops or locate, dislodge or trigger land mines.

The brainchild of Bill Wattenburg, a well-known Bay Area inventor, the robot is designed to prevent the casualties that occur while military personnel are trying to locate the enemy. According to Wattenburg, 70% to 80% of casualties in conventional warfare and modern-day peacekeeping efforts are taken by military personnel who must locate the enemy. But the minute the robot is knocked out of service it has done its job. GIs will know the enemy’s location without having jeopardized their lives.

Law enforcement agencies could also fit the robots with battering rams to bash down doors. The robot does have one video game characteristic. At the moment it is controlled by a modified computer game joystick, although there are plans to convert to an on-board power source and radio signal control.

Calling All Cells: Cellular communication is not confined to car phones. Human cells also communicate, using passwords to link up with one another. The passwords are proteins known as cell adhesion molecules that sit on cell surfaces and work together to form a kind of docking mechanism that allow cells to bind to each other.

CAMs form the opening “handshake” that occurs before two cells do business with each other. This ability to stick together is the first step in an elaborate cell-to-cell communication network whereby cells swap messages that regulate almost every process in the body, from cancer and inflammation to the union of egg and sperm.

Using a new protein separation method, Beerelli Seshi, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has identified about 20 previously unknown CAMs, which should help research labs and pharmaceutical companies develop compounds that block unwanted cell binding. CAM-controlling compounds might prevent organ rejection or interfere with the actions of white blood cells that cause auto-immune diseases such as arthritis, or flush leukemia cells from the body.

Seshi spent almost a decade developing a modified gel electrophoresis system in which proteins are drawn by an electric current. As the proteins move through a gelatin-like material, they become separated based on how fast or slow they move through the gel. Because the process works at low temperatures, the proteins retain their shape. This makes it easier to test and manipulate CAMs.

Horsing Around: An old folk remedy for clearing out the sinuses is horseradish. But Penn State researchers have demonstrated that minced horseradish can clean up industrial waste water and may hold the potential to decontaminate soil as well.

When mixed with hydrogen peroxide, minced horseradish can completely remove the chlorinated phenols and anilines typically found in industrial waste water from steel and iron manufacturing, ore mining, paper bleaching and the production of a number of substances, including dyes, plastics, pesticides, textiles and detergents.

The fact that an enzyme in horseradish can clean up pollutants has been known for at least 15 years. But using the purified enzyme, horseradish peroxidase, has been blocked by high cost. The Penn State researchers discovered that raw, minced horseradish could be substituted for the purified enzyme at a substantially lower cost.

Experiments currently underway indicate that it may also be possible to clean up decontaminated soil either by direct application of the minced horseradish/hydrogen peroxide solution or by growing horseradish in the contaminated area followed by rototilling the roots immediately before the application of hydrogen peroxide.

Still to be worked out: how to remove the yellowish to dark-brown color the water takes on after being treated with horseradish, and how to dispose of the spent horseradish.

Block That Hip: Just as protective equipment helps prevent athletic injuries, specially designed hip pads could help alleviate fractures suffered by more than 250,000 Americans each year.

Aside from the $10 billion in medical costs that result from these hip fractures, there is a high human cost as well. Studies have shown that about 20% of elderly people who suffer such fractures die within a year, while another 25% lose their independence and end up in nursing homes. Since 90% of hip fractures occur when people fall, one way to reduce the number of fractures is to minimize the force applied to the bone during the fall.

Researchers at UC San Francisco have developed a 4-by-6-inch pad that is about an inch thick and doesn’t show unless a person is wearing very tight-fitting clothing. The pad contains a “shear thickening” material that is fluid during normal activity but stiffens to form a bridge over the hip bone and move the force away on impact.

The pad can help reduce impact force to the hip by 65%, well below the amount needed to cause a fracture in an elderly person. The pad is undergoing clinical trials among residents at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged in Boston. The researchers hope to obtain Food and Drug Administration approval for the pad so it can be prescribed by physicians.